The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from New York, dated August 31.

"You are no doubt surprised to hear of our sudden retreat from Long Island, but it was thought absolutely essential from our situation. We were under a necessity of marching out and attacking them upon their own ground, or suffering ourselves to have been starved into a surrender: First, because they were entrenching within 500 yards of our lines, which were very weak, and incapable of withstanding their heavy cannon, and our men, from their situation, began to grow very uneasy; and secondly, because their shipping might have run up the East river, and cut out our resources of provision, and every other necessary. The retreat was conducted with the greatest secrecy, and by 6 o'clock in the morning we had every thing embarked. There never was a man that behaved better upon the occasion than General Washington; he was on horseback the whole night, and never left the ferry stairs till he had seen the whole of his troops embarked."