In the meantime a formidable force of Americans was concentrated in the vicinity of Boston under Washington; so General Howe, the successor of General Gage, evacuated the town March 17, and the British fleet dropped below the Castle. The embarkation had been a scene of confusion and distress, it being the 27th of March before the transports were able to put to sea. At their departure the British troops threw into the water iron balls and shot, broke off the trunnions of the ordnance given to Castle William in 1740, destroyed the military stores and battery apparatus which they could not take with them and finally blew up the citadel, leaving the island a mass of ruins. Part of the British fleet lay in the lower harbor until June, when it was harassed by American troops under General Lincoln and raised the blockade of Boston Harbor after the exact duration of two years. With the British troops the seat of the war was removed from Massachusetts, and Castle Island was thenceforth, unmolested, in American possession. Colonel John Turnbull was the officer sent by General Washington to take possession of the island after the evacuation. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere was stationed on the island from 1777 to 1779. At the conclusion of the Revolution it was enacted by the legislature of Massachusetts that all criminals of the State under sentence of confinement should be removed to Castle Island. Pursuant to this law convicts were sent to the island, and though their number never exceeded ninety their audacity taxed the vigilance of the garrison; they made several bold, fruitless efforts to escape, and in their mutinies some were killed and some wounded. Others met their death while endeavoring to form subterranean passages. Stephen Burroughs, whose extensive forgeries gave him great notoriety, here learned the art of a nailer, and in his published memoirs has publicly boasted of his Castle Island exploits. It was with reluctance that the legislature of Massachusetts could bring itself to the cession of the Castle to the United States government, but the State was nevertheless willing to sacrifice the partial advantage to the public good and, October, 1798, passed an act by which the transfer was accomplished. In 1799 President Adams visited the fort and was received with due honors. It was at this time that the name was changed to Independence. With regard to this, Captain Nehemiah Freeman wrote: “The baptism was not indecorous and the godfather (President Adams) is certainly unexceptionable; but Fort Independence must count some years before he can entirely divest his elder brother of his birthright; and though the mess of pottage might have been sold in 1776 yet the title of ‘The Castle’ is rather endearing to the inhabitants of Massachusetts and is still bestowed by the greater part as the only proper appellation.”