/ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library E231 .B74 March 17th, 1876. olin 3 1924 032 750 006 Overs Jf/?^mtv(:^4rS Province Houfe. K V, Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032750006 Missing Page MTA-RCIi X7tU, 187G. CELEBEATION OP THE CENTENNIAL ANNIYERSARY OP THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON BRITISH AEMY, KECEPTION OP THE WASHINGTON MEDAL. OEATION DELIVERED IN MUSIC HALL, AND A CHRONICLE OE THE SIEGE OE BOSTON. BY GEORGE E. ELLIS. §0stott: PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL. MDCCCLXXTI. 3ZA.-RCTX. 17th, 1870. CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVESSAET EVACUATION OF BOSTON BY THE BKITISH AEMY, jvEAiicii irth, lyre. RECEPTION OF THE WASHINGTON MEDAL. ORATION DELIVERED IN MUSIC HALL, AND A CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. BY GEOKGE E. ELLIS. §oslon: PRINTED BY ORDEE OF THE CITY COUNCIL. MDOCCLXXVI. ^tese of ROCKWELL AND CHURCHILL, CITY PRINTERS, 39 ABoii Steeet, Boston. CITY OF BOSTON. In Boakd of Aldekmen, March 20, 1876. Resolved, That the thanks of the City Council are due, and they are hereby tendered, to Geokge E. Ellis, D. D., for the very interesting historical oration delivered before the municipal authorities of this city on the 17th inst., that being the. Centennial Anniversary of the Evacuation of the town of Boston by the British Army ; and that he be requestfed to furnish a copy of said oration for publication, together with such historical facts connected with the Siege of Boston as may be deemed worthy of preservation. Ordered, That fifteen hundred copies of the oration of George E. Ellis, D.D., delivered before the municipal authorities of this city on the 17th inst., be printed, together with an account of the proceedings connected with the observance of the Centennial Anniversary of the Evacuation of Boston by the British Army ; and that the expense thereof be charged to the appropriation for Printing. Passed ; sent down for concurrence. JOHN T. CLAKK, Chairman. In Common Council, March 23, 1876. J. Q. A. BRACKETT, President. SAMUEL C. COBB, Mayor. Passed in concurrence. Approved March 24, 1876. CONTENTS. PAGE Preliminary Arrangements 9 Decorations 12 Illuminations 20 Reception of the Washington Medal 23 Services in Music Hall 33 Prayer by Rev. Dr. Manning, Pastor of Old South Church ... 34 Introductory Remarks of Mayor Cobb 36 Address by George E. Ellis, D.D 39 Chronicle of the Siege {^By George E. ElKs, D. D.) The Provincial Forces Summoned 109 Commencement of the Siege of Boston 110 The Poor in Boston 112 General Burgoyne on the Situation 112 Intercourse between Town and Country 114 Covenant between General Gage and the Inhabitants .... 115 Proclamation by General Gage 119 " The Friends of Government " 123 Tories in Town and Country 124 Lady Frankland 126 Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford 129 Fire in Boston 130 Care for a Civil Government 131 Harvard College and Cambridge 135 The Provincial Fortifications 138 Raids on the Harbor Islands 142 Incidents in the Provincial Camp 145 Correspondence of Generals Lee and Burgoyne 146 A Preliminary to the Declaration of Independence 149 Dr. Benj. Church charged with Treachery 151 A "Visitor to the Camp 151 A Characteristic Order by Washington 153 Winter in the Camp 154 Treatment of Prisoners . . .156 V VI CONTENTS. PAGE Chronicle of the Siege — Continued. Burgoyne on the Situation in Boston 158 Destruction of " Liberty-Tree " 160 The Besieged in Boston 164 Commission by General Gage 164 Crean Brush 165 Printing in Boston 166 Proclamations by General Gage 167 Burgoyne's Theatricals in Boston 168 General Howe in Command in Boston 170 Proclamations by General Howe 170 The Contract for the Evacuation and Safety of Boston .... 173 The Leave-Taking and Embarkation 175 Boston Harbor Reopened 180 Eeport of the Evacuation in England 180 Diaries and Letters in Boston during the Siege 182 Diary of Ezekiel Price 184 Letters to Gardiner Greene 187 Dr. Andrew Eliot 188 Diary of Timothy Newell 192 The Boston Ministers during the Siege 198 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Pelham's Map of Boston. Pkovince House • 1 Old State House 15 Long Whakp 18 Washington Medal 25 Hancock House 99 Faneuil Hall 115 Vicinity of Boston, Eokts 138 Prospect Hill and Bunkek Hill — Fly Leap 139 Theatrical Programme 169 [The Engravings of the WaBhington Medal, and of the Fortifications around Boston, were pre- pared for Dr. Sparts' Life and Writings of Washington. Mrs. Sparks has kindly granted the use of the plates for this volume.] PEELIMINAET AEEMGEMENTS. DECOEATIONS AND ILLUMINATIONS. PRELIMINARY AERANGEMENTS. In his Inaugural Address to the City Council of Boston, on the 3d of January, 1876, the Mayor, Hon. Samuel C. Cobb, referred to the Centennial Anniversaries of the last and the present year in the following words : — '^o " In June last we had our centennial celebration of the Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. I believe it is regarded on all hands as a gratifyiag success. It was a memorable day for Boston, as being the first public occasion on which the antagonists in the fields and the councils of the civil war met together in considerable numbers and in organized bodies, to exchange pledges of renewed amity and fraternal fellowship and of a future cordial co-operation in the duties of patriotism. It apr peared to awaken the. hospitable feelings and the patriotic ardors of our own people, and we have had many testi- monies that our welcome visitors from all sections of the country were pleased with their reception and entertain- ment. This year Philadelphia will be the seat of a more imposing observance, in celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of the ^National Independ- ence. Oiu" warmest sympathies will be with her on this grand occasion of national and international interest. Under the auspices of the State Commission, our people will contribute to the exposition the products of their 10 CENTENNIAL TkNNIVEESART OF THE industry and art, and, I presume, a large personal repre- sentation. " It does not appear at present that any formal action on the subject is called for on the part of this municipal government. " On the Seventeenth of March next wUl occur the centennial anniversary of the Evacuation of Boston by the British troops. The City Council wUl consider what observance of the day, if any, wUl be appropriate in itself and acceptable to the people. And on the Fourth of July I presume the City Government wUl not omit the celebra- tion to which the people have been accustomed from the earliest times." At the meeting of the Board of Aldermen, January 6th, 1876, the following order was adopted : — Ordered, That the Chairman and four members of the Board of Aldermen, with such as the Common Council may join, be a committee to consider and report in what way it will be expedient to celebrate, on the Seventeenth of March nest, the Centennial anniversary of theEvacu- tion of Boston by the British army, and on the Fourth of July next, the Centennial anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence. And Aldermen John T. Clark, Chairman, Alvah A. Bm'rage, Hugh O'Brien, Choate Burnham, and Francis Thompson, were appointed as such committee. At the meeting of the Common Council, January 13, the order was passed in concurrence, and Counoilmen J. Q. A. Brackett, President, Curtis Guild, Edwin Sibley, John Sweetser, William G. Train, Otis H. Pierce, Frederick G. Walbridge, and William Blanchard were joined. The order was approved by the Mayor, January 15, 1876. On the 17th of January the committee reported in part, rec- EVACUATION OI' BOSTON. 11 ommending that the Mayor and the Chairman of the Board of Aldermen be authorized to engage an orator for the Seventeenth of March, and an order to that effect was passed by the City Council . * On the 24th of January, the committee again reported, recom- mending that, in addition to the oration already provided for, the Seventeenth of March be observed as follows : — By firing salutes at sunrise and sunset, and by ringing the church bells at sunrise, noon, and sunset ; that the occupants of the stores and dwellings on Washington street be requested to decorate their buildings ; that the locations of the fortifications on Boston Neck, and other places of historic interest in the city, be decorated ; that Bunker Hill Monu- ment, Dorchester Heights, and the principal public buildings, be illu- minated ; and that the General Government be requested to flre salutes from the Navy Yard and the forts in the harbor ; and that the State authorities be requested to illuminate the State-House. Citizens resi- dent on the principal squares and thoroughfares were requested to illuminate their dwellings on the evening of the Seventeenth. The committee appended to their report the following order, which was adopted by the City Council, and approved by the Mayor on the 5th of February : — Ordered, That the Joint Special Committee who were appointed to consider and report in what way the centennial anniversary of the evac- uation of Boston by the British army should be celebrated, be author- ized to make arrangements for the proper celebration of that occasion, at an expense not exceeding five thousand dollars, to be charged to the appropriation for Incidentals. In accordance with the order passed by the City Council, his Honor the Mayor invited George E. Ellis, D. D., to deliver the oration, and the Keverend Jacob M. Manning, D. D., to act as chaplain, on the occasion, and both gentlemen accepted the invitation. 12 CENTENNIAL ANNIVEKSAET OP THE DECORATIONS. The season of the year being unfavorable for out-door decora- tions, the sub-committee having the matter in charge, deemed it advisable to designate such places only as were situated upon the lines of march of the advancing and retreating armies, beginning at the advanced line of the American fortifications in Koxbury, and terminating at the point of embarkation of the British troops on Long Wharf. The foUovring places were thus designated : — AMERICAN FORTIFICATIONS. The original line of American fortiflcations crossed what is now Washington street on the line of division between Boston and Roxbury, near the present Clifton place. On the 23d of August, 1775, the work of fortifying Lamb's Dam was begun, and upon the completion of that work the line of fortification was advanced to a point a Utile south of the present Northampton street. Lamb's Dam extended from about the junction of Hampden and Al- bany streets to a point near the present Walnut place. It was orig- inally built to keep the tide from overflowing the marshes, and followed very nearly the present line of Northampton street, diverging slightly to the southward as it neared the highway. At the termination of the Dam, on the upland, a strong breastwork was constructed, and from that the intrenchments extended across the highway. The works were completed September 10, 1775, without opposition from the British, although within musket-shot of their advanced posts. LOCATION OP BROWN'S HOUSE. The house and barn of Mr. Brown stood on the west side of the high- way, near the present location of Franklin square, and about twenty rods in advance of the British line. EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 13 The buildings were occupied by the British troops, and served as a post from which to annoy the Americans. On the 8th of July, 1775, a party of volunteers from the American army, under command of Majors Tupper and Crane, attacked the post, drove in the guard, and set fire to the buildings. This was the only armed conflict between the opposing armies which took place within the original limits of Boston. It was at Brown's house that General Burgoyne proposed to meet General Lee, to discuss the difi'erences existing between the colonies ^d the mother-country. BRITISH EOKTIFICATIONS ON THE NECK. The main line of the British fortifications crossed the Neck between Dedham and Canton streets. The works were considered very strong, mounting twenty guns of heavy calibre, together with six howitzers and a mortar battery. The road passed directly through the centre of the work and was closed by gates. The fortification nearest the town was known as the "Green Store Battery," and was -situated just south of the present Williams Market. Its name was taken from the warehouse of Deacon Brown, which stood on the site of Williams Market, and was painted green. A barrier was erected at this point, prior to 1640, as a protection against the Indians, and, in 1710, by vote of the town, a strong work was constructed there. In September, 1774, General Gage caused the remains of the old works to be strengthened. The road passed through the centre of the works, and was closed by a gate and a drawbridge. A person who entered the town soon after it was evacuated, describing these fortifications, says, " We found the works upon the Neck entire, the cannon spiked up, the shells chiefly split, and many of the cannon carriages cut to pieces ; these lines upon the Neck were handsomely built, and so amazingly strong that it would have been impracticable for us to have forced them." The works were, by Washington's order, rendered useless after the continental army moved to New York, so that the enemy could not make them available in case they should regain the town. 14 OENTEJSTNIAL AJSHSTIVEESART OE THE LIBEETY-TREE BUILDING. The Libert5'-tree, so named from its being used on the first occasion of public resistance to the Stamp Act, stood near the present corner of Essex and Washington streets. It was one of a number of magnificent elms which grew in that locality. On the 14th of August, 1765, an efHgy of Mr. Oliver, the stamp of- ficer, together with a boot with a devil peeping out of it, — an allusion to Lord Bute, — were discovered hanging on the tree, and soon after the same Mr. Oliver, much against his will, was compelled to meet the Sons of Libertj- at the tree, and make a public recantation of his sentiments in favor of the Stamp Act. In November, 1765, two of the king's advisers were hung in effigy upon the tree. From 1765 until the British troops took possession of the town, the tree was famous as the place of meeting of the Sons of Liberty, and the ground around it was popularly known as Libertj' Hall. In 1767 a flag- staff was erected, which extended through and above the branches of the tree, and a flag displayed from this staff was a signal for the assembling of the Sons of Liberty. Under the branches of the tree matters of public concern were discussed during the stirring times which preceded the actual commencement of hostilities, and many of the prominent actors in the revolutionary conflict took a lively part in the proceedings. The tree was cut down in August, 1775, bj^ the Tories and the British troops, much to the vexation of the patriots who remained in the town during the siege. While the tree was being cut down, a soldier, in attempting to remove a limb, fell and was killed. Alluding to the event, the " Essex Gazette," of August 31st, 1775, says, " Armed with axes, they made a furious attack upon it. After a long spell of laughing and grinning, sweating, swearing, and foaming, with malice diabolical, they cut down a tree because it bore the name of liberty." A freestone bas-relief, set in the front of the building on the corner of Essex and Washington streets, marks the spot where the tree stood. 16 OBNTENKIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE In 1789 a temporary balcony was erected at the west end of the build- ing, from which General Washingtoii reviewed the procession which had escorted him into the town. After the organization of .the State Government, the General Court met there until the completion of the present State-House, in 1798. The convention to ratifj' the Constitution of the United States began its sessions there, and in it the Constitution of Massachusetts was framed. In 1830 the building was dedicated as a City Hall, and continued to be occupied for that purpose until the Court House, which stood on the site of the present City Hall, was remodelled, and the City Government re- moved there. In 1838 the post-offlce was located there, at which time a force of fifteen clerks was sufficient to transact the business of the depart- ment. EANEUIL HALL. The hall erected and presented to the town b}' Peter Faneuil was completed in 1742, and at a town meeting on the 13th of September of that j^ear, the building was accepted, and a vote of thanks passed to the donor. The action of the town was as follows : — "In Town Meeting, Boston, September 13, 1742. "Whereas information was given to this town, at their meeting in July, 1740, that Peter Faneuil, Esq., had been generously pleased to offer, at his own proper cost and charge, to erect and build a noble and compleat structure or edifice, to be improved for a market, for the sole use, benefit, and advantage of the town ; provided the town of Boston would pass a vote for that purpose, and lay the same under such proper regulations as shall be thought necessarj', and constantly support it for the said use ; " And whereas at the said meeting it was determined to accept of the offer or proposal aforesaid ; and also voted that the selectmen should be desired to wait upon Peter Faneuil, Esq., and to present the thanks of this town to him, and also to acquaint him that the town have, by their vote, come to a resolution to accept of his generous offer of erecting a market-house on Dock square, according to his proposal ; And whereas Peter Faneuil, Esq., has, in pursuance thereof, at a very great expense, erected a noble structure, far exceeding his first proposal, inasmuch as it contains not only a large and sufficient accommodation for a market- place, but has also superadded a spacious and most beautiful town hall over it, and several other convenient rooms, which maj^ prove very ben- EVACUATION OI' BOSTOIf. 17 eficial to the town for offices, or otherwise ; and the said building be. ing now finished, has delivered possession thereof to the selectmen, for the use of the town ; it is therefore " Voted, That the town do, with the utmost gratitude, receive and accept this most generous and noble benefaction, for the uses and inten- tions they are designed for, and do appoint the Honorable Thomas Gushing, Esq., the Moderator of this meeting, the Hon. Adam Winthrop, Edward Hutchinson, Ezekiel Lewis, and Samuel Waldo, Esqrs., Thomas Hutch- inson, Esq., the Selectmen and representatives of the town of Boston, the Hon. Jacob Wendell, Esq., James Bowdoin, Esq., Andrew Oliver, Esq., Capt. Nathaniel Cunningham, Peter Chardon, Esq., and Mr. Charles Apthorp, to wait upon Peter Faneuil, Esq., and, in the name of the town, to render him their most hearty thanks for so bountiful a gift, with their prayers that this, and other expressions of his bounty and charity, may be abundantly recompenced with the divine blessing." Another vote was passed, that in testimony of the town's gratitude to Peter Faneuil, and to perpetuate his memory, "the hall over the market- place be named Faneuil Hall, and at all times hereafter be called and known by that name." As a further testimony of respect, the selectmen were instructed to procure a portrait of Mr. Faneuil, at the town's expense, and place it in the hall. This building was one hundred by forty feet, and the hall would con- tain one thousand persons. It was burnt in 1761, and rebuilt, by order of the town, in 1763, a lotterj' being authorized by the State to aid in the design. In 1806, the width of the building was increased to eighty feet, and a third story was added. The first oration • delivered in the hall was a eulogy on the death of Peter Faneuil, pronounced by John Lovell, A.M., the master of the Latin School. During the siege of Boston the hall was fitted up into a theatre, where plays, derisive of the patriots, were performed. "In this hall was first heard the eloquence of a Hancock, the two Adamses, a Bowdoin, a Mollineux, and a Warren. In this hall was first kindled that divine spark of liberty, which, like an unconquerable flame, has pervaded the continent — a flame, which, while it proved a cloud of darkness to the enemies of America, has appeared like a pillar of fire to the votaries of freedom, and happily lighted them to empire and independence." — Massachusetts Magazine. 2* 18 CENTENNIAL ANNIVEESAEY OE THE MAIN GUAED-HOUSE OF THE BRITISH TROOPS. When the British troops landed in Boston, Governor Bernard gave up the State-House to them, much to the annoyance of the courts which sat there, and to the merchants and citizens who used the lower part of the building for an exchange ; after an unsucessful attempt to obtain possession of the Manufactory building for a barrack, other buildings were procured, in various parts of the town, in which the troops were quartered. The main guard was posted in a building on King street, directlj' opposite the south door of the State-House, and two field-pieces were pointed directly towards it. This was looked upqn as a menace to the liberty of the people, and an attempt to overawe the legislative and judicial bodies which met in the State-House, and much indignation was expressed thereat. When the Superior Court met in November, 1769, James Otis moved, " That the court adjourn to Faneuil Hall, not only as the stench occasioned by the regulars in the representatives' chamber might prove infectious, but as it was derogatory to the honor of the court to administer justice at the mouths of cannon and the points of bayonets." It was a detachment of the main guard, stationed in this building, which fired upon the people in King street, on the 5th of March, 1770. LONG WHARF. In 1709, Oliver Noyes, and others, proposed to the town to build and maintain a wharf with a suflflcient common sewer, from tlie end of King (now State) street to low-water mark, " leaving a waj'three feet wide on one of the sides thereof, as a highway for the use of the inhabitants of said town and others, and to extend from one end of the same unto the other forever ; and leaving a gap of sixteen feet wide, covered over, for lighters and boats to pass and repass, about the middle of said wharf, or where the Selectmen shall direct, as also a passage-way on the new wharves, on each side, for carts, etc. ; leaving the end of said wharf free for the town, when they shall see reason, to plant guns for the defence of said town." The proposition was referred to the Selectmen, who, in 1710, reported in favor of accepting it, and they were authorized to execute the proper instruments, which they did on the 13th of May. The EVACUATION OP BOSTON. 19 ■wharf was known first as " Boston Pier," and in the act of incorporation, granted in 1772, is described as " Boston Pier, otherwise called the Long Wharf." The property was divided into twenty-four shares, and descendants of some of the original owners still retain the ownership of shares and stores. In 1745, during the war with France, the town erected a breast- work and planted a line of guns upon the end of the wharf. This appears to be the only instance of the town's availing itself of the reservation contained in the grant to the proprietors. After the fall of Louisburg, Governor Shirley landed here, and met with a brillifint reception. General Gage landed here in 1774, and was received by the members of the Council and House of Representatives. Some of the principal inhabitants of the town, with the company of cadets, escorted him to the Council Chamber amid salutes of artillery *and the cheers of the people. Most of the British troops landed here, and the 5 th and 38th British . regiments embarked from here for Bunker Hill. When the British evacuated the town this was the principal point of embarkation. A large quantity of stores was left upon the wharf, and General Gage's chariot was taken from the dock broken. A brigantine, a sloop, and a schooner were scuttled and left there, and many articles were found in the dock, which had been thrown over by the British. 20 CENTENNIAL ANNIVEESAKY OE THE ILLUMINATIONS. On the evening of March 17, 1876, the followmg buildings were illuminated by the city authorities : — Faneuil Hall, City Hall, the Old State-House, and the Old South Church. The State-House was illuminated by the State authorities. Calcium lights were exhibited from the top of Bunker Hill Monument, at Dorchester Heights, from the top of the Lawrence School-house, and from the Cochituate stand-pipe at the Highlands. FortilBcations were constructed by the Americans during the siege on Dorchester Heights, on the hill where the stand-pipe is situated, and on what was then known as Nook's Hill, the site of the Lawrence School-house. The following is a brief account of the last-mentioned places : — DORCHESTER HEIGHTS. The works on Dorchester Heights were constructed with a view of forcing the enemy to attack the American lines. On the 26th of February, Washington wrote: "I am preparing to take a post on Dorchester Heights, to try if the enemy will be so kind as to come out to us." The work of constructing the fortifications was commenced about eight o'clock, on the night of the 4th of March, and when morning dawned, the works were in a condition to afford a good defence against small arms and grape-shot. The works commanded both the harbor and the town, and left the British but one alternative, either to evacuate the town, or to drive the Americans from their fortifications. The latter course was determined upon, and twenty -four hundred men were ordered to rendezvous at Castle William, for the purpose of making a night attack upon the works. EVACUATION OF BOSTON, 21 That afternoon a furious storm arose ; the surf was so great upon the shore where the boats were to have landed that thej' could not have lived in it, and the design was abandoned. A council of war was held, and it was determin^ed to evacuate the town. EOXBUKY FORT. The Cochituate stand-pipe marks the site of what was considered one of the strongest forts constructed by the Americans during the siege. It was built under the direction of General Knox, and was known as the Roxbury Fort, sometimes called the High or Star Fort. The strength of its construction, and its position on the top of a steep hill, rendered it almost impregnable. NOOK'S HILL. The appearance, on the morning of March 17th, 1776, of the fortifica- tions on Nook's Hill hastened the departure of the British troops. It completelj^ commanded the town, and its possession by the Americans would place the British forces at their mercy. An attempt was made by the Americans to fortify it, on the 9th of March, a strong detachment being sent for that purpose ; but one of the men kindled a fire, which was seen by the British, who commenced a severe cannonade upon them. Five Americans were killed, and the detachment was forced to retire. On the 16th another detachment was sent to the hill, and succeeded in fortifj'ing it, in spite of a heavy cannonade, and the next morning the British evacuated the town. EECEPTION OP THE WASHINGTON MEDAL. Y-o. .--./ ,.y f . •%. ■ //- //. .// Adnce, therefore, was without a legislature and an exec- utive, without a magistracy and a judiciary. Government was undermined and annulled. The old royal sanction and method of it could not be revived, and it was for the people to decide whether they would dispense with gov- ernment, or avert anarchy by constituting it. The Provin- cial Congress, on May 5, accepted the gauge which the garrisoned Governor had thrown down, put their own interpretation upon it, and resolved, " that General Gage had disqualified himself for serving the colony in any ca- pacity; that no obedience was in future due to him; that he ought to be guarded agamst as an unnatiu-al and invet- erate enemy." With a view to an instant provision for the emergency, the Provincial Congress had the ready re- source of reverting to their old and honored forms of self- administration, but wisely waited, as did other provinces, for advice from the Continental Congress, about "taking up and, exercising the powers of civil government." The Provincial Congress at Watertown had occasion, on May 18, 1775, to say that they " were determined to preserve their dignity and power over the military" — their own military. It was a sublime triumph of the traditions, principles and spirit which had traiaed the people of Massachusetts, that, at a temporary and alarming crisis, when the powers of magistrates and the functions of judges were suspend- ed, there should have been the least need of them in out- bursts of local disorder, or even in controversies of man with man. The alternative of a popular government, in- stituted and ratified by forms familiar from the long past, and sure of the approval and obedience of those whose EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 63 free-will created and sanctioned them, was at once availed of. Cautiously, but firmly, and with daily advances over a course which opened for its own successive stages, this and the other provinces engaged in the needful work of being their own legislators. Advice, recommendations, requests, urgent appeals, steadily led on to the bold ven- tures of requisition, till popular assent and approval, en- forced by the stern necessities of the case, warranted the assumption and exercise of a coercive power. The Conti- nental Congress, still addressing and petitioning the Mng of Great Britain, as still the sovereign of this part of his realm, were hesitating, undecisive, temporizing, about giving the explicit instructions which the provinces had asked for the estabhshment of government. But stUl, according to the saying which repeats the homeliest, as well as the profoundest wisdom, "one thing came after another," and in due time the instructions came, with an indorsement. l^o undue encomiums, though they have been warm and lavish, especially from the other side of the ocean, have been passed upon what we may call the State papers of this and the other provinces and of the Continental Congress of those troubled years. There is a tone and character common to them all. In them civilians guided and directed in due subordination the swords of ofiicers and soldiers. Beginning with writings from the Select- men of Boston and the papers covering the altercations of Representatives of Massachusetts with the three Gov- ernors, Bernard, Hutchinson and Gage, then proceeding with those of the Committee of Correspondence, of the Council of War, of the Committee of Safety, the resolu- 64 CENTENTSriAIi ANNIVERSAEY OP THE tions of Town-Meetings, the instructions to delegates, the documents of the Provincial Congresses, and ending with the formal papers of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, we cannot but marvel to-day over the mod- eration, the discretion, the acvunen, the aptness and co- gency of their tone, method and contents. They have the exactness, pith and directness most desirable and effective ia the best class of legal and ofl3.cial doc- uments, without verbiage, complication or mere in- genuity iu word fence. "Whether these papers are merely appointments or recommendations of occasions for days of Pasting and Thanksgiving according to the revered IsTew England usage, for a single province, or for the contiaent, or relate to provisions for a paper currency, or concern matters ia which a local might conflict with a general direction of common interests, we note the same admirable qualities in them. The most formal of the manifestoes and declarations designed to be read abroad, were written with such power and pertinency as to be efficient pleaders of our cause. The following are the words of the Earl of Chatham in the House of Lords : — " When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, firm- ness and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For' myself I must avow, that in all my readings, — and I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master States of the world, — for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia." EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 65 In one class of those State papers, smih. as addresses and petitions to the ting, and those declaratory of princi- ples and purposes, preceding that of Independence, the reader of our day is struck by a certain adroit, subtle, acute skill, sometimes almost suggestive of art or disin- genuousness, in plea, remonstrance, avowal or profession. It was the cue, so to speak, of their writers, to distinguish broadly between the mind, intent and incHnation of the King on his throne and in his privacy, and the purposes and measures of his Parliament and Cabinet. ilSTotorious is it now that the stiff and unyielding obstinacy of the King, his almost insane perversity and persistency against the advice of his ministers, and even their desire to lay down their office, goaded on the strife from stage to stage ; while Lord IS^orth was a tool, and hardly an agent. Of course our fathers did not know, or perhaps even imagine, the facts in the case. But we can hardly conceive they were, at the same time, so stolid, and yet so ingenious, as this class of their papers would make them appear. Their avowals of love, and loyalty and devoted allegiance to his Majesty, and of their desire to comply in all things with what were, or — as they tmderstood it — what ought to be his reasonable expectations from his subjects here, were most profuse and ardent, sometimes excessive and hardly masculine. But they fairly offset this mode and tone of addressing him by the most dej&ant, objurgatory and denunciatory way of dealing with his advisers. They wrote to and of the ministry and parliament with an admirable effrontery, as if they were really thwarting his Majesty's kind inten- tions and purposes. So, while the patriot forces were 66 OBNTElireflAIi ANNIVEESAET OF THE cooping up the Mng's troops in Boston, and plundering his store-ships, the Congress at Philadelphia was inscrib- ing to him addresses and petitions of such a temper and profession, that one might almost infer that they would have welcomed him to cross the sea and take a seat in their assembly, or accept from them a commission to head their army in driving off his own soldiers. They had motive, if not reason, for thus professing love for then- monarch, while denouncing his ministers. So his troops here were spoken of as " the vile and contemptible agents of a vengeful and wicked ministry " ; or, as Washington phrased it, " a diabolical ministry." This was the stiag of the letters addressed by him to Generals Gage and Howe, on the treatment and exchange of prisoners, and which they so sharply resented. It was a keen mortification and provocation to British officers and soldiers to be uniformly spoken of and dealt with as this policy of the so-called rebels dictated. Gage called it, on the part of Washington, an "insinuation; " and Howe re- plied to it as an " invective against his superiors, so insult- ing to himself as to obstruct any further intercourse." A similar character is noticeable in these State papers in their professions of loyalty and willingness to recognize the royal, and even the parliamentary and ministerial au- thority within certain limits — very cloudily defined, how- ever. But every way and form in which it was proposed that that authority should be exercised was pronounced a grievance. It is impossible for us to trace, distinctly, any practicable theory by which the patriots would adjust their relations to their mother-country, so that they might still be subjects, as they said they were willing to be, and EVACUATION OI' BOSTON, 67 yet not be in subjection, as they resolved they would not be. The controversy was constantly shifting its grounds, and changing shape, color and substance. It seemed to some in England as if we were tricking and trifling with them. On the first arrival of the troops, one of the votes passed at a Boston town-meeting, Sept. 13, 1768, was, " As there is at this time a prevailing apprehension of approach- ing war with France, every inhabitant is requested to provide himself with a weU-fixed fire-lock, musket, accou- trements and ammunition." There was no more prospect of such a war with France, than of her then bombarding Boston with a fleet of iron-clad steam monitors. At first we protested against being taxed by Parliament, because not represented in it; the implication being that, if we were represented in it, we would assmne our share in par- liamentary levies and subsidies. Afterwards, when rep- resentation was ofiered us, we replied that it would be inconvenient to avail ourselves of it. The simple truth is, our civilians, as petitioners, remon- strants and pleaders, did not reach to the tap-root of the controversy, till successful resistance by actual fighting laid it open to the light, viz., that distance, lapse of time, divergence of interests, and our own growth to self-man- agement, made it preposterous altogether that America should be a fief of Great Britain. It was but a practice in casuistry for us to be complaining of grievances in the infraction of the royal charter. The supreme grievance was that our life, liberty and property were any way in- volved in a charter. We must trace to the utterances of tongue and pen in those days, full as much as to weapons of war, the embit- 68 OENTBNNIAIi ANNIVEK8AET OF THE terment of feeling, jealousies and mutual antipathies be- tween the people of Great Britain and her colonies, which, with a latent persistency in their transmission, and occa- sionally intensely aggravated in their manifestation, were yielding to time and reason, till they were revived in the complications of our civil war. Obliviousness of the people in her American colonies, and utter indifference to- wards them, as a decayed or barbarized branch of the old ancestral stock, were the prevailing feelings of Enghsh- inen as the storm was gathering. An astounding amaze- ment that these people should have a word to say for themselves as being still, and still claiming the rights of. Englishmen, came with the first threat of resistance. This feeling passed successively through the phases of hauteur, scorn, contempt, passionate hate and vengeful malice. True, we had ardent friends among various classes of the British people, and bold and eloquent cham- pions of some portion of our whole cause in Parliament. But even the most discerning and forecasting of this party in opposition, while two or three among them dared to forebode that our complete severance and independence might ensue on our resistance to tyranny, did not venture to define a consistent policy towards us which would practically reconcile us to any method of foreign rule. The qualities which Englishmen then, and ever since, have most disliked in us are conceit, boastfulness, self- sufficiency and self-complacency, — the very traits which, by blood and lineage, we derive from our English an- cestry, and which, though somewhat mellowed by a livelier humor and good nature, are none the less exhibited almost as offensively by the progeny as by the parent stock. EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 69 Such was the work which the civihans of province and continent were doing discreetly and with fidehty, as they cautiously felt their way on to the construction of a nation, during those eleven months through which old Boston was a British garrison, and a patriot host en- vironed it, first to confine, then to annoy it, and finally to drive it away. THE PATRIOT CAMP AND ARMY. We cannot call those swarms and groups of country- men an army, even until a long time after Washington took command, on July 3d. The province had mustered, enrolled and officered her own militia and volunteers, and the other New England provinces had sent forces simi- larly organized — loosely — yet, as it proved, they met the emergency. They were enlisted for very short terms: knew httle of subordination or discipline: were apt to come and go at their own wills : clung to their own local associations: and preferred to allot titles and rank as colonels, majors, captains, and so on, to the men whom they had known on their village commons, at town-meet- ings, and in the taverns on muster days. Some of these officers and men had seen service in the French and Indian wars. Gen. Ward was their commander. After a fashion, they held the environs of Boston, through a circuit of hill, valley and marsh, of nearly twenty miles, including guards at outposts, with military works, of their own fashion, too, on some prominent and some exposed points. They had nothing to be called ordnance, but few muskets, and those very poor ones, fewer bayonets, and scarce a scattering of powder. Yet they did not part with 70 CENTENNIAL ANNTVEESAET OF THE a single square foot of the soil on which they had planted themselves. Though almost incessantly can- nonaded from the British works on both peninsulas and from the gunboats, not a score of them were killed during the whole siege. The scene, as slightly sketched by a few persons who had an eye for nature as well as for hiunan- ity, was suggestive and impressive, if not beautiful. In the glorious summer months of foliage and herbage over that splendid panorama, the excited groups wrought busUy by day, and kept watch by night, turning the hill-tops into citadels, and tramping the tilled fields, the sustenance of their households and cattle. An encampment of about fifty friendly Stockbridge Indians nestled in a grove on the present site of the WatertoAvn Arsenal. The riflemen from Virginia and Maryland lurked venturesomely in the nearest hiding-places, and were a serious annoyance to the enemy in picking off any who were exposed as marks. The remnant of the native forest was cut away in the severities of the following winter, and it was long before nature recovered her sway over the scene. Two grand and fruitful studies in the portraiture of character and the development of a mighty task would offer themselves in the attempt to delineate the camp of the patriots. One would be the self-training of the august commander; the other would be the formation and organization of an army disciplined and made effective from crude, extemporized, fluctuating, and even resisting materials: and this, too, under perplexities and disabilities such as were never before encountered by a General in ancient or modem warfare. EVACUATION OF BOSTON". 71 THE PATRIOT COMMANDEE. When "Washington, in the glory of his manhood, at the age of forty-three, shaped and moulded in form, feature and mien after nature's finest modelling, sat mounted under the shade of the elm-tree on Cambridge Common, we might have seen in him the frontispiece and title-page of a new volume of the world's biography and history. He had had military experience in the wilderness, con- verse with men, and practice in the administration of local magistracy. But the Commander-in-Chief was made and trained here. And while he was learning here the art of war, the method of self-mastery in which his pupilage began, trained him to such a knowledge of the arts of peace as to fit him to be the master-ruler of the country which he had created. Congress had commissioned him as commander without providing him with an army, and the army which they imagined as in existence they did not furnish with weapons, sustenance or pay. And for any powers of authority, range of sway, or defined plans, either in civil or military afiairs, Congress, to which the commander was responsible as a servant, was as shadowy and imaginary a body as was the army of which he was the head. But he surveyed the work before him, and summoned his advisers and helpers. One is tempted to say, — indeed, he wrote it himself, — that he would not have assumed the responsibilities committed to him had he foreseen the conditions, discomfitures and perplexities which were to thicken upon him. The nobler then was the constancy which met, without quailing, all these thronging spectres as they came out of shadow into 72 CENTENNIAL ANNIVEKSAHY OE THE reality. Enough that what he had to encounter of them day by day yielded to the resources in himself and in Providence. It was never a distrust or regret about the cause that came even in his most depressed hour, but a preference for the command of a regiment to that of the army. He rode the circuit of the lines, detecting successively the weak points, and strengthening and multiplying the defences, till he had fQled every gap in them. The out- bursts of a resolved and defiant spirit in popular ha- rangues and in the writings of ardent patriots, had natur- ally led him to expect that he should here find among the rustic groups some of the primary, essential qualities of soldiers in a camp; and also, in the provincial constitu- ency of these soldiers, a readiness to respond to his call for needful measures and supplies. Sadly and oppress- ively was his noble spirit tried by strange deficiencies and contrary tokens in these matters. And herein lay the grandeur of his magnanimity and of his equanimity. In- stead of yielding to dismay and so losing the mastery over himself, he boldly faced the facts with which he had to deal, 'traced them to natural and, so far, to necessary, occasions, temporized with them patiently, slowly mingled in with them qualifying and restraining agencies, and then saw them yield to his calm and steadfast purpose. He found the men, in what could hardly be called the ranks, enlisted but for days or weeks; their companies were fragments, and their regiments were skeletons ; their officers were their village or county notables, commis- sioned by local partialities, and on terms of rude and dis- orderly familiarity with their men. All of them were on EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 73 provincial establishments, crude, raw and temporary. Dissension and jealousy were incident to enforced sub- ordination, and an adjustment of rank and the restraints of discipline. Most of these extemporized soldiers felt at liberty to come and go at their pleasure, taking for granted that more, just like them, could come in their room. They had left houses, fields, mills, workshops, and families, without guardians or laborers. Who was to care for those at home, aye, or provide the food by-and-by for the wastefulness of camps? So, whether loiterers or enlisted, the mass of those whom Washington first saw as constituting his command were inconstant and unsteady, and to some extent intractable. Yet the very vagrancy and fluctuation of these provincial forces led the enemy in Boston to overestimate their numbers and the effective- ness of the service they could perform. This misleading fancy was in fact the reason why the patriot camp was not vigorously assailed when it was really the most ex- posed and weak. Yet an enormous amount of hard work with hand and spade had been done on the in- trenchments, though engineers were wholly lacking, and tools were few and poor. When Washington instituted an inquiry, the result reported to him was, that he had 14,500 men fit for some sort of military service. But of such as could be relied on as soldiers he never had that number during the whole siege, and there were critical intervals in the expiration of enlistments, and the dilatory substitution of new recruits, when he had not even 4,000. On an extreme emergency he would rely for a few days on the militia. This was the situation of the commander in full view of a vigilant 74 CENTENNIAL ANNIVEKSAEY OE THE i enemy, whose force was estimated at 11,500, thoroughly officered, equipped, disciplined and supplied, and with an auxiliary fleet in the bay and rivers. The lack of powder in the patriot camp was a matter of such anxiety to Washington, that even his efforts to obtain it, by any shift and from any quarter, were most jealously disguised, that the enemy might not come to a full knowledge of the fact. Yet it would seem as if this deficiency must have been well known in Boston through deserters or tories. The Massachusetts Assembly, too, by a resolve of Aug. 17, 1775, had "recommended to the inhabitants of this colony not to fire a gun at beast, bird or mai'k, without real necessity therefor." Precautions had been taken to have the five stock of the neighboring towns driven back into the country, and a rendezvous had been designated for the provincials in the event of their lines being broken. For Washington had resolved to hold his ground and to strengthen his works, making as close an approach to the enemy as the natural features of the environs would permit. As soon as his eye had mas- tered the panorama, his thought and purpose rested upon those unoccupied southern heights on which his decisive batteries were at last planted. His all-engrossing work was to effect the paramount object of bringing the pro- vincial forces under a continental, or general establish- ment, with corresponding commissions for officers. During the first half of the siege of Boston, Washing- ton was in dread suspense and apprehension of an assault from the enemy, while he was so utterly unprepared to meet it. Through the last half of the siege he chafed, with somewhat better preparation, under the impatience of EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 75 a constrained inactivity, because the enemy did not come out against him, and his own officers would not counsel a venture against them — which he twice proposed, once by boats, and once upon the ice. He was cheered in Octo- ber by a visit and conference with a committee from the Continental Congress, with the sagacious FranMin at the head of it, to whom the town of Ms birth must have pre- sented itself from outside in a strange plight. The letters of the commander prove that his firmness never came so near faltering as when he was forced to realize, as autumn approached, that he might have to pass the winter and wait for the spring just where and as he was. The enemy would not bring the issue to a decision, and it was not wise for him to force one. With most anxious care he at once took measures for covering and warming the soldiers through the severities and the dismal shadows of a l!^ew England winter on those bleak hills. Midway in that winter the enlistments of a large portion of his men would expire j and some of them, in their straits or un- easiness, were for anticipating their release. He was able, however, to send forth a detachment for an enter- prise in Canada. Transports with armed vessels were occasionally seen going out of the harbor, and "Wash- ington was in painfal perplexity as to their destina- tion. Thus he writes to Congress at the opening of the year 1776: "It is not in the pages of history, perhaps, to furnish a case like ours. To maintain a post within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together without [powder], and at the same time to dis- band one army and recruit "another, within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is more, probably, than 76 CENTENNIAL ANlSriVEESAUT OE THE ever was attempted." These are the words of a calm re- serve, in utterance, which were to be read before many listeners. But they hide the secret distress which bur- dened his spirit. This he occasionally discloses con- fidentially to his nearest friend and secretary, Joseph Reed, thus: "I have many an unhappy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep." All the while the country, conscious of having serious ends in view, and of having made effort and sacrifice, was daUy expecting some great movement to be ventured, and complaints reached Washington of his supposed inactivity and indecision. He dared not silence these complaints by revealing what was fully known only to himself of his alarming exposure, deficiencies and weakness. He wrote to Keed that the same means used to conceal his real situation from the enemy concealed it also from his friends, and that he had been obliged to avail himself of art to hide it from his own officers. He was cheered, near the close of the year 1775, by the arrival, Dec. 11, of Mrs. Washington, with' her son, Mr. Custis and wife, whose society afforded him moments of solace. In the middle of January, in a council of officers, attended, at Washington's request, by John Adams, the General very earnestly urged the importance of an attack on the enemy before the arrival of reinforce- ments; but the council, agreeing in the desirability of the movement, pronounced our resources to be wholly inad- equate. On the twenty-fom-th of the month, Washington wrote to Congress, "I^o man upon earth wishes more ardently to destroy the nest in Boston than I do. 'No person would be willing to go greater lengths than I shall to accomplish it, if it shall be thought advisable ; but if we EVACITATION" OF BOSTON. 77 have neither powder to bombard with, nor ice to pass on, we shall be in no better situation than we have been in all the year; we shall be worse, because their works are stronger." These are but snatches and fragments out of the rehearsal of those incidents, and that period which marked the in- vestment of Boston. The signal quality of the time and scene was, that it was the school of training and discipline for the patriot army, and emphatically so for its. com- mander. He had to defer to, and take advice from, a body which had no authority to require or exact the conditions needful to meet the wants of their General. Practically, there was committed to him, individually, during the year preceding the Declaration of Independence, the enormous task of bringing the loose material of the provincial forces daily fluctuating before him, on a continental establish- ment, and of holding them subject to terms required by an authority which any one of them might challenge as merely assumed. It was for him to devise and to dispose all the arrangements and details necessary to effect that purpose. It was for him to abate and reconcile the partialities and jealousies of ofl&cers and men; to exact rigid subordination; to enforce a stiff military routine and observance in the camp with all punctilios and for- malities, and a stern prohibition of the familiarity and levity that had marked the relations between those who were to give and those who were to obey orders. It was for him to exercise a lynx-eyed watchfulness against sur- prises, treacheries and disasters j to be constantly planning and accomplishing new defences and safer means for annoying the enemy. His advanced works were now 78 OEJiTTENNIAI, AJSTNTVEKSAHY OF THE SO close to those of the British, that the belligerents were within musket-shot of each other. The naked eye or spy- glass could take note of the movements in either camp or garrison. For a long time the provincials had had to bear a frequent cannonading from the enemy, without being able to return it, harmless as it was. The new year had brought some supplies, which, with their advanced works, allowed the provincials to retaliate. The great lesson which Washington had to teach to each individual, officer or private, in his command, was to learn to abate his. own personal independence, that he might secure the independence of his country. There, too, he learned how to deal with men, with friends as well as with enemies — with htraian nature, in all its workings of impulse and motive, its nobleness and meanness. And, as his order-book gives abundant and impressive evidence, he was thoughtful of those strengthening or enfeebling agencies which act upon health and virtue. He counselled cleanliness, high and pure morality, and the devoutness and reverence of religion in sentiment and observance. As the crisis of the situation was near, while forbidding cards in the camp, he advised a serious preparation of mind as a security against cowardice. One appreciative word, at least, is due to the letters which Washington wrote at this time to Congress, while meeting all the stern and dismal conditions of the service to which they had called him, and in which their power and their resoiirces could do so little either to direct or to aid him. It is a small thing to say of those letters that they are remarkable productions for one untrained by literary culture. They are often strikingly felicitous in the choice EVACUATION" OP BOSTON". 79 of "w^ords, and in the form of expression. But beyond this, their tone and purport, their directness, simplicity and dig- nity of sentiment, express the self-respect of the "writer, and a marvellously just apprehension of the relation in "which he stood to the body "which he addressed. He, at least, owed allegiance to Congress, if no one beside him did in the "whole country. The agitations and excitements which vexed his 0"wn spirit never passed into those letters. They are passionless, free from murmurs, complaints, cen- soriousness and sharp invectives. Yet they never sacrifice force to tameness. They deal with facts; are concise; with no cloudiness or mystification of meaning; with no insinua- tions or implications beyond the assertion. He could be urgent with Congress "without being impatient. He could make suggestions with deference. When, on rare occa- sions, he ofiered ad"vice, or even remonstran'ce, he did not disguise the intent in the form of it, but wrote it for what it was, frankly, boldly; always making allowance for delays and indecisions incident to the composition and limited power of Congress, — as yet only an ad"nsory body, neither homogeneous nor harmonious, but feeling its way in an unexplored course. And so his letters to indi"viduals, ofl&cial or private, when gi"nng instructions or information, were direct, clear^ positive, cautious — as the occasion required. When he had to mediate between sensitive parties, or to complain, or to rebuke, his moderation held in check all vehemence or temper, and his o"wn dignity was suggestive of the grace of it to others. His most approved form of censure was that which, made an offender apportion his own sen- tence. All the while burdened with work for his pen, 80 CENTEisnsriAL, a^jstiversaut oe the frequently lacking a confidential secretary, he was writing almost daily letters of instruction and detail to the mana- ger of his land-estates. A reference to these homely letters of thrift and husbandry would not be in place here, ex- cept as they reveal a winning trait in his character. His emphatic direction is, that the hospitalities of his home, and especially its free dispensings of benevolence and money to the needy, shall in no wise fail or slacken. One other engrossing anxiety was crowded into the burdens of the worn and worried chief in this early stage of a struggle, which was to decide whether the halter or the wreath would be the emblem of his fate. While watching the beleaguered foe in Boston, he had to keep in thought a whole continent, with its coasts, and towns and people, and to prepare to meet the enemy where he might strike next. 'No graver's work on a map was ever more sharply cut than that which was wrought in his mind. THE INVESTED TOWN, SOLDIERS AND INHABITANTS. While civilians in local and continental councils, and soldiers in the wide-stretched camp so anxiously watched over by Washington, were thus taking care for the pat- riot cause, the invested town of Boston, alike to those outside of it as to those within it, was the object of paia- ful and absorbing interest. From the General down to the humblest menial in his train, there was not a man that did not sooner or later realize that he had come on a fool- ish and bootless errand. The exposure of their situation, and the constant apprehension of an assault, required unceasing watchfulness, and the construction almost week by week of some new defences. Their sufferings from EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 81 the prevalence of foul diseases, the number of the sick and wounded among them, and the scarcity of fresh pro- visions, vegetables and fuel, became, at one crisis, very serious and alarming. Ghastly efforts were made by the officers during the winter to amuse themselves with dances, theatricals, and a masquerade. The old South Church, given up to a riding-school, afforded shows of horsemanship, as seen by festive spectators from its east- ern gallery. Burgoyne got up a play to be acted in Faneuil Hall, which was, however, rudely arrested in its performance by the rattling of shot from the nearest pro- vincial battery. The remnant of patriotic inhabitants in the town were grievously distressed. Some sought in vain the privilege of leaving it. Others, who resolved to stay and wait the catastrophe, were strictly watched, lest they should communicate with the besiegers. The tory element too, natives and refugees from the country, showed the excitements of an intense bitterness and of a craven trepidation. The General summoned them to organize into an association, as a town-guard, armed and receiving rations. They became a serious burden to him, as, knowing well what treatment they would receive from their outraged countrymen, they demanded special privi- leges during the siege, and the first thought and favor of the commander at the Evacuation. Gage was called home in October, embarking on the tenth, having received flat- tering addresses from the tories on his departure. He reported himself in London, IS'ov. 14. Burgoyne followed him in December. Howe was left in command. Before Gage went away he had allowed more of the inhabitants to leave the town, though imder severer restrictions. In 11 82 CENTElOriAIi AJ^NIVEESAET OP THE IS^ovember and December nearly five hundred men, women and children, in a most pitiable condition, were put ashore at Chelsea and Point Shirley, and the provincials thought the design was to spread the small-pox among them. But all the other annoyances and inflictions borne by the besieged were endurable by proud and self-respecting British soldiers, in comparison with the humiliation and mortification of their position. Those whom they had sneered at and insulted as a rabble of unarmed country- men and cowards whom the smell of the red-coats' pow- der would tame into loyalty, were cooping them up on two small peninsulas, defying their vengeance, taunting their conceit, and, with scant charges of powder, return- ing them their own balls. Greneral Grage, assuming that the few disabled men that had been seized in the battle at Charlestown were in no sense prisoners of war, but felons " destined to the cord," put them into jail in Boston, with some of the citizens whom he suspected, and gave them jail diet. "With dignified remonstrance Washington wrote to him, as he did afterwards to Howe, that we had some of their friends, as yet forbearingly dealt with, on whom retaliation could and would be visited. "With a purpose of making a raid into the country, Gage had written for heavy reinforcements, with ord- nance, wagons, horses and supplies. These were so delayed, so niggardly furnished, and so insufficient, that officers and men began to complain that the ministry had forgotten them, had brought them into peril and disgrace, and then abandoned them. Yet, as these supplies, from time to time, sailed in between our capes, our adroit skippers and 'longshoremen, intrepid and watchful, extem- EVACUATION OF BOSTON". 83 porizing their schooners and whale-boats into private vessels of war till they provided themselves with better ones, as prizes, began the business which afterwards proved vastly rewarding. They turned over a large pro- portion of the burden of the transports, ordnance, anus, powder, and all sorts of valuables, to the provincials, who needed them quite as much as did the British. The Pro- vincial and Continental Congresses had both authorized the necessary measures for naval warfare with vessels of marque and reprisal. The pine-tree flag and a code of signals were at once adopted. At the end of JSTovember, the stanch Commodore Manly took into Cape Ann the British ordnance brig " INTancy," so rich in her cargo for us and so grudged by the enemy, that "Washington, apprehending that a sturdy effort might be made to reclaim her, sent down four companies to protect her stores. Among these were 2,000 muskets — our General had just that number of men without any — 100,000 flints, 30,000 round-shot, more than thirty tons of musket-shot, eleven mortar-beds, and a brass mortar weighing nearly 3,000 pounds, to which " Old Put," helped by a bottle of rum, gave the name " Congress." A bold movement of Gen. Thomas, hi Koxbury, had narrowed the enemy's lines on the IS^eck. It is marvellous to realize how comfortably and even lavishly the slender resources of our own province for clothing, equipping, and feeding fighting men were rein- forced from English and Irish armories, magazines, flocks, coal-pits, and wine and beer vaults. And all this while British officers were writing home bitter complaints of their starved rations and mean food. From correspond- 84 CENTENNIAL ANNTVEKSAET OF THE ence and documents which have come to light in recent years we learn of the councils, advices, instructions, and half-formed plans, looking to the voluntary withdrawal by the British General from his inhospitable quarters. But the difiiculty was about the going away, the getting out, and the getting off. He could not divide his force, and he had not sufficient shipping in which to remove men and property. When this was finally accomplished, as we shall see, it was by the allowance of the provincials, and on the score of a consideration. When all these humiliations of the besieged army became known in England, chagrin and ridicule divided about equally the tone of the comments. Howe's letters to Lord Dartmouth in l^ovember and December betray real alarm. He would leave Boston if he had tonnage enough. The questions, criticisms and censures uttered in Parliament were bitter and taunting from the opposition, obstinate and defiant from the ministry. On l^ovember 1, Burke said of the army, the rebels " coop it up, besiege it, destroy, it, crush it. Your ofiicers are swept off by their rifles, if they show their noses." Col. Barre said, " They burn even the light-house under the nose of the fleet, and carry off the men sent to repair it." With the barb of his keenest irony, Horace Walpole wrote to his clerical corre- spondent, August 7, 1775, "Mrs. Britannia orders her senate to proclaim America a continent of cowards, and vote it should be starved unless it would drink tea with her. She sends her only army to be besieged in one of her towns, and half her fleet to besiege the terra firma; but orders her army to do nothing, in hopes that the American Senate in Philadelphia will be so frightened at the British EVACUATIOir OF BOSTON. 85 army being besieged in Boston, that it will sue for peace." He wrote to Conway, '•' We have thrown a pebble at a mastiff, and are surprised it was not frightened." The ministers resolved to send enormous reinforcements and supplies, and at such mighty cost that the people of Britain have not yet finished paying for them. There were 5,000 oxen, 14,000 sheep, etc., with hay and vinegar, oats, beans, flour, beer, coal, and even fagots. Extor- tionate freights, delays and disasters impeded the trans- portation, and the ocean tracks showed many of the dead animals floating. However, our privateers had a fair share in the spoil. Towards the end of the siege a flag, with drum and trumpet, went every Tuesday to the Eoxbury lines, to afford opportunities for such intercourse, conversation with friends, or the exchange of letters, or for the en- trance or exit of individuals, as was allowed on special favor, or for a money consideration. In old family cab- inets and antiquarian repositories there are extant, in rich abundance and variety, some time-stained papers, relating all sorts of private and public incidents which transpired in Boston during 'those dreadful months. Most of the letters that passed by the flag are, of course, written as from the depths of wretchedness, and reproduce their ago- nies in the reader of them. Some of the papers, however, have a strange levity and jollity. We have a few diaries and scraps from the pens of resolute or timid patriots, men and women, who, by compulsion or free-will, stayed by the dear old home, through all its woes. The letters that got out of it by stealth or allowance unite the sundered heart- strings of the members of separated families, or report the 86 CENTENNIAL ANNrVERSAI^Y OF THE state of remnants of wasting property. We read the household endearments in pet epithets and the breathings of piety; the announcement that this one has died, and the question if that one is alive ; the homely report of the state of the wardrobe of man, woman or child; lamenta- tions over the empty pantry, the cold hearths, or the cost of the poorest food. There is a constrained reticence about certain matters in these letters, which is itself richly sug- gestive. But there is the sternest reality in them all, of consuming anxiety, the dreary detail of sleeplessness, grief, unsolaced love, apprehensions and alarms of all pos- sible miseries not yet actual, and summaries of the work of poverty, pestilence, and military rule. One of the in- habitants, holding large property, for the protection of which he had remained in town, in writing to a friend in Philadelphia about the scarcity of food and fuel, grimly adds, that it is almost impossible for the bereaved to procure boards for the "underground tenements of their departed friends." The British commander, besides using one of the meet- ing-houses for a riding-school, one for a stable, and two for the storage of provender, and remSving the steeple of anothei- on the charge that it had been used for signalling, had ordered the destruction of the Old JSTorth Meeting- house — a solid timber structure, hardened by a century — and of a hundred wooden dwellings, for fuel. The soldiers had made away with the sills of wharves, with fences, orchards and trees, including, as a special spite, the Liberty Tree. The officers had taken possession of the best private houses of the town, and their considera- tion as gentlemen preserved such buildings and their EVAOUATION OP BOSTON". 87 contents from violence and pillage. On the approach of winter many of the troops had been sheltered in deserted dwellings and warehouses, which had been • emptied of the effects belonging to absent citizens. The furniture and goods were mostly lost to the owners. The Common was burrowed over with pits by the soldiers, while small- pox, dysentery, scurvy, and other ailments induced a large mortality among them. The dead were buried in trenches at the foot of the Common, which thus gave a new place to the town for interments. Letters from officers and soldiers, written to friends in England, are equally sug- gestive in the communications made by them during the discomforts of their inglorious garrison life. It is fairly supposable, under conditions that may be readily defined, that the siege of Boston might have been conducted to a result securing the capitulation of the whole British force of men and ships. They might have been cut off from supplies through the only channel open to them, if the harbor could have been closed by a few sunken obstructions, and batteries well served could have been planted on opposite points and headlands. Plans, indeed, were proposed for seizing and destroying the Castle, and securing that result. Mr. Quincy, of Brain- tree, and others pressed upon Washington their schemes for effecting it. The provincials had done many daring feats on the islands and harbor promontories, which they had stripped and desolated under the guns of the war- vessels. They would have done their part in shutting up the harbor; but Washington, had not the heavy ordnance and -powder which the enterprise demanded, nor could he weaken his force and batteries on the main. Feasible as 88 OENTEinsnAIi AJSnsriVEESAilT OP THE the undertaking seemed, the means and resources were lacking. Nor would the capitulation of that British army, shut in and starved, astounding as the report of it would have been, have had a decisive influence on the struggle. When, more than a year and a half afterwards, Burgoyne surrendered an army originally nearly as large as that in Boston, and our foreign alliances were by that event secured, Britain resolved to try still once more. Yet during the latter part of the siege, while Congress was still temporizing, it seems to have been thought that the whole struggle, so far as open warfare was concerned, might be concentrated and terminated here. The ord- nance brought by Knox, with such immense toil, over frozen lakes and through forests, from Ticonderoga and Crown Point, with shells from the king's stores in New York, and other spoils from the prizes, had given actual strength and inspiration of high courage and hopefulness to the provincials. They felt sure that they had the enemy where they could keep him, unless he chose to float away. The British General wrote to Lord Dartmouth that Boston was "the most disadvantageous place for all operations; " and "Washington wrote to Congress that " the siege was as close a one as any on earth can be." That was another of the few points in which both parties were in accord. Admiral Schuldam came into the harbor on New Year's day to take the place of Graves, there having been altercations between the latter and the Gen- eral, arising from complaints, at the lack of support and supplies, which the army had raised against the fleet. Schuldam brought with him copies of the king's " gra- EVACUATION" OP BOSTON. 89 cious speech," full of obstinate resolution. A mass of these precious documents were sent out to be dispersed through the patriot army, where they were received with contempt and ridicule. Washington wrote to Joseph Eeed that before the papers came he "had hoisted the Union flag, in compliment to the United Colonies," and its appearance was rashly interpreted in Boston as a token of submission and delight at the aforesaid "gracious speech." The flag, as you see it among the decorations of this hall, showed, without as yet any spangling of stars, thirteen stripes of red on a white field, with the united red and white crosses of St. George and St. Andrew on a blue ground in the corner. The long-drawn issue between the besiegers and the besieged was to have its close in a compromise, as con- cerned the belligerents, yet in a triumph, the joy and satisfaction of which human language would be weak to express, for the families of Boston. It has often been regarded as among the fatuities which characterized so much of the conduct of the war here by the British ministry and army, — alike in its efibrts and in its over- sights, — that its commanders had not learned to improve, on the heights on the south side of Boston, the lesson taught them by those on the north side. Why had they not possessed themselves of the elevations nearest them in Dorchester? But the query admits of two answers, as the reasons _ for action or neglect were balanced. The British seem to have given over an attempt to rush out into the country in any direction, as, if they got out, it would only be to hold one hill against a hundred others. 90 OENTEisnsnAi. aijniveesaiit of the THE HEIGHTS OF DORCHESTER. A week after Washington took command, a Council of "War had decided not to attempt to get possession of these heights, nor to oppose the enemy if they should occupy them. But the commander had from the first kept his eye and thought upon them as entering largely into the decision of the result. He had resolved, too, that a resolute effort should be made in one direction or another to drive off the enemy before the expected rein- forcements, known to be on the ocean, should arrive. His measures may or may not have been quickened by rumors of the design of a movement on the part of the enemy. It is to be remembered that, though all through the siege the combatants were supposed to obtain a general, and even minute, knowledge of each other's condition, situation and plans, through such adventurous persons as could evade the guards, or such as were allowed to leave or enter the town, all such information was to be received with large allowances for exaggeration or deception. On February 13 about 500 men under Colonel Leslie, with grenadiers and light infantry under Colonel Musgrave, had crossed to Dorchester Neck, destroyed some scattered buildings there, and taken prisoners the guard of six, getting away before they could be interfered with. There were three elevations in that part of Dorchester now known as South Boston which were involved in the plans of Washington. The old works upon them, re- newed in the war of 1812, have disappeared, and the original features of the site have been almost wholly EVACUATION OP BOSTOliT. 91 obliterated by the hand of improvement. Crossing from Eoxbmy on the edge of the tide-water marshes by Dor- chester iJ^eck, two summits, near the present reservoir and the Blind Asylum, offered sites which commanded a part of Boston and of the harbor. Below these, and closer to the water, nearest to Boston at Eoxbury l^eck, was another elevation, then called [N^ook's Hill, the site, at present, of the Lawrence School-house. The plans and preparations of Washington for possessing these heights were so deliberate and thorough, so carefully studied in the minutest detail, so conditioned upon alter- native and co-operating movements of his own, and upon the action of the enemy, as to prove with what patient and brooding study he had wrought them out. There was in them no instigation of a surprise, no occasions of hurry and afterthought, no lack of any provision needful for success. Cheerfully, heartily, and without any with- holding of needful aid, were his plans and their details advanced by all on whom he relied. Many elemental influences which were baflling to the enemy favored him. His chief difficulty lay in the fact that the ground on the heights was frozen to the depth of eighteen inches, and the next was the exposure of Dorchester I^eck, over which his men and means must pass. The utmost dili- gence had been previously uSed by Colonel Mifflin and others to provide these means — three or four hundred ox-teams and carts, large quantities of fascines, chan- deliers, bundles of screwed hay to protect the [N^eck and to aid in the construction of the defences, with barrels fastened together and filled with stones, sand and gravel, for rolling down from the declivities to break the ranks of 92 OENTENOTAIi A^WJIVEESAET OP THE the assailants. On the evening of Monday, March 4, a covering and a working party, mating 2,000 men, tinder General Thomas, started on the enterprise, as quietly as possible, the direction of the wind also favoring the secrecy of their motions. It was also a part of the plan to engage the attention of the enemy by a vigorous cannonade on the other side of Boston. By ten o'clock at night the men had raised a fort, proof against small arms and grape-shot, on each of the two farthest eleva- tions, menacing respectively the town, and the Castle and vessels. It was a mild, clear night for the season; warm work neutralized the chill air. A full moon overhead was ac- companied by a haze settling over the town and lowlands, and veiling the enterprise from the sentries of the enemy. A relief party came on at three o'clock in the morning, of Tuesday. Not till some time after daybreak were the works disclosed to the British, and when Gen. Howe gazed at the spectacle, he is said to have declared, in his amazement, that the rebels had done more in a night than his whole army would have accomplished in months. He was at once warned by the Admiral that the completion of the forts would require him to withdraw his vessels from the inner harbor. Of course the rebels must be dislodged, or he must evacuate the town. The day was the now historic fifth of March, and as it was expected that it would repeat some of the scenes acted on Bunker's Hill, the word passed from Washington as a rallying cry, bidding the provincials remember the day of the " bloody massacre." Peter Thatcher duly delivered the oration at Watertown. Every movement of the enemy was rigidly watched, and EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 93 the system of signalling arranged by "Washington coni- munieated information and directions through his whole lines. His arrangement was that if enough of the British left Boston to storm the new works, as would warrant the venture, 4,000 men would embark at the mouth of the Charles, in two divisions, under Sullivan and Greene, the whole commanded by Putnam. Sullivan's division was to have landed at the Powder-house, to take Beacon Hill, and* Mt. Horam; while Greene's, landing near Barton's Point, should take that, and then joining the other division should force the enemy's line inside at the ISTeck, and let in a detachment from Eoxbury. A strong fleet of floating batteries was to have preceded the other boats. "Washing- ton seems to have been disappointed that the thwarting course adopted by the enemy had not brought his scheme to the trial. Gen. Howe, after a council of war, decided to make an immediate attempt to dislodge the provincials. The ex- citement and stir in the town were plainly visible to those who were so interested in watching every movement. The testimony of trustworthy observers then in the town, as afterwards given to their friends, was, that it was with sunken spirits, without alacrity or enthusiasm, and with the memory of the slaughter on the heights of Charles- town, that the red-coats, in force amounting to 2,400, under Lord Percy, marched to the wharves to take boats for embarking on the transports. The provincials eagerly awaited the movement, supposing the enemy would sweep up behind the heights and at once commence the assault. This, however, was not the design.' The enemy dropped down to the Castle, intending to make the assault on 94 OENTEiraiAL AITOIVEESAIIT OF THE "Wednesday, the 6th. The freshening of the wind drove three of the transports on shore on Governor's Island, and a violent tempest, with rain, beginning at night and con- tinuing through the next day, frustrated the purpose. In the meanwhile the provincials, in spite of the storm, continued to strengthen their works, so as to assure the enemy of the hopelessness of attempting to carry them. The militia of the neighboring towns, called out for a few days to ensure the enterprise, performed all the needful incidental work. Howe, after another council of war, on the 6th, decided to evacuate the town; at the same time he received despatches approving of his own suggestion that he should remain till he was reinforced. Congress, in December, had given "Washington authority to destroy Boston if the enemy could in no other way be dislodged. The President, Hancock, in transmitting this vote, gave his oavq approval, though he would be a chief sufferer in loss of property. THE EVACUATION. But the patriots were not compelled to desolate their own capital, neither did the enemy within it wish that its bombardment should include themselves. "Washington would not harm the town if the enemy would leave it, but he did not mean that they should get out of it and then burn it behind them. He was still plying the enemy with vigorous blows, and his elaborate plans were so matured and threatening that the British forces would have suf- fered some extreme disaster, had not a compromise been availed of, which was acceptable to both parties, though deeply mortifying to the enemy. Through the aid of the selectmen of Boston in conference with Biitish officers, an EVACUATION" OI' BOSTON. 95 implied covenant — though without signature or seal to ratify it — was effected at the Roxbury lines, by the tacit assent — unpledged, however, of Washington — that if the British could be allowed, unmolested, a reasonable time for packing and embarking, they would leave the town unharmed. The informal pledge was accepted, and substantially complied with. The provincials might rea- sonably have remonstrated and demanded remuneration for the enormous amount of plunder of every kind, furni- ture and goods taken from the houses and stores, which were broken into and pillaged by some of the troops and sailors and the meanest class of the tories. These outrages continued for a week, in spite of the proc- lamations of the General threatening instant death upon any one detected in plundering or firing a building. But on the last days of his stay he himself ordered all woollen and linen goods to be seized for the use of his army. The packing up was a hurried and critical operation, as, on the last day of the siege, Washington had succeeded in plant- ing effective works on Nook's Hill, the nearest elevation to Boston, from which he could rake Boston Neck inside and distress the enemy and their shipping. It was at this moment that the British General was made to realize what an incumbrance and nuisance he had to dispose of in the tories, who now hung so despairingly on his hands. Al- most demented with dismay and fright, they implored to be put into the vessels first, with all their household goods and property. Washington wrote to his brother Augus- tine, that some of these had confessed that, "if they thought the most abject submission would have procured them peace, they never would have stirred from the town. 96 OENTEisnsriAi, ajstniyeesaet of tece By all accounts there never existed a more miserable set of beings than these wretched creatures are. They choose to commit themselves to the mercy of the waves, at a tempestuous season, rather than meet their offended countrymen." But several of the shrewdest of these tories had, by money or favor, managed to secure a passage to England, or the West Indies, before the catastrophe came. Then there were large numbers of the sick and of women and children to be provided for. The king's property also, with all the accumulations of military supplies, camp equipage and stores, was, as far as possible, to be re- moved, or, at least, destroyed. The shipping was wholly insufficient, out of trim, without food and water, and the March gales were threatening. The wharves witnessed a hurried confusion, as boats with their human or other freight were passing to the vessels in the channel. Masses of valuables were destroyed, broken, burned, thrown overboard, while many unserviceable craft were scuttled. The Castle must be dismantled, but the harbor must be guarded to warn off the transports and reinforce- ments which were on their way to the town. Still the enemy were compelled to leave behind them ordnance, goods, and miscellaneous property, which were of great value, and which were put to excellent service by the provincials. Gen. Gage's chariot, tipped off of a wharf, was not especially of use. There was just enough of play from the provincial batteries to keep the enemy mindful of the value and speed of time. The streets were barricaded and the inhabitants were warned to keep quiet in their dwellings while critical operations were in EVACUATION OF BOSTON". 97 progress. It would seem that only a contrary wind kept the enemy from leaving on Saturday; at any rate, there was leisure enough for the perpetrating of more mischief and outrage. They chose the Puritan Saturday evening, the midnight and the early hours of Sunday, for their departure. Keen-set eyes were watching for the moment when the guard should be withdrawn from the gates at the J^eck. At sunrise the enemy were afloat in their dismantled and encumbered vessels, and those which carried the tories were the first to reach and leave the outer harbor. As keen eyes as were any on the land were also watching from Yankee decks between the Capes, to pick up any stragglers. Officers, men and marines, in number nearly nine thousand; women; and eleven hundred tories and their' families, found their crowded quarters in seventy-eight ships and transports. But would they really sail away, or linger to send back their Parthian vengeance from their guns, or desolate the shore towns? And if they sailed away, whither would they go? Only after ten days was Washington relieved of a part of his anxiety by the final departure of the fieet, leaving only a guard. To reduce the rest of his anxiety he had already despatched a force to I^ew York. The harbor was not wholly opened till the provincials, by works constructed on the shores and headlands, drove away the last sentinel ship in June, just two years after the Port Bill had closed it. Then our little navy had a revel in its prize-takings. 98 CENTBiraiAI. A^STNIVERSAUT OP THE BOSTON EECOVEEED. The old town was again in the hands of its citizens and protectors. This was a glorious day, a hundred years ago, but it had its deep shadows and its dark fears. There was no parade of pomp, or procession, or festivity, or light glee, nor much public show of joy, at its first repossession. Charlestown was a complete desolation of mournful chimney-stacks, while some Quaker sentries stood mock- ingly in its abandoned fortifications. There were foul in- fections left in Boston, which even the raw air of the spring could not drive away, and disease long continued its ravages here. Impediments and torture traps were set in the way of those who should first rush in. The town was serrated with military works. Many of its homes were emptied, defaced and polluted, and its warehouses had been rifled. There was a general aspect of devastation, though the hand of violence had not wrought so complete a wreck as had been feared. The remnant of its liberty- loving people showed, by their pinched and haggard coun- tenances and their wasted frames, what they had been enduring from alarms and fi:-ights, from sleeplessness, from cold and hunger. Cowering here and there were indi- viduals or groups, whose sympathies or service had been with the retiring foe, and who were either too poor and mean to be taken away with them, or who hoped to make their peace by some excuse or subserviency. These were soon taken in hand, a part for pity and slow forgive- ness, while the worst of them changed places with the last tenants of the jail. The gates were unbarred at Koxbury Neck, by Col. Learned, on Sunday morning, and a body of O ::) < o I I EVACUATION OF BOSTOK. 99 five hundred soldiers came in there, while Putnam brought over as many from Cambridge to the foot of the Common — care having been taken to select such as had had the small-pox. "Washington, on the nest day, came over for a brief visit, in a boat from Dorchester, with James Bowdoin, Jr., who took the chief to dine with him at his Grrandfather Erving's. It is recorded that the greatest luxury which the town afforded for their banquet was " a piece of salted beef." On the 19th, the day after this visit, Washington wrote to Hancock, at the Congress, informing him of the evacua- tion, and of the condition of his own house and furniture as little injured. It had been occupied by General Clinton. The chief received and returned the congratulations of the General Court, and issued, on the 21st, a proclamation providing for order, the protection of property, and a due regard for magistracy. A large body of troops came in on the 20th, who demolished the enemy's works which menaced inwards, and constructed strong works on Fort Hill and other seaward points, and in Charlestown, to overawe the still lingering foe. Washington attended the revived Thursday Lecture on the 28th, as a Thanksgiving, and left the camp for New York on April 5th. Even the exiled inhabitants of Boston do not seem, as a body, to have made great haste to return to it. It was still a place of peril from a vengeful enemy, from disease, and from possible lawlessness. Many came to look upon the scene, and deferred for a season the reoccupation of their homes. The inevitable town-meeting was held on March 29th, for the election of officers and attention to the most pressing business. Slowly and cautiously were 100 OENTENlSnAXi A^STNTVEESAUT OF THE the dwellings and warehouses restored to their wonted uses. The scenes described, of reunited families mingling the joy of meeting with the griefs of mourning over outraged homes and wrecked fortunes, deeply engage the sympa- thies of those who read the relations. Not till after the century closed were the signs of havoc, with the remnants of the military works, obliterated, and the scenes of full prosperity revived. And now, by a fair disposal, that portion of the surrounding territory which most firmly griped the besieged enemy and compelled him to depart is embraced in our municipality, l^ew England was to be no more the scene of war, and in her participation in it thus far, less than two hundred of her soldiers had fallen on her soil. In recognizing gratefully the gift of the medal from Con- gress, "Washington generously turned the praise from him- self to his army. He said, " They were indeed, at first, an army of undisciplined husbandmen; but it is, under God, to their bravery and attention to duty that I am indebted for that success which has procured me the only reward I wish to receive, the affection and esteem of my country- men." Those of you who are seated nearest to this reading- desk may have noted that it bears to-day a decoration not familiar to the eyes of all of you, as it was to your fathers. "When the Declaration of Independence was first publicly read in this town, on July 18th, with demonstrations of pat- riotism and joy, some of the people, not with the riot and vio- lence of a mob, but in a somewhat orderly way, proceeded to remove all the outside tokens and symbols of kingly au- thority, crowns, carvings, signs and emblems, from public BVAOUATION" OV BOSTON". 101 places. This deeply and well-carved oaken tablet, bearing the royal arms, was attached 'to the Province House, as the official residence of his Majesty's Governor. Of course it then came down from its place of dignity, for it had then, like Cromwell's mace, become a bauble. But, happily, it was not destroyed. It has its welcome abiding- place in the cabinet of the Historical Society. Its gilding has yielded to time. I have not brought this royal armorial tablet here, and put it to this use to-day, with any intent to do it slight or dishonor, but as a valued relic, suggestive of days and relations long past. I- do not for- get, but rather tenderly remember, that the Queenly Lady who now bears that proud escutcheon, with her lamented Prince Consort, restrained her royal power from any other exercise than that of a noble and generous sympathy, during the distractions of our sad civil conflict. I saw the crown placed upon her head, on her coronation day in Westminster Abbey, and have loved ever since to trace her serene course of dignity and fidelity as wife, mother and queen of her magnificent empire. And if our story to- day has dealt harshly with one who filled the throne before her, let us not close it without the expression of our pro- foundest homage and respect to Queen Victoria, not our sovereign, — except that, as the highest lady in the world, she should be such to all men, — but as our ally and our friend. Two suggestive thoughts burdened, the one with his- toric facts, the other, with a modern, and we trust, a perpetual interest, come to our minds after the rehearsal of the story of Boston's humiliation and restoration. First: it was right and fair in the ordering of the method and 9* 102 OElSTTElOnAIi AJSlSriVEKSAIlT OF THE action of our Revolutionary "War, that the brunt of the struggle should have come first, most severely, protract- edly, and decisively here. Boston had generated, pro- voked, invited the contest with the mother-country. She herself boasted in her town-meeting that she had been " stationed by Providence in the front rank of the conflict." Here were first uttered calm and passionless, but earnest and cogent protests, manly remonstrances, dignified peti- tions. As these were dallied with and failed, it was natural that they should have been followed, as they were first, here, .with thi'eats, defiances, insults and outrages. Truly was the town described, and not defamed, in Parha- ment, as " the hot-bed of disaffection." Truly did Gen. Gage write to Lord Dartmouth, " In this town the arch- rebels formed their scheme long ago." With all justice were the sharpest censures and invectives uttered in the House of Lords against that pestilent nuisance, a Boston Town-Meeting, whose unknown origin and authority, and perpetual vitality by adjournment, seemed to have given it a start at the creation of all things, and to make it inde- pendent even of a resurrection, because it never died. Those meetings originated the measures of concert and action for the province and continent. Here, too, was the largest group of clear-headed individuals conferring and working together as patriots, by method and progress, as popular speakers and writers, skilled in argument and pleading, reading old laws and learning how to put new and better ones on the statute-book. Here, too, were clubs of patriots and liberty-men, whose prejudices were so in- tense against tea-pots, that they ventured to run the greater risk of punch-bowls. It was wholly right and EVAOUATIOlir OF BOSTON". 103 fair, then, that Boston should have been the first victim of the vengeance it provoked. The other suggestion comes in this form of question: Why is it that, when dire disaster, by flood or fire, pesti- lence or famine, is visited upon any spot, town or country, of this far-spread continent, the first appeal for sympathy and aid, as swiftly as the throbbing wires can bring it, is to Boston? And why is it that the more distant the scene, and the more strange even the name of the place of the disaster to us, the nearer and more familiar does Boston seem to the sufferers? The answer made by some will be. Because Boston is rich and thrifty, and its people have a repute for kindliness. Without disputing that, we must avow that there is a deeper reason, one that rests on debt and obligation. With all the drafts on our purses, we have but paid simple interest on a bonded claim. In the dismal and crushing fate visited upon trading and commer- cial Boston by the parliamentary act which hermetically closed our port to all entrance, exit and traffic, our House of Representatives resolved that this tyrannous blow, struck against this town, was aimed equally against the province, and the colonized continent. The province and continent took us at our word. They recognized the truth and acted upon it. In deliberating upon a letter received from Boston, the Congress, at Philadelphia, October 10, 1774, resolved unanimously, that if the people of Boston should find it necessary to leave it and seek the country, " all America ought to contribute towards recompensing them for the injury they may thereby sustain j and it will be recommended accordingly." " The Poor of Boston " was a phrase familiar over the continent, and it included. 104 CEIfTENTSriAXi ANISTIVEKSAIIT OV THE for some articles of need, all the inhabitants. The letters of sympathy which came from the whole length and breadth of the country, from town and city, hamlet and solitary settlement, and the replies to them, fill two stout volumes. And the sympathy in these letters always took the form of invoices, inventories and manifests of all sub- stantial gifts, food, commodities, money. Even these had to reach the town by tedious land circuits. Virginia, too, besides sending the deliverer of Boston, sent us some of her riflemen, as did also Maryland, to join our provincial forces for sharper, service than the farmers' old muskets could perform. Truly, then, does all that Boston can do for the victims of calamity over the, whole Union urge itself as an entailed obligation recognized by admitted claims. Twice in the century has this blessed and privileged heritage of ours been rescued and redeemed; — once by ourselves, and then against and for ourselves. I have not the heart to recognize the lugubrious utterances heard among us just now over the commercial troubles and the wrecks of honor in high places, which have thrown a shadow upon our otherwise jubilant centennials. The times are not dreary; the men who live are not degenerate. The capital stock of our public wisdom, happiness and virtue has steadily increased. He who, because of exceptional cases or forms of evil and wrong, consigns his own age or heritage to decay, shows only his ignorance of the truth of history, and his distrust of the Divine workings in all progressive good. The most depraving and fatal influence that can possibly work through a community is the allow- ance, as if unquestioned, of a prevailing decay of public BVACTTATION" OF BOSTON. 105 and private virtue. Our brightest hope is in disbeHeving that, and our noblest security is in disproving it. As I read the history of our fathers, in all their genera- tions, their toil and virtue seem to me to have been the noblest, in their steady regard for the welfare and happi- ness of their posterity. And, as I firmly believe that no single individual can follow the highest pattern of an earthly life, unless his hope and faith link on to a future, so I find it proved in all biographies and annals, that all unselfish, noble and heroic lives are those which parents lead for their children and their children's children. We have such lives among us in city, state and nation, private and public, high and humble. The three generations that have lived and died in this City of Boston, since its year of desolation, have wrought with diligence in all the tasks of duty; have been protected and controlled by wise and good laws; have lavishly sustained all institutions of learning, benevolence and mercy, and have enjoyed in their homes — under providential limitations only — the measurements and the sum of all earthly happiness. We have had able and faithful magistrates, — truly select-men. And as for pure and upright citizens, let us venture to in- vite the trial of the old Bible test with which the patriarch Abraham was so sorely exercised. He was promised that an imperilled city should be spared destruction if fifty righteous men could be found in it. As soon as he ac- cepted the condition, he felt a misgiving, and pleaded that the requisite number might be reduced to forty-five. This being yielded, as he thought more and more of the severity of the test of righteousness, he begged to be answerable for finding only forty, then thirty, then twenty, then ten. 106 CENTEIOIAL AIWIVEESAIIT, ETC. l^ow do we not all feel that if our honored Mayor was set to answer for this city, after that fashion, and was allowed to begin with the smallest number, ten, he would dare to go up on the schedule and be responsible for twenty, thirty, forty, forty- five and fifty? I have known that full number here, in every year of my mature life. So, let me close with a slight expansion of the motto on our City Seal: "As God was with our Fathers, and has been and is with us, so may He be with our posterity." At the conclusion of the oration, which was listened to with the closest attention, and received with hearty applause, the audi- ence united in singing "America," after which the benediction was pronounced by Rev. Mr. Manning, and the services were brought to a close. ■ CHEONICLE OF THE .SIEGE. CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. The writer of the preceding Address, in compliance with the wishes which have been expressed to him, has brought together from authentic sources the matter of the following pages, illustrative of the period and incidents of local history, which are here commemorated. THE PROVINCIAL FORCES SUMMONED. The Second Provincial Congress, which had met at Concord, had adjourned, on April 15th, 1775, to the 10th of May following. Two days afterwards, the apprehensions of immediate events of a startling character induced the committees of several neighboring towns, on April 18th, to summon the members to meet again as soon as possible. Such of them as could be reached convened at Concord on the twenty- second, and adjourned to Watertown on the same day, the object being to bring the executive and legislative body of the province as near as possible to the gathering military forces. The summons from the com- mittee was made more effective, if not anticipated, by the alarming crisis brought on by the affair of the nineteenth. In the interval, the following circular letter had been addressed by the Committee of Safety to the several towns. Before these letters could reach those to whom they were sent, the object they were designed to secure had been to some extent realized by the gathering of excited masses of people from quite a large circle of territory, Cambridge, Med- ford and Eoxbury being the chief centres of the concourse. "April 20, 1875. "Gentlemen: — The barbarous Murders on our innocent Brethren on Wednesday, the nineteenth Instant, has made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an Army to defend our Wives and our Children from the 10 110 OHEONICLE OF THE SIEGE. butchering Hands of an inhuman Soldiery, who, incensed at the Obstacles they met with in their bloody Progress, and enraged at being repulsed from the Field of Slaughter, will, without the least doubt, take the first Opportunity in their Power to ravage this devoted Country with Fire and Sword. We con- jure you, therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all Assistance possible in forming an Army. Our all is at Stake ; Death and Devastation are the certain Consequences of Delay; ' every Moment is infinitely precious ; an Hour lost may deluge your Country in Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your Posterity who may survive the Carnage. We beg and entreat as you will answer it to your Country, to your own Consciences, and above all, as you will answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible Means the Inlistment of Men to form the Army, and send them forward to Head-Quarters, at Cambridge, with that Expedition, which the vast Importance and instant Urgency of the Affair demands. " JOSEPH WARREN, President P. T." On the twenty-sixth of the month the committee addressed a second circular to the other New England provinces, asking that all the soldiers they could spare might be sent with provisions, ammunition and officers, and, if possible, artillery, to Cambridge, as our own men, so hurriedly assembled, would many of them need, temporarily, to return to their homes. COMMENCEMENT OP THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. A British officer writing from Boston to a friend in England, soon after his return from the affair at Concord and Lexington, gives us this precise date for the opening of the siege : " About seven o'clock in the evening we arrived at Charlestown, and took possession of a hill that commanded the town. The rebels shut up the Neck, and placed sen- tinels there, and took prisoner one officer of the 64th Regiment, so that in the course of two days we were reduced to the disagreeable necessity of living on salt provisions, and fairly blocked up in Boston." Of similar purport is the disclosure in a long, confidential letter, written from Boston, under the pledge of secrecy, by Gen. Burgoyne to his friend Lord Rochfort, which, by a singular coincidence, is first brought to light in the publication of the General's private papers this year, a century after it was written : — CHRONICLE OP THE SIEUE. Ill " I arrived in Boston, together with Generals Howe and Clinton, on the twenty-flfth of May. It would be unnecessary, were it possible, to describe our surprise, or other feelings, upon the appearances which at once, and on every side, were offered to our observation. The town, on the land side, in- vested by a rabble in arms, who, flushed with success and insolence, had advanced their sentries to pistol-shot of our out-guards ; the ships in the har- bor exposed to, and expecting, a cannonade or bombardment; in all com- panies, whether of officers or inhabitants, men still lost in a sort of stupefaction, which the events of the nineteenth of April had occasioned, and venting expressions of censure, anger or despondency. The principle of seizing arms, and thereby bringing the designs of the malcontents to a test and a decision, was certainly just. We can only wonder that it was not sooner adopted." The siege may properly be distinguished into two stages, the one fol- lowing the aflfair at Lexington and Concord, the other ensuing upon the battle at Bunker's Hill. The latter, of course, in its strictness, its pro- traction, the critical events which it involved, and in the triumph of the patriotic cause with which it closed, was far more interesting and momentous. But the earlier stage of the siege, —covering two months of the eleven of the investment of the town, — presented many exciting incidents and issues. In the first stage the British forces on the single peninsula of Boston, under Gen. Gage, were in duress ; afterwards those who had fortified the heights of Charlestown, under command of Gen. Hovfe, were also beleaguered. Even before the affair at Concord and Lexington the inhabitants of Boston were virtually under most of the disabilities and sufferings of an invested town. The civil power was in subjection to the military. Boston was a garrison. Large bodies of soldiers were quartered in its forts, on its open fields, and in its public and private buildings. The trades and occupations of peace were suspended or fettered. The people were exposed to insults and alarms, to mobs, riots and con- flagrations from an unbridled and mocking soldiery, even the oflScers sometimes being far from blameless. There was much of putrid and in- fectious disease in the barracks and hospitals. The lower part of the Common was appropriated for a burial-ground for .soldiers, who died in such numbers as to be interred in trenches. There was a constant rush 112 CHEONICLE OF THE SIEGE. of deserters, either singly or in company, into the open country, by boats, by swimming, or over the Neck. The appearance of these in the country towns often caused annoyance or embarrassment. They might be spies, they might be profligates, but they professed to be disgusted with the service, and were ready to work in the inland towns, often sup- pi j'ing the places of men who had gone to the provincial camp. The loss and disaffection and demoralization visited upon the British army by the number and frequency of these desertions caused the commander to impose a most rigid surveillance over his men, with constant roll-calls, and to inflict the severest penalties of the lash and death upon culprits. He had in the previous season most strongly fortified the lines at the Neck, with brick works, with ditches and strong wickets. A most pos- itive and threatening protest from the selectmen alone prevented the opening of a trench to let in tide-waters across the causewaj-. THE POOR IN BOSTON. From the closing of the port in the previous June the inhabitants had been subjected to a series of inconveniences and inflictions steadily accumulating and intensifying. The generous sympathj' of the other towns in this province, and of fellow-patriots all over the continent, including Montreal, was sending a steady stream of donations for the relief of the poor in Boston. But these for the most part reached the town by costly land-travel, as the water ways were closed. A com- mittee for distributing these gifts dispensed them for a time, except to the sick, on condition of the performance of some work for the public. Provisions became scarce, and were held at an enormous cost, so that those who had been' wont to enjoy variety and abundance of meats and vegetables, and milk and fresh flsh and fuel, were even in fear of famine. The cows were denied their usual pasturage on the Common and other fields. Sentinels guarded every way of access to the town or exit from it. GENERAL BURGOYNE ON THE SITUATION. The confidential letter from Burgoyne to Lord Rochfort, previously quoted, greatly strengthens thp evidence which we had before, that the two encounters which the British troops had had in April and June with CHEONIOLE OP THE SIEGE. 113 "the provincial rabble" had given them a somewhat more adequate sense of the spirit and courage of the people whom they had outraged. After informing his lordship, of what he no doubt believed, that the provincials at Charlestown had treble the force of the British, — the truth being that the British, independently of their war-vessels, actually outnumbered the provincials, — he proceeds to approve the making the utmost for popular effect of the alleged British victory on Bunker Hill. But he most significantly adds : — " It may be wise policy to support this impression to the utmost, both in writing and discourse ; but when I withdraw the curtain, your lordship will find much cause for present reflection, much for ' the exercise of your judg- ment upon the future conduct of the scene. Turn your eyes first, my lord, to the behavior of the enemy. The defence was well-conceived and obsti- nately maintained ; the retreat was no flight ; it was even covered with bravery and military skill, and proceeded no farther than to the next Mil, where a new post was taken, new intrenchments instantly begun, and their numbers affording constant reliefs of workmen, they have been continued day and night ever since. View now, my lord, the side of victory; and first the list of killed and wounded. If fairly given, it amounts to no less than ninety-two ofB.cers, many of them an irreparable loss — a melancholy disproportion to the number of the private soldiers — and there is a melancholy reason for it. Though my letter passes in security, I tremble while I write it ; and let it not pass even in a whisper from your lordship to more than one person [the king]. The zeal and intrepidity of the officers, which was without ex- ception exemplary, was ill-seconded by the private men. Discipline, not to say courage, was wanting. In the critical moment of carrying the redoubt, the officers of some corps were almost alone ; and what was the worst part of the confusion of these corps, all the wounds of the officers were not received from the enemy." This very remarkable disclosure will bring to the mind of the reader the contrast, to some extent, of what was experienced on the provincial side, where it was thought at the time that — of course, allowing for very marked exceptions — the men exhibited more prowess than the oflScers. A reason why, independently of what has just been quoted, Burgoyne 10* 114 OHKONICLE OP THE SIEGE. maj- have "trembled" while he wrote this letter, is found in the follow- ing criticism upon his superior oflBcer : — " I think General Gage possessed of every quality to maintain quiet govern- ment with honor to himself and happiness to those he governs ; his temper and his talents, of which he has many, are calculated to dispense the oflBces of justice and humanity. In the military I believe him capable of figuring upon ordinary and given lines of conduct ; but his mind has not resources for great and sudden and hardy exertions which spring self-suggested in extraordinary characters, and generally overbear all opposition. In short, I think him a contrast to that cast of men, somewhere described — " ' Ht to disturb the peace of all the world, And rule it when 'tis wildest.* " Unfortunately for us that cast of character, at least the latter part of it, is precisely what we want here ; and I hope I shall not be thought to disparage my General and my friend, in pronouncing him unequal to his situation, when 1 add that I think it one in which Csesar might have failed." INTEECOUESE BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY. To all the inflictions visited upon the inhabitants of the town was soon added the risk to which they were subjected from any violent or warlike acts or demonstrations from the patriots gathering around the invested peninsula, who might feel prompted to measures ruinous alike to friend and foe. The relation was for a while a strange and perplexing one between the parties who had not as j'et irrevocably defined the issues and chosen sides. The forms of peaceful and respectful ofHcial intercourse were kept up, with a conscious sense of their hollowness and insincerity. In spite of the efforts of restraint there was none the less a constant com- munication between the town and country. There was a coming and a going, sometimes openly, sometimes furtively ; various pretences se- cured liberty, and money brought privileges then and there, as elsewhere and always. Indeed, even in the later and the longer stage of the siege everything that occurred in town or country, in either camp, was speedily known to the other party. Deserters, spies, and those who contrived to evade all guards, and to surmount all difficulties, got out of the town, OHEOKICLE OP THE BIEGE. 115 and usually went to give information at head-quarters. True, this was not always to be relied on. Wild rumors, silly tales, mischievous in- ventions, fabrications and exaggerations, taught a practised caution. A Mr. Mellicant, of Watertown, an officer on half-pay in the royal service in Boston, was said to have frequently received information from our camp, by means of his wife, who passed the lines ; and the Committee of Safety, acting on this case, were induced to provide as eflfectually as possible against such intercourse. We must remember that the wide expanse of the water and the marsh land then surrounding the peninsula required much prowess of a rower or a swimmer in passing over it. COVENANT BETWEEN GENERAL GAGE AND THE INHABITANTS. Very soon after the affair at Lexington, the whig, or patriotic inhabi- tants of Boston, realizing their anxieties and dangers, applied to Gen. Gage for liberty to leave it. At first he positively refused. The case was an embarrassing one, and, as he saw, had two sides to it. For two reasons he would gladly have been rid of them ; as, first, they might keep up intercourse, exchange signals, and give information to those outside, and even aid them in case they made an assault ; and, second, he would be relieved of an element of disaffection near his soldiers, and of the probable necessity of providing the citizens with fuel and the means of sustenance. On the other hand, it was to be considered that, if the patriotic citizens were allowed to go out, with arms, money and goods, they would strongly reinforce and encourage the rebels outside, while their continued presence in the town was some security for internal quiet, and against an assault. The latter considerations had sway with Gage. The selectmen were called upon to meet the crisis, as it was under- stood that the Governor meant to require of the citizens a surrender of their arms. A town-meeting was held at Faneuil Hall, on Saturday, April 22, at which the citizens objected to give up their arms, without pledge from the Governor of security for their lives and property, and liberty to leave the town. A committee chosen at once to wait upon him and arrange matters was detained bj'' him so long that the meeting was adjourned to the next day, Sunday, to hear the result of the conference. 116 OHKONICLE OF THE SIEGE. The solemn. day and occasion made a solemn meeting, wliich was opened ■with prayer, by Dr. Andrew Eliot. The Hon. James Bowdoin presided and, as Chairman of the committee to confer with the Governor, re- ported in substance : — " That the committee had represented to the Governor the uneasiness of the inhabitants at the avenues of the town being shut up, and no person admitted to come in or go out, and the fears and apprehensions they were under with respect to the behavior of the troops in case of an attack from the country, etc. To which His Excellency replied, that he could not be answerable for the conduct of the troops, unless he had absolute assurance of the peaceable disposition of the inhabitants, and that none would be so satisfactory as the surrender of their arms : that upon doing this they should have liberty to remove out of town, with their effects, and have carriages to assist those that went by land ; and he would desire the Admiral [Sam'l Greaves, who had succeeded Admiral Montagu on this station] to assist with his boats those who should remove by water." He also promised to make provision that the poor should not suffer. After some discussion at the meeting, the inhabitants, partially re- lieved, voted to comply with the proposal. Thej^ punctiliously kept their agreement, surrendering their arms, to be deposited in Faneuil Hall or elsewhere, under the care of the selectmen. The names of the owners were severally attached to them, and it was covenanted that they should be returned at a proper time. In the journal of the Committee of Safety, at Cambridge, April 28, 1775, is the following entry : "Mr. Henderson Inches, who left Boston this day, attended, and informed the committee that the inhabitants of Boston had agreed with the General to have liberty to leave Boston with their effects, provided that they lodged their arms with the selectmen of that town, to be by them kept during the present dispute, and that, agreeably to said agreement, the inhabitants had, on yesterday, lodged 1,778 fire-arms, 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses, with their selectmen." But when the owners of the arms after the evacuation sought them, they were found to be hopelessly damaged and worthless. The Loyalists, or " Government Men," in the town, were chagrined at this covenant with rebels, and said that Gage had yielded too much, and that some arms OHEOKIOLE QF THE SIEGE. 117 had been concealed. A rigid search was made for everything in the shape of a weapon. The inhabitants, having met the terms of their agreement, trusted that the Governor would fulfil his, but were disappointed and irritated by subsequent conditions. They had supposed that they would be free to take with them all their moveable property at their pleasure, with facilities of land and water conveyance, as promised. But the Gov- ernor at once appointed a new officer, under the title of Town Major, without a pass from whom he forbade any one to leave the town. Great difficulties were thrown in the way of obtaining these passes. Some applicants waited days and weeks for them ; they were granted spasmodically, suspended for days and weeks, and then resumed. Some obtained them by bribes, some through tory friends. Then again very slight assistance was afforded by free boats, as the Admiral would not co-operate. All passage by carriages over the Neck was interdicted, and the aged, infirm and sick were great sufferers. But the meanest evasion of the covenant made by the Governor, and which brought his honor under a cloud, relieved only by the plea that he had the advice of his counsellors and some tory lawj'ers, for the construction of the term, was as to the meaning of the word effects. The lawyers said it included only, "furniture, clothes, plate and money." The inhabitants insisted that it covered "provisions, merchandise, and all working tools." A committee was appointed to remonstrate with the Governor, but he held by the advice given him, and the exiles — passing an inspection by appointed officers — had to leave their goods behind them, or win favors by bribery. These inspectors were tyrannous and abusive in their office. Three places of exit were provided and rigidly watched : the Neck, Charlestown Ferry and Long Wharf. Here men and women were searched, their bundles opened, food taken from them, and they and their effects kept out for nights in the streets till permitted to go. Not only merchandise and provisions, but even medicine, came under prohibition for removal, and an intense feeling of hostility, with the wretchedness of despair, were excited in many persons who would have inclined to be moderate, and in the distressed members of sepa- rated families, aged and infirm parents, husbands, wives and children. The warmest partisans of the royal cause in the town were charged, 118 CHKONICLE OP THE SIEGE. probably with good reason, with inducing Gen. Gage to break tlie spirit and even the letter of his agreement. The tories denounced the arrangement, by which all who were in sympathy with the rebels outside were allowed to join them, as impolitic and of pernicious tendency. Their departure would remove one of the chief securities against incendiarism and bombardment. On the day of the battle at Lexing- ton some two hundred of these tories, chiefly crown-offlcials and traders, had sent in their names to the General volunteering to arm in his service. The General gladly accepted the offer, and the volunteers were at once enrolled under Brigadier General Ruggles, a country tory. A panic rose in this corps on the going out of the inhabitants, and after sharply remonstrating with the General they threatened to lay down their arms and even to go out themselves. The General, after temporizing, yielded to their remonstrances, and came to the persuasion that even the presence of women and children in the town might be a security to it. Hence the restrictions put upon the carrying out of the terms of his own covenant, and the final refusal of passes. The Committee of Safetj' at Cambridge, in a letter to the Selectmen of Boston, dated Aj^ril 22, anticipating the contract with Gage, had approved it in these words : — " Gentlemen: — The Committee of Safety being informed that Gen. Gage has proposed a treaty with the inhabitants of the town of Boston, whereby he stipulates that the women and children, with all their effects, shall have safe conduct without the garrison; and their men also, upon condition that the male inhabitants within the town shall, on their part, solemnly engage that they will not take up arms against the King's troops, within the town, should an attack be made from without, — we cannot but esteem those conditions to be just and reasonable ; and as the inhabitants are in danger of suffering from the want of provisions, which, in this time of general confusion, cannot be conveyed into the town, we are willing you shall enter into and faithfully keep the engagement afore mentioned, etc." Of course the Provincial Congress remonstrated against the embarrass- ments put upon the removal of the people, and against the filial breach of his covenant by the General. Charlestown, though, till the battle of June 17th, nominally free from OHEONICLE OP THE SIEGE. 119 military control, was still immediately overawed by the British and their ships. It was gradually becoming deserted by its people, save by a few who tried to protect their propertj'. Its poorer inhabitants were provided for in the country -towns. Unfortunately, too, some of the people of Boston had been transferring goods and valuables to the doomed town, as if for greater security. The library of Dr. Mather had been deposited there. Of course all these goods of every kind were destroyed when the British fired the town. As early as the first week in May a guard at Charlestown Neck prevented the entrance of persons or provisions without a pass. General Gage seems to have regarded his demand for the delivery of arms as including those of all the inhabitants. He therefore issued on June 19th the following proclamation : — "BY THE GOVERNOR. A PROCLAMATION. "Whereas, notwithstanding the repeated Assurances of the Selectmen and others, That all the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston had, bona Fide, de- livered their Eire-Arms unto the Persons appointed to receive them, though I had Advices at the same Time of the contrary ; and whereas, I have since had full Proof that many have been perfidious in this Respect, and have secreted great Numbers : " I Have thought fit to issue this Proclamation, to require of all Persons who have yet Fire- Arms in their possession, inunediately to surrender them at the Court-House to such Persons as shall be authorized to receive them: and hereby to declare that all Persons in whose possession any Eire-Arms may hereafter be found, will be deemed Enemies to His Majesty's Government. " Given at Boston the Nineteenth Day of June, 1775, &c., &c. "THO'S GAGE. " By His Excellency's Command, "THO'S ELUCKER, -Secr't/. " GOD Save the KING." 120 CHEONICLE OF THE SIEGE. The following afterwards appeared at its date : — " NOTIFICATION. " ALL Persons who are desirous of leaving the Town of Boston are hereby called upon to give in their Names to the Town Major forthwith. " By Order of His Excellency the General, " JAMES URQUHART, Town Major. " Boston, 24th of July, 1776." The Provincial Congress, at Concord, April 14, recognized the pru- dence of the step hj which many of the inhabitants of the town, who had been able to do so, had already left it, and provided for helping the poor to come out. On April 20, Joseph "Warren, as Chairman of the Committee of Safety, addressed a respectful letter to General G-age, asking him as to the time that was to be allowed to those who wished respectively to go into or to come out of Boston, and suggesting that he remove the restriction hj which he had limited the number of wagons that might be admitted at anj' one time to thirty. The matter of the liberation of the inhabitants was referred by the Provincial Congress to the Committee of Safety, and action by the committee was impatiently asked for on April 30th. The committee reported on the same day, accepting Gage's terms, and agreeing that those who should go into the town might take with them their eflfects, excepting arms and ammu- nition. It was also thoughtfully ordered that the members remaining in the countrj;^ towns of families, the heads of which might be in Boston, favoring the royal side, should not be treated with any violence or indignity. Furthermore, permission and facilities were granted to all who wished to remain in Boston to send out into the country for their moveable property, excepting arms and ammunition. The ob- structions imposed by Gen. Gage continuing to prevent the egress of the inhabitants from the town, the Provincial Congress addressed a letter to Gen. Ward, at Eoxburj', to do everything in his power to secure ingress and egress to all who, under the conditions, desired it. On May 9th, a committee was instructed to make " a spirited appli- cation " to Gen. Gage. The result was the following letter, sent to him by the Congress, on May 10th : — CHEOOTCLE OP THE SIEGE. 121 " To Mis Excellency General Gage : — " Sm, — This Congress have received frequent intelligence that their brethren, the inhabitants of the town of Boston, have to contend, in their removal therefrom, with numerous delays and embarrassments, contrary to the stipulation proposed and agreed to between Your Excellency and the selectmen of that town. " We thinli it our duty to remonstrate to Your Excellency, that, from the papers communicated to us by the said selectmen, it appeared, that the inhabitants were promised, upon surrendering their arms, that they should be permitted to leave the town, and carry with them their effects. The con- dition was immediately complied with on the part of the people ; since which, though a number of days have elapsed, but a very small proportion of the inhabitants have been allowed to take the benefit of your covenant. " We would not affront Your Excellency by the most distant insinuation that you intended to deceive and disarm the people by a cruel act of perfidy. A regard to your own character, as well as the fatal consequences which will necessarily result from the violation of your solemn treaties, must suggest sufficient reasons to deter a gentleman of your rank and station from so injurious a design. But Your Excellency must be sensible, that a delay of justice is a denial of it, and extremely oppressive to the people now held in duress. * " This Congress, though not the original party in the treaty, have taken every step in their power to facilitate the measure, and in the whole of their conduct have endeavored to evidence a disposition to act upon the prinpiples of humanity and good faith, and still indulge hopes that the confidence of the inhabitants of Boston, in Your Excellency's honor and faithfulness, is not mis- placed ; and that, notwithstanding any disagreeable occurrences, naturally resulting from the confused state of the colony, which this Congress have discountenanced and endeavored to rectify. Your Excellency will no longer suffer your treaty with a distressed people, who ought by no means to be affected thereby, to be fui:ther violated." The Committee of Safety, on May 17th, passed the following vote: " WJiereas General Gage has not kept his agreement with the inhabitants of the town of Boston, but, notwithstanding his said agreement, has prevented, and even refused, said inhabitants, with their effects, from removing into the country ; therefore, Resolved, That it be recommended to the Congress that they rescind their resolution of the 30th ultimo, permitting the inhabitants of this colony to remove, with their effects, U 122 CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. into the town of Boston, which resolution was founded upon said agree- ment." Accordingly, the Congress, on the twentieth of the month, re- solved as follows : " Whereas, this Congress did, on the 30th of April last, pass a resolve for permitting such inhabitants of the colonj' to re- move into Boston, with their effects, fire-arms and ammunition excepted, as should incline thereto, it being in consequence of Gen. Gage's promise to the inhabitants of Boston, that, upon resigning their arms and ammunition they should have liberty to remove from said town with their effects ; and whereas, but a small proportion of the said inhabitants of Boston have been hitherto permitted to leave the town, and those only to bring their clothing and household furniture, they being con- strained to leave their provisions and all their other effects ; therefore. Resolved, That Gen. Ward be and he hereby is directed to order the guards in future not to suffer any provisions or effects, excepting furni- ture and clothing, to be carried into the town of Boston, so long as the said Gen. Gage shall suffer the persons or effects of the inhabitants of said town, contrary to his plighted faith, to be restrained." It is difficult to estimate, with much precision, the exact number of the inhabitants of Boston, of both sexes and of all ages, who removed from it under this first conditional allowance offered by the British com- mander. As we shall see, by and by, another opportunity for a further portion of the distressed people to go out, though under still harder con- ditions, was offered, caused by the press of circumstances. The qualified privilege offered by the proclamation in April was practically impaired by so many embarrassments and caprices, that the exit of those who wished to avail themselves of it was wearily protracted all through the month of June. The alternative of going or remaining was to many but a balance of hardships and distresses. Large numbers of them, having no relatives in the country, and no kind of profitable employment or resources, felt that they would have to throw themselves on the charity of towns or individuals already heavily burdened, and looking forward to severer exactions. They must leave their dwellings and their property, which they could not remove, to„ all the risks of disaster, mischief, violence, and of wanton riots of a military occupancy. To set against these were the steadily increasing scarcity and exorbitant prices of fuel and pro- visions, loss of means of living through trade or labor, fearful risks OHEOlSriOLE or THE SIEGE. 123 from pestilential disease, the hateful presence of a foreign army, and the constant peril of assaults from the patriots outside. There were supposed to have been about 17,000 inhabitants in Boston when hostilities began at Lexington, and it was estimated that nearly or quite 12,000 had gone out by the end of June. More were yet, as above intimated, to go out in the autumn. There were several cases in which one member of a family concluded to remain to look after house, property, shop or store, while the other members went into the country. Then the long months of separation, with all the varied calamities and apprehensions, keeping them at a fever heat, and with the extremest difflcultj' of communicating by letters, which were opened on both sides of the lines, were further aggravations of misery. The General com- pelled the selectmen to remain in the town, but they had scarce anything ^ beyond sanitary functions, and a partial oversight of the poor. Town meetings of the citizens of Boston were held in Watertown. Records of these and of the doings of the selectmen are preserved in the City Clerk's office, but they are exceedingly meagre. Those of the meetings held at Watertown are largely occupied with provisions for the oration on "the horrid massacre," and with thanks to the orators. The Pro- vincial Congress did all that was in its power by recommendations to provide, in the country towns, for the reception in each of a certain number of exiles who had no private resources, and fixed on a weekly allowance to be paid for their support by the selectmen of such towns, or by their Committees of Correspondence. A spirit of mutual depend- ence and harmony, and a determination to continue resistance, meeting all its consequences, were very much quickened by these interminglings of the people from the town with those in the country. "THE PRIBNDS OF GOVERNMENT." Boston now became simply what some of those left in it called it, "a Garrison of the King.'' Besides the militarj-, it now had in it — we can scarcelj' say that it sheltered and protected — a motley, discordant and uncomfortable conglomeration of people. The country towns had had at the same time several persons and a few families of whom they were glad to be rid. 124 CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. TORIES IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. These were then called Tories, afterwards Loyalists, and Kefugees. Some of these received hard measure, and were treated undoubtedly with severity, cruelty, and absolute injustice ; and unwisely so, as the event proved, for ends of policy. In several of the country towns were con- spicuous citizens, professional men or merchants, of influence and high social standing, who were more or less out of sympathy with what they regarded as the rashness, turbulence or violence of the spirit of liberty as it was then rising. They thought our grievances exaggerated ; doubt- ed if we could cope with Great Britain ; feared our burdens would be increased rather than lightened ; distrusted the hot-headedness of some whom they looked upon as demagogues ; and, with a hesitating and con- servative spirit, they counselled moderation and dela}'. Either from words known to have dropped from them, or from their bolder opposi- tion, or from their absence from the popular assemblies, such men came under suspicion, and were marked with distrust. The patriotic commit- tees of the towns took them in hand, went to examine them, or sum- moned them to a meeting to give an account of themselves by humiliation and avowals of sympathj' with the popular cause. Some, timidly or honestly, made their peace. Others, who would not yield their convic- tions, were treated with indignity and violence, hy mobs investing their dwellings, by threats of tar and feathers, and by destruction or seizure of their property. These procedures confirmed them in their opinions and course of conduct, and stiffened their obstinacy. Many of these, being hustled about and threatened in their own towns, had already found a troubled refuge in Boston. Others had come into the neighbor- hood of the Provincial camp as if really safer there than at home among gathering minute-men and under the surveillance of committees. With the softened spirit of a retrospective review of those days of fierce excitement, we cannot but mingle with our pity for some indi- viduals who were proscribed as enemies to their country, a regret for the severity, and sometimes gross injustice, with which they were treated. A broad distinction is to be drawn between the interested partisans of royalty engaged in profitable trade, or fawning upon the representatives OHEONIOLE or THE SIEGE. 125 of power, in the town, and the professional men or private citizens in the country, who were forced to affiliate with them. There were peace-loving and every way blameless gentlemen and ladies scattered over the province, who, on being roughly waited upon by a self-constituted com- mittee of " Sons of Liberty," began by simply objecting to, and then resenting, the catechising to which they were subjected. If any utterance or overt act on the part of such persons, indicating a lack of sympathy with the popular movement, could be charged against them, they were treated with great indignity, — their names being posted as enemies or traitors, their houses and goods rifled, or their dwellings befouled by the process called, " a coating of Hillsborough paint." Threats of "tar and feathers" were, however, more frequently uttered than carried out. A very humiliating method was enjoined as the con- dition of full or probationary pardon for having offended the people. The penitent must fall on his knees before his townsmen, and, expressing deep contrition, implore their forgiveness. When Gage covenanted for the departure of the inhabitants of Boston, he asked that a letter should be written by the selectmen, to Dr. "War- ren, at Watertown, desiring leave for all such persons in the country towns, as might wish to do so, to come unmolested into Boston, with their effects. The Provincial Congress, responding to the supposed fair- ness of Gage, on April 30, as above stated, granted such permission, and stationed oflScers at the Neck of Boston and Charlestown to secure them free, entrance. Those wretched fugitives little realized then what they had yet to endure from their exasperated countrymen, as the odium in which they were held was steadily intensified, and as their doom was confiscation, humiliation, expatriation and poverty. Often did many of them, even from their pensioned refuge in the mother-country and in its wild provinces, send back longing laments for the fields of New England. The severest language which came from the pen of Washington was in denunciation of the Tories — " those execrable parricides whose counsels and aid have deluged their country with blood." Protesting against the treatment they had received, they said to the Whigs, "You make the air resound with the cry of liberty, but subject those who differ from you to the humble condition of slaves, not permitting us to act, or even think, according to the dictates of conscience." The only reply they received 11* 126 CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. was, " The majority in a free government must bear rule. There is an immense majority for liberty. You take your side — for failure or tri- umph." From the opening of the struggle the crown promised to all Tories securitj'^ and compensation. LADY FRANKLAND. Among those persons living in the country, whose sympathies led them to seek the protection of the British General by availing themselves of the privileges granted by Congress of removing into Boston, was a lady whose career had such elements of romantic interest as to prompt a special reference, in this connection, to her individual experience. The most lucrative crown office in Boston in the j-ears preceding the outbreak of strife was that of the Collector of the Customs. Though the salary attached to it was but £100, the perquisites of it made it very profitable and more desirable than that of Governor of the prov- ince. Shirley made interest for the Collectorship, but had to content himself with the office of Governor, because he had at the time a more powerful rival. This rival is known by the name of Sir Charles Henry Frankland, grandson of a daughter, the youngest and favorite child, of Oliver Cromwell. He was born Maj' 10, 1716, at Bengal, where his father was residing as Governor of the East India Company's factory. In 1741, in his twenty-fifth year, he was made Collector of Boston. His winning and engaging manners, and other personal qualities, made him a great favorite in the vice-regal society of the town, and he was a gener- ous patron of King's Chapel and its rectors, and of Harvard College. He had with him a natural son, a little boy bearing the name of Henry Cromwell. On an official visit which he made to Marblehead in the year 1742, his attention was drawn to the rustic beautj' of a j'oung girl of sixteen years, Agnes Surriage, a daughter of poor, but decent parents, who, with bare feet and limbs, was scrubbing the floor of the inn. He gave her half a crown with which she might buy shoes. On a second visit, soon after, seeing her again in the same condition, he ques- tioned her about her shoes. She replied that she had bought a pair, but kept them " to wear to meeting Sundaj^s." Seemingly engaged by her charms and the promise of what she might be made to be, Frankland, by CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. 127 consent of her parents, had her brought to Boston, there, at Ms expense, to receive the best education enjoyed by the daughters of the aristocracj' of the time and place. Four years after his first sight of her she became a member of his household in a relation which had not the sanction of legal or religious rites. To relieve the scandal of that relation which prevented this child of poverty from enjoying the social position she might have had as his wife, he purchased, in 1752, a large extent of land in the town of Hopkinton, twenty-five miles from Boston, where he built and furnished sumptuously a spacious manor-house, with out- buildings, gardens, parks and fine shrubberies, and where he kept a dozen or twenty slaves. Here he maintained a bounteous hospitality while visiting Boston to attend to his oflBcial duties. There were many loyalists in Hopkinton, where lands had been purchased and an Episco- pal Church planted by Koger Price, the uncomfortable rector of King's Chapel. Having occasion to visit England on business, in 1754, his family con- nections would not recognize Agnes, who accompanied him. He was residing with her temporarily at Lisbon, when, as he was driving in a carriage with another lady , he was buried for more than an hour under the ruins of a failing building in the great earthquake which desolated that city on-*Nov. 1, 1755. In the horrors of his situation he lamented some of his faults and vices, and penitentlj' resolved if he escaped death to amend bis life. Being rescued with onlj' severe bruises, he took Agnes at once to a church, where the marriage rite was solemnized between them, which was soon after repeated bj* the chaplain of the ship, an Episcopal clergyman, as they were returning to England. His high-born friends now heartily received the rescued husband and the legal wife. Returning with her to Boston in 1756, he purchased, for a town-house, the splendid Clarke mansion in Garden Court street, next to Gov. Hutchinson's, still retaining the estate at Hopkinton. The writer of these pages, some twenty-five years ago, visited the fine country manor when it was occupied by the widow of Gen. Hrldreth, who died there in 1857, in her eighty-eighth year. She showed the writer a chamber to which it was said Frankland used to retire on the anniversary of his rescue from the earthquake, and there, wearing* the clothes from which the' marks of the catastrophe had not been removed. 128 CHKONIOLE OI' THE SIEGE. keep solemn fast-da}'. The house was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1858. After another visit to and residence in Lisbon, as Consul General, Frankland returned to Boston in 1763. His failing health took him again to England with his wife and Henry Cromwell, where he died at Bath, in 1768. Lady Agnes, with the boy, herself childless, came back to Hopkinton, where the j'ears passed quietly and pleasantly till the siege of Boston. Of course, all the attachments of her later life were with those who were shut up in the garrisoned town, while her presence and influence were an offence to the rural stock of Hopkinton. In answer to her request that she might move to Boston, in order to embark for England, the Committee of Safety, on May 15, 1775, " Upon the application of Lady Frankland, Voted, that she have libertj- to pass into Boston with the following goods and articles for her voyage, viz. : 6 trunks ; 1 chest ; 3 beds and bedding ; 6 wethers ; 2 pigs ; 1 small keg of pickled tongues ; some hay ; 3 bags of corn ; and such other goods as she thinks proper." The following permit was granted : — " To the Colony Guard : — " Permit Lady Frankland, of Hopkinton, with her attendants, goods, and the provisions above mentioned, to pass to Boston, by express order of the Committee of Safety. " BENJAMIN CHURCH, Jr., Chairman. " Head-quabtees, May 15, 1775." Notwithstanding this official action, an armed party in the town of Hopkinton, or on the way to Boston, under the lead of Mr. Abner Craft, resisted the lady's removal. -The matter coming before the Provincial Congress, on May 18th, a committee was appointed to inquire into the facts of the case. On the report of this committee the Congress " Resolved, that Mr. Abner Craft be, and hereby is, directed forthwith to attend this Congress." After he had attended, made explanation and withdrawn, it was further " Resolved, that he should be gently ad- monished by the president, and be assured that the Congress were determined to preserve their dignity and power over the military." CHRONICLE or THE SIEGE. 129 " Resolved, That Lady Frankland be permitted to go into Boston with the following articles, viz. : seven trunks, all the beds and furniture to them, all the boxes and crates, a basket of chickens and a bag of corn, two barrels and a hamper, two horses and two chaises, and all the articles in the chaise, excepting arms and ammunition ; one phaeton, some tongues, hams and veal, sundry small bundles. Which articles, having been examined by a committee from this Congress, she is permitted to have them carried in, without anj' further examination." On the next day, Col. Bond, with a guard of six men, was appointed to escort the lady with her effects to Boston, showing to General Thomas, at the lines, a copy of the resolves. She took refuge temporarily at her house on G-arden-court street, from which she witnessed some of the horrors of the Battle at Charlestown and the Conflagration. She gave her services to the nursing of some of the wounded. She availed herself of the first opportunity to sail with Henry Cromwell for England, where, at the age of 57, she died, in 1783, a year after she had formed a second marriage. BENJAMIN THOMPSON, COUNT EUMFORD. Another individual, who was destined to attain a world-wide fame as a philanthropist and a man of science, appears in a trying and somewhat equivocal position, among those who at this time found refuge in Boston. Born as the son of a farmer in "Woburn, in 1753, showing from his earliest youth some of the qualities of genius, Benjamin Thompson, while teaching school in Concord, N. H., had married a rich widow, had risen in his social relations, and received, just before the opening of hostilities, a military commission from the royal governor of New Hamp- shire. He had come under suspicion at Concord for tory proclivities, and being ill treated and threatened there had sought refuge in his native place at Woburn, Mass. Here he had been confined, and, after a public examination, the Committee of Correspondence of that town had neither acquitted nor condemned him. He therefore appealed to the Committee of Safety for a full and fair trial, and an honorable dis- charge, alleging that his personal safety and reputation depended upon a thorough and impartial investigation of the charges against him. The 130 CHEONICLE OF THE SIEGE. only recognition of his case on the records of the Provincial Congress, is under date of Maj' 20 : " The peti'tion of Benjamin Thompson to the Committee of Safety was read, and ordered to subside." The young man lingered awhile about Cambridge and Charlestown, and asked unsuccessfully for a commission and employment in the army that was forming. He did good service in helping to remove the library and apparatus of the college. At last, chagrined and irritated, he went off to Newport, from which he found passage to Boston. There he so ingratiated himself with the royalists, that, at the evacuation, he was sent bj' Gen. Howe with despatches for Lord George Germaine, under whom he became secretary in the department for the American war. These country tories found in Boston some fellow-sufferers more or less conscientious than themselves, and either by selfish interest or the force of associations firm adherents of the royal side. These were such of the councillors as had accepted the office on appointment or command of the king in contravention of the Province Charter ; crown oflflcials, and their partisans, with their families, interested in the revenue and in supplying the army ; a few merchants and traders, and a coterie of such as followed the fashions of the times. Such as these, with a few timid but true adherents of the popular cause, made up, with the soldiers, the inmates of the garrison. Some of the patriotic remnant kept a watch- ful ej'e on what was transpiring around them, and upon the plans of the enemy, and with great risk communicated valuable information to the besiegers outside. Occasionallj- a bright youth, or a bold man, would work his way from the town to the patriot camp. FIKE IN BOSTON. In the midst of all the direful trials attending the leaving Boston by so many of its people, occurred the calamity of a disastrous conflagra- tion, on Wednesdaj-, the 17th of May. A party of soldiers were hand- ling cartridges in a store used as a barrack on the south side of the town dock, when by some accident the cartridges ignited, setting fire to the store. The flames spread rapidly till some thirty warehouses and buildings were destroyed, involving much valuable property, including some of the donations that had been sent to the poor of Boston. There CHEONIOLE OF THE SIEGE. 131 was much confusion, as the General had recently put the fire engines in charge of the soldiers, who did not know how to use them, and had afterwards to call in the aid of the citizens. Instead of ringing the bells as usual on an alarm, the soldiers beat the roll-call. There was a foolish rumor that the Whigs in the town had set the fire. CAEE FOE A CIVIL GOVERNMENT. General Gage was now no longer the Governor of Massachusetts, so far as any recognized authority over its people was concerned. His commands, orders and proclamations were limited to the little peninsula of Boston. The Provincial Congress, at Watertown, in May, resolved, that, by his arbitrary course, he had disqualified himself to serve the col- ony as Governor, or in any other capacity ; that no obedience was due to him or his proclamations, and that he should be regarded as an unnatu- ■ ral and inveterate enemy to the country. They recommended the towns and districts to choose Representatives for a General Assembly at Wa- tertown, July 19, opened a subscription for a loan to be committed to a Treasurer of their own, who displaced the King's, and appointed Maj- 11 for a day of fasting and prayer. There is a significance in the wording and contents of the successive proclamations issued by the Provincial and Continental Congresses for days of solemn religious observance. Fast and Thanksgiving, marking the gradual waning of the sentiment of loyalty, or, at least, of the ex- pression of it. The matter and phraseology of these papers were evi- dently studied with care. They were not prepared by clergymen, but by lay committees. In the proclamation by which the Provincial Con- gress had appointed March 16 for a Fast day, the Divine blessing is implored to ' ' rest upon George the Third, our rightful King, and upon all the royal family." In the proclamation which appointed May 11 for the same sacred observance, the fact is recognized that " the New Eng- land colonies are reduced to the ungrateful alternative of a tame submis- sion to a state of absolute vassalage to the will of a despotic minister," or of meeting the dire necessity by arms in self-defence. The sentiment of loyalty breathes only the petition, " that the people of Great Britain and their rulers may have their eyes open to discern the things that shall 132 CHEONICLE OF THE SIEGE. make for peace," etc. Again, on a report of a committee appointed to prepare a resolve for a Fast day on July 13, an amendment was voted for introducing a petition for a " blessing on the Continental Congress," and a prayer for the "unity of the colonies." On June 22 the proclama- tion was once more recommitted for an amendment, and "Mr. Webster and Deacon Fisher " were added to the committee. When the proclama- tion goes forth, the " cruelty and barbarity " of the two recent assaults are emphasized, but neither Parliament nor King finds a place in the prayers. But after the appointment of the day, its observance was superseded by a proclamation in which the Continental Congress had designated July 20 " as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer" for " the inhabitants of all the English colonies on the continent." In this a blessing is invoked upon " our rightful sovereign. King George the Third,'' and a reconciliation is prayed for " with the parent State, on terms constitutional and honorable to both." The varying phraseol- ogy of these documents, by which, in good time, God was asked to bless and save "the People," instead of " the King," was a matter of observa- tion and criticism in England. The circulation of the proclamations into all the towns, from the pulpits of the churches of which they were read, followed by observances in the assemblies and the houses, was one of the best mediums of sympathy-, influence and confidence between the tentative government of the province and the people. That tenta- tive government was allowed and recognized, under the emergency, till it could find confirmation and exercise authority by organic provisions and sanctions. The following is the reply of advice and instruction given by the Con- tinental Congress in reply to the call from Massachusetts, on Maj- 16, for direction in the matter of civil government : — " In Congress, Friday, June 9, 1775. "Resolved, That no obedience being due to the Act of Parliament for alter- ing the Charter of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, nor to a Governor or Lieu- tenant-Governor who will not observe the directions of, but endeavor to sub- vert that Charter, the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor are to be considered as absent, and these offices vacant. And as there is no Council there, and the inconveniences arising from the suspension of the powers of Government are intolerable, especially at a time when General Gage hath actually levied war, CHEOIsriOLE OF THE SIEGE. 133 and is carrying on hostilities against his Majesty's peaceable and loyal sub- jects of that colony : that in order to conform as near as may be to the spirit and substance of the Charter, it be recommended to the Provincial Congress to write Letters to the Inhabitants of the Several Places which are entitled to representation in Assembly, requesting them to choose such representatives ; and that the Assembly when chosen should elect Counsellors, which Assem- bly and Council should exercise the Powers of Government, until a Governor of his Majesty's Appointment will consent to govern the Colony according to its Charter. " A true copy from the Minutes. "CHARLES THOMPSON, Sec'ri/. " By order of the Congress, "JOHN" HANCOCK, PresidenV A copy of this resolve was sent to the Selectmen of each of the towns of the province to direct the choice of Representatives for a Provincial Congress to be convened at Watertown on July 19, The exiled citizens of Boston were summoned, by their Town Clerk, to meet at Concord on July 18, to choose their representatives. What is said in the preceding Address concerning the peculiar characteristics of the official papers, circulars, appeals and other docu- ments to be classified under the general term of " State papers," as all relating to public interests, and passing between representative or administrative bodies, might be richlj' illustrated if there were space for it here. The reader of a mass of those papers will be led to wonder where and how the writers of them attained their skill, felicitj-, acute- ness, and extraordinary sagacity and discretion in the composition of them. We can account for the striking ability manifested by John Adams, for instance, in this direction, partly bj"^ native genius and intellectual force, and partly by his diligent study of every work on law and government on which he could lay his hands. But the astonishing fertility, acuteness and discrimination of his kinsman, Samuel Adams, baffle any easy explanation. Yet it is not only in those papers which emanated from the most conspicuous patriots and leaders that we trace the remarkable characteristics more or less common and im- pressive in all of them. The publication of a large number of the local histories of the older towns of Massachusetts has set before any one 12 134: OHEONIOLE OP THE SIEGE. interested to pursue the inquiry a voluminous mass of reports, instruc- tions, arguments and counsels relating to the revolutionarj' epoch, written by individuals or committees, as we may almost say, simply by the light of nature, but exhibiting qualities of real, political, statesmanlike abilitj'. The transcendent influence which DeTocqueville so discern- ingly assigned to New England town-meetings in inspiriting, guiding and leading to a successful issue our great revolutionary struggle, will find full confirmation in portions of the contents of these town histories. It was hardly strange that, at the time, the British ministry and Parlia- ment should have been so mystified and perplexed by the real nature and phenomena of a Boston or a New England town-meeting. They were in- digenous products, self-evolved methods, developments from the soil, habits and circumstances of the New England people. Very ingenious, but hardly successful, efibrts have been made, by archaeological and anti- quarian essayists, to trace similar and parallel institutions in the democ- racies of ancient Greece, and in the municipalities of some portions of the European continent. But they were substantially original and unique here. Even in the other colonies of the continent, as in the Jerseys, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas, counties, and what were called, as now, in Louisiana, " parishes," which involved a different municipal administration, were found to be an embarrassment in perfecting measures that were easily disposed in the New England towns. The reader must exercise his own ingenuity in his moralizing or spec- ulating upon the contents of our State papers, in that one marked characteristic of them, — their avowals of a true loyalty to the King of Great Britain in spite of a defiance of all his measures, and a resistance of all his agents. Those papers approximate as nearly as was ever yet realized to a fountain which sent forth at the same place " both sweet waters and bitter." Gen. Burgoj'ne, who seems to have occupied some of his literary leisure here in reading such papers, wrote of them to Lord North : " It is more than probable the rebels will be as much averse to trust their cause to fair discussion as to the fair field. Distant skirmish, ambush, entrenchment, concealment, are what they depend upon in debate as in arms." Had it been practicable for one or more members of the British min- istry, at the time, to have been present at a town-meeting, somewhere in OHEOMCLE OT" THE SIEGE. 135 the interior of the province, in which the array and costumes of the citizens did not give token of much dependence upon broadcloth or the tailor's skill, he would probably have found equal amusement and instruction in studying the scene. Men, roughened and hardened by toil and exposure, ■would have shown him original specimens of the native training, in rug- gedness of independence in ideas, in natural vigor of mind, and in the power of expression and composition, using certain liberties of their own in grammar, pronunciation and spelling. And if any one should think it worth his while to digest all the voluminous patriotic papers of those days to have their pith and marrow of meaning before him, he would find that the revolt, of the New England colonies especially, proceeded upon three well-understood positions, as facts : — First. That these colonies were not planted by the enterprise, or tinder the patronage of, the crown of England, nor favored and fostered by foreign sympathy or aid in their early straits ; but were ventures of a stern and earnest company of self-exiled men and women, at their own private charges and risk, and that they became what they grew to be, because they were not nurslings of court and Parliament. Second. That these colonies first drew the interest and suspicion of the mother-country, not from any regard to their own welfare, but that they might be selfishly turned to her account and aggrandizement, so that her interference with them was oppressive and tyrannical. Third. That the royal and parliamentary sway over the people of these colonies involved the radical iniquity of holding them by more rigid terms than were imposed upon their own islanders to the obligations of Englishmen, while denied the full rights of Englishmen. HAEVARD COLLEGE AND CAMBRIDGE. It is an interesting fact that the College, planted in the wilderness by the first company of English colonists in the Bay of Massachusetts, should have been the scene and the centre of the earliest warlike opera- tions for the defence of the colonj'. From her plain halls, and from the care and training of such instructors as the resources of the time and place could furnish, had gone forth some of the foremost of the local patriots, and the jealousj' of the spirit which was rising in the land had 136 CHEONICLE OP THE SIEGE. prompted an inquisitorial investigation into the political views of her guardians and administrators. Tiie first recognition of the College in the crisis which had now opened around it was in a petition, by th^ afterwards eminent engineer, then Major, Loammi Baldwin, addressed to the . Provincial Congress, June 6, 1775, representing " that General Ward had approved of a proposal for taking surveys of the gi-ound between the camp of the Massachusetts army and the posts of the British troops, and requested the loan of mathematical instruments from the apparatus of Harvard College, to be used in the execution of this service." The Congress ordered thereupon, that the Eev. President Langdon be requested to loan such instruments for the public service. Two dayS before the battle in Charlestown, on the report of a com- mittee to whom the business had been referred, the following careful provision was made by the Congress: "Whereas, it is expedient that those apartments in Harvard Hall, under the immediate charge of the Professor of Philosophj' and Librarian of Harvard College, be evacuated, Resolved, That the library, apparatus, and other valuables of Harvard College, be removed as soon as may be to the Town of Andover," — a committee being designated " to consult with the Eev. President, the Hon. Mr. Winthrop [Professor], and the Librarian, or such of them as may be conveniently obtained, and with them to engage some suitable person or persons in said town, to transport, receive, and take the charge of the above-mentioned eflfects," — great care being taken in the pack- ing, removing, and safe transfer of the articles, the charges to be borne by the public. It appears, by a resolve on June 23, that there was a delay in carrying out this arrangement. The future Count Eumford, then Benjamin Thompson, at the age of twenty-two, showed his interest in science by volunteering his aid in the removal of the College property. A quantity of the province arms was soon deposited in the library hall. The Committee of Safety had voted, May 1, " That the quartermaster- general be directed to clear that chamber in Stoughton College, occupied by S. Parsons, Jr., for a printing ofla'ce for Messrs. Halls." Samuel and Ebenezer Hall, who had been printing the "Essex Gazette" in Salem, had been induced to remove their press t6 Cambridge, and from their oflBce in Stoughton Hall, they issued, on the 10th of August, the first num- CHEONICLE OI' THE SIEGE. 137 ber of the " New England Chronicle, or the Weekly Gazette." The other halls of the College were soon surrendered for barracks and oflSces. "With all the cares pressing upon the self-constituted civil authorities of the time, they did not fail to recognize the claims of such of the ejected students as were that summer entitled to their academic degrees ; so they provided for calling together as many of the overseers as could be reached, to bestow them. Some of the finest and noblest private mansions in the province, with broad acres around them, were in Cambridge, and belonged to those whose sympathies were with the royal party. Happily most of these mansions s'till stand to-day, some of them enriched alike by memories of patriotism and by the literary fame and honors of their later occupants. For the crisis they served for military uses. Washington, on coming to Cambridge, found a temporary home in the dwelling then appropriated to thie President of the College, which is still in good preservation. The owner of the grandest of the Cambridge mansions. Major John Vassal, being a tory, had sought the protection of the British General, in Boston. His house had been for a short time occupied by Col. Glover, and also had been appropriated to the Com- mittee of Safety. On the journal of that committee for July 8, 1775, we read the following : — " Whereas, it is necessary that the house of Mr. John Vassal, ordered by Congress for the residence of His Excellency General Washington, should be immediately put in such condition as may make it convenient for that purpose, therefore, Resolved, that Mr. Timothy Austin be, and hereby is, empowered and authorized, to put said house in proper order for the purposes above men- tioned, and that he procure such assistance and furniture as may be necessary to put said house in proper condition for the reception of His Excellency and his attendants." In his confidential letters to Joseph Reed, Washington communicates his purposes and methods of a generous and impartial hospitality in that mansion, and also some of his embarrassments and discomfitures in the matter. The journals and letters of many distinguished men and women, which are extant, record that their writers shared those ' hospi- 12* 138 CHKONICLE OI' THE SIEGE. talities, with their impressions of the courtesy and dignity of the host and hostess. It was a pleasant coincidence that Mr. Sparks, the biographer of Washington, and the editor of his voluminous papers, should have done much of his work of almost idolatrous love for the chief, in the house and room where so many of those papers were written. THE PROVINCIAL FORTIFICATIONS. Some slight intrencliments of the nature of fortified lines, incident to the first steps towards the formation of a camp, had been made by the provincials when they first rallied at Cambridge. Upon the retreat from the redoubt on Breed's Hill, and from the rail fence, on June 17th, Gen. Putnam had in vain attempted to have a stand made on the higher summit of Bunker's Hill. But this point, seeminglj' of necessity, was yielded to the enemj'. Gen. Howe continued upon the ground, which was immediately secured by strong works, commanding the Neck and the direction of the provincial camp. Onlj- thirty or fortj' years ago these works, now wholly obliterated, were easily to be traced, and looked formidable in their softened outlines. Howe continued in com- mand of the British detachment in Charlestown, till he succeeded Gage as commander-in-chief, on the recall of the latter in 'the following October, when Gen. Clinton was sent to Charlestown. Putnam, with a corps of volunteers, on the night following the battle, working with heroic diligence, threw up intrenchments upon the high and beautiful rounded summit known with equal appropriateness by the two names of Prospect Hill and Mount Pisgah. There were two crests to the summit, one of them since known as Spring Hill, both of which, before the end of the month, were so strengthened as to be regarded tenable against an attack, while held by nearly four thousand men. The forces at Cambridge and Charlestown were in full view from this hill. Within the last ten years the spade and the pickaxe have been levelling it for the uses of thrift and health, principally to fill the basin of Miller's river, in East Cambridge. Here, too, until quite recent years, fosse and rampart had left their traces, and the site was a favor- able one for recalling the scenes of the past. Vol. m p 26. )H™,,™,u, BTttlr its CrUrirmtT CHEONIOLB OF THE SIEGE. 139 In making so instantaneous a stand on tliis Hill, which continued to be one of the strongest points during the whole siege, and which was regarded at first as in venturesome proximity to the enemj' in Charles- town, Putnam left two smaller hills between him and Bunker's Hill, to await the disposition of subsequent events. These were Ploughed Hill, so called because it was the only one of the neighboring summits which at that time had been cultivated, which has since been known as Mount Benedict, the site of a Roman Catholic convent-school, and which also is now being rapidly levelled ; and Cobble Hill, now covered by the Appleton wards and the grounds of the McLean Asylum. These two hills came in due season, when Washington had mastered his resources, to form part of his fortifications, and were intrenched and held in open defiance of the attempts made hj the enemy to withstand their occu- pancy by a brisk bombardment by land and water. It seems to have been a matter of unexplained wonder, at the time, that the British should not have anticipated the provincials in taking possession of some of these summits, or at least have been ready to thwart every attempt at their fortification by their foe. But after Prospect Hill had been seized and strengthened it v^ould have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for the British to have taken and held either Ploughed or Cobble Hill. Besides, if they had held both of them, what more or next could they have done ? It required their utmost eflbi'ts to hold their ground on their two peninsulas, aided by their gun-boats. They had early found that the cost of taking a hill from the provincials was very heavy, and as such hills were lavishly scattered upon the coast and clustered in the interior, they seem to have concluded that the provin- cials were likely always to have the larger share of them. The lines between the opposing forces, within their respective intrench- ments, approximated so closely that the sentries exchanged news, banter and compliments, and deserters found an easy transit. Among the humors of the situation the provincials availed themselves of the oppor- tunity to send, on the wings of a favoring breeze, or by messengers with flags, large numbers of a satirical print,— of which a fac-simile is given on an adjoining leaf, — containing an address of "remonstrance to the British soldiers, and a contrast of the bills of fare, the wages, and the looked-for rewards of the respective combatants on Bunker's and Pros- 140 CHBONIOLE OF THE SIEGE. pect Hills. A small mill, a few houses, sheds, barns, and trees between the lines formed prizes contested in the later stages of the struggle. On the same night following the battle at Charlestown a few New Hampshire troops occupied, and began to fortify, the lofty and swelling summit of Winter Hill, standing behind Prospect Hill, and midway between Cambridge and Medford. Under General Folsom the works here were so extended and formidable by the close of the month, that the hill, next to that in Koxbury to be soon refeiTed to, became the most secure of all the provincial defences. A skirting of breastworks ran from the marsh lands near Charlestown Neck, all the way to the banks of Charles river in Cambridge, with several redoubts, half-moons, and more substantial earth-works on the elevated spots and exposed points along the course. The most critical point to be secured and defended was that which should guard the only outlet from Boston by land, at Roxbury Neck. Here, too, the natural features of the region favored the plans of the provincials. Before the stand-pipe of the Cochituate Water Works was erected at the Highlands, in Eoxbury, a stroller over the precipitous and rocky declivities of that eminence would have regarded it as a natural fortification, independently of the remains of the works still visible upon it. These works were constructed under the superintendence of Generals Thomas and Knox, and were very strong, and shot could be thrown from them into Boston. Breastworks and intrenchments on the low lands on both sides, across the roads, on Sewall's point, on the Meeting-house hill, and on the road to Dorchester, had been begun, and more or less advanced before the arrival of Washington. A redoubt had been begun on the Ten Hills Farm, to command access through the Mj'stic river. Colonel Gridley and his son, with such scientific and practical assistance as they could summon to aid them, gave their labor, as engineers, to these works, though with slender help from proper implements. Shot and shell were occasionally thrown from Boston while these works were in progress, but more than an ofl'set to the mischief effected by them was made by some of the Indians and riflemen on the provincial side, who picked oflT the British sentries. Skirmishes at Boston Neck, shells thrown with some damage into Eoxbury, and collisions between parties at the lines, seemed from the first to indicate the relations which were to *lj »3 9 » 3' re r* O cr- S, " » 1 ^ 5 S Qi 5 ■. CL o d- i- Si g r-h r^ tr tr *T3 5" t 2. M " 3 &3 •-• n- pj a re g- re a- Cr a «. ^~^ CT" ° s s 01 c o n o w re^ r - p ^ _ 61- S- a. re oi re Li so o ►1 tr B o n o li S' are-:. ,_^ so :^ I o o a re „ ►^ more t ^i B- d •-a - > i^ 5 ^ s § < 5' o p a - — ' •— ' o ►S 1- 3 o B. Ol >^ "^ rt- re I t - re' a " > en S 3 3 n- p re £!• 13 ? i" n "..§ td*^ .^ n. M 3' cr, »-j re m -■ 01. £. a* ►J t^ o _ B ? n re q M- Ol 01 re a t-f H- re' 01 sa a CU t r Addrefs to the Soldiers. Gentlemen, YOU are about to embark for America, to compel your Fellow Subjects there to fubmit to Popery and Slavery. It is the Glory of the Britifh Soldier, that he is the Defender, not the Deftroyer, of the Civil and Religious Rights of the People. The Englijlt Soldiery are immor- talized in Hiftory, for their Attachment to the religion and Liberties of their Country. When King James the Second endeavoured to intro- duce the Roman-catholic Religion and arbitrary Power 'vaX.6 Great Britain, he had an Army encamped on Houn- Jlow-Heath, to terrify the People. Seven Bifhops were feized upon, and fent to the Tower. But they appealed to the Laws of their Country, and -were fet at Liberty. When this News reached the Camp, the Shouts of Joy were fo great, that they re-echoed in the Royal Palace. This, however, did hot quite convince the King, of the Averfion of the Soldiers to be the Inftruments of Op- preffion againf t their Fellow Subjefts. He therefore made another trial. He ordered the Guards to be drawn up, and the Word was given, that thof e who did not chuf e to fupport the King's Meafures, fhould ground their Arms. When, behold, to his utter confufion, and their eternal Honour — the whole Body ground their Arms. You, gentlemen, will foon have an Oppoi;tunity of fhewing equal Virtue. You will be called upon to im- brue your Hands in the Blood of your Fellow Subjects in America, becaufe they will not admit to be Slaves, and are alarmed at the Ef tablifhment of Popery and Arbitrary Power in One Half of their Country. Whether you will draw thofe Swords which have de- fended them againft their Enemies, to butcher them into a Refignation of their Rights, which they hold as the Sons of EngliJ7imen, is in your Breafts. That you will not ftain the Laurels you have gained from France, by dipping them in Civil Blood, is every good Man's Hope. Arts will no doubt be ufed to perfuade you, that it is your Duty to obey Orders ; and that you are fent upon the juft and righteous Errand of crufhing Rebellion. But your own Hearts will tell you, that the People may be fo ill treated, as to make Refiftance neceffary. You know, that Violence and Injury offered from one Man to another, has always fome Pretence of Right or Reafon to juftify it. So it is between the People and their Rulers. Therefore, whatever hard Names and heavy Accufa- fations may be beftowed upon your Fellow Subjects in America, be affured they have not deferved them ; but are driven, by the moft cruel Treatment, into Defpair. In this Defpair they are compelled to defend their Liber- ties, after having tried, in Vain, every peaceable Means of obtaining Redrefs of their manifold Grievances. Before God and Man they are right. Your Honour, then. Gentlemen, as Soldiers, and your Humanity as Men, forbid you to be the Inftruments of forcing Chains upon your injured and oppreffed Fellow Subjedts. - Remember that your firft obeciience is due to God, and that whoever bids you fhed innocent Blood, bids you a6l contrary to his Commandments. I am, Gentlemen, your fincere Well-wifher, AN OLD SOLDIER. CHROlvnOLE or THE SIEGE. 141 continue between the besieged and the besiegers through the lengthened issue. Behind the Roxbury works was an elevation known as Wales Hill, which was afterwards designated by Washington as a rendezvous if the enemy should break our lines at anj' point. Men in whale-boats were soon kept at watch near the marshes to give intelligence of any movement of the enemy by water. There was a constant apprehension that all the above works might be assailed at any hour. Washington, on his arrival, immediately divided his attention between the new organization of the rank and file necessary to initiate the con- tinental adoption of the army, and the examination of the fortifications. He found these works wisely and effectively begun, and he directed the strengthening and extending of them, filling exposed points, and secur- ing safer communications between them. His scrutiny was sharp, and the severe discipline which he at once established, though it caused some fretfulness among a portion of those whose former heedlessness it rebuked, was very soon yielded to with added security to the camp. It was not to be supposed that Gen. Howe on Bunker's Hill would be content with the narrow limits of his lines in the direction of Cambridge and Medford, and some threatening movements of his made Washington anxious about the two eminences above referred to, Ploughed Hill and Cobble Hill, which remained unoccupied. He planned a bold enterprise, and offered a strong provocation to Howe, when, on the night of Aug. 26, he ordered a working party of a thousand men, with a guard of twenty-four hundred, under General Sullivan, to occupy and intrench upon Ploughed Hill, which was directly within cannon range of Bunker's Hill, and of gun-boats in the Mystic. The feat was successfullj'^ accom- plished with the loss of but two men, while a single ten-pounder on the Ten Hills battery sunk one gun-boat in the Mystic and silenced another. The enemy seemed to be preparing for an assault on the new works, and an anxious preparation was made to receive them, scanty as was the ammunition of the provincials. But it was a threat only. For a fort- night a desultory bombardment was continued, but each night and day strengthened the works, and the enemy gave over the ineffective assault upon them. It was not until the 22d of November that the other hill was occupied, after tliere had been a sharp struggle at Lechmere's Point rising from 142 CHEONIOLE OP THE SIEGE. the marshes near it. The works here were made under Generals Put- nam and Heath. This, which was one of the most daring enterprises in the whole series, was accomplished without meeting the slightest opposi- tion from the enemy. A battery was a few days after planted at the Point, and in the severest weather of December, this was extended and effectively strengthened. The British violently contested the completion of the works at this Point, with water batteries. It was at the most anxious crisis of affairs in the American camp, as the term of enlistments was expiring, and new recruits came in but slowly, and there was still an alarming deficiencj' of powder. The new works approached most closely of any to the thicklj' occupied part of Boston, and with proper artillery most destructive operations might have been performed from them. From time to time such military compliments as the resources of the provincials allowed them to send passed from Cobble Hill and Lechmere Point into Boston, and from letters written there at the time it seems that they caused much consternation. These works, with the strength- ening of those at Sewall's Point and Lamb's Dam on the right wing of the camp, completed the provincial defences. RAIDS ON THE HAEBOE ISLANDS. There had been a skirmish on Grape Island, lying near the South shore of the Bay, on Sunday, May 21, between a party of the British who had gone there in sloops to remove some hay, and a party of countrymen from Wej'mouth, in which the latter burnt some eightj^ tons of hay and a barn, and took off the cattle. On the 27th of the same month, in obedience to an order of the Committee of Safety for the removal of live stock from the islands, a party of provincials went for the purpose to Hog and Noddle's Islands. They were fired upon from the vessels, and some marines put off in boats to prevent the undertaking. Of these, two were killed and two were wounded. The provincials succeeded in driving off three or four hundred .live stock, and, when reinforced, disabled a British schooner which grounded, stripped her of guns and sails, with clothing and monej', and then burned her while under fire from a sloop. Four of the provincials were wounded only, while of the British many were killed. "Within the four following days other raids CHEONIOLE OP THE SIEGE. 143 were made by the provincials on Noddle's, Pettick's and Deer Islands, securing large numbers of sheep, cattle and horses, with hay. In the last expedition, on the night of June 2, a British barge was captured with four prisoners. On the 12th of July a party of a hundred and thirtj'-six men, under Major Greaton, who had led the exploit at Deer Island, landed from whale-boats on Long Island, where the British had stored a large quantity of hay for their horses. "While the party were burning this, with the house and barns, they were cannonaded from some of the vessels, one of which with barges approached the island. The party barety succeeded in escaping with the loss of one man. Though the 20th of July was a day appointed for solemn fasting and prayer, and orders had been issued for its most devout observance, with a pause from all needless work, the troops going to worship fully armed, the temptation presented itself to a partj', under Major Vose, of Heath's Regiment, starting before daylight, to land from whale-boats at Nan- tasket Point. Here they dismantled and burned the light-house, carrying off the apparatus, and afterwards brought away a large quantity of barley and hay. Thej' were flred upon from the vessels, two being wounded. The partj' also made a raid on Point Shirley. Not satisfied with this one successful enterprise of darkening the harbor, it was determined to prevent the rebuilding of the light-house on which work- men were soon engaged. A party of three hundred men, under Major Tupper, was ordered there the last day of the month, who effected a landing, killed a dozen of the workmen, made prisoners of the rest, and destroj-ed the reconstructed works. Being left by the tide they were assailed bya strong force in boats, one of which was sunk by a field piece on Nantasket Point, with several of its men. The partj' got off with the loss of but one man, having killed and taken fifty-three of the enemy. The Major and his party received the next day the special thanks of the Commander-in-Chief, in general orders, for their gallantry. The Admiral of the fleet announced the destruction of the lights in the harbor and at Cape Ann. No single act of the provincials caused more chagrin to the enemy than this. When reported in London it was made the theme for most biting sarcasm. They were soon to hear of yet more daring and humiliating success of the provincials on the water, in the IM OHKONICLE OP THE SIEGE. capture of store-vessels laden down with all the muniments and supplies of war, without a gun on their decks. On Sept. 27 two hundred men, under Major Tupper, landed from wbale-boats on Governor's Island, burned a small vessel ready for launching, and brought off cattle and horses with full impunity. In connection with these bold ventures of the provincials, to secure their own property on the harbor islands, it is amusing to read the secret disclosures which Burgoyne made at the time in a private letter to Lord George Germaine, dated Boston, Aug. 20, 1775. He wrote about Graves : — " It may be asked in England, what is the Admiral doing? " I wish i were able to answer that question satisfactorily; but I can only say what he is not doing. " That he is not supplying us with sheep and oxen, the dinners of the best of us bear meagre testimony ; the state of our hospitals bears a more melan- choly one. "He is not defending his own flocks and herds ; for the enemy have repeatedly plundered his own islands. "He is not defending the other islands in the harbor; for the enemy, in force, landed from a great number of boats, and burned the light-house at noonday (having first killed and taken the party of marines which was posted there) almost under the guns of two or three men-of-war. " He is not employing his ships to keep up communication and intelligence with the king's servants and friends at the different parts of the continent ; for I do not believe General Gage has received a letter from any correspondent out of Boston these six weeks. " He is intent upon greater objects, you will think, supporting in the great points the dignity of the British flag, — and where a number of boats have been built for the enemy, privateers fitted out, prizes carried in, the king's armed vessels sunk, the crews made prisoners, the officers killed, — he is doubtless enforcing instant restitution and reparation by the voice of his cannon, and laying the towns in ashes that refuse his terms. Alas ! he is not. British thunder is diverted or controlled by pitiful attentions and mere Quaker-like scruples ; and under such influences, insult and impunity, like righteousness and peace, have kissed each other." The King had written to Lord North, on July 28, " I do think the Admiral's removal as necessary, if what is reported is founded, as the mild General's" [Gage]. OHROliriCLE OF THE SIEGE. 145 INCIDENTS IN THE PROVINCIAL CAMP. It was a remarkable coincidence that wMIq a local conflict, arising from a controversj' between the mother-country and one of her provinces, was about to transpire on the heights of Charlestown, the Continental Congress at Philadelphia should have adopted measures for national- izing that controversy, and for making the provincial forces the nucleus of a continental army. It was a great step for the continental delegates from Massachusetts and the other New England provinces to have secured that result. Some of the most curious details of the debates and business, and of the workings of secret influences, at Philadelphia, which have come to light, reveal to us with what astuteness and sagacity the Massachusetts delegates managed to keep their special aims and wishes in abeyance, that they might not appear to force their local interests and partialities upon the action of their Southern associates. The peculiar traits and views of the leaders and the people of this region were not altogether attractive to the members of the Congress from other sections, and it was but shrewd calculation on the part of the two Adamses, Hancock, and others, to allow the common feeling, which they desired, to grow naturally without being forced through their obtrusion of it. If there was to be a continental adoption of a provincial army, it must have a Southern commander. Happily Providence and Virginia came to the help of policy in furnishing one. How General Ward accepted the necessity which superseded him in his oflice calls for no discussion here. There was no expression or manifestation of any other feelings than those of delight and welcome, with warm-hearted and respectful addresses to Washington, when he appeared on the scene. The extensive and level space of Cambridge Common displayed before his eyes the material in men and accoutrements, such as they were, on which his exacting task began. We have a verj' lively description of the camp, as it appeared im- mediately after Washington had taken command, from the pen of the Rev. Wm. Emerson, of Concord, a chaplain of the army : — " There is great overturning in the camp as to order and regularity. New lords, new laws. The Generals Washington and Lee are upon the lines 13 146 CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. every day. New orders from His Excellency are read to the respective regi- ments every morning after prayers. The strictest government is taking place, and great distinotioji is made between ofB^cers and soldiers. Every one is made to know his place and keep in it, or be tied up and receive thirty or forty lashes according to his crime. Thousands are at work every day from four till eleven o'clock in the morning. It is surprising how much work has been done. The lines are extended almost from Cambridge to Mystic river, so that very soon it will be morally impossible for the enemy to get between the works, except in one place, which is supposed to be left pur- posely unfortified to entice the enemy out of their forti'esses. Who would have thought twelve months past that all Cambridge and Charlestown would be covered over with American camps, and cut up into forts and intrenoh- ments, and all the lands, fields, orchards, laid common, cattle feeding in the choicest mowing-land, whole fields of corn eaten down to the ground, and large parks of well-regulated locusts cut down for firewood and other public uses. This, I must say, looks a little melancholy. " My quarters are at the foot of the famous Prospect Hill, where such great preparations are made for the reception of the enemy. It is very diverting to walk among the camps. They are as different in their form as the owners are in their dress ; and every tent is a portraiture of the temper and taste of the persons who encamp in it. Some are made of boards and some of sail- cloth ; some partly of one and partly of the other. Again, others are made of stone and turf, brick or brush ; some are thrown up in a hurry ; others curiously wrought with doors and windows, done with wreaths and withes in the manner of a basket. Some are your proper tents and marquees, looking like the regular camp of the enemy. In these are the Khode Islanders, who are furnished with tent-equipage and everything in the most exact English style. However, I think this great variety is rather a beauty than a blemish in the army." — {Sparks' Washington.) COREESPONDENCE OF GENERALS LEE AND BXJEGOYNE. A curious episode, which must have furnished a momentary excitement in the camp, occurred at this time. The impulsive and unstable Charles Lee, who had been commissioned as a Major General by the Congress, had served under Burgoyne as a British officer in Portugal. When Lee, before he had been commissioned, heard of the arrival of Burgoyne in Boston, he addressed him from Philadelphia, on June 7th, a letter which did not reach him until a month afterwards. He wrote in stron December. Admiral Shuldam arrived from England in the Chatham man of war of 50 guns to supersede Admiral Graves. The Kings speech arrived. 1776. January 8"". Monday at half past 8 P.M being dark weather the Provin- cials attacked Charlestown, burnt the houses, remaining at Neck of land, carried off a serjent and a number of Men. Just as the farce began at the Play-house of the Blockade of Boston — which with much fainting, fright, and confusion, prevented the scene. 16"^. The Old North Meeting house, pulled down by order of Gen'. Howe for fuel fot the Refuges and Tories. 2"*Eebruary. Just at 11 oclock at night, some wanton soldier or officer fired a bomb from the battery, at New Boston, which bursted in the air, did no harm, but made such an alarm as occasioned a great blustering. i"". At half past nine in the evening, 3 cannon fired from the lines at Charlestown and a number of small arms at the Soldiers pulling down the Mills — say two men killed and one wounded. The next day many cannon fired. 13"". This night a large body of the troops about 3. oclock set off on the Ice from the fortification, landed at Dorchester Neck and set fire to all the houses and barns, bro' off six prisoners who were Centinels. Col°tLesslie from the Castle, assisted with the Troops there, and returned at seven o'clock — No engagement en- sued — The Provincials guards run off. Thursday 25"" * From the accounts of D' Gilson, and some other Deserters from the Continental army, great preparations were making to attack the Town, — caused very alarming apprehensions and distress of the Inhabitants. 2"''i March Saturday night half past 11, began from the Country, Bombardment and cannonade which continued on both sides till morning and then ceased and began again Lords.day evening at 9 and so continued all the night, and tho' several houses were damaged and persons in great danger, myself one, no one as I can learn re- ceived any hurt. 4"" March. Monday — soon after candle light, came on a most terrible bombard- ment and cannonade, on both sides, as if heaven and earth were engaged. Five or * Must be 29th, as tho 2d March was Saturday. [Transcriber,] 196 OHEONIOLE OP THE SIEGE. six 18 and 24"' shot struct M''. Chardon's house, Gray's, Winnetts, — our fence &c. — Notwithstanding, the excessive Are till morning, can't learn any of the Inhab- itants have heen hurt, except a little boy at M"' Leaks, had his leg broke — it is said some of the soldiery suffered. 5"! Tuesday. — This morning the Provincials were discovered fortifying the heights of Dorchester — About 12 oclock 7 Regiments of the Kings Troops, em- barked in Transports, commanded by General Jones which -were to land at Dor- chester-Neck and the main body, vrith the Light Dragoons were to go out at the lines in the night &c. &c. Eight or ten Ships sailed below — but whether, a Hurrycane, or terrible sudden storm which arose, in the evening prevented, or a pretence only, can't say — nothing was attempted, — Indeed the violence of the storm rendered it impossible for any boat to land - Some of the Transports were driven on Governors Island, but got off and returned. 6"". This day the utmost distress and anxiety is among the Refugees and associ- aters &e. &c. &c., orders being given to embark the ICings Troops and evacuate the Town. Blessed be God our redemption draws nigh. 7"; Thursday. The last night and this day the Troops are very busily employed in removing their stores, cannon, ammunition — some of the Dragoons on Board, the Refugees &c. &c., in shipping their goods &c. The Selectmen write to the command- ing ofllcer at Roxbury, at the earnest desire of the Inhabitants and by permission of Gen' Howe. March 8*. The town all hurry and commotion, the troops with the Refugees and Tories embarking. 9"! Saturday. D°. D°. D". Received answer from the lines from Col' Learned commanding oflicer at Roxbury — (see the above) — Saturday evening 9 oclock, began cannonade, which continued the whole night — One 18 pound shot came thro' our house, another thro' the fence and summer house into the Garden, and several shot, thro' my neighbours' Houses. 10"" Lord's day P M. Embarking orders are given to deliver Green Brush esq' all the woolen and linen goods — • Some persons delivered their goods, others he forced from them, to a great value. Shops, stores, houses, plundered, vessels cut to pieces &c. &c. Very distressed times. 11* Monday. Cannonade began about half past 7 from Hatch's wharf and other battery's at near the fortification, which continued most of the night. 12">. This day and night quiet — the Soldiers shut up in their Barracks, except some who were about, plundering. The wind high at N. W. The Inhabitants greatly distressed thro' fear the Town would be set on fire by the Soldiers. IS"" Wednesday. The Inhabitants in the utmost distress, thro' fear of the Town being destroyed by the Soldiers, a party of New York Carpenters with axes going thro' the town, breaking open houses &c. Soldiers and sailors plundering of houses, shops, warehouses — Sugar and salt .&c. thrown into the River, which was greatly covered with hogsheads, barrels of flour, house furniture, carts, trucks &c. &o. — One Person suffered /our thousand pounds sterling, by his shipping being cut to pieces &c. — Another five thousand pounds sterling, in salt wantonly thrown into the River. 14"^ March. Thursday. The same as above except somewhat restrained by the General. 15"" Friday. The General sent to the Selectmen and desired their immediate attendance, which we did accordingly. It was to acquaint us that as he was about retreating from the Town, his advice was for all the Inhabitants to keep in their OHEONICLE OT THE SIEGE. 197 houses and Iho' his orders were to injure no person, he could not be answerable for any irregularities of his troops. That the Fowey man of war would continue in the harbour till the fleet sailed, loaded with carcases ajid combustibles, that in case the King's troops met with any obstruction in their retreat he should set fire to the Town, which he wished to avoid — That he thought it his duty to destroy much of the prop- erty in the town to prevent it being useful to the support of the Rebel army. The General further said to us, that who ever had suffered in this respect (who were not Rebels) it was probable upon application to Government, they would be considered — That Letters had passed between him and Mr Washington. That he had wrote to him in the style of Mr Washington. That however insignificant the character of his Excellency, which to him was very trifiing — it ought not to be given to any but by the authority of the King. He observed the direction of our Letters to him was — To his excellency General Washington, which he did not approve and whatever Intelli- gence had been given to the Rebels, tho' in his letters to him, he did not charge him with being a Rebel. He further said he had nothing against the Select-men, which if he had he should certainly have taken notice of it — The General told us the Troops would embark this day and was told by General Robertson it would be by three o'clock. The Regiments all mustered, some of them marched down the wharf. Guards and Chevaux De Freze, were placed in the main streets and wharves in order to secure the retreat of Out Centinels. Several of the principle streets through which they were to pass were filled with Hhds' filled with Horse-dung, large limbs of trees from the Mall to prevent a pursuit of the Continental Army. They manifestly appeared to be fearful of an attack. The wind' proved unfavorable, prevented their embarking. They returned to their quarters. Soon after several houses were on fire. The night passed tolerably quiet. IG"" Saturday. Rain. Great distress plundering &c. 17"" Lord's day. This morning at 3 o'clock, the troops began to move — Guards Chevaux de freze, Crow feet strewed in the streets to prevent being pursued. -They all embarked at about 9 oolock and the whole fleet came to sail Every vessel which they did not carry off, they rendered unfit for use. Not even a boat left to cross the River. — Thus was this unhappy distressed town (thro' a manifest interpo- sition of divine providence) relieved from a set of men whose unparalled wicked- ness, profanity, debauchery and cruelty is inexpressible, enduring a siege from the 19"! April 1775 to the 17"' March 1776. Immediately upon the fleet's sailing the- Select Men set off, through the lines, to Roxbury to acquaint General Washington of the evacuation of the town. After sending a message Major Ward aid to General Ward, came to us at the lines and soon after the General himself, who received us in the most polite and affectionate manner, and permitted us to pass to Watertown to acquaint the Council of this happy event. The General immediately ordered a de- tachment of 2,000 troops to take possession of the town under the command of General Putnam who the next day began their works in fortifying Forthill &c., for the better security of the Town. A number of loaded Shells with trains of Powder covered with straw, were found in houses left by the Regulars near the fortifycation. 198 CHEO]sncLE or the siege. THE BOSTON MINISTERS DUEING THE SIEGE. Dr. Charles Chauncey, of the First Church, or the Old Brick, being very obnoxious to the royalists, left Boston at the beginning of the siege, and returned when it closed. On the records of the society the only recognition of the troubles of the time is found in this entry, under date of August 13, 1776: — " At a Meeting of the- Church and Congregation : " Voted : That all the Leaden Weights of the Windows of this Church be delivered to the Commissary of this Collony> upon condition Iron Weights be placed in their stead, and the difference paid in Cash." Dr. John Lathrop, of the Old North Church, which was destroyed for fuel, left the town. On his return, his Society \inited in 1779 with Dr. Ebenezer Pemberton's, afterwards making the 2d Church. John Hunt and John Bacon were associate pastors of the Old South. Mr. Bacon, from some causes of dissatisfaction, was dismissed Feb. 8, 1775. He went to Stockbridge, and entered political life. Mr. Hunt happened to be absent on a visit in Brookline when the gates were shut on Boston Neck. When he applied to be admitted, he was refused because he would not agree to remain. He went to Northampton, where he died of consumption Dec. 30, 1775. The parsonage of the Society, adjoining the Meeting-house, which was built by Gov. Winthrop for his residence was burned by the British for fuel, as were also some fine button-wood trees which surrounded it. To the same use was put all the interior work of the Meeting-house, except the sounding-board and the east galleries. A richly-wrought, canopied and damask-furnished pew, de- signed for high magistrates, and rivalling that in King's Chapel, was taken to John Amory's house and used as a hog-sty. The edifice was so outraged and defaced that it was several years before the remnant of its impoverished congregation was able to restore it to its designed purpose. From Nov. 9, 1777, to Feb. 23, 1783, — except an interval of five months between 1781-2, when they occupied the Representatives room in the Old State House, — the congregation worshipped in King's Chapel, where their next pastor. Dr. Eckley, was ordained Oct. 27, 1779. The Old South, after being repaired, was rededicated March 2, 1783. CHEOKICliE OF THE SIEGE. 199 The pulpit recently standing in it was substituted in 1808 for the one built at the restoration of the edifice. The Rev. Joseph Howe, pastor of the New South Church, died at Hartford, ^ug. 25, 1775. Dr. Cooper, of Brattle-street Church, having taken so prominent a part as a patriot as to have been menaced by a British officer, left Boston with his wife, April 16, 1775, leaving his child, library, furniture and plate, intending soon to return to the town, after riding about the country for his health. He made his home at Weston, and returned to Boston after the Evacuation. The fate of his Meeting-house is referred to in Deacon Newell's diary. < The ministers of the two Baptist Societies, with very similar names, were Rev. S. Stillman and Rev. I. Skillman. The latter remained in the town. Dr. Mather Byles, of Hollis street, with tory proclivities, remained, but was inactive. His congregation on their return soon superseded him. Mather Byles, Jr., Rector of Christ Church, closed his ministry the day before the battle of Lexington. Mr. Troutbeck, of King's Chapel, went off in Nov., 1775, and Dr. Caner, the rector, left on the Evacuation, as did also William Walter, the rector of Trinity Church. The associate of Mr. Walter (Mr. Sam- uel Parker) , in a funeral sermon which he preached upon Dr. Andrew Eliot, said, that "Thinking as an Episcopal clergyman he would be obnoxious to the returning inhabitants, he was packing his effects pre- paratory to going off with the army, when Dr. Eliot came to him advis- ing him to remain, as, being a j'oung man, and discreet, he had not made himself offensive." He took the advice and remained.