It is said, on the other hand, that, early in the morning of that day, the Officer commanding the Regiment which guarded the pass to Throgg's-neck, by way of the causeway and bridge, from the Village of Westchester, suspected the enemy was preparing to move from the Neck, and sent an express to General Heath, with the information ; that the latter ordered one of his Aide's to gallop to Valentine's, near whose house General George Clinton and his Brigade were posted, with Orders that the Brigade should be formed, " in- ''stantly ; " that Geneial Heath reached Valentine's " by the time the Brigade was formed," and ordered the I Officer in command " to march with the utmost expe- I "dition, to the head of the causeway, to reinforce "the troops, there, himself moving on with them ; " that, while on the march, another express met General Heath, informing him that the entire force of the enemy was in motion, and seemed to be moving towards the ford, at the head of the creek which separated Throgg's-neck from the mainland ; that the

0 General Howe to Lord George Germaine, " New-York, 30 November, "1776."

' It was not the practise, when this skirmish occurred, to notice, in detail- the operatii.iiis of the German mercenary troops, in the despatches of tlie Royal Commander-in-chief to the Home Government ; and the losses sustained by those troop.'*, in whatever act ions tliey were engaged, were seldom, if ever, included in the detailed Reports of Casualties which were sent to and published by the Government, at London. The Reports of (be operations and the casualties of those troops were made to the several sovereign Princes, Electors, etc., of whom those troops were, respectively, subjects ; and, except in some few instances, when individual enterprise luis unearthed some of th^m, the text of those Reports and much of the official correspondence remain in their original repositories, unopened and seetuingly, uncared for.