Washington, whose headquarters were at Middlebrook, was not disturbed by these proceedings, well knowing that the British general would soon turn his attention northward. The work at West Point had now made tolerably satisfactory progress, but Washington was dissatisfied with the comparatively unprotected condition of the river below. He particularly desired to have the entrance to the narrow part of the stream, from Haverstraw Bay, well guarded -- the more so as the important King's Ferry route from Verplanck's Point to the west shore was comparatively unsafe so long as this entrance remained unfortified. He therefore began the erection of two forts on the two promontories -- Verplanck's Point on the Westchester side, and Stony Point opposite, which, when completed, "would form as it were the lower gates of the Highlands, miniature Pillars of Hercules, of which Stony Point was the Gibraltar." By the end of May the work on Verplanck's Point, called Fort Lafayette, was finished, and a garrison of seventy men was assigned to it. That on Stony Point, however, was still in an inchoate condition, and had not yet received any artillery. The American army was at this time on the west side of the Hudson in the vicinity of the Highlands. Sir Henry Clinton sailed up the Hudson on the 30th of May with a formidable expedition. The fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir George Collier, embraced about seventy vessels, great and small, and a hundred and fifty flatboats, and there was a land force of 5,000. The troops were landed in two divisions on the 31st. The principal division, under General Vaughan, debarked on the Westchester County side, seven or eight miles below Verplanck's Point, and the other, led by Sir Henry in person, on the opposite side of Haverstraw Bay, some three miles south of Stony Point.