Simcoe on his return the same day halted before our door, and being thirsty asked my mother for a bowl that he might drink from the well, but she refused, saying, "Good for nothing cruel fellows like you who go about burning people's houses ought to drink like cattle out of the brook upon all fours. Away with you!" &c. She rated him so severely that he lost his temper and seeing my father in the house and learning his relationship he ordered

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135. his soldiers to take him prisoner and resumed his march with these words: "Now, termagant, I've got your husband!" They carried my father several miles when Huckaliah Car- -hart, an officer or guide of Simcoe, (?) and an old intimate acquaintance, came up and enquiring the cause of my father's captivity, interceded and obtained his liberation. But when he let him go, Simcoe made him pro- -mise never to sleep again with that cursed rebel scold." My grandmother said she could have extinguished the fire at her house in Bedford with a single pail of water after they were gone had she not been prevented by a soldier whom they left behind to see their work finished. This man staying too long was killed by the American militia who advanced in considerable force as soon as they could collect, and

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[margin: B] 136. hung upon the British rear on their retreat. November 11th Among those who drove cattle below to the enemy was a farmer of Greenwich, Connecticut, named Jabez Husted, who on one occasion had collected a drove with which he was going below in the night. Passing through Rye, on the Post Road, he was informed that Captain John Thomas with a com- -pany of thirty or forty militia had taken a position on the road to intercept par- -ties who droves going down.