and allow her property to be plundered. I must request the favour of you to get this affair settled as soon as possible. Enclosed is an inventory of the plate; it was all in one box. My papers are in much better order than I expected; but my brother and I shall suffer greatly by being sent away from our property. I have sent your letter to your mother, who is very well, as is all your friends. I shall go and see your mother in a few days. General Robinson assured me all the women and children who have a mind to go to their husbands or friends have liberty to go by this flag, or any other way they think proper."

He adds in a postscript: "Please deliver the enclosed letters; give the one for HUGH WALLACE to Mr. Samuel Loudon, to be sent by post. My brother has lost all his clothes in the Jerseys. Mrs. Wallace sent them there."

The inventory alluded to gives the contents of the box of plate: 1 tea urn, 1 epergne, 1 very large bowl, 4 candlesticks, 1 large pudding dish, 2 large salvers, 3 small salvers, 1 large tankard, 1 coffee pot, 1 pitcher, 1 cruet stand, 4 long handled spoons, 4 scalloped spoons, 6 dozen table spoons, 1 dozen desert spoons, 1 sugar dish, 1 funnel, 1 fish trowel, 6 salts, 2 mustard pots with spoons, 6 skewers, 2 milk pots, I tea chest with cannisters, 1 sugar tongs, 4 labels for bottles, 4 tumblers, 4 rummers, 2 black jacks, 1 large soup ladle, 1 marrow spoon.-(Correspondence of Prov. Cong., Vol. 2, P. 237.)

With the family of Gouverneur Morris there was also a connection through the Gouverneurs: the second wife of Colonel Lewis Morris and mother of Gouverneur Morris was Sarah Gouverneur.

Meanwhile MR. WALLACE was not long detained in durance. He and his fellow captives were released upon the following written obligation:

WHEREAS, WE, HUGH WALLACE, Fred Philipse, James Jauncey, and James Jauncey, Jun'r, Esqr., and Gerard Walton, William Jauncey and John Miller, all of the City and Province of New York, have for some time past resided at Middletown, in the State of Connecticut, being apprehended and sent thither by His Excellency General Washington as suspected of disaffection to the United States of America; and whereas, upon our application, His Honour Jona Trumbull, Esq., Governor of the said State of Connecticut, hath permitted us to return to our families in New York and reside there till otherwise ordered, we do hereby pledge our faith and words of honour to the said Governor Trumbull, that we will neither bear arms, nor excite or encourage others to bear arms, against this or any other of the United States of America; and that we will not do anything in prejudice of the interest or measures of this or any of the said United States; and that we will give no intelligence to the enemies of the United States of any of the councils of war or other the Transactions of this or any of the said States; and that we will return to any place in this State when required by His Honour Governor Trumbull, the General Assembly of Connecticut, or His Excellency the General of the armies of the said United States for the time being.

In witness whereto we have hereunto set our hands, this 23d day of December, A.D. 1776.

HUGH WALLACE,

FRED PHILIPS,

JAS. JAUNCEY,

JAS. JAUNCEY, JUN'R,

GERARD WALTON,

WILLIAM JAUNCEY,

JOHN MILLER.

Governor Tryon, in a letter to Lord George Germaine, of date New York, 31 Dec., 1776, alludes to the return of the prisoners. "Last Sunday evening MR. WALLACE and Mr. Jauncey, two of his Majesty's Council of this Province, with several other Inhabitants thereof, came to town from Connecticut, having been discharged by Gov. Trumbull from their confinement upon the express obligation of not taking up arms against America, and to return to captivity if required."

The brothers Wallace remained in New York during the war. The newspapers of 1782 and 1783 contain a standing advertisement that "HUGH and ALEXANDER WALLACE have for sale, on reasonable terms, a Quantity of good sweet Flour, old Lisbon Wine, a large quantity of Queensware in Crates, Glass and China in Boxes, Cannon, 4, 6 and 9 pounders, Shot, Swivel guns of newest construction." They were also constantly favored by the military authorities, and were agents of the Government for the payment of prize-money to the British men of war. On May

5, 1783, they give notice in Gaine's N. Y. Gazette and Mercury that they will pay the prize-money for the captures of His Majesty's Ship Cyclops.

The property of HUGH WALLACE was confiscated by the Provincial Legislature on the 22d October, 1779. The confiscated Estates were sold under a further act of the State Legislature of 12 May, 1784.

HUGH WALLACE did not remain to witness the new order of things, but left with the army in 1783. He returned to Great Britain, and died at Waterford in Ireland in the year 1788. No portrait of Mr. WALLACE is known to exist in this country.

ELIAS DESBROSSES.

THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

1771-1772.

T what period the family of DESBROSSES came to the New York Colony is now unknown. They have been called of Huguenot extraction-a view to which their warm attachment to the Protestant faith gives color; but this name is not found in the Colonial records at the time when the chief part of this emigration reached the New World. The town of New Rochelle, in Westchester County, was settled as early as 1681 by French refugees, who had fled to England to avoid the persecutions which preceded the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The name of DESBROSSES does not appear on the lists of freeholders of the new settlement of 1708 or 1724.

The name is first met with in an advertisement in William Bradford's "New York Gazette," September 12th to 19th, 1737, giving notice of "Choice Good Canary Wine to be sold at Three Shillings and six pence per Gallon by the five Gallons at the WIDOW DESBROSSES, in Hanover Square."

ELIAS DESBROSSES was born (probably in this city) in the year 1718. The family appears, in 1737, to have consisted of the widow, her sons ELIAS and James (and perhaps Stephen, whose name appears later), and her daughters Magdalen and Elizabeth.

He first comes into notice in the famous report, by Horsmanden, of the Negro Plot of 1741. It was the belief of the time that the negroes were set on by Catholic priests. The shade of Guy Fawkes yet lurked near every burning house. His testimony before the Court on the 24th July, 1741, is thus given: "ELIAS DESBROSSES, of New York, Confectioner; John Ury, the popish priest, now in jail, came with one Webb, a carpenter, to him, and asked if he (deponent) had any sugar bits or wafers, &c., (the bits are usually made as the deponent apprehends in imitation of Spanish silver coin.) This deponent showed the said Ury some confectionary in imitation of dogs, hawks, owls, lambs, and swans, supposing that he wished them to give away to please children, but told him he had no bits or wafers." At this time Catholic worship was punished as a crime, and all magistrates were sworn to maintain the Protestant religion. This Ury was convicted, and executed on the 29th of the same month.

About this time James Desbrosses, a brother of ELIAS, first appears. One of his negroes, Primus, made confession concerning the Plot. He was to have stolen his master's gun and helped kill the white people. He resided at the "last house on the East River to Kip's Bay," described by David Grim as the house at which the line of Palisades of Cedar logs commenced, which was stretched across the island to the North River, in 1745, "for the security and protection of the inhabitants of the city, who were at that time much alarmed and afraid that the French and Indians were coming to invade the City." This house was near the shipyards at the foot of Catharine Street. An advertisement in the "New York Journal," April 2, 1767, shows that he was still residing there.

A part of the family, however, still occupied the house