every kind, are taken without distinction, and without the least satisfaction. Troops are filing off from hence as fast as our circumstances and situation will admit, in order to be transported over the river with all expedition.” The next day general Greene answered—“Sir, upon the whole I cannot help thinking the garrison (at Fort Washington) is of advantage; and I cannot conceive it to be in any great danger; the men can be brought off at any time, but the stores may not be so easily removed; yet I think they can be got off in spite of the enemy, if matters grow desperate. This post is of no importance only in conjunction with Mount Washington. I was ever there the last evening, and the enemy seem to be disposing matters to besiege the place; but colonel Magaw thinks it will take them till December expires before they can carry it. If the enemy do not find it an object of importance, they will not trouble themselves about it; if they do, it is a full proof they feel an injury from our possessing it. Our giving it up will open a free communication with the country, by way of Kingsbridge, that must be a great advantage to them and injury to us.” [Nov. 12.] Within a few days gen. Washington crossed the North-River with a part of his army, and stationed himself in the neighborhood of Fort Lee. The troops left at Northcastle, under general Lee [Nov. 14.] were 7500 strong, including the 3000 militia of general Lincoln’s division (whose time of service ended on the 17th) and 1700 of general Fellows’s brigade (whose service ended on the 1st of December.) As the dissolution of the army was approaching apace with the end of the year, gen. Washington applied to the Massachusetts for 4000 men, militia. [Nov. 16.] Gen. Lee addressed the old, under Lincoln, and conjured the officers and soldiers, as they regarded the sacred cause in which they were engaged, to continue in their present posts a few days longer, till Thursday at the most, assuring them it was of the last importance. But they were not to be prevailed upon, though their own commander urged a compliance to the utmost of his power. All except general Lincoln and about 150 privates, went off the next day. Mean while the royal army approached Fort Washington, and on the 15th general Howe summoned the commanding officer to surrender, who answered, that he would defend himself to the last extremity. General Washington received an account of the summons at Hackinsack, immediately repaired to Fort Lee, and had partly crossed the North-River, when he met generals Putnam and Greene, who were just returning from thence, and informed him that the troops were in high spirits, and would make a good defence; it being late at night, he returned. Now was the moment for withdrawing the garrison, and one would think, that as the attack was fixed for the next day, gen. Howe designed by the summons, that it should be taken on the approaching night, and wished by that mean to save the men that he would otherwise