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Act was declared illegal, null, and void; it was condemned by resolutions of the Colonial Legislatures; and force was used, by tumultuous gatherings of the people in several towns and districts, to prevent its execution. In October, a Congress of delegates from the Houses of Representatives of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina, was held at New York (other provinces assenting), which adopted a petition to the King, and addresses to both Houses of Parliament, claiming the exclusive power of taxation for the Colonial Legislative bodies. There had, by this time, been a change of Ministry in London. The Administration of Grenville was succeeded by one in which the Marquis of Rockingham was assisted by General Conway, a warm friend of the American colonists; and when Parliament met in the next session, Pitt came forward with a powerful speech in favour of their cause. The liberal policy which he recommended was instantly adopted by Conway and other Ministers. The Address from the Colonial Assemblies was, on its arrival, referred to examination by a Committee, in which Franklin and other delegates from America gave evidence; and Ministers brought in a Bill to repeal the Stamp Act. In the debates that ensued in both Houses, Pitt, Edmund Burke, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barré, and Chief Justice Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, advocated the rights of the colonists. The Stamp Act was annulled; but the removal of that abortive piece of injustice was imprudently accompanied by measures which were subsequently applied with a more irritating effect.

A declaratory Act was passed, affirming the prerogative of the British Parliament, in the abstract, to make laws for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever;" and it was resolved that the Colonial Legislatures should be compelled to provide compensation to persons whose property had been damaged by the Stamp Act riots, instead of leaving the redress of such injuries to judicial procedure. The Colonial Legislatures were also to be compelled, by a clause of the Mutiny or Billeting Act, to supply commodities for the use of the King's troops. These demands, which might have been fairly proposed and freely granted with a proper recognition of the authority of the Colonial Legislatures, seemed intolerable in the imperative form of Acts of Parliament. At the same time, Charles Townshend, who in 1766 became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who had personally distinguished himself by reckless and scornful vituperation of the colonists, prepared a scheme of customs' taxation on their imports, including

paper, glass, painters' colours, and tea. These duties were not fixed at a very burthensome rate; but the avowed intention was to create a revenne which would support the Governor and civil service of each province, independently of supplies voted by the Houses of Assembly. Those Houses were presently threatened with suspension or abolition if they maintained a contumacious attitude; and the colonists generally felt that they must be prepared to defend their old charters of self-government if they would not see them swept away altogether.

We need not relate the particular disputes which were protracted through several years, from 1768 to 1773, between the Governors of the chief provinces, usually acting under peremptory instructions from Ministers at home, and the representative bodies. Lord Hillsborough, now Colonial Secretary of State, was much occupied with the task of censuring, reprimanding, and menacing, the people of Boston and New York. The Massachusetts Assembly was deemed rebellious in 1768, when it invited the others to a Conference, or concerted action, as in 1765, to obtain redress of their common grievances. Ships of war, conveying two regiments of artillery, were sent to Boston at the request of Governor Bernard. The King's Speech, at the opening of Parliament in 1769, condemned the behaviour, of "turbulent and seditious" people in that town. It was proposed to arrest the guilty persons, and bring them to England for a criminal trial; and the forfeiture of the Massachusetts Charter was also contemplated. As a Parliamentary topic, the generally disaffected state of America was frequently alleged by Lord North, who soon after this became Prime Minister, as a reason for not repealing the customs' duties imposed by Charles Townshend. It was thought expedient to retain the duty upon some one article, for the sake of insisting upon the prerogative of taxation; and tea was the article chosen. King George himself is said to have suggested this point to Lord North. Tea, when the other duties were repealed for the sake of commercial interests, became the symbol of political contention; and motions concerning it were repeatedly made by the Liberal politicians, the friends of American rights, in the House of Commons.

But far more serious was the agitation that already prevailed on the opposite shore of the Atlantic. In almost every province, the ordinary course of public affairs was interrupted, or was fatally embittered, by prolonged quarrels and mutual affronts between the official representatives of the Crown and the elected Assemblies. So

A.D. 1769.]

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

early as April, 1769, the grave and patient mind of George Washington, in a letter of that date, expressed a fear that "our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of that freedom which we have derived from our ancestors." He doubted whether a mere attitude of passive resistance, or a popular agreement to decline the use of taxed commodities, would avail to defeat that purpose. The temper of the people, in every province, and in the rural districts as well as in the towns, became harder and sterner with multiplied proofs of the hostile intentions of the King's Government, which met them in every newspaper report from England, and in the demeanour of his Majesty's civil and military servants towards them. At New York, in March, 1770, the soldiery, being pelted with stones by boys, fired and killed a child; some days later, there was another scene of the same kind, and several persons were shot down. At Boston, which had already seen its State House invaded by a military force, the conduct of Mr. Hutchinson, the Lieutenant-Governor, caused increasing exasperation. It was then suspected, and by a discovery of Franklin's in London it was afterwards proved, that the Governor, like some others in a similar position, had for years been intriguing for the subversion of the chartered liberties of the colony. All these matters were viewed in the light of such apprehensions by the alarmed and angry citizens of New England; and it was the same in the other provinces.

The well-known exploit of the "Boston boys," as they were called, in spoiling a cargo of tea on board three ships in their harbour, by a nocturnal onslaught, which happened on December 16th, 1773, has its grotesque and humorous aspect; but it has become a famous landmark in the history of the American Revolution. This startling outrage was encountered, when the news reached England, by Lord North's Ministry proposing the severest measures of punishment for the rebellious town. The port of Boston was to be shut up from every kind of trade; the State of Massachusetts was to be reduced to a community under an absolutely despotic rule; it was to be filled with British troops quartered on its towns as by military conquest. Some of the Tories were for destroying the town, which they called "a nest of hornets." Boston rebels were to be carried to England for trial and execution. In spite of generous speeches from Burke, Fox, Barré, Pownall (a former Governor of Massachusetts), General Conway, and other Liberals, the measures of Lord North were carried by immense majorities. In the month of

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May, 1774, General Gage, with a fleet and an army, came to Boston, holding a double commission as civil and as military Governor. The sudden stoppage of trade, by the enforcement of the Boston Port Act, caused much distress among the thirty thousand inhabitants of that town. Subscriptions for its relief were raised in almost every part of English America, and resolutions were everywhere passed, calling for a Convention or Congress to defend the common cause. The Massachusetts Assembly, meeting at Salem, appointed the holding of such a Congress at Philadelphia in the first days of September. The American Revolution had fairly begun; and subsequent efforts at conciliation, tried by General Gage and the Home Government, were too late to quench the fire which, after a long and sullen smouldering now burst into flame.

The Congress, presided over by Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, consisted at first of only fiftyfive delegates, representing eleven colonies; and, though the colonies were very unequal in size, population, and resources, each was to have an equal vote. This rule, proposed by Patrick Henry, made the future American Republic a Federation, instead of a mere Democracy; but the project of creating a new political system, independent of Great Britain, was not yet openly confessed, though some active leaders of the movement had long cherished the idea of separation. Addresses, dexterously varied in tone and purport, to their American fellow-countrymen, to the people of Great Britain, to the King to the Canadians, and to the inhabitants of Crown colonies, were adopted by the "Continental Congress," as it was at first styled, with a Declaration of Rights conformable to their professed views. It was resolved that the execution of the late Acts of Parliament violating the charter of Massachusetts should be opposed; that, pending this dispute, no merchandise should be imported from Great Britain and Ireland; and that, after a twelvemonth, none should be exported from the colonies, either to that kingdom or to the West Indies. The African slave-trade, which was then chiefly carried on by British vessels, and was patronised by the British Government, was to be entirely forbidden; there was a strong feeling against it even in Virginia and South Carolina. The acceptance of these resolutions by the people in the several colonies was not perfectly unanimous. The Quakers of Pennsylvania and New Jersey deprecated a conflict of armed force, in any event, with the Government by law established; and in the city of New York, the wealthier class of in

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ing towns; a militia was enrolled, with elective regimental officers; arms were procured, and the men were regularly drilled. The Assembly, now meeting at Concord, under the presidency of John Hancock, and afterwards at Cambridge, close to Boston, called upon General Gage to desist from the fortification works he had begun at Boston Neck. Upon his refusal, they voted a sum of money, and levied provincial taxes, for the expenses of the coming struggle.

It broke out into actual war in 1775. Debates in the British Parliament, in which Pitt, now Earl

most of the other colonies, and excluding them from British trade, which they had indeed resolved to forego. Lord Howe, a distinguished Admiral, was appointed to command the fleet, on the American coast, but was instructed to enter into conciliatory negotiations, if he found any disposi tion to submit to the authority of the Crown. His brother, General Sir William Howe, was to take the military command, having under him Generals Clinton and Burgoyne. In April, when the news from England showed that Government intended to put down rebellion by force, General Gage,

A.D. 1775.]

OUTBREAK OF THE AMERICAN WAR.

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hitherto rather passive, determined to show his was made to break up the wooden bridge, a conzeal by striking a blow. On the night of the flict began which lasted half an hour. The officer 18th, a force of eight hundred Light Infantry was in command, seeing that the hostile force was insent to destroy the stores of arms and ammunition creasing, thought it best to retire; but the Ameriat Concord, eighteen miles from Boston. cans, firing from behind hedges, rocks, and trees, gence of this movement was carried that night harassed the returning march of the troops. They

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The Massachusetts Provincial Congress, a few days afterwards, resolved that an army of thirty thousand men should be raised in New England. Some twenty thousand, under Major-General Artemas Ward, were soon assembled to undertake the siege of Boston. They had little artillery, and could not effect anything in face of Gage's fortifications, supported by ships of war in the harbour. Badly commanded, undisciplined, and ill-equipped, the volunteer militia of Massachusetts soon fell off, when an unexpected incident took place which raised greater hopes of success for their cause. The large inland waters, Lake George and Lake Champlain, with intervening straits, which divide Vermont from the northern territory of New York, were guarded by two small British forts, Ticonderoga and New York. A band of less than one hundred men surprised and captured these forts, in which they found both artillery and large stores of ammunition. The second session of the Continental Congress was opened at Philadelphia, and cordially approved the conduct of Massachusetts. The colonies which had already voted for the boldest course were now joined by New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and North Carolina. A Confederation of Thirteen Colonies was solemnly formed. It was resolved to issue a paper currency, and to create an American army. General George Washington was appointed its Commander-in-Chief; and his personal qualities, which, in the esteem of his contemporaries, and of posterity, merited the highest regard,—his serene self-command, purity of spirit, devotion to the public service, and patient resolution of purpose, were worth more than military genius in the protracted contest that ensued.

Before Washington could arrive in the camp at Boston, an important battle had been fought, and the soldiership of the Americans had been signally proved. On the 22nd of May, Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, with their reinforcements of troops from England, had joined General Gage. To the north of the city, across an inlet of the sea, is the suburb of Charleston, above which rise two eminences, Breed's Hill and Bunker's Hill, the former commanding Boston and its harbour. The directing committee of the military operations for Massachusetts ordered the besieging force to occupy one of these hills. It was done by a thousand men under Colonel William Prescott, who quietly went up in the night, and formed an entrenched redoubt on the summit. Daylight showed the British generals, on the 17th of June, what a position their enemy had gained. A force of two thousand, under General Howe and Brigadier Pigot, crossed

ton.

the water at noon, to expel the Americans from the hill, and, if possible, to capture them. Two hours later, the British went up to the assault, while a party of their comrades below set fire to CharlesPrescott met the attack with great skill, and his men behaved with a cool and steady courage worthy of their race. Letting the soldiers ascend the hill to within a few yards of the fence behind which they waited, the New Englanders poured forth a deadly volley, every musket being carefully aimed, and with such effect that the troops fell into disorder, turned their backs, and ran confusedly down the hill. This took place on both sides of the redoubt; and a second attack, when the British officers had rallied their men, was also repulsed with much loss, two hundred and twenty being killed. The assailants were, at a later hour in the afternoon, reinforced by General Clinton with another body of troops. They made a fresh advance, in three divisions, acting simultaneously against the south, east, and north sides of the redoubt. Prescott had also got reinforcements from General Ward at Cambridge, and made an obstinate defence. It did not avail him further. The British troops, having bayonets, which the Americans had not, came to close quarters, storming and rushing over the entrenchments. The position was won; but the Americans forced their way out, and got to their camp, having lost much fewer in killed and wounded than their enemies had lost. This battle, called, not quite correctly, that of Bunker's Hill, did very much to establish the reputation of American valour; but it is erroneous to regard it as an American victory, as the illinformed sometimes do.

The condition of the Massachusetts army on the 2nd of July, when General Washington came to take command, was far from satisfactory or hopeful. It amounted to fourteen or fifteen thousand men, who had had little training, and whose equipment was miserable. The lack of organisation and discipline was a glaring defect, but was one that the diligence and military talent of so able a commander would be sure to mend. The want of means, of proper arms, proper clothing, a regular supply of food, and adequate shelter for the men, was the greatest difficulty of Washington's campaigns. It was felt even in summer, and in the neighbourhood of Boston; it was infinitely worse in some of the later operations, where the Americans triumphed by sheer endurance. At present, while doing his best to press on the siege of Boston, Washington wrote to Congress exposing the state of affairs; and in October commissioners arrived at his headquarters at Cambridge, who took advice,

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