The torpedo, the explosion of which was regulated by clockwork operating on a gun-lock, actually exploded about half an hour after, sending up a great geyser of water, which frightened the British admiral so that he gave orders to up anchor and seek another mooring-place.
The Yankee navigator of the submarine declared that when he struck the iron plate he got "narvous," and couldn't affix the screw properly; but that if he had had a fresh "cud of terbacker," he would have been all right and the admiral's ship would have gone "a-kiting" into the air.
The attempt was not repeated, for some reason or other, probably because the British got wary and kept farther away from shore.

The next year, however, inventor Bushnell succeeded in blowing up a British schooner with his torpedo; but neither he nor quaint "Bije" Shipman ever received the credit that was their due, the latter being one of the forgotten heroes of the Revolution.
About this time the Putnam family entertained as guest the pretty daughter of a British officer, Major James Moncrieffe, the same one to whom, at the siege of Boston, "Old Put" had sent a present of provisions, even though they were opposed as enemies.

This young lady was received by the family with affection, presented to General and Mrs.
Washington, and afterward provided with a pass through the lines and sent to her father, accompanied by a letter of which (as she wittily said to a friend) "the bad orthography was amply compensated for by the magnanimity of the man who wrote it." Here is the letter: "Ginrale Putnam's compliments to Major Moncrieffe, has made him a present of a fine daughter, if he don't lick [like] her he must send her back again, and he will provide her with a good twig [Whig] husband." General Putnam's humor, like his generosity, was never-failing; but, as "Josh Billings" once remarked of himself, "he was a bad speller" to the end of his life.

But he could spell _f-i-g-h-t_ as well as anybody; and what is more, he could forgive his enemies, not only after the fight was over, but while it was going on--as witness his generous actions on many occasions.
Though kept busy as a bee from morning to night, yet General Putnam found life in New York irksome, and was glad enough when ordered by Washington over to Long Island, to command at Brooklyn Heights and to supersede Sullivan, who had superseded Greene, then sick with fever, who had planned and erected the fortifications on the island.

It was perhaps this "lightning change" of commanders that was responsible for the bitter defeat of the Americans in that encounter known as the "Battle of Long Island." By the third week of August, when this battle took place, the British were near New York with more than three hundred ships and thirty thousand troops, including those of Clinton, Cornwallis, and Howe.