XXXII. 10. CHAP, square, to face each of the barracks. One of the sentries, after wounding an officer, and being slightly 1775 wounded himself, cried out for quarter and showed May the way to the apartment of the commanding officer. "Come forth instantly, or I will sacrifice the whole garrison," cried Ethan Allen, as he reached the door. At this, Delaplace, the commander, came out undressed, with his breeches in his hand. "Deliver to me the fort instantly," said Allen. "By what authority?" asked Delaplace. "In the name of the great Jehovah, and the continental congress swered Allen. Delaplace began to speak again, but was peremptorily interrupted, and at sight of Allen's drawn sword near his head, he gave up the garrison, ordering his men to be paraded without arms. و, ! an Thus was Ticonderoga taken in the gray of the morning of the tenth of May. What cost the British nation eight millions sterling, a succession of campaigns and many lives, was won in ten minutes by a few undisciplined men, without the loss of life or limb. The Americans gained with the fortress nearly fifty prisoners, more than a hundred pieces of cannon, one thirteen inch mortar, and a number of swivels, stores, and small arms. To a detachment under Seth Warner, Crown Point, with its garrison of twelve men, surrendered upon the first summons. Another party succeeded in making a prisoner of Skeene, a dangerous British agent; and in getting possession of the harbor of Skeenesborough. Messengers carried to the continental congress news of the great acquisition which inaugurated the day of its assembling. "A war has begun," wrote XXXII. May. Joseph Warren from the Massachusetts congress; CHAP. "but I hope after a full conviction, both of our ability and resolution to maintain our rights, Britain 1775. will act with necessary wisdom; this I most heartily wish, as I feel a warm affection still for the parent state." CHAPTER XXXIII. EFFECTS OF THE DAY OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD IN EUROPE. MAY TO JULY, 1775. CHAP. THE news from Lexington surprised London in the XXXIII last days of May. The people had been lulled into 1775. a belief, that the ministry indulged in menaces only May. to render the olive branch acceptable; and the measures of parliament implied confidence in peace. And now it was certain that war had begun, that Britain was at war with herself. The Massachusetts congress, by a swift packet in its own service, had sent to England a calm and accurate statement of the events of the nineteenth of April, fortified by depositions, with a charge to Arthur Lee their agent, to give it the widest circulation. These were their words to the inhabitants of Britain: "Brethren, we profess to be loyal and dutiful subjects, and so hardly dealt with as we have been, are still ready, with our lives and fortunes, to defend the person, family, crown, and dignity of our royal sovereign. Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not submit; appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we CHAP determine to die or be free." XXXIII May. Granville Sharpe, who was employed in the ord- 1775. nance department, declined to take part in sending stores to America, and after some delay, threw up his employment. Lord Chatham was the real conqueror of Canada for England; and Carleton had been proud to take to Quebec as his aide de camp Chatham's eldest son. But it was impossible for the offspring of the elder Pitt to draw his sword against the Americans; and his resignation was offered, as soon as it could be done without a wound to his character as a soldier. Admiral Keppel, one of the most gallant officers in the British navy, expressed his readiness to serve, if required, against the ancient enemies of England, but asked not to be employed in America. An inhabitant of London, after reading morning prayers in his family as usual, closed the book with a face of grief, and to his children, of whom Samuel Rogers, the poet, was one, told the sad tale of the murder of their American brethren. The recorder of London put on a full suit of mourning, and being asked if he had lost a relative or friend, answered, "Yes, many brothers at Lexington and Concord." Ten days before the news arrived, Lord Effingham, who in his youth had been prompted by military genius to enter the army, and had lately served as a volunteer in the war between Russia and Turkey, finding that his regiment was intended for America, renounced the profession which he loved, as the only means of escaping the obligation of fight XXXIII June. CHAP. ing against the cause of freedom. This resignation gave offence to the court, and was a severe rebuke to 1775. the officers who did not share his scruple; but at London the Common Hall, in June, thanked him publicly as "a true Englishman;" and the guild of merchants in Dublin addressed him in the strongest terms of approbation. June On the twenty-fourth of June, the citizens of Lon24. don, agreeing fully with the letter received from New York, voted an address to the king, desiring him to consider the situation of the English people, "who had nothing to expect from America but gazettes of blood, and mutual lists of their slaughtered fellowsubjects." And again they prayed for the dissolution of parliament, and a dismission for ever of the present ministers. As the king refused to receive this address on the throne, it was never presented; but it was entered in the books of the city and published under its authority. The society for constitutional information, after a special meeting on the seventh of June, raised a hundred pounds, "to be applied," said they, "to the relief of the widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the character of Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, were, for that reason only, inhumanly murdered by the king's troops at Lexington and Concord." Other sums were added; and an account of what had been done was laid before the world by Horne Tooke in the "Public Advertiser." The publication raised an implacable spirit of revenge. Three printers were fined in consequence one hundred pounds each; and Horne was pursued unrelentingly |