JUSTIN MORGAN 87 



the first heat by half a neck only, but was hurt in a boggy part of 

 the track in the second heat, and was drawn. The odds at the start- 

 ing had been three to one on Briton. Such are the chances on rac- 

 ing fortune. 



" There was another True Briton owned by the DeLanceys, 

 whose history is remarkable. He was the favorite horse of James 

 DeLancey, who took part with the crown in the Revolutionary strug- 

 gle, became colonel of a royal regiment, and chief of the famous 

 cowboys, who ravaged Westchester. Brought up in the country 

 himself, DeLancey knew all the ins and outs, highways and byways of 

 the country around. Devotedly attached to his mother, who resided 

 on the old homestead, at West Farms, he was wont to visit her when- 

 ever an opportunity offered. 



"On one occasion he tied his horse to the gate, and, depending 

 on the watchfulness of his orderlies, was paying his customary visit, 

 when some skinners, as the patriot farmers were called, took advan- 

 tage of the carelessness of the guard, and stole the horse. DeLan- 

 cey heard the hoofs, and raising the neighborhood, made hot and 

 long pursuit, but there was no catching the gallant beast. He was 

 taken across the line into Connecticut, and is said to have been the 

 sire of the famous Morgan stock. Andrew Corsa, the last of the 

 guides of the American army, related of True Briton that he had 

 repeatedly seen Colonel DeLancey jump him back and forth over a 

 five rail fence. 



"In 1768 the hitherto terrific Selim, as he is called, came to grief 

 in a contest with Dr. Hamilton's English horse, Figure, for a one 

 thousand pound purse, over the course at Upper Marlborough, near 

 Newburg, on the Hudson. Another famous match for one thousand 

 pounds a side was run at Charleston, in South Carolina, in April, 1768, by 

 Mr. Lynch's native-born Noble, esteemed the Flying Childers of the 

 South, and Centinel, a horse which had belonged to the Duke of 

 Lancaster's stud. The foreigners, as the accounts report, after very 

 severe struggles, at length proved victorious. The match was de- 

 cided in two four-mile heats, which afforded more sport than all the 

 contests ever seen in Carolina. As the struggle between the mother 

 country and the colonies grew imminent, and the country suffered 

 from the interruption of trade, a feeling grew up against racing, 

 which found expression in the eighth article of association, adopted 

 by the first Continental Congress, in 1774. The several delegates 

 engaged for themselves and their constituents that they would in 



