Here many petty depredating expeditions were planned; and from Whitehall many a vessel departed with armed troops to distress the inhabitants of neighboring provinces, * or with secret emissaries to discover the weakness of patriot camps, to encourage disaffection in the Republican ranks, and, by the circulation of spurious paper money ** and lying proclamations, to disgust the people and win their allegiance to the crown.
A record of the stirring incidents of the armed occupation of New York would fill a volume. *** It tempts the pen by many allurements, but I must leave the pleasure of such a task to the local historian, and hasten to a considera-
* We have already noticed most of these expeditions. Staten Island was held by the British during their occupancy of New York, and several schemes were planned to expel them. In the summer of 1777, the British force on the island amounted to between two and three thousand men, nearly one half of whom were Loyalists. General Sullivan, with Colonel Ogden of New Jersey, and a part of the brigades of Smallwood and Deborre.
* (see page 381), crossed from Elizabethtown before daylight on the twenty-second of August. Two of the Tory parties, commanded by Colonels Lawrence and Barton, stationed near the present Factoryville, were surprised, and eleven officers and one hundred and thirty privates were made prisoners. Wanting a sufficient number of boats to convey the captives, a party of British attacked Sullivan's rear-guard, and made many of them prisoners. The whole loss of the Americans was three officers and ten privates killed, fifteen wounded, and nine officers and one hundred and twenty-seven privates made prisoners. General Campbell, who commanded the British on the island, reported two hundred and fifty-nine prisoners. It was during the cold month of January, 1780 ("the hard winter"), that Lord Stirling went on an expedition against the British on Staten Island. It was a re-enforcement of troops after this attack (see page 311, volume i.) that crossed the bay of New York, with heavy cannons, upon the ice.