president of the New England Provincial Congress. This battle had important influence on both sides. Howe is said to have exclaimed, "They may talk of their 'Mindens' and their 'Fontenoys,' but there was no such fire there!" Gage reported to the administration that the Americans were not the "despicable rabble" that they had been supposed to be, that they possessed a military spirit joined with uncommon zeal and enthusiasm, and that the conquest of the country would not be easy. The Americans were encouraged by the defeat. They had completely crippled Gage, and Prescott had been confident enough to offer to retake the works if he could have fifteen hundred men. Washington had his faith confirmed that the liberty of America was to be secured, and Franklin wrote to England that the Colonies were lost forever. The battle also brought Georgia into the Union of colonies, which henceforth numbered thirteen.

Torn from a world of tyrants,
Beneath this western sky,

We formed a new dominion,

A land of liberty.

The world shall own we're masters here,

Then hasten on the day:

Huzza, huzza, huzza,

For free America!

-Joseph Warren.

CHAPTER XIII.

INDEPENDENCE.

II SHILLNGS VI-PENCE

BRITISH STAMPS

(for the American market.)

WA

WASHINGTON received his commission from Congress three days after the battle on Breed's Hill. The spirit with which he entered upon the responsible duties of commander-in-chief may be learned from his correspondence. To his wife he wrote that he had endeavored to avoid the appointment, from a sense that the duties were beyond his capacity, but that he entered upon them relying confidently upon that Providence which had hitherto preserved him. This spirit he carried through the war.

On the twenty-third of June, accompanied by a brilliant mounted escort, Washington left Philadelphia to assume command of the army. He was accompanied by two of the four Major-Generals just appointed by Congress, Charles Lee, an officer of uneven temper, who had returned from Europe the previous year, and Philip Schuyler, a man of great zeal for the cause and of high social connections in New York. Two or three hours out of the city they were met by a courier

bearing the news of the battle of Bunker Hill, and Washington eagerly inquired as to the behavior of the militia-men on the occasion. The response satisfied him that the country was safe. The slow journey gave the three officers a good opportunity to discuss the state of affairs, and their time was mostly given up to such a council as was needed by men who had just been chosen to prosecute a war. On the twenty

fifth, the party arrived at Newark, where a committee

me Washing For

of the Provincial Congress appeared to act

as escort to New York. They reached that city in the afternoon, and the inhabitants turned out with every attestation of joy, to greet the new com

though at a later hour, and was received with respect by the loyalists; but the people looked upon him with suspicion.

WASHINGTON AT CAMBRIDGE.

269

Having placed Schuyler in command in New York, Washington hastened towards Cambridge, with Lee, leaving the city on the twenty-sixth, and arriving at Watertown, where the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was in session, on the second of July. He was greeted with a congratulatory address, as had been the case in New York, and the same day went to Cambridge, where the house of the president of the college had been prepared as his headquarters.* The Commander-in-chief was greeted by thundering of artillery, and the shouts of the multitude. He was in the height of his physical vigor, forty-three years of age, a man of stately person, of elegant and dignified manners, military in his bearing, and, like all Virginians, perfectly at home in the saddle. Mrs. John Adams wrote, that as she looked on him the lines of Dryden instantly occurred to her :

Mark his majestic fabric! He's a temple
Sacred by birth and built by hands divine;
His soul's the deity that lodges there:
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god.

On the morning of the third of July, Washington, accompanied by General Lee, formally took command of the army, under an elm which is still cherished as a memento of the occasion. The army was drawn up on the Common before him. The soldiers were ill armed. General Nathaniel Greene, commander of the Rhode Island forces, greeted Washington with a soldierly address, and was received immediately into the confidence of the Commander-in-chief.

* This was exchanged after a few weeks, and the house for many years occupied by the poet Longfellow, became headquarters.

Washington found his irregular army stretched out over a territory of some eight or nine miles in extent, holding in restraint the well-disciplined and well-provisioned army of England, which, under Gage, Burgoyne and Howe, occupied Boston, and the shipping in the harbor. The prospect was not cheering, and it became his first duty to acquaint Congress of the

THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

state of affairs, showing the destitution of the soldiers, the need of the appointment without delay, of a quartermaster-general, a commissary-general, and other general officers.

On the Fourth of July, Washington issued an order to the forces, in which he said, that as the Continental Congress had taken all troops into its service,