The letter was deciphered. It gave a description of the army. The doctor made an awkward defence, protesting that he had given an exaggerated account of the American force, for the purpose of deterring the enemy from attacking the American lines in their present defenceless condition from the want of powder. His explanations were not satisfactory. The army and country were exceedingly irritated. In a council of war he was convicted of criminal correspondence; he was expelled from the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and the Continental Congress ultimately resolved that he should be confined in some secure jail in Connecticut, without the use of pen, ink, or paper; “and that no person be allowed to converse with him, except in the presence and hearing of a magistrate or the sheriff of the county.” His sentence was afterwards mitigated on account of his health, and he was permitted to leave the country. He embarked for the West Indies, and is supposed to have perished at sea. What had caused especial irritation in the case of Dr. Church, was the kind of warfare already mentioned, carried on along the coast by British cruisers, and notoriously by Captain Wallace. To check these maraudings, and to capture the enemy’s transports laden with supplies, the provinces of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, fitted out two armed vessels each, at their own expense, without seeking the sanction or aid of Congress. Washington, also, on his own responsibility, ordered several to be equipped for like purpose, which were to be manned by hardy mariners, and commanded by able sea captains, actually serving in the army. One of these vessels was despatched as soon as ready, to cruise between Cape Ann and Cape Cod. Two others were fitted out with all haste, and sent to cruise in the waters of the St. Lawrence, to intercept two unarmed brigantines which Congress had been informed had sailed from England for Quebec, with ammunition and military stores. Among the sturdy little New England seaports, which had become obnoxious to punishment by resistance to nautical exactions, was Falmouth (now Portland), in Maine. On the evening of the 11th of October, Lieutenant Mowat, of the royal navy, appeared before it with several armed vessels, and sent a letter on shore, apprising the inhabitants that he was come to execute a just punishment on them for their “premeditated attacks on the legal prerogatives of the best of sovereigns.” Two hours were given them, “to remove the human species out of the town,” at the period of which, a red pendant hoisted at the main-topgallant masthead, and a gun, would be the signal for destruction. The letter brought a deputation of three persons on board. The lieutenant informed them verbally, that he had orders from Admiral Graves to set fire to all the seaport towns between Boston and Halifax; and he expected New York, at the present moment, was in ashes.