Finding hypocrisy no longer available, sometime in August, 1776, he accepted a commission of Lieutenant Colonel Commandant, signed by General Howe and empowering him to raise a battalion of Rangers for the British Army.  To this work he now applied himself and with success.[A]

[Footnote A:  Journals, p. 277.]

On the twenty-first of October, 1776, Rogers fought his last battle, so far as I have been able to discover, on American soil.  His Regiment was attacked at Mamaronec, New York, and routed by a body of American troops.  Contemporary accounts state that he did not display his usual valor in this action and personally withdrew before it was over.

The next year he returned to England,[A] where, after a disreputable life of some twenty-two or twenty-three years, of which little is known, he is said to have died in the year 1800.

[Footnote A:  Parker’s History of Londonderry, p. 238.]

Such are some of the more salient points in the career of Major Robert Rogers, the Ranger.  When another century shall have buried in oblivion his frailties, the valor of the partizan commander will shine in undimmed lustre.  When the historian gives place to the novelist and the poet, his desperate achievements portrayed by their pens will render as romantic the borders of Lake George, as have the daring deeds of Rob Roy McGregor, rehearsed by Walter Scott, made enchanting the Shores of Lock Lomond.

* * * * *

Roused from dreams.

By Adelaide Cilley Waldron.

  Through the gorges leaps the pealing thunder;
  Lurid flashes rend the sky asunder;
  On my window-pane, making wild refrain,
      Sharply strikes the rain.

  Wind in furious gusts with angry railing
  Follows the unhappy restless wailing
  Of the sobbing sea, and drives ships a-lee
      None to save nor see.

  Dreaming souls are startled from their slumbers,
  Though sleep still their trembling frames encumbers;
  Helplessly they wait, fearing portent fate,
      Shrieking prayers too late!

* * * * *

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF FITCHBURG

By Ebenezer Bailey.

On the opening of the year 1764 there was in the westerly part of the town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, a settlement of about forty families, consisting of a number of farms, located mostly on the hills surrounding a narrow valley through which flowed the north branch of the Nashua River, almost screened from view by a dense forest of pines.  These people were obliged to go four or five miles to Church and town meeting, over narrow, uneven roads, travelled only on horseback or rough ox carts.  Most of them were of an independent, self-reliant type of character, and had a mind to have a little town and parish of their own.