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mated that they would brook no refusal. revoked their acceptance of the office to which they were called, and the remainder sought shelter with the Royal army at Boston.

While the delegates were pursuing their way to the capital of Pennsylvania, hailed in many quarters by deputations of enthusiastic citizens, and cheered by the ringing of bells, the Boston committee-men were joined by representatives of several towns in the surrounding country. By this body it was unanimously resolved that the recent acts of the English Government were unconstitutional, despotic, and opposed to natural rights, and that any attempt to enforce them would be an usurpation, even should the agents bear the commission of the King. The unconstitutional courts were forbidden to proceed, and their officers were described as "traitors cloaked with a pretext of law." Practice in arms was declared to be the duty of the people, and persons threatened with arrest were placed under the protection of their county and province. At Springfield, the inferior court was completely overawed by a band of nearly two thousand men, who marched into the town with drums and trumpets playing, planted a black flag before the court-house, and vowed they would kill any one who should seek to enter. The upshot of this bold movement was that the judges executed a written covenant not to put their commissions in force, and some of the lawyers signed a confession of their error in having sent an address to Gage. Certain offenders against popular principles were compelled to beg forgiveness, and a military officer was tarred and feathered. At Boston, the persons returned as jurors refused to take the oath, on the ground that the Chief Justice of the court had been impeached by the late representatives of the province, that the charter of Massachusetts had been changed by an act of usurped power, and that three of the judges had accepted seats in the new Council, in violation of the constitution. The judges afterwards declared to Gage that they could do nothing. Gage himself, on consulting with the fragment of his Council at Boston, found himself in a dilemma from which the military force at his disposal was not sufficient to extricate him.

He now took a step which added fresh fuel to the fire of popular discontent. On the morning of the 1st of September, he despatched two hundred and sixty men up the river Mystic to Quarry Hill, situated on a point of land between Medford and Cambridge, with instructions to seize the powder belonging to the province of Massachusetts which had been stored there. Two hundred and fifty

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half-barrels were thus transferred to the castle, and at the same time two field-pieces were taken away from Cambridge. This act set the people in a ferment. They met in large numbers, and by intimidation compelled several of the Government officials to resign their functions. Gage wrote home that without considerable reinforcements he could do nothing. The malcontents, he said, were not a mere Boston mob, but the freeholders and farmers of the county. They were numerous, and excited to a pitch of fury. The aspect of affairs was indeed so threatening that Gage feared a repulse if he attempted any active operations. A check, he observed in his despatch, would be fatal, and the first stroke would decide a great deal. Oliver, the Lieutenant-Governor, after protesting that he would die, rather than submit to the dictation of the people, yielded to all their demands. The feeling of apprehension in the English camp at Boston was so great that the guards were doubled, cannon were planted on the outskirts of the town towards the country, and the troops were required to hold themselves in constant readiness against a surprise. Reinforcements were hastily summoned by Gage from Quebec and New York; but he still felt far from secure, and urgently demanded help from England. He also suggested the employment of Indians and Canadians against the English colonists-a conception fraught with mischief, especially as regarded the enlisting of savage warriors. New England was but too well acquainted with the merciless ferocity of those barbarian hordes, when excited by contest, by fanaticism, or by liquor.

With every succeeding day, the excitement caused by the seizure of the gunpowder at Quarry Hill became more formidable. Large masses of armed men, from several of the towns and counties of Massachusetts, of the other New England provinces, and of the neighbouring colonies, were on their march to Boston. A collision with the Royal troops would probably have ensued, had not the leaders of the patriotic party in that city sent word to their friends that the time for action had not arrived. But it was distinctly understood that the day of retribution for accumulated injuries was fast approaching, and Putnam wrote that, on the first intimation from Boston of a desire for martial assistance, he would be prepared with forty thousand men, well-equipped, to share in the honour of ridding their country of the tyrants by whom it was oppressed. The adjourned convention of the county of Suffolk, in Massachusetts, approved of the resistance of the people, declared that the sovereign who breaks a compact with his subjects

forfeits their allegiance, rejected the Regulating Act of Parliament and all officers appointed under it, enjoined the mandamus councillors to resign their places within eleven days, directed the collectors of taxes not to pay any money to the treasurer recognised by Gage, and resolved, should that General arrest any one on political grounds, to seize all the Crown officers in the province as hostages. The members also made suggestions for

the election of officers of militia (formerly appointed by the Governor and Council), and for the holding of Provincial Congresses together with the General Congress which was shortly to assemble at Philadelphia. In the meanwhile, Gage was beginning to construct those fortifications on the neck of land joining Boston to the surrounding country, by which he hoped to secure the town and overawe the provinces.

MONDAY, the 5th of September, 1774, was a great and important day in the annals of English America. It was the day on which the Congress of the United Provinces met in solemn session at Philadelphia. The members deputed by the several colonies had been arriving for some days, and they greeted one another with enthusiasm as the vanguard of liberty in that young western world. It was suggested to them, by Galloway, of Philadelphia, that they should appoint commissioners with full powers to go to England, and there represent their grievances to the Court. But it was very generally felt that such a proceeding would be undignified and futile. The representatives of the provinces were resolved to discuss their wrongs in a freely-elected Parliament of their own. They were in no mood to pay homage either to the English Throne or to the English Legislature, and they set to work without delay to organise a Chamber for the efficient consideration of every subject bearing on the political wellbeing of their widely-separated, but still in some respects homogeneous, communities. The first meeting took place in a tavern, and it was determined to accept the offer of the carpenters of Philadelphia, who placed their spacious hall at the disposal of the delegates. The number of members was at first fifty-five, including such men as George Washington, Samuel and John Adams, Patrick

Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and others of high repute, if not of equal renown; and the colonies represented were eleven. Peyton Randolph, late Speaker of the Virginian Assembly, was chosen President of the Congress, and the conduct of business was regulated with all the formality of an established Legislature. As the provinces were not equally represented as regards the number of members, and their relative importance could not be exactly ascertained, it was decided that each colony should give one equal vote on every question discussed. The meetings were to be held with closed doors, and the transactions of the Assembly were on no account to be divulged, unless by order of the majority.

The resolution with respect to the voting power of each colony was arrived at on the second day of meeting, when Patrick Henry, speaking on behalf of Virginia, drew forth in long array the many injuries inflicted on America by the action of the English Parliament. His speech was the first utterance of the Congress after its organisation. It had not been quite clear what business should be first transacted; the responsibility of commencing proceedings of such vast importance and such uncertain issues weighed heavily on all; and for some time an embarrassing silence prevailed. The magnificent oratory of Patrick Henry breathed, or rather flashed, a spirit of life into the dead assem

blage. He declared that the injustice of England had brought all government in the provinces to an end; that they had to begin anew; and that the Congress then sitting was the first in a never-ending succession of Congresses. He then went on to consider the future constitution of what he clearly regarded as a Federation of independent States. The representation of the colonies, he contended, must in the main be democratical, though he was prepared to concede somewhat to the claims of property, and to considerations of import and export, in adjusting the relative powers of the provinces. Slaves were to be absolutely excluded from any share in the political constitution of the general government; and if the freemen could be represented according to their numbers, such an arrangement, in the opinion of the speaker, would be the one most desirable. He would not allow any force to the objection that this would give too much power to the more populous States. British oppression, he said, had made one nation of the several colonies, so that he no longer considered himself a Virginian, but an American. Many contradictory opinions were expressed; but in the end the matter was settled in the way indicated by Henry.

Some

Before the close of the third sitting, an express arrived from Putnam, reporting an attack on the people by the troops at Boston, and that Massachusetts and Connecticut were in arms. A profound impression was produced, and next day the bells rang a muffled peal. Having despatched a letter to General Gage, requesting him to desist from his Teasures, Congress appointed a committee on the rights of the colonies, and another on the British statutes affecting their manufactures and trade. At a subsequent sitting, the first of these committees discussed with great minuteness the difficult question which was to engage its attention. were for going to extreme lengths, and for basing the liberties of the provincials on natural rights; others disagreed with this view, either from genuine dislike, or from a prudential fear of consequences. John Rutledge, of South Carolina, contended that allegiance was inalienable, and that the rights of the Americans were derived simply from the British Constitution. Similar deviations of opinion were observable with reference to the question whether or not Parliament had any jurisdiction over the colonies. The more moderate would allow some control; the more uncompromising opponents of England refused to admit the slightest. While the matter was being discussed, further intelligence arrived from Massachusetts as to what was going on there. The delegates from that province laid before Congress the address of the Suffolk county

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convention to Gage on his recent measures of military coercion, and the resolutions of the same body rejecting all obedience to laws passed by the English Parliament. Adhesion to the address and resolutions was enthusiastically voted by the Congress, which furthermore expressed a hope that the united efforts of North America would so convince the British nation of the unjust and ruinous nature of the policy then being carried out by the Administration as to enforce the employment of better men, and the introduction of wiser measures. But the hope was a vain one. It cannot be doubted that the English people, in the main, supported the Ministry in their determination, if possible, to put down American resistance. The national honour was supposed to be bound up in the result; and the agreement of the colonists to admit of no Parliamentary jurisdiction whatever, increased the popular anger at American disloyalty.

The result of the discussion on colonial rights in the Philadelphian (or, as it was called, the Continental) Congress, was a tacit admission that the privileges of the colonists rested on a historical rather than a natural basis. The statement of grievances was equally limited, it being determined, against the wish of South Carolina, not to include in that statement any reference to the Navigation Acts, or to the laws injuriously affecting manufactures, which had been passed in earlier times (though these were very generally condemned), but to have regard only to what had been done since the accession of George III. The division of opinion as to the authority of the mother country was serious and prolonged; but at length a compromise was proposed by John Adams in the following words, which were introduced into a Declaration of Rights :-" From the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of the countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such Acts of the British Parliament as are, bond file, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole Empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America without their consent." These concessions to the claims of Great Britain, with the consequent limitations of the American case, were dictated by prudence rather than by principle. The more cautious feared to provoke the power of England, and perhaps hoped to stand well with the rest of Europe by a display of moderation. But it is apparent that most of the members were strongly inclined, as a matter of individual opinion, to a