The Creeks and Chickasaws, this year, sent a number of their chiefs to Charleston, in South Carolina, where they made a cession to the British of several millions of acres of valuable land, in payment of their debts to traders of that nation. Early in September, delegates from twelve of the British North American provinces met in congress, in the city of Philadelphia. They prepared a petition to the king, and an address to the people of Great Britain, on the subject of their grievances. The resentment of parliament, on hearing of the destruction of the tea at Boston, was manifested by the occlusion of that port, until reparation should be made to the East India compary; and the king declared himself convinced that good order would soon be restored in the town. Another statute was passed annulling the charter of the province of Massachusetts bay, and authorising the transportation from any of the provinces, for trial in another province or in England, of any person indicted for murder, or any other capital offence. A statute was also passed, for quartering soldiers on the inhabitants. The boundaries of the province of Quebec were extended, so as to include the territory between the lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi, and its government was vested in a legislative council, to be appointed by the crown. At the request of the Canadians, the French laws were restored to them in civil matters. Two years after, in the declaration of independence, these last measures were urged as grounds of complaint, by the American congress, against George the third, that "he had abolished the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and extending its boundaries, so as to render it at once VOL. II. 5 an example and instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in the other colonies.” In the meanwhile, General Gage fortified Bostonneck, and had the ammunition and stores in the provincial arsenal at Cambridge, and the powder in the magazine at Charleston, brought to Boston. Dufossat and Duplessis were the ordinary alcades for the year 1775. Unzaga was now promoted to the rank of a brigadier-general, and the office of intendant was united to that of governor, in his person. There were a considerable number of runaway negroes, committing great depredations on the plantations. Unzaga, to remedy or lessen this evil, issued a proclamation offering an amnesty, or free pardon, to such as voluntarily returned to their masters, and absolutely forbidding the latter to punish them. This measure had the intended effect; altho' the slaves could not absolutely be protected from the resentment of their masters, who might easily have found a pretence for disregarding Unzaga's injunction. We have seen, towards the end of the preceding volume, that general Lyman, of Connecticut, had contemplated, in 1763, an extensive settlement on the Ohio, and had applied to government for a grant of land. This officer had served with distinction during the preceding war. He had been appointed major-general and commander-in-chief of the forces of his native province in 1755; and, in 1762, he was at Havana, in command of all the American troops. On the return of peace,a company had by his exertions been formed, under the style of the Military Adventurers, composed chiefly of officers and soldiers who had lately served in America. Their object was to obtain a considerable extent of territory, on which they might settle, with as large a number of their countrymen as could be induced to join them. General Lyman went to England as the agent of the company, entertaining no doubt of the success of his application. On his arrival, he found that the friends in the ministry, on whom he depended, had been removed, and those who had succeeded them had other persons to provide for, and found it convenient to forget his services, and those of his associates. Insurmountable obstacles seemed to embarrass him. At last, after a stay of several years, he obtained grants on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and returned. Many of his former companions had died; several had removed to a distance; many had grown old; and all had passed that period of life, when men are willing to encounter the dangers and hardships attending the settlement of a wilderness, under a different climate, and at the distance of a thousand miles from their homes. After a short stay in Connecticut, he departed, with his eldest son and a few friends, with whom he soon formed a settlement, near Fort Panmure, in the district of Natchez. Open hostilities broke out, this year, in the contest which terminated by the severance of thirteen British provinces from the mother country On the 20th of April, the militia of Massachusetts routed a body of regulars at Lexington. In the month of May, the Americans possessed themselves, by surprise, of Ticonderoga; and the fortress of Crown-point surrendered to them soon after. On the first of June, congress appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of all the forces of the united colonies; and he proceeded immediately to the vicinity of Boston, where the regular army and the militia of New-England kept the royal forces in check, and obtained a decisive advantage on the seventeenth of June, at Breed's Hill. In the meanwhile, the provincial congresses had organised their militia, and raised a few bodies of regular troops. Part of the force of New-York, and the adjacent provinces, under generals Wooster and Montgomery, marched into Canaua, and took possession of Chambly, St. Johns, and Montreal, during the months of October and November. General Arnold, with some troops from Connecticut, crossed the wilderness and formed a junction with Wooster and Montgomery, on the right bank of the river St. Lawrence, opposite to Quebec; and crossing the stream, they made an unsuccessful attack upon the town, in which Montgomery fell, on the thirty-first day of December. The ordinary alcades, for the year 1776, were D'Ernonville and Livaudais. Olivier de Vezin took his seat, in the Cabildo, as perpetual regidor and principal provincial alcade; Labarre de la Cestiere, as a perpetual regidor and alguazil mayor; the Chevalier de Clapion, as a perpetual regidor and receiver of fines; and Forstall, as perpetual regidor. Don Bernardo de Galvez succeeded Estacheria in the command of the regiment of Louisiana. There were, at this period, a number of merchants from Boston, New-York and Philadelphia, in NewOrleans: they were all well disposed towards the American cause. Oliver Pollock was the most conspicuous. They had procured a good supply of arms and ammunition for the settlers of the western part of Pennsylvania, which was delivered to colonel Gibson, who came from Pittsburgh for it. This had been done with the knowledge of the colonial government, who gave some assistance to the colonel. Unzaga received the appointment of captain-general of Caraccas. He was much regretted in Louisiana. His mild administration had endeared him to the colonists. He had overlooked the breach of the commercial and fiscal laws of Spain, by the British, who had entirely engrossed the commerce of the province. They had introduced a considerable number of slaves, and by the great aid they afforded to planters, had enabled most of them to extend their establishments to a degree hitherto unknown in the province, and others to form new ones. By the timely exercise of coercion against the dishonest and indolent, he had checked the profligacy of those who misused the facilities which British traders afforded, and compelled them to reduce or surrender establishments which they were unable to sustain. His conduct, in this respect, tho' not absolutely approved by the king's ministers, did not deprive him of the confidence of his sovereign. His promotion fully proved this. Without this illicit trade, Louisiana must have remained an insignificant province. The British army evacuated Boston on the seventeenth of March, and Washington led his to NewYork. The united colonies proclaimed their independence on the fourth of July. The royal land and naval forces reached Staten Island, near NewYork, eight days after. The army landed on Long Island on the twenty-second, and five days after, re |