Before doing anything else, the General's custom during his morning's ride was to look at the batteries near his house, known then as Fort George and Grand Battery. The former was a regular fortification, and the latter mounted 94 guns. They were situated where the Castle Garden— for the reception of emigrants—and the South Ferry House now stand. They commanded the river between New York and Brooklyn heights, and New York and Staten Island. The fortifications on Brooklyn heights, especially Fort Stirling, had been immensely strengthened by General Pattison, and not a point on New York Island was left unarmed by him. He availed himself of many breast-works and trenches, and of large works like Fort Independence, which the Americans had built when they contemplated the defence, instead of the evacuation of New York: and he strengthened them in the most laborious and efficient manner. To his efforts more than any other's, was the fact due that the City remained unmolested during the whole war. His labours and duties were enormous. His command being co- extensive with the North American continent, he would one day receive demands for powder and guns from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the next day from Florida, or from Captain Traille in Virginia. Captain Traille was one of those men to be met with even now in the Artillery, a man with a grievance. He had been made _local_ Major, and had applied without success to have the rank made substantive. He took his revenge out of the Government by demanding stores in the wildest manner. The first thing he always did on arriving at a new station was to send in requisitions, as if he were going to fortify Gibraltar. The soreness on Captain Traille's part appears in other ways in the records of the time. A young gentleman, named Black, who, according to the custom in those days, had carried arms in his company with great distinction, refused a commission in the Artillery offered him by the Master-General, and accepted one instead in Lord Rawdon's New York Volunteers. It is easy to imagine the lad going to his Captain for advice, and finding him brooding over the unfortunate Majority, or calculating how next to worry the authorities with store-demands. And having imagined this, it is not difficult to imagine what the Captain's advice would be. While talking of stores, it is worthy of mention that at one time so heavy had been the demands on the General from out-stations, particularly from Halifax, which was reduced to barely seven rounds a gun, that there were only 476 barrels of powder left in the whole city and district of New York, under British rule. There was, as is apparent from contemporary correspondence, not a little anxiety on the subject in the Commandant's office.