11th [October].ーThis afternoon the admiral, with most of the captains, and Commodore Hotham, with all the flat boats and batteaux, went up the East River to Kipp's and Turtle Bay, near the west end of Blackwell's Island, where we remained all the night, during which time the army were striking their tents and preparing to embark. About three o'clock Saturday morning, the 12th, the troops were embarked in the flat boats and batteaux, to the number of between four and five thousand men; the guards and 42nd regiment, between fourteen and fifteen hundred men, were embarked on board sloops under my direction. At daybreak in the morning the boats set off, and no sooner had they put off, with an amazing strong tide, but it came on a fog equal to pitch darkness, with now and then an interval of light for a few seconds. The boats were put off; to attempt to stop them would have been very dangerous, for the headmost boats must have anchored, and the boats that followed would in all probability run foul of them, to the imminent danger of sinking each other; the admiral, therefore, rather chose to run the risk of passing Hell Gate with all the boats in that rapid tide and dark fog. I went astern and ordered all the boats to move forward. Soon after their putting off, a galley towing one of the artillery boats, in endeavouring to cross a vessel lying in the passage, towed her athwart hawse; the boat ran directly up her cable, and overset instantly. Many of the people were picked up; there were three field-pieces lost, and I suppose five or six people. There were very few people in the flat boats had ever been through or knew anything of the passage of Hell Gate. This made the danger much the greater. To keep the starboard shore was the safest passage; straight through carried them upon the rocks, and the larboard shore would have brought them under the fire of the enemy, perhaps without being able to land or retreat; but the boats got all very luckily through, the one instance only excepted, and arrived at. Frog Point, the place of their destination about nine o'clock, where they landed without opposition.