CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GUNNER WHO GOVERNED NEW YORK. AT the foot of Broadway, in New York (the principal street during the American War, as it is yet, although eclipsed in point of size by those known as Avenues,) there was, and there is, a small patch of turf giving its name to the surrounding houses, and known as the Bowling Green. On this Green there used to stand a statue, in lead, of His Majesty King George III., erected by a mob, to celebrate a victory over His Majesty's Government in a dispute in which they believed they had the King's sympathy; and on this Green, in July, 1776, this same statue lay prostrate, thrown down by a similar mob, in anger because their wishes had been thwarted. It was their boast afterwards that forty-two thousand bullets were made out of King George's statue to fire at King George's soldiers. But although the mob ran riot in the city on that day, it must not be imagined that there was no loyalty in New York. There was, among all the respectable classes, a feeling of shame and sadness, which showed itself in the closed churches and darkened windows, and, later on, in the joyous welcome which the British troops enabled them openly to give to the representatives of the British connection. New York, for many reasons, was more loyal than any other part of the revolted colonies, and there were many opportunities of displaying this in the period of its occupation by the British forces,—an occupation which, commencing in 1776, continued uninterruptedly for over seven years, until the war was at an end, and the colonies were lost. Near this Bowling Green lived, during the British occupation, most of the military officials; and among others, in the years 1779 and 1780, lived James Pattison, Colonel in the Royal Artillery, Major-General in His Majesty's forces in America, and Commandant of the City and Garrison of New York. And the narrative of James Pattison's life is one which must occupy a very prominent place in a History of the Regiment to which he belonged. He was the second son of a merchant in London, who owned the estate at Woolwich and Plumstead, known as the Burrage Estate. He married a daughter of the celebrated Albert Borgard, and was repeatedly selected for appointments requiring great tact and firmness, two qualities which he possessed in an eminent degree. Among others, he was, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Military Academy, and did more than any of his predecessors, or most of those who have succeeded him, to introduce a proper discipline among the Cadets and their instructors, while, at the same time, he raised the tone of the institution, and asserted, to an unheard-of extent, its independence of the authorities of the Woolwich garrison.