April, 1778. About the first of this month the British under Captain Robertson, landed at Squan with a strong force and destroyed a number of salt works on the coast; one building (probably the one near Toms River,) they said, belonged to Congress and cost £6,000. The New Jersey Gazette said of this affair:

"About one hundred and thirty-five of the enemy landed on Sunday last about ten o'clock on the south side of Squan Inlet, burnt all the salt works, broke the kettles, etc.; stripped the beds, etc., of some people there who I fear wished to serve them; then crossed the river and burnt all except Derrick Longstreet's. After this mischief they embarked. The next day they landed at Shark River and set fire to two salt works when they observed fifteeen horsemen heave in sight which occasioned them to retreat with the greatest haste; indeed they jumped into their flat bottomed boats with such precipitation they sunk two of them. One of the pilots was the noted Thomas Oakerson. The enemy consisted chiefly of Greens, the rest Highlanders."

The owners of salt works along our coast must have experienced a streak of ill luck about this time, as a letter in the New Jersey Gazette, dated April 1, 1778, says: "The late storm destroyed many of the small salt works along our shore with all the salt in them." (The storm here referred to must have been of unusual severity. Some accounts relating to it confirm the reports that it caused many shipwrecks on our coast.)

May 22, 1778. A British vessel with a cargo of Irish beef and pork was taken by Capt. Anderson and sixteen men in an armed boat and brought into Toms River. Several other prizes about this time were sent into Egg Harbor. Twenty-one prisoners (13 from these vessels) were sent to Trenton. - N. J. Gazette.