Bunker Hill

intelligence report to Gage states that “Colo. Putnam proposes [attacking Boston from the Neck] by advancing large bodies of screwed hay before them”; the report also claims that “flat boats” are being built by the provincials in Watertown and Cambridge, in
PIR
, 3:1984–85; an April 30 intelligence report claims “that they had returns last evening from Wellfleet, upon the Cape Cod shore, that three hundred whale boats were ready, and they still talk of burning the ships,”
PIR
, 3:1987; a May 28 intelligence report claims that there is a provincial plan to “make their way good into town by boats, numbers of which of the whale boat kind are provided, from Nantucket, Cape Cod and all that coast to the amount of 500,” in
PIR
, 3:1994. Paul Litchfield writes of the whaleboats passing along the Scituate shore in a June 10, 1775, entry of his
Diary
, p. 378. On May 27, 1775, fifty whaleboats were confiscated from Nantucket by provincial forces and taken to Cape Cod for ultimate delivery to the Boston area, as described in Edouard Stackpole’s
Nantucket in the American Revolution
, p. 15.
    My account of the race between the
Quero
and
Sukey
depends on Robert Rantoul, “The Cruise of the
Quero
,” pp. 1–4, and James Duncan Phillips,
Salem in the Eighteenth Century
, pp. 364–67. Josiah Quincy Jr.’s final wishes are recorded in the end of his
London Journal
in
Portrait of a Patriot
, vol. 1, edited by Daniel Coquillette and Neil Longley York, pp. 267–69. Joseph Warren’s April 27, 1775, letter to Arthur Lee appears in Frothingham’s
LJW
, p. 471. The resolves providing annuities for artillery officers William Burbeck and Richard Gridley are in
JEPC
, pp. 153, 157. Allen French provides a good summary of Benedict Arnold’s activities in Boston as well as during the taking of Ticonderoga in
FYAR
, pp. 149–52; the evolution of the Committee of Safety’s decision to employ Arnold in this “secret service” can be traced in
JEPC
, pp. 531, 532, 534. Samuel Forman points out that the powder Warren gave to Arnold’s expedition to Ticonderoga “could have made all the difference if made available to Prescott’s beleaguered Americans” on Bunker Hill in
DJW
, p. 298. Joseph Warren’s letter to Connecticut governor Trumbull is in
LJW
, pp. 475–76; Frothingham discusses Gage’s dealings with the delegation from Connecticut in
HSOB
, pp. 104–5; see also Allen French’s
FYAR
, pp. 132–34, which includes Jedediah Huntington’s claim that Gage was “wicked, infamous, and base without a parallel.” Frothingham in
LJW
tells of the committee from the Provincial Congress appointed to “wait on Warren, to know whether he could serve them as their president”; he also quotes Warren’s note in which he replies that “he will obey their order,” p. 475. The minutes from May 2, 1775, of the Second Provincial Congress indicate that frustrations with Warren’s lack of attendance led to the election of Colonel James Warren of Plymouth (husband of Mercy Otis Warren) to the presidency, but after James Warren declined to serve that same day (“after offering his reasons for excuse”), a committee was selected to talk to Joseph Warren about retaining the presidency, an office he held until his death (
JEPC
, p. 178).
    Fears concerning an imminent British attack around May 10 are evident in the congressional minutes, in
JEPC
, pp. 210–15; see also Frothingham in
HSOB
, p. 107. The best account of Church’s role in the mix-up with General Thomas in Roxbury is in Charles Martyn’s
Life of Artemas Ward
, pp. 102–4. The most helpful transcription of what is evidently Benjamin Church’s espionage report to Gage written about May 10, 1775, is in
PIR
, 3:1988–90; see also French’s
Gage’s Informers
, pp. 151–53. The resolution for “a day of public humiliation, fasting, and prayer” on May 11, 1775, is in the April 15 minutes of the second Provincial Congress; citizens were instructed to “humble themselves before God, under the heavy judgments felt and feared, to confess the sins that have deserved them, to implore the forgiveness of all our transgressions, a spirit of repentance and reformation, and . . . that America may soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven for the redress of her many grievances, the restoration of all her invaded liberties, and their security to the latest generations” (
JEPC
, p. 145). Captain George Harris’s May 5, 1775, letter describing the beauty