Soon after Hale's arrival at New York, he successfully performed a daring feat. A British sloop, laden with provisions, was anchored in the East River under the protection of the guns of the man-of-war _Asia_ sixty-four. General Heath gave Hale permission to attempt the capture of the supply-vessel. With a few picked men (probably of Glover's brigade, who were largely seamen), as resolute as himself, he proceeded in a whale-boat silently at midnight to the side of the sloop, unobserved by the sentinel on the deck. Hale and his men sprang on board, secured the sentinel, confined the crew below the hatches, raised her anchor, and took her into Coenties Slip just at the dawn of day. Captain Hale was at the helm. The victors were greeted with loud huzzas from a score of voices when the sloop touched the wharf. The stores of provisions of the prize-vessel were distributed among Hale's hungry fellow-soldiers. We have no information concerning Hale's movements from the time of his capture of the supply-vessel until after the battle of Long Island. He became captain of a company of Connecticut Rangers in May--a corps composed of choice men picked from the different Connecticut regiments, and placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Knowlton, who had distinguished himself in the battle of Bunker's (Breed's) Hill. They were known as "Congress's Own." In two or three letters written by Hale to his brothers in the earlier part of the summer, he mentions some hostile movements, but there are no indications that he was engaged in any of them. He seems not to have been in the battle of Long Island or a participant in the famous retreat of Washington across the East River, from Brooklyn, at the close of August. He was among the troops that remained in New York when the British invaded Long Island (for he was sick at that time), and joined the retreating forces in their march toward Harlem Heights early in September. He first appears after that movement in the presence of Washington, at the house of the opulent Quaker merchant, Robert Murray, on Murray Hill, to receive instructions for the performance of an important mission. What was the nature of that mission? Let us see: The American army on Manhattan Island was in a most perilous condition after the retreat from Long Island. It was fearfully demoralized, and seemed to be on the point of dissolution. Despair had taken possession of the minds of the militia. They deserted by companies and even by regiments. Impatient of restraint, insubordination everywhere prevailed. The soldiers clamored for pay; the money-chest was empty. They clamored for clothing and blankets, as cold weather was approaching; the commissary could not respond. One third of the men were without tents, and one fourth of them were on the sick-roll. Only fourteen thousand men were fit for duty, and these were scattered in detachments lying between each extremity of the island, a distance of a dozen miles or more.