In that just scale an equal balance hold, And grant these climes a second age of gold." He ceas'd, and now the sun's declining beam With fainter radiance shot a trembling gleam, The thickening stars proclaim'd the day expir'd, And to their tented mansions all retir'd. [b] A notable Tory in Boston.--_Freneau's note._ [c] Certain well known relicks among the Papists.--_Freneau's note._ [86] "Huns."--_Ed. 1786._ [87] "Slaughter'd by our Rifle-guns."--_Ed. 1786._ [88] "Proud of his soldiership, Burgoyne rated himself higher yet in his character as an author."--_Trevelyan._ He was a voluminous letter-writer, and his vivid and interesting letters, of which great numbers have been preserved, throw much light upon the period. [89] This expression belongs to Burgoyne rather than Howe. "Burgoyne took no pains to hide them [his sentiments] in any company. He exclaimed to the first colonist whom he met ... 'Let us get in and we will soon find elbow-room.' The saying caught the public ear, and the time was not far distant when its author learned to his cost that it is more easy to coin a phrase than to recall it from circulation."--_Trevelyan, Am. Rev._ [90] "School-boy army."--_Ed. 1786._ [91] The first detachment of troops, which left Boston on the night of April 18th, consisted of 800 men; the reinforcements that met them just beyond Lexington consisted of 1,200 men. "On this eventful day, the British lost 273 of their number, while the Americans lost 93."--_Fiske's American Revolution._ [92] Lord Percy was at the head of the reinforcements which rescued the British regulars on their retreat from Concord and Lexington, and it was under his leadership that the disastrous retreat was continued to Boston. [93] "I believe the fact, stripped of all coloring," Washington wrote six weeks later on, "to be plainly this: that if the retreat had not been as precipitate as it was (and God knows it could not have been more so), the ministerial troops must have surrendered or been totally cut off."--_Trevelyan's American Revolution._ [94] "In this battle, in which not more than one hour was spent in actual fighting, the British loss in killed and wounded was 1,054.... The American loss, mainly incurred at the rail fence and during the hand-to-hand struggle at the redoubt, was 449."--_Fiske's American Revolution._ [95] Burgoyne, in one of his letters, declares that "a pound of fresh mutton could only be bought for its weight in gold." [96] Gage's inertness and procrastination were a constant source of ridicule both in England and America. No man was ever more severely criticised. Hume even branded him as a contemptible coward. THE SILENT ACADEMY[97]