The subject was freely talked over, and Greene bore from Robertson a verbal message to "Washington, and a long explanatory and threatening letter

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from Arnold. No new facts bearing upon the case were presented, and nothing was offered that changed the minds of the court or the commanding general. So the conference was fruitless.

The Livingston mansion, owned by Stephen Archer, a Quaker, is preserved in its original form ; under its roof, in past times, many distinguished men have been sheltered. Washinston had his head-

LIVINGSTON MANSION.

4^'

quarters there towards the close of the revolution ; and there, in November, 1783, Washington, George Clinton, "the civil governor of the State of New York," and Sir Guy Carleton, the British commander, met to confer on the subject of prisoners, the loyalists, and the evacuation of the city of New York by the British forces. The former came down the river from Newburg, with their suites, in barges ; the latter, with his suite, came

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up from ^cu- York in a frigate. Four companies of American lioht infantry performed the duties of a guard of honour on that occasion ° Opposite Dobbs's Periy and Hastings is the most picturesque portion of

lU:-. 1>ALISAL.I

the - Palisades," to which allusion has several times been made These are portions of a ridge of trap-rocks extending along the western shore of

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the Hudson from near Haverstraw almost to Hoboken, a distance of about thirty-five miles. Between Piermont and Hoboken, these rocks present, for a considerable distance, an uninterrupted, rude, columnar front, from 300 to 500 feet in height. They form a mural escarpment, columnar in appearance, yet not actually so in form. They have a steep slope of debris, which has been crumbling from the cliffs above, during long centuries, by the action of frost and the elements.