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.
I have noticed on pages 86 and 87, ante, the treaty of alliance and commerce concluded between the United States and France on the 6th of February, 1778. * Pursuant to the stipulations of that treaty, a French squadron for the American service was fitted out at Toulon, consisting of twelve ships of the line, and four frigates of superior size. Count d'Estaing, a brave and successful naval officer, was 1778 appointed to the command, and on the 13th of