General Sullivan was sent to Portsmouth, where there was a fortification of some strength, to give the inhabitants his advice and assistance in warding off the menaced blow. Newport, also, was put on the alert, and recommended to fortify itself. “I expect every hour,” writes Washington, “to hear that Newport has shared the same fate of unhappy Falmouth.”[21] Under the feeling roused by these reports, the General Court of Massachusetts, exercising a sovereign power, passed an act for encouraging the fitting out of armed vessels to defend the sea-coast of America, and for erecting a court to try and condemn all vessels that should be found infesting the same. This act, granting letters of marque and reprisal, anticipated any measure of the kind on the part of the General Government, and was pronounced by John Adams, “one of the most important documents in history.”[22] The British ministry have, in later days, been exculpated from the charge of issuing such a desolating order as that said to have been reported by Lieutenant Mowat. The orders under which that officer acted, we are told, emanated from General Gage and Admiral Graves. The former intended merely the annoyance and destruction of rebel shipping, whether on the coast or in the harbors to the eastward of Boston; the burning of the town is surmised to have been an additional thought of Admiral Graves. Naval officers have a passion for bombardments. Whatever part General Gage may have had in this most ill-advised and discreditable measure, it was the last of his military government, and he did not remain long enough in the country to see it carried into effect. He sailed for England on the 10th of October. The tidings of the battle of Bunker’s Hill had withered his laurels as a commander. Still he was not absolutely superseded, but called home, “in order,” as it was considerately said, “to give his majesty exact information of every thing, and suggest such matters as his knowledge and experience of the service might enable him to furnish.” During his absence, Major-general Howe would act as commander-in-chief of the colonies on the Atlantic Ocean, and Major-general Carleton of the British forces in Canada and on the frontiers. Gage fully expected to return and resume the command. In a letter written to the minister, Lord Dartmouth, the day before sailing, he urged the arrival, early in the spring, of reinforcements which had been ordered, anticipating great hazard at the opening of the campaign. In the mean time he trusted that two thousand troops, shortly expected from Ireland, would enable him “to distress the rebels by incursions along the coast,”—and—“he hoped Portsmouth in New Hampshire would feel the weight of his majesty’s arms.” “Poor Gage,” writes Horace Walpole, “is to be the scape-goat for what was a reason against employing him—incapacity.” He never returned to America.