HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 293

Kip, when the cannonading of the three British frigates, which Jay opposite the house, commenced. The cannon-balls were driven through the house. This induced them to take to the, cellar for safety, where they were out of danger. After the landing the men were sent to prison in New York, and the next day their families returned to Long Island. When the troops landed, a line was formed across the island to the North River, to inclose the Americans in New York. ‘In vain is the net of the fowler spread in the sight of any bird:’ the American rear-guard had escaped.”

From a careful consideration of the facts connected with the “Battle of Brooklyn,” it is evident,

1. That (as we have already remarked, ante, 263), the American exterior line of defence was too much extended to admit of its being held against the enemy, except as a mere skirmish-line.

2. That the troops occupying this line should have been reenforced (which, perhaps, was impracticable and unadvisable, under the circumstances), or else seasonably recalled to the interior fortified lines, which their presence would have considerably strengthened.

3. That, in the absence of any orders of recall, and without reenforcements, these raw and inexperienced troops, supposing that they were placed there to fight, and knowing nothing of the art of war except to fight right on, committed the serious mistake of making a too prolonged stand against the overwhelming odds which confronted them.

4. That the criminal oversight of the commanding general, or the defection of certain detached troops, or both, which left the Jamaica Pass and road unguarded, and the approach of the British unobserved and unheralded, enabled the latter to flank, surround, and defeat the Americans by detail, with the greatest ease. The “battle,” so called, was, in fact, simply a series of unconnected skirmishes—of heroic, but unavailing, efforts on the part of these untrained yeomen to maintain isolated positions which had been hopelessly lost before the fighting began. To the military incapacity of Gen. Putnam, who, although brave and well-meaning, possessed neither