Note 6 — INTRODUCTION.

Dr. Benjamin Church, physician, orator and poet, grandson of the famous Indian fighter of the name; born in Newport, R.I., August 24, 1734; was lost at sea in May, 1776. He graduated at Harvard College in 1754; studied medicine in London, and after his return to Boston, became eminent as a surgeon. For several years previous to the Revolution, he was a conspicuous and leading Whig. He was a representative, a member of the Provincial Congress of 1774, and physician-general to the patriot army. Pecuniary embarrassment is supposed to have led to his defection from the cause of his country. In September, 1775, an intercepted letter of his, in characters, to Major Cain, in Boston, was deciphered; and October 3, 1775, he was convicted by a court martial, of which Washington was president, of "holding a criminal correspondence with the enemy." Confined in jail at Norwich, Conn., he was released in May, 1776, on account of failing health; sailed for the West Indies, and was never afterwards heard from.