<P> Britain maintained control of New York City and some of the surrounding territory until the war ended in 1783, using it as a base for operations elsewhere in North America . In 1777, General Howe launched a campaign to capture Philadelphia, leaving General Sir Henry Clinton in command of the New York area, while General John Burgoyne led an attempt to gain control of the Hudson River valley, moving south from Quebec and failed at Saratoga . Northern New Jersey was the scene of skirmishing between the opposing forces for the rest of the war . </P> <P> When the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, British troops were under siege in Boston . They defeated Patriot forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill, suffering very high casualties . When news of this expensive British victory reached London, General William Howe and Lord George Germain, the British official responsible, determined that a "decisive action" should be taken against New York City using forces recruited from throughout the British Empire as well as troops hired from small German states . </P> <P> General George Washington, recently named by the Second Continental Congress as the commander - in - chief of the Continental Army, echoed the sentiments of others that New York was "a post of infinite importance", and began the task of organizing military companies in the New York area when he stopped there on his way to take command of the siege of Boston . In January 1776 Washington ordered Charles Lee to raise troops and take command of New York's defenses . Lee had made some progress on the city's defenses when word arrived in late March 1776 that the British army had left Boston after Washington threatened them from heights south of the city . Concerned that General Howe was sailing directly to New York, Washington hurried regiments from Boston, including General Israel Putnam, who commanded the troops until Washington himself arrived in mid-April . At the end of April, Washington dispatched General John Sullivan with six regiments to the north to bolster the faltering Quebec campaign . </P> <P> General Howe, rather than moving against New York, withdrew his army to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and regrouped while transports full of British troops, shipped from bases around Europe and intended for New York, began gathering at Halifax . In June he set sail for New York with the 9,000 men assembled there, before all of the transports arrived . German troops, primarily from Hesse - Kassel, as well as British troops from Henry Clinton's ultimately unsuccessful expedition to the Carolinas, were to meet with Howe's fleet when it reached New York . General Howe's brother, Admiral Lord Howe, arrived at Halifax with further transports after the general sailed, and immediately followed . </P>

Why might the british might have wanted to invade the city of new york