Just after midnight, both wind and tide changed. The storm from the north which had raged thus long, kept the British fleets at their anchorage in the lower bay. At last, with the clearing of the sky and change of wind, the water became smooth, and the craft of all kinds and sizes, loaded to the water’s edge, made rapid progress. Meanwhile, strange to relate, a heavy fog rested over the lower bay and island, while the peninsula of New York was under clear starlight. For a few moments, toward morning, a panic nearly ensued. An order to hasten certain troops to the river was misunderstood as applying to all troops, including those in the redoubts; and a rumor that the British were advancing, and had entered the works, led even the covering party to fall back. Washington instantly saw the error, restored the men to their places, and the British pickets never discovered their temporary absence. The military stores, and such guns as were not too heavy to be taken through the mud, were safely placed on the transports. With the last load, Mifflin, and last of all, Washington, took passage. During the day, the troops and stores on Governor’s Island were also removed; and the evacuation was complete. If the landing of ten thousand disciplined troops by General Howe, on the twenty-second, over a placid sea, and in bright sunlight, was magnificent for its beauty and system, the safe embarkation of ten thousand men by Washington, on the night of the twenty-ninth, was sublime for the implicit faith of the soldiers and the supreme potency of his commanding will. The Italian historian Botta says of this event: “Whoever will attend to all the details of this retreat, will easily believe that no military operation was ever conducted by great captains with more ability and prudence, or under more favorable auspices.” At daybreak of the thirtieth, British pickets entered the American works; and the most advanced were enabled to fire a few shots at the last American detachment as it landed safely upon the New York side. CHAPTER XII. WASHINGTON IN NEW YORK. Washington’s labors were neither lessened nor interrupted when he assembled his army on the thirtieth day of August, 1776. He had been in the saddle or on foot, without sleep, for more than forty-eight hours; and it would require a large volume even to outline the mass of minute details which had to receive his attention. His own account, as contained in private letters, can be summed up in suggestive groups—such as, “tools carelessly strewn about”; “cartridges exposed to the rain”; and, “the soldiers, too often the officers, ignorant as children of the responsibility of a single sentry or gunner, wherever located, along rampart or trench.”