wo days at his house, and received
the greatest of kindness from him. While on shore I met another old
friend, Captain Lee, of the Harriet Packet, with whom I almost lived
during his stay at Halifax. As may be supposed, I found his comfortable
cabin a far more agreeable place of abode than a midshipman's berth with
the rough and scanty fare with which we were provided. I was anxious to
ascertain the fate of the old man and his son whom we had seen carried
out to sea by the ice. Sad to relate, they had been picked up two days
afterwards at the mouth of the harbour, frozen to death. They must have
died, I suspect, soon after we lost sight of them, for the cold was so
intense that it could not long have been resisted. We had, indeed,
cause to be thankful to providence that their fate was not ours. It is
but one of the many instances in which I have been mercifully preserved,
while those by my side have been cut off. For what end has this been
done? I wish that I could say that I have properly employed the longer
term of life thus vouchsafed to me. There had been at Halifax all the
winter a very limited supply of provisions. At length a fleet appeared
off the harbour's mouth, which proved to be that under the command of
Admiral Lord Shouldham, with the army of General Howe on board, (see
Note 2), who had been compelled by the American revolutionists, under
General Washington, to evacuate Boston, after having been besieged in it
for fully ten months. It will be remembered that we parted from the
Chatham, Admiral Shouldham's flag-ship, in a gale in the early part of
our voyage. She went through as much bad weather, and experienced
almost as many disasters as we had suffered, though at length she
reached Boston, where Lord Shouldham succeeded Admiral Graves as
Commander-in-Chief. Our disasters throughout the whole of that sad
contest with the American States arose from the foolish contempt with
which the British generals and their officers treated the provincial
troops. While General Howe was waiting for reinforcements from England,
General Washington was collecting an army and disciplining his troops.
Before, therefore, the expected reinforcements could arrive, General
Howe, to his great surprise, found himself outnumbered, and the city
commanded from some hills which overlook it, called Dorchester Heights.
He found that he must either dislodge the enemy from these heights or
evacuate Boston. A heavy gale of win