called Manhattan, the city of
New York was then confined.

As both the East and North rivers were navigable for large ships,
the former throughout, the latter for over a hundred miles above its
mouth, it was evident that control of the water must play a large
part in warlike operations throughout the district described. With the
limited force at Washington's disposal, he had been unable to push the
defences of the city as far to the front as was desirable. The
lower Bay was held by the British Navy, and Staten Island had been
abandoned, necessarily, without resistance, thereby giving up the
strong defensive position of the Narrows. The lines were contracted
thus to the immediate neighbourhood of New York itself. Small detached
works skirted the shores of Manhattan Island, and a line of redoubts
extended across it, following the course of a small stream which then
partly divided it, a mile from the southern end. Governor's Island was
also occupied as an outpost. Of more intrinsic strength, but not at
first concerned, strong works had been thrown up on either side of the
North River, upon commanding heights eight miles above New York, to
dispute the passage of ships.

The crucial weakness in this scheme of defence was that the shore of
Long Island opposite the city was much higher than that of Manhattan.
If this height were seized, the city, and all below it, became
untenable. Here, therefore, was the key of the position and the chief
station for the American troops. For its protection a line of works
was thrown up, the flanks of which rested upon Wallabout Bay and
Gowanus Cove, two indentations in the shores of Long Island. These
Washington manned with nine thousand of the eighteen thousand men
under his command. By the arrival of three divisions of Hessian
troops, Howe's army now numbered over thirty-four thousand men, to
which Clinton brought three thousand more from before Charleston.[16]

On the 22d of August the British crossed from Staten Island to
Gravesend Bay, on the Long Island shore of the Narrows. The Navy
covered the landing, and the transportation of the troops was under
the charge of Commodore William Hotham, who, nineteen years later,
was Nelson's commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. By noon fifteen
thousand men and forty field-guns had been carried over and placed on
shore. The force of the Americans permitted little opposition to the
British advance; but General Howe was cautious and easy-going,