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ssss1. See Appendix, “American Navy.”

On the twenty-ninth day of November, Captain John Manly, who was the most prominent officer of this improvised navy, captured a British store-ship, containing a large mortar, several brass cannon, two thousand muskets, one hundred thousand flints, eleven mortar-beds, thirty thousand shot, and all necessary implements for artillery and intrenching service.

As the year drew to its close, the British levelled all their advanced works on Charlestown Neck, and concentrated their right wing in a strong redoubt on Bunker Hill, while their left wing at Boston Neck was more thoroughly fortified against attack.

Congress now intimated to Washington that it might be well to attack the city upon the first favorable occasion, before the arrival of reënforcements from Great Britain. The laconic reply of the Commander-in-Chief was, that he “must keep his powder for closer work than cannon distance.”

On the nineteenth of November, Henry Knox was commissioned as Colonel, vice Gridley, too old for active service. Two lieutenant-colonels, two majors, and twelve companies of artillery were authorized, and thus the American regular Artillery, as well as the navy, was put upon a substantial basis, with Knox as Chief of Artillery.