XXXII.

May.

СПАР. In writing to the committee for Boston, they acknowledged the noble stand taken by Massachusetts; 1775. and to the Boston wanderers, they sent sixty-three barrels of rice and one hundred and twenty-two pounds in specie. On the king's birthday the patriots erected a liberty pole; as if to express the wish still to combine allegiance to the king with their devotion to American liberty.

"A general rebellion throughout America is coming on suddenly and swiftly," reported their "Matters will go to the utmost extremity."

governor.

Meantime, great deeds had been achieved by the mountaineers of the north. To hold the city of New York, its harbor, and the river Hudson, and by means of the fortresses on the lakes to keep open a free communication with Canada, was the scheme by which it was hoped to insulate and reduce New England. On Saturday, the twenty-ninth of April, Samuel Adams and Hancock, as they passed through Hartford, had secretly met the governor and council of Connecticut, to promote the surprise of Ticonderoga, which had been planned by the Green Mountain Boys. Ethan Allen was encouraged by an express messenger to hold them in readiness; and the necessary funds were furnished from the treasury of Connecticut. Sixteen men of that colony leaving Salisbury, were joined in Massachusetts by John Brown, who had first proposed the enterprise in a letter from Montreal, by Colonel James Easton, and by not so many as fifty volunteers from Berkshire. At Bennington they found Ethan Allen, who was certainly "the proper man to head his own people." Repairing to the north, he sent the alarm through the

XXXII.

1775.

hills of Vermont; and on Sunday, the seventh of CHAP. May, about one hundred Green Mountain Boys and near fifty soldiers from Massachusetts, under the com- May. mand of Easton, rallied at Castleton. Just then arrived Benedict Arnold, with only one attendant. He brought a commission from the Massachusetts committee of safety, which was disregarded, and the men unanimously elected Ethan Allen their chief.

On the eighth of May, the party began the march; late on the ninth, they arrived at Orwell. With the utmost difficulty, a few boats were got together, and eighty-three men crossing the lake with Allen, landed near the garrison. The boats were sent back for Seth Warner and the rear guard; but if they were to be waited for, there could be no surprise. The men were, therefore, at once drawn up in three ranks, and as the first beams of morning broke upon the mountain peaks, Allen addressed them: "Friends and fellow-soldiers: We must this morning quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress; and inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge it on, contrary to will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelock."

At the word every firelock was poised. "Face to the right," cried Allen; and placing himself at the head of the centre file, Arnold keeping emulously at his side, he marched to the gate. It was shut, but the wicket was open. The sentry snapped a fuzee at him. The Americans rushed into the fort, darted upon the guards, and raising the Indian war whoop, such as had not been heard there since the days of Montcalm, formed on the parade in hollow

CHAP. square, to face each of the barracks. One of the XXXII. sentries, after wounding an officer, and being slightly 1775. wounded himself, cried out for quarter and showed 10. the way to the apartment of the commanding officer.

May

"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!" answered 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.

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.

CHAP.

MAY TO JULY, 1775.

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;