HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 255

About nine o’clock A. M. four thousand light infantry, with forty pieces of cannon, crossed over from Staten Island in flat-boats, under the guns of the Rainbow and other men-of-war which lay anchored where Fort Lafayette now rises in the centre of the Narrows, and landed at Denise’s ferry (now Fort Hamilton) in the town of New Utrecht.1 An hour after the landing of this first division, a second, comprising English and Hessian troops, left the British ships and transports, and in regular rows of boats, under command of Commodore Hotham, passed over and landed in the bond of Gravesend Bay, at a place now known as Bath, in front of New Utrecht. The embarkation of the entire force, comprising 15,000 men, under cover of the Phoenix, Rose, and Greyhound, was safely completed by noon. The main part of the invading army quickly extended itself over the plain bordering on Gravesend Bay; and the country people, following the dictates of their fears or their consciences, either made haste to place themselves under British protection, or abandoned their farms and sought refuge within the American lines.

Col. Hand’s riflemen, on the hill overlooking the scene, could, of course, offer no effectual resistance, and setting fire to the wheat and hay stacks, to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands, fell back towards Flatbush, where they took position behind a redoubt between that village and the Brooklyn lines.

Howe established his quarters at Now Utrecht, and dispatched Lord Cornwallis, with the reserves, Col. Donop’s corps of Hessian yagers and grenadiers, with six field-pieces, to Flatbush, and with instructions not to attack the place if he should find it occupied by the enemy. Taking his position at Gravesend, Cornwallis pushed forward Donop's corps to Flatbush, which the latter reached towards evening,—the three hundred American riflemen, who had occupied

of the British, as they supposed. In the morning, however, it was discovered that the British army had not stirred a foot from their encampment on Staten Island, and that not a single cannon had been fired! (?) The next day after—as if, indeed, it had been intended by a good Providence as a warning to the people of what was fast approachingÑthe roads between the city of New York and Jamaica, nine miles distant, were covered with the British light horsemen, in their scarlet cloaks.”

1 On the farms of Isaac Cortelyou and Adrian Van Brunt, which lay west of the Bath House, i. e. between the Cortelyou road and the Bath road, anciently called DoBruyn road.—Onderdonk, K. Co., sec. 801.