The voyage across the Atlantic occupied two whole months, but, like all things, it came to an end; and the regiment [Sidenote: June 15–19.] disembarked at Boston just in time to volunteer its services for the first serious action of the war. That action was brought about in this way. Over against Boston, and divided from it by a river of about the breadth of the Thames at London Bridge, is a peninsula called Charlestown. It occurred, rather late in the day, to General Gage that an eminence thereupon called Bunker’s Hill was a position that ought to be occupied, inasmuch as it lay within cannon-shot of Boston and commanded the whole of the town. Unfortunately, precisely the same idea had occurred to the Americans, who on the 16th June seized the hill, unobserved by Gage, and proceeded to entrench it. By hard work and the aid of professional engineers they soon made Bunker’s Hill into a formidable position; so that Gage, on the following day, found that his task was not that of marching to an unoccupied height, but of attacking an enemy 6000 strong in a well-fortified post. None the less he attacked the 6000 Americans with 2000 English, and drove them out at the bayonet’s point after the bloodiest engagement thitherto fought by the British army. Of the 2000 men 1054, including 89 officers, went down that day; and the British occupied the Charlestown peninsula. [Sidenote: 1775.] The acquisition was welcome, for the army was sadly crowded in Boston and needed more space; but the enemy soon erected new works which penned it up as closely as ever. Moreover the Americans refused to supply the British with fresh provisions, so that the latter--what with salt food, confinement, and the heat of the climate--soon became sickly. The Seventeenth were driven to their wit’s end to obtain forage for their horses. It was but a poor exchange alike for animals and men to forsake the ships for a besieged city. The summer passed away and the winter came on. The Americans pressed the British garrison more hardly than ever through the winter months, and finally, on the [Sidenote: 1776.]2nd March 1776, opened a bombardment which fairly drove the English out. On the 17th March Boston was evacuated, and the army, 9000 strong, withdrawn by sea to Halifax.