On the thirteenth day of October, Congress authorized the building of two small cruisers, and on the thirtieth, two additional vessels, of small tonnage. A naval committee was also appointed, consisting of Silas Dean, John Langdon, Joseph Hewes, Richard Henry Lee, and John Adams. On the twenty-eighth of November, a naval code was adopted; and on the thirteenth of December, the construction of thirteen frigates was authorized. Among the officers commissioned, were Nicholas Biddle as captain and John Paul Jones as lieutenant. Thus the American Navy was fully established.[1] Footnote 1: See Appendix, “American Navy.” On the twenty-ninth day of November, Captain John Manly, who was the most prominent officer of this improvised navy, captured a British store-ship, containing a large mortar, several brass cannon, two thousand muskets, one hundred thousand flints, eleven mortar-beds, thirty thousand shot, and all necessary implements for artillery and intrenching service. As the year drew to its close, the British levelled all their advanced works on Charlestown Neck, and concentrated their right wing in a strong redoubt on Bunker Hill, while their left wing at Boston Neck was more thoroughly fortified against attack. Congress now intimated to Washington that it might be well to attack the city upon the first favorable occasion, before the arrival of reënforcements from Great Britain. The laconic reply of the Commander-in-Chief was, that he “must keep his powder for closer work than cannon distance.” On the nineteenth of November, Henry Knox was commissioned as Colonel, _vice_ Gridley, too old for active service. Two lieutenant-colonels, two majors, and twelve companies of artillery were authorized, and thus the American regular Artillery, as well as the navy, was put upon a substantial basis, with Knox as Chief of Artillery. The closing months of 1775 also developed the progress of the expeditions for the conquest of Canada. The reënforcements required for the actual rescue of the detached forces from destruction, increased the burdens of the Commander-in-Chief. This period of Washington’s military responsibility cannot be rightly judged from the general opinion that Montgomery’s nominal force of three thousand men represented an effective army of that strength: in fact, it was less than half that number.