[Feb. 8.] Major Knowlton was dispatched with a hundred men to make an incursion into Charlestown, and burn a number of houses, that they might be no longer of service to the enemy. He crossed the mill-dam upon the ice, between Cobble Hill and Bunker’s Hill; and immediately proceeded down the street on the westerly side of the last hill, and destroyed about ten houses, and brought off a few muskets. He performed the whole in less than an hour, without the loss of a single man killed or wounded, though the British garrison kept up a considerable fire of musketry from Bunker’s Hill. This expedition confounded the amusement carrying on in Boston, at the same instant. The British soldiers were much afflicted with sickness and the scurvy, occasioned by the want of vegetables and fresh provisions, notwithstanding the powerful exertions made at home to throw in supplies. Many of the vessels, which were loaded in England with live stock, vegetables and porter, had been either taken on the coast of America, or blown off to the West-Indies, by the severe north-west winds, which usually prevail during the winter months. Out of 40 sail of transports only eight had arrived. None of these things however hindred the officers from amusing themselves, all they could, in the present situation. They had their balls and theatre, that so they might forget themselves, while seemingly forgotten by their native country. It so happened that they had finished attending the _Busy Body_; and the scnes were changed, that the farce of the _Blockade of Boston_, said to be written by gen. Burgoyne, might be performed. The figure designed for gen. Washington had just made his appearance (as we are told) upon the stage, with a large wig and long rusty sword, together with his orderly serjeant, who had on his sholders a rusty gun seven feet long; now it was, that one of the regular serjeants came running on the stage, threw down his bayonet and called out lustily, “the Yankees are attacking Bunker’s Hill.” They who were unacquainted with the farce, thought that this was a part of it, but when gen. Howe cried out, _officers to your alarm posts_, instead of mirth and laughing, there was shrieking, crying, fainting, &c. The inhabitants of the town have been supplied with fresh provisions once in a while from Nova-Scotia. Within two days of the above affair, a sloop arrived with beef, poultry and hay, the hay sold for a guinea a hundred weight, the beef for one and six-pence the pound, geese nine shilling a piece, and other articles proportionably, in sterling money.