General Howe has been condemned, also, because of his long stay on Throgg'sneck, without having attempted to move from that position, in any direction whatever, 5 but surely no one would have desired him to move into an enemy's country, in the face of an active military force of that enemy, without a Commissariat, without the necessary military Stores which would become necessary in his conduct of the proposed movement into that enemy's country, and without the slightest pretense to the necessary means for transporting even his Officers' baggage, of all of which the first and second detachments had taken comparatively little to the Neck, and of all of which the subsequent and main supplies were held back by adverse winds, which prevented the vessels which bore them from passing through Hell-gate. 6 In addition to the delays in moving the Commissariat, the military Stores, and the Horses and Waggons of the Quarter-master-general's Department,' to which reference has been made, some delay was also experienced in moving three Battalions of Hessians, from Staten-island, for the reinforcement of the main body, on the Neck ; 8 and thus, in General Howe's own words, " Four or five days had been " unavoidably taken up in landing at Frog's-Neck, " instead of going, at once, to Pell's-point, which " would have been an imprudent measure, as it could
4 Vide page 231, ante.
5 [Hall's] History of the Civil War in America, i , 203 ; Stedman's History of the American War, i., 210, 211 ; Gordon's History of the American Revolution, ii., 337 ; Adolphus's History of England, Ed. London : 1805, ii., 379 ; Sparks's Life of George Washington, 194 ; Irving's Life of George Washington, ii., 385 ; etc.