Several weeks passed away, while Washington vigorously prosecuted the siege of the British troops in Boston. Having strengthened his intrenchments, and obtained a sufficient supply of ammunition, he was quite desirous of inciting them to make an attack upon his lines. A rumor reached him, the latter part of August, that General Gage, annoyed by the scarcity of provisions, was preparing for a sortie, in great strength. Washington endeavored to provoke the movement by offering a sort of challenge. He accordingly, one night detached fourteen hundred men, to seize upon an eminence within musket shot of an important part of the British lines upon Charleston Neck. He hoped that the enemy, upon discovering the movement, would immediately advance to drive them back; and that thus a general engagement might be brought on. [Illustration: HOUSE WHERE LEE WAS CAPTURED.] The task was executed with great secrecy and skill. With the earliest dawn, the British, to their great surprise, saw the eminence crowned with quite formidable ramparts. But Gage had learned a lesson at Bunker Hill. He knew Washington, and was well aware that he was a foe to be feared. The proud Englishman did not venture to accept the challenge. It must have been to him a great humiliation. He kept his troops carefully sheltered behind their works, and contented himself with a bombardment, from his heavy guns, which did but little injury. The Americans completed and held possession of this advanced post. Washington found it difficult to account for the fact that the British officers, at the head of their large and well-appointed troops, allowed themselves to be hedged in by undisciplined bands of American farmers, of whose military prowess they had loudly proclaimed their contempt. He wrote: “Unless the ministerial troops in Boston are waiting for reinforcements, I cannot devise what they are staying there for, nor why, as they affect to despise the Americans, they do not come forth and put an end to the conflict at once.” It is probable that Gates imagined that Washington’s troops, composed of men who loved their homes, and who, as he knew, had enlisted only till the 1st of January, would, as soon as the snows and storms of winter came, disperse. He could then, with his fresh troops, sweep the province of Massachusetts at his will.[98]