JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 55 



of Northumberland. This son was born August 25, 1742, and married, 

 in 1764, Anne, daughter of John, Earl of Bute, but had no issue. The 

 marriage was dissolved, by act of Parliament, in 1779, and in the same 

 year the duke married Miss Frances Julia Burrell, of Beckeuham, Kent, 

 by whom he had five daughters and two sons. 



Earl Percy, the second Duke of Northumberland, served in the Conti- 

 nental wars under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick ; came to Boston, 1774, 

 in charge of a brigade; commanded the re-enforcements at the battle or 

 Lexington, April 19, 1775; and led the column that reduced Fort Wash- 

 ington, at King's Bridge, near New York, November IG, 177G. He re- 

 turned to England in May, 1777, devoted himself to improving his estates, 

 died July 10, 1817, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster 

 Abbey. 



Of this Earl Percy an oil portrait has recently been presented to the 

 town of Lexington, Massachusetts, by his grandnephew, Algernon 

 George, the sixth and present Duke of Northumberland. The presenta- 

 tion was made through the Eev. Edward G. Porter, of Lexington, who 

 was a guest at the duke's castle in 1879, and was permitted, during his 

 visit, to make extracts from the Percy family papers, especially from the 

 letters written home by Earl Percy during his American experiences. 

 In one of these letters, dated Boston, July 5, 1774, Percy told his parents 

 that the people were very hot-headed and that he feared trouble. On 

 the 27th of the same month he wrote that, owing to the absence of Gen- 

 eral Gage at Salem, he had been commander-in-chief of the camp at 

 Boston. He also inclosed a view of the town of Boston and the camp, 

 and conveyed the information that the people say much and do nothing. 

 He advised a steadfast government, as the people are worthy subjects, 

 who talk as though they would wipe out the troops every night, but are 

 frightened to death when they see them. The clergy were spoken of as 

 teachers of sedition of the most virulent type. Another letter to his 

 father was dated August 15, 1774, and in this Percy described the scen- 

 ery around Boston as having the appearance of a park finely laid out. 

 This beauty he considered to be offset by the poverty of the soil, which, 

 in his opinioii , was o vertHled and scantily fertilized. In this letter symp- 

 toms of trouble in the country were noted, and the writer professed his 

 determination to do his whole duty wherever he might be called upon to 

 serve rather than seek preferment where it might most easily be ob- 

 tained — at the Court of St. James. In a subsequent letter to General 

 Howe, at London, he wrote his serious apprehension of bloodshed and 

 his belief in the necessity of strong government. From the Congress at 

 Philadelphia he said he looked for either a wrangle among its members 

 or for the origin of serious business for the home government. To his 

 father, also, he wrote in the same strain. On the 20th April, 1775, Percy 

 reported to General Gage about the march to Lexington. There, Percy 

 says, he met the troops retreating from Concord, and he ordered two 

 field-pieces to be trained upon the rebels from the heights. The shot from 

 the cannon dispersed them. As the British had but little ammunition, 

 and were fifteen miles from Boston, they were ordered by him to return. 

 They were pressed severely by the rebels until they reached Charles- 

 town, many men being killed. Percy attributed to the rebels cruelty 

 and barbarity, writing that they scalped and cut off the ears of the 

 wounded troops, showing that the British, too, believed that their oppo- 

 nents were cruel and barbarous. Percy, after this disastrous retreat, 

 was of the opinion that the colonists were not an irregular mob, but de- 

 termined men, accustomed to fight the French and the Indians. The 

 road to Charlestown, Earl Percy said, was taken for the retreat, as it 



