When the gaudy regiments of the German Allies crossed from the Brooklyn shore after the battle of Long Island in August, 1776, and paraded up Broadway with their British comrades-in-arms, they brought with them one, who, indirectly, was to have a more important influence upon the sleepy, little city and the country which had only just been born, than any other in the glittering column pressing relentlessly in pursuit of Washington&rsquo;s beaten battalions. None of the Germans&rsquo; swaggering officers, neither von Knyphausen nor von Riedesel nor blustering Colonel Rall, who should die gloriously after erring tragically, was to play so vital a part upon the world&rsquo;s stage. For that matter, no Britisher there present, not even fat, pleasure-loving Sir William Howe, himself, was to do as much toward shaping the future of the sturdiest of the British Lion&rsquo;s whelps as a certain stocky, fair-haired peasant named Heinrich Astor, who clung precariously to a sutler&rsquo;s wagon in rear of the Hessian contingent.<br />This youth of twenty-two&mdash;who pronounced his name in such a fashion that for years afterward it was spelled, by himself, as well as by others, Ashdour&mdash;never carried a gun in battle or risked so needlessly the exceedingly healthy physique nature had provided him. His service as a tool of destiny was to consist in the writing of letters, crude, ungrammatical letters, but sufficiently instinct with life to tempt after him a greater: his younger brother, John Jacob, already chafing, as he had chafed, against the hide-bound routine of a German village, under the restriction of a father unsympathetic and intemperate.