In the weeks that incifollowed the convention adopted a great number of measures dental to the serious situation, of which many applied specially to Westchester County. We can not here attempt anything more than a mere allusion to some of the more interesting of these measures. Provision was made for removing all the horses, cattle, and other livestock from Manhattan Island and the exposed portions of Westchester County into the interior; the Westchester County farmers to immediately thresh out all their grain, in order to directed were furnish straw for the army; stores were taken from the State maga-

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OCTOBER

12,

zines in Westchester County and sent to the army; purchases of clothing and other materials for the army were made, and it was ordered that all the bells should be taken from the churches, and all the brass knockers from the doors of houses, so as to accumulate material for the manufacture of cannon in case of need. On the same day that the British effected their landing on Manhattan Island, the 15th of September, they sent three of their best warships, the "Phoenix," "Roebuck," and "Tartar," up the North River as far as Bloomingdale. There they rode at anchor until the 9th of October, when they pushed farther up, easily passing a chevauas de frise that had been constructed with much pains just above Fort Washington. This clievaux de frise consisted of a line of sunken craft stretching across the stream, and it was hoped that the obstructions would at least detain the enemy's vessels long enough to admit of their being so destructively played upon by the Fori Washington and Fort Lee batteries as to compel them to turn back. It is true the batteries did some execution, killing and wounding men on each ship; but the obstructions in the river unfortunately began some distance from the shore, leaving an open space of tolerably deep water through which the expedition passed without difficulty and with little delay.