The British, in Boston, continued, during the remainder of the winter, within their tents. Gradually the American army augmented its forces. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the British officers to find amusement, their condition daily became more melancholy. Fuel was scarce; food still more so; sumptuous feasting impossible. The small-pox broke out. Poverty and suffering caused houses to be broken open and plundered. Crime was on the increase, which the sternest punishment could not arrest. The hangman was busy. The whipping post dripped with blood. Four, six, even a thousand lashes were inflicted on offenders. A soldier’s wife was convicted of receiving stolen goods. She was tied to a cart, dragged through the streets, and a hundred lashes laid on her bare back. The situation of Washington was dreadful. He could not reveal his weakness; for that would invite attack, and sure destruction. It was loudly proclaimed that he had twenty thousand men, well armed, well disciplined, behind impregnable ramparts, and abundantly supplied with the munitions of war. These representations alarmed the British, and saved him from assaults which he could not repel. But the country clamored loudly, “Why did he not then advance upon the foe?” To his friend, Mr. Reed, he wrote: “I know the unhappy predicament I stand in. I know that I cannot be justified to the world, without exposing my weakness. In short my situation has been such that I have been obliged to use art to conceal it from my own officers.”[117] At length Colonel Knox arrived, from Ticonderoga, with his long train of sledges, bringing more than fifty cannon, mortars, and howitzers, with other supplies. Powder was also brought to the camp from several quarters, and ten regiments of militia came in. On Monday night, the 4th of March, Washington commenced, from several points, a heavy cannonading of the British breastworks. The fire was tremendous. Mrs. Adams, describing the scene to her husband, wrote: “I could no more sleep than if I had been in the engagement. The rattling of the windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of twenty-four-pounders, and the bursting of shells, gave us such ideas, and realized a scene to us, of which we could scarcely form any conception.” Under cover of this fierce bombardment, a working party, of about two thousand men, with intrenching tools and a train of three hundred wagons, in silent and rapid march reached, unseen, the eminences of Dorchester Heights, which commanded the harbor. It was eight o’clock in the evening. They knew well how to use the spade, and vigorously commenced fortifying their position. They worked with a will. Skilful engineers guided every movement. Not a moment was lost. Not a spadeful of earth was wasted. They had brought with them a large supply of fascines and bundles of screwed hay.