ght of prices that every
necessary article is now got to? A rat in the shape of a horse is not
to be bought for less than L200; a saddle under thirty or forty."

NOTE 5. (Page 124.)

Captain Cunningham was the British provost marshal, as everybody
knows, whose name became a synonym for wanton cruelty in the treatment
of war prisoners. He had come to New York before the Revolution, and
had kept a riding school there. As soon as the war broke out he took
the royal side. It was he who had in charge the summary execution of
Nathan Hale. He would often amuse himself by striking his prisoners
with his keys and by kicking over the baskets of food or vessels of
soup brought for them by charitable women, who, he said, were the
worst rebels in New York. He died miserably in England after the war.
His career is briefly outlined in Sabine's "Loyalists." As to the
manner in which Peyton, if caught, would have died, it must be
remembered that in the American Revolution the rope served in many a
case which, occurring in Europe or in one of our later wars, would
have been disposed of with the bullet. Writing of General Charles Lee,
John Fiske says: "There is no doubt that Sir William Howe looked upon
him as a deserter, and was more than half inclined to hang him without
ceremony." Then, as now, a deserter in time of war was liable to death
if caught at any subsequent time, his case being worse than that of a
spy, who was liable to death only if caught before getting back to his
own lines. There was, by the way, much unceremonious hanging on the
"neutral ground." Not far from the Van Cortlandt mansion there still
stood, in Bolton's time, "a celebrated white oak, in the midst of a
pretty glade, called the Cowboy Oak," from the fact that many of the
Tory raiders had been suspended from its branches during the war of
Revolution.

NOTE 6. (Page 127.)

I am not sure whether the saying, "The corpse of an enemy smells
sweet," attributed to Charles IX. of France, in allusion to Coligny,
is historical or was the invention of a romancer. It occurs in Dumas's
"La Reine Margot."

NOTE 7. (Page 136.)

Mr. Valentine's unwillingness to lend aid was doubtless due to the
frequency of such incidents as one that had occurred to his neighbor,
Peter Post, in 1776. Post's estate occupied the site of the present
town of Hastings. He gave information to Colonel Sheldon regarding the
movements of some Hessians, and afterwards deceived the Hessians