Spite of the flattering assurances of support which the naval and military commanders received from the loyalist inhabitants of Virginia, and which were eagerly reported by them to Sir Henry Clinton, and spite of the advantages which they urged would accrue to the royalist cause by converting Portsmouth into a place of arms, and thus destroying the trade of the Chesapeake, Sir Henry issued orders of recall; and the fleet and the army having fired the storehouses and dock-yard buildings of Gosport, set sail with their booty and prizes, and reached New York within a month of their setting sail. The British troops were needed to assist in an attack on the American works, situated at Stony and Verplank’s Points, two opposite projections on the Hudson, about forty miles north of New York, and highly important to the Americans, as commanding a ferry, the loss of which would oblige them to make a detour of ninety miles through the mountains, to communicate with the eastern and southern provinces. To prevent the completion of these works, therefore, Sir Henry Clinton undertook an expedition in person, which set out on the last day of May. His first object of attack was Stony Point on the west bank of the river, which being unfinished and incapable of defence was evacuated at his approach. Cannon placed on the heights of Stony Point unfortunately commanded Verplank’s Point, on which a little fortress called La Fayette was just completed, and this being invested from the land side also was compelled, after a brave resistance, to surrender. These important works being secured, Clinton ordered them immediately to be completed, and on the 2nd of June encamped his army at Philipsburg, half-way between Verplank’s Point and New York; and Washington, in order the better to cover the yet unfinished works of the Americans in the Highlands, which were endangered by the garrisons of these conquered posts, removed his army from Middlebrook to New Jersey.