iSS4.]
��Bunker Hill.
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��Military acts which would be wise upon the basis of anticipated resistance were not done.
Threats and blows toward those not deemed capable of resistance were freely expended. Operations of war, as against an organized and skilful enemy, were ignored. But the legacies of English law and the inheritance of English liberty had vested in the Col- onies. Their eradication and their withdrawal were alike impossible. The time had passed for compromise or limitation of their enjoyment. The filial relation toward England was lost when it became that of a slave toward master, to be asserted by force. This the Americans understood when they environed Boston. This the British did not understand, until after the battle of Bunker Hill. The British worked as against a mob of rebels. The Amer- icans made common cause, " liberty or death," against usurpation and tyranny.
THE OUTLOOK.
Reference to map, "iBoston and vicinity," already used in the January number of this Magazine to illustrate the siege of Boston, will give a clear impression of the local surroundings, at the time of the American occupation of Charlestown Heights. The value of that position was to be tested. The Americans had previously burned the lighthouses of the harbor. The islands of the bay were already miniature fields of conflict ; and every effort of the garrison to use boats, and thereby secure the needed supplies of beef, flour, or fuel, only devaloped a counter system of boat operations, which neutralized the former and gradually limited the garrison to the range of its guns. This close grasp of the land approaches to Boston, so persistently
��maintained, stimulated the Americans to catch a tighter hold, and force the garrison to escape by sea. The cap- ture of that garrison would have placed unwieldy prisoners in their hands and have made outside operations impos- sible, as well as any practical disposition of the prisoners themselves, in treat- ment with Great Britain. Expulsion was the purpose of the rallying people.
General Gage fortified Boston Neck as early as 1774, and the First Conti- nental Congress had promptly assured Massachusetts of its sympathy with her solemn protest against that act. It was also the intention of General Gage to fortify Dorchester Heights. Early in April, a British council of war, in Avhich Clinton, Burgoyne, and Percy took part, unanimously advised the immediate occupation of Dorchester, as both indispensable to the protection of the shipping, and as assurance of access to the country for indispensable supplies.
General Howe already appreciated the mistake of General Gage, in his expedition to Concord, but still cher- ished such hope of an accommodation of the issue with the Colonies that he postponed action until a peaceable occupation of Dorchester Heights be- came impossible, and the growing earthworks of the besiegers already commanded Boston Neck.
General Gage had also advised, and wisely, the occupation of Charlestown Heights, as both necessary and feasible, without risk to Boston itself. He went so far as to announce that, in case of overt acts of hostility to such occupa- tion, by the citizens of Charlestown, he would burn the town.
It was clearly sound military policy for the British to occupy both Dorches- ter and Charlestown Heights, at the
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