likewise, other wholesome regulations to meliorate the police of the troops, and to preserve the good agreement that subsisted between them and the citizens.

Notwithstanding the war had now raged, in other parts, with unaccustomed severity for nearly a year, yet the British ships at NewYork, one of which had once fired upon the town to intimidate the inhabitants, found the means of being supplied with fresh water and provisions. General Putnam resolved to adopt effectual measures for putting a period to this intercourse, and accordingly expressed his prohibition* in the most pointed terms.

Nearly at the same moment, a detachment of a thousand Continentals was sent to occupy Governor's Island, a regiment to fortify Red Hook, and some companies of riflemen

"Necessity obliges the General to desire the inhabitants of the city to observe the same rule, as no person will be permitted to pass any sentry after this night without the countersign.

"The inhabitants, whose business require it, may know the countersign, by applying to any of the Brigade-Majors."

* PROHIBITION.

Head-Quarters, New-York, April 8. 1776. "The General informs the inhabitants, that it is become absolutely necessary, that all communication between the ministerial fleet and the shore should be immediately stopped, for that purpose he has given positive orders, the ships should no longer be furnished with provisions. Any inhabitauts, or others. who shall be taken that have been on board, after the publishing this order, or near any of the ships, or going on board, will be considered as enemies, and treated accordingly

"All boats are to sail from Beekman slip. Captain James Alner is appointed inspector, and will give permits to oyster pen It is ordered and expected that none attempt going without a pass. "ISRAEL PUTNAM, "Major-General in the Continental Army, and Commander in Chief of the Forces in New-York."

to the Jersey shore. Of two boats, belonging to two armed vessels, which attempted to take on board fresh water from the watering place on Staten-Island, one was driven off by the riflemen, with two or three seamen killed in it, and the other captured with thirteen. A few days afterwards, Captain Vandeput, of the Asia man of war, the senior officer of the ships on this station, finding the intercourse with the shore interdicted, their limits contracted, and that no good purposes could be answered by remaining there, sailed, with all the armed vessels, out of the harbour. These arrangements and transactions, joined to an unremitting attention to the completion of the defences, gave full scope to the activity of General Putnam, until the arrival of General Washington, which happened about the middle of April.

The Commander in Chief, in his first public orders, "complimented the officers who had successively commanded at New-York, and returned his thanks to them as well as to the officers and soldiers under their command, for the many works of defence which had been so ex-, peditiously erected: at the same time he expressed an expectation that the same spirit of zeal for the service would continue to animate their future conduct." Putnam, who was then the only Major-General with the main army, had still a chief agency in forwarding the fortifications, and, with the assistance of the

Brigadiers Spencer and Lord Stirling, in assigning to the different corps their alarm posts. Congress having intimated a desire of consulting with the Commander in Chief, on the critical posture of affairs, his Excellency repaired to Philadelphia accordingly, and was absent from the twenty-first of May until the sixth of June. General Putnam, who commanded in that interval, had it in charge to open all letters directed to General Washington, on public service, and, if important, after regulating his conduct by their contents, to forward them by express; to expedite the works then erecting; to begin others which were specified; to establish signals for communicating an alarm; to guard against the possibility of surprise; to secure well the powder magazine; to augment, by every means in his power, the quantity of cartridges; and to send Brigadier-General Lord Stirling to put the posts in the Highlands into a proper condition of defence. He had also a private and confidential instruction, to afford whatever aid might be required by the Provincial Congress of New-York, for apprehending certain of their disaffected citizens: and as it would be most convenient to take the detachment for this service from the troops on LongIsland, under the command of BrigadierGeneral Greene, it was recommended that this officer should be advised of the plan, and that the execution should be conducted with

secrecy and celerity, as well as with decency and good order. In the records of the army are preserved the daily orders which were issued in the absence of the Commander in Chief, who, on his return, was not only satisfied that the works had been prosecuted with all possible despatch, but also that the other duties had been properly discharged.

It was the latter end of June, when the British fleet, which had been at Halifax waiting for reinforcements from Europe, began to arrive at New-York. To obstruct its passage, some marine preparations had been made. General Putnam, to whom the direction of the whaleboats, fire-rafts, flat-bottomed boats, and armed vessels, was committed, afforded his patronage to a project for destroying the enemy's shipping by explosion. A machine, altogether different from any thing hitherto devised by the art of man, had been invented by Mr. David Bushnell,* for sub-marine navigation, which

David Bushnell, A. M. of Saybrook, in Connecticut, invented several other machines for the annoyance of shipping; these, from accidents, not militating against the philosophical principles on which their success depended, 'only partially succeeded. He destroyed a vessel in the charge of Commodore Symmonds, whose report to the Admiral was published. One of his kegs also demolished a vessel near the Long-Island shore. About Christmas, 1777, he committed to the Delaware a number of kegs, destined to fall among the British fleet at Philadelphia; but his squadron of kegs, having been separated and retarded by the ice, demolished but a single boat. This catastrophe, however, produced an alarm, unprecedented in its nature and degree; which has been so happily described in the subsequent song, by the Hon. Francis Hopkinson, that the event it celebrates will not be forgotten, so long as mankind shall continue to be delighted with works of humour and taste,

was found to answer the purpose perfectly, of rowing horizontally at any given depth under water, and of rising or sinking at pleas

THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS:--A Song.
Tune, Moggy Lawder.

Gallants, attend, and hear a friend
Thrill forth harmonious ditty:
Strange things I'll tell, which late befel
In Philadelphia city.

'Twas early day, as poets say,
Just when the sun was rising,
A soldier stood on log of wood,
And saw a sight surprising.

As in a maze he stood to gaze,
The truth can't be denied, Sir,
He spied a score of kegs or more,
Come floating down the tide, Sir,

A sailor, too, in jerkin blue,

The strange appearance viewing,
First damn'd his eyes, in great surprise,
Then said "Some mischief's brewing.

"These Kegs now hold the rebels bold,
"Pack'd up like pickled herring;
"And they're come down, t' attack the town
"In this new way of ferry'ng."