The year 1782 was distinguished on the western continent as the close of the great contest, which obtained for America the name and privileges of a free nation. The harbingers of peace came flitting into the land, with the swallows of spring; and before the autumn had withered into winter, so little doubt prevailed of a speedy reconciliation taking place between Great Britain and the United States, founded upon a full recognition by the former of all the claims of the latter, that the Continental Congress passed a resolve for the reduction of its army, to take effect on the first day of the coming year. War was no longer waged upon any scale of magnitude; such hostilities as continued, were conducted almost solely by the desperate and lawless of both parties, and consisted of predatory incursions, occasionally attempted in the wilder parts of the country, by some skulking band of refugees, and of expeditions of vengeance, planned and executed in a moment of wrath, by the excited sufferers. At this period, the only portion of the States, north of the Potomac, in the hands of the British, was the city of New York, with its dependencies; and around these narrow possessions the lines of the Continental army were drawn, extending from the Highlands of New York to the plains of Monmouth in New Jersey. Military posts therefore existed at no great distance from the Hawk's Valley; and although the wild and mountainous country on either bank of the Delaware offered the strongest retreats to men of desperate character, it had been very long since the inhabitants had apprehended any danger from the presence of enemies. In the earlier part of the year, at least, they had no cause for alarm; and accordingly they mingled, without alloy, their raptures at the prospect of returning peace with their rejoicings over the death of Oran Gilbert, the most dreaded and detested of the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow.