rous garrison in New York to meet a
direct attack on the place, and detached only some 9,000 men under
Putnam to Long Island. They were for the most part posted so as to hold
a belt of wooded hills lying between their lines and the royal army.
During the night of the 26th Howe outflanked them and brought his main
body to a position on their rear. The next day an attack was made on
their front; they were caught between two divisions of the king's troops
and were defeated. Howe put their loss at 3,300, which is certainly an
overestimate, though he made nearly 1,100 prisoners, among them the
generals Sullivan and Lord Stirling, as the Americans called him, an
unsuccessful claimant of that earldom.[113] The British casualties were
377. The Americans retreated within their inner lines. If Howe had
allowed his troops to storm their entrenchments he would probably have
destroyed or taken the whole force on the island. He considered,
however, that the lines could in a few days be taken "at a very cheap
rate" by regular approaches, and decided not to risk the loss of any
more men.[114] He let his opportunity slip, and on the night of the 29th
Washington, helped by a fog, cleverly withdrew his troops across the
river.

[Sidenote: _NEW YORK TAKEN._]

Lord Howe took advantage of the American defeat to invite congress to
send some of its members to confer with him unofficially as to possible
terms of peace. Congress, though it refused to sanction any unofficial
negotiations, sent commissioners from its own body to confer with him.
Nothing came of the conference, for the American commissioners would not
treat except on the basis of independence. On September 15 the British
army descended on Manhattan Island, on which New York stands, and the
American militia fled in disorder. The British took possession of New
York and of sixty-six of the enemy's guns. If Howe's movements had been
more prompt he might have cut off a large number of the enemy; he is
said to have wasted time by lingering over luncheon at the house of the
mother of Lindley Murray, the grammar-writer, who detained him by her
crafty hospitality. Washington drew off his troops to Haarlem heights,
in the northern part of the island. The next day there was some
skirmishing in which the Americans held their ground. The loyalists of
New York had been shamefully treated by the dominant faction, and the
British were received with joy.[115] A few days later a large part of
the