that the Elliott
estate adjoined the Brevoort lands. It is today one of the most
variously important regions in town, embracing as it does both
Broadway and Fifth Avenue and including a most lively business section
and a most exclusive aristocratic quarter. Andrew Elliott was the son
of Sir. Gilbert Elliott, Lord Chief Justice, Clerk of Scotland. Andrew
was Receiver General of the Province of New York under the Crown and a
most loyal Royalist to the last. When the British rule passed he, in
common with many other English sympathisers, found himself in an
embarrassing position. The De Lanceys--close friends of his--lost
their lands outright. But Elliott, like the canny Scotchman that he
was, was determined that he would not be served the same way.

To quote Mr. J.H. Henry, who now handles that huge property: "He must
have had friends! Apparently they liked him, if they didn't like his
politics."

This is how they managed it: He transferred his entire estate to a
Quaker friend of his in Philadelphia--this was before the situation
had become too critical; then a little group of friendly New Yorkers,
among whom was Alexander Hamilton, bought it in; next it passed into
the hands of one Friedrich Charles Hans Bruno, Baron Poelnitz, who
appears to have been not much more than a figurehead. However, it was
legally his property at the time of the adoption of the Constitution
of the United States, and so it was not confiscated. It probably is
safe to assume that Mr. Andrew Elliott still remained the power behind
the throne, and benefited by the subsequent sale of the land to Capt.
Robert Richard Randall.

Which brings us to a most picturesque page of New York history.

I wonder what there is about privateering that attracts even the most
law-abiding imagination. This ancient, more than half dishonourable,
profession has an unholy glamour about it and there are few
respectable callings that so appeal to the colour-loving fancy. Not
that privateering was quite the same as piracy, but it came so close a
second that the honest rogues who plied the two trades must often have
been in danger of getting their perquisites and obligations somewhat
merged. It would have taken a very sharp judicial mind, or a
singularly stout personal conscience, to make the distinctions between
them in sundry and fairly numerous cases.

Wilson says:

"In these troublous and not over-squeamish times, when
commerce was other than the peacef