Before departing, the
British fired over fifteen tons of lead and iron into the town. A
quantity of this was picked up by the Americans, and offered for sale.
In a New York paper appeared the advertisement,--

"Just received, and offered for sale, about three tons of round
shot, consisting of six, nine, twelve, eighteen, twenty-four, and
thirty-two pounds; very handsome, being a small proportion of
those which were fired from His Britannic Majesty's ships on the
unoffending inhabitants of Stonington, in the recent _brilliant_
attack on that place. Likewise a few carcasses, in good order,
weighing about two hundred pounds each. Apply," etc.

A popular bard of the time set forth in rollicking verse the exploits
of the British gunners:--

"They killed a goose, they killed a hen,
Three hogs they wounded in a pen;
They dashed away,--and pray what then?
That was not taking Stonington.

"The shells were thrown, the rockets flew;
But not a shell of all they threw--
Though every house was full in view--
Could burn a house in Stonington."

With this affair, in which the British expended ammunition to the
amount of fifty thousand dollars, and lost twenty men killed and fifty
wounded, active offensive operations along the Connecticut coast
ended. Farther north, however, the British still raided towns and
villages, showing more spirit in their attacks than did Hardy at
Stonington. Eastport, Me., was captured in July, and converted into a
veritable British colony. The inhabitants who remained in the town
were forced to take an oath of allegiance to Great Britain;
fortifications were thrown up, and an arsenal established; King
George's officials were placed in the custom-house, and thenceforward
until the end of the war the town was virtually British. Encouraged by
this success, the enemy undertook a more difficult task. A formidable
fleet of men-of-war and transports, bearing almost ten thousand
troops, was fitted out at Halifax for the purpose of reducing to
British rule all that part of Maine lying between Passamaquoddy Bay
and the Penobscot River. This expedition set sail from Halifax on the
26th of August, bound for Machias; but on the voyage down the coast of
Maine the brig "Rifleman" was encountered, and from her the presence
of the United States corvette "Adams" in the Penobscot River was
learned. It will be remembered that the "Adams," before entering the
ri