284 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

day. In the afternoon of the 29th, General Mifflin, Adjutant-General Reed, and Colonel Grayson reconnoitred at the outposts on the western extremity of the American hues, near the Red Hook. While there, a gentle shift of wind lifted the fog from Staten Island and revealed to them the British fleet in the Narrows, and boats passing to and from the admiral's ship and the other vessels. These signs of activity, together with a knowledge of the fact that a portion of the fleet had passed around the island and were anchored in Flushing Bay, betokened a movement upon the city, and the three officers lost no time in hastening back to camp.1 The news which they brought was probably not unexpected to Washington; for, unknown to his aids, he had already made provision, earlier in the day, for the concentration in the East River, at New York, of every kind of sail or row boats, which were to be ready by dark;2 but he immediately convened a council of war at five o’clock the same evening,3 for the danger was indeed imminent. If the British should occupy the Hudson and the East River—as any moment, on a change of mind, they might do—they would, by securing the position of Kingsbridge, be able to cut off all communication between Manhattan Island and the Westchester main; thus

1 Reed’s Reed, 1. 225; Col. Graydon’s Memoirs, 166, Littel’s ed.; Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix. 105-107, note, in which much unnecessary space is given to a denial that Gen. Reed could have been enabled to nee the British fleet, by a “lifting of the fog,” and to an accumulation of evidence that “that fog did not rise till the morning of the thirtieth.” Now, any one who has lived on the west end of Long Island, will readily, understand that it is no unusual thing in summer for wet and rainy, “drizzly" days, such as the 28th and 29th had been, to be accompanied and followed by, a misty vapor, or sea-fog, breaking away at times and again settling heavily down upon the horizon; nor is it difficult to believe that a momentary lifting of such a fog permitted the three American officers to catch a glimpse of the British fleet. This same heavy vapor, deepening with the approach of evening, easily settled down by midnight of the 29th into the fog which so favored the American retreat, and which, accumulating in density as the dawn of day approached, is naturally spoken of by witnesses as having risen on the morning of the 30th.”

2 Force’s American Archives, fifth series, i. 1211; Heath’s Memoirs, 57; Memorial of Hugh Hughes (acting Quartermaster-General in New York), 32.

3 The old Cornell house, afterwards known as the Pierrepont mansion, which formerly stood on the line of the present Montague street, near the little iron foot-bridge which spans the carriage-way, was the headquarters of Washington during thin Important contest. It was a spacious and costly house, having large chimneys, from which it was known as “the Four Chimnies,” and upon Its roof a telegraph was arranged, by which communication was hold with New York city. It was hero (and not at the old