William Campbell sent his secretary in the boat of the Tamer, to demand "by what authority they had taken possession of his majesty's fort;" and an officer answered: "We are American troops, under Lieutenant-Colonel Motte; we hold the fort by the express command of the council of safety." "By whom is this message given?" Without hesitation the officer replied: "I am Charles Cotesworth Pinckney;" and the names of Motte and Pinckney figured in the next despatches of the governor. Moultrie gave directions for a large blue flag with a crescent in the right-hand corner. A schooner was stationed between Fort Johnson and the town, to intercept the man-ofwar's boats. A post was established at Haddrell's Point, and a fort on Sullivan's island was proposed. The tents on James Island contained at least five hundred men, well armed and clad, strictly disciplined, and instructed not merely in the use of the musket, but the exercise of the great guns. The king's arsenal supplied cannon and balls. New gun-carriages were soon constructed, for the mechanics, almost to a man, were hearty in the cause, and hundreds of negro laborers were brought in from the country to assist in work. None stopped to calculate expense.

In North Carolina, fourth among the thirteen colonies in importance, all classes, for the distance of a hundred miles from the sea, were penetrated with enthusiasm for liberty. Men whom royalists revered as of "the first order of people in the country," of unblemished integrity and earnest character, loyal by nature, after thoughtful consideration decided irrevocably against the right of the British parliament to tax the colonies. In Brunswick county, Robert Howe, formerly captain of Fort Johnston, employed himself in training the people to arms. At Newbern, the capital whose name kept in memory that its founders were from Switzerland, volunteers formed themselves into independent companies.

On the waters of Albemarle sound, over which the adventurous skiffs of the first settlers of Carolina had glided before the waters of the Chesapeake were known to Englishmen, the movement was assisted by the writings of young James Iredell from England, by the letters and counsels of Joseph Hewes, and by the calm wisdom of Samuel Johnston of Eden

ton, a native of Dundee in Scotland, a man revered for his integrity, thoroughly opposed to revolution if it could be avoided without yielding to oppression. Using a power with which the last provincial congress had invested him, on the tenth of July he summoned the people of North Carolina to elect their delegates. Two days later Dartmouth wrote from the king: "I hope that in North Carolina the governor may not be reduced to the disgraceful necessity of seeking protection on board the king's ships;" and just then Martin took refuge on board a British man-of-war.

Richard Caswell, hastening home from the general congress and reluctantly admitting the necessity of American resist ance, advised the most resolute conduct, and even censured the Newbern committee for suffering the governor to escape.

On the twenty-first of August the people of North Carolina assembled at Hillsborough in a convention of more than one hundred and eighty members. A spirit of moderation controlled their zeal; Caswell proposed Samuel Johnston as president, and he was unanimously elected. In a vituperative, incoherent proclamation, Martin had warned them against assembling, as tending to unnatural rebellion; they voted his proclamation "a false and seditious libel," and ordered it to be burnt by the hangman. They professed allegiance to the king, and resistance to parliamentary taxation. They resolved that the people of the province, singly and collectively, were bound by the acts of the continental congress and their provincial convention, because in both they were represented by persons chosen by themselves. The religious and political scruples of the regulators were removed by a conference. Intrigues of Martin with the Highlanders were divulged by Farquhard Campbell; and a committee, on which were many Scots, urged them, not wholly without success, to unite with the other inhabitants of America in defence of rights derived from God and the constitution. The meditated resistance involved a treasury which for the time was supplied by an emission of paper money; the purchase of ammunition and arms; a regular force of one thousand men; an organization of the militia of the colony; an annual provincial congress to be elected by all freeholders; a committee of safety for each

of the six districts into which the province was divided; a provincial council, consisting of the president of the convention and two members from each of the six divisions, as the great executive power. Richard Caswell was detained for service at home, and John Penn, a Virginian by birth, became his successor in the general congress.

On the twenty-fourth, Franklin's plan of a confederacy was introduced by William Hooper, a native of Boston; trained under James Otis to the profession of the law; now a citizen of Wilmington, "the region of politeness and hospitality." The proposition was about to be adopted when Johnston interposed, and, on the fourth of September, it was voted, but not unanimously, that a general confederation ought only to be adopted in the last necessity. Hooper acquiesced; and the house, in its address to the inhabitants of the British empire, unanimously disavowed the desire of independence, asking only to be restored to the state existing before 1763.

On the eighteenth of October the provincial council held its first meeting. Among its members were Samuel Johnston; Samuel Ashe, whose name a mountain county and the fairest town in the western part of the commonwealth keep in memory; and Abner Nash, an eminent lawyer, described by Martin as "the oracle of the committee of Newbern and a principal promoter of sedition;" the perilous office of president fell unanimously to Cornelius Harnett of New Hanover, who was honored as "the Samuel Adams of North Carolina." Thus prepared, the people of the colony awaited the answer to the last petition of congress to the king.

During the first weeks of July neither the court nor the ministers nor the people had taken a real alarm. Even Edmund Burke believed that Gage, from his discipline and artillery as well as his considerable numbers, would beat "the raw American troops." An hour before noon of the twenty-fifth tidings of the Bunker Hill battle reached the cabinet, and spread rapidly through the kingdom and through Europe. "Two more such victories," said Vergennes, "and England will have no army left in America."

Gage was recalled. The command in America was assigned in Canada to Carleton, in the thirteen colonies to Howe. Ten

thousand pounds and an additional supply of three thousand arms were forwarded to Quebec; and, notwithstanding a caution from Barrington, word was sent to Carleton that it was "hoped the next spring to have in North America an army of twenty thousand men, exclusive of the Canadians and Indians." The king, as elector of Hanover, in August made the first contribution. By garrisoning Gibraltar and Minorca with five battalions of electoral infantry, he disengaged an equal number of British troops for service in America. The embarkation of the Hanoverians was courteously promoted by the senate of Hamburg. Not till the first of November did they sail.

The reply to Bunker Hill from England reached Washington before the end of September; and removed from his mind every doubt of the necessity of independence. So reasoned Greene; and the army was impatient when any of the chaplains prayed for the king. The general congress, which assembled in September, was undecided. Intercepted letters of John Adams, in which he had freely unbosomed his complaints of its tardiness and had thrown blame on Dickinson, brought upon the New England statesman the hostility of the proprietary party and of social opinion in Philadelphia. When a "jealousy of New England" broke forth in congress, and a member insinuated distrust of its people, "as artful and designing men, altogether pursuing selfish purposes," Gadsden answered: "I only wish we would imitate instead of abusing them; so far from being under any apprehensions, I bless God there is such a people in America."

The prohibition by parliament of the fisheries of New England, and the restriction on the trade of the southern colonies, went into effect on the twentieth of July: as a measure of counteraction, the ports of America should have been thrown open; but, though secret directions were given for importing powder and arms from "the foreign West Indies," the committee on trade was not appointed till the twenty-second of September, and then hesitated to act.

The roll of the army at Cambridge had, from its first formation, borne the names of men of color, but as yet without legislative approval. On the twenty-sixth Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, moved the discharge of all the negroes in

the army, and he was strongly supported by many of the southern delegates; but the opposition was so determined that "he lost his point."

From an unconfessed want of effective power, the continental congress shrunk from taking into consideration the "inexpressibly distressing" situation of the commander-in-chief. At length a letter from him compelled attention to the critical state of his army. Powder, artillery, fuel, shelter, clothing, provisions, and the soldiers' pay were wanting; and, except the riflemen, all the troops, by the terms of their enlistment, must be disbanded on or before the end of December. For this state of things congress could provide no adequate remedy. On the thirtieth of September they therefore appointed Franklin, Lynch, and Harrison a committee to repair to the camp, and, with the New England colonies and Washington, to devise a method for enlisting the army anew.

Gage, on the tenth of October, embarked for England, and, on his arrival, was dismissed into retirement with high rank and its emoluments. The instructions to Howe, the new commander-in-chief, advised the transfer of the war to New York; but, from the advanced state of the season, and the want of sufficient transports, he decided to winter at Boston. Five days after the departure of Gage the committee from congress arrived at the camp. Franklin brought with him the conviction that the separation from Britain was inevitable. His presence within sight of his native town was welcomed. with affectionate veneration. "During the whole evening," wrote Greene, "I viewed that very great man with silent admiration." With Washington for the military chief, with Franklin for the leading adviser from congress, the conference with the New England commissioners, notwithstanding all difficulties, harmoniously devised a scheme for forming, governing, and supplying a new army of about twenty-three thousand men, whom the general was authorized to enlist without delay, yet not as he wished, for the war, but only for the next campaign. The proposed arrangements, in all their details, had the aspect of an agreement between the army, the continental congress, and the New England colonies; their successful execution depended on those four colonies alone.