After the French War was over, Rogers was appointed to the command of the post at Michilimackinac. His accounts did not come out right. He always had that failing, and he went to England to explain matters. While over there, he was riding one night in a stage-coach over Hounslow Heath, when a masked highwayman stopped the coach, and thrusting his pistols in at the window, told the passengers to hand over their money and watches. They were doing so, when Rogers, who was wonderfully strong, quickly reached out, grabbed the highwayman by the collar of his coat, pulled him into the coach, sat on him, took away his pistols, tied him up, and delivered him over to the authorities. He was an old offender, for whose apprehension a reward of £50 had been offered, which Rogers claimed and received.
A SURPRISED HIGHWAYMAN
Rogers remained in England till the Revolution, and then came over here, and after a while offered his services to Washington. He came to Stark's headquarters at Medford, and John and I had a long talk with him.
Stark believed he would be true to us, and so did I. But he had been on such close terms of intimacy with the British that Washington distrusted him and would not give him a command.
Soon after he received a commission from the British, and raised the Queen's Rangers, who were badly defeated in a fight in Connecticut.
Rogers then returned to England, and led a rather shady life; and I believe was finally killed while fighting in Algiers. He was a curious compound. If he had only been a man of honour, he would have become a great man. But his tricky, unscrupulous nature was his ruin.
Edmund Munro served again at Crown Point in 1762-63, as a lieutenant, and as adjutant of the four provincial regiments stationed there.
I met him often in the Revolution. He was captain of the Lexington company. Poor fellow, he was killed by a cannon ball at Monmouth, at the head of his company. He died poor, and his widow had a hard time till the little ones grew up.
Of our old playmate, John Hancock, you have all heard, how he inherited the wealth of his Uncle Thomas, and in his turn was the richest man in Boston, and lived in the stone house on Beacon Hill.
You remember how he risked his great fortune and his head, and sided with his countrymen. His bold signature heads the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Riches and honours came to him. Year after year he was chosen governor of Massachusetts.