basis for the silly theory that Greenwich got its name from the estate.  Undoubtedly the Warren place was the largest and most important one out there, and for a time to “go out to visit at Greenwich,” meant to go out to visit the Manse.  For years the Captain and the Captain’s lady lived in this beautiful and restful place with three little daughters to share their money, their affections and their amiable lives.  Thomas Janvier’s description of the house as he visualises it with his rich imagination is too charming not to quote in part: 

[Illustration:  OLD ST. JOHN’S.  “Still faces on Varick Street, sombre and unaltered, a stately link between the present and the past.”]

“The house stood about three hundred yards back from the river, on ground which fell away in a gentle slope towards the waterside.  The main entrance was from the east; and at the rear—­on the level of the drawing-room and a dozen feet or so above the sloping hillside—­was a broad veranda commanding the view westward to the Jersey Highlands and southward down the bay to the Staten Island Hills.”  The fanciful description goes on to picture Captain Warren sitting on this veranda, “smoking a comforting pipe after his mid-day dinner; and taking with it, perhaps, as seafaring gentlemen very often did in those days, a glass or two of substantial rum-and-water to keep everything below hatches well stowed.  With what approving eye must he have regarded the trimly kept lawns and gardens below him; and with what eyes of affection the Launceston, all a-taunto, lying out in the stream!”

I have called the description of the house “fanciful,” but it is really not that, since the old house fell into Abraham Van Nest’s hands at a later date, and stood there for over a century, with the poplars, for which it was famous, and the box hedges, in which Susanna had taken such pride, growing more beautiful through the years.  Not until 1865 was the lovely place destroyed by the tidal wave of modern building.

The Captain kept his town house as well,—­the old Jay place, on the lower end of Broadway, but it was at the Manse that he loved best to stay, and the Manse which was and always remained his real and beloved home.  In 1744 his seaman’s restlessness again won over his domestic tranquillity and he was off once more in search of fresh adventures and dangers.  Says the Weekly Post Boy, of August 27th, in that year: 

“His Majesty’s ship Launceston, commanded by the brave Commodore Warren (whose absence old Oceanus seems to lament), being now sufficiently repaired, will sail in a few days in order once more to pay some of His Majesty’s enemies a visit.”

And it winds up with this burst: 

    "The sails are spread; see the bold warrior comes
    To chase the French and interloping Dons!"

It was in the following year that he signally distinguished himself in the historic Siege of Louisbourg, winning himself a promotion to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue, and a knighthood as well!  It may seem a far cry from Greenwich, New York, to Louisbourg, but we cannot pass over the incident without sparing it a little space.  Let me beg your patience,—­quoting, in my own justification, no less a historian than James Grant Wilson: