War, plans were drawn up for a fort on Mud Island, but no fort was built. Only in the 1770s did the city acquire permanent fortifications. By 1771, Philadelphia ranked as the largest British port and dockyard in North America. Locals then rose in protest against British economic policies and imports. In response to complaints by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Pennsylvania governor John Penn asked General Thomas Gage to send someone capable of designing defenses for the city. He intended a fort on Mud Island to help regulate traffic entering and exiting the port. Gage assigned Captain John Montresor of the British Corps of Engineers to the task. Montresor presented six designs to Penn and the Board of Commissioners; the board proposed constructing a fort on Mud Island (also known as Deep Water Island). The commissioners reviewed the plans, found them all too expensive, and insisted on economy despite Montresor's protestations about the budget. Montresor stated that his preferred plan cost about £40,000 and that he intended to mount "32 pieces of cannon, 4 mortars and 4 royal howitzers ... which at 6 men each make 240 men required, 160 musketry, in all 400 garrison." The colonial Provincial Assembly passed a bill releasing £15,000 for the construction of the fort and the purchase of Mud Island from Joseph Galloway, the Speaker of the House. The board instructed Montresor to begin construction but failed to provide him with the funds that he considered necessary to do so properly. The rooms in the farthest interior of "Casemate #11" probably date from the original construction in 1771. On 4 June 1772, Montresor left the head workman in charge of the construction project and returned to New York disgruntled. The project floundered onward for about a year, when it stopped for lack of guidance and funding. The crews completed only the east and south walls, built in stone. American Revolutionary War Following the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin headed a committee to provide for the defense of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Committee of Public Safety soon restarted construction on the fort and finally completed it in 1776. The committee simultaneously also built Fort Mercer, in New Jersey on the eastern bank of the Delaware River across from Fort Mifflin. The Americans intended to use Fort Mifflin and Fort Mercer to control the activity of the British Navy on the