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manded in Boston, and understanding that the village of Concord, about twenty miles distant from the city, had been made a depôt for the arms and stores of the insurgent colonists, it was deemed advisable by him to surprise it. Notwithstanding the precautionary measures adopted by the General, the advance of the royalists was discovered, and they found the militia and colonial troops in readiness to oppose them. The British, however, succeeded with great difficulty in effecting the desired object, by destroying the stores of the republicans; but on their return they were fiercely and incessantly pursued, and although relieved by a strong detachment of infantry with two field-pieces, under the command of Lord Percy, they suffered dreadfully on their retreat, until completely exhausted, they halted on the height of Bunker's Hill. On that day of excessive fatigue, the royal army had marched upwards of forty miles, exposed at every step of the retreat to the deadly fire of the American rifleTheir loss in killed alone was estimated at two hundred men.

men.

CHAPTER II.

Duke.-And what's her history?

Viola.-A blank, my lord.

Twelfth Night.

THE Consequences of the affair at Lexington (as it was called) were truly important. The Americans, elated by victory, and confident of ultimate success, prepared for an energetic resistance, while the opinion generally entertained in England of the inefficacy of the colonial forces was discovered to have been miserably incorrect; and the grenadier cap, so imposing to the inexperienced soldier in its appearance, returned from the plains of Concord, robbed of its fancied terrors.

The alarm felt at Boston was general. The arrival, however, of large reinforcements from Ireland, tended in a great measure to remove it. The flank companies of the respective

regiments were landed without delay, and Captain O'Hara and his lady accommodated with lodgings in the town.

The Captain soon arranged a tolerably comfortable establishment; an elderly man and woman, who had resided for many years with his deceased father, accompanied him. A grenadier, a native of the county of Tipperary, attended his horses and the out-door work, and a very handsome young English girl, whom Mr. Mahony, the aforesaid grenadier, had persuaded, during the " piping-time of peace," to elope with him, served the lady in the capacity of waiting-maid.

The residence selected by the Captain's wife, for the time she might remain in Boston, was situated at the extremity of the city, commanding, in the distance, a fine view of a rich and wooded country, indented by a spacious bay. The British fleet were anchored beneath the town, and the heights of Bunker's Hill occupied and closed the left of the prospect. The more immediate objects which met the eye were very dissimilar. The windows of the Captain's rooms opened on a small enclosure,

in which that class of people, called Quakers, interred their departed friends. It was symbolical of their lives,-simple, retired, and unimposing. None disturbed its green alleys with a footstep, save the relatives of its peaceful occupiers. The turf was raised into mounds in lines of striking regularity; each grassy hillock denoting, that those who had once lived, there slept "the sleep that knows no breaking." At one end of the green, a plain wooden building was erected; its lowliness and retirement happily according with the devotions of a meek and broken spirit: close hedges, supported by a lofty row of poplars, seemed to protect the dead from the living. One wicket opened in the leafy wall; it was low and narrow, for those who entered it were lowly. Here, indeed, might it be said, that "the wicked ceased from troubling, and the weary were at rest." But a few paces from this peaceful cemetery, an object of a very opposite description appeared it was a strong bastion, which, from commanding the eastern angle of the works, had been fortified with great care. Guns, of the largest calibre,

were pointed from the embrasures; an English ensign, raised on an elevated flag-staff, floated gaily in the centre of the esplanade; sentryboxes were placed at either extremity; numerous piles of shot were built between the cannon, while a deep ditch, the outer side defended by a chevaux-de-frise, and the inner edge stockaded, secured the battery from any hostile approach.

The grave, the closing scene of the drama of human life, is seldom regarded with insensibility. Its loneliness is imposing, and it steals imperceptibly on the senses, till they slumber in placid forgetfulness, and the bustle of the world, its joys and sorrows, its business and pleasures, are for a time forgotten. No spot could have been more favourably chosen to excite such feelings than the burying-ground of the Friends of Boston. But if the eye wandered for a moment from the spot it rested on, the illusion ceased, the dream was dissolved, and war, with its horrible realities, recalled the senses to perception.

It was the month of June. The day had

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