An English officer of the guards, writing from camp on the same day, varies the rumor. The Pennsylvanians, according to his version, joined with the New Englanders in the project to set fire to the town; both had a battle with the New Yorkers on the subject, and then withdrew themselves from the city—which, “with other favorable circumstances,” gave the latter writer a lively “hope that this distressful business would soon be brought to a happy issue.” Another letter gives a different version. “In the night of the 2d instant, three persons escaped from the city in a canoe and informed our general that Mr. Washington had ordered three battalions of New York Provincials to leave New York, and that they should be replaced by an equal number of Connecticut troops; but the former, assured that the Connecticutians would burn and destroy all the houses, peremptorily refused to give up their city, declaring that no cause of exigency whatever should induce them to intrust the defence of it to any other than her own inhabitants. This spirited and stubborn resolution prevailed over the order of their commander, and the New Yorkers continue snugly in possession of the place.”[104] “Matters go on swimmingly,” writes another officer. “I don’t doubt the next news we send you, is, that New York is ours, though in ashes, for the rebel troops have vowed to put it in flames if the tory troops get over.” An American officer writes to an absent New Yorker, in a different tone. “I fear we shall evacuate your poor city. The very thought gives me the horrors!” Still he indulges a vague hope of succor from General Lee, who was returning, all glorious, from his successes at the South. “General Lee,” writes he, “is hourly expected, as if from heaven,—with a legion of flaming swordsmen.” It was, however, what Lee himself would have termed a mere _brutum fulmen_. These letters show the state of feeling in the opposite camps, at this watchful moment, when matters seemed hurrying to a crisis. On the night of Monday (Sept. 2d), a forty gun ship, taking advantage of a favorable wind and tide, passed between Governor’s Island and Long Island, swept unharmed by the batteries which opened upon her, and anchored in Turtle Bay, above the city. In the morning, Washington dispatched Major Crane of the artillery, with two twelve-pounders and a howitzer to annoy her from the New York shore. They hulled her several times, and obliged her to take shelter behind Blackwell’s Island. Several other ships of war, with transports and store-ships, had made their appearance in the upper part of the Sound, having gone round Long Island.