Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

252 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
me to remain exposed to the folly and madness of an
enraged multitude, daily and hourly increasing in numbers
and delusion.
He says Captain Cochran and his five men defended
A ruinous Castle with the walls in many places down, at
length knocked down, their arms broken and taken from
them by above one hundred to one, the Captain was confined and at last would not nor did not give up the keys
notwithstanding every menace they could invent; finally
they broke the doors with axes and crowbars.
In a letter to General Gage, dated "Fort William and
Mary, 15 June 1775.,, he says- The ferment in this province has become very
general, and the government hath been very much agitated
and disturbed since the affair of the 19th of April last.
Two thousand men are already enlisted, two-thirds of whom
I am informed are destined to join the insurgents in your
province, and the remainder are to be stationed along the
coast in different parts between Portsmouth and Newbury.
The spirit of outrage runs so high that on Tuesday last
my house was beset by great bodies of armed men who
proceeded to such a length af violence as to bring a
cannon directly before my house, and point it at my door,
threatening fire and destruction unless Mr. Fenton, (a
member of the assembly then sitting,) who happened to call
upon me,, and against whom they had taken up such
resentment as occasioned him some days before to retire
on board the man-of-war in the Harbour out of their way,
should instantly deliver himself up to them, and notwithstanding every effort to procure effectual assistance to
disperse the multitude, Mr. Fenton was obliged to surrender himself and they have carried him to. Eexeter about
fifteen miles from Portsmouth where he is, as I am iiformed, kept in confinement.
Seeing every idea of the respect due to hi's Majesty's
Commission so far lost in the frantic rage and fury of the
people as to find them to proceed to such daring violence
against the Person of his Representative, I found myself
under the necessity of immediately withdrawing to Fort
William and Mary, both to prevent as much as may be a