length, and within it stood
magazines, barracks, and, until destroyed by fire, the mansion of the
colonial governors. For additional security, about the time of the
French war, an extensive stone battery, with merlons of cedar joists,
had been built just below the fort along the water's edge, enclosing
the point from river to river, and pierced for ninety-one pieces of
cannon.[9]

[Footnote 9: The site of Fort George is now covered in part by the
buildings at the west corner of the Bowling Green block, where the
steamship companies have their offices. South and west of this point
the Battery is almost entirely made-land. (Compare Ratzer's map of
1767 with the maps recently compiled by the New York Dock Department.)
As to other old defences of the city, Wm. Smith, the historian,
writing about 1766, says: "During the late war a line of palisadoes
was run from Hudson's to the East River, at the other end of the city
[near the line of Chambers street], with block-houses at small
distances. The greater part of these still remain as a monument of our
folly, which cost the province about L8000."]

At this period, the city represented a growth of one hundred and sixty
years. Give it a population of twenty-five thousand souls[10]--more
rather than less--and line its streets with four thousand buildings,
and we have its census statistics approximately. The linear
characteristics of the old town are still sharply preserved. Upon the
west side, the principal streets running to the North River--Chambers,
Warren, Murray, Barclay, Vesey, Dey, and Cortlandt--retain their names
and location; but the water-line was then marked by Greenwich street.
The present crowded section to the west of it, including Washington
and West streets and the docks, is built on new ground, made within
the century. Behind Trinity Church, and as far down as the Battery,
the shore rose to a very considerable bluff. Necessarily, much the
greater part of the city then lay east of Broadway. The irregular
streets to be found on this side are relics of both the Dutch and
English foundation; of their buildings, however, as they stood in
1776, scarcely one remains at the present time. New streets have been
built on the East River as well as on the North, materially changing
the water boundary of this part of the island. Front and South streets
had no existence at that date. On the line of Wall street, the city
has nearly doubled in width since the Revolution.

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