New York bore a prominent part in the resistance of the colonies to the aggressions of the mother country, and in spite of the efforts of her royalist Governor and the presence of a large number of Tories, responded cordially to the call of the colonies for men and money during the war. On the 14th of April, 1776, the city was occupied by the American army, the British force stationed there being obliged to withdraw. On the 26th of August, 1776, the battle of Long Island having been lost by the Americans, New York was occupied by the British, who held it until the close of the war. It suffered very much at their hands. Nearly all the churches, except the Episcopal, were used by them as prisons, riding schools, and stables; and the schools and colleges were closed. On the 21st of September, 1776, a fire destroyed 493 houses, including Trinity Church--all the west side of Broadway from Whitehall to Barclay street, or about one-eighth of the city; and on the 7th of August 1778, about 300 buildings on East River were burned. The winter of 1779-80 was very severe; there was a beaten track for sleighs and wagons across the Hudson; the ice in that river being strong enough to bear a horse and man as late as the 17th of March; eighty sleighs, with provisions, and a large body of troops, crossed on the ice from the city to Staten Island. On the 25th of November, 1783, the British evacuated the city, which was at once occupied by the American army. In 1785 the first Federal Congress met in the City Hall, which stood at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, and on the 30th of April, 1789, George Washington was inaugurated first President of the United States on the same spot. By 1791 New York had spread to the lower end of the present City Hall Park, the site of the new Post Office, and was extending along the Boston road, or Bowery, and Broadway. In 1799, the Manhattan Company for supplying the city with fresh water was chartered. On the 20th of September, 1803, the cornerstone of the City Hall was laid. The city fathers, sagely premising that New York would never pass this limit, ordered the rear wall of the edifice to be constructed of brown stone, to save the expense of marble. Free schools were opened in 1805. In the same year the yellow fever raged with violence, and had the effect of extending the city by driving the population up the island, where many of them located themselves permanently. In 1807, Robert Fulton navigated the first steamboat from New York to Albany.