It had been such a simple and leisurely affair at the time. After phasing his troops under canvas along the green shoreline of Staten Island, General Howe, with a token force of infantry, had gone ashore to take possession. All the preparations by the Continentals and local militia had come to nothing, and even the Staten Island force of four hundred men, who had been commanded by General Washington to defend the redoubts at all costs, had grounded their muskets and obligingly sworn allegiance to the Crown.

Bolatlao lowered the glass as it blurred in drifting snow. It was hard to recall the green island and crowds of onlookers, the Loyalists cheering, the rest watching in grim silence, Now all the colours were in shades of grey. The land, the tossing water, even the ships seemed to have lost their brightness in the persistent and lingering winter,

Ile took a few paces this way and that across Trojan's spacious quarterdeck, his shoes slipping on the planking, his damp clothing tugging at him in the wind. He had been in the ship for two years. It was beginning to feel a lifetime. Like manly others throughout the fleet, he had felt mixed feelings at the news of the revolution. Surprise and shock. Sympathy and then anger. And above all the sense of helplessness.

The revolution, which had begun as a mixture of individual ideals, had soon developed into something real and challenging. The war was like nothing they had known before. Big ships of the line like Trojan moved ponderously from one inflamed incident to another, and were well able to cope with anything which was careless enough to stray under their massive broad sides. But the real war was one of communications and supply, of small, fast vessels, sloops, brigs and schooners.