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April.

CHAP. "an immediate stop to supplies of every kind." XXIX. The troops, in consequence, suffered severely from 1775. unwholesome diet; and their commanders fretted with bitter mortification. They had scoffed at the Americans as cowards who would run at their sight; and they had saved themselves from destruction only by the rapidity of their retreat. Reinforcements and three new general officers were already on the Atlantic, and these would have to be received into straitened quarters by a defeated army. They knew that England, and even the ministers, would condemn the inglorious expedition which had brought about so sudden and so fatal a change. As if to brand in their shame, the officers shrunk from avowing their own acts; and though no one would say that he had seen the Americans fire first, they tried to make it pass current, that a handful of countrymen at Lexington had begun a fight with a detachment that outnumbered them as twelve to one. "They did not make one gallant attempt during so long an action," wrote Smith, who was smarting under his wound, and escaped captivity only by the opportune arrival of Percy.

Men are prone to fail in equity towards those whom their pride regards as their inferiors. The Americans, slowly provoked and long suffering, treated the prisoners with tenderness, and nursed the wounded as though they had been members of their own families. They even invited Gage to send out British surgeons for their relief. Yet Percy could degrade himself so far as to calumniate the countrymen who gave him chase, and officially lend himself to the falsehood, that "the rebels scalped and cut off

XXIX.

April.

the ears of some of the wounded who fell into their CHAP. hands." He should have respected the name which he bore; famed as it is in history and in song; and he should have respected the men before whom he fled. The falsehood brings dishonor on its voucher; the people whom he reviled, were among the mildest and most compassionate of their race.

CHAPTER XXX.

EFFECTS OF THE DAY OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD CON-
TINUED: THE CAMP OF LIBERTY.

APRIL-MAY, 1775.

CHAP. THE inhabitants of Boston suffered an accumulation

XXX. of sorrows, brightened only by the hope of the ulti1775. mate relief of all America. Gage made them an offer April. that if they would promise not to join in an attack on his troops, and would lodge their arms with the selectmen at Faneuil Hall, the men, women, and children, with all their effects, should have safe conduct out of the town. The proposal was accepted. For several days the road to Roxbury was thronged with wagons and trains of wretched exiles; but they were not allowed to take with them any provisions; and nothing could be more affecting than to see the helpless families come out without any thing to eat. The provincial congress took measures for distributing five thousand of the poor among the villages of the interior. But the loyalists of Boston, of whom two hundred volunteered to enter the king's service,

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1775.

desired to detain the people as hostages; Gage CHAP. therefore soon violated his pledge; and many respected citizens, children whose fathers were absent, April. widows, unemployed mechanics, persons who had no protectors to provide for their escape, remained in town to share the hardships of a siege, ill provided, and exposed to the insults of an exasperated enemy. Words cannot describe their sufferings.

Connecticut still hoped for "a cessation of hostilities," and for that purpose, Johnson, so long its agent abroad, esteemed by public men in England for his moderation and ability, repaired as one of its envoys to Boston; but Gage only replied by a narrative which added new falsehoods to those of Smith and Percy. By a temperate answer he might have confused New England; the effrontery of his assertions, made against the clearest evidence, shut out the hope of an agreement.

No choice was left to the Massachusetts committee of safety but to drive out the British army, or perish in the attempt; even though every thing conspired to make the American forces incapable of decisive action. There was no unity in the camp. At Roxbury, John Thomas had command, and received encomiums for the good order which prevailed in his division; but Ward, the general who was at Cambridge, had the virtues of a magistrate rather than of a soldier. He was old, unused to a separate military command, and so infirm, that he was not fit to appear on horseback; and he never could introduce exact discipline among free men, whom even the utmost vigor and ability might have failed to control, and who owned no superiority but that of merit, no

XXX.

CHAP. obedience but that of willing minds. Nor had he received from the provincial congress his commission 1775. as commander in chief; nor was his authority indeApril. pendent of the committee of safety. Moreover, the men from other colonies did not as yet form an integral part of one "grand American" grand American" army, but appeared as independent corps from their respective provinces under leaders of their own.

Of the men of Massachusetts who first came down as volunteers, the number varied from day to day; and was never at any one time ascertained with precision. Many of them returned home almost as soon as they came, for want of provisions or clothes, or because they had not waited to put their affairs in order. Of those who enlisted in the Massachusetts army, a very large number absented themselves on furlough. It was feared by Ward that it would be impossible for him to keep the army together; and that he should be left alone. As for artillery, it was found, on inquiry, that there were altogether no more than six three-pounders and one six-pounder in Cambridge, besides sixteen pieces in Watertown, of different sizes, some of them good for nothing. But even these were more than could be used. There was no ammunition but for the six three-pounders, and very little for them. In the scarcity of powder, the most anxious search was made for it throughout the colony; and after scouring five principal counties, the whole amount that could be found was less than sixty-eight barrels. The other colonies, to which the most earnest entreaties were addressed for a supply, were equally unprovided. In the colony of New York,

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