Songs & Ballads Of the American Revolution

90+ Songs With Notes & Illustrations - online book.

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OLD ENGLAND.
203
for this peculiar discipline, and the faintest vestige of toryism, was sufficient to warrant its application, to any one who should happen to fall in their way. A body of these men were passing through one of the quiet villages in Connecticut, on their march to join Washington's army, when they met a notorious loyalist, who, among other " fine names called them damned rebels and sons of sedition." They soon took him and compelled him to walk, in advance of the company, to a wood near the town of Litchfield, a distance of over twenty miles, carrying one of his own geese all the way in his hands. On their arrival there, they applied the tar, and made him pluck the goose, after which they bestowed the feathers on him, drummed him out of the company, and obliged him to kneel and thank them for their lenity. Another instance was the case of a loyal shoemaker of New York, who having f' expressed a desire in public company, and in the most insolent manner" that General Gage, then in Boston, would visit that town, to <sut the throats of the " rebellious whigs, and burn their houses, declaring he would himself assist in it," was immediately taken by the people and carried to the wharf, where he was stripped, and nicely fitted with a suit of " American thickset with white trimmings," and after giving him three rounds of apĀ­plause, he was permitted to retire, " which he did with some precipiĀ­tation," at the same time muttering ten thousand anathemas against General Gage, as the author of his disgrace.