On this day 250 years ago, from his camp on Long Island (in present day Brooklyn), Brigadier General Nathanael Greene reported to General Washington:

21 Sail seen off last Evening, Eight arrivd at the Hook this morning and thirteen coming in.

The Enemies Guard Boats pattroled much higher up the Bay than usual last Night.

I apprehend a couple of Guard Boats are necessary to Pattrole from Red to Yellow Hook across the Bay leading to Rappelyeas Mills, providing there are Boats to spare.

Red Hook is a neighborhood in Brooklyn today. Yellow Hook is now called Owl’s Head, and is located in Owl’s Head Park in Brooklyn.

British records show that the Americans had undercounted and that 24 British ships — the HMS Renown with 50 guns and the 32-gun HMS Flora “with 22 Sail of Convoy” — arrived on that day. With the latest arrivals, the British fleet had more than 200 ships in New York Harbor prepared to ferry the 32,000 British and Hessian troops on Staten Island to attack New York.

Sources: “Brigadier General Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 4 August 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-05-02-0424. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 5, 16 June 1776 – 12 August 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993, p. 559.]; https://www.americanrevolution.org/battle-of-long-island/