On the east side of the island of Manhattan the indifferent hawk knew the East River that connected New York Bay with Long Island Sound. On the western tip of Long Island protruded Brooklyn Heights. It commanded a view over Manhattan and the harbor. A fringe of housing and gardens bearded the top of the heights, and behind it were sandy roads leading past farms and hayfields. Husbandry was bounded by snake-rail fences, and there were grazing cattle. On the shores north and south, the fishers and mooncursers -- smugglers -- lived along the churning Great South Bay and the narrow barrier of sand, Fire Island.

The morning hawk, hungry for any eatable, killable, digestible item, kept his eyes on the ring of anchored ships that lay off the shores in the bay, sheltered by the Jersey inlets. They often threw tidbits overboard. The larger ships were near Paulus Hook, already being called, by a few, Jersey City. These were the ships of His Majesty's Navy, herding the hulks of the East Indies merchants and the yachts and ketches of the loyalists. The news of battle on Breed's Hill had already seeped through, and New York itself was now left in the hands of the local Provincial Congress. The fish hawk, his wings not moving, circled and glided lower. The gilt sterns of the men-of-war becoming clearer to him, the sides of the wooden sea walls alternately painted yellow and black, the bronze cannon at the ports. The captain's gig of H.M.S. Mercury was being rowed to H.M.S. Neptune.