In August there was some correspondence with Gage respecting the treatment of prisoners, in which Washington appears to the better advantage.[429] The correspondence of the American general during the summer constantly dwells upon the scarcity of powder, though for prudence' sake he veils his expressions as much as he can. His own troops and even Congress had no conception of his want, and while Washington hardly dared fire a salute because of the powder it would take, Richard Henry Lee, from Philadelphia, was urging him to plant batteries at the mouth of Boston harbor, and keep the enemy's vessels from coming in and going out.[430] Governor Cooke, of Rhode Island, who was doing his best to get powder from Bermuda, was compelled to keep the secret too. Apparently Washington did not let his brigade commanders know the whole truth.[431] Under these circumstances Washington had no courage to attack, and Gage, on his part, was content to keep his men from deserting as best he could.
During September the threatening manœuvres of the British cruisers along the Connecticut coast[432] kept Governor Trumbull from sending what powder he had, and there was little hope, when Washington called a council of war on the 11th, that anything would come of it. There had been just then some internal manifestations not very reassuring.[433] A letter which Dr. Benjamin Church had tried to get to the British in Newport harbor had been intercepted, and its cypher interpreted. There was no expressed defection made clear by it, but suspicions were aroused, and Church, being arrested, was summoned before the congress at Watertown, where he made a speech protesting his innocence, but scarcely quieting the suspicions. He was put under control, and removed from the neighborhood of the army.[434]
There was scarce less gratification in the camp at Cambridge in getting rid of their doubtful associate than was experienced in Boston in getting a release from their sluggish general. The ministry had saved that soldier's pride as much as they could in desiring to have him nearer at hand for counsel;[435] and the sympathetic loyalists whom he had befriended paid him their compliments in an address. Gage finally, on October 10, issued his last order, turning over the command to Howe.[436]
In the middle of October, the burning of Falmouth, the modern Portland, in Maine, seemed to make it clear that the war was to be conducted ruthlessly on the British part. Captain Mowatt, with a small fleet, had entered the harbor and set the town on fire, and to those who communicated with him it was said that he announced his doings to be but the beginning of a course of such outrages. When the news reached Washington, he dispatched Sullivan to Portsmouth, with orders to resist as far as he could any similar demonstration there.[437] What a modern British historian[438] has called a "wanton and cruel deed" seems to have been but the hasty misjudgment of an inferior officer, without orders to warrant the act, and the ministry promptly disowned the responsibility.[439] During October, also, a committee of Congress,[440] visiting Washington's camp, could see for themselves the troubles of their heroic commander. They had not yet heard in Philadelphia the roar of hostile guns,—a sensation they might now experience. They could share Washington's perplexities as the new enlistments halted upon the expiration of the old,[441] and perhaps join in some of his kindly merriment when Phillis Wheatley, the negress, addressed his Excellency in no very bad verses.[442]
HANDBILL.[443]