Odell advised him to place them in the barn and to throw the double doors open when the enemy came up, but he persisted in putting them behind the building. When the enemy approached with their vanguard of horse, the Yank- -kees could not be prevented from peeping and the ambuscade being thus discovered the horsemen all pulled up but one and receiving the fire at a distance escaped unhurt. A private of Delancey's Re-
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-fugees named Henry Treucher being in advance and riding at speed passed the ambuscade, and wheeling about repassed through a shower of shot, and, with his horse escaped unhurt. Colonel Ritzema was an able officer who had been in the Dutch service. General Philip Van Courtland used to say that he considered him as a tactician fully equal to Baron Steuben. His defection was said to have arisen from paternal advice, and the father in consequence because unpopular and was compelled to move up the river near Albany where he continued to preach long after the Revolutionary war. Among the papers which De- -lancey found at Colonel Greene's quarters on the 13th of May 1781, and which were soon after sent by him with
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a pocket book, some money, other papers and letters, &c, was a letter from General Washington to Colonel Greene, in which this expression was used, "Take DeLancey at all events." DeLancey said he was informed of this by his spies and determined to strike the first blow. My father used to say he considered this one of the boldest and best conducted enterprises that occurred during the war. DeLancey marched his detach- -ment along by roads and across fields so as to pass all American outposts and patrols unobserved and gained the Croton without discovery.