127 
on the recruiting service in this city, offered to show me the for¬ 
tifications for the defence of the bay of New York. We sailed 
in a boat, along with General Swift and an engineer, first to Go¬ 
vernor’s Island, opposite to New York. 
Upon this small island is a fort of red sandstone, called Co¬ 
lumbus; it consists of four bastions, which, on the city side, has 
still a covered work between two of the bastions, but further 
below, in the Narrows, new fortifications have been built, and 
therefore Fort Columbus is considered useless and is neglected. 
In the interior are the barracks and arsenals, the former in very 
good order, and inhabited by a company of artillery. I found a 
bible in each room, and was informed that it was a present from 
the New York Bible Society. 
West of the fort, near the river, there is a tower after the style of 
Montalambert, called Castle Williams. This was commenced in 
1803, and finished in 1811. Colonel Macrea of the artillery in 
the fort, received me with twenty-one guns. The officers have 
lodgings and gardens on the glacis of the fort; there is likewise 
a wooden barrack, which serves in time of war for a battalion of 
infantry; a large two-story brick house with a piazza, is intend¬ 
ed for the head-quarters of the commanding general. Opposite to 
Castle Williams, are two small islands; on each of them is like¬ 
wise a battery, called Fort Wood and Fort Gibson. These bat¬ 
teries appear but small, and the principal defence will be at Cas¬ 
tle Williams, where also I observed furnaces for heating shot. 
From this spot there is a particularly fine view of the city. 
We then sailed along the western shores of Long Island, to 
the straits called the Narrows, a thousand yards wide, and 
formed by the shores of Long Island and Staten Island. They 
are defended by Fort Tompkins on Staten Island, and Fort 
La Fayette on Long Island. We visited the latter; it is built 
on rocks in the sea, two hundred and fifty yards distant from 
the shores, so that it forms an island. It is a square building, and 
erected after a plan of General Swift. From the outside it has 
the appearance of a Montalambert tower. The outside of the 
walls is of red sandstone, but their interior of gneiss; it was gar¬ 
risoned by one company of artillery. During peace a shed was 
built over the platform, and a garrison stationed here during 
the present hot summer. 
Fort Tompkins stands on a height opposite to Fort La 
Fayette, and on the shore of Staten Island is a battery which de¬ 
fends the Narrows by a raking fire. 
On Long Island is another hill near the village of New 
Utrecht which commands Fort La Fayette, and in the vicinity 
there is a bay, where the English and Hessian army landed in 
the year 1776, when coming from Staten Island to take pos- 
