Page:Dorothy's spy; a story of the first "fovrth of Jvly" celebration, New York, 1776.djvu/145

132 with Mistress Dean because of the invasion by the mob.

Next day, when Sarah's father was ready to take her home, the children learned that the Provincial Congress at White Plains had listened to the reading of the Declaration with great interest, and, at the close pledged themselves to "sustain it at the risk of their lives and fortunes."

This pledge was proclaimed in White Plains by the beating of drums, and the members of the Congress ordered that the Declaration should be publicly read from the steps of the City Hall in New York.

On the day following, which is to say on the twelfth of July, the frigates Rose and the Phoenix, from my lord Howe's fleet, sailed boldly up to the city, firing into the town and being fired upon as they entered the Hudson and anchored a a short distance above the town, to the alarm of all patriots and the joy of the Tories.

With so much of import happening, and the knowledge that the king's troops would soon make an attack, it is little wonder that the adventure with the spy was so nearly forgotten by the heads of the two families concerned, as hardly to be mentioned; but the girls spent many hours talking over the events of that evening, and wondering whether Lieutenant Oakman had any