A reader sends this along:
“Although he had correctly guessed that the insult would gall Howe into planning an attack, Washington had not realized how grievously guns on Dorchester Heights would terrify officers well trained in artillery warfare. Kept by Washington’s security precautions from discovering that the Americans lacked the powder to improve their advantage with heavy bombardment, the British admiral Molyneaux Shuldham notified Howe that he would not keep his ships in the harbor under the threat. He was so eager to get away that he offered the general a month’s supply of naval stores to support the retreat. [James Thomas Flexner, George Washington. Vol. 2: In the American Revolution (1775-1783) (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968), p. 79.]