an active part in the War of the Revolution.

Colonel Livingston was stationed at West Point when Arnold made the
attempt to betray that stronghold into the hands of the enemy. In the
absence of General Washington and his superior officer, he took the
responsibility of firing into the _Vulture_, a suspicious looking
British vessel that lay at anchor near the opposite bank of the Hudson
River. It was a fatal shot for André, the British spy, with whom Arnold
was then consummating his treason. Hit between wind and water, the
vessel spread her sails and hastened down the river, leaving André, with
his papers, to be captured while Arnold made his escape through the
lines, before his treason was suspected.

On General Washington's return to West Point, he sent for my grandfather
and reprimanded him for acting in so important a matter without orders,
thereby making himself liable to court-martial; but, after fully
impressing the young officer with the danger of such self-sufficiency on
ordinary occasions, he admitted that a most fortunate shot had been sent
into the _Vulture_, "for," he said, "we are in no condition just now to
defend ourselves against the British forces in New York, and the
capture of this spy has saved us."

My mother had the military idea of government, but her children, like
their grandfather, were disposed to assume the responsibility of their
own actions; thus the ancestral traits in mother and children modified,
in a measure, the dangerous tendencies in each.

Our parents were as kind, indulgent, and considerate as the Puritan
ideas of those days permitted, but fear, rather than love, of God and
parents alike, predominated. Add to this our timidity in our intercourse