servants, began to return. Lieutenant Hinrichs, of the
Hessian chasseurs, who had received orders on the 15th
of September to prevent depredations, had earned
thereby the gratitude of the inhabitants. He was
wounded in the skirmish of the 16th, and forced to
look for quiet and good nursing. He took shelter with
a widow named Oglyby (Ogilvie?) near Hornhook, on
the East River, and had the satisfaction of seeing her
whole family meet again after the separation caused
by the perils of war. Grandfather, mother, and
grandchildren, together with the black slaves and their
children, met and embraced with so much affection that our
good-natured lieutenant was much moved, and passed
a feverish night. It is needless to say that his hosts
treated him with the greatest kindness. He recovered
from his wound, and from others which he afterwards
received in the course of the Revolution, and died a
Prussian lieutenant-general in 1834.
The city of New York had been but five days in the hands of the British when, on the night of the 20th to the 21st of September, a fire broke out in a low drinking-house near Whitehall Slip. The weather had been dry and hot. A gale was blowing from the southwest. The fire spread with frightful rapidity. The east side of Broadway was burned as far up as Exchange Place. Then, the wind having veered to the southeast, the fire crossed Broadway above Morris Street, and extended to Barclay Street, burning old Trinity Church, but sparing St. Paul's. The fire was at last mastered, mainly by the exertions of soldiers and sailors. Bancroft is positive that this fire was not the work of incendiaries. Such, however, was not the idea of the
