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 182: AMERICAN EXPEDITION TO LONG ISLAND.

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About This Book

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.

AMERICAN EXPEDITION TO LONG ISLAND.

On both sides the contest at this time assumed the features of a predatory warfare. Having learned that the British had collected a large quantity of stores on Long Island, at a place called Sagg’s Harbour, the Americans resolved to destroy them by a night attack. This expedition was undertaken by Colonel Meigs, a Connecticut man, and he crossed the sound in whale-boats, reached the harbour before break of day, and though he met with some resistance, he succeeded in setting fire to the store-houses and to some of the shipping, and also in taking about ninety prisoners, with whom he returned triumphant to Connecticut.