David, as a boy who was not yet _Bar Mitzvah_, sat beside his grandmother in the _Shearith Israel_ synagogue that bright September morning, while the drums beat in the streets and the frightened citizens buzzed excitedly in knots upon the street corners, this man contending that the British would be defeated before they even crossed the Sound, his neighbor declaring that on the morrow the redcoats would surely be encamped in the city. Within the synagogue, the Jewish citizens of New York continued to hold their Sabbath services. A goodly assembly they were; Jews of proud blood from Spain and Portugal, descendants of the early settlers in New Amsterdam, when the city of New York was still in the hand of the Dutch; a sprinkling of _Ashkenazim_, German and Polish Jews, who at that time were too few in number to have a congregation of their own. There were many children and young people there, pupils and graduates of the religious school the congregation had founded almost fifty years before for the teaching of Hebrew, modern languages and the common branches. While among the men sat sturdy patriots, Samuel Judah, Hayem Levy, Jacob Mosez and others whose names had appeared on the Non-importation agreement in 1769, when they with their gentile neighbors had dared to protest against the tyranny of Great Britain. Benjamin Seixas was there, too, one of the first Jews to become an officer in the American Army and several other Jewish soldiers in their uniforms of buff and blue sat nearby; while directly before him, his alert face thrust forward, sat old Mr. Gomez, drinking in every word of the sermon the young rabbi delivered after the Sabbath services were over; an English sermon, destined to make Jewish history in America.