y-one, thirty-three of which were held as a reserve for field
service, "to be run where the enemy shall make their greatest
efforts." The mortars were nineteen in number.

As for barricades, the city was full of them. Some were built of
mahogany logs taken from West India cargoes. Not a street leading to
the water on either side that was not obstructed in this manner; so
that, had the enemy been able to gain a footing in the city under the
fire of their ships, they would still have found it, to use Lee's
expression, "a disputable field of battle." The City Hall Park was
almost entirely inclosed. There was a barrier across Broadway in front
of St. Paul's Church, another at the head of Vesey Street, and others
at the head of Barclay, Murray, and Warren. On the Park Row or Chatham
Street side a barricade stretched across Beekman Street; another, in
the shape of a right angle, stood in Printing House Square, one face
opposite Spruce Street, the other looking across the Presbyterian
churchyard and Nassau Street;[62] another ran across Frankfort
Street; another at the entrance of Centre Street; and still another
near it, facing Chatham Street.

[Footnote 62: One side of this barricade ran in front of the _Times_,
and the other in front of the _Tribune_ building.]

Another element in the defence was a motley little fleet, made up of
schooners, sloops, row-galleys, and whale-boats, and placed under the
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Tupper,[63] who had
distinguished himself by a naval exploit or two in Boston Harbor
during the siege. Crews were drafted from the regiments and assigned
to the various craft, whose particular mission was to scour the waters
along the New Jersey and Long Island coast, to watch for the British
fleets, and prevent communication between the Tories and the enemy's
ships already lying in the harbor. Tupper, as commodore, appears first
in the sloop Hester as his flag-ship, and later in the season in the
Lady Washington, while among his fleet were to be found the Spitfire,
General Putnam, Shark, and Whiting. The gallant commodore's earliest
cruises were made within the Narrows, along the Staten Island shore,
and as far down as Sandy Hook, where he attempted the feat of
destroying the light-house. But he found this structure, which the
enemy had occupied since Major Malcom dismantled it in March, a hard
piece of masonry to reduce. He attacked it confidently, June 21st,
after demanding its surrend