“Yes, it was a hard pull,” he said in reply to a remark of Abel Grant’s. “More than once did I think my race was run, and had I stopped for a single moment to rest it would indeed have been over for many hours. Comin’ to the ferry I took the first boat at hand, regardless of ownership, and pulled over here, bein’ so nearly done up when I stepped ashore near the Bowlin’ Green Battery that my feet felt heavy as lead, an’ I dragged them one after the other. The fact that the information I brought might be of great importance to the Cause, was the only thing which kept me up, and no sooner was my report made to the general than I went down all in a heap. Lieutenant Winterbottom tells me it was twelve hours before I could be aroused from the slumber which enchained me.” Having thus told his story, Sam proceeded to give us information of what the enemy had done since our departure from the town, and when he was come to the end we understood full well why General Putnam had said that a battle was near at hand. General Howe had landed a greater portion of his troops on Staten Island, after the fleet came up and anchored off Vanderventer’s Point. The Britishers had gone into camp on the hills, and the general’s headquarters was at the Rose and Crown Tavern near New Dorp. The Tories on the island had organized what they called a troop of Loyalists, under Governor Tryon, and were being drilled day by day. It was said nigh upon nine thousand men had gone into camp from General Howe’s command, and then arrived Admiral Howe with more British regulars and a large body of Hessians. They also had disembarked on Staten Island, and now, so it was said, there were thirty thousand soldiers in condition to fall upon General Washington’s army which did not number above twenty-seven thousand, at least seven thousand of which were in the hospital unfit for duty. In addition to this disheartening news, Sam told us that two days before the ships of war Rose and Phœnix, their decks piled high with bags of sand as protection, sailed up the bay past New York into the Hudson river, going as far as Haverstraw, which move, so the knowing ones declared, was for the purpose of opening a communication with the British Carleton, who was coming from Canada with no small army, and also to provide with weapons the Tories of Westchester. Our fleet had not been idle while the Britishers were thus making preparations for an attack. Four condemned vessels were sunk in the channel between Governor’s Island and the Bowling Green Battery, while obstructions were so placed as to prevent an entrance to the East river. Had it not been that our sloop was of such light draft, we would undoubtedly in the dark have found ourselves hung up upon some of these contrivances for shutting out the Britishers.