40 DEFENSIVE MEASURES. the contest should be decided by an accommodation with the mother country, he would resign the important deposit committed to his hands." After this interview, he proceeded to Cambridge, the head-quarters of the troops by which Boston was invested. On his arrival, he found the army in a very imperfect condition, and much discouraged by the defeat at Bunker's-hill. Discipline was very lax, gunpowder was very scarce, and the whole of the munitions of war so defective, that had the troops been attacked by the English, their defeat must have been the certain result; but the English generals did not trouble themselves about the affair. Washington immediately applied himself to the work of improving the condition of the army. Gunpowder was obtained from New Jersey; tents, clothing, shoes, in all of which the men were wofully deficient, were provided, and the congress induced to appoint a commissary-general to superintend such supplies in future. A respectable staff of officers was appointed; engineers collected from various parts, and discipline and military subordination gradually established. As soon as possible, Washington surveyed the condition of the British forces, and saw that it would be madness to attempt an attack. He therefore threw up defensive works, and so far contracted his line, that the British were completely blockaded by land, and soon felt the difference in the diminution of fresh meat, vegetables, and forage for their horses. The men Washington had under his command, numbered about seventeen thousand: of these two thousand five hundred were, from sickness or other causes, unfit for duty. While busily engaged in forming his army, he was also much occupied with his correspondence with congress. All the members of that body were united in their determination to resist the oppression of the royal power; but there was little unanimity amongst them as to the best means of doing so. Unused to the exigencies of war, they had but little idea of what was requisite to maintain a contest with a power like England; Washington had, therefore, to enlighten and direct the continental government, as well as to secure and improve the condition of his troops. Hence his correspondence with congress was unremitting, and, as all his suggestions were debated in full assembly before the decision was arrived UNFORESEEN EMBARRASSMENTS. 41 at, he was often exposed to considerable inconvenience by the delay. In addition to this, he had to communicate with the various provincial assemblies, in which the power really resided. The congress might debate, decide, and recommend what seemed to be the best measures, but there their power ended; the provincial conventions must raise the money, supply the men, and provide necessary stores; and the perplexity consequent on so many masters, was often of the most serious kind. To endure these vexations, and control the conflicting factions with which he had to deal, required all the patience and prudence for which Washington was eminent, as much as for his energetic bravery. Instances occurred also, in which he was requested to send detachments from his army to defend some isolated spot on the sea-coast, threatened by the armed vessels of the enemy. This of course would have so much weakened his forces as to expose them to considerable peril; he therefore firmly, but courteously, declined all such requests, till it became an established rule that attacks at isolated points on the coast, should be defended by the militia in the neighbourhood, excepting when the continental army could spare aid without inconvenience. Rumours were afloat that the prisoners taken at the defeat at Bunker's-hill, were subjected to much ill-treatment by the British. Washington wrote to general Gage on the subject. Twenty years before, the two generals had fought side by side under the command of Braddock, and an intimacy, ending in friendship, was the result; but their altered position produced a decided alteration in their letters. Gage denied the charge of ill-usage, and treated the military rank of the American general with contempt, saying, "as to the difference of rank, he professed not to know any which was not derived from the king." Washington immediately sent the English prisoners into the country on their parole, and Gage being recalled to England, the question of rank was delayed. CHAPTER IV. Colonial Resistance.-A. D. 1775-1777. AMERICA. 66 NAVAL PREPARATIONS.- TRENTON TAKEN. UPON the recall of governor Gage, general Howe succeeded to the chief command of the British forces; but, like his predecessors, he seemed unwilling to employ any active measures. Trusting to the fancied security of their fortifications, though frequently inconvenienced to a serious extent by scarcity of provisions, the English regarded it as an impossibility that the army of Washington could compel them to evacuate Boston. At sea, their supremacy was undisputed, and supplies could be obtained from various places by means of their shipping: but even this resource was soon to be imperilled. A number of privateers, and vessels of various kinds with letters of marque from congress, began to frequent the coasts; and were often very successful in seizing merchant and transport vessels on their way to Boston. In addition to these, Washington, with the concurrence of congress, prepared six armed schooners, which cruised in the waters of Massachusetts Bay, and made several captures, especially a very valuable one by captain Manly, consisting of munitions of war: but Washington found that a navy could EVIDENCE OF MR. PENN. 43 not be rendered effective by hasty arrangements, and was obliged to wait while time and practice perfected the scheme. Another anxiety which preyed on the mind of the commander, was the difficulty of keeping up the strength of his army: the troops having enlisted for a short time only, prepared to return to their homes as the termination of the specified period approached. The enlistment of fresh recruits went on but slowly, and, to prevent being entirely deserted, he had to employ every form of persuasion to induce his men to remain until the militia were called out. At the end of the year, when the old army had retired, he could only reckon nine thousand six hundred and fifty soldiers; besides five thousand militia, who came and were to remain till the middle of January. The governor of Georgia having been compelled to retire, that province now joined the confederacy, and the congress assumed the name of "the thirteen united colonies." Proceeding with their internal arrangements, they established a post-office to serve between Falmouth in Massachusetts, and Savannah in Georgia; and appointed Benjamin Franklin postmaster-general, a post which his eminent talents and past experience enabled him to fill with honour to himself, and advantage to the colonies. The petition the congress had sent to the king, was presented in November, to the house of lords, and excited considerable discussion; and Mr. Penn, grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania, was examined at the bar of the house of lords, when he declared his firm belief" that the congress had hitherto entertained no designs of independency; that the members of the assembly were men of character, fairly elected, and fully competent to declare the sense of their constituents; that the war was levied and carried on by the colonists, merely in defence of what they conceived to be their undoubted rights and liberties; that they had been greatly dissatisfied with the reception of their former petitions, but had formed great hopes of the success of that brought over by him, which was styled by them the olive branch;' that it was greatly to be feared, if conciliatory measures were not speedily pursued, they would form connexions with foreign powers, and that such connexions once made, it would be found very difficult to dissolve. He affirmed that the prevailing wish of America was restoration of friendship with England; but that the most intelligent individuals upon the continent thought that a rejection of the present petition would prove an insuperable bar to reconciliation; that they would allow the imperial authority of Great Britain, but not its right of taxation." Notwithstanding these statements, and the efforts of those who sought to stop the conflict, the petition was rejected by eighty-six to thirty-three. In Canada, the troops of the congress met with a series of defeats, and after enduring_considerable sufferings, were entirely driven out by the English and the Indians. At Boston, the blockade compelled the troops under general Howe to undergo many severe privations; while the continued inaction depressed the spirit of Washington and his army. The general however managed to keep his men together; and encouraged them by securing the constant arrival of provision-waggons, ammunition, and reinforcements. At length, on the 2nd of March, 1776, he commenced a heavy cannonade upon the city; and, at the same time despatched general Thomas to take possession of the height of Dorchester, which commanded the garrison in a similar manner to Bunker's-hill. When the batteries from this eminence opened upon the town and the shipping in the river, Howe saw the error he had committed in neglecting to pre-occupy the post, and felt that he must either dislodge Thomas or evacuate Boston: he therefore sent lord Percy with three thousand men, to seize the place; but while the vessels were conveying the troops, a violent storm arose, and compelled Percy to return to the harbour. The continued violence of the storm prevented anything further being done that day, and the cannonading from Washington's lines, and Thomas's batteries on the heights, became so intolerable, that on the 8th of March, a flag of truce was sent with a paper from Boston, stating that general Howe designed to leave the place, and would leave the town standing if permitted to depart without molestation. There being no signature to this communication, Washington treated it with indifference, and the bombardment proceeded. The evacuation of the royalist troops then commenced, and by the |