It was while living at Newburgh that Washington narrowly esca]3ed capture by an envoy of Sir Henry Clinton -- at least, so the legend runs. A man named Ettrick lived with his daughter in a secluded valley to the south of headquarters ;a place known as the Vale of Avoca. It was at the head of a long, narrow bay, but though only a short distance, as the bird flies, from the Hasbrouck cottage, it could only be reached by the road after making a detour of nearly two miles. Here the chief was in the habit of going upon occasion, and Ettrick had planned to seize him with the aid of several confederates and take him out into the river before the alarm could be given. Fortunately, Ettrick s daughter betrayed her father's plan and preserved the tenor of history. The condition of the army so soon to be disbanded moved Washington to expressions of emotion that sovmd strange coming from one whose reserve and selfcontrol were proverbial. His letter to the Secretary of War, wrung from him by his deej) sense of the injury sustained by the army through the neglect of Congress, was, from such a pen as his, an epistle of singular intensity. Under present circumstances, when I see a number of men goaded by a thousand stings of reflections on the past and an-

The Fisher's Reach 4^3 ticipations of the future about to ])e turned on the world, forced by penury and by what they call the ingratitude of the public, involved in debt, without one farthing to carry them home, after spending the flower of their days, and many of them their patrimonies, in establishing the freedom of their country, and suffering everything this side death -- I repeat it -- when I consider these irritating circumstances, without one thing to soothe their feelings or dispel their prospects, I can not avoid apprehending that a train of evils will follow of a very serious and distressing nature. . . .