"A few of them, nevertheless, succeeded in concealing guns...."

GREAT PRESENCE OF MIND.

 

Bow a Clever Yankee Fooled a Brace of Britishers.

 

   The residents of Staten Island, during its occupancy by the British in revolutionary times, were prohibited from keeping firearms of any description in their houses. A few of them, nevertheless, succeeded in concealing guns, and  among these was a young man named Houseman. One morning, after the fall of a light snow, says the Argonaut, the young man was out with his gun in quest of rabbits, when a sudden turn in the path brought him in sight of two soldiers. The two parties saw each other simultaneously, and each stopped. Houseman thought of the loss of his gun, and possibly of his life; but the sense of danger was but a stimulus to his coolness and daring. He suddenly turned his back on the soldiers, and, stepping around the turn, waved his hand, as if beckoning to some one. "Hurry up!" he shouted; "here are two Britishers. Three of you go round to the right, three to the left, and the rest follow me. Hurry up, before they run away!" The Britishers, hearing these words and fearing there might be a small army about to surround them, turned and fled. They even threw down their arms to facilitate their flight. What report they made when they reached their quarters is not known, but a detachment was at once sent out to capture the young man and his army. Their surprise and mortification may be imagined when, at the turn in the path, they could find but the tracks of a single individual.

 



[The Dalles Daily Chronicle, The Dalles, Oregon, Wedsnesday, August 22, 1894. Vol. VII. No. 206 Pg. 1]

   Isn't it interesting, (not to mention treasonous). How that our current federal, and many of the state and municipal governments, would like nothing better than to do to us what the "Britishers" had done to our forebears? Keep in mind that the British-American colonists had a RIGHT to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the crown:

English Bill of Rights 1689
 
"An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown

"Whereas the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster, lawfully, fully and freely representing all the estates of the people of this realm, did upon the thirteenth day of February in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-eight [old style date] present unto their Majesties, then called and known by the names and style of William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, being present in their proper persons, a certain declaration in writing made by the said Lords and Commons in the words following, viz.: . . ."

". . . That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law; ..."

   There shouldn't be any wonder why our forebears ended up declaring: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...."