added operation of the Americans, successful or unsuccessful, added to the feeling of isolation and uneasiness among the British at Boston. [Illustration: RICHARD MONTGOMERY] October 10, 1775, Sir William Howe superseded General Gage as commander-in-chief in the closely watched and invested town; but the change of commanders made little difference. Every one except the sailors, the foragers, the commissaries, the drill sergeants, the writing clerks, the colonial assemblies, the congressional and local committees, lay inactive till March came, 1776, and Washington was himself ready to take the offensive. At last he had such cannon and such tools and stores and wagons and teams as he had been asking and planning and waiting for the weary, anxious winter through. On the morning of the 5th of March the British saw workmen and ordnance and every sign of a strong force of provincials on Dorchester heights, and were as surprised as they had been, close upon a year before, to see men and trenches on Bunker Hill. Washington had done work in the night which it was already too late for them to undo; a storm beat the waters of the bay as the day wore on and made it impossible to put troops across to the attack in boats; Washington had all the day and another night in which to complete his defences; and by the morning of the 6th the British knew that the heights could not be taken without a risk and loss they could not afford. The town was rendered untenable at a stroke. With deep chagrin, Howe determined upon an immediate evacuation; and by the 17th he was aboard his ships,—eight thousand troops and more than a thousand loyalists who dared not stay. The stores and cannon, the ammunition, muskets, small-arms, gun carriages, and supplies of every kind which he found himself obliged to leave behind enriched Washington with an equipment more abundant than he could ever have hoped to see in his economical, ill-appointed camp at Cambridge. [Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS A POLITICIAN]