best evidence of their sincerity is found in the measure which they recommended. Had independence been their object, they would have strained every nerve to increase their exports, and fill the country in return with the manufactures and munitions which they required. The suspension of trade was the most disinterested manner of expressing to the mother country how deeply they felt their wrongs, and how earnestly they desired a peaceful restoration of reciprocal confidence. While Britain would have only to seek another market for her surplus manufactures and India goods, the American merchant sacrificed nearly his whole business. The exchequer might perhaps suffer some diminution in the revenue from tobacco, but the planters of Maryland and Virginia gave up the entire exchangeable produce of their estates. The cessation of the export of provisions to the West Indies, of flax-seed to Ireland, injured the northern provinces very deeply; and yet it would touch only the British merchants who had debts to collect in the West Indies or Ireland, or the English owners of West Indian or Irish estates. Every refusal to import was made by the colonist at the cost of personal comfort; every omission to export was a waste of the resources of his family. Moreover, no means existed of enforcing the agreement; so that the truest patriots would

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suffer most. And yet the people so yearned for a bloodless restoration of the old relations with Britain that they cheerfully entered on the experiment, in the hope that the extreme self-denial of the country would at least distress British commerce enough to bring the government to reflection.

But, since their efforts to avert civil war might fail, John Adams expressed his anxiety to see New England provided with "cash and gunpowder." Ward, of Rhode Island, regarded America as the rising power that was to light all the nations of the earth to freedom. "Were I to suffer as a rebel in the cause of American liberty, should I not be translated immediately to heaven as Enoch was of old?" wrote Hewes, of North Carolina. Samuel Adams urged his friends to study the art of war, and organize resistance.

"I would advise," said he, "persisting in our struggle, though it were revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, and only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty. One such freeman must possess more virtue and enjoy more happiness than a thousand slaves; and let him propagate his like, and transmit to them what he hath so nobly preserved." "Delightful as peace is," said Dickinson, "it will come more grateful by being unexpected." Washington, while he promoted the measures of congress, dared not hope that they would prove effectual. When Patrick Henry read the prophetic words of Hawley, " After all, we must fight," he raised his hand, and called God to witness as he cried out: "I am of that man's mind."

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CHAPTER XIV.

HOW BRITAIN BEGAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.

OCTOBER, 1774.

THE Congress of 1774 contained statesmen of the highest order of wisdom. For eloquence, Patrick Henry was unrivalled; next to him in debate stood the elder Rutledge, of South Carolina; "but, if you speak of solid information and sound judgment," said Patrick Henry, "Washington is unquestionably the greatest man of them all."

While the delegates of the twelve colonies were in session in Philadelphia, ninety of the members just elected to the Massachusetts assembly appeared on Wednesday the fifth of October at the court-house in Salem. After waiting two days for the governor, they passed judgment on his unconstitutional proclamation against their meeting; and, resolving themselves into a provincial congress, they adjourned to Concord. There, on Tuesday the eleventh, about two hundred and sixty members took their seats, and elected John Hancock their president. On the fourteenth, they sent a message to the governor, that for want of a general assembly they had convened in congress; they remonstrated against his hostile preparations. committee from Worcester county made similar representations. "It is in your power to prevent civil war, and to establish your character as a wise and humane man," said the chairman. "For God's sake," replied Gage, in great trepidation, "what would you have me do?" for he vacillated between a hope that the king would give way, and a willingness to be the instrument of his obstinacy. To the president of the continental congress, he expressed the

A

wish that the disputes between the mother country and the colonies might terminate like lovers' quarrels ; but he did not conceal his belief that its proceedings would heighten the anger of the king.

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To the provincial congress, which had again adjourned from Concord to Cambridge, Gage made answer by recriminations. They on their part were surrounded by difficulties. They wished to remove the people of Boston into the country, but found it impracticable. A committee, appointed on the twenty-fourth of October, to consider the proper time to provide a stock of powder, ordnance, and ordnance stores, reported on the same day that the proper time was now. Upon the debate for raising money to prepare for the crisis, one member proposed to appropriate a thousand pounds, another two thousand; a committee reported a sum of less than ninety thousand dollars, as a preparation against a warlike empire, flushed with victory, and able to spend twenty million pounds sterling a year in the conduct of a war. They elected three general officers by ballot. A committee of safety, Hancock and Warren being of the number, was invested with power to alarm and muster the militia of the province, of whom one fourth were to hold themselves ready to march at a minute's notice.

In Connecticut, which, from its compactness, numbers, and wealth, was second only to Massachusetts in military resources, the legislature of 1774 provided for effectively organizing the militia, prohibited the importation of slaves, and ordered the several towns to provide double the usual quantity of powder, balls, and flints. They also directed the issue of fifteen thousand pounds in bills of credit of the colony, and made a small increase of the taxes. This was the first issue of paper money in the colonies preparatory

to war.

The congress of Massachusetts, in like manner, directed the people of the province to perfect themselves in military skill, and each town to provide a full stock of arms and ammunition. Having voted to pay no more money to the royal collector, they chose a receiver-general of their own,

and instituted a system of provincial taxation. They appointed executive committees of safety, of correspondence, and of supplies. As the continental congress would not sanction their resuming the charter from Charles I., they adhered as nearly as possible to that granted by William

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and Mary; and summoned the councillors, duly elected under that charter, to give attendance on the fourth Wednesday of November, to which time they adjourned. To their next meeting they referred the consideration of the propriety of sending agents to Canada.

The American revolution was destined on every side to lead to the solution of the highest questions of state. Principles of eternal truth, which in their universality are superior to sects and separate creeds, were rapidly effacing the prejudices of the past. The troubles of the thirteen colonies led the court of Great Britain to its first step in the emancipation of Catholics; and, with no higher object in view than to strengthen the authority of the king in America, the Quebec act of 1774 began that series of concessions, which at last opened the British parliament itself, and the high offices of administration to "papists."

In the belief that the loyalty of its possessions had been promoted by a dread of the French settlements on their northern and western frontier, Britain sought to create under its own auspices a distinct empire, suited to coerce her original colonies, and restrain them from aspiring to independence. For this end, it united into one province the territory of Canada, together with all the country northwest of the Ohio to the head of Lake Superior and the Mississippi, and consolidated all authority over this boundless region in the hands of the executive power. The Catholics were not displeased that the promise of a representative assembly was not kept. In 1763 they had all been disfranchised in a land where there were few Protestants, except attendants on the army and government officials. A representative assembly, to which none but Protestants could be chosen, would have subjected almost all the inhabitants to a resident oligarchy, hateful by their race and religion, their supremacy as conquerors, and their