Barefoot and tattered, they toiled on with indomitable pluck and cheerfulness, doing the work which oxen could not do, with no comfort but their daily dram of New England rum, as they plodded through the marsh and over rocks, dragging the ponderous guns through fog and darkness. Their spirit could not save them from the effects of excessive fatigue and exposure. They were ravaged with diarrhœa and fever, till fifteen hundred men were at one time on the sick-list, and at another, Pepperrell reported that of the four thousand only about twenty-one hundred were fit for duty.[118] Nearly all at last recovered,
for the weather was unusually good; yet the number fit for service was absurdly small. Pepperrell begged for reinforcements, but got none till the siege was ended.
It was not his nature to rule with a stiff hand,—and this, perhaps, was fortunate. Order and discipline, the sinews of an army, were out of the question; and it remained to do as well as might be without them, keep men and officers in good-humor, and avoid all that could dash their ardor. For this, at least, the merchant-general was well fitted. His popularity had helped to raise the army, and perhaps it helped now to make it efficient. His position was no bed of roses. Worries, small and great, pursued him without end. He made friends of his officers, kept a bountiful table at his tent, and labored to soothe their disputes and jealousies, and satisfy their complaints. So generous were his contributions to the common cause that according to a British officer who speaks highly of his services, he gave to it, in one form or another, £10,000 out of his own pocket.[119]
His letter-books reveal a swarm of petty annoyances, which may have tried his strength and patience as much as more serious cares. The soldiers complained that they were left without clothing, shoes, or rum; and when he implored the Committee of War to send them, Osborne, the chairman, replied with explanations why it could not be done. Letters
came from wives and fathers entreating that husbands and sons who had gone to the war should be sent back. At the end of the siege a captain “humble begs leave for to go home,” because he lives in a very dangerous country, and his wife and children are “in a declining way” without him. Then two entire companies raised on the frontier offered the same petition on similar grounds. Sometimes Pepperrell was beset with prayers for favors and promotion; sometimes with complaints from one corps or another that an undue share of work had been imposed on it. One Morris, of Cambridge, writes a moving petition that his slave “Cuffee,” who had joined the army, should be restored to him, his lawful master. One John Alford sends the general a number of copies of the Rev. Mr. Prentice’s late sermon, for distribution, assuring him that “it will please your whole army of volunteers, as he has shown them the way to gain by their gallantry the hearts and affections of the Ladys.” The end of the siege brought countless letters of congratulation, which, whether lay or clerical, never failed to remind him, in set phrases, that he was but an instrument in the hands of Providence.
One of his most persistent correspondents was his son-in-law, Nathaniel Sparhawk, a thrifty merchant, with a constant eye to business, who generally began his long-winded epistles with a bulletin concerning the health of “Mother Pepperrell,” and rarely ended them without charging his father-in-law with some
commission, such as buying for him the cargo of a French prize, if he could get it cheap. Or thus: “If you would procure for me a hogshead of the best Clarett, and a hogshead of the best white wine, at a reasonable rate, it would be very grateful to me.” After pestering him with a few other commissions, he tells him that “Andrew and Bettsy [children of Pepperrell] send their proper compliments,” and signs himself, with the starched flourish of provincial breeding, “With all possible Respect, Honoured Sir, Your Obedient Son and Servant.”[120] Pepperrell was much annoyed by the conduct of the masters of the transports, of whom he wrote: “The unaccountable irregular behaviour of these fellows is the greatest fatigue I meet with;” but it may be doubted whether his son-in-law did not prove an equally efficient persecutor.
[89] Diary of Major Seth Pomeroy. I owe the copy before me to the kindness of his descendant, Theodore Pomeroy, Esq.
[90] Diary of a Massachusetts soldier in Captain Richardson’s company (Papers of Dr. Belknap).
[91] The words quoted are used by General Wolcott in his journal.