CHAPTER XXI.

THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND.

FEBRUARY, 1775.

CHAP. ON the day on which the king received the address XXI. of parliament, the members of the second provincial Feb. congress of Massachusetts, about two hundred and

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fourteen in number, appointed eleven men as their committee of safety, charged to resist every attempt at executing the acts of parliament. For this purpose they were empowered to take possession of the warlike stores of the province, to make returns of the militia and minute men, and to muster so many of the militia as they should judge necessary. General officers were appointed to command the force that should be so assembled. First of those who accepted the trust was Artemas Ward, a soldier of some experience in the French war. Next him as brigadier, stood Seth Pomeroy, the still older veteran, who had served at the siege of Louisburg.

"Resistance to tyranny," thus the congress addressed the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay, "becomes the Christian and social duty of each indi

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vidual. Fleets, troops, and every implement of war CHAP. are sent into the province, to wrest from you that freedom which it is your duty, even at the risk of 1775. your lives, to hand inviolate to posterity. Continue steadfast, and with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which Heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."

These rustic statesmen, in their sincere simplicity, were the true representatives of the inhabitants of Massachusetts. They came together tremulous with emotion, yet resolved from duty never to yield. They were frugal even to parsimony, making the most sparing appropriations ever thought of by a nation preparing for war; yet they held their property and their blood of less account than liberty. They were startled at the lightest rustling of impending danger, but they were no more moved from their deep seated purpose than the granite rock which seems to quiver with the flickering shadow of the overhanging cloud, as the wind drives it by. "Life and liberty shall go together," was their language. "Our existence as a free people absolutely depends on our acting with spirit and vigor," said Joseph Warren; and he wished England to know that the Americans had courage enough to fight for their freedom. "The people," said Samuel Adams, " will defend their liberties with dignity. One regular attempt to subdue this or any other colony, whatever may be the first issue of the attempt, will open a quarrel which will never be closed, till what some of them affect to apprehend, and we truly deprecate, shall take effect."

The second provincial congress before its adjournment appointed a committee to prepare in the recess

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CHAP. rules and regulations for the constitutional army. XXI. They declined to levy taxes in form; but they recom1775. mended the inhabitants to pay all their province tax to a treasurer of their appointment. They re-elected their old delegates to congress. They forbade work or supplies for the English troops, "for," said they, "we may be driven to the hard necessity of taking up arms in our own defence." They urged one of their committees to prepare military stores; and directed reviews of every company of minute men. Aware of the design of the ministry to secure the Canadians and Indians, they authorized communications with the province of Quebec through the committee of correspondence of Boston. A delegation from Connecticut was received, and measures concerted for corresponding with that and all the other colonies. After appointing a day of fasting, enjoining the colony to beware of a surprise, and recommending military discipline, they closed a session of sixteen days.

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The spies of Gage found everywhere the people intent on military exercises; or listening to confident speeches from their officers; or learning from the clergy to esteem themselves as of the tribe of Judah. "Behold," said one of the ministers at a very full review of the militia, "God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm. O children of Israel," thus he rebuked the English; "fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper."

On these bustling preparations of men, who had no artillery, very few muskets with bayonets, and no treasury, the loyalists looked with derision;

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never for a moment doubting that the power of CHAP. Great Britain would trample down, repress, and overwhelm every movement of insurrection. crush the spirit of resistance by terror, and to diffuse a cowardly panic, Daniel Leonard, of Taunton, speaking for them all, held up the spectres of "high treason," "actual rebellion," and "anarchy." He ran through the history of the strife; argued that it was reasonable for America to share in the national burden as in the national benefit; that there was no oppressive exercise of the power of parliament; that the tax of threepence on tea was no tyranny, since a duty of a shilling, imposed as a regulation of trade, had just been taken off; that the bounties paid in England on American produce exceeded the American revenue more than fourfold; that no grievance was felt or seen; that in the universal prosperity, the merchants in the colonies were rich, the yeomanry affluent, the humblest able to gain an estate; that the population doubled in twenty-five years, building cities in the wilderness, and interspersing schools and colleges through the continent; that the country abounded with infallible marks of opulence and freedom; that even James Otis had admitted the authority of parliament over the colonies, and had proved the necessity and duty of obedience to its acts; that resistance to parliament by force would be treason; that rebels would deservedly be cut down like grass before the scythe of the mower, while the gibbet and the scaffold would make away with those whom the sword should spare; that Great Britain was resolved to maintain the power of parliament, and was able to do so; that the colonies south of Pennsylvania had

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CHAP. barely men enough to govern their numerous slaves, XXI. and defend themselves against the Indians; that the 1775. northern colonies had no military stores, nor money to procure them, nor discipline, nor subordination, nor generals capable of opposing officers bred to arms; that five thousand British troops would prevail against fifty thousand Americans; that the British navy on the first day of war would be master of their trade, fisheries, navigation, and maritime towns; that the Canadians and savages would prey upon the back settlements, so that a regular army could devastate the land like a whirlwind; that the colonies never would unite, and New England, perhaps even Massachusetts, would be left to fall alone; that even in Massachusetts thousands among the men of property and others, would flock to the royal standard, while the province would be drenched in the blood of rebels.

The appeal of Leonard was read with triumph by the tories. But John Adams, kindling with indignation at his dastardly menaces and mode of reasoning, entered the lists as the champion of American freedom; employing the fruits of his long study of the British law, the constitution, and of natural right, and expressing the true sentiments of New England.

"My friends: Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. The people can understand and feel the difference between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice. To the sense of this difference the friends of mankind appeal.

"That all men by nature are equal; that kings have but a delegated authority which the people may resume, are the revolution principles of 1688, are the principles of Aristotle and Plato, of Livy and