Having decided late in 1775 to make a naval defence, Congress early in 1776 took into consideration the establishing of one or more bases for naval operations.[198] There were needed one or more strongly fortified ports where the Continental fleet and its prizes would be comparatively secure from attack, and where the armed vessels could equip, man, and refit. The ports best adapted for naval stations were Boston, New York, Philadelphia, some point on or near the James river in Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina. Lesser towns had their advocates and their hopes. In February, 1776, Gurdon Saltonstall of Connecticut wrote to Silas Deane that New London would be “the Asylum of Cont. Navey,” for “one they must have of necessity.”[199] The Southern ports were not available for several reasons, but chiefly on account of their distance from the center of maritime interests in New England. New York was occupied by the British. Philadelphia had many points in its favor, not the least of which was the location there of Congress and the Marine Committee. Its occupation for a time by the enemy in 1777 and 1778, and the close watch which his armed vessels maintained at the mouth of Delaware Bay, greatly impaired its usefulness as a harbor of refuge for the Continental vessels. Boston was by far the most available port. After its abandonment by the British in March, 1776, and the shifting of the theater of the war first to the Middle and later to the Southern states, it was left comparatively free from British interference. It was the naval emporium of the Revolution, where naval stores, armament and equipment for vessels of war, seamen, and ships could be procured, if they were to be had at all.