It is interesting at this time to read how the streets came to be just where they are.  The city was growing more rapidly than ever and the streets and byways met one another at every sort of angle, forming a tangled maze.  To remedy this, a commission was formed of several of the prominent citizens to determine just what course the streets should take.  Now this commission decided not to interfere with those that existed, but to map out the island above the city and plan for those that were to be.  They worked for four years and then submitted, in the year 1811, what they called the City Plan.  If you will look at a map, you will see at the lower part of the Island of Manhattan that the streets cross and recross each other in the most bewildering manner.  And you will also see that above this jumble the streets and avenues extend through the island in a regular and uniform way.  This change was the result of the City Plan.

While the commission was making its plan, there came threatenings of war.  Again England was at war with France, and those two countries in fighting one another very often injured the American ships.  Besides, the British war-ships had a disagreeable way of searching American ships and taking charge of any Englishmen they found on them, even those who had become American citizens.  These same British war-ships often fired upon those American vessels whose captains objected to their being searched.

So it came about that American ships carrying merchandise to other countries and bringing merchandise to American ports were interfered with more and more, and American commerce was thus ruined, for no American ship was safe.  The end came early in the year 1812, when the United States declared war against Great Britain.

[Illustration:  Castle Garden.]

As soon as war was declared, the citizens of New York united for defence, and when news came that the city was to be attacked, a great meeting was held in City Hall Park, and everybody decided, then and there, to support their country with their fortunes, their honor, and their lives.  Then they went to work, stopping all other employment, and night and day they built forts and defences.  They built forts on the islands in the bay to defend the approach to the city from the ocean, and they built forts in the Hell Gate to defend the approach by way of Long Island Sound, and they built batteries on the Island of Manhattan itself.  One fort built at this time was on a little island close by the Battery, and was called Fort Clinton.  This afterward became Castle Garden.

But though the British had sent soldiers and ships to fight the forces in America, they made no effort to capture the city of New York.

The war went on for two years; there were battles, many of them, on the land and on the sea.  Very often the British had the best of it, and then again the Americans would have the best of it.  But in the end, although the British fought hard, the Americans fought harder, and in the first month of the year 1815 the war ended with a great battle in New Orleans, which the Americans won.