EVACU.VriON BY THE BRITISH. 89 



tained their position until withdrawn from the field by order of General 

 Putnam in the retreat to Westchester County. 



The news of the disaster flew fist through all the villages and hamlets, 

 carrying terror and dismay to a people cut off from communication with 

 the rebel army and too weak to resist the overwhelming force of t^e in- 

 vaders: and to add to the alarm British ships were landing troops near 

 Wading River who were pillaging the country. Five days from this, British 

 infantry and cavalry entered Huntington village, tore out the seats in the 

 Presbvterian Church and converted it into a stable for their horses. Proc- 

 lamations went forth from General Erskine commanding obedience and 

 submission by Suffolk. County and that the people take the oath of alle- 

 giance to the King. 



At first these demands were met with stern refusal. The people had 

 not yet tasted fully of the bitter cup of humiliation in store for them. 

 General Tryon with an army of looo men swept Long Island from end to 

 end of its horses, cattle, grain and stores for food for the British Army. 

 General Clinton was at Southampton with 2, 500 soldiers and dragoons 

 and twenty-five British war vessels lay in Sag Harbor. Everywhere violence 

 and pillage accompanied the march of the British soldiery. With a long 

 extent of vulnerable sea coast, its best commanders and soldiers in the 

 Continental armies, destitute of necessar\' cannon, ammunition and the ap- 

 pliances of war, and their communications cut oft" from Washington's 

 army, the people of Suftolk County were compelled to submit. At the 

 point of the bayonet or under threats of confiscation or banishment of 

 themselves and families, hundreds signed the o.ith of allegiance to the 

 King. They took the oath as an outward form but inwardly revolted 

 against it. They yielded to the King a lip service extorted by force too 

 great to be overcome, but mentally abhorred the act, and all their sympathies 

 were with the patriots who were fighting with Washington. There were 

 those however who refused to tike the oath of allegiance to the King, and 

 we cannot help admiring that band of patriots whose spirit could not be 

 broken, and who at the approach of winter abandoned their homes and 

 farms, gathered wife and children, and fled to within the lines of the Con- 

 tinental armv. They were worthy descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers 

 whose invlomit.ible souls and iron nerves never knew defeat. 



We read in history the events of the long years of war, oppression, 

 destitution and vassalage which followed. Time does not permit me here 

 to describe them. Let us change the scene seven years later on. Imagine 

 yourselves on the threshold of 1783, the year of which this is the centen- 

 nial. It is winter. British soldiers swarm in all the large villages of 

 Suffolk County. The invader is the master — the native of the soil is the 

 servant, driven to menial service as hewers of wood and drawers of water 

 for an arrogant soldiery. Forts and barrfcades bristling with guns frown 

 upon the disarmed and impoverished people. Troops of dragoons with 

 gaily caparisoned horses prance along all the great highways. Trains of 

 military wagons are conveying the scanty food of the people to the camp 

 of the enemy. The churches and places for worship of Almighty God are 

 turned into stables or barracks for a ribald, blasphemous soldiery, and 

 their ministers driven into exile or in prison under the brutal Provost 

 ilNIarshal Cunningham. From Fort Golgotha in Huntington, there comes 

 the sound of revelry and music, as gay dragoons move in the dance over a 

 floor made of the tombstones of the, torn up dead from the grave- 



