While the campaign on land was confined to the surprise of posts and desultory expeditions, the Connecticut cruisers, with their whaleboats and other small craft, seriously inconvenienced and distressed the British army and the loyalist city of New York, by intercepting and taking almost every vessel that came upon their waters, and in preventing any intercourse with Long Island, whence the supplies of the army and city were principally sent. To put a stop to this annoyance, as well as to make a most severe retaliation, Sir Henry Clinton ordered ex-governor Tryon, now a general officer, to embark with about 2,600 men. On July 5th, the fleet reached New Haven, which was plundered and the fort with everything available for naval or military purposes destroyed; but the town was spared because the inhabitants made but small resistance. Fairfield and Norwalk, however, two other ports having a stronger military force, fared much worse; both towns, together with Greenfield, a village near Norwalk, were set on fire and everything of value destroyed. The loss which the Americans sustained in this predatory expedition was very great; besides houses and other property, shipping of all kinds with stores and merchandise were destroyed totally. After these devastations on the mainland, he was proceeding to Long Island, intending to make a descent on New London, when he was suddenly recalled. Whether he had exceeded the orders of Clinton in these outrages, or whether his forces were required in another direction, of which we shall speak anon, is not known; but probably the former cause had some influence, for Tryon deemed it necessary to excuse the fires and destruction which marked his career, by a letter to the general, in which he said that the Americans, or _usurpers_, as he called them, placed their hopes of securing the empire by avoiding decisive actions, and in the escape of their own property during the protraction of the war. Their power, he said, was supported by the dread of their tyranny and the arts which they practised to inspire the credulous public with confidence in the forbearance of the royal forces. It had been his wish, therefore, to detect this delusion, and that without injury to the loyalists. All that he regretted was that places of worship were burnt; but these, he said, being built of boards and standing among the houses, could not be preserved, it being impossible to fix limits to a conflagration.