The Defence of New York, i 'J'j6.
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��pluck. In a previous paper, the siege itself has been presented as that oppor- tunity and training-school exercise which projected its experience into the entire war, and assured final triumph. It has not been as generally accepted, as both philosophical and necessary, that the fortification and defence of Brooklyn became the wise and in- evitable sequence to that siege.
Let us drop a century and handle the old records.
If Great Britain had not called con- tinental auxiliaries to her aid in 1776, her disposable force for colonial service would have been less than half of the army of Washington.
Until the fortification of Brooklyn and New York had been well advanced, the British ministry had not been able to assign even fifteen thousand men for that service. General Clinton did, indeed, anchor at the New York Nar- rows, just when General Charles Lee reached that city for its defence, but did not risk a landing, and sailed for South Carolina, only to be repulsed.
The British Crown had no alternative but to seek foreign aid. The appeal to Catharine of Russia for twenty thou- sand men was met by the laconic resporise, "There are other ways of settling this dispute than by resort to arms." The Duke of Richmond pro- phetically declared, " The colonies themselves, after our example, will apply to strangers for assistance." The opposition to hiring foreign troops was so intense, that, for many weeks, there was no practical advance in prepara- tions for a really effective blow at the rebels, while the rebellion itself was daily gaining head and spirit.
The British army, just before the battle of Long Island, including Hes- sians, Brunswickers, and Waldeckers,
��was but a little larger than that which the American Congress, as early as October 4, 1775. had officially assigned to the siege operations before Boston. That force was fixed at twenty-three thousand, three hundred and seventy- two men. General Howe landed about twenty thousand men. With the sick, the reserves on Staten Island, all officers and supernumeraries included, his en- tire force exhibited a paper strength of thirty-one thousand, six hundred and twenty-five men. It is true that Gen- eral Howe claimed, after the battle of Long Island, that his entire force (Hessians included) was only twenty- four thousand men, and that Washing- ton opposed the advance of his division with twenty thousand men. The British muster rolls, as exhibited before the British Parliament, accord with the statement already made. The actual force of the American army at Brook- lyn was not far from nine thousand men, instead of twenty thousand, and the effective force (New York included) was only about twenty thousand men. As the British regiments brought but six, instead of eight, companies to a battalion, there is evidence that Wash- ington himself occasionally over-esti- mated the British force proper ; but the foreign battalions realized their full force, and they were paid accordingly, upon their muster rolls. Nearly three fifths of General Howe's army was made up from continental mercenaries. These troops arrived in detachments, to supplement the army which other- wise would have been entirely unequal to the conquest of New York, if the city were fairly defended.
If, on the other hand, Washington had secured the force which he de- manded from Congress, namely, fifty- eight thousand men, which was, indeed
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