The year previous," ho continued, "General Heath had been requested by the person in command of the ''fireships, to be a spectator of the burning of these vessels," quoting,

monstration, so interesting to those of Westchestercounty who lived near the line of the Hudson-river, neither of the great opposing powers, in the City of New York and on Long Island, on the one side, and on and around Staten Island, on the other, did any thing else than to strengthen their respective forces and prepare for the rapidly approaching contest. General Washington continued to strengthen his defences, both in the City of New York and on Long Island ; but the backwardness of the distant States, in sending reinforcements to the Army, not only caused a constant anxiety, at Head-quarters, but an alarm which extended beyond the lines of the Camp. 2

in full, what General Heath, in his Memoirs, under thf» date of the sixteenth of August, 1776, h-id said of the attempt to destroy these ships, which is the subject of the narrative, in the text. (History of WesUliestercounty, original edition, ii., 459, 460 ; tlie same, second edition, ii., 627, 628.)

As it is more than probable that the ships, when they were attacked, were off Tarry town, instead of below Yonkers; as Yonkers, in 1777, was within the British lines, and so could not have afforded a rendezvous, in the Saw-Mill-river, for American gun-boats and fireships, during that year ; as the Phmi-ix and the Rose had dropped down to the anchorage of the Royal Fleet, off Slaten Island, on the eighteenth of August, 17^6, two days after the engagement described in the text; and as the authority whom he quoted, in full, described the engagement, of which he was an eye-witness, as having taken place on the sixteenth of August, 1776, it will be evident to the reader that the historian of Westchestercounty, as well us bis posthumous Editor, blundered.