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COERCIVE COLONIAL MEASURES.

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twenty days, they were liable to seizure. Thirteen days after the arrival of the Dartmouth, the owner was summoned before the Boston Committee, and told that his vessel and his tea must be taken back to London. It was out of his power to do so, he said. The passages out of the harbour were guarded by two king's ships, to prevent any vessel going to sea without a licence. On the 16th of December, there was a meeting in Boston of seven thousand persons, who resolved that the tea should not be landed. The master of the Dartmouth was ordered to apply to the governor for a pass. The governor refused it, because his ship had not cleared. There was no more hesitation. Forty or fifty men, disguised as Mohawks, went on to the wharf where the three ships lay alongside; took possession of them; and deliberately emptied three hundred and forty chests of tea into the waters of the bay. It was the work of three hours, and then the people of Boston went to their rest, as if no extraordinary event had occurred. On the 27th of January, 1774, the news of this decisive act reached the English government. On the 29th there was a great meeting of the Lords of the Council, to consider a petition from Massachusetts, for the dismissal of Hutchinson, the governor, and Oliver, the lieutenant-governor, on the ground of some opinions expressed in private letters written confidentially some years before, of which Dr. Franklin had obtained possession. The Council reported that the Petition from Massachusetts was 66 groundless, vexatious, and scandalous." Two days after, Franklin was dismissed from his office of Deputy PostmasterGeneral. He had ceased to be a mediator between Great Britain and America.

Of the proceedings at Boston, the king wrote to lord North, "All men now feel that the fatal compliance in 1766 has increased the pretensions of the Americans to thorough independence." On the 7th of March, lord North delivered to Parliament a message from his majesty relating to these proceedings, and, on the 14th, he brought in a Bill for removing the Custom House from Boston, and declaring it unlawful, after the 1st of June, to lade or unlade, ship or unship, any goods from any landing-place within the harbour of Boston. There was little opposition to this measure, which was passed in a fortnight, and when sent to the Lords was as quickly adopted. The Boston Port Bill, backed up by military force, was to be followed by other measures of coercion. On the 28th of March, lord North brought in a Bill for regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay. The proposition went, in many important particulars, to annul the Charter granted to the province by William III. This Bill also passed, after ineffectual debate. A third Bill enacted, that, during the next three years, the Governor of Massachusetts might, if it was thought that an impartial trial of any person could not be secured in that colony, send him for trial in another colony; or to Great Britain, if it were thought that no fair trial could be obtained in the Colonies. The object of this Bill was to protect the military power in any future encounters with the people. On the discussion of these Bills, Walpole says, "The doors of both Houses were carefully locked-a symptom of the spirit with which they were dictated." The dangers of the country called forth Chatham from his retirement, to exert his eloquence in favour of the colonists,

who had spurned "with contempt the hand of unconstitutional power, that would snatch from them such dear-bought privileges as they now contend for." Before the men of Massachusetts knew of the severities that were hanging over them, the most violent of their leaders, Samuel Adams, had written to Franklin, that the colonists wished for nothing more than a permanent union with the mother-country upon the condition of equal liberty. "This is all they have been contending for; and nothing short of this will or ought to satisfy them." The same language was held by George Washington. But, although such were the sentiments of some, even of the moderate, in the American Colonies, there was a large party in every province who were avowed Royalists; and who gradually acquired the name of Tories. They were not wanting in encouragement from England. They had the support of a preponderating majority in Parliament, which sanguine persons thought would overawe the malcontents. These differences of opinion in America ought to have retarded the terrible issue that was approaching. But in an unhappy hour, blood was shed; and conciliation then became a word that was uttered to deaf ears in England as in America.

The ministry after passing their coercive Bills, had determined to send out general Gage to supersede Hutchinson as Governor of Massachusetts, and to be Commander-in-Chief in the Colonies. Gage had given the king his opinion of the men he had now to deal with, "They will be lions while we are lambs; but if we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly prove very meek." Four regiments sent to Boston would, he thought, be sufficient to prevent any disturbance. In an unhappy hour the new Governor arrived at Boston, on the 13th of May, 1774, just as the people were holding a meeting to discuss the Boston Port Bill. There was but one feeling. Resolutions were entered into for the purpose of suspending all commercial intercourse with Great Britain and the West Indies, until the Act was repealed. General Gage was received with decorum, but without the accustomed honours. He gave the Assembly notice that on the 1st of June, according to the provisions of the Act, their place of meeting would be removed to the town of Salem. When the spirit of opposition to his dictates was getting up, the Governor suddenly adjourned the Assembly. He refused to appoint the 1st of June as a day of general prayer and fasting, which was done by the House of Burgesses in Virginia. That Assembly was immediately dissolved. The idea of a General Congress universally spread. Meanwhile general Gage had an encampment of six regiments on a common near Boston, and had begun to fortify the isthmus which connects the town with the adjacent country. The 1st of June came. There was no tumult. Business was at an end; Boston had become a city of the dead.

The first Congress, consisting of fifty-five members, met at Philadelphia on the 4th of September. The place of their meeting was Carpenter's Hall. Peyton Randolph was chosen as their President. Their proceedings were conducted with closed doors. They drew up a Declaration of Rights. They passed Resolutions to suspend all imports from Great Britain or Ireland after the 1st of December, and to discontinue all exports after the 10th of September in the ensuing year, unless the

A.D. 1774.

ARMING OF THE COLONISTS.

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grievances of America should be redressed. They published Addresses to the people of Great Britain, and of Canada, and they decided upon a petition to the king. The Congress dissolved themselves on the 26th of October; and resolved that another Congress should be convened on the 10th of May, 1775. General Gage was so wholly deserted by the Council, that the meeting of the Assembly, which was proposed to take place at Salem in October, could not be regularly convened. Members were elected, and assembled in what they styled a Local Congress. A Committee of Safety was appointed. Militia, called " Minute-men," were enrolled under an engagement to appear in arms at a minute's notice. Commanders were appointed, and ammunition provided.

The new Parliament met on the 29th of November, 1774. There was an end of the agitations about Wilkes; for, having been elected for Middlesex, he took his seat without opposition. The king's Speech asserted his determination "to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of this Legislature over all the dominions of my Crown." In January, 1775, lord Chatham brought forward a motion to withdraw the troops from Boston. On the 1st of February, he presented "a provisional Bill for settling the troubles in America." On the first occasion he had only eighteen peers to vote with him against sixty-eight; on the second occasion he had thirty-two against sixty-one. Chatham's oratory was in vain. The ministry declared they would send out more troops, instead of recalling any. The conciliatory Bill made some impression upon lord North, who proposed a very weak measure, as a Resolution of the House of Commons, that if any of the American provinces, by their legislature, should make some provision for the defence and government of that province, which should be approved by the king and parliament, then it might be proper to forbear imposing any tax. On the 22nd of March, Edmund Burke proposed a series of conciliatory Resolutions, of a less sweeping nature than those of Chatham, and therefore more likely to be acceptable to men of temperate opinions. At this moment a Bill was passing both Houses to prohibit certain Colonies from fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. Great Britain was not ashamed to resort to this petty measure of retaliation against the American non-importation agreements. Burke's speech presented a masterly review of the wonderful growth of the American Colonies,-their successful industry,-their commercial importance to Great Britain; and these statistical facts were illumined by oratory, perhaps unrivalled. But the highest efforts of argument were unavailing to arrest the headlong course of the government. Burke's Resolutions were rejected on a division of two hundred and seventy against seventy-eight. The contrarieties of public opinion in the nation generally upon the American question, were exhibited in petitions from various corporate bodies. There were war-petitions and peace-petitions. As usual in England, the most serious questions had their ludicrous aspect, and caricatures were numerous. In Massachusetts the people were arming. The Provincial Congress had formed an arsenal at Concord, an inland town. The British troops made no movements during the winter to interfere with these hostile demonstrations, but on the evening of the 18th of April, lieut. -colonel Smith, of the 10th foot, marched, by order of governor Gage, with a body of grena

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diers and light infantry, for Concord, with the purpose of destroying all military stores collected there. Their coming was anticipated, and some cannon and some stores had been carried away. Six light infantry companies were dispatched to seize two bridges on different roads beyond Concord. They found country people drawn up on a green, with arms and accoutrements. The troops advanced. They were fired upon, and fired again. When the detachment reached Concord, there was a more serious skirmish, with a very considerable body of countrymen. On leaving Concord to return to Boston, they were fired on from behind the walls, ditches, trees, &c., for upwards of eighteen miles; and their entire destruction was only averted by the arrival at Lexington of a reinforcement sent out by general Gage. The British continued to retreat before their resolute opponents. They did not reach their quarters till night had fallen-worn out with fatigue, and with a loss of two or three hundred in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The day after the skirmish the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts dispatched a vessel to England, without freight, for the sole purpose of carrying letters detailing this triumph. Walpole says, "The advice was immediately dispersed, whilst the government remained without any intelligence. Stocks immediately fell." At the same time that the American war was commenced by the affair of Lexington, forty volunteers from Connecticut, with others under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, had surprised Ticonderoga, a fort on Lake George, and Crown Point, a fort on Lake Champlain. By this bold and successful expedition the invasion of Canada by the American militia would be greatly facilitated.

On the day that Ticonderoga fell into the hands of these American partisans, the General Congress assembled for the second time at Philadelphia.

CHAPTER XLVII.

AT the end of March, 1775, Benjamin Franklin left England, and on the 6th of May he was elected by the Assembly of Pennsylvania one of the deputies to the Continental Congress appointed to meet on the 10th. at Philadelphia. This Congress, composed of deputies from thirteen States, representing various interests, various origins, and various forms of religion, held at first a common agreement only upon one principle,-the determination to resist the claim of the British government to tax the American colonies without their consent. But the mode of resistance, and the probable consequences of resistance, involved great differences of opinion. There were several weeks of indecision; but, gradually, the more timid counsels yielded to the bolder. The local Assemblies were organizing their provincial forces. On the news of the 19th of April, numerous bodies of militia-men were on the march towards Boston, under bold leaders, who left their ordinary occupations to place themselves at

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the head of their neighbours. For a month general Gage, who had exclusive possession of Boston, was blockaded in his stronghold, having only communication by sea. On the 25th of May, reinforcements arrived from England, under the command of generals Burgoyne, Howe, and Clinton; and the force under general Gage now reached ten thousand men. Martial law was proclaimed by the British commander, and a pardon offered to all who would lay down their arms, except John Hancock and Samuel Adams. The Congress at Philadelphia had agreed upon articles of confederation and perpetual union, under the name of "The United Colonies of North America ;" with authority to determine on war and peace, and on reconciliation with Great Britain; to raise troops; .to appoint all officers civil and military. They had resolved to petition the king; still clinging to hopes of pacification. But, at the same time, they resolved to provide for munitions of war by the issue of a paper-currency, and appointed George Washington Commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces, now to be called the Continental Army. Washington had had no military experience since he was fighting in the British ranks against the French, on the Ohio. For twenty years he had resided upon his estate in Virginia as a plain country gentleman. But by the undeviating exercise of his sound judgment and his rigid integrity, he had acquired a reputation in his own colony which had extended to other States. Washington accepted the trust reposed in him by the Congress, but he would take no pay.

Before the Commander-in-chief arrived at the camp near Boston, the Provincials had shown, as general Gage wrote home, that they were "not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be." Boston is built upon a peninsula. Three hills command the town-Bunker's Hill, Breed's Hill, and Dorchester Heights. The British generals had determined to land a force to take possession of the two former acclivities on the 18th of June. This became known to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. After sunset on the 16th of June, a brigade of a thousand men, under the command of William Prescott, took up their position on Breed's Hill, near Charles Town. The men were armed mostly with fowling-pieces, and carried their powder and ball in horns and pouches. They had an engineer with them, and abundance of intrenching tools. The lines of a redoubt were drawn; and the defences were nearly completed as day dawned. Then the cannon of the Lively sloop commenced a fire upon the earthworks; and a battery was mounted on the Boston side, on a mound called Copp's Hill. The Americans continued to extend their lines, whilst shot and shell were dropping around them. Two thousand soldiers, under the command of major-general Howe, embarked in boats, with fieldartillery, and landed under cover of the shipping on the Charles Town peninsula. Prescott and his band waited for their approach. The Americans had their rear protected by a low stone wall, surmounted with posts and rails. The British halted for some time, expecting additional force, which at length arrived, and, between two and three o'clock, troops under the command of general Pigot, advanced up the hill steadily in line, to attack the redoubt. Prescott had commanded his men not to fire till the British were within eight or ten rods. When he gave the word, the first rank of the British was swept away by the skilful marksmen. The