It was Burgoyne's opinion at this time that no force which Great Britain and Ireland could supply would bring the war to a speedy conclusion; while he thought that hiring foreign troops, levying Canadians, and arming blacks and Indians, might do it. (Fonblanque, 153.) By July 3, Dartmouth had become aware that almost every colony had caught the flame, and he had deduced from Gage's letters that twenty thousand men would be required to reduce New England alone. Burgoyne soon began to chafe under Gage's inaction, and urged him to transfer the army to New York. (Fonblanque, p. 190.) He writes to the ministry about "being invested on one side and asleep on the other" (Ibid., p. 198), and says Gage is "amiable for his virtues, but not equal to the situation."
There is in the Mass. Hist. Soc. library (Misc. MSS., 1632-1795) a printed burlesque of a supposed battle of "Roxborough, July 19, 1775", which shows the drift of public satire.
[429] W. B. Reed thinks these letters on Washington's part the production of Colonel Reed. Life of Jos. Reed, i. 111.
[430] Sparks' Corresp. of the Rev., i. 12.
[431] Sullivan writes to Schuyler from Winter Hill, Aug. 5, 1775: "Our enemies fear to come out, though we endeavor in every way to aggravate them."
[432] Of the attack at Stonington, Aug. 30, 1775, see Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., ii. 298 and references.
[433] Draper's Gazette, of Sept. 21, had intimated that there was to be some faithlessness in the patriot party. Barry's Mass., ii. 48.
[434] Being carried to Connecticut, he sunk under his confinement, and was allowed to embark for the West Indies, but the vessel on which he sailed was never heard of. For the sources and their examination, see Sparks' Washington, iii. 115, 502; John Adams's Works, ii. 414; ix. 402; Wells's Sam. Adams, ii. 51, 333; Greene's Life of Greene, i. 120; Cowell's Spirit of Seventy-Six in Rhode Island; Bancroft, vi. 409; Chandler's Criminal Trials, i. 417; Frothingham's Siege of Boston, 258; Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, 37, 40; Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 111, 145; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., June, 1884, p. 15; Sparks MSS., xlix. vol. i.; N. H. Prov. Papers, vii. 622; New Jersey Archives, x. 671. An exculpatory letter of Church, dated American Hospital, Sept. 14, 1775, is among the Sullivan papers (Sparks MSS., xx.)
[435] Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiv. 353.
[436] Sparks MSS. xlv. There is a list of his addressers (Oct. 6) in Curwen's Journal, p. 474.