HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 249

tion with Carleton, who was coming southward by way of Lake Champlain. Meanwhile, the patriots were busily hurrying forward the completion of their defences, before the battle which was so unmistakably approaching. Hulks of vessels were sunk in the channel between Governor’s Island and the Battery, and chievaux-de-frise formed to oppose the passage of the British vessels up the East River.1 A large force of troops was concentrated at Brooklyn, under Gen. Greene; Sullivan, with his army, was called from the north, while from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and New England troops and militia gradually augmented the American army, by the first of August, to some 27,000 men; of whom, however, nearly one-fourth were unfitted for active service by sickness. Bilious fever prostrated Gen. Greene about the middle of August, and Sullivan succeeded him at Brooklyn. Governor’s Island and Paulus Hook (now Jersey City) were garrisoned, while Gen. George Clinton, at the head of some New York militia, guarded Westchester and King’s Bridge from the approach of the British, and Gen. Parson’s brigade performed the same service on the East River, at Kip’s Bay.

We have evidence, however, that disaffection was still rife in this county; and that, while the patriot hosts were making this the scene of their most strenuous labors in the defence of a nation's existence, the actual inhabitants and inheritors of its soil were sadly lacking in spirit and unanimity of feeling.2 We have previously seen that its representatives had been so irregular in their attendance upon the

1 The channel between Long Island and Red Hook was left open, and the British vessels passed up there in the attack, Aug. 27, 1776.

2 July 30, 1776. The Convention received a letter from the captains of the Kings County Militia, requesting to be excused from making a draft of every fourth man (according to Resolutions of Convention, July 19), and saying that they will turn out their whole militia or command to drive stock into the interior, and to guard the coast, etc. It was signed by Jno. Vanderbilt, Lambert Suydam, Barent Johnson, John Titus, Corn. Vanderveer, Rem Williamson, Bernardus Suydam, Adrian Van Brunt, Captains; but their request was not granted by the Convention.—Force's Am. Archives, vol. i., Fifth Series, p. 1460.

"A Roll of the commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the Troop of Horse in King’s County, which were upon duty to drive off the stock, commenced August 14,1776. Upon duty and came over from L.I.: Daniel Rappelye, 1st Lieut.; Jamb Bloom, 2d Lieut.; Peter Vandervoort, Ens.; Hendrick Johnson, Sgt.; John Blanco, Trumpeter; Beyer Suydam, John Vanderveer, Privates. Upon duty, but remained upon L. I. Lambert Suydam, Capt.; Peter Wyckoff, Quartermaster; Hen-