quired the Assembly to rescind their action and to express regret for that "rash and hasty proceeding."

The merchantmen trading with the colonies caught their spirit. In many instances they chose to violate the customs act and dutiable goods were thus brought in free. In June of 1768 a sloop charged with evading the payment of duty was seized by the custom-house officers at Boston. This done, a tumult broke out. The people became insurgent, attacked the houses of the officers and obliged the occupants to save themselves by flight to Castle William, on an island in the harbor. Affairs soon came to so high a pass as to betoken revolution. General Gage, commandant of a regiment of British regulars at Halifax, was accordingly ordered to repair to Boston and overawe the insurgents. He arrived at that city on the 1st of October bringing with him seven hundred soldiers. With these he marched into the capital of Massachusetts after the manner of a conqueror.

The excitement in Parliament rose to an equal height. In February of 1769 that body passed an act declaring the people of Massachusetts to be rebels and directing the gov ernor to arrest such as might be deemed guilty and send them to England for trial! This act was fuel to the flame. The General Assembly of Massachusetts met the outrage with defiant resolutions. Similar measures were taken by the Assemblies in Virginia and North Carolina. In the latter State there was a popular insurrection, but Governor Tryon succeeded in suppressing it. The insurgents being outlawed escaped across the mountains to become the founders of Tennessee.

Already in the principal American cities the peace was broken between the British soldiery and the people. The former constituted a kind of garrisons, with no respect indeed to a foreign foe, but having the manifest purpose

of suppressing the inhabitants among whom they were quartered. In 1770 the British soldiers in New York cut down a liberty pole which had been erected in the Park. Hereupon a conflict ensued in which the people were victorious. In Boston a more serious difficulty occurred. In that city, on the 5th of March, a crowd of people, rough but patriotic, surrounded Captain Preston's company of the city guard, addressed them with epithets, hooted at them and dared them to fire. At length the soldiers becoming angry took the challenge, discharged a volley and killed three of the citizens, wounding several others. This riot of blood and lawlessness became known as the Boston massacre. The event created a profound sensation. Captain Preston and his company were arrested and tried for murder, and two of the offenders were convicted of manslaughter.

By this time it had become apparent even in England that a different policy must be adopted with the American colonies. The method of conciliation was now attempted, and Parliament passed an act repealing all duties on American imports except that on tea. The people in answer pledged themselves to use no more tea until the duty should be unconditionally repealed. In 1772 an act was passed making the salaries of the King's officers in Massachusetts payable out of the treasury without consent of the Assembly. This measure was resisted as the others before it had been. About the same time the Gaspée, a royal schooner anchored at Providence, was boarded by the patriots of that city and burned.

In the following year Parliament, acting after the manner of a petulant boy having the wrong side of a quarrel, and abandoning his former untenable position as if by stages of apology and reparation, passed an act removing the export duty which had hitherto been charged on tea

shipped from England. The price was by so much lowered, and the ministers flattered themselves with the belief that when the cheaper tea was offered in the American market the colonists would pay the import duty without suspicion. Ships were accordingly loaded with tea for America. Some of the vessels reached Charlestown; but the tea chests being refused by the merchants were stored in cellars and the contents ruined. At New York and Philadelphia the ships were forbidden to enter the docks. At Boston the authorities would not permit the tea to be landed.

Now it was that one of the striking incidents precursive of the coming war occurred at the capital of Massachusetts. On the 16th of December, 1773, there was a great town meeting, at which about seven thousand people were present. Samuel Adams and Josiah Quincy spoke to the multitude. Evening came on, and the meeting was about to adjourn when a war whoop was heard, and fifty men disguised as Indians marched to the wharf where the tea-chests ships were at anchor. The masqueraded men quickly boarded the vessels and emptied three hundred and forty chests of tea into the bay. Such was the Boston Tea Party! In the language of Carlyle, "Boston harbor was black with unexpected tea!"

Great was the wrath produced by the intelligence of this event in Great Britain. Parliament made haste to find revenge. On the 31st of March, 1774, the Boston Port Bill was passed, by which it was enacted that no kind of merchandise should any longer be landed or shipped at the wharves of Boston. The custom-house was removed to Salem; but the people of that town refused to accept it! What must have been the temper and sentiment of a town which refused to accept a custom-house as a free gift from the mother country? The inhabitants of Marblehead gave the free use of their warehouses to the merchants of Boston.

When the news of the passage of the Port Bill reached Virginia the burgesses promptly entered a protest on their journal. Hereupon Governor Dunmore ordered the members to their homes; but they adjourned only to meet in another place and continue their work. On the 20th of May a climax was reached in Parliament by the passage of an act revoking and annulling the charter of Massachusetts. The people of that province were declared rebels, and the governor was ordered to send abroad for trial all persons who should resist the royal officers.

Now it was, namely, in September of 1774, that the Second Colonial Congress assembled at Philadelphia. Eleven colonies were represented. One address was prepared and sent to the King, a second to the English nation and a third to the people of Canada. A resolution was adopted to suspend all commercial intercourse with Great Britain! When information of this daring measure reached England Parliament retaliated by ordering General Gage to reduce the colonists by force. A fleet and ten thousand soldiers were sent to aid him in the work of subjugation. Boston Neck was seized and fortified by the British. The military stores at Cambridge and Charlestown were conveyed to Boston and the General Assembly was ordered to disband. The members however, instead of dispersing, voted to raise and equip an army of twelve thousand men for defense.

CHAPTER XIII.

FROM the first the people of Boston were on one side and General Gage and his army on the other. There was hardly a middle ground of conservatism between them. As soon as the British occupancy was effected, the Bostonians, concealing their ammunition in carts, conveyed it out of the city to the village of Concord, about sixteen miles away. The possession of these military stores was of the greatest importance to the colony, and their recapture of like importance to the British commander. On the night of the 18th of April he accordingly dispatched a regiment of eight hundred men to recapture or destroy the stores which the patriots had collected at Concord. The plan of the British was made with great secrecy, but the provincials discovered the movement, and when the regiment, under command of Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, set out for Concord, the people of Boston were roused by the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon. Two messengers, William Dawes and Paul Revere, rode with all speed to Lexington and spread the alarm through the country.

At two o'clock in the morning of the 19th of April a company of a hundred and thirty minute-men gathered on the common at Lexington. They came with arms to resist the approaching enemy. But no enemy appeared until about five o'clock, when the British advanced under Pitcairn came into sight. The provincials were led by Captain Parker. Pitcairn rode up and exclaimed: "Disperse, ye villains! Throw down your arms!" The minute-men stood still, and Pitcairn cried "Fire!" The first volley of the Revolution