Reign of George III. (Continued.) page 6

Under these circumstances general Howe, on the morning of the 22nd of August, threw over from Staten Island into Long Island four thousand men, under the command of general Clinton. They landed in Gravesend Bay, under cover of the artillery of three frigates and two bombs. The rest of the army followed with the artillery. Washington hastened over from New York to strengthen general Sullivan, who was in command on the island. He posted no less than fifteen thousand men along a peninsula at that end of the island facing New York. These lines stretched nearly across the peninsula from Waaleboght Bay, an elbow of the East River on the left, to Gowan's Cove on the right, their rear being covered by batteries on Governor's Island, Red Hook, and Brooklyn Ferry, with other batteries on East River, to keep open the communication with New York. In front of them stretched strong entrenchments, secured by abbatis, flanked by redoubts, and lined with lances, the centre at Brooklyn being made doubly strong. Again, at about two miles and a half distance, in advance, ran a range of low, thickly-wooded hills, crossed by two roads, a third road following the shore round the western base of these hills, and a fourth, penetrating inland, turned them on the east. These passes in the hills had been defended by entrenchments, and strong bodies of troops guarded their base on the west.

Washington issued orders which showed his anxiety as to the condition of his troops. He säid the time was now come when they must determine whether they would be free men or slaves; whether they would continue to enjoy their property, or become beggars and outcasts. We must, he said, resolve to conquer or die. He promised rewards to all who distinguished themselves in the action; but he ordered all who attempted to run, or to conceal themselves, to be instantly shot.

Two British columns advancing by night - one by the shore road, and the other over the hills - managed to capture the patrols and approach the outposts of the Americans. Washington having been all day engaged in strengthening his lines, had returned to New York. Putnam was posted on the left; and general Stirling, called by the Americans lord Stirling, was posted on the left on the sea shore, near the part called the Narrows. This titular lord Stirling was, in reality, a Mr. Alexander, who had made a claim to the extinct title of Stirling, his claim having been disallowed, but still given him by the Americans, as better judges than the house of lords. On the hills Sullivan occupied one of the passes towards the left. The column on the British right, consisting of Hessians, under general Von Heister, seized on the village of Flat Bush, nearly opposite to Sullivan. At the same time, Sir Henry Clinton and Sir William Erskine reconnoitered Sullivan's position and the rest of the line of hills, and sent word to general Howe that it would not be difficult to turn Sullivan's position where the hills were low, near the village of Bedford. Howe immediately ordered lord Percy to support Clinton with his brigades, in the direction of Bedford, and general Grant to endeavour to turn the position of general Stirling, whilst the Hessians were ready to attack Sullivan in front. At a signal, Howe himself marched along with one of the divisions. In order to draw the enemy's attention from the movements of general Clinton, Grant made a direct attack upon Stirling's position, which brought to his aid a great part of Sullivan's forces, thus deserting their own ground. Grant maintained his attack till daylight, by which time Clinton had, by a slight skirmish, crossed the line on his side. The attention from his march was diverted by Yon Heister attacking Putnam's position on the direct way to Brooklyn, and lord Howe, from his ships opening a cannonade on Governor's Island and Red Hook, in the rear of that town. About eight o'clock came a fire from Clinton's column, which had now forced its way into the rear of Putnam and betwixt the Americans and Brooklyn. On this discovery they endeavoured to make a way to their lines before that town, but were driven back by Clinton only to find themselves assailed in the rear by Yon Heister. Thus hemmed in, they fled in confusion, some rushing into the woods, some managing to escape by the road near the sea side; but more of them were shot or knocked down by the German brigades; and numbers of them surrendered as prisoners.

This action in their rear alarmed both Sullivan and Stirling, yet they maintained their ground against Grant till they learned the total route of their comrades opposed to Clinton and Heister, when they laid down their arms and ran for it. Knowing the ground better than the British, many of them managed to escape to Brooklyn; but one thousand and ninety-seven prisoners were taken, and from one thousand two hundred to one thousand five hundred Americans were killed or wounded. Amongst those taken were generals Sullivan, Stirling, and Woodhull. The English lost only about four hundred killed and wounded.

Washington, who had witnessed the battle, saw, to his infinite mortification, the British pursuing his fugitive troops almost up to their entrenchments. The ardour of the English soldiers was such that they would speedily have stormed and carried the lines, and not a man of the American army on Long Island would have escaped being taken or killed. But general Howe, with that marvellous stupidity which marked all our generals in this war, ordered them back, saying that the lines could be taken with less loss of life by regular approach. He commanded them to secure themselves in the shelter of a hollow way till morning, where the balls of the American rifles whistled over their heads all night. The next morning they began throwing up trenches near one of the American redoubts, from which to cannonade it; but Washington was much more aware of the untenable nature of his position than Howe, and, under favour of darkness, and of a thick fog in the morning, he had been for hours busily transporting his forces over the East River to New York. All that day, and in the night of the 29th, he continued, with all possible silence, conveying over his troops, artillery, and stores, expecting every moment that general Howe would burst through his lines at Brooklyn, and attack him in the rear, whilst lord Howe, with his ships, would advance, and blow- all his fragile transports into the water. Nothing but the wonderful somnolence of stupidity which distinguished our generals, or the benumbing effect of that providence which intended the liberation of America, could have prevented this catastrophe.

When Washington saw his last guns and soldiers land in New York, he must equally have wondered at his own folly, which induced him to put half his forces in Long Island, capable of being surrounded by the English fleet and army, and their folly, which allowed him to leave it again in freedom.

The people of both Staten Island and Long Island received the British with great joy. They accepted the terms of Lord Howe's proclamation; and Washington himself wrote to governor Trumbull: "I am sorry to say that, from the best information we have been able to obtain, the people on Long Island have, since our evacuation, gone generally over to the enemy, and made such concessions as have been required; some through compulsion, I suppose, but more from inclination."

Such was the defection, not only in New York, where the greater bulk of the inhabitants were favourable to British rule, but on both sides of the Hudson, in New Jersey, as well as in New York, that Washington saw there was no maintaining his position there. He found the British fast inclosing him on all sides, too; and on the 12th of September he began to evacuate the place in such haste as to leave behind him a great quantity of his artillery and stores. The English landed on York Island without the loss of a man. Three thousand men had placed themselves ready to attack the British as they landed, and before they could form; but the sight of two companies of grenadiers, already in position, had such an effect on them, that they fled, leaving their blankets and jackets, which they had thrown off in certainty of beating the English.

But scarcely were the English quartered in New York before they found that a number of incendiaries were lurking in the place, determined to burn it to the ground, and the English in it. It was the advice of general Greene to Washington to have done this before quitting the place, observing that " two-thirds of the property of the city and suburbs belong to the tories." The amiable John Jay, whom we have so recently seen expressing so tender a regard for the union with England, was still more destructive in his plans. " Had I been vested with absolute power in this state," he wrote, " I have often said, and I think still, that I would last spring have desolated all Long Island, Staten Island, the city and county of New York, and all that part of the county of West Chester which lies below the mountains." Fortunately for New York, the desires of her own children were prevented by the so-called cruel English.

Washington submitted the question of the conflagration of New York to congress, and congress humanely disapproved. But the incendiaries in the city had no such forbearance.

Howe had no sooner driven Washington's army beyond the eighth mile-stone, and taken possession of the place, when fires began to break out in all quarters. The incendiaries, who had prepared their combustibles, seized the opportunity of a brisk wind on the night of the 20th, at midnight, to set fire to the city in many places. The soldiers were roused by beat of drum; sailors were landed in all haste from the fleet, and every exertion was made to quell the flames, but they did not succeed till one-third of the city was destroyed. As the old English church fell, the Americans at Paulus Hook gave three cheers, that being a fine sight to the bigoted presbyterians. Some of the incendiaries were caught at their work, and either bayoneted on the spot, or thrown into the flames by the infuriated soldiery. Some American writers represent this as an act of stern patriotism; but when we recollect that the incendiaries were fierce New Englanders, who treated the New Yorkers as of a different blood and mode of faith, as well as for the most part royalists, we see more clearly why they desired to burn their neighbours' houses rather than their own.

To ascertain the designs of the English, Washington, at the suggestion of colonel Knowlton, dispatched Captain Hall, a young, enthusiastic Connecticut man, as a spy into the British camp. Hall was discovered, carried before general Howe, tried, and convicted as a spy, and immediately hanged. This fact no doubt afterwards steeled the mind of Washington in the case of major Andre.

On the morning of the 15th of September, British men- of-war ascended on both sides of York Island; a battery was erected on an island near Hill Gate, and thus stopped the further removal of stores by water. By means of this battery, which swept the whole island, and engrossed the attention of the Americans, and under cover of the fire of the men-of-war on the Hudson and the East Rivers, Clinton landed at Kipp's Bay, three miles above the city. Washington had thrown up works at this important point, and posted troops there; but these took to immediate flight, and two New England brigades, sent to support them, fled with equal rapidity without firing a shot. Washington, who had come up to view the ground, was left exposed to capture within eighty yards of the enemy. Washington is said to have opposed his person desperately to his flying troops; to have struck them, and snapped his pistol in their faces, but in vain. In his exasperation he flung his hat on the ground, exclaiming, " Are these the men with whom I am to defend America? " His attendants only prevented his being taken by the English by seizing his bridle and leading him from the spot.

Washington saw almost with despair the condition of the American army; any other man would have despaired of it altogether. He wrote to congress, that nothing could make soldiers trustworthy but longer terms of service; that, in fact, they ought to be engaged for the whole war, and subjected to a rigid and constant discipline. He complained that the soldiers were much bolder in plundering than fighting; and one of his officers observed that the Pennsylvanian and New England troops would as soon fight each other as the enemy. Iiis adjutant-general, Reed, declared that discipline was almost impossible amid such a levelling spirit as prevailed. One of his officers wrote that, " in the skirmish of the 18th I had the greatest escape I ever had from one of my own rascals, who was running away. Upon my driving him back, he presented his piece, and snapped at me at about a rod's distance. I seized a musket from another soldier and snapped at him. He has since been tried, and is under sentence of death; but I believe I must beg him off, as, after I found I could not get the gun off, I wounded him on the head, and cut off his thumb with my hanger."

" All the year," wrote Washington, " I have been pressing congress to delay no time in engaging men upon such terms as would insure success, telling them that, the longer it was delayed, the more difficult it would prove. But the measure was not commenced till too late to be effected; and then in such a manner as to bid adieu to every hope of getting an army from which any services are to be expected; the different states, without regard to the qualifications of an officer, quarrelling about the appointments, and nominating such as are not fit tobe shoeblacks, from the local attachments of this or that member of the assembly. I am wearied almost to death with the retrograde motion of things."

These startling facts made the congress begin in earnest to look out for foreign aid. In the meantime, it voted that the army should be reorganised with eighty-eight battalions, to be enlisted as soon as possible, and to serve during the war; each state to furnish its respective quota, and to name the officers as high as colonels. But Washington had soon to complain that they only voted, and did not carry the plan strenuously into action; that there was a mighty difference betwixt voting battalions and raising men.

On the flight of the battalions from Kipp's Bay, Washington ordered Putnam to fall back farther from the city, and to back up his position along Harlern Heights, where he fortified his camp in a rude way, having lines extending across York Island. Howe marched after him, and encamped in face of his lines, about a mile and a half from the Heights of Harlem, his right leaning on Horen's Hook, on the East River; his left on Bloomingdale, on the North River, stretching, in fact, across the island there, about two miles wide, the English ships occupying the rivers on each flank. In this position there occurred some skirmishing, in which the Americans stood their ground better, but lost two of their best officers, colonel Knowlton, of Connecticut, and major Leitch. The condition of Washington was inconceivably depressing. The time for the serving of the greater part of the troops was fast expiring; and numbers of them, spite of the circumstances of the country, went off. Whilst Washington was therefore exerting himself to prevail on them to continue, he was compelled to weaken his persuasions, by enforcing the strictest restraint on both soldiers and officers, who would plunder the inhabitants around them on the plea that they were tories. Sickness was in his camp; and his suffering men, instead of hospitals, were obliged to lie about in barns, stables, sheds, and even under the fences and bushes. He wrote again to congress on the 24th in a state of despair. He complained that the Sons of Liberty, who had boasted of flying by thousands to the salvation of their country, had soon cooled; that nothing but good pay would keep an army together. He called on them to place their army on a permanent footing; to give the officers such pay as should enable them to live as gentlemen, and not as mean plunderers, as they did. He recommended that not only a good bounty should be given to every non-commissioned officer and soldier, but the reward of a hundred or a hundred and fifty acres of land, a suit of clothes, and a blanket. Though congress were loth to comply with these terms, they soon found that they must do so, or their soldiers would go over to the royal army.