Time alone will

were of iron, old and honeycombed. The constant arrival and departure of militia made good discipline impossible. The government of New Jersey called out one half of its militia, to be relieved at the end of one month by the other half; but the call was little heeded. "We shall never do well until we get a regular army; and this will never be until men are enlisted for a longer duration; and that will never be until we are more generous in our encouragement. persuade us to this measure; and in the meanwhile we shall very indiscreetly waste a much greater expense than would be necessary for this purpose, in temporary calls upon the militia, besides risking the loss of many lives and much reputation." So wrote John Adams, the head of the board of war. He rejected the thought of retiring from Long Island, inclined to judge an army capable of victory when orders for the supply of men and their equipment had gone forth, and never duly estimated the force at command. While he cultivated confidential relations with Gates, he never extended cordial frankness to Washington, never comprehended his superior capacity for war, nor fairly weighed the difficulties before him. Moreover, congress was assuming the conduct of the campaign. To Gates it intrusted a power of filling up vacancies in his army, but refused it to the commander-in-chief. The general officers, whose advice Washington was instructed to ask, knew not enough of war to estimate danger rightly; and the timid ones, with their eyes on congress, put on the cheap mask of courage by spirited votes.

On the fifth of August, Trumbull wrote from Connecticut: "Knowing our cause righteous, I do not greatly dread what our numerous enemies can do against us." Washington answered: "To trust in the justice of our cause without our own utmost exertion would be tempting Providence ;" and he revealed to him the weakness of his army. On receiving this letter, Trumbull convened his council of safety. Five regiments from the counties of Connecticut nearest New York had already been sent forward; he called out nine regiments more, and to those not enrolled in any train-band he said: "Join yourselves to one of the companies now ordered to New York, or form yourselves into distinct companies, and choose captains

forthwith. March on this shall be your warrant; may the God of the armies of Israel be your leader." At these words the farmers--though their harvest was but half gathered, their meadows half cut, their chance of return in season to sow their grain before winter uncertain-rose in arms, forming nine regiments each of three hundred and fifty men, and, selfequipped, marched to New York, just in time to meet the advance of the British. True, they were rather a rally of freemen than a division of an army; but their spirit evinced the existence of a nation.

In New York the country people turned out with surprising alacrity, leaving their grain to perish for want of the sickle. The body suddenly levied in New York, the nine regiments from Connecticut, the Maryland regiment and companies, a regiment from Delaware, and two more battalions of Pennsylvania riflemen, raised the number of men fit for duty under Washington's command to about seventeen thousand; but most of them were fresh from rustic labor, ill-armed or not armed at all.

The New York convention desired that the command of the Hudson might be secured; and, on the recommendation of Putnam and Mifflin, a fort was built on the height now known as Fort Washington, two miles and a half below King's Bridge.

Of the batteries by which New York was protected, the most important was the old Fort George on the south point of the island; a barrier crossed Broadway near the Bowling Green; a redoubt was planted near the river, west of Trinity church; another, that took the name of Bunker Hill, near the site of the present Centre Market. Earthworks were thrown up here and there along the East and Hudson rivers within the settled parts of the town, and at the northern end of the island, on hills overlooking King's Bridge; but many intermediate points, favorable for landing, were defenceless. The regiment of Prescott, who commanded in the battle of Bunker Hill, and one other regiment, were all that could be spared to garrison Governor's Island.

The American lines in Brooklyn, including angles, and four redoubts which mounted twenty large and small cannon, ran for a mile and a half from Wallabout bay to the marsh of

Gowanus cove; they were defended by ditches and felled trees; the counterscarp and parapet were fraised with sharpened stakes. A fortress of seven guns crowned Brooklyn Heights. The entrance into the East river was guarded by a battery of five guns at Red Hook. Six incomplete continental regiments, with two of Long Island militia, constituted all the force with which Greene occupied this great extent of works.

British reinforcements arrived with Clinton and Cornwallis on the first of August, and eleven days later more than twenty-five hundred British troops from England, and more than eighty-six hundred Hessians. Sir Peter Parker brought Campbell and Dunmore, who, with Tryon and Martin, hoped from victory their restoration to their governments. On the fifteenth the Hessians, who were in excellent health after their long voyage, landed on Staten Island. Before a conflict, Lord Howe once more proposed the often rejected plan; and Washington, on the twentieth, announced to the army "that no offer of peace had been made, and that every man should prepare his mind and his arms for action.” Το congress he on the same day wrote frankly that it would not be possible to prevent the landing of the British on Long Island, saying: "We shall harass them as much as possible, which will be all that we can do." Just at this time Greene became ill of a raging fever. The loss of his service was irreparable, for the works in Brooklyn had been built under his eye, and he was familiar with the environs. His place was, on the twentieth, assigned to Sullivan.

About nine on the morning of the twenty-second the menof-war moved near the shore in Gravesend bay, to protect the landing of more than fifteen thousand men from Staten Island. The English and the Highlanders, with the artillery, consisting of forty cannon, were the first to disembark; last came Donop's brigade of grenadiers and yagers, in large flat-boats, standing, with their muskets in hand, in order of battle.

The British army spread itself out upon the plain which stretches from Gravesend bay toward the east; the camp was thronged by farmers of the neighborhood, wearing badges of loyalty and seeking protection, while the patriots took to

flight, driving cattle before them and burning all kinds of forage. Cornwallis with the reserve, two battalions of infantry and the corps of Germans, advanced to Flatbush; Hand's Pennsylvania riflemen retired before him, burning stacks of wheat and hay on their march; the British artillery drove the Americans from their slight barrier within the village to the wooded heights beyond.

In the following days, during which Washington divided his time between Brooklyn and New York, the advanced parties of the two armies encountered each other, and the American riflemen proved their superiority as skirmishers.

On the twenty-fourth, Israel Putnam, in right of his rank as second to Washington, took the command on Long Island, but with explicit instructions to guard the passes through the woods; while the New York congress sent independent orders to Woodhull, a provincial brigadier, to drive off the horses, horned cattle, and sheep, and destroy the forage which would otherwise have fallen to the enemy.

On the twenty-fifth, two more brigades of Hessians with Heister came over to Flatbush, increasing the force of Howe on Long Island to "upward of twenty thousand" rank and file;* supported by more than four hundred ships and transports in the bay; by ten ships of the line and twenty frigates, beside bomb-ketches, galiots, and other small vessels. The Americans on the island, after repeated reinforcements, were no more than eight thousand men,† most of whom were volun

* Correct Howe's Narrative, p. 45, where he said he had upon Long Island between fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand rank and file, and that his whole force consisted of twenty thousand one hundred and twenty-one (20,121) rank and file, of which sixteen hundred and seventy-seven (1,677) were sick. On August twenty-seventh, 1776, his rank and file amounted to twenty-four thousand two hundred and forty-seven (24,247), apart from the royalist force under Brigadier De Lancey. MS. returns of the army of Howe from the British state paper office. This is confirmed by Sir George Collier's report in Naval Chronicle, xxxii., 271.

This statement of the American force is made after an examination of all the returns which I could find. The rodomontade of Howe, Almon's Debates, xi., 349, is repeated by Stedman, i., 194. In 1779 Lord Cornwallis, answering before the British house of commons as a witness, says: "It was reported they (the Americans) had six or eight thousand men on Long Island," Almon's Debates, xiii., 9. General Robertson estimates them at seven thousand, Almon, xiii., 314. Montresor at eight to ten thousand, Almon, xiii., 54. Of these Cornwallis is the most trustworthy witness.

teers or militia, with not a platoon of cavalry. The armies were kept apart by the ridge which runs through Long Island to the south-west, and, at the distance of two miles from the American lines, throws out to the north and south a series of hills, as so many buttresses against the bay. Over these densely wooded heights, which were steep and broken, three obvious routes led from the British encampments to Brooklyn: the one which followed a lane through a gorge south of the present Greenwood cemetery to a coast-road from the bay to Brooklyn ferry was guarded by Pennsylvanian musketeers and riflemen under Atlee and Kichline; across the direct road to Brooklyn the regiments of Henshaw of Massachusetts and Johnston of New Jersey lay encamped, at the summit of the ridge on Prospect Hill overlooking Flatbush; while the "clove" road, which diverged from the second, and a little farther to the east descended into the village of Bedford, was guarded chiefly by Connecticut levies and infantry from Pennsylvania. The number of the Americans stationed on the coast-road and along the ridge as far as their posts extended was about twentyfive hundred.

On the twenty-sixth, Washington remained on Long Island till the evening. Putnam and Sullivan visited the party that kept guard farthest to the left, and the movements of the enemy disclosed their intention to get into the rear of the Americans by the Jamaica road; but that road was neglected.

The plan of attack by General Howe was as elaborate as if he had had to encounter an equal army. A squadron of five ships under Sir Peter Parker was to menace New York and act against the right flank of the American defences; Grant, with two brigades, a regiment of Highlanders, and two companies of New York provincials, was to advance upon the coastroad toward Gowanus; the three German brigades and yagers, stationed half a mile in front of Flatbush, in a line of nearly a mile in length, were to force the direct road to Brooklyn, while at the evening gun Howe and much the larger part of the army, under Clinton, Cornwallis, and Percy, with eighteen field-pieces, leaving their tents and equipage behind, moved from Flatlands across the country through the New Lots, to turn the left of the American outposts.