" Sir," he wrote to General McDougall, the commander at Peekskill, " till now I never wished for arbitrary power; I could gibbet half a dozen good Whigs with all the venom of an inveterate Tory." lie announced in the most emphatic manner that he purposed to protect all the peaceable inhabitants without reference to their politics; that all marauders would be punished with the utmost severity of military law; and that " any officer who so much as connived at robbery he would send up to the general's quarters with a tile of soldiers the hour the crime was discovered." Shortly afterward a family named Gedney, living below his lines, was plundered at night. The Gedneys were Tories, but of the pacific description. Within twenty-four hours Burr had secured all the culprits and much of their loot. He marched them to Gedney's house, where he made them restore the recovered property, pay Gedney in money for what had been lost or damaged, pay him a further amount as compensation, crave his pardon for their deeds, and promise good behavior for the future; and he also had each of the robbers tied up and given ten lashes. " All these things," says Barton, " were done with the greatest deliberation and exactness, and the effects produced by them were magical. Not another house was plundered, not another family was alarmed, while Colonel Burr commanded in the Westchester lines. The mystery and swiftness of the detection, the rigor and fairness with which the marauders wrere treated, overawed the men whom three campaigns of lawless warfare had corrupted, and restored confidence to the people wrho had passed their lives in terror.'' It came to be believed among his soldiers that Colonel Burr possessed occult powers, and could tell a thief by simply looking in his face.