[87] "Huns."—Ed. 1786.

[88] "Slaughter'd by our Rifle-guns."—Ed. 1786.

[89] "Proud of his soldiership, Burgoyne rated himself higher yet in his character as an author."—Trevelyan. He was a voluminous letter-writer, and his vivid and interesting letters, of which great numbers have been preserved, throw much light upon the period.

[90] This expression belongs to Burgoyne rather than Howe. "Burgoyne took no pains to hide them [his sentiments] in any company. He exclaimed to the first colonist whom he met ... 'Let us get in and we will soon find elbow-room.' The saying caught the public ear, and the time was not far distant when its author learned to his cost that it is more easy to coin a phrase than to recall it from circulation."—Trevelyan, Am. Rev.

[91] "School-boy army."—Ed. 1786.

[92] The first detachment of troops, which left Boston on the night of April 18th, consisted of 800 men; the reinforcements that met them just beyond Lexington consisted of 1,200 men. "On this eventful day, the British lost 273 of their number, while the Americans lost 93."—Fiske's American Revolution.

[93] Lord Percy was at the head of the reinforcements which rescued the British regulars on their retreat from Concord and Lexington, and it was under his leadership that the disastrous retreat was continued to Boston.

[94] "I believe the fact, stripped of all coloring," Washington wrote six weeks later on, "to be plainly this: that if the retreat had not been as precipitate as it was (and God knows it could not have been more so), the ministerial troops must have surrendered or been totally cut off."—Trevelyan's American Revolution.

[95] "In this battle, in which not more than one hour was spent in actual fighting, the British loss in killed and wounded was 1,054.... The American loss, mainly incurred at the rail fence and during the hand-to-hand struggle at the redoubt, was 449."—Fiske's American Revolution.

[96] Burgoyne, in one of his letters, declares that "a pound of fresh mutton could only be bought for its weight in gold."

[97] Gage's inertness and procrastination were a constant source of ridicule both in England and America. No man was ever more severely criticised. Hume even branded him as a contemptible coward.

[98] In the 1786 edition the title is "The Desolate Academy." In place of the first six lines above, the 1786 edition had the following:

[99] In the 1786 edition the title is "The Sea-Faring Bachelor;" in 1795 it was changed to "Advice to a Friend."

[100]

[101] The first trace that I can find of this poem is in the Oct. 18, 1775, issue of Anderson's Constitutional Gazette, where it has the title, "Reflections on Gage's Letter to Gen. Washington of Aug. 13." It was published in the 1786 edition with the title, "On the Conqueror of America shut up in Boston. Published in New York, August 1775." The 1795 edition changed the title to "The Misnomer." I have followed the title and text of the 1809 edition.

[102] General Gage's proclamation, issued June 12, 1775, was as follows: "Whereas the infatuated multitudes, who have long suffered themselves to be conducted by certain well-known incendiaries and traitors, in a fatal progression of crimes against the constitutional authority of the state, have at length proceeded to avowed rebellion, and the good effects which were expected to arise from the patience and lenity of the king's government have been often frustrated, and are now rendered hopeless by the influence of the same evil counsels, it only remains for those who are intrusted with the supreme rule, as well for the punishment of the guilty as the protection of the well-affected, to prove that they do not bear the sword in vain."

[103] "The hopeful general."—Constitutional Gazette.

[104] On June 11, Washington had written Gage, among other things, "that the officers engaged in the cause of liberty and their country, who by the fortune of war had fallen into your hands, have been thrown indiscriminately into a common gaol appropriated for felons," and threatening retaliation in like cases, "exactly by the rule you shall observe towards those of ours now in your custody." To this Cage replied, on the 13th: "Britons, ever pre-eminent in mercy, have outgone common examples, and overlooked the criminal in the captive. Upon these principles your prisoners, whose lives, by the law of the land, are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness," &c.—Duyckinck.

[105] "Gage shall be."—Gazette.

[106] "Black monster."—Gazette.

[107] The Gazette version adds here the lines,

[108] "British clemency."—Ed. 1786.

[109] "Their past records show."—Ed, 1786. "Gage already lets us know."—Gazette.

[110] "The viper foe."—Gazette.

[111] This and the preceding line not in the earlier versions. In place of them the Gazette has the lines:

[112] The Gazette version ends the poem from this point as follows:

[113] "Their tyrant of a king."—Ed. 1786.

[114] "Blackbird."—Ed. 1786.

[115] "In groves of half distinguish'd light."—Ib.

[116] "General Gage's Confession" was printed in pamphlet form in 1775. As far as I can ascertain, there exists but a single copy of this publication, that in the possession of the Library Company of Philadelphia. A manuscript note upon this copy, unquestionably the handwriting of Freneau, is as follows: "By Gaine. Published October 25, 1775." The poem was manifestly written after Gage's recall. The poet never reprinted it.

[117] On July 28, 1775, George III. wrote to Lord North: "I have desired Lord Dartmouth to acquaint Lt. G. Gage that as he thinks nothing further can be done this campaign in the province of Massachusetts Bay that he is desired instantly to come over, that he may explain the various wants for carrying on the next campaign." "It was a kindly pretext devised to spare the feelings of an unprofitable but a faithful and a brave servant."—Trevelyan. General Gage embarked at Boston for England, Oct. 12, 1775.

[118] The scarcity of provisions in the British camp during the siege of Boston has been already alluded to. "When marauding expeditions," says Bancroft, "returned with sheep and hogs and cattle captured from islands, the bells were rung as for victory."

[119] Alluding to the proclamation of June 12, five days before Bunker Hill, which established martial law throughout Massachusetts and proscribed Hancock and Samuel Adams. By this proclamation, all who were in arms about Boston, every member of the State Government and of the Continental Congress, were threatened with condign punishment as rebels and traitors.

[120] Washington had written to Gage, remonstrating against the cruel treatment of certain American officers, who were denied the privileges and immunities due their rank. Almost the last official act of Gage was to reply through Burgoyne in a letter addressed to "George Washington, Esqr.," that "Britons, ever pre-eminent in mercy, have overlooked the criminal in the captive. Your prisoners, whose lives by the law of the land are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness;—indiscriminately, it is true, for I acknowledge no rank that is not derived from the King."