The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in British-held North America for the remainder of the conflict. The Patriot residents largely fled or changed their political sentiments, and afterward the British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful—Patriot intelligence network, headed by Washington himself.