XLIV. Aug. raised under the authority of the continental con- CHAP. gress, and they formed the best corps in the camp. Accustomed to the wild independence of the back- 1775. woods, they yet gave an example of subordination, discipline and vigilance. Enlisted for a year only, many of them, both officers and men, continued in the service during the war, and distinguished themselves in almost every field. They taught the observing Frederic of Prussia to introduce into his service light bodies of sharp shooters, and their example has modified the tactics of European armies. On the twenty ninth of July, a party of riflemen got behind the guard which the British had advanced on the side of Charlestown, and before it could be supported, killed two men and took five prisoners. The New England men were not wanting in daring. On the ninth of August the Falcon was seen from Cape Ann in chase of two schooners bound to Salem. One of these was taken; a fair wind wafted the other into Gloucester harbor. Linzee, the captain of the Falcon, followed with his prize, and, after anchoring, sent his lieutenant and thirty six men in a whaleboat and two barges to bring under his bow the schooner that had escaped. As the bargemen, armed with muskets and swivels, boarded her at her cabin windows, men from the shore fired on them, killing three and wounding the lieutenant in the thigh. Upon this Linzee sent his prize and a cutter to cannonade the town. The broadside which fol lowed did little injury, and the Gloucester men kept up a fight for several hours, till, with the loss of but two, they took both schooners, the cutter, the barges, and every man in them. Linzee lost thirty five men, CHAP. or half his crew. XLIV. The next day he warped off, carrying away no spoils except the skiff, in which the 1775. wounded lieutenant had been brought away. Aug. Meantime Gage endeavored to terrify the Americans and cheer his own soldiers, by foretelling the coming of thousands of Russians and Hessians and Hanoverians. Performing no one act of courage during the summer, he vented his ill humor on his unhappy prisoners; throwing officers of high rank indiscriminately into a felon's jail, to languish of wounds and even to undergo amputation. Pleading for "kindness and humanity" as the "joint rule for their treatment of prisoners," Washington remonstrated; but Gage scorned to promise reciprocity to rebels, for any "barbarity" shown to British prisoners menaced "dreadful consequences," and further replied: "Britons, ever preeminent in mercy, have overlooked the criminal in the captive; your prisoners, whose lives by the laws of the land are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness; indiscriminately it is true, for I acknowledge no rank that is not derived from the king." Consulting with Lee, Washington, who knew Gage from the day when his want of presence of mind lost the battle on the Monongahela, rejoined: "I shall not stoop to retort and invective. You affect, Sir, to despise all rank not derived from the same source with your own. I cannot conceive one more honorable than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power. Far from making it a plea for cruelty, a mind of true magnanimity would comprehend and respect it." Towards his supercilious adversary, Washington XLIV. professed the purpose of retaliation, as he sent the CHAP. British officers who were his prisoners into the interior; but he privately countermanded the order, and 1775 allowed them liberty on parole. The lenity was ill requited. One of them, Stanhope by name, was base enough to forfeit his honor. His The arrival of reënforcements and recruits could not inspirit Gage to venture outside of his lines. His pent up troops, impaired by skirmishes, desertions, and most of all by sickness, were disheartened by their manifestly "disadvantageous situation." own timorousness, presaging "a long and bloody war," figured to itself the maritime powers of Europe taking possession of some of the provinces, and a southern governor falling a prey to negroes. He even confessed to Dartmouth, that he had fears for his own safety; that nothing could justify his risking an attack; that even to quit Boston safely would require the greatest secrecy. Washington was all the while more closely investing the town. In the night following the twenty sixth of August, with a fatigue party of a thousand, a guard of twenty four hundred, he took possession of Ploughed Hill. On the next day, Gage began a cannonade, which, for the need of powder, could not be returned. On Monday the twenty eighth, the British were seen drawn up on Bunker Hill, and Washington, notwithstanding his want of ammunition, offered battle by marching five thousand men to Ploughed Hill and Charlestown road. Silence was observed on both sides, till three in the afternoon; when it appeared that the British would not accept the challenge. But three days later, Gage enjoyed Aug. XLIV. CHAP. the triumph of cutting down the Boston liberty tree; and when marauding expeditions returned with sheep 1775. and hogs and cattle, captured from islands and along shore, the bells were rung as for a victory. Aug. Sept. Washington, on his side, was eager to take every advantage which his resources warranted. He could hardly spare a single ounce of powder out of the camp; yet notwithstanding present weakness, he saw in the courage and patriotism of the country the warrant of ultimate success. Looking, therefore, beyond the recovery of Boston, he revolved in his mind how the continent might be closed up against Britain. He rejected a plan for an expedition into Nova Scotia; but learning from careful and various inquiries that the Canadian peasantry were well disposed to the Americans, that the domiciliated Indian tribes desired neutrality, he resolved to direct the invasion of Canada from Ticonderoga; and by way of the Kennebec and the Chaudière, to send a party to surprise Quebec, or at least to draw Carleton in person to its relief, and thus lay open the road to Montreal. Solicitations to distribute continental troops along the New England shore, for the protection of places at which the British marauding parties threatened to make a descent, were invariably rejected. The governor of Connecticut, who, for the defence of that province, desired to keep back a portion of the newly raised levies, resented a refusal, as an unmerited neglect of a colony that was foremost in its exertions; but the chief explained with dignity, that he had only hearkened to an imperative duty; that he must prosecute great plans for the common safety; that the campaign could not depend on the piratical XLIV. expeditions of two or three men-of-war; while the CHAP. numerous detachments, which would be required to guard the coast, would amount to the dissolution of 1775. the army. From his arrival in Cambridge, "his life was one continual round of vexation and fatigue." In September the British were importing fuel for the winter, so that there was no reason to expect their voluntary removal; yet the time of the service of his army was soon to expire, the troops of Connecticut and Rhode Island being engaged only to the first of December, those of Massachusetts only to the end of the year; and no provision had been made for filling their places. The continental currency, as well as that of all the provinces, was rapidly depreciating, and even of such paper money the military chest was exhausted, so that the paymaster had not a single dollar in hand. The commissary general had strained his credit for subsistence for the army to the utmost; so had Mifflin, who in August had been appointed quarter-master general, from confidence in his integrity, his activity, and his independence on the men and the governments of New England. The greater part of the troops submitted to a necessary reduction from their stated allowance with a reluctance bordering upon mutiny. There were no adequate means of storing wood against the cold weather, or procuring blankets and shelter. Washington would gladly have attempted to strike some decisive blow; but in September, his council of war agreed unanimously, that an attack on Boston was not to be hazarded. The country expected tidings of the rout and expulsion of the British; although the continuing deficiency of pow Sept. |