The elaborate caution with which the British commander now proceeded stands out in striking contrast with the temerity of his advance upon Bunker Hill in the preceding year. He spent four days in reconnoitring, and then he sent his brother, with part of the fleet, to make a feint upon New York, and occupy Washington's attention. Before daybreak of the 27th, under the cover of this feint, the British advance had been nearly completed. General Grant, with the Highland regiments, advanced along the coast road, where the American outposts were held by William Alexander of New Jersey, commonly known as Lord Stirling, from a lapsed Scotch earldom to which he had claimed the title. The Hessians, under General von Heister, proceeded along the Bedford and Flatbush roads, which were defended by Sullivan; while more than half of the army, under Howe in person, accompanied by Clinton, Percy, and Cornwallis, accomplished a long night march by the Jamaica road, in order to take the Americans in flank. This long flanking march was completed in perfect secrecy because the people of the neighbourhood were in sympathy with the British, and it encountered no obstacles because the American force was simply incapable of covering so much territory. The divisions of Stirling and Sullivan contained the 5,000 men which were all that Putnam could afford to send forward from his works. A patrol which watched the Jamaica road was captured early in the morning, but it would not in any case have been possible to send any force there which could materially have hindered the British advance. Overwhelming superiority in numbers enabled the British to go where they pleased, and the battle was already virtually won when they appeared on the Jamaica road in the rear of the village of Bedford. Scarcely had the fight begun on the crest of the hill between Sullivan and the Hessians in his front when he found himself assaulted in the rear. Thrown into confusion, and driven back and forth through the woods between two galling fires, his division was quickly routed, and nearly all were taken prisoners, including the general himself. On the coast road the fight between Stirling and Grant was the first in which Americans had ever met British troops in open field and in regular line of battle. Against the sturdy Highland regiments Stirling held his ground gallantly for four hours, until he was in turn assaulted in the rear by Lord Cornwallis, after the rout of Sullivan. It now became, with Stirling, simply a question of saving his division from capture, and after a desperate fight this end was accomplished, and the men got back to Brooklyn Heights, though the brave Stirling himself was taken prisoner. In this noble struggle the highest honours were won by the brigade of Maryland men commanded by Smallwood, and throughout the war we shall find this honourable distinction of Maryland for the personal gallantry of her troops fully maintained,