While the Tories were so carefully looking to the future, the Whigs were obliged to guard what they could. Newell covers too many incidents with etceteras, but John Andrews who, as soon as the siege was lifted, was free to begin again his correspondence, speaks clearly of his difficulties. Through the siege he had had the care of six houses with their furniture, and as many stores filled with goods; but now he underwent more fatigue and perplexity than for the past eleven months, for "I was obliged," he says, "to take my rounds all day, without any cessation, and scarce ever fail'd of finding depredations made upon some one or other of them, that I was finally necessitated to procure men at the extravagant rate of two dollars a day to sleep in the several houses and stores for a fortnight[163] before the military plunderers went off--for so sure as they were left alone one night, so sure they were plundered." Later he was obliged to pay at the rate of a dollar an hour for hands to assist him in moving; but "such was the demand for laborers, that they were taken from me, even at that, by the tories who bid over me." So, while the wind continued contrary, the plundering and the destruction continued. Before long the seashore dwellers might do their share of rescue, as the articles which were thrown into the harbor--"mahogany chairs, tables, etc.," records Abigail Adams--were cast up on the beaches. But one by one the transports filled and dropped down the harbor, until at last Washington grew impatient, and on the night of the 16th made his last move. Though the British, aware of the attempt, fired with their remaining guns all night at Nook's Hill, the Americans doggedly entrenched without returning a shot, and in the morning showed a finished redoubt. It was, as Trevelyan well says, Washington's notice to quit. Howe meekly accepted it. "At 4 o'clock in the Morn.," writes Lieutenant Barker, "the troops got under arms, at 5 they began to move, and by about 8 or 9 were all embarked, the rear being covered by the Grenadiers and Light Infantry." The ships sailed down the channel, no shot was fired from the American batteries, and in return the _Fowey_, the last of the fleet, which Howe had threatened should fire the town before she departed, carried away with her her "carcases and combustibles," and Boston stood free and unharmed. In half an hour the Americans were in possession. From Roxbury a company of five hundred, picked for the service because they had had the smallpox, entered the British lines, and manned the fortifications which looked toward the harbor. In the redoubt at Bunker Hill sentries appeared to be still doing their duty; but two men who were sent to reconnoitre found them to be dummies, and signalled their companions to follow them. General Putnam was given command of the town, from entering which the army in general, and all civilians, were prohibited until it was ascertained whether there was danger of smallpox.