XLIV. professed the purpose of retaliation, as he sent the CHAP. British officers who were his prisoners into the interior; but he privately countermanded the order, and 1775 allowed them liberty on parole. The lenity was ill requited. One of them, Stanhope by name, was base enough to forfeit his honor. His The arrival of reënforcements and recruits could not inspirit Gage to venture outside of his lines. His pent up troops, impaired by skirmishes, desertions, and most of all by sickness, were disheartened by their manifestly "disadvantageous situation." own timorousness, presaging "a long and bloody war," figured to itself the maritime powers of Europe taking possession of some of the provinces, and a southern governor falling a prey to negroes. He even confessed to Dartmouth, that he had fears for his own safety; that nothing could justify his risking an attack; that even to quit Boston safely would require the greatest secrecy. Washington was all the while more closely investing the town. In the night following the twenty sixth of August, with a fatigue party of a thousand, a guard of twenty four hundred, he took possession of Ploughed Hill. On the next day, Gage began a cannonade, which, for the need of powder, could not be returned. On Monday the twenty eighth, the British were seen drawn up on Bunker Hill, and Washington, notwithstanding his want of ammunition, offered battle by marching five thousand men to Ploughed Hill and Charlestown road. Silence was observed on both sides, till three in the afternoon; when it appeared that the British would not accept the challenge. But three days later, Gage enjoyed Aug. XLIV. CHAP. the triumph of cutting down the Boston liberty tree; and when marauding expeditions returned with sheep 1775. and hogs and cattle, captured from islands and along Aug. shore, the bells were rung as for a victory. Sept. Washington, on his side, was eager to take every advantage which his resources warranted. He could hardly spare a single ounce of powder out of the camp; yet notwithstanding present weakness, he saw in the courage and patriotism of the country the warrant of ultimate success. Looking, therefore, beyond the recovery of Boston, he revolved in his mind how the continent might be closed up against Britain. He rejected a plan for an expedition into Nova Scotia; but learning from careful and various inquiries that the Canadian peasantry were well disposed to the Americans, that the domiciliated Indian tribes desired neutrality, he resolved to direct the invasion of Canada from Ticonderoga; and by way of the Kennebec and the Chaudière, to send a party to surprise Quebec, or at least to draw Carleton in person to its relief, and thus lay open the road to Montreal. Solicitations to distribute continental troops along the New England shore, for the protection of places at which the British marauding parties threatened to make a descent, were invariably rejected. The governor of Connecticut, who, for the defence of that province, desired to keep back a portion of the newly raised levies, resented a refusal, as an unmerited neglect of a colony that was foremost in its exertions; but the chief explained with dignity, that he had only hearkened to an imperative duty; that he must prosecute great plans for the common safety; that the campaign could not depend on the piratical XLIV. expeditions of two or three men-of-war; while the CHAP. numerous detachments, which would be required to guard the coast, would amount to the dissolution of 1775. the army. From his arrival in Cambridge, "his life was one continual round of vexation and fatigue." In September the British were importing fuel for the winter, so that there was no reason to expect their voluntary removal; yet the time of the service of his army was soon to expire, the troops of Connecticut and Rhode Island being engaged only to the first of December, those of Massachusetts only to the end of the year; and no provision had been made for filling their places. The continental currency, as well as that of all the provinces, was rapidly depreciating, and even of such paper money the military chest was exhausted, so that the paymaster had not a single dollar in hand. The commissary general had strained his credit for subsistence for the army to the utmost; so had Mifflin, who in August had been appointed quarter-master general, from confidence in his integrity, his activity, and his independence on the men and the governments of New England. The greater part of the troops submitted to a necessary reduction from their stated allowance with a reluctance bordering upon mutiny. There were no adequate means of storing wood against the cold weather, or procuring blankets and shelter. Washington would gladly have attempted to strike some decisive blow; but in September, his council of war agreed unanimously, that an attack on Boston was not to be hazarded. The country expected tidings of the rout and expulsion of the British; although the continuing deficiency of pow Sept. XLIV. CHAP. der, which exceeded his worst apprehensions, compelled him to inactivity, from a cause which he was 1775. obliged to conceal from the public, from the army, and even from most of the officers. Sept. Under every discouragement from the conflicting rules and agreements, laws and usages, of separate colonies, he toiled to form an army which he yet knew must fall away from him before victory could be achieved; and "braving the shafts of censure, and pledging a soldier's fame which was dearer to him than life," he silently submitted to the reproach of having adopted from choice the system of inaction, at which his soul revolted. CHAPTER XLV. CONDITION OF THE CENTRAL PROVINCES. JULY-OCTOBER, 1775. 1775. In the colonies which were not immediately involved CHAP in the war, the officers of the crown should have shown self-possession and forbearance. Adopting this system, William Franklin, the governor of New Jersey, was ever on the alert to soothe, divide, or confuse the patriots, professed an equal regard for the rights of the people and the royal prerogatives, continued the usual sessions of the assembly, and where the authority of his office was diminished, confined himself to complaint, remonstrance or advice. But the self-organized popular government moved side by side with that of the king; the provincial congress which assembled in May, and again by adjournment in August, directed a general association, took cognizance of those who held back, assumed the regulation of the militia, apportioned a levy of ten thousand pounds, excused the Quakers from bearing arms, though not from con |