enforcement of the ministerial policy they could eventually
compel a change in that policy, and enjoy all that they demanded under
the British constitution. Towards the close of the year, however, when
the intelligence came that the king had ignored the last petition from
Congress, and had proposed extreme war measures, the colonists felt
that serious work was before them. Independence now began to be more
generally discussed; Washington's troops were re-enlisted for service
through the following year, and Congress took further steps for the
common defence.

Future military operations were necessarily dependent on the plans to
be developed by the British. But as the siege of Boston progressed, it
became obvious that that point at least could not be made a base for
the ensuing campaign. No other was more likely to be selected by the
enemy than New York; and to New York the war finally came.

The topography of this new region, the transfer to it of the two
armies, and the preparations made for its defence by the Americans,
next claim attention.

CHAPTER II.

FORTIFYING NEW YORK AND BROOKLYN.

New York City, in 1776, lay at the end of Manhattan Island, in shape
somewhat like an arrow-head, with its point turned towards the sea and
its barbs extended at uneven lengths along the East and Hudson rivers.
It occupied no more space than is now included within the five lower
and smallest of its twenty-four wards. Excepting a limited district
laid out on the east side, in part as far as Grand street, the entire
town stood below the line of the present Chambers street, and covered
an area less than one mile square. Then, as now, Broadway was its
principal thoroughfare. Shaded with rows of trees, and lined mainly
with residences, churches, and public-houses, it stretched something
more than a mile to the grounds of the old City Hospital, near Duane
street. Its starting-point was the Battery at the end of the island,
but not the Battery of to-day; for, under the system of "harbor
encroachments," the latter has more than trebled in size, and is
changed both in its shape and its uses. The city defences at that time
occupied the site. Here at the foot of Broadway old Fort George had
been erected upon the base of the older Fort Amsterdam, to guard the
entrance to the rivers, and with its outworks was the only protection
against an attack by sea. It was a square bastioned affair, with walls
of stone, each face eighty feet in