Читать книгу Washington the Soldier онлайн

109 страница из 123

On the seventeenth of March, the British forces, numbering, with the seamen of the fleet, not quite eleven thousand men, embarked in one hundred and twenty transports for Halifax. The conditions of this embarkation without hindrance from the American army had been settled by an agreement on the part of the British authorities that the city should be left intact from fire, or other injury, and that the property of royalists, of whom nearly fifteen hundred accompanied the troops, should be also safe from violation by the incoming garrison. As the last boats left, General Ward occupied the city with a garrison of five thousand troops.

WASHINGTON AT BOSTON.

[From Stuart’s painting.]

Of two hundred and fifty cannon left behind, nearly one-half were serviceable. Other valuable stores, and the capture of several store-vessels which entered the harbor without knowledge of the departure of the British troops, largely swelled the contributions to the American material of war.

The siege of Boston came to an end. New England was free from the presence of British garrisons. The mission of Washington to Massachusetts Colony, as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army of America, had fulfilled its purpose.