er, but retired when he found that an
hour's bombardment made no impression upon its walls.[64] He kept a
good lookout along these waters, gathered information from deserters,
and when reporting on one occasion that the enemy's fleet were short
of provisions and the men reduced to half allowance, he added, with
unction, "May God increase their wants!" A little later we meet again
with the adventuresome Tupper and his flotilla.

[Footnote 63: This officer was Lieutenant-Colonel of Jonathan Ward's
Massachusetts Regiment, and subsequently became colonel in the
Massachusetts Continental Line.]

[Footnote 64: _Force_, 4th Series, vol. vi., p. 1011.]

As the soldiers went on with their exacting duties, the monotony of
the routine was now and then relieved by some diversion or excitement.
One day there is "Tory-riding"[65] in the city, in which citizens
appear to have figured principally. Then the whole camp is startled by
the report that a "most accursed scheme" had come to light, just "on
the verge of execution," by which Washington and all his generals were
to have been murdered, the magazines blown up, and the cannon spiked
by hired miscreants in the army at the moment the enemy made their
grand attack upon the city.[66] Again, on the 9th of July, the
brigades are all drawn up on their respective parade-grounds, listen
to the reading for the first time of the Declaration of Independence,
and receive it, as Heath tells us, "with loud huzzas;" and, finally,
to celebrate the event, a crowd of citizens, "Liberty Boys," and
soldiers collect that evening at Bowling Green and pull down the
gilded statue of King George, which is then trundled to Oliver
Wolcott's residence at Litchfield, Ct., for patriotic ladies to
convert into bullets for the American soldiers.[67]

[Footnote 65: "_Thursday, 13th June._--Here in town very unhappy and
shocking scenes were exhibited. On Munday night some men called Tories
were carried and hauled about through the streets, with candles forced
to be held by them, or pushed in their faces, and their heads burned;
but on Wednesday, in the open day, the scene was by far worse;
several, and among them gentlemen, were carried on rails; some
stripped naked and dreadfully abused. Some of the generals, and
especially Pudnam and their forces, had enough to do to quell the
riot, and make the mob disperse."--_Pastor Shewkirk's Diary, Doc.
37._]

[Footnote 66: The particulars of this plot need hardly be re