The attack of the British on Sag Harbor, in June 1813, was a failure as disastrous as the Revolutionary success was brilliant.
    The British fleet lay in Gardiner's Bay, commanded by Commodore Hardy.  A launch and two barges, with 100 men, attempted to surprise the place by night. They landed on the wharf, but an alarm had been given previously and the guns of the fort were  with such effect, that they set fire to one sloop only and retreated in such haste as to leave a large quality of guns, swords and other arms behind them. The flames were speedily extinguished by the Americans, who suffered no other loss.
  Captain David Hand, of Revolutionary memory preserveed as a relic, some portion of the arms, and his grandson, Captain David P. Vail, has treasured the mementoes from his grandfather until now. Captain Henry Green and John Gann were sentinels on the wharf at this time. Green told me that he heard a boat and challenged it, and obtaining no answer,  fired. Knowing that a return fire would follow, he jumped behind a large spile, that receiving the enemy's shot protected him. He then ran from the wharf, continuing the alarm.  He said that Gann’s gun missed fire, and as he ran past him to find people, Gann was on his knees picking his flint and saying; “ I want to get a crack at them." His Irish blood, it; in its enmity to England, was true as steel.
     Does Great Britain know the burning resentment of the millions of Irish Americans who pant for war against her? Her arrogance in 1776 cost her half a continent; continued, it may cost her untold retribution. In the connection with the flight of the patriots from Long Island to Connecticut, to escape the consequences flowing from British rule here, after the disastrous battle of Long Island, published in the New London Gazette of January 17th, 1777, is interesting.

“Thomas Dering, John Foster and Thomas Wickham or either two of them being appointed by the State of New York to receive, examine, and report on the several claims against said State for transporting families, stock and effects from Long Island to Connecticut, all persons who have any such accounts unsettled, are desired to bring them in for settlement to Ephraim Fenno’s, inn holder, at Middletown, the third Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in January and February next, where attendance will be given to adjust the same.  They are requested to give particular account of the names and number of the families, and owners, of the effects, and the places from and to, which they were removed, and to be certified by the committee of the several towns where they live.”
Middletown, Dec. 11th, 1776.