The correspondence of John Adams and John Winthrop (Mass. Hist. Coll., xlv.) shows constant anxiety lest the defences should not be prepared in case of need.[601]
SIEGE OF BOSTON, 1776.
The westerly half of the map in the octavo atlas of Marshall's Washington, which is a reduction of the map in the earlier quarto atlas (1804). It is reproduced in the French translations of Marshall and of Botta.
The cut on the title of the present volume represents one side of the medal given by Congress to Washington, to commemorate his raising the siege of Boston.[602]
F. Maps of the Siege of Boston.—Plans of Boston and its neighborhood, including its harbor, for the illustration of the siege of Boston, are numerous, and the account of them given in the Mem. Hist. of Boston (iii., introd.) is in the main followed in the present enumeration, which divides them into those of American, English, French, and German origin, and adheres as far as possible to the order of publication in each group.
The earliest American is the 1769 (or last) edition of what is known as Price's edition of Bonner's map of Boston, which had done service since 1722 by successive changes in the plate, this last issue showing Hancock's Wharf, and "Esqr. Hancock's seat" on Beacon Street.[603] This map sufficed for local use till the events of 1775 induced new interest in the topography, when the earliest response came from Philadelphia, where C. Lownes engraved A new plan of Boston Harbour from an actual survey, for the Pennsylvania Magazine. It presented a reminder of the great event of the year in its "N. B. Charlestown burnt, June 17, 1775, by the Regulars." There is another Draught of the Harbour of Boston and the adjacent towns and roads, a manuscript, dated 1775, among the Belknap Papers, i. 84, in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society. The same Pennsylvania Magazine, the next month (July, 1775), gave as engraved by Aitkins A new and correct plan of the town of Boston and Provincial Camp. The town seems to be taken from a plan which had appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine (London) the previous January; but in one corner was added a plan of the circumvallating lines of the besieging army.[604] Later in the season two other plans were made, showing the American lines, which were not published, however, till long after. One is given in Force's American Archives, 4th series, vol. iii.,[605] and the other was made by Col. John Trumbull, in Sept., 1775, which was published in his Autobiography in 1841.[606] Of about the same time is another very small Plan of Boston and its environs, showing the circumvallating lines, which is in one corner of a large Map of the Seat of Civil War in America, engraved by B. Romans, and dedicated to Hancock. There is also, in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society, a rude plan of the harbor and vicinity, showing the positions of the provincials, which are reckoned at 20,000, while the royal forces are put at 8,000. I find no other American plan till Norman's, in 1781, reproduced on another page; and not another till The Seat of the late War at Boston appeared in the Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine, July, 1789, p. 444, but this is a rather scant map of the country as far inland as Worcester. Gordon had the year before this given a map in his American Revolution (London, 1788) based on English sources; but it has been the foundation of most of the eclectic maps since published in this country.[607]
In 1822 a Mr. Finch printed in Silliman's Journal an account of the traces then remaining of the earthworks of the siege, both American and British.[608] There is an enumeration of the different sections of the lines, within and without Boston, in the Mem. Hist. Boston (vol. iii. 104).[609]