Although Gage’s dearly-won victory secured to the British the possession of the Charlestown peninsula, and thus guaranteed them against bombardment from Bunker’s Hill, it did not improve the situation in other respects. Soon after the battle Washington was elected to the command of the provincial army, and so closely invested Boston that the garrison began to suffer from the want of fresh food. At first the daily ration of salt pork and peas was occasionally varied by fish, but this source of supply was cut off by the American general, who dragged a number of whale-boats overland from the neighbourhood of Cape Cod to the head-waters of one of the rivers flowing into the bay, and manned the flotilla with sailors, of whom there were many in his ranks. With this mosquito fleet he effectually stopped all fishing operations, and under the very guns of our warships captured small craft, and seized the sheep and cattle grazing on the islands in the bay. That such things were possible shows the depths of inefficiency to which our fleet on the American station had sunk in 1775; supine and stupid as were the generals, they seemed models of talent and energy when compared with the admirals with whom they were expected to co-operate. The want of proper food produced much illness, especially among the wounded, whose diet in hospital was the same as that of the men at duty; and the mortality was great. Coal ran so short that wooden houses and churches were pulled down for firewood. Small-pox broke out and claimed many victims. The duties, heavy everywhere, proved particularly trying at the outposts, for the provincials, ignoring the rule of war that piquets are not to be fired upon wantonly, used to amuse themselves by forming parties to stalk and shoot down the sentries as they paced their beats. Beyond these occasional skirmishes there was no fighting; at first the gunners cannonaded the enemy’s position, but with so little success that the general decided to waste no more powder in teaching the Americans how to stand fire. As month after month passed in misery and inaction, the soldiers, badly fed, thoroughly dispirited and profoundly bored, grew moody, dirty, careless about their dress, while discipline was only maintained by the stern sentences of the courts-martial which awarded punishments of four hundred, six hundred, and even a thousand lashes.