During the early summer of 1776 the American forces were actively engaged upon a work of great magnitude, which it was hoped would prevent the British vessels ascending the Hudson. The project was the blocking, by means of sunken vessels filled with stone,[1] of the narrowest portion of the deep channel of the river. This was, and still is, the waterway extending between what is now known as Fort Washington Point, about 178th street, then called Jeffrey’s Hook, and the foreshore below the Palisades about due west of the Point, under Fort Lee. Both sides were more or less protected by guns mounted in the earthworks of Fort Washington and Fort Constitution, the extent and character of which were not well known to the British commanders, though they seem to have been kept pretty well informed by treacherous informers of the progress of the work of obstructing the channel with the sunken vessels, from the decks of which protruded masts or sharpened poles, forming a rough “chevaux-de-frise,” a dangerous form of obstruction for wooden vessels propelled by tide and wind. During all the spring and early summer the British naval force in the waters around New York was represented by two very active vessels, the sixty-four-gun man-of-war _Asia_, Captain George Vandeput, and the forty-four-gun frigate _Phœnix_, commanded by an able and energetic officer, Sir Hyde Parker, Jr., son of a well-known commander of the same name, who had already done good service for his king. On June 30, the advance guard of the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Molyneux Shuldham, Rear-Admiral of the White, arrived at New York from Halifax. His flagship was the _Chatham_, of fifty guns and with her was her consort, the _Centurion_, also of fifty, and the twenty gun frigate _Rose_, which took a very active part in later affairs. By the first week of July the force under Shuldham had increased to fifty-four armed vessels of all ratings, aggregating about 1200 guns in broadside, with fully eighty supply vessels and transports laden with troops under the command of General Howe, who had made the journey from Halifax in the frigate _Greyhound_, of thirty guns. On the 7th of July, while messengers from Philadelphia were bearing the news of the Declaration of Independence to New York, Governor Tryon and Howe were consulting aboard the _Greyhound_ as to the expediency of sending a naval force up the North River in order to obstruct the supplies of the Americans. Action on this scheme was evidently deferred pending the expected arrival of Admiral Lord Howe, the general’s brother, with a powerful addition to the fleet. No sooner was the arrival of this force announced by its advance guard than a squadron was ordered up the North River in a bold attempt to force their way past the obstructions at Fort Washington.