Untitled

Temuka Leader, Issue 1834, 29 December 1888, Page 4

A PLEASING INCIDENT.

On June 17th, 1775, a British man-of-war lying in Mystic Biver threw a cannon ball at a little American army intrenched on Bunkers Hill The ship threw more than one ball, but this particular one was picked up after the fight and saved. The other day at the 250th anniversary of the Boston Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, the veritable ball was returned to a party of British artillery who had come over to help celebrate the occasion. The presentation was made at the dinner by Colonel Walker. " I hold in my hand," said Colonel Walker, " a cannon ball thrown by a British ship of war at the patriotic army on Bunkers Hill, June 17th, 1775. Through the kindness of Mr Massam, who gives it to his company to present to you, I give it to you to carry home as a memento" (handing the cannon ball to Major Durrant amid hearty cheers and applause). "It was thrown to us in war. We give it to you in peace as a token of the amity which lives to-day between our great nations, and which we all pray may live for ever." "There is time for wonderful changes |in a hundred years," says the JSTewhaven Palladium,

in commenting on the above. "It would have given the grizzled old fighters of the British warship a queer feeling if they could have known, when they ' touched her off' and sent that ball screeching at the Yankee breastworks on that June day, .1775, that a hundred years later the ball would be handed back over a friendly dinner table as a token of amity and concord between the two greatest and most enlightened powers on the earth,"