"Couldn't they have slipped out in the night and gone away quietly
without fighting, papa?" asked Grace.

"Perhaps so," he said, with a slight smile; "but such doings as that
would never have helped our country to free herself from the British
yoke; and these men were too brave and patriotic to try it; they were
freemen and never could be slaves; to them death was preferable to
slavery. We may well be proud of the skill and courage with which
Lieutenant-Colonel Smith defended his fort against the foe.

"On the 10th of November the British opened their batteries on land and
water. They had five on Province Island, within five hundred yards of
the fort; a large floating battery with twenty-two twenty-four pounders,
which they brought up within forty yards of an angle of the fort; also
six ships, two of them with forty guns each, the others with sixty-four
each, all within less than nine hundred yards of the fort."

"More than three hundred guns all firing on that one little fort!"
exclaimed Rosie. "It is really wonderful how our poor men could stand
it."

"Yes, for six consecutive days a perfect storm of bombs and round shot
poured upon them," said the captain, "and it must have required no small
amount of courage to stand such a tempest."

"I hope they fired back and killed some of those wicked fellows!"
exclaimed Walter, his eyes flashing.

"You may be sure they did their best to defend themselves and their
fort," replied the captain. "And the British loss was great, though the
exact number has never been known.

"Nearly two hundred and fifty of our men were killed or wounded.
Lieutenant Treat, commanding the artillery, was killed on the first day
by the bursting of a bomb. The next day quite a number of the garrison
were killed or wounded, and Colonel Smith himself had a narrow escape.

"A ball passed through a chimney in the barracks,--whither he had gone
intending to write a letter,--scattered the bricks, and one of them
striking him on the head knocked him senseless.

"He was carried across the river to Red Bank, and Major Thayer of the
Rhode Island line took command in his place.

"The first day a battery of two guns was destroyed, a block house and
the laboratory were blown up, and the garrison were compelled to keep
within the fort. All that night the British threw shells and the scene
was a terrible one indeed, especially for the poor fellows inside the
fort.

"The next morning, about sunrise, they