Remember, now, where we stand. It is only _last_ night that _our_ army, defeated, dispirited, exhausted by battle, lay across the river on Brooklyn Heights. Behind it, busy with pickaxe and shovel, the victorious troops of Mother England were making ready to "finish" the Americans on the morrow. There were supposed to be twenty-four thousand of the enemy, only nine thousand Continentals; and, just ready to enter East River and cut them off from New York, lay the British fleet to the north of Staten Island. As happened at Boston in March, so happened it last night in New York, a friendly fog held the heights of Brooklyn in its grasp, while at New York all was clear. Under cover of this fog General Washington withdrew across the river, a mile or more in width, _nine thousand men_, with all their "baggage, stores, provisions, horses, and munitions of war," and not a man of the enemy knew that they were gone until the fog lifted. Now, as we stand, Long Island, Governor's Island, Staten Island, one and all are under the control of Britons. David Bushnell is in a whale-boat, down close to the Turtle, giving some last important words of direction to brave Ezra Lee, who has stepped within it. David Bushnell could not help wishing, as he did so, that he could take his place and guide the spirit of the child of his own creation, in its first great encounter with the world. The word is given. The brass top of the Turtle is shut down. Watchful eyes and swift rowers belonging to the enemy are keeping guard on Governor's Island, by which Ezra Lee must row, and it is safer to go under water. How crowded this little pier would be, did the inhabitants but know what is going on! The whale-boats start out, David Bushnell in one of them. They mean to take the Turtle in tow the minute it is safe to do so and save Ezra Lee the labor of rowing it until the last minute. It is eleven o'clock. All silently they dip the oars, and hear the sentinels cry from camp and shore. Past the island, in safety, at last. They look for the Turtle. Up it comes, a distant watch-light gleaming across its brass head disclosing its presence. Once more it is in tow, and Lee is in the whale-boat. Down the bay they go, until the lights from the fleet grow dangerously near. On the wide, wind-stirred waters of New York Bay, Ezra Lee gets into the Turtle, and is cast off, and left alone, for the whale-boats return to New York. With the rudder in his hand, and his _feet_ upon the oars, he pursues his way. The strong ebb tide flows fast, and, before he is aware of it, it has drifted him down past the men-of-war. However, he immediately _gets the machine about_, and, "by hard labor at the crank for the space of five glasses by the ships' bells, or two and a half hours, he arrives under the stern of one of the ships at about slack water." Day is now beginning to dawn. He can see the people on board, and hear them talk.