There was nothing to do but to go on with the fight.
Washington's army held the city of New York, at the southerly point of Manhattan Island.

The Hudson River, separating the island from the mainland of New Jersey on the west, is at its mouth two miles wide.

The northern and eastern sides of the island are washed by the Harlem River, flowing out of the Hudson about a dozen miles north of the city, and broadening into the East River, about a mile wide where it separates New York from Brooklyn Heights, on Long Island.

Encamped on Staten Island, on the south, General Howe could, with the aid of the fleet, land at any of half a dozen vulnerable points.

Howe had the further advantage of a much larger force.