One other circumstance is to be noticed in regard to this Jamaica Pass. General Sullivan, subsequently referring to his connection with this battle, claimed that while he was in sole command he paid horsemen out of his own purse to patrol the road, and that he predicted the approach of the enemy by that road. Whatever inferences may be drawn from this is not now to the point; but we have the fact that upon the evening of the 26th he exercised the same authority he had exercised in making other details, and sent out a special patrol of five commissioned officers to watch the Jamaica Pass. Three of these officers belonged to Colonel Lasher's New York City battalion--Adjutant Jeronimus Hoogland and Lieutenants Robert Troup and Edward Dunscomb; and the other two were Lieutenant Gerrit Van Wagenen, a detached officer of McDougall's old regiment, and a Lieutenant Gilliland, who with Van Wagenen had crossed to Long Island, as a volunteer. What part this patrol played in the incidents of the following morning will presently appear. Thus on the night of the 26th the American outposts stretched along the hills from the harbor to the Jamaica Pass, with unguarded intervals, a distance of more than six miles, while in the plains below lay the enemy, nearly ten times their number, ready to fall upon them with "a sudden and violent" shock. During the night one change was made in the picket guard. Colonel Hand's riflemen, who had been on almost constant duty since the arrival of the British, were relieved at two o'clock in the morning by a detachment from the flying camp, which may have been a part of Hay's and Kachlein's men, and returning to the lines, dropped down to sleep.[128] [Footnote 128: Hand's letter of August 27th: "I escaped my part by being relieved at 2 o'clock this morning." (Document 12.) See John Ewing's letter and sketch.] * * * * * If we leave our outposts now upon the hills and pass into the enemy's camp on the plain below, we shall find them on the eve of carrying out a great plan of attack. The four days since the 22d had been given to preparation. On the 25th, Lieutenant-General De Heister crossed from Staten Island with the two Hessian brigades of Von Stirn and Von Mirbach, leaving behind Von Lossberg's brigade, with some detachments and recruits, for the security of that island. With this addition, Howe's force on Long Island was swelled to a total of about twenty-one thousand officers and men, fit for duty and in the best condition for active service.[129] As disposed on the 26th, the army lay with the Hessians and the reserves under Cornwallis at Flatbush, the main body under Clinton and Percy massed at Flatlands, and Grant's division of the fourth and sixth brigades nearer the Narrows.