They were of the old Clinton stock of England; being descended from General James Clinton, an adherent of royalty in the time of the civil wars, but who passed over to Ireland, after the death of Charles I. Their father, Charles Clinton, grandson of the general, emigrated to America in 1729, and settled in Ulster, now Orange County, just above the Highlands of the Hudson. Though not more than fifty miles from the city of New York, it was at that time on the borders of a wilderness, where every house had at times to be a fortress. Charles Clinton, like most men on our savage frontier in those days, was a warrior by necessity, if not by choice. He took an active part in Indian and French wars, commanded a provincial regiment stationed at Fort Herkimer, joined in the expedition under General Bradstreet, when it passed up the valley of the Mohawk, and was present at the capture of Fort Frontenac. His sons, James and George, one twenty, the other seventeen years of age, served in the same campaign, the one as captain, the other as lieutenant; thus taking an early lesson in that school of American soldiers, the French war. James, whose propensities were always military, continued in the provincial army until the close of that war; and afterwards, when settled on an estate in Ulster County, was able and active in organizing its militia. George applied himself to the law, and became successful at the bar, in the same county. Their father, having laid aside the sword, occupied for many years, with discernment and integrity, the honorable station of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died in Ulster County, in 1773, in the eighty-third year of his age, “in full view of that revolution in which his sons were to act distinguished parts.” With his latest breath he charged them “to stand by the liberties of their country.” They needed no such admonition. From the very first, they had been heart and hand in the cause. George had championed it for years in the New York legislature, signalizing himself by his zeal as one of an intrepid minority in opposing ministerial oppression. He had but recently taken his seat as delegate to the Continental Congress. James Clinton, appointed colonel on the 30th of June, 1775, had served with his regiment of New York troops under Montgomery at the siege of St. Johns, and the capture of Montreal, after which he had returned home. He had subsequently been appointed to the command of a regiment in one of the four battalions raised for the defence of New York. We shall soon have occasion to speak further of these patriot brothers. The prevalence of the smallpox had frequently rendered Washington uneasy on Mrs. Washington’s account during her visits to the army; he was relieved, therefore, by her submitting to inoculation during their sojourn in Philadelphia, and having a very favorable time.