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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 164: CAPTURE OF FORT WASHINGTON.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

CAPTURE OF FORT WASHINGTON.

Perceiving from the nature of the country that he could not force the American commander to join battle, General Howe now made a retrograde movement. Washington had left considerable forces at Fort Washington and King’s Bridge, in the hope that those positions might be secured, even though he retreated or were beaten. The force in Fort Washington, and in the extensive entrenchments round it, consisted of 3000 men, under the command of the gallant Colonel Macgaw. This post was important to the royal army, as it secured an intercourse with the Jersey shore, and as in the hands of the enemy it seriously obstructed the navigation of the North River. General Howe, therefore, resolved to take it, and on the 15th of November, the garrison was summoned to surrender, on pain of being put to death by the sword. This summons was unheeded, and on the following morning it was carried by a furious assault; and all the garrison who were not slain, were taken prisoners. On the side of the British, also, there was a great loss; eight hundred being either killed or wounded.