The galleys made strenuous efforts to escape, some by darting into convenient bays and others by trusting to their speed and ability to sail over shallows where the British must have grounded. But two of them ran ashore, and the crew took to the boat and made for land with aU possible speed, their vessels falling into the hands of the British.

All was hurry and alarm at Spuyten Du>^vil, Yonkers, and other places along the lower river shores,

The Spirit of '76 331 and fleet craft carried the news and spread the consternation from Manhattan to the Highlands. The thrill of anticipation again disturbed the garrisons of the Highland forts, and swift messengers were sent to Fishkill, where the Provincial Congress was sitting, presided over by Peter R. Livingston. The Committee of Safety, at their wit's end, wTote an appealing letter to Washington, detailing the dangers and picturing the inadequacy of the American force in the Highlands, and pra^'ing him to send reinforcements thither. Among the budgets of advice and the plans for defence that poured in at that time, one letter, written by John Jay, member of the secret committee for the defence of the Hudson, to Gouverneur Morris, chairman of another committee, is worth quoting. He sa>'s :

Had I been vested with absolute power in this State, I have often said, and still think, that I would last spring have desolated all Long Island, Staten Island, the city and county of New York, and all that part of the county of Westchester which lies below the mountains. I would then have stationed the main body of the army in the mountains on the east, and eight or ten thousand men in the Highlands on the west side of the river. I would have directed the river at Fort Montgomery, which is nearly at the southern extremity of the mountains, to be so shallowed as to afford only depth sufficient for an Albany sloop, and all the southern passes and defiles in the mountains to be strongly fortified.