"In 1780, it was held by Colonel Williams, of the 80th royal regiment. And here, on the evening of the 19th of September, he gave a dinner to Sir Henry Clinton and his staff, as a parting compliment to Andre. The aged owner of the house was present; and when the Revolution was over he described the scene and the incidents of that dinner. At the table Sir Henry Clinton announced the departure of Andre next morning, on a secret and most important expedition, and added, 'Plain John Andre will come back Sir John Andre.'

"How brilliant soever the company," Mr. Sargent adds,

"how cheerful the repast, its memory must ever have been fraught with sadness to both host and guests. It was the last occasion of Andre's meeting his comrades in life. Four short days gone, the hands, then clasped by friendship, were fettered by hostile bonds. Yet nine days more and the darling of the army, the youthful hero of the hour, had dangled from a gibbet."

For two hundred and twelve years this mansion of venerable memories remained. Then it was swept away by the resistless tide of an advancing population. The thronged pavements of Thirty-fifth street now pass over the spot, where two centuries ago the most illustrious men crowded the banqueting hall, and where youth and beauty met in the dance and song. In view of these ravages of time, well may we exclaim in the impressive words of Burke, "What shadows we are and what shadows we pursue."

In the year 1774, John Adams rode from Boston to Philadelphia on horseback, to attend the first meeting of Congress. His journal contains an interesting account of this long and fatiguing tour. Coming from the puritanic simplicity of Boston, he was evidently deeply impressed with the style and splendor which met his eye in New York. In glowing terms he alludes to the elegance of their mode of living, to the architectural grandeur of their country seats; to the splendor of Broadway, and to the magnificent new church they were building, which was to cost one hundred thousand dollars.

The aristocratic families of New York were generally in favor of the Crown. They were not disposed to pay any special attention to a delegate to the democratic Congress. He had therefore no opportunity of witnessing the splendor of these ancient families. Two lawyers who had become wealthy by their professional labors, received him with honor. At their breakfast tables he beheld display, common enough in almost every genteel household at the present day, but to which he was quite unaccustomed in his frugal home at Quincy. One cannot but be amused in reading the following description of one of his entertainments:

"A more elegant breakfast I never saw; rich plate; a very large silver coffee pot; a very large silver tea pot; napkins of the very finest materials; toast and bread and butter in great perfection. After breakfast a plate of beautiful peaches, another of pears and a muskmelon were placed on the table."

The Revolution proved the utter ruin of these great landed proprietors, who naturally espoused the cause of the British court. The habits of life to which they and their fathers had been accustomed necessarily rendered all the levelling doctrines of the Revolution offensive to them. They rallied around the royal banners and went down with them.

Some few of the landed proprietors espoused the cause of the people. Among others may be mentioned the Livingstons and the Schuylers, the Jays, the Laurences, and a portion of the Van Courtlands, and of the Morris family. Fortunately for the Patroon Van Rensselaer, he was a minor, and thus escaped the peril of attaching himself to either party.

Negro slavery in a mild form prevailed in these early years in New York. The cruel and accursed system had been early introduced into the colony. Most of the slaves were domestic servants, very few being employed in the fields. They were treated with personal kindness. Still they were bondmen, deprived of liberty, of fair wages, and of any chance of rising in the world. Such men cannot, by any possibility, be contented with their lot. Mr. William L. Stone, in his very interesting History of New York, writes:

"As far back as 1628, slaves constituted a portion of the population of New Amsterdam; and to such an extent had the traffic in them reached that, in 1709, a slave market was erected at the foot of Wall street, where all negroes who were to be hired or sold, stood in readiness for bidders. Their introduction into the colony was hastened by the colonial establishment of the Dutch in Brazil and upon the coast of Guinea, and also by the capture of Spanish and Portuguese prizes with Africans on board.

"Several outbreaks had already happened among the negroes of New Amsterdam; and the whites lived in constant anticipation of trouble and danger from them. Rumors of an intended insurrection real or imaginary, would circulate, as in the negro plot of 1712, and the whole city be thrown into a state of alarm. Whether there was any real danger on these occasions, cannot now be known. But the result was always the same. The slaves always suffered, many dying by the fagot or the gallows."

In the year 1741, a terrible panic agitated the whole city in apprehension of an insurrection of the slaves. The most cruel laws had been passed to hold them firmly in bondage. The city then contained ten thousand inhabitants, two thousand of whom were slaves. If three of these, "black seed of Cain," were found together, they were liable to be punished by forty lashes on the bare back. The same punishment was inflicted upon a slave found walking with a club, outside of his master's grounds without a permit. Two justices could inflict any punishment, except amputation or death, upon any slave who should make an assault upon a Christian or a Jew.

A calaboose or jail for slaves stood on the Park Common. Many of the leading merchants in New York were engaged in the slave trade. Several fires had taken place, which led to the suspicion that the slaves had formed a plot to burn the city and massacre the inhabitants. The panic was such that the community seemed bereft of reason. A poor, weak, half-crazed servant-girl, Mary Burton, in a sailor's boarding house, testified, after much importunity, that she had overheard some negroes conferring respecting setting the town on fire.

At first she confined her accusations to the blacks. Then she began to criminate white people, bringing charges against her landlord, his wife and other white persons in the household. In a History of this strange affair written at the time, by Daniel Horsmanden, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, we read,

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