This Week in the Revolution – Page 2

A Wartime Thanksgiving, 1775

Thanksgiving Day was a well-established tradition in New England at the time of the Revolutionary War. The government of each colony would generally proclaim a “Publick Thanksgiving” each year on a Thursday in late November or early December. It was often on different days in different colonies; for example, in 1775, Connecticut held it on November 16th, Massachusetts and Rhode Island on the 23rd, and New Hampshire on the 30th.

Food seems to have been part of the tradition, but churches were also encouraged to hold worship services on that day, and people were encouraged to attend and (of course) to literally give thanks to God.

In Massachusetts in 1775, it was only natural that the Thanksgiving proclamation dwelt a lot on how the war was going. Among other things, it encouraged people to thank God “That the Lives of our Officers and Soldiers have been so remarkably preserved, while our Enemies have fell before them … And to Offer up humble and fervent prayer to Almighty God for the whole British Empire, especially for the United American Colonies”.

General George Washington ordered the American soldiers at the siege of Boston to observe Thanksgiving as proclaimed by the colony of Massachusetts. But there were still military duties to be done. Here’s how one American lieutenant, Jabez Fitch, described the day in his diary:

The 23d. This is Thanksgiving Day in this province. After breakfasting on chocolate and bread and cheese I went on the duty of fatigue. Our reg^t [regiment] were assign’d with Col. Wyllys’ to cut apple trees and make a brush fence from our front on the right of the lines down toward Dorchester, and we were stinted to extend it this day as far as the next intrenchment, which we accomplish’d by about 2 o’clock. We were directed in the work by one Lt. Cole of Wyllys’ reg^t, and after we had done work he came home with me calling in at the main guard, &c. After we came into camp we had a very good dinner on a piece of roast pork and a turkey, which we had prepar’d for that purpose. Capt. Bissell, Lt. Cole, Mr. Hillyer, Lt. Gove and I din’d together, and in the evening all of us, except Lt. Cole, went up to Jamaica Plain to make Capt. Rowley a visit, we also found Lt. Gillett there, he sung us several songs, made us a shoe, &c. A little after 8 o’clock we came home, had orders to turn out on the shortest notice, as an alarm was expected this night on account of our people beginning to intrench on Cobble Hill.

(I’m guessing that the phrase “to make a shoe” meant “to dance.”)

Interestingly, in addition to all the thanks and prayers that Massachusetts said should be offered regarding the war, their proclamation ended by encouraging people to pray

That he [God] would graciously pour out of his Spirit upon all order of men through the land, bring us to a hearty Repentance & Reformation Purity and Sanctify all his Churches
That he would make ours Emanuels Land
That he would spread the Knowledge of the Redeemer through the whole land and fill the World with his Glory, and all servile Labour is forbiden on said day.
GOD SAVE THE PEOPLE

Sources

Smith, Charles C., and Samuel A. Green. “May Meeting, 1894. Diary of Jabez Fitch, Jr.; New Volume of Proceedings.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 9 (1894): 40-95. www.jstor.org/stable/25079765. Page 83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079765?seq=44#metadata_info_tab_contents

The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, vol. 19 (vol. 14 of the appendix), pp. 136-37.
https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespass7576mass/page/136

“General Orders, 18 November 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0362. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 392–393.]

Birth of the Marine Corps

The “birthday” of the American Marines is not very exciting to read about; just a paragraph in the Journals of the Continental Congress:

Resolved, That Two Battalions of marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or inlisted into said Battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required: that they be inlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.

But, just as with the Continental Army and Navy, those few sentences from the records of Congress were the start of something big; and those two battalions eventually turned into the United States Marine Corps, which celebrates November 10 as its birthday.

One thing that strikes me is that the Congress didn’t just want the Marines to enlist for a certain amount of time; they wanted them to enlist for the rest of the war.

Source

Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 3, p. 348.

Birth of an American Navy

The American Navy (more properly, the Continental Navy) started humbly on Friday, October 13, 1775, when the Second Continental Congress voted to equip two ships to intercept supplies that the British were shipping to their troops in America. The decision was recorded in the journal of the congress:

Resolved, That a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible despatch, for a cruize of three months, and that the commander be instructed to cruize eastward, for intercepting such transports as may be laden with warlike stores and other supplies for our enemies, and for such other purposes as the Congress shall direct.
That a Committee of three be appointed to prepare an estimate of the expence, and lay the same before the Congress, and to contract with proper persons to fit out the vessel.
Resolved, That another vessel be fitted out for the same purposes, and that the said committee report their opinion of a proper vessel, and also an estimate of the expence.

Up to this point, some individual colonies had sent out ships on military missions, but these were the first ships to act under the direction of the united colonies. Some people might think it unlucky that the Navy began on Friday the 13th, but the Navy made it through the war, so I guess it was OK.

Dr. Benjamin Church: First American to Spy for the British

“I think it best to introduce Mr. Maxwell to General Washington,” wrote Henry Ward to General Nathanael Greene, “and for you and the General, with not more than one trusty person besides, to consider as to the most prudent measures to discover the traitor.” This was the first hint that George Washington and his fellow officers had of a high-ranking spy in their midst.

*Dr. Benjamin Church, a prominent revolutionary, was arrested as a spy in September 1775.*

The detection of the spy happened largely by accident. A baker named Godfrey Wainwood, living in Newport, Rhode Island, had received a visit from an acquaintance of his, a young woman from Massachusetts. She wanted his help to deliver a letter to a British official who could send it into Boston (then besieged by American troops) by ship. Wainwood thought this a bit odd, but he agreed to help. She left the letter with him, trusting that he would deliver it soon, and went back to Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That was in late July 1775. Wainwood was suspicious that somebody at Cambridge — the American army headquarters — might be acting as a spy and trying to secretly send information to the British army in Boston. But if the letter had been written by a spy, what should he do about it? Who should he tell?

Weeks went by. Unsure what to do, Wainwood simply kept the letter. After a while, in need of advice, he turned to a schoolteacher named Adam Maxwell. Together they decided to open the letter, and found that it was written in code, which increased their suspicions. When the woman wrote to Wainwood, expressing uneasiness that he might not have delivered the letter, they decided to share their suspicions with Henry Ward, secretary of Rhode Island.

So it was that Ward wrote to General Greene in late September, urging him to “discover the traitor.” Greene immediately told Washington, and the molehunt began. The woman, “a suttle, shrewd Jade,” was arrested; after a night of being in custody and a great deal of questioning, she finally admitted that Doctor Benjamin Church had written the letter and given it to her to take to Newport.

That was enough to rock the world of the American revolutionaries. Dr. Church had seemed to be an outstanding patriot for years. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Committee of Safety, and he was currently serving as director of the American army hospitals. But on 29 September 1775, after the woman (who was Church’s mistress) had confessed, he was arrested and the detective work began.

Three people — Samuel West, Elisha Porter, and Elbridge Gerry — went to work on the letter. As they deciphered it, they learned what Church had been trying to communicate to the British in Boston:

I hope this will reach you—three Attempts have I made without Success in effecting the last the Man was discovered in attempting his Escape, but fortunately my Letter was sewed in the Waisband of his Breeches…. for the Sake of the miserable convulsed Empire solicit Peace, repeal the Acts, or Britain is undone. this Advice is the Result of warm Affection to my King & to the Realm. … A View to Independance gr[ows] more & more General—should Britain declare War against the Colonies they are lost forever. … I wish you could contrive to write me largely in Cypher by the Way of New Port…. make Use of every Precaution or I Perish.

Church admitted that he had written and sent the letter, which was intended for his brother-in-law, John Fleming, “a warm stickler for the Honour, Dignity & Power of Britain”, in Boston. But he still claimed that he wasn’t a traitor: the letter, he said, intentionally exaggerated American military strength; by feeding this information to Fleming (and, through him, to the British commanders), Church was trying to influence the British to give up the war and make a peaceful compromise with the colonists’ demands — or so he said.

It was hard to absolutely prove that Church was a spy, but a council of war and the Massachusetts House of Representatives both pronounced him guilty — and they were right. However, the Articles of War — the regulations established by the Continental Congress for the American army — didn’t provide a severe enough punishment for the kind of crime he had committed, and nobody was quite sure what to do with him. After being imprisoned for a couple of years, Church was finally allowed to leave the country in January 1778. He sailed for the West Indies, but the ship he sailed on was lost at sea.

For another example of Church’s espionage activities, see Spy Letters of the American Revolution.

The Tyrannical Rabble of America

Being an American, and inclined to approve of the Revolution, I tend to emphasize the things that put the Americans in a good light — though I can add, in fairness to myself, that the Americans wrote more about the war than the British did, and not surprisingly, since most of it was happening on their doorstep instead of across the sea. I can’t claim to be unbiased, but I do try to be fair.

Another reason why it’s easier to find things that were said in favor of the Revolution than against it is because that some people were intimated from speaking against it. For example, one person in Philadelphia wrote home to England on August 1, 1775, condemning the revolutionaries, but didn’t want anybody to know about it, because they were afraid of reprisals. They wrote:

You would hardly conceive, without seeing it, to what a height the political fury of this Country is arrived. I most heartily wish myself at home among free-born Englishmen, not among this tyrannical and arbitrary rabble of America. They have made many protestations of respect for England, and of their desire of union with the Mother Country, but you may take my word for it, my dear friend, it is the meanest and basest hypocrisy that ever was assumed. … You would feel the indignation I do every day, when I hear my King and Country vilified and abused by a parcel of wretches who owe their very existence to it. … Are the friends of Great Britain and their property to be left exposed at this rate to the dictates of an inhuman rabble? I expect, with many others, if I do not join in the seditious and traitorous acts in vogue, to be hauled away and confined in a prison, with the confiscation of all I have in the world. … Conceal my name; or I should run a great risk of my life and property, were it discovered here that I had sent you any account of these proceedings. Indeed, I incur some danger in writing at all; nor should I, if I could not confide in my conveyance.
American Archives, 4th Series, vol. 3, pp. 3-5

While being grateful for what came of the Revolution, let’s not forget that there were mobs and other things that we shouldn’t be proud of in the Revolution. As the above writer mentioned, the people, and not just a king or dictator, can be tyrannical.

Also on this day, recruiters for the Royal Highland Emigrants started enlisting soldiers in Quebec to fight against the Americans.

A Continental Fast

In the Olive Branch Petition, the Continental Congress appealed to King George III to defend their rights and help stop the war. But even before doing that, they decided to appeal to a higher King.

“We have appointed a continental Fast,” wrote John Adams to his wife, Abigail, on June 17, 1775. “Millions will be upon their Knees at once before their great Creator, imploring his Forgiveness and Blessing, his Smiles on American Councils and Arms.” The “day of public humiliation [i.e., publicly humbling oneself before God], fasting and prayer” was set for Thursday, July 20, and the Continental Congress issued a proclamation urging everyone in the American colonies to observe it. The proclamation said that the objective of the fast was

…that we may, with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins; and offer up our joint supplications to the all-wise, omnipotent, and merciful Disposer of all events; humbly beseeching him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities, to avert those desolating judgments, with which we are threatned, and to bless our rightful sovereign, King George the third, and inspire him with wisdom to discern and pursue the true interest of all his subjects, that a speedy end may be put to the civil discord between Great Britain and the American colonies, without farther effusion of blood: And that the British nation may be influenced to regard the things that belong to her peace, before they are hid from her eyes: That these colonies may be ever under the care and protection of a kind Providence, and be prospered in all their interests; That the divine blessing may descend and rest upon all our civil rulers, and upon the representatives of the people, in their several assemblies and conventions, that they may be directed to wise and effectual measures for preserving the union, and securing the just rights and priviledges of the colonies; That virtue and true religion may revive and flourish throughout our land; And that all America may soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven, for the redress of her many grievances, the restoration of her invaded rights, a reconciliation with the parent state, on terms constitutional and honorable to both; And that her civil and religious priviledges may be secured to the latest posterity.

The fast was indeed observed with “strictness and devotion” in many places throughout the colonies. In Newport, Rhode Island, the Reverend Ezra Stiles (who later became president of Yale College) addressed “the most crouded Assembly that I ever preached to in my Meetinghouse.” His sermon was based on 2 Chronicles 20, which tells of how God protected the ancient Jews from their enemies in response to their prayers and fasting. Also in Newport, Rabbi Samuel Cohen “of the holy Land” preached to his congregation, using Numbers 25:11-12 as his text. (Incidentally, the synagogue in Newport is the oldest one in America.)

But not everybody was as enthusiastic as Reverend Stiles or Rabbi Cohen. Some pastors and priests refused to take part in the fast: some of them said it was against their personal convictions; others (particularly those of the Church of England) said they might lose their jobs if they participated. But as it turned out, some of them lost their jobs for not participating.

In our day, when the phrase “separation of church and state” is often taken to mean that religion has little or no place in public life, it may seem strange to us that a congress would tell people to turn to God for help in a time of national crisis. But this was a common practice both during and after the Revolution — and even after the U.S. Constitution was adopted (which, incidentally, sheds some light on what the people who wrote the Constitution thought “separation of church and state” meant).

Sources

John Adams to Abigail Adams, 11 June 1775

Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 2, 87-8

Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, vol. 1, 590-1

The Sword and the Olive Branch

Thomas Jefferson, John Dickinson, and Richard Henry Lee. Jefferson and Dickinson wrote the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms; Dickinson wrote the Olive Branch Petition; and Lee was probably the main author of the Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain.

In general, American political leaders wanted peace — but they were determined to keep fighting, if necessary, in order to protect their liberties. They wanted to be united with Britain, but they also wanted to enjoy the same rights as the people in Britain did. So, in early July 1775, the Continental Congress published a declaration of why they had taken up arms against the British, a petition asking King George III to step in and solve the problem, and an address asking the British people to stand up for them. Here are some excerpts from these documents:

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms

We are reduced to the alternative of chusing an unconditional Submission to the tyranny of irritated Ministers, or resistance by Force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary Slavery. Honour, Justice, and Humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that Freedom which we received from our gallant Ancestors, and which our innocent Posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding Generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary Bondage upon them.

Second Petition to the King (a.k.a. Olive Branch Petition)

We therefore beseech your Majesty, that your royal authority and influence may be graciously interposed to procure us releif from our afflicting fears and jealousies occasioned by the system before mentioned, and to settle peace through every part of your dominions, with all humility submitting to your Majesty’s wise consideration, whether it may not be expedient for facilitating those important purposes, that your Majesty be pleased to direct some mode by which the united applications of your faithful colonists to the throne, in pursuance of their common councils, may be improved into a happy and permanent reconciliation; and that in the meantime measures be taken for preventing the further destruction of the lives of your Majesty’s subjects; and that such statutes as more immediately distress any of your Majestys colonies be repealed…

Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain

A Cloud hangs over your Heads and ours; ‘ere this reaches you, it may probably burst upon us; let us then (before the remembrance of former Kindness is obliterated) once more repeat those Appellations which are ever grateful in our Ears; let us entreat Heaven to avert our Ruin, and the Destruction that threatens our Friends, Brethren and Countrymen, on the other side of the Atlantic.

For more about these documents, see July 6 and July 8.

Washington Takes Command

I have nothing Remarkebel to rite Except that geaneral Washington & Leas got into Cambridge yesterday and to Day thay are to take a vew of ye Army & that will be atended with a grate deal of grandor there is at this time one & twenty Drummers & as many feffors a Beting and Playing Round the Prayde.

No, that’s not a foreign language. It’s just a beautiful example of why spellcheck and grammar check were invented. Here’s how it would be with correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation:

I have nothing remarkable to write except that Generals Washington and Lee got into Cambridge yesterday, and today they are to take a view of the army, and that will be attended with a great deal of grandeur; there are at this time one-and-twenty drummers and as many fifers a-beating and playing round the parade.

This was a letter from Massachusetts Lieutenant Joseph Hodgkins to his wife, Sarah. Besides being interesting from a historical standpoint, their letters are all kinds of fun to read; sometimes a word is spelled so strangely that it takes a minute to figure out what it is.

Hodgkins was at the American army camp around Boston, and he was writing about how General George Washington, the newly-appointed commander-in-chief, was taking command of the American forces. Washington arrived at Cambridge, which was the army’s headquarters, on Sunday, July 2, along with Charles Lee, who had been appointed a major-general. The next day they “reviewed” the army; that is, the army marched around the parade ground, and the generals observed them. (Maybe that’s not the most accurate description of it, but it’ll do.) Washington and Lee had been welcomed and honored all along their way from Philadelphia to Cambridge, but now they were up against their real work. And neither one of them realized how hard it would turn out to be.

Here’s an artistic rendition of General Washington “reviewing” the colonial troops at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1775. Although it’s not historically accurate in some things — such as the stars-and-stripes flag, which hadn’t been designed yet — it gives an idea of what a “review” might have been like. The smoke in the background is from a salute being fired.

Source

This Glorious Cause: The Adventures of Two Company Officers in Washington’s Army, p. 171.

The Battle of Bunker Hill

The Americans threw occasional nervous glances toward Boston and the harbor as they feverishly dug into the earth at the top of the hill. They had to finish their fort before daybreak, or they would be sitting ducks to the nearby British forces. Hopefully the British wouldn’t notice them until then. It was the night of June 16, 1775, and the Americans were busy on Breed’s Hill on the Charlestown peninsula.

The British commander-in-chief, General Thomas Gage, had planned to put his own forces on the Charlestown hills first, to keep the rebels from getting close enough to actually fire their artillery at the British in Boston. The hills on the Charlestown and Dorchester peninsulas had natural strategic advantage; whichever side controlled them could hope to control the outcome of the siege.

But the Americans got wind of General Gage’s plans and beat him to the punch. On Friday night, June 16, about 1,000 American troops quietly marched onto the Charlestown peninsula and began digging in. For some reason, rather than following the original plan to fortify Bunker Hill, they chose to move farther down the peninsula to Breed’s Hill, which was closer to Boston. They worked as quickly as possible, hoping to finish their fortifications before the British noticed.

Although the British did in fact notice that something was happening near Charlestown, they apparently didn’t realize the extent of what was going on, and they did nothing about it during the night. When daylight came, the Americans had made a decent earthen fort on top of the hill. British warships in the harbor saw the fort and began firing at it, but did little damage; it was too strong, as well as being too high up for the ships’ guns to get good shots at it.

This 1783 illustration of the battle of Bunker Hill shows the British bombarding the American fortifications, and British troops crossing from Boston to attack Breed’s Hill. In the background, Charlestown is in flames.

The British generals debated the best way attack the rebel fortifications. In the early afternoon, Generals William Howe and Robert Pigot crossed the water to the Charlestown peninsula with about 2,000 redcoats. By this time, the Americans had been able to strengthen their fortifications considerably, but they were tired, hungry, thirsty, and badly in need of reinforcements. Some of the inexperienced American troops, frightened by the artillery barrage from the ships, had run away.

Finally the British began their attack. Twice they advanced to within a short distance of the American fortifications and were sent staggering back by volleys of American musket fire. By then the American commander, Colonel William Prescott, was in a desperate situation: the American troops were nearly out of ammunition. As the British, bolstered by 500 reinforcements under General Henry Clinton, began their third advance, Prescott ordered his men to hold their fire in order to conserve ammunition (legend has it that he said, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”).

The British were only about 20 yards away when Prescott finally ordered his men to fire their last major volley. He recalled the scene that followed in a letter to John Adams:

Our Amunition being nearly exausted [we] could keep up only a scattering Fire. The Enemy being numerous surrounded our little Fort began to mount our Lines and enter the Fort with their Bayonets. We was obliged to retreat through them while they kept up as hot a fire as it was possible for them to make. We having very few Bayonets could make no resistance.

The Americans made a fighting retreat off the peninsula, with musket balls and cannon shot flying all around them “like Hailstones.” They had suffered about 400 casualties: 100 killed, and 300 wounded or captured. Among the dead was the beloved revolutionary leader Dr. Joseph Warren. In addition, Charlestown had been destroyed; the British had set it on fire by artillery bombardment in order to drive out rebel snipers.

But the British had purchased their victory at an unacceptably high cost: over 1,000 dead and wounded. One American called them “victorious losers. A few more such victories, and they are undone.” Wrote General Gage, “The number of killed and wounded is greater than our forces can afford to lose.” The bloody battle of Bunker Hill (as it was misnamed at the time, and has been called ever since) showed the British that “the rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be.”

After the battle, things began to quiet down again. For a while, everyone was more nervous than usual, but eventually they settled back into the routine of camp life. The British fortified Bunker Hill and the Charlestown peninsula, but didn’t make any other moves; and, for several months, neither did the Americans.

Sources

“To John Adams from William Prescott, 25 August 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0070. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 3, May 1775–January 1776, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 124–126.]
Letter from Peter Brown to his mother, Cambridge, June 28, 1775. The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Franklin Bowditch Dexter (New York, 1901), 1:595-6.
“To John Adams from William Tudor, 26 June 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0030. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 3, May 1775 – January 1776, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 48–49.]
Letter from General Gage to Lord Dartmouth, Boston, June 25, 1775. American Archives, ed. Peter Force, 2:1097.
“View of the Attack on Bunker’s Hill, with the Burning of Charles Town, June 17. 1775. (ca. 1783).” http://www.teachushistory.org/Revolution/ps-attack.htm

Skirmish, Fire, and Slaughter at Noddle’s Island

OK, it wasn’t really as bad as it sounds. Not many people were hurt in the skirmish, the only things burnt were some hay and a house or two, and the only things slaughtered were livestock.

The water around Noddle’s and Hog (or Hogg) Islands was shallow enough that the Americans were able to walk there from the shore in order to destroy supplies that would have been used by the British.

Noddle’s Island, in Boston Harbor, was the scene of one of many skirmishes and confrontations over supplies while the British were besieged in Boston. The British were continually trying to get food for themselves and their horses, as well as firewood, and several times the New Englanders tried to either stop them in the process, or to destroy the supplies before the British could get them. The latter is what happened in this case. American soldiers went to Noddle’s Island, in Boston Harbor, to destroy what they could before the British could get it, and the British Marines went to stop them. British Lieutenant John Barker, stationed in Boston, recorded the fight in his diary the next day:

Yesterday afternoon about 40 of the Rebels came to Noddles Island expecting to meet with hay to destroy: they set two houses on fire and began killing the Cows and Horses, which the Adml. [Admiral] seeing immediately dispatched the Marines from the Men of War to drive the Rebels away, and at the same time sent some Boats and an armed Schooner round the Island to intercept them; the Rebels as soon as they saw this scour’d off as fast as they cou’d and escaped by wading up to their necks; one was killed in the flight; after this there was a constant firing at each other from the opposite sides of the water, but I believe without any mischief [meaning that nobody was hurt]; there was also firing at and from the Schooner and boats, which continued all night and part of this morning. I fancy we are the greatest sufferers for some time in the night the schooner run aground within 60 yards of their shore, and after a cannonade a considerable time on both sides, having no chance of saving the Schooner as the tide was going out, they were obliged to set her on fire and quit [i.e., leave] her without being able to save a single article…
From The British in Boston: Being a Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment from November 15, 1774 to May 31, 1776, pp. 50-51.

Notes

Noddle’s Island is no longer an island; the water around it has been filled up, and the island is now part of Boston.

The full map can be viewed on the Library of Congress website at https://lccn.loc.gov/gm71002447