to the Hudson River, and presently we
hear of it as being on a certain night, late in August, ready to start
on its perilous enterprise.

If you will go to-day and stand where the Turtle floated that night
(for the land has since that time grown outward into the sea), on your
right hand across the Hudson River, you will see New Jersey. At your
left, across the East River, Long Island begins, with the beautiful
Governor's Island in the bay just before you, and, looking to the
southward, in the distance, you will discern Staten Island.

Let us go back to that day and hour.

The precise date of the Turtle's voyage down the bay is not given, but
the time must have been on the night of either the thirtieth or
thirty-first of August. We will choose the thirtieth, and imagine
ourselves standing in the crowd by the side of Generals Washington and
Putnam, to see the machine start.

Remember, now, where we stand. It is only _last_ night that _our_
army, defeated, dispirited, exhausted by battle, lay across the river
on Brooklyn Heights. Behind it, busy with pickaxe and shovel, the
victorious troops of Mother England were making ready to "finish" the
Americans on the morrow.

There were supposed to be twenty-four thousand of the enemy, only nine
thousand Continentals; and, just ready to enter East River and cut
them off from New York, lay the British fleet to the north of Staten
Island.

As happened at Boston in March, so happened it last night in New York,
a friendly fog held the heights of Brooklyn in its grasp, while at New
York all was clear.

Under cover of this fog General Washington withdrew across the river,
a mile or more in width, _nine thousand men_, with all their
"baggage, stores, provisions, horses, and munitions of war," and not a
man of the enemy knew that they were gone until the fog lifted.

Now, as we stand, Long Island, Governor's Island, Staten Island, one
and all are under the control of Britons.

David Bushnell is in a whale-boat, down close to the Turtle, giving
some last important words of direction to brave Ezra Lee, who has
stepped within it. David Bushnell could not help wishing, as he did
so, that he could take his place and guide the spirit of the child of
his own creation, in its first great encounter with the world.

The word is given. The brass top of the Turtle is shut down. Watchful
eyes and swift rowers belonging to the enemy are keeping guard on
Governor's Island, by which Ezra Lee