About this time information was received that the enemy were enlisting great numbers of the loyalists of Long Island, and collecting large quantities of stock for their support. Oliver De Lancey, a leading loyalist of New York, member of a wealthy family of honorable Huguenot descent, was a prime agent in the matter. He had recently been appointed brigadier-general in the royal service, and authorized by General Howe to raise a brigade of provincials; and was actually at Jamaica, on Long Island, offering commissions of captain, lieutenant and ensign, to any respectable person who should raise a company of seventy men; the latter to receive British pay. A descent upon Long Island, to counteract these projects, was concerted by General George Clinton of New York, an General Lincoln of Massachusetts, but men and water craft were wanting to carry it into effect, and the “tory enlistments continued.” They were not confined to Long Island, but prevailed more or less on Staten Island, in the Jerseys, up the Hudson as far as Dutchess County, and in Westchester County more especially. Many of the loyalists, it must be acknowledged, were honorable men, conscientiously engaged in the service of their sovereign, and anxious to put down what they sincerely regarded as an unjustifiable rebellion; and among these may be clearly classed the De Lanceys. There were others, however, of a different stamp, the most notorious of whom, at this juncture, was one Robert Rogers of New Hampshire. He had been a worthy comrade of Putnam and Stark, in some of their early enterprises during the French war, and had made himself famous as major of a partisan corps called Rogers’ Rangers. Governor Trumbull described him as a “famous scouter and wood-hunter, skilled in waylaying, ambuscade, and sudden attack.” His feats of arms had evidently somewhat of the Indian character. He had since been Governor of Michilimackinac (1766), and accused of a plot to plunder his own fort and join the French. At the outbreak of the Revolution he played a skulking, equivocal part, and appeared ready to join either party. In 1775, Washington had received notice that he was in Canada, in the service of Carleton, and had been as a spy, disguised as an Indian, through the American camp at St. Johns. Recently, on learning that he was prowling about the country under suspicious circumstances, Washington had caused him to be arrested. On examination, he declared that he was on his way to offer his secret services to Congress. He was accordingly sent on to that body, in custody of an officer. Congress liberated him on his pledging himself in writing, “on the honor of a gentleman,” not to bear arms against the American United Colonies in any manner whatever, during the contest with Great Britain.