How Washington contrived to create the impression that he was master of the situation is one of the mysteries of his campaigning, because, although he had succeeded in making soldiers of the raw recruits and in enforcing subordination, they were still a very skittish body.

They enlisted for short terms of service, and even before their term was completed, they began to hanker to go home.

This caused not only inconvenience, but real difficulty.

Still, Washington steadily pushed on, and in March, 1776, by a brilliant manoeuvre at Dorchester Heights, he secured a position from which his cannons could bombard every British ship in Boston Harbor.

On the 17th of March all those ships, together with the garrison of eight thousand, and with two thousand fugitive Loyalists, sailed off to Halifax.