repeated attacks aud the want of intercourse with the fleet abd the perils to which they were exposed, prompted tlie commanders of the ships, on tlie eighteenth of jVugiist, less than forty-eight hours after the last attack had been made on them, to take advantage of a strong easterly wind and a very rainy morning, to run down the river, past the fortifications thrown up by the Americans, and to join the main body of the fleet, off Staten Island, a feat which was successfully accomplished, without any considerable damage, " the air resounding with acclamations from the " fleet, re-echoed by the Army encamped on the "heights above,'" as they came to the anchorage. During the period occupied in this early naval debebavior of the crewB uf all of them, " in the lirst attack made on the "ships in the North River,'' for which they hail heen tried and condemned by a Continental Court-martial, that olhccr, writing "by bis Ex- " cellency's commands." (rith- jmijf :i'J)i, «/i(^ )saidof the subsequent operation of those galleys, " In the late atfair. Captain McC'leave must be ex " cepted from the general censure, as he managed with i<rndence and "propriety. Hut Ca])tain Tinker, with the wind at South, ami on the " tide of Hood " [lhtndi>f liile '!] "when the ships could move, left his vessel, "th(»ugh stationed as a guard, to go up to King's Bridge, aftereome "clothes, as he pretends. The consequence wa*", that, in the hurry and " confusion, and long before thny were in ilanger, they left the gal- '* ley agro\ind, though they might have burned or bilged her. The enemy " took pos.sessiou of her, in half an liour ; and she, with the other, left " untlei- the like circumstances, will probably j)rove the most formidable " force they can have, to oppose us, on the river.