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24 portend evil. In the evening, just at dark, our regiment was ordered to march to Turtle Bay, a place about four miles distant, on the East river, where were a large warehouse or two, called (then) the King's stores, built for the storing of marine stores belonging to the government, before the war. There was at this time about twenty-five hundred barrels of flour in those storehouses, and it was conjectured that the design of the forementioned frigate, or rather the officers and crew of her, was to seize on this flour; we were, therefore ordered to secure it, before the British should have an opportunity to lay their unhallowed hands upon it. We arrived at the place about midnight, and by sunrise, or a little after, had secured the whole of it, by rolling it up a steep bank, and piling it behind a ledge of rocks. While we were employed in doing this, some other troops were constructing a small battery on a point of land opposite the frigate, (she having arrived during the night, and anchored just below us, not being able to get quite up, by the failure of the wind;) and as soon as we had finished our work at the flour, the battery opened upon her with two long twelve pounders, which so galled her ribs that her situation began to grow rather uneasy to her. She never returned a shot at the battery, but got under weigh as quick as possible and ran by us, (there being then a little wind.) We all stood gazing at her, as she passed, when she sent us a nine pound shot, (perhaps the best she had to send us,) which passed through amongst us without injuring any one: she ran a little way up the river and came to anchor again.

We continued here some days to guard the flour. We were forbidden by our officers to use any of it, except our daily allowance; we used, however, to purloin some of it to eat and exchange with the inhabitants for milk, sauce, and such small matters as we could get for it, of them. While we lay here I saw a piece of American workmanship that was (as I thought) rather remarkable. Going one evening upon a piquet guard, in a subaltern officer's command, a mile or two farther up the river, we had to march through the inclosures close upon the bank of the river. There was a small party of British upon an island in the river, known, generally, by a queer name, given it upon as queer an occasion, which