[Footnote 10: It is in the following terms:

"Gentlemen,--Your kind congratulations on my appointment and
arrival, demand my warmest acknowledgments, and will be ever
retained in grateful remembrance. In exchanging the
enjoyments of domestic life for the duties of my present
honourable but arduous situation, I only emulate the virtue
and public spirit of the whole Province of Massachusetts,
which, with a firmness and patriotism without example, has
sacrificed all the comforts of social and political life, in
support of the rights of mankind, and the welfare of our
common country. My highest ambition is to be the happy
instrument of vindicating these rights, and to see this
devoted Province again restored to peace, liberty, and
safety.

"GEO: WASHINGTON."]

{July 3.}

[Sidenote: Strength and disposition of the two armies.]

The first moments after his arrival in camp were employed in
reconnoitring the enemy, and examining the strength and situation of
the American troops.

The main body of the British army, under the immediate command of
General Howe, was entrenching itself strongly on Bunker's hill. Three
floating batteries lay in Mystic river, near the camp, and a twenty
gun ship below the ferry, between Boston and Charlestown. A strong