We are not insensible that Bancroft, (Hiftory of the United Stales, original edition, ix., 180 ; the same, centenary edition, v., 444,) has so framed hiB sentence that his readers must suppose the abatis was as extended as the "HneB of entrenchments ;" but the feebleness of the Army and the scarcity of teams could not have secured so great a work, in so short a time ; neither General Washington nor General Heath nor General Knox, among the Americans, nor General Howe nor General Lord Cornwallis, among the King's troops, all of whom have more or less described the American defenses, has made the slightest allusion to such a general defense, before the long line of American entrenchments ; and Stedman expressly stated that "the point of the hill, on theenemy' a " right," [that on the lime of the Barlem Railroad, immediately northward fvm the Railroad-station,] " exceedingly steep and rocky, was covered by " a strong abatis in front of the entrenchment," the very place, as we have said in the text, where such an additional mean of defense was least needed. For these reasons, we prefer to believe that the American lines were not, generally, furnished with an abatis.

2 Vide page 272, ante.

* General Howe to Lord George Germaine, " New-York, 30 November,

" 1776."

* General Heath said, (Memoirs, 79,) "the British having got posses- " sion of this hill, it gave them a vast advantage of the American lines, "almost down to the center;" and General Knox, in » letter to his