Manly soon became a terror to the British, and the Falcon sloop-of-war, Captain Linzee, was sent out to attempt to seize him. He was chased, in company with a schooner, into Gloucester Harbor. The schooner was seized by the enemy. Manly ran his brig ashore.
Linzee fired more than three hundred guns, and sent barges of armed men to take the brig; but the crew and the neighboring militia behaved so bravely that Linzee was repulsed, having lost nearly half his men. Manly's vessel was got off without much damage, and was soon cruising again beneath the pine-tree flag. *
1775 Early in August, Washington discovered that a great mistake had been made in reporting to him the condition of the commissariat, in the article of powder. "Our situation," he said, in a letter to Congress, "in the article of powder, is much more alarming than I had the most distant idea of."
"Instead of three hundred quarter-casks," wrote Reed, "we have but thirty-two barrels."
Powder-mills were not yet in successful operation in the province, and great uneasiness prevailed lest the enemy should become acquainted with their poverty. Vessels were fitted out, on private account, to go to the West Indies for a supply of powder. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts passed a law August 12prohibiting a waste of powder in shooting birds or for sports of any kind, and every precaution was adopted to husband the meager supply on hand.
Although Washington did not feel strong enough to make an assault upon Boston, he was prepared to receive an attack from the enemy, and was anxious for such an event. For weeks it had been rumored that the British intended to make a sortie in full force; and, finally, the 25th of August was designated as the day selected for the demonstration. It was understood that Earl Percy was to have the command of Boston Neck, where he expected to retrieve the honors which he lost in his retreat from Lexington. In the mean while, the British were daily practicing the maneuvers of embarking and debarking, and every movement indicated an intention to make an effort to break up the circumvallating line of provincials that hemmed them so closely in.
On Saturday night, the 26th of August, General Sullivan, with a fatigue party of
1775 one thousand men, and a guard of two thousand four hundred, marched, in imitation of the feat of Prescott's, to Plowed Hill (now Mount Benedict), within point blank shot of
The Pine-tree Flag.2