Here the boldness of the Sons of Liberty was displayed at the opening of the revolution, by the removal of guns from the battery in the face of a cannonade from a British ship of war in the harbour. From here was witnessed, by a vast and jubilant crowd, the final departure of the British army, after the peace of 1783, and the unfurling of the banner of the Republic from the flag-staff of Fort George, over which the British ensign had floated more than six years. The anniversary of that day -- *' Evacuation Day " -- (the 25th of November) is always celebrated in the city of New York by a military parade and feu dejoie.

Fort George and its dependencies have long ago disappeared, but the ancient Bowling Green remains. An equestrian statue of George the Third, made of lead, and gilded, was placed upon a high pedestal, in the centre of it, in 1770. It was ordered by the Assembly of the province in 1766, in token of gratitude for the repeal of the odious Stamp Act. The Green was then enclosed with an iron paling.* Only six years later, on the evening when the Declaration of Independence was read to Washington's army in New York, soldiers and citizens joined in pulling down the statue of the king. The round heads of the iron fence-posts were knocked off for the use of the artillery, and the leaden statue of his Majesty was made into bullets for the use of the republican army. " His troops," said a writer of the day, referring to the king, " will probably have melted majesty fired at them." The pedestal of the statue, seen in the engraving, remained in the Bowling Green some time after the war;