9 In the Return of die Killed, Wounded, and Missing, of the Royal Army, appended to General Howe's despatch to Lord George Germaine, dated "New- York, 3 December, 1776," it was stated that the only one of either of the two Regiments of the Light Dragoons then in America, who was killed, from the nineteenth to the twenty-eighth of October, inclusive, was one Rank and File, of the Seventeenth Regiment ; and, very probably, that one was the same to whom we have referred, in the text.

9 Memoirs of Major general Heath, 78.

10 General Howe to Lord George Germaine, " New- York, 30 November, "1776."

u David How's Diary, October 29 and 30, 1776.

See, also, Lieutenant-colonel Tilghman to his father, " White Plains, 31 *' October, 1776 " ; Memoirs of Major-general Heath, 79 ; etc.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

the interval had been undoubtedly occupied by the Americans, in industriously strengthening their position, they could scarcely have made defensible and formidable what, only a few hours previous, had been hardly respectable. Indeed, at no time, even under the most favorable circumstances, were the defences of the American lines, immediately above the Plains, in any respect formidable ; and the center, where the post-road passed through them, was decidedly the weakest portion. They had been hastily constructed, without the superintendence of experienced Engineers. The stony soil prevented the ditch from being made of any troublesome depth or the parapet of a troublesome height : the latter was not fraised : only where it was least needed -- probably because the construction of it, elsewhere, had been interfered with -- was there the slightest appearance of an abatis. 1 There was little foundation, therefore, for General Howe's transparent excuses ; and it would have been more creditable to his candor, had he told the true reason for his failure to assault the lines, on the morning after the Battle and while the troops who had been designated to make the assault, with their line unbroken, were resting on their arms, within a mile and in open sight from the works which they were expecting to assault, and ready to move against them, at a moment's notice -- the fact was simply this, as we have already seen, 2 " the Army could no longer expediently attempt "anything against the enemy's" [the Americans'] " main body ; " and it was necessary that it should be reinforced, before the Americans should be attacked.