Ebook The Correspondence of Horace Walpole

An account is come of the Bostonians having voted an army of sixteen thousand men, who are to be called minute-men, as they are to be ready at a minute's warning. Two directors or com missioners, I don't know what they are called, are appointed. There has been too a kind of mutiny in the 5th regiment. A soldier was found drunk on his post. Gage, in this time of danger, thought rigour necessary, and sent the fellow to a court-martial. They ordered 200 lashes. The general ordered them to improve their sentence. Next day it was published in the Boston Gazette. He called them before him, and required them on oath to abjure the communication: three officers refused. Poor G. Is to be scape-goat, not for this, but for what was a reason against employing him, incapacity. I wonder at the precedent! Howe is talked of for his successor. — Well, I have done with you! Now I shall go gossip with lady Ailesbury.