As we have said, the two Armies were occupied, during several weeks after the Royal Army had taken the City of New York, in throwing up defensive works-- the American Army, on the Heights of Harlem, to the northward and eastward of the present village of Manhattanville, back, to Kingsbridge, and in the more exposed portions of Westchester-county : the Royal Army, on the Heights of Harlem and on Vandewater's Heights, southward from the village of Manhattanville, and thence to McGowan's-pass, where the postroad to the northward and eastward descended from the high grounds, forming the northernmost portion of the present great City's Central Park, to the Harlem-plains, below J -- and some time was, also, necessarily employed by General Howe, in obtaining information concerning the face of the country, in the rear of the positions occupied by the American Army, "upon a supposition that the enemy" [the American Army~] "should remove from King's- " Bridge," which information, thus sought in advance of any movement of the Army, was become more necessary since he had found the Americans not so well-disposed to join and to serve the Royal Army, in the field, as he had been taught to expect ; 2 and because the country referred to, the County of Westchester, "was so covered with wood, swamps, "and creeks, that it was not open, in the least de- "gree, to be known, but from post to post or from

*Vide page 221, ante.

See, also, General Howe to Lord George Germavne, "New Yobk "Island, 25 September, 1776;" the same to the same, "New-York, 30 " November, 1776 ; " Speech of Sir William Howe before a Committee of the Home of Commons, April 29, 1779, -- Almon's Parliamentary Register, xii. 323 ; Testimony of the Earl of Cornwallis before a Committee of the House of Commons, May 6, 1779. -- Almon's Parliamentary Register, xiii., 3 ; etc.