It was about this time that the fort began to take part in the events with which Boston is associated before the outbreak of the American Revolution. Stamps by which revenue was expected to be raised from the colonies were brought to Boston in 1765 and for security were lodged in Castle William. Vigorous opposition in America caused the repealment of the act of which they were intended to be the tokens of enforcement and they were taken back to England at the expiration of not many months. These, it will be seen, were not the stamps which figured in the famous Boston Tea Party, but they were of the same nature. The maintenance of a large force of military at Castle William by the Crown in the years immediately following this was a source of irritation to the patriots of the day, and had an influence in determining the events which brought about the separation from the Mother Country. Captain Sir Thomas Adams, who died on board the frigate _Romney_, was buried on Castle Island October 8, 1772, and his obsequies were conducted with great pomp. In removing earth to Fort Independence thirty years later his corpse, enclosed in a double coffin highly ornamented, but upon which the inscription had become illegible, was dug out, and, no one discovering at the time whose remains the coffin contained, it was committed to the common burying ground at the south point of the island where its resting-place was soon not to be distinguished from that of the common soldiers which surrounded it. With this coffin necessarily others were removed, and one was favored with an inscription which betrayed, we may assume, either native simplicity or British sarcasm. It read: “Here lies the body of John, aged fifty years, a faithful soldier and a Desperate Good Gardner”! It does not appear that the force quartered on the island was engaged in the first two battles of the Revolution. The commandant of the castle had been sent in February, 1776, to seize powder and other military stores at Salem; but he was delayed at the ferry by the militia until the objects of the depredation had been moved beyond his reach. He returned peaceably to the island. The same officer was ordered from Castle William at this time with five hundred men to draw the Americans, by a false attack, from their posts at Roxbury. The attack did not succeed and the burning of five or six houses in Dorchester was the only result.