Their treatment was shameful and the conduct of the British in inflicting such acts of oppression upon private individuals, not in arms against them, was barbarous and indefensible. But inasmuch as the petitioner afterwards removed to New York City with his family, and had besides, abundance of good company in his .sufferings, and since his oppressors were finally defeated and driven from the country, and he, if present, might have witnessed the hauling down of their flag on the Battery, in New York, on the 25th of November, 1783, it seems that Mr. Palmer might be content to call it square (with the British) and withdraw his petition. One hundred years have made a great change in the value of the "plantation " once held by him, and from which he was then driven, on City Island. If he owned it now, it would a great deal more than compensate him for all his losses in that war. The oyster business is now carried on largely there, with a cajjital of two hundred thousand dollars. The building of vessels -- mostly pleasure yachts -- has led to the establishment of a dock-yard, in which a number of men are employed, and where some of the swiftest yachts in the country have been built.

It was near City Island that a daring and successful enterprise was accomj)lished by a few of the Americans in the year 1777, being no less than the capture of a British gun-boat used as a guard-ship, and stationed at the mouth of East Chester Creek. The particulars, as related by one of the party engaged in the capture to an aged citizen of Pelham, now in his ninety-second year, and by him communicated to the writer, are as follows :