160 The Story of The Bronx 



vessels from the eastward came to anchor between Hart and 

 City islands, probably with British troops on board from 

 Rhode Island. On the thirty-first, the Americans established 

 a cordon of troops from Dobbs Ferry to Mamaroneck on the 

 Sound to prevent raids from below; and on the sixth of Feb- 

 ruary an ineffective raid was made by Colonel Enos with a 

 strong detachment against Fort Independence with the hope 

 of surprising the enemy's outposts, but the enemy was too 

 watchful. Two days later, the inhabitants of the Borough 

 were subjected to a grand forage on the part of the patriots. 



Early in the spring of 1777, the British established the posts 

 already mentioned and engaged in raids upon the upper county. 

 The year was a momentous one; and the attention of the 

 Americans was too busily engaged with Burgoyne, with 

 Clinton's attempts to get control of the Hudson, and with 

 Howe's advance on Philadelphia to pay much heed to the pre- 

 datory warfare in which they were later forced to engage in 

 the Neutral Ground by the similar actions of the British. Dur- 

 ing the whole of the years 1777 and 1778, the British were 

 active, and had large bodies of troops at Verplanck's Point and 

 in the vicinity of the Highlands; but by August first of this 

 latter year they had retired below Kingsbridge, leaving only 

 Emmerick's and Baremore's battalions above the Harlem 

 River. 



During the greater part of the war, the British kept a num- 

 ber of vessels stationed in the Sound as guard- and patrol-ships. 

 The inhabitants themselves had a number of whale-boats in 

 which they made raids across the Sound upon the Tories of 

 Long Island, in retaliation for the grievances they suffered 

 from the crews of these ships. In 1777, the guard-vessel 

 stationed off the mouth of Eastchester Creek was theSchuldam. 

 A whale-boat party from Darien, Connecticut, carried their 



