nt of troops, on both sides of the Hudson, was
designed to cover an expedition against Little Egg Harbor, on the east
coast of New Jersey, a noted rendezvous of American privateers. Three
hundred regular troops, and a body of royalist volunteers from the
Jerseys, headed by Captain Patrick Ferguson, embarked at New York on
board galleys and transports, and made for Little Egg Harbor under
convoy of vessels of war. They were long at sea. The country heard of
their coming; four privateers put to sea and escaped; others took
refuge up the river. The wind prevented the transports from entering.
The troops embarked in row galleys and small craft, and pushed twenty
miles up the river to the village of Chestnut Neck. Here were
batteries without guns, prize ships which had been hastily scuttled,
and storehouses for the reception of prize goods. The batteries and
storehouses were demolished, the prize ships burnt, saltworks
destroyed, private dwellings sacked and laid in ashes; all, it was
pretended, being the property of persons concerned in privateering.

The vessels which brought this detachment being wind-bound for several
days, Captain Ferguson had time for another enterprise. Among the
forces detached by Washington into the Jerseys to check these ravages,
was the Count Pulaski's legionary corps, composed of three companies
of foot, and a troop of horse, officered principally by foreigners. A
deserter from the corps brought word to the British commander that the
legion was cantoned about twelve miles up the river; the infantry in
three houses by themselves; Count Pulaski with the cavalry at some
distance apart. Informed of these circumstances, Captain Ferguson
embarked in boats with two hundred and fifty men, ascended the river
in the night, landed at four in the morning, and surrounded the houses
in which the infantry were sleeping. "It being a night attack," says
the captain in his official report, "little quarter of course could be
given, _so there were only five prisoners_." Fifty of the infantry
were butchered on the spot: among whom were two of the foreign
officers, the Baron de Bose and Lieutenant de la Broderie. The
clattering of hoofs gave note of the approach of Pulaski and his
horse, whereupon the British made a rapid retreat to their boats and
pulled down the river, and thus ended the marauding expedition of
Captain Ferguson, worthy of the times of the buccaneers.

The detachment on the east side of the Hudson l