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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
In September 1776, General Sir William Howe's troops took possession of New York City, having badly defeated Washington's forces in the Battle of Long Island. Howe, who had accepted his assignment in America with the greatest reluctance, set about making life as pleasant as possible for himself and for those around him. He had grown greatly concerned about the morale and comfort of his troops in a city that, compared to London, was little more than a backwater. Howe wrote to Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Colonies, in England: “The troops had been so much harassed in the course of the last campaign, that I could not but wish that no manoeuvre of the enemy might hinder them from enjoying that repose, in their winter quarters, which their late fatigues rendered necessary, and their services entitled them to expect.”
1 Sir William Howe, letter of April 19, 1777, quoted in Anderson, Troyer Steele, The Command of the Howe Brothers during the American Revolution (London, 1936), pp. 230–231Google Scholar.
2 Thomas Stanley, quoted in Seilhamer, George O., History of the American Theatre: During the Revolution and After (Philadelphia, 1889), II, 27Google Scholar.
3 The New York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury, printed by Gaine, Hugh, at the Bible and Crown, in Hanover Square, New York, 20 01 1777Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., 6 January 1777.
5 The New York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury, 27 01 1777Google Scholar.
6 The Royal American Gazette (New York), 26 03 1778Google Scholar.
7 Pollock, Thomas Charles, The Philadelphia Theatre in the Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1933), p. 130CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 The New York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury, 27 January 1777Google Scholar.
9 From various issues of The New York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury and The Royal American Gazette, 1777Google Scholar.
10 The New York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury, 24 February 1777Google Scholar.
11 The Royal American Gazette, 1 May 1777Google Scholar.
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13 The Royal Gazette (New York), 21 11 1778Google Scholar.
14 Dunlap, William, History of the American Theatre (London, 1833), I, 97Google Scholar.
15 Ibid., pp. 93–94.
16 Ibid., p. 94.
17 Ibid., p. 96.
18 The New York Gazette: and the Weekly Mercury, 10 February 1777Google Scholar.
19 Ibid., 10 February 1777, and 19 May 1777.
20 There is a considerable difference of opinion among historians on this point, however.
21 Anderson, p. 294.
22 Jones, Thomas, History of New York during the Revolutionary War (New York, 1879), I, 253Google Scholar.
23 Colonel Allen Maclean, quoted in Rankin, Hugh F., ed., The American Revolution (London, 1954), p. 114Google Scholar.
24 Seilhamer, II, 32.
25 Anderson, p. 240.
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33 Ibid., 14 January 1778.
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35 Ibid., 3 January 1778.
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43 Durang, I, 19. André was not promoted to Major until 23 October 1779.
44 The Pennsylvania Ledger, 29 April 1778Google Scholar.
45 A participant in the Meschianza, quoted in Wharton, Through Colonial Doorways, p. 52.
46 “Copy of a Letter from an Officer at Philadelphia to his Correspondent in London” [the author of the letter is presumed to have been John André], “Particulars of the Meschianza exhibited in America at the Departure of Gen. Howe,” The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle (August 1778), 356.
47 Information concerning the Meschianza has been taken primarily from André's account in The Gentleman's Magazine (see note 46, above) and Wharton's Through Colonial Doorways.
48 Anderson, pp. 299–301.
49 The Royal Register, Vol. VIII, 163Google Scholar.
