The Student's Life of Washington; Condensed from the Larger Work of Washington Irving For Young Persons and for the Use of Schools

of these troops, and while it was feared their example would be contagious, a long, lumbering train of wagons, laden with ordnance and military stores, and decorated with flags, came wheeling into the camp escorted by continental troops and country militia. They were part of the cargo of a large brigantine laden with munitions of war, captured and sent in to Cape Ann by the schooner Lee, Captain Manly, one of the cruisers sent out by Washington. Beside the ordnance captured, there were two thousand stand of arms, one hundred thousand flints, thirty thousand round shot, and thirty-two tons of musket balls.
    It was a cheering incident, and was eagerly turned to account. Among the ordnance was a huge brass mortar of a new construction, weighing near three thousand pounds. It was considered a glorious trophy, and there was a resolve to christen it. Mifflin, Washington’s secretary, suggested the name. The mortar was fixed in a bed; old Putnam mounted it, dashed on it a bottle of rum, and gave it the name of “Congress.”
    With Washington, this transient gleam of nautical success was soon overshadowed by the conduct of the cruisers he had sent to the St. Lawrence. Failing to intercept the brigantines, the objects of their cruise, they landed on the Island of St. Johns, plundered the house of the governor and several private dwellings, and brought off three of the principal inhabitants prisoners; one of whom, Mr. Callbeck, was president of the council, and acted as governor. These gentlemen made a memorial to Washington of this scandalous maraud. He instantly ordered the restoration of the effects which had been pillaged.
    Shortly after the foregoing occurrence, information was received of the indignities which had been heaped upon Colonel Ethan Allen, [who was loaded with chains and thrown into prison,] when captured at Montreal by General Prescott, who himself was now a prisoner in the hands of the Americans. It touched Washington on a point on which he was most sensitive and tenacious, the treatment of American officers when captured.
    [A correspondence ensued between Washington and General Howe, in which the former threatened as retaliation to inflict upon General Prescott the same treatment and fate which Colonel Allen should experience. In reply, Howe asserted that his command did not extend to Canada and that he had no knowledge of Allen or his fate. General Carleton, he assumed, would not in this case forfeit his past pretensions to decency and humanity. The measure of retaliation threatened by Washington was actually meted out by Congress on the arrival of General Prescott in Philadelphia. He was ordered into close confinement in jail, though not put in irons; but subsequently, on account of his health, he was released.]
    At the time of this correspondence with Howe, Washington was earnestly occupied preparing works for the bombardment of Boston, should that measure be resolved upon by Congress. General Putnam, in the preceding month, had taken possession in the night of Cobble Hill without molestation from the enemy, though a commanding eminence; and in two days had constructed a work, which, from its strength, was named Putnam’s impregnable fortress. He was now engaged on another work on Lechmere Point, to be connected with the works at Cobble Hill by a bridge thrown across Willis’s Creek, and a covered way. Lechmere Point is immediately opposite the north part of Boston; and the Scarborough ship-of-war was anchored near it. Putnam availed himself of a dark and foggy day (Dec. 17), to commence operations, and broke ground with four hundred men, at ten o’clock in the morning, on a hill at the Point. “The mist,” says a contemporary account, “was so great as to prevent the enemy from discovering what he was about until near twelve o’clock, when it cleared up, and opened to their view our whole party at the Point, and another at the causeway throwing a bridge over the creek. The Scarborough, anchored off the Point, poured in a broadside. The enemy from Boston threw shells. The garrison at Cobble Hill returned fire. Our men were obliged to decamp from the Point, but the work was resumed by the brave old general at night.”
    On the next morning, General Heath was detached with a party of men to carry on the work which Putnam had commenced. It was to consist of two redoubts, on one of which was to be a mortar battery. There was, as yet, a deficiency of ordnance; but the prize mortar was to be mounted