[Cambridge] 5th. [March, 1776]
The British, it was expected, would attempt to dislodge the Americans from Dorchester heights. Signals had been prepared at Roxbury meetinghouse to mark the moment. The detachment at Cambridge (designed to push into Boston in the boats) was paraded, not far from No.2, where it remained a good part of the day. But kind Heaven, which more than once saved the Americans when they would have destroyed themselves, 2 did not allow the signals to be made. About 3500 of the British troops, it was said, had been sent down to the Castle, with the intent to have made an attack on the Americans; but about midnight the wind blew almost a hurricane from the south; many windows were forced in, sheds and fences blown down, and some vessels drove on shore; and no attempt was made on the works.
1. William Abbatt, ed., Memoirs of Major-General William Heath by Himself (New York, 1901), 33. Hereafter cited as Abbatt, ed., Heath Memoirs.
2. Heath had opposed the plan to descend upon Boston in boats if the enemy launched an attack on Dorchester Heights.
