"Yes," she replied, and began at once.
"On the ninth (of June) the 'Falcon,' a British sloop of war, was seen from Cape Ann in chase of two schooners bound to Salem. One of these was taken; a fair wind wafted the other into Gloucester harbor. Linzee, the captain of the 'Falcon,' followed with his prize, and, after anchoring, sent his lieutenant and thirty-six men in a whale-boat and two barges to bring under his bow the schooner that had escaped.
"As the barge men boarded her at her cabin windows, men from the shore fired on them, killing three and wounding the lieutenant in the thigh. Linzee sent his prize and a cutter to cannonade the town. They did little injury; while the Gloucester men, with the loss of but two, took both schooners, the barges, and every man in them, Linzee losing half his crew."
"How vexed he must have been!" laughed Lulu. "Did he ever go back to take revenge, Grandma Elsie?"
"No, I think not," she said, "though Gage and the British admiral planned to do so, and also to wreak vengeance on the people of Portland,—then called Falmouth,—where, as you probably remember, Mowat had been held prisoner for a few hours in May of that same year.
"On the morning of the 16th of October Mowat again appeared in their harbour in command of a ship of sixteen guns, attended by three other vessels, and at half-past nine in the morning began firing upon the town.
"In five minutes several houses were in a blaze; then a party of marines landed and spread the conflagration. He burned down about three fourths of the town,—a hundred and thirty dwelling-houses, the public buildings, and a church,—and shattered the rest of the houses with balls and shells. The English account makes the destruction still greater. So far north winter begins early, and it was just at the beginning of a severe one that he thus turned the poor people of that town out of house and home into the cold, in poverty and misery."
"That was a Christian deed worthy of a Christian king," remarked Rosie, scornfully.
"Bancroft says," continued her mother, "that the indignation of Washington was kindled by 'these savage cruelties, this new exertion of despotic barbarity.' General Green said, 'Death and destruction mark the footsteps of the enemy; fight or be slaves is the American motto.'"
"And who wouldn't rather fight and die fighting, than be a slave?" cried Max, his eyes flashing. "Grandma Elsie," he said, "you haven't told us a word about the American navy. Didn't they begin one about that time?"