three miles of Fort Montgomery ; plundered the house of a poor man -- taking, among other things, " a " handkerchief full of Salad and a Pig so very poor " that a crow would scarcely deign to eat it" -- setting the house on fire, when it was left ; and then, returning to the place where the tender had run aground, in the morning, cast her anchor, where, on the following day, the /%a')ji.r joined her.*

The purposes for which these vessels were sent up the river have never been satisfactorily explained ; and where historians have referred to the movement at all, they have generally left the subject imperfectly told. General Howe, in his first despatch on the matter, informed the Home Government that he had ■'submitted to Admiral Shuldham's consideration the " propriety of sending a naval force up the North- " river, above the Town of New York, with a view to "distress the rebels on that Island, by obstructing " supplies coming down the river, and other good " consequences dependent upon that measure, which " meeting with his approbation, orders are given for " two ships, one of forty and another of twenty guns, " to proceed upon that service, the first favorable op- " portunity ; and I flatter myself that these ships, "more than which cannot be spared at present from " the protection of the transports, will prove of suffi- "cient force to support themselves against all at- " tempts of the enemy, from the upper river, and to " answer the purposes for which they are intended," ^ from which it will be seen that it was a naval movement made for a ])urely military purpose, originated by the General-in-chief of the Army ; and, it is said, unwillingly acquiesced in, by the Admiral."