Bradford's press
had been, leaped across Broadway and laid Trinity Church a mass of
ruins scattered over the churchyard where Freneau's father lay buried.

The British soldiers were quartered in the public buildings; the
British officers had taken possession of the houses deserted by
wealthy patriots; the Middle Dutch Church, which had been the
architectural pride of the city, had become a riding school for
troopers.

[Illustration: The Middle Dutch Church]

There was a red-painted wooden building in John Street, a few feet
from Broadway, the only theatre in the city. The actors had closed it,
and fled at the coming of the British. But the house was open again
now, and the British officers played at mimic war between the
intervals of real battles.

No one threw himself more heartily into these performances than Major
John Andre, who was so soon to give up his life for his country. He
even wrote some of the speeches used by the actors, and one of the
poems he wrote for Rivington's _Gazetteer_ was printed while he was
away on his last mission, conferring with Benedict Arnold on the banks
of the Hudson.

After the treason was discovered, Arnold sought a safe retreat within
the British lines at New York, and lived for a time in a solid,
picturesque little house by the Bowling Green. It stood on a grassy
slope that stretched down to the water's edge a few boat lengths from
where the _Scorpion_ lay with the poet prisoner on board.

There was a picket fence, painted white, on one side of the green
slope, and Sergeant John Champe once hid his men behind it to carry
off Arnold when he should take his nightly walk by the waterside, an
attempt that failed through Arnold's changing his quarters on the
selfsame day.

When the Revolution was over, Freneau was again in New York, which
slowly recovered from the ravages of war. Hanover Square was a
favorite haunt of his. He has left the record that he loved to linger
in that open space, where might be seen a mingling of business and
home life. Freneau liked it, for there books were printed and sold,
and, too, it was the "Newspaper Row" of the town. This open space had
been at first Van Brugh Street, taking its name from Johannes
Pietersen Van Brugh, a wealthy Hollander whose home faced the square
for close upon half a century. It bore his name until in 1714, when
with the accession of George I. of Hanover it took the name of Hanover
Square.

In a house facing this square, B