e was also one of a committee appointed to consult with the committees
of other towns concerning the expected importation of a quantity of
tea. This was November 24th. On the 22d of December of the same year, a
petition numerously signed was presented to the selectmen, asking that a
meeting might be called to take some effectual measures to prevent the
consumption of tea. Among the signatures is Dr. Foster's.[B]

[Footnote B: FROTHINGHAM'S _History of Charlestown_, p. 293.]

He was elected a delegate to the Convention in the County of Middlesex,
in August, 1774, and a member of the first Provincial Congress of
Massachusetts, in October of the same year. Early in 1775, he was
appointed a surgeon, and was, for some months, at the head of the
military medical department, while General Ward commanded at Cambridge.
The day after the battle of Concord, at the urgent request of General
Ward and Dr. Warren, he gave up his private practice, then very large,
to attend the wounded. On the 18th of June, he was appointed by the
Committee of Safety to attend the men wounded on the previous day at
the battle of Bunker's Hill. He was soon after appointed Surgeon of
the State Hospital, and by General Washington, on the discovery of the
treachery of Dr. Church, in October, Director-General, _pro tem._, of
the American Hospital Department. Congress soon nominated to this post
Dr. John Morgan of Philadelphia, Dr. Foster remaining as the oldest
surgeon in the hospital.

It seemed necessary, before selecting some of Dr. Foster's letters, to
give this account of his earlier life, to show that he was no soldier of
fortune or eleventh-hour laborer, but that his sympathies were enlisted
and his aid given among the earliest of the friends of a then doubtful
cause,--and that he ventured influence, wealth, and professional fame,
and abandoned home and ease, at what seemed to him the call of his
country.

The first extracts shall be from a letter to his wife, dated

"_New York, Sunday, P.M.,

"June 2, 1776_.

"MY DEAR POLLY,

"I received your kind letter of the 27th last, and thank you for your
ready acceptance of my invitation to come to me. Indeed, my dear, you
could not have given a stronger proof of your affection for me. Heaven
only knows what dangers and difficulties you may be exposed to in this
undertaking; but it shall be my constant endeavor to keep you out of the
way of danger, and procure the best accommodation for you this coun