of five or six hundred minute men of that state, together with two companies of regulars from Lord Stirling's command, and proceed at once to Queens county. His orders were peremptory, to act with dispatch, secrecy, order and humanity, in disarming every person who had voted against the election of deputies. The poll list of names of the recusant electors had been forwarded to Congress, and a copy of this register now served to guide Col. Heard in the performance of his duties. Whoever refused immediate and unconditional compliance with the order, the Colonel was to place in confinement. Twenty-six names were furnished to him of prominent citizens of Queens county, who were asserted to be leaders of the disaffected; and these persons were to be secured and placed in confinement. All who, in the exercise of the natural and legal right of voting according to their own judgment and conscience, had given their names against the election of deputies, were placed under the ban of the revolutionary government, and deprived of every right and privilege which the laws could give them. Nearly eight hundred freeholders of Queens county were thus put out of protection of the law. All persons were forbidden to trade or hold intercourse with them; they were subject to arrest and imprisonment, the moment they crossed the boundary of the county; no lawyer was to defend them when accused of crime, or to prosecute any claim for debt, or suit for protection from outrage or robbery. In order to brand them with scorn, and make them as obuoxious as possible to the community, the list of seven hundred and eightyeight voters was ordered to be published for a month in the columns of the colonial newspapers.

Every impartial mind will revolt at the severity of these measures, unprovoked as they were by any acts of violence, and only to be justified in the whigs on the ground of self-preservation. The exercise of an inalienable right, in the only manner which the consciences of many could approve, was the feeble pretext for the oppression of a whole community, by a government which based its existence on the right of every people to legislate for itself. Although the narrative of the expedition conveys the idea of unvarying success, and all the reports of its officers indicate that the submission was complete, yet barbarous acts occurred during its progress which the prudence of the officers in command concealed under general terms acts which were the precursors of a bitter partisan warfare, that desolated the Island for seven years.

It was not until the 17th of January, that the regiment of minute men, six hundred strong, was ready to march from Woodbridge. At New York, where it arrived on the next day, the regiment was reinforced by three hundred men, mostly from Lord Stirling's division, under the command of Major De Hart. Unfortunately his detachment was joined at New York by a volunteer organization, composed of the most reckless and abandoned of her population, who had either made soldiering the last resource of a dissipated life, or who had early learned the vices of the camp. The acceptance of their services was not carrying out the plan contemplated by Congress, which had ordered the expedition to be conducted with "dispatch, secrecy, order, and humanity." The regulars, under Major De Hart, had crossed from Elizabethtown to New York, on Wednesday the 27th; but the regiment com

manded by Col. Heard not having arrived, they encamped at Horn's Hook near Hellgate, until Friday, when the two detachments united and crossed to Long Island.

As the object of the expedition was secret, this route was chosen, to execute a flanking movement, and by appearing suddenly in the disaffected county, to give the loyalists no opportunity for collecting in force. Every step on the route from Brooklyn ferry would have passed through unfriendly territory, and fleet messengers would have warned. the loyalists of the approach of the detachment. In the afternoon of the same day the expedition arrived at Newtown, and commenced the work of disarming its inhabitants.

It was late in the morning of the next day before Col. Heard and his command arrived at Jamaica, everywhere disarming the farmers whom they surprised on their route, and securing the persons of the principal loyalists, whose names they found on their list of the proscribed. While the main body marched slowly along, small parties of men were detached at every cross-road and farm-lane, who forced an entrance into the houses, and dragged from his door into the ranks every proprietor who had the misfortune to be known as a loyalist. Every house which was pointed out by the officious diligence of whig neighbors, as the residence of one who had not signed the Association, was entered and ransacked, and the warrant which licensed this violence shielded from punishment a thousand barbarities. So flagrant and scandalous were many of the outrages perpetrated by De Hart's forces that the officers of the minute men, who had doubtless been chosen agreeably to the orders of Congress as "prudent and discreet men," were shocked at their license, and longed to

be rid of their disorderly companions. The minute men of New Jersey were respectable farmers and tradesmen, heads of families in many instances; and these humane men scorned the petty plunder which the others appropriated, as much as they commiserated the distress of which they were compelled to be the authors. Large numbers of the proscribed were brought in, by the several detachments, to Jamaica; and the sabbath of January 20th, 1776, was employed in the examination and disposition of the prisoners. Every person who had committed the unpardonable crime of voting against sending deputies to Congress was seized, and required to sign an obligation not to oppose the army of Congress, or aid the ministerial troops. Those who refused to take the oath, resisted the violence of the soldiers, or declined to surrender their arms, as well as those who were designated as royalist leaders, were not permitted to escape on such easy terms, but were carried along as prisoners.

So far the detachment had nowhere met with the resistance anticipated, as the royalists hitherto had had no opportunity for mustering in force. But the object of the expedition being now thoroughly disclosed, it was apprehended that on the march to Hempstead the republicans would meet with severe opposition. Capt. Richard Hewlett, whose courage and hatred of the whig cause were well known, was expected to exercise his talent for skirmishing and Indian warfare, in harassing the march of the troops wherever a favorable position offered. There was a gathering of his partisan corps at Hempstead, where the angry loyalists were eager to avenge the outrages of their neighbors, and the invasion of their own soil. But

the disarming force too greatly outnumbered them for any hope of success, and those who could not endure the hateful submission of the oath, fled to the swamps and forests. Everywhere the march of the invading force spread dismay; and the inhabitants, abandoning all ideas of resistance, surrendered their arms and made their submission, or concealed themselves in the pathless thickets of the great bush-plains. A considerable number, to whom the oath was oppressive, or who apprehended sharp treatment, exiled themselves, rowing their boats at night through some of the narrow passages which intersected the salt marshes, and making their way to the ships in the harbor.

Two days were occupied in these operations at Jamaica, and as many at Hempstead, during which period three hundred firearms were delivered, and four hundred and seventy-one names were subscribed to the declaration of submission. Three hundred and forty-nine persons subscribed to an oath that they had neither concealed nor destroyed any arms or ammunition. Such of these as the disarming force obtained were so nearly worthless as to induce the remark from Major De Hart "that it was possible they would be worth the freight to New York, provided they were conveyed by water." It was a ready mode of cultivating the favor of the disarming officers, for the prisoners to express great irritation against those who had led them into opposition, and had deserted them in the hour of danger. This is a favorite means of defense with weak insurgents; and, although the credulity of the governmental authorities is rarely imposed upon by it, they never fail to publish it with sound of trumpets, not only to bring the insurgent leaders into contempt as cowards,