After the British had bombarded Stonington (August 9th), two of their vessels^ a frigate and a sloop-of war, made their appearance near Mamaroneck. The government, or perhaps the people of New York, had prepared a fleet of thirteen gun- boats, each armed with a thirty-two-pounder gun, for the protection of the harbors along the Sound. One sultry morning in August the ships of war moved down the Sound and attacked these gunboats, which had been ordered to rendezvous near Huckleberry Island and along the shores of Long Island. The action continued at long range for about an hour, and was very exciting to the inhabitants in the vicinity. The militia of two or three of the towns had been ordered out, and every height and headland was thronged with spectators. It soon became evident that the gun-boats were no match for the menof war. Probably all that saved them from being sunk or captured was the superior familiarity of the Americans with the navigation of the Sound. Among so many rocks and reefs, the heavy war-vessels of the British were afraid to venture, and after a shar]) but distant cannonade, in which but little damage was inflicted, the gun-boats withdrew in the direction of New York, and the ships of war returned to New London. It was in connection with this bloodless naval engagement that the panic broke out among the militia on Davenport's Neck, an account of whichis given in the history of New Rochclle. The Rev. Lewis J. Coutant,' then a boy often or twelve years, distinctly remeni" bered to have heard the echoes of the cannonade upon that sultry August morning, rolling and reverberating among the hills back of the town of New Rochelle. Mr. Peter Roosevelt, of Pelham, now in his ninety-second year, is understood to have witnessed the engagement from some convenient hill near the shore Hunter's Island, now the property of Mr.