"He began the bombardment about eight o'clock in the evening. The rain was pouring in torrents; and the poor women and children fled through the darkness and storm, out to the open fields to escape from the flying shot and shell of the invaders."
"Oh, how dreadful for the poor things!" exclaimed Gracie.
"Yes, there was great suffering among them," replied her father. "The house of Governor Bradford was burned, as also were many others. Wallace played the pirate in Narragansett Bay for a month, wantonly destroying the people's property, seizing every American vessel that entered Newport harbour and sending it to Boston,—which, as you will remember, was then occupied by the British general, Gage, and his troops,—plundering and burning all the dwellings on the beautiful island of Providence, and all the buildings near the ferry at Canonicut.
"He kept possession of the harbour till the spring of 1776; but in April of that year some American troops came to try to drive him away. Captain Grimes brought two row-galleys, each carrying two eighteen-pounders, from Providence. Provincial troops brought two more eighteen-pounders and planted them on shore where the British, who were anchored about a mile above Newport, could see them.
"Wallace evidently thought the danger too great and immediate, for he weighed anchor, and with his whole squadron sailed out of the harbour without firing a shot."
"He must have been a coward like most men who revel in such cruelty," remarked Max sagely. "Not much like the Wallace of Scotland who fought the English so bravely in early times."
"I quite agree with you in that thought, Max," his father said with a slight smile. "This Wallace was the same who, later in the war, plundered and destroyed the property of the Americans on the Hudson, desolating the farms of innocent men because they preferred freedom to the tyrannical rule of the English government, and laying the town of Kingston in ashes.
"Soon after he sailed out of Narragansett Bay another British vessel called the 'Glasgow,' carrying twenty-nine guns, came into the harbour and anchored near Fort Island. She had just come out of a severe fight with some American vessels, held the same day that Wallace left Newport. Probably her officers thought he was still there so that their vessel would be safe in that harbour, but they soon discovered their mistake. The Americans threw up a breast-work on Brenton's Point, placed some pieces of heavy artillery there, and the next morning opened upon her and another vessel so vigorous a fire from their battery that they soon cut their cables and went out to sea again."