One book I've been able to find which I've been trying to get for several years and have finally located at a reasonable price is Lieut. Williams Discord and Civil Wars .. And I've finally been able to afford to buy Alan Frost's The Global Reach of Empire, recommended to me by my ex-supervisor for this book. It will, I hope be very useful for setting the exploits of the First Fleeters in the American War of Independence in a wider global context. (And I very much like Frost's work anyway.) I'm also getting Allen French's The Siege of Boston. I don't know if it will simply reiterate material in his magisterial The First Year of the American Revolution, which was written after he'd completed the former book, but I can't take the risk of missing something out. I'm also getting Volume 5 of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution, which will be very useful for both my research into Halifax and the latter stages of Lord Dunmore's failed Virginian campaign. Another book which will be infinitely useful is Stedman's The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War. So far I'm only getting volume one. It is the only contemporary history written from the British side, and I hope it will be very useful.
On the American side I'm getting Thacher's Journal, three journals by ordinary soldiers in the Continental army, (though I'm not sure if one of them deals with Boston. I bought it on spec as it turned up in a sidebar in the bookseller's confirmation of a purchase); and a book on Washington's Navy and another on his generals. I;m also getting Selby's history of the American Revolution in Virginia, which I expect to be very good. So I have more than enough to keep me busy for a while, and that I'll be able to get back to writing chapter 5 pretty soon.
