246 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

Continental Congress, which took prompt measures to arrest its spread and break its power by disarming the Tories.1 About the same time, the realities of war seemed to be brought nearer home to the vacillating patriots of Kings County. Washington, then in command of the patriot army at Boston, which had recently been evacuated by the British, received intelligence of an intended secret expedition by the fleet and troops under Sir Henry Clinton. Rightly divining that the British Ministry had resolved to retrieve the loss of Boston, by removing the seat of war to Now York, and thus cut off all intercourse between the New England and the Southern colonies, he at once comprehended the necessity of immediately thwarting the intended manoeuvre. Just at this juncture came an urgent request from the sagacious General Charles Lee, at that time in Connecticut, proposing to raise a volunteer force in that colony, and march them to the defence of New York city. The well-timed offer was accepted; and within a fortnight, General Lee, who had been ably seconded by the exertions of the indefatigable Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, was en route for New York, at the head of twelve thousand men. His arrival there (February 3, 1776) was unexpected and sudden, and his first measures so energetic as to reassure the friends of liberty, and effectually to crush out the spirit of Toryism, which had needed but a breath to kindle it into a flame. On the same day on which Lee entered the city, the British general, Clinton, arrived at Sandy Hook, whence he sailed for North Carolina.

Lee lost no time in initiating a system of garrison and fortification of the city and its approaches. On the 18th of February, he posted 400 of the Pennsylvania troops in Brooklyn, from the Wallabout to the GowanusÑthose who could not find lodgment being billeted on the inhabitants, who were allowed 7s. per week for boaxding the officers, and 1s. 4d. for privates.2 In the midst of his labors, he was superseded (March 6) by Gen. Lord Stirling, and moving southward, was soon engaged in battle, in Charleston harbor, with Gen. Clinton.

Stirling vigorously prosecuted the defences planned and begun by

1 Sparks’ Writings of Washington, iii. 398-400, 440, 469, 470; iv. 86.

2 Onderdonk, Kings Co. sec. 775.