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Sept. 23. James Mandeville. On Friday morning January 24th 1783, we started from Peekskill hamlet or vil- -lage (a village of five or eight houses at that time) being about or upwards of fifty in number, that is, thirty three from near Peekskill, and the rest about twenty from the east part (i.e. Somers and Salem) of Courtland's Manor. --- It was an enterprise planned by Colonel Samuel Drake and Mr. Peter Van Tassel to carry off Colonel DeLancey, because he had been a public disturber and his men plunderers, and to guard against treach- -ery the point of attack was to be kept secret from us till we reached West Farms, that is, we did not know where, precisely, we were going to strike. We went down the North River road to Dobbs Ferry, then turning east got upon the Tuckeyhoe road, and crossing Hunt's Bridge entered West Farms by way of East Chester about midnight
- Hufeland Index Page 165 -
(Ten or twelve of us were left near the bridge with the horses, of which guard I was one.) Notwithstanding every precaution and although we pushed forward and rapidly, there seemed to be a general alarm the moment we ap- -peared - bells ringing and bugles blow- -ing. We crossed the bridge and sur- -rounded the house but the Colonel was not to be found, having gone out as the inmates told us to a cock fight, but we afterwards learnt he concealed himself in an out-house on the first alarm of our approach and so escaped. We took at the Colonel's house two prisoners fifteen horses and a variety of plunder, - and then retreated by the North River road with as much ex- -pedition as our jaded horses could use.