The insurgents were not content with fighting on their own ground. The command of the line of the Hudson would prevent the British from cutting off New England from the middle colonies, would secure New York from attack from the north, and would open a way for an invasion of Canada. On the north the approaches to the river were dominated by the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which had played a conspicuous part in the great war with France; and in them were laid up some 200 cannon, small arms, and other military stores. Important as these forts were, no adequate garrisons were maintained in them. Benedict Arnold, the leader of a band of volunteers from New Haven, Connecticut, a druggist and West India trader, was informed of their defenceless condition, and made an offer to the Massachusetts committee of safety to capture them. His offer was accepted, and he was authorised to raise a force. The same plan had been formed in Connecticut; and Ethan Allen, the leader of an association in Vermont, was sent with his followers to carry it out. Arnold met him on the march; he refused to yield the command, and Arnold joined his force, which included a body of Indians. At dawn on May 10 they surprised the garrison of Ticonderoga, consisting of less than fifty men, and compelled the governor to surrender without striking a blow. A detachment from the force seized Crown Point, and a few days later Arnold sailed down Lake Champlain and captured St. John's, which was recovered by the British in the course of the summer and garrisoned.
OPINION IN ENGLAND.
In England the news of the fighting at Lexington and Concord was received with astonishment. People were by no means distressed, for they believed that Gage would soon take his revenge. Military men were puzzled and provoked at the state of affairs at Boston. "How often," said a general at the war office to one who had held command in America, "have I heard you American colonels boast that with four battalions you would march through America, and now you think that Gage with 4,000 men and forty pieces of cannon mayn't venture out of Boston."[99] However, things would, it was expected, soon wear a different face, for about 5,500 men were on their way to Boston, and three new generals had embarked on April 21 to serve under Gage. They were Howe, a younger brother of Lord Howe, the admiral, a fine gentleman and a gallant soldier, reputed to be a left-handed cousin of the king through his mother, a daughter of the Countess of Darlington, a mistress of George I., kindly, careless, and frivolous, who had distinguished himself at the taking of Quebec; Clinton, who had served in Germany; and Burgoyne, who had made a successful campaign in Portugal under Lippe Bückeburg, a man of fashion, a dramatist, a politician, and a keen soldier, eager for employment and promotion. North and Dartmouth were vexed at the news of the encounter, for they had entertained strong hopes, expressed by the king in closing parliament on May 26, that the conciliation bill would lead to a pacification. Gage's attempt at Concord was, Dartmouth said, fatal.
The whigs were dismayed, for they did not share the confidence of the nation at large. Though Burke expected that the Americans would suffer "some heavy blows," he did not believe that a war with them would be ended quickly; and Richmond thought it probable that America would be lost and "with it our trade and opulence".[100] In England every war gives an opportunity to some vain and foolish persons for condemning their own country and showing sympathy with its enemies. So it was in 1775. Wilkes, then lord mayor, and the livery of the city tried to force the king to receive on the throne a petition which declared that an attempt was being made to establish arbitrary power in America. They were foiled by the king and adopted an address expressed in more decent terms, to which he returned answer that so long as constitutional authority was resisted he would continue to maintain it by force. The constitutional society, of which Horne was the leading spirit, sent Franklin £100 for, as Horne wrote in the Evening Post, "the widows and orphans of our beloved American fellow-subjects inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at or near Lexington and Concord". Horne was indicted for this libel in 1777, and was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of £200.
In America the news of the affair at Lexington called forth in every colony a spirit of union, a determination to stand by their New England brethren. No answers were sent to North's conciliatory proposals; all alike agreed in referring them to the continental congress. This was equivalent to a rejection of them, for it was well known that the British government would hold no communication with that body. The congress met for the second time at Philadelphia on May 10. It rejected North's proposals and agreed that garrisons should be maintained at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, a decision which implied an approval of the offensive war levied against the king in the expedition against those forts. As, however, it was expedient to lull the suspicions of the French Canadians, who were not likely to have forgotten the religious bitterness exhibited by the Americans with reference to the Quebec act, it declared that no invasion of Canada would be made. The congress assumed executive powers; in the name of the "United Colonies" it adopted the army of New England then before Boston as the continental army, took measures for its organisation and payment, authorised a loan, and on June 15 chose George Washington, the colonel of the Virginia militia, as commander-in-chief.
No wiser choice could have been made. Washington was a gentleman of Virginia, of independent fortune, descended from an English family of good position; he had served with distinction against the French, and as aide-de-camp to Braddock had behaved with remarkable intrepidity in the battle on the Monongahela river in 1755. Thoroughly unselfish, he devoted himself with all his heart to public duty; his integrity was above suspicion; he was free from personal ambition, and was never swayed by jealousy. His education had been neglected, but his intellect was clear and his judgment sound. He was naturally hot-tempered, and when his anger was roused he was a terror to evil-doers, to the officer who disobeyed his orders and to the rascally contractor who supplied his army with inferior stores. Yet he habitually kept his temper under control. Steadfast in purpose, he was never overwhelmed by misfortune and never yielded to factious opposition. And strong as his will was, it did not degenerate into obstinacy; he would gladly listen to the advice of others, and in military matters was sometimes too ready to act upon it. At first he made mistakes in generalship, but his military skill grew with his experience. In army administration he was excellent; his industry was unwearying; the smallest details received his personal attention. He was conscious of the difficulties of the task which lay before him; he believed, so he told Patrick Henry, that from the day of his appointment his reputation would begin to decline. The congress was an unorganised body without any constitutional status, conducting its business by means of constantly changing and irresponsible committees, and was utterly unfit to exercise executive functions; it had no means of enforcing its decrees, no revenue, and no munitions of war. The army which it adopted was little better than an assembly of armed men; many were volunteers, and it was decided to enlist men only for seven months. There was little discipline; the officers were for the most part ignorant of their duties and were of the same social standing as their men; and the New England privates, self-opiniated and obstinate, showed little respect for their orders. Washington had not merely to command an army in the field, he had to create one and, what was harder still, to keep it together.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
Inside Boston life was by no means pleasant. All marketing from the country was at an end, for the town was closely beset by land and the islands were cleared of provisions; no fresh meat was to be had, and the besieged lived alternately on salt beef and salt pork. Attacks from fire-rafts and whale-boats were daily threatened, and fears were entertained that the inhabitants might set fire to the town in order to force the British to leave it.[101] On May 25 the three new generals landed, and the arrival of the reinforcements raised the number of Gage's army to about 10,000 men. Believing that the rebellion would soon be quelled, he issued a foolish proclamation, offering pardon to all rebels who laid down their arms, except Samuel Adams and Hancock, then president of the congress, and threatening those who continued in arms with punishment as traitors. As the insurgents had no ships, while the British had floating batteries and ships of war in the harbour, they could not hope to destroy Gage's army, or reduce it to surrender through famine. Their object was to compel him to evacuate the place and sail off. The peninsula on which the town stands was commanded by hills both on the north and south-east. On the north were the hills of the Charlestown peninsula, which was separated from Boston by the Charles river; it had the Mystic river on its northern side, and was joined to the mainland by a narrow neck. On the south-east it was commanded by the hills of another peninsula called Dorchester Neck. A battery on either the Charlestown hills or the Dorchester heights would have rendered Gage's position untenable; for, independently of any loss which his troops might sustain from bombardment, the British shipping would be drawn from its anchorage, and if he remained he would be practically imprisoned in the town and cut off from supplies. It should therefore have been Gage's first care to shut the insurgents out from those positions.
Hitherto he had not attempted to occupy the hills on either side, but after the arrival of the new generals it was decided to include them within the lines. On June 13 the insurgents heard that the British were about to occupy Dorchester heights. They determined to frustrate this move by occupying the ridge stretching along the Charlestown peninsula, and called by the general name of Bunker hill. Accordingly on the evening of the 16th a detachment of 1,200 men, with six field-pieces, was sent from Cambridge for that purpose. When they arrived at the summit their leaders determined to advance farther and to fortify a lower eminence of the ridge nearer Boston, which was distinguished by the name of Breeds hill. There during the night they formed a redoubt and breastwork. At daybreak on the 17th they were discovered from the sloop Lively, and her guns roused the British army. Before long a battery in Boston and the guns of other ships opened fire, but did little mischief. The insurgents received a small reinforcement, and formed a line of defence, protected by a low wall and rail, from their redoubt northward to the Mystic, in order to secure themselves from a flank attack. If Gage had placed a floating battery on the Mystic, which would have taken them on the left flank, and had landed troops to the rear of the redoubt, held the neck, and so cut them off from their main body, he would have had them at his mercy. This would have been easy, for by taking up a more advanced position than was laid down in their orders, they left their rear exposed to attack. He decided, however, to storm their works.
BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL.