148 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



dropping the remainder of the captured Loyalists in their flight. On 

 the 8th August, tlie light troops fell bnck to the redoubts and a grand 

 guard being in advance, the Eangers were, for the first time since they 

 left their winter quarters on the 18th May, permitted to take off their 

 coats at night. 



The Buck's County Dragoons and Capt. Diemar's Hussars were 

 placed now under Simcoe's orders and on the 13th August tlie corps 

 inarched for their old post. Oyster Bay, where they arrived on the 17th. 

 Tliis movement was made because it was thought the enemy contemplated 

 an attack on some of the British posts on Long Island. In October, the 

 Eangers marched to Eichmond on Staten Island, where they relieved a 

 regiment that had been very sickly while there. Simcoe immediately 

 ordered their huts to be destroyed and encamped his corps. 



From this point Simcoe and his Eangers performed one of the most 

 remarkable exploits of the whole war. He had information that fifty 

 flat boats on carriages, capable of holding 100 men each, were on the 

 road from Delaware to Washington's prmy, and that they had been 

 assembled at Van Victors Bridge on the Earitan. Simcoe proposed to 

 the commander-in-chief to burn them, and the plan was approved and 

 ordered to be put into execution. On the night of the 25th October, the 

 troops detailed for the service, consisting of the Queen's Eangers, both 

 cavalry and infantry, Stewart's New Jersey Cavalry and Capt. Sand- 

 ford's troop, embarked at Billop's Point. At Elizabethtown Point the 

 infantry were landed and ambuscaded every avenue of the town. The 

 cavalry then marched for Van Victor's Bridge, Major Armstrong of the 

 infantry being ordered to re-embark as ?oon as the cavalry left, land at 

 South Amboy and proceed to South Eiver Bridge where he was to lie in 

 ambush. Simcoe with his cavalry proceeded to Van Victor's Bridge, 

 everywhere passing themselves off as belonging to Lee's American Legion. 

 They destroyed the boats at Van Victor's bridge, captured a number of 

 prisoners, and then, as the country was beginning to assemble in their 

 rear, returned. They burnt Somerset court house and liberated some 

 Loyalist prisoners there. In passing an ambuscade formed by a body 

 of men under one Mariner, Simcoe's horse was killed and he so severely 

 stunned by the fall that he was made prisoner. Three of his men were 

 also made prisoners from the same cause, but the rest got off in spite of 

 all the efforts made to intercept them, dispersed all the militia they fell 

 in with, killed some, among others a Captain Vorhees, and captured 

 others, and at South Eiver joined Major Armstrong, whose infantry had 

 taken several prisoners. The Queen's Eangers returned to Eichmond 

 that evening, the cavalry having marched upwards of eighty miles with- 

 out having refreshment, and the infantry thirty. Col, Harry Lee, father 



