America
At the earliest commencement of the American war Colonel Beverley Robinson raised the Loyal American Regiment, which performed signal service to the royal cause until the peace in 1783. In this regiment young Frederick Philipse Robinson received an ensigncy in February 1777, and on 1 September 1778 he was appointed to the 17th Foot, which he joined in October following. In March, 1779, he commanded a company, in the absence of his captain, at the battle of Horseneck, under General Tryon. In July, 1779, being in garrison at the post of Stoneypoint, on the Hudson river, the place was stormed at midnight by a strong force of the Americans under General Wayne, and after a sharp and close conflict of more than an hour, during which the young ensign was wounded in the shoulder by a musket ball, he found himself a prisoner of war. Whilst detained as such at Lancaster, he was promoted to be Lieutenant in the 60th Foot on 1 September 1779, transferred to the 38th Foot on 4 November 1781, and, being released by order of General Washington, joined that regiment the end of November at Brooklyn, Long Island. The year 1783, which gave peace to Europe and America, destroyed the hopes of the American loyalists. They were involved in one general proscription, and obliged to abandon their property, which was declared forfeited for their attachment to the royal cause. The Robinsons were amongst these sufferers. The evacuation of New York took place in 1783—the 38th formed one of the six regiments which remained until the final embarkation, and arrived at Portsmouth January 1784.
Read more about this topic: Frederick Philipse Robinson
Famous quotes containing the word america:
“Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“What though the traveler tell us of the ruins of Egypt, are we so sick or idle that we must sacrifice our America and today to some man’s ill-remembered and indolent story? Carnac and Luxor are but names, or if their skeletons remain, still more desert sand and at length a wave of the Mediterranean Sea are needed to wash away the filth that attaches to their grandeur. Carnac! Carnac! here is Carnac for me. I behold the columns of a larger
and purer temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)