extricate his forces from their dangerous position immediately upon the defeat, his sudden and complete reversal of his decision to fight a battle behind his entrenchments. Our surprise at the delay of Lord Howe is lessened when we learn that, for much of the time, the wind and tide were insurmountable obstacles to his advance; but other causes weighed heavier than all the anchors in his fleet in detaining his ships from the passage between the batteries on Brooklyn Heights, and the heavy guns lining the New York shore. On the twenty-eighth of June, just two months before, another British admiral had led ten vessels of war, carrying two hundred and sixty guns, in the endeavor to force a passage past a wretched redoubt on Sullivan's Island, in Charleston harbor. The loss of two hundred men, and the bare escape of his half-foundering ships from entire destruction, had seemed to Sir Peter Parker but slightly compensated for by the trifling damage inflicted on the Palmetto fort, and by the killing and wounding of thirty-two rebels. A month before, five vessels, of the fleet now under Lord Howe's command, had sailed up the North River, past the distant batteries on Paulus' Hook, and at the foot of Hubert street. Favored as they were, by a brisk gale and a strong flood-tide, they had nevertheless not sped so fast as to prevent their being hulled several times in their passage. These events afforded no favorable presage for Lord Howe's fleet, in attempting to force its way into the East River. The influences which affected the mind of Gen. Howe, through the recollections of Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill, have already been referred to. But those which determined the judgment of Washington may claim a moment's attention. He had witnessed, from the redoubt on the summit of Ponkiesberg, the total rout of Stirling's division, and the slaughter of the Maryland battalion. To protect the disarmed and exhausted fugitives from utter annihilation, and secure the withdrawal of his artillery, it was necessary that fresh troops should be immediately brought to their relief. For the purpose of expediting the march of these reinforcements, he had crossed the river to New York, and ordered every regiment which could be spared from its defenses to Long Island. The urgent necessity for the presence of these troops in the Brooklyn lines was too apparent to allow hesitation, as nothing was more probable than an immediate assault upon the works. Indeed, so imminent was it believed to be, that Washington's personal attention was given to bringing forward the troops to resist it. He had paused long enough to assure himself that the attack on the exterior lines had been made by the entire British army, whose long columns, deploying into line of battle, could be seen by him from within his own lines. The presence of the British Commander-in-chief, and his Generals, indicated that every corps of the seventeen thousand men composing the invading force, was at length in the American front; and this was not only confirmed by the report of spies and fugitives, but was plainly revealed by the uniforms which distinguished them. The long lines of bright scarlet which stretched up the hills through the woods, now appearing in rank across the cleared fields, and now hidden by the dense foliage, marked the presence of Percy, and Cornwallis, with the grenadiers and infantry. Further to the south, on the hills above the Porte Road, heavy masses of men, in blue uniforms, faced with red, made it equally certain that De Heister and his eight thousand Hessians were overlooking the feeble lines. Two miles to the right, at Gowanus, the force under Gen. Grant, which through the fatal night of the twentysixth had made such threatening demonstrations, and against whose delusive attacks Lord Stirling had all the morning breasted his feeble corps, menacingly rested on its arms. Close on the American left hung the strong reserve of Robertson, momentarily threatening assault. Thus Washington was certified of the presence of four heavy columns of the enemy, which had girt his army around as with a wall of steel. On front and flanks they thronged, with all the dread enginery of war; the hills, which overlooked and governed his position, were crowned with their batteries; and the woods and fields in his front swarmed with the squadrons which had overwhelmed onehalf his force, and now held the ground on which two thousand of his soldiers were perishing with their wounds, or already silent in death. But even from these sad events, and these ominous tokens of the future, the mind of Washington derived a knowledge which lightened the gloom that to every other mind seemed impenetrable. No more indubitable evidence of the greatness and calmness of his intellect is needed, than the confident decision it formed on the instant of overwhelming disaster. Even 1 |