y
who could at will strike at any point.

In such a situation the only safeguard was fortification. Before
Washington's arrival the redoubts on Prospect and Winter Hills had been
completed, with scattered minor works. Washington at once began by
strengthening these, and by finishing all uncompleted works. Then, in a
manner characteristic of the whole siege, and which never failed to
take the British by surprise, one August evening he sent a party to
Plowed Hill, "within point blank shot of the enemy on Charlestown Neck.
We worked the whole night incessantly one thousand two hundred men, and,
before morning, got an intrenchment in such forwardness, as to bid
defiance to their cannon."[118]

The British cannonaded for two days, but the Americans, finding to their
disappointment that no assault was intended, finished the work at their
ease. Similarly, as we shall see, Washington later took Lechmere's
Point, commanding the river and the Back Bay. Before many weeks the
works at Roxbury were made "amazing strong," and the rebels were in
position to welcome an encounter. But there was no assault, and
Washington had instead to meet the vexations of his office.

These were often trivial enough. A company would protest against the
appointment of an officer unknown to them, a town would apply for
special guard, a prisoner would demand the privilege of wearing his
sword.[119] Washington met such requests with unvarying courtesy, but
with firmness; even to the governor of Connecticut he refused troops for
sea-coast protection.

One little correspondence throws a gleam of unconscious humor on the
dull routine of Washington's correspondence. Hearing of hardships
suffered in Boston by prisoners taken at Bunker Hill, Washington wrote
to remonstrate. Gage returned answer two days later; its original is
found in Burgoyne's letter book, "as wrote by me." It begins in the
usual style of the literary general: "Sir, To the glory of civilized
nations, humanity and war have been made almost compatible, and
compassion to the subdued is become almost a general system. Britons,
ever pre-eminent in mercy, have outgone common examples, and overlooked
the criminal in the captive." Entering a general denial of Washington's
charges, the letter goes on to bring counter-accusations, and finally,
after giving valuable advice, the writers exhort Washington--of all
men!--to "give free operation to truth."

Truly, as Burgoyne's biographer admits, there