“Then why have all the troops been sent here instead of elsewhere?” Abraham asked, ducking his head very suddenly as a shot from the ship came between him and the mainmast of the sloop. “It don’t stand to reason that an ignorant marine like me should be able to figure out the whys an’ wherefores, an’ yet we try now an’ then. While comin’ up from Halifax, knowin’ we was bein’ brought here to put an end to what Englishmen call a rebellion, it stands to reason that we tried to guess why we were bound for New York instead of some other port, an’ this is much the way our sea lawyers worked the traverse: This town will make a good startin’ point; a base of supplies is needed for the army as well as the navy, an’ we came to believe that this was the place picked out. But, even though the town is the same as taken, nothin’ has been done towards bringin’ you to terms--the work is hardly yet begun.” “Surely we may be far in the dumps when a Britisher thinks it’s his duty to give us a little cheer,” Abel Grant said with a laugh. “There’s no doubt but that Seth is in the right, an’ even though the Minute Boys of Long Island may not be able to do anythin’ on their own ground, there’s plenty of room elsewhere in the colonies for them as believe in the Cause.” While we had thus been talking the big ship passed us, giving no heed to the little Swiftsure, but sailing straight on up the river, and we ceased to think of ourselves as we asked where she was bound. We could trace her course by the flashes of fire while she was near our line of defenses, and then all was still; whether the enemy had come to anchor, or was yet moving, no one could say. “I reckon we can turn in now,” Abel Grant said with a yawn as he entered the cuddy after we had waited, listening, ten minutes or more without hearing anything further from the enemy. “I don’t lay claim to havin’ a head bigger’n them around me, but I’ll wager a couple of clams that the ship counts on comin’ to anchor nearby so’s to help pen our army up in the town till the fleet gets ready to scoop the whole boilin’. It won’t work, though, for General Washington ain’t the kind of a man to be found with both eyes shut at the same time.” Then we turned in, to sleep as only tired people can until the rays of the rising sun heated the cuddy so hot that we were forced to go outside lest we be baked like a cake. As a matter of course, the first thing we looked for was the ship that had kicked up such a row in the night, and nearly frightened me into showing myself a coward; but she was nowhere in sight. Abel Grant hailed a fellow who was coming down the river in a skiff, and learned from him that the Britisher had anchored in Turtle bay, where everything had been made snug as if she counted on ending her days there.