"Yes; that is the name we have given ourselves in these days; but we consider the English our relations—a sort of cousins."
"Well, then I hope we and they will never fight any more," said Elsie. "But, please, grandma, tell us something more of what has happened along this coast."
"In 1775," continued her grandma, "the British kept the coast of New England from Falmouth (now called Portland) to New London in continual alarm; they were out in every direction plundering the people to supply their camp with provisions."
"In this State, grandma?" asked Ned.
"Yes; and in Connecticut and Massachusetts. They bombarded Stonington, in Connecticut, shattered houses and killed two men. That was in August or September. In October Mowatt was sent to Falmouth in Maine to get a supply of provisions from the people there, and to demand a surrender of their arms. They refused and defied him; then—after giving time for the women and children to leave the town—he bombarded and set it on fire. More than four hundred houses were destroyed—nearly all the town of about five hundred buildings."
"What a cruel thing!" exclaimed Elsie; "I suppose they had to give up then?"
"No," said Mrs. Travilla; "so brave and determined were they that they repulsed the marauders and would not let them land."
"Grandma," asked Elsie, "didn't Arnold go through Maine with an army to attack Canada about that time?"
"Yes; about the middle of August a committee of Congress visited Washington in his camp, and together they formed a plan to send a force into Canada by way of the Kennebec River to co-operate with General Schuyler, who was preparing to invade that province by way of the Northern lakes. Arnold was well known to be brave. He had been complaining of being ill-used upon Lake Champlain. Washington desired to silence his complaints, and knowing that this expedition was suited to his talents he appointed him to command, and gave him the commission of colonel in the Continental army.
"The force under his command consisted of eleven hundred hardy men—ten companies of musketeers from New England, and three companies of riflemen from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Those riflemen were commanded by Captain Daniel Morgan, who afterward did such good work for our country in her hard struggle for liberty. Arnold and his troops marched from Cambridge to Newburyport, where they embarked on transports which carried them to the mouth of the Kennebec. They went up that river in bateaux and rendezvoused at Fort Western, opposite the present town of Augusta. Now they had come to the edge of a vast and almost uninhabited wilderness."