[Footnote 9: The site of Fort George is now covered in part by the buildings at the west corner of the Bowling Green block, where the steamship companies have their offices. South and west of this point the Battery is almost entirely made-land. (Compare Ratzer's map of 1767 with the maps recently compiled by the New York Dock Department.) As to other old defences of the city, Wm. Smith, the historian, writing about 1766, says: "During the late war a line of palisadoes was run from Hudson's to the East River, at the other end of the city [near the line of Chambers street], with block-houses at small distances. The greater part of these still remain as a monument of our folly, which cost the province about £8000."]
At this period, the city represented a growth of one hundred and sixty years. Give it a population of twenty-five thousand souls[10]--more rather than less--and line its streets with four thousand buildings, and we have its census statistics approximately. The linear characteristics of the old town are still sharply preserved. Upon the west side, the principal streets running to the North River--Chambers, Warren, Murray, Barclay, Vesey, Dey, and Cortlandt--retain their names and location; but the water-line was then marked by Greenwich street. The present crowded section to the west of it, including Washington and West streets and the docks, is built on new ground, made within the century. Behind Trinity Church, and as far down as the Battery, the shore rose to a very considerable bluff. Necessarily, much the greater part of the city then lay east of Broadway. The irregular streets to be found on this side are relics of both the Dutch and English foundation; of their buildings, however, as they stood in 1776, scarcely one remains at the present time. New streets have been built on the East River as well as on the North, materially changing the water boundary of this part of the island. Front and South streets had no existence at that date. On the line of Wall street, the city has nearly doubled in width since the Revolution.
[Footnote 10: The last census before the Revolution was taken in 1771, when the population of the city and county of New York was returned at 21,863. (Doc. Hist. of N.Y., Vol. I.) At the time of the war alarm, in 1775, this total must have risen to full 25,000. Philadelphia's population was somewhat larger; Boston's, less.]