This map shows how Portland looked in 1775 before the British Navy bombarded it during the American

In 1775, the British sent two ships to Falmouth to “secure all the masts possible. They, of course, had been towed out of reach.1” Captain Philip Crandall of Harpswell said “beat the town down about their ears.”  In “October 16 Lieutenant Mowatt of the Canceaux returned to Falmouth with a flotilla of gunships and orders to punish towns that were in open rebellion against the king.”2 On the 18th after telling the people evacuate to the city, Falmouth was burned to the ground, leaving very little of the town standing. It did not take long for Falmouth to rebuild; within a few years much of the city was being rebuilt or had been rebuilt. The burning however had lasting effects with the people of  Falmouth and Maine as a whole because they knew now that they could not rely on Massachusetts to protect them.

James S. Leamom, Maine the Pine Tree State from prehistory to the present [Orono Maine, University of Maine Press] pg 154