"Yes," exclaimed Rosie, "I don't know what George III. could have been made of to be willing to cause so much suffering even to innocent defenceless women and children, just that he might play the tyrant and forcibly take from the Americans their own hard earnings to pay his way."
"He was perhaps not quite so wicked as weak," replied her mother; "you know, I think, that he afterward lost his mind several times. Indeed he had done so once before this,—in 1764."
"He had been wicked and cruel enough for a guilty conscience to set him crazy, I should think," remarked Max.
"Please go on, again, Papa, won't you?" entreated Lulu.
"I will," he said. "The British fired as they drew near, but with little effect; and the Americans, reserving their fire as before, till the foe was within five or six yards of the redoubt, then poured it on them with deadly aim, as at the first attack. It told with terrible effect; whole ranks of officers and men fell dead."
"Oh, didn't they run then, Papa?" queried Gracie with a shudder of horror as she seemed to see the ground strewed with the dead and dying.
"They were thrown into confusion and retreated to the shore," the Captain replied,—"retreated in great disorder. It seemed that the American fire was even more fatal than before. In telling the story afterward Prescott said, 'From the whole American line there was a continuous stream of fire.'
"The British officers exposed themselves fearlessly, and urged their soldiers on with persuasions, threats, and even blows; but they could not reach the redoubt, and presently gave way, and, as I have said, retreated in great disorder.
"At one time Howe was left nearly alone for a few seconds, so many of his officers had been killed or wounded; while 'the dead,' as Stark said in his account of the battle, 'lay as thick as sheep in a fold.'