ding had to suffer instead. The Old South was taken
for the purpose. The furnishings were torn out, and Deacon Hubbard's
carved pew was carted away to be used as a hog-sty. The dismantled
church was transformed into a riding-ring, with tanbark on the floor,
and a leaping-bar. One of the galleries was fitted up for a social
meeting-place; the remainder were used for spectators, for whose comfort
was put in a stove into which disappeared for kindling many of the books
and manuscripts stored in the building. For the rest of the siege the
Old South, once so formidable, was a centre of Tory fashion.

Burgoyne was credited, also, with the design of putting an almost
equally sacred edifice to a purpose still more horrifying to the good
Calvinists of Boston. Faneuil Hall, the cradle of liberty, was made a
theatre. Various plays were performed, and the amateurs were even so
ambitious as to attempt the tragedies of _Zara_ and _Tamerlane_. For the
latter performance Burgoyne wrote a prologue and epilogue, which were
spoken by Lord Rawdon, who had distinguished himself at Bunker Hill, and
"a young lady ten years old." But the great event of the season was to
be the production of a farce called the _Blockade of Boston_. It was
this performance which the Americans interrupted, to the perennial
satisfaction of all students of local history.

The play was to be performed on a January night. The _Busy Body_ had
just been given, and the curtain rose on the farce, presenting a view of
the American camp, and the figure of Washington absurdly burlesqued in
uniform, wig, and rusty sword. At this moment a sergeant suddenly
appeared on the stage, calling out, "The Yankees are attacking our
works on Bunker's Hill!" Conceiving this spirited action a part of the
play, the audience began to applaud. But the sergeant vigorously
repeated his statement, the sounds of distant cannonading were heard,
and an aide called out, "Officers, to your posts!" The officers
responded in all haste, and the performance was over for the evening.
The reason for this interruption was that Washington had despatched a
party to burn some of the houses still standing in Charlestown. The
success of the attempt had caused the cannonading, and the consequent
interruption of the play. No historian of the siege has failed to remark
that the Whig ladies had the laugh of their Tory sisters, forced to
return without their escorts.

A month before this incident, on the 5th of De