With much difficulty, and on the surrendering of some arms, the committee obtained a respite until nine o’clock the next morning, and the inhabitants employed the interval in removing their families and effects. The next morning the committee returned on board before nine o’clock. The lieutenant now offered to spare the town on certain conditions, which were refused. About half past nine o’clock the red pendant was run up to the masthead, and the signal gun fired. Within five minutes several houses were in flames, from a discharge of carcasses and bombshells, which continued throughout the day. The inhabitants, “standing on the heights, were spectators of the conflagration, which reduced many of them to penury and despair.” One hundred and thirty-nine dwelling houses, and two hundred and twenty-eight stores, are said to have been burnt.[17] All the vessels in the harbor, likewise, were destroyed or carried away as prizes. Having satisfied his sense of justice with respect to Falmouth, the gallant lieutenant left it a smoking ruin, and made sail, as was said, for Boston, to supply himself with more ammunition, having the intention to destroy Portsmouth also.[18] The conflagration of Falmouth was as a bale fire throughout the country. Lieutenant Mowat was said to have informed the committee at that place, that orders had come from England to burn all the seaport towns that would not lay down and deliver up their arms, and give hostages for their good behavior.[19] Washington himself supposed such to be the case. “The desolation and misery,” writes he, “which ministerial vengeance had planned, in contempt of every principle of humanity, and so lately brought on the town of Falmouth, I know not how sufficiently to commiserate, nor can my compassion for the general suffering be conceived beyond the true measure of my feelings.” General Greene, too, in a letter to a friend, expresses himself with equal warmth. “O, could the Congress behold the distresses and wretched condition of the poor inhabitants driven from the seaport towns, it must, it would, kindle a blaze of indignation against the commissioned pirates and licensed robbers. * * * People begin heartily to wish a declaration of independence.”[20]