" Burn it," said some, "if that
is the only way of driving out the British." Even John Hancock to
whom a great part of Boston belonged advised this. "Burn Boston,"
he said," and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires
it." But Washington did not attempt to burn it.
After the taking of Ticonderoga and Crown Point however he got guns.
For many of the cannon taken at these forts were put on sledges
and dragged over the snow to Boston. It was Colonel Henry Knox
who carried out this feat. He was a stout young man with a lovely
smile and jolly fat laugh, who greatly enjoyed a joke. He had been
a bookseller before the war turned him into a soldier. And now as
he felled trees, and made sledges, and encouraged his men over the
long rough way he hugely enjoyed the joke of bringing British guns
to bombard the British out of Boston.
When Washington got these guns he quietly one night took possession
of Dorchester Heights, which commanded both Boston town and harbour.
So quick had been his action that it seemed to General Howe, the
British commander, as if the fortifications on Dorchester Heights
had been the work of magic. But magic or no magic they were, he
saw, a real and formidable danger. With siege guns frowning above
both town and harbour it was no longer possible to hold Boston. So
hastily embarking his troops General Howe sailed away to Halifax
in Nova Scotia, and Boston was left in peace for the rest of the
war.
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