[Footnote 207: "Frog's Neck and Point is a kind of island; there are two passages to the main which are fordable at low water, at both of which we have thrown up works, which will give some annoyance should they attempt to come off by either of these ways."--_Tilghman to William Duer_, October 13th, 1776. _MS. Letter._ On hearing that they had landed on the Neck, Duer replied from the Convention at Peekskill, on the 15th: "There appears to me an actual fatality attending all their measures. One would have naturally imagined from the Traitors they have among them, who are capable of giving them the most minute description of the Grounds in the county of Westchester, that they would have landed much farther to the Eastward. Had they pushed their imaginations to discover the worst place, they could not have succeeded better than they have done."--_MS. Letter._]
During and for some time before these movements an interesting correspondence was carried on between Washington's headquarters and a committee of the New York Convention, a portion of which may be introduced in this connection. It gives us a glimpse of the deep interest and anxiety felt in the Convention in matters affecting the protection of the State, and the internal difficulties that had to be encountered. The correspondence was conducted mainly between Lieutenant Tilghman for headquarters and Hon. William Duer for the Convention.[208] Thus, on September 20th, the latter writes to Tilghman as follows:
[Footnote 208: The Convention's Committee on Correspondence consisted of William Duer, R.R. Livingston, Egbert Benson, and two others. Nearly all of Tilghman's letters to the committee have been published either in Force or in the Proceedings of the N.Y. Provincial Congress. Of Duer's replies, however, but few are in print, the originals being in the possession of Oswald Tilghman, Esq., of Easton, Talbot County, Md., to whom the writer is under obligations for the favor of quoting the extracts given in the text. (See biographical sketch of Colonel Tilghman.)]
"I can easily imagine that Genl Howe must be both chagrined and disappointed at the Retreat of our Army from New York. I have no doubt but what he expected fully to have taken them in a net; and he certainly would have succeeded had we pertinaciously persisted in the plan of defending the city. You observe that if the passage of the North River is sufficiently obstructed that our lines will keep the enemy from making any progress in front. This is certainly true; but you must recollect that the Sound is, and must ever be, open; and if they should succeed in landing a Body of Men in Westchester County, they might, by drawing lines to the North River, as effectually hem us in, as if we were in New York. From Sutton's Neck to the North River (if I am not mistaken) is not above twelve miles."