and trampled it under foot. On again
they went to the Bowling Green, and there they dragged down the statue
of the same royal person which had been erected only a few years before.
The scattered fragments of the leaden statue were afterward gathered up
and moulded into bullets.
This same month General William Howe, commander of the British army, had
landed on Staten Island, with his brother, Admiral Howe of the British
navy, and with the soldiers and sailors of their commands, made up a
fine, well-drilled army of 35,000 men, who had come to fight a force of
20,000 recruits; men not at all well-versed in war, and nearly half of
whom were ill and not able to be on duty.
But Washington calmly watched the British on Staten Island, and the
British ships, more than 400 of them, in the bay, and was not at all
dismayed. Once General Howe wrote to Washington suggesting measures that
would lead to peace, but nothing came of it.
Late in the month of August the fighting commenced. General Howe led his
forces to Long Island--led 21,000 men, for he thought that the best way
to capture New York was to first vanquish the army on Long Island by an
overwhelming force. Then the subduing of the city across the river would
be easy.
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