From The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence 1775–1783
The evacuation of Boston by British troops occurred 250 years ago, on March 17, 1776.
In July of 1775, British lieutenant William Feilding sent a letter from Boston to his patron and distant relative, Basil Feilding, 6th Earl of Denbigh. Updating him on the status of the siege of the city, he mentioned in passing that the rebels had “thrown up many large redoubts strongly fortified upon the heights from Dorchester neck round to Charles Town neck,” with breastworks “well finished and extremely well planned.”
“We are all very much surprised here to find that you are still blocked up within the Walls & peninsula of Boston,” Lord Denbigh responded the following month. Writing from the comfort of his study at Newnham Paddox in Warwickshire, he was alarmed by Feilding’s report, noting particularly that “as the Rebels are I fear in possession of Dorchester hill you are liable every day to have the Town knocked about your ears. What is all this owing to? Surely you have troops enough to force a communication into the Country & oblige the Rebels to raise ye seige. And it would be more to the credit of a British Army to die in the field than to be starved within an entrenchment.”
Having inadvertently stirred the pot, Feilding subsequently reassured Lord Denbigh in November, “Tho’ the Rebels have got Possession of Dorchester Hills we are under no apprehensions of their Raising Works to Anoy the Town,” noting that because the tree leaves had fallen for the season they were “able to see their Works” and had forces flanking them on either side, ready to attack should the rebels attempt to try anything.
Lord Denbigh’s armchair criticism from three thousand miles away would turn out to be prescient, however. In early March fifty-nine cannons, captured from the British three hundred miles away at Fort Ticonderoga, were surreptitiously transported to the heights above Boston under cover of night. Within weeks, both Feilding and his good friend Captain John Bowater were sending letters detailing and justifying the aftermath of the very event that Denbigh feared eight months earlier: the evacuation of Boston.
By the end of that year, both officers, who had once been confident British forces would be able to wrap things up in a matter of months, were despondent. “I think nothing but a total Exterpation of the Inhabitants of this Country, will ever make it a desirable object of any Prince or State,” wrote Bowater in disgust.
For our Story of the Week selection, we present the letter Captain Bowalter sent to Lord Denbigh shortly after the evacuation of Boston, along with an introduction describing the end of the siege of Boston and the change in attitudes toward the colonists.
