Down the harbor Gage did nothing, except to send, tardily, to repel American expeditions. We have seen that the British could not save the lighthouse. The Yankee fishermen now took occasion to remove from the islands the hay and live stock which they had not taken before Bunker Hill. Their activities drew from Burgoyne an indignant letter.
"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 melancholy 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 harbour, for the enemy in force landed from a great number of boats, and burned the lighthouse at noonday (having first killed or 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 different parts of the continent, for I do not believe that 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."[129]
Burgoyne finishes his indictment by lumping with the admiral's inefficiencies the weaknesses of quartermaster-generals, adjutant-generals, secretaries, and commissaries. In all this we catch a glimpse of one result of the king's policy, which was to reward his friends and rebuke his enemies. Since he classed with his enemies the Whigs who were at home, he had only Tories to draw from. From them came Admiral Graves, and the crowd of incompetents who filled offices in America. The royal service was now paying the piper.
One result Burgoyne has noted very plainly, in the lack of fresh provision. The admiral could have protected the stock on the harbor islands, and without unnecessary violence could have seized provisions from the shore towns. This, however, he did not do, and we soon find the army complaining of its fare. It was not that the commissary was negligent; even the moneyed officers were at times unable to satisfy their desire for fresh meat, the supply of which was uncertain. For lack of hay, the milk supply soon disappeared, since cows could not be fed and had to be killed. Cheerful news came to the American camp that the venerable town bull had been sold for beef. The army even tired of its supply of fish, which, to be sure, never was great, though then as now Boston lay close to good fishing grounds. Salt pork was the main reliance, and before the middle of the summer the army had had altogether too much of that.