II), 261.
Lord Howe went so far as to address a letter to "George
Washington Esq. &c. &c.," and Washington agreed to an interview
with the officer who bore it. In imposing uniform and with the
stateliest manner, Washington, who had an instinct for effect,
received the envoy. The awed messenger explained that the symbols
" &c. &c." meant everything, including, of course, military
titles; but Washington only said smilingly that they might mean
anything, including, of course, an insult, and refused to take
the letter. He referred to Congress, a body which Howe could not
recognize, the grave question of the address on an envelope and
Congress agreed that the recognition of his rank was necessary.
There was nothing to do but to go on with the fight.
Washington's army held the city of New York, at the southerly
point of Manhattan Island. The Hudson River, separating the
island from the mainland of New Jersey on the west, is at its
mouth two miles wide. The northern and eastern sides of the
island are washed by the Harlem River, flowing out of the Hudson
about a dozen miles north of the city, and broadening into the
East River, about a mile wide where it separates New York from
Brooklyn Heights, on Long Island. Encamped on Staten Island, on
the south, General Howe could, with the aid of the fleet, land at
any of half a dozen vulnerable points.
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