"Sir, you have made a bold push to-night."
"We have been fortunate," coolly replied Barton. Captain Elliot was there with a coach to convey the prisoners to Providence, where they arrived at sunrise. Prescott was kindly treated by General Spencer and July 11, 1777 other officers, and in the course of a few days was sent to the head-quarters of Washington, at Middlebrook on the Raritan. On his way the scene occurred in the Alden Tavern at Lebanon, mentioned on page 603. Prescott was exchanged for General Charles Lee * in April following, and soon afterward resumed his command of the British troops on Rhode Island. This was the same Prescott who treated Colonel Ethan Allen so cruelly when that officer was taken prisoner near Montreal in the autumn of 1775.
On account of the bravery displayed and the importance of the service in this expedition, Congress, having a "just sense of the gallant behavior of Lieutenant-colonel Barton, and the brave officers and men of his party, who distinguished their valor and address in making prisoner of Major-general Prescott, of the British army, and Major William Barrington, his aid-de-camp," ** voted Barton an elegant sword; and on the 24th of December July 25, 1777 following, he was promoted to the rank and pay of colonel in the Continental army.
General Sullivan was appointed to the command of the American troops in Rhode Island in the spring of 1778, at about the time when Prescott resumed his command of the enemy's forces. The latter, incensed and mortified by his capture and imprisonment, determined to gratify his thirst for revenge. Under pretense of an anticipated attack upon the island, he sent a detachment of five hundred men up the bay on the 24th of May, to destroy the American boats and other property that fell in their way. At daylight the next morning they landed between Warren and Bristol, and proceeded in two divisions to execute their orders. One party, who proceeded to the Kickemuet River, destroyed seventy flat-bottomed boats and a state galley; the other burned the meeting-house and a number of dwellings at Warren, and plundered and abused the inhabitants in various ways. The females were robbed of their shoe-buckles, finger-rings, and other valuables, and live stock were driven away for the use of the British army. They then proceeded to Bristol, and fired
* General Lee had been eaptured at Baskingridge, in New Jersey, in December, 1776, while passing from the Hudson to join Washington on the Delaware.
** Journals of Congress, iii., 241.
*** Ibid., 459.
Predatory Excursions.—French Fleet for America.—Count d'Estaing.— France and England.—Excitement in Parliament.
the Episcopal church (mistaking it for a dissenters' meeting-house), burned twenty-two dwellings, and earned off considerable plunder. A few days afterward, another marauding party of a hundred and fifty burned the mills at Tiverton, and attempted to set fire to and plunder the town, but a resolute band of twenty-five men kept them at bay, effectually disputing their passage across the bridge. Satisfied with this great display of prowess and vengeance, Prescott refrained from further hostile movements, until called upon to defend himself against the combined attacks of an American army and a French fleet.