[9] “The Old Merchants of New York,” vol. II, p. 319. [10] New York _Herald_, May 6, 1906. [11] “Domett’s History of the Bank of New York.” [12] Robert Emmet, member of an old English family that settled in Ireland during Cromwell’s time, was one of the purest and most disinterested of rebels. He is now believed by his family, and with very good reason, to have been instigated to rebellion by a secret emissary of Pitt in Paris, where he had resided since leaving college, as part of an evil scheme to withdraw attention from the disordered condition of English politics at the time. (_Vide_ “Ireland under English Rule, or A Plea for the Plaintiff,” by Thomas Addis Emmet, 1903.) [13] Richard Montgomery, son of Thomas Montgomery, of Convoy House, Donegal, had been a captain in the British army in the French and Indian War. “On his return to England he is said to have formed friendships with Fox, Burke, and Barre, and became strongly imbued with their ideas about the rights of the colonies, and when he was superseded and disappointed in the purchase of a majority, he left England forever.” When in America it had happened that on their way to a distant post, he had come on shore with all the officers of his company at Clermont, the Livingston place on the North River, and there met Janet Livingston for the first time, and on his return, with the full approbation of her parents, he married her in July, 1773. Soon after his arrival he bought a farm at Kingsbridge, near New York, but after his marriage he arranged to build a house at Barrytown-on-the-Hudson on the Livingston property. The house, known as “Montgomery Place,” was built from designs of his nephew, an architect, son of his sister, the Viscountess Ranelagh. Some relics of the general, including his sword, etc., are still preserved there. When war broke out, Congress appointed him a brigadier general, and such was the confidence in him that he was given _carte blanche_ as to all the officers under him. He fell at the head of his troops in the assault on Quebec, December 31, 1775, at the age of thirty-seven. The estimation in which he was held by his wife’s family continued to the time of his death. In July, 1818, when the State of New York had his remains brought from Quebec, they were interred under the monument now seen at the east end of St. Paul’s Chapel. Forty-three years had elapsed since Mrs. Montgomery had parted with her husband at Saratoga. She was notified by Governor Clinton of the day on which the steamer _Richmond_, carrying the remains, would pass down the river. She was left alone upon the piazza of the house. The emotions with which she saw the pageant were told in a letter written to her niece: