e no certainty. Of one of the alarms thus
occasioned, Mrs. Adams writes to her husband as follows: "I suppose
you have had a formidable account of the alarm we had last Sunday
morning. When I rose, about six o'clock, I was told that the drums had
been some time beating, and that three alarm guns were fired; that
Weymouth bell had been ringing, and Mr. Weld's was then ringing. I
sent off an express to learn the cause, and found the whole town in
confusion. Three sloops and a cutter had dropped anchor just below
Great Hill. It was difficult to tell their designs: some supposed they
were coming to Germantown, others to Weymouth: people, women,
children, came flocking down this way; every woman and child driven
off below my father's; my father's family flying. The alarm flew like
lightning, and men from all parts came flocking down, till two
thousand were collected. But it seems their expedition was to Grape
Island, for Levett's hay." "They delight," says she, on another
occasion, "in molesting us upon the Sabbath. Two Sabbaths we have been
in such alarm that we have had no meeting; this day we have sat under
our own vine in quietness; have heard Mr. Taft. The good man was
earnest and pathetic. I could forgive his weakness for the sake of his
sincerity; but I long for a Cooper and an Elliot. I want a person who
has feeling and sensibility; who can take one up with him,

And 'in his duty prompt at every call,'
Can 'watch, and weep, and pray, and feel for all.'"

The battle of Bunker's Hill followed soon, and, from the top of the
highest house in Braintree, Mrs. Adams beheld the conflagration of
Charlestown. But she does not lose her courage. In writing to her
husband, she seeks to lessen his anxieties. "I would not," says she,
"have you be distressed about me. I have been distressed, but not
dismayed. I have felt for my country and her sons, and have bled with
them and for them."

The appointment of General Washington to the command of the army, then
stationed at Cambridge, inspired new confidence. Mrs. Adams thus
speaks of the impression made by her first interview with him and
General Lee: "I was struck with General Washington. You had prepared
me to entertain a favorable opinion of him; but I thought the half was
not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and
soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and
feature of his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me--