In some way, I can’t say how, General Washington had discovered that Governor Tryon, Mayor Mathews, Gilbert Forbes, the gunsmith whose shop is on the Broadway, and perhaps a dozen other Tories, had in hand a plot to seize Washington as prisoner and deliver him over to Sir William Howe. In order to do this, or to aid in capturing the officers of the Colonial army, the magazine was to be blown up, and every road leading from the city taken possession of by the Tories, who had already enlisted more than five hundred curs vile enough to take up arms for that king who had treated them more like cattle than human beings. Two of General Washington’s bodyguard, together with about a dozen citizens, had been arrested that morning. All save the two traitorous soldiers had been sent to a prison in Connecticut, where there was little fear the Britishers could do anything toward effecting their release, and the members of the guard who had sold their honor for the king’s gold, were to be tried by a military court that very day. Who can wonder, in the face of such news, that we found the city fairly boiling with excitement when we landed from the sloop, after making her fast at Master Dyker’s dock? As a matter of course, we went directly to Bowling Green, knowing that there would be found all the idle gossipers of the city, and it was as if some great revel was going on, so many people had gathered. We were not long in learning that Master Goodhue had told us no more than the truth; but what seemed yet worse, we heard many of the throng speaking as if they were saddened because the plot had been discovered. “I had not believed there were so many Tories in New York,” Sam whispered to me as we stood near a group of five who were speculating upon the possibility of lending some aid to those who were accused. “We have got used to hearin’ them on the island, for it is there we raise that kind of cattle; but here I supposed the greater portion of the citizens were real men,” and Abe added: “I fail of understandin’ how a man with any degree of respect for himself, can take sides with the king against his own countrymen.” “There’s more than that in this world you can’t understand, Abe Decker,” was said in a mocking voice just behind me, and I turned to see Luther Stedman, the son of that Tory Stedman who lives on the island near the ferry, a lad whom I had counted as a friend until learning that he, like his father, believed the king to be more of a god than a man. “Perhaps my head ain’t any thicker than yours,” Abe replied quickly and hotly, “an’ then again, perhaps I’ve been brought up to have less love for curs that are ready, for the sake of a fat bone, to bite those who have been friends.”