The records of the War Department at Washington say that Fort Constitution reservation “contains twelve acres. It is situated on a rocky projection in the Piscataqua River at the entrance to the harbor of the City of Portsmouth. It is about three miles below the city on the west side of the river, on the eastern end of ‘Great Island,’ being the most eastern end of New Hampshire. It was formerly an English fort called ‘William and Mary’ and was occupied by United States troops in 1806.” The location of Fort Constitution may be fixed more exactly by saying that it is very close to Newcastle, one of the outlying dependencies of Portsmouth. A long low stone structure thrust out on a wave-washed spit of rock, its picturesque appearance stimulates the fancy of every visitor who approaches Portsmouth by water. Adjoining the fort is a light-house erected in 1771, and on a rocky eminence overlooking the fort is a ruined martello tower of striking aspect. The history of Fort Constitution goes back to the early beginnings of settlement on the New England coast. In 1665 the commissioners of King Charles II began to erect a fortification on the point here, but were halted by the prohibitions of the Massachusetts fathers. In 1700 there existed a fort on Great Island and probably on the site of the present structure. This fort was visited by the Earl of Bellemont and declared by him incapable of defending the river, notwithstanding the fact that it mounted thirty guns. A new defensive structure was planned by Colonel Romer, who recommended as additional works a strong tower on the point of Fryer’s (Gerrish’s) Island and batteries on Wood and Clark’s Islands. His main plans were carried out and with slight alterations formed the fortification which was known at the time of the Revolutionary ferment as Castle William and Mary, its name sufficiently emphasizing the period of its conception. While Castle William and Mary had an honorable career in a passive fashion during the French wars by frightening off French descents upon the flourishing little city which it guards, it does not spring into the lime-light until 1774, when it becomes the scene of the first capture of arms made by the Americans in the struggle against the Mother Country. [Illustration: FORT CONSTITUTION (CASTLE WILLIAM AND MARY), GREAT ISLAND, NEAR PORTSMOUTH, N. H.] In the year we have under consideration the Governor of New Hampshire was the able and passionate Sir John Wentworth. An account of the seizure of the supplies at Fort William and Mary may be succinctly given by means of extracts from Sir John’s letters of that period, a series of which was published in 1869, in the “Historical and Genealogical Register” by the Honorable John Wentworth, of Chicago. In a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated Portsmouth, December 20, 1774, Governor Wentworth says: