spired, was this: Among his other preparations for his enemy, Shirley proclaimed a solemn Fast Day, in which the people should meet in all their meeting-houses and seek the help of the Almighty, and they did so. Thomas Prince, of the Old South Meetinghouse, tells us what happened there. In the morning, a crowded congregation joined in prayer, and Prince told them of their danger and exhorted them to their duty. In the afternoon the assembly met again. As Prince led them in their prayer, what seemed a hurricane from the southwest struck the meeting-house. A generation after, men remembered how the steeple above them shook in the gale, and Prince went on, calmly, in his address to the God who rides on the whirlwind:

"We do not presume to advise, O Lord, but if Thy Providence requires that this tempest shall sweep the invaders from the sea, we shall be content."

And this was precisely what happened: This southwest gale tore down the Bay. This side Cape Sable, just off Grand Manan, it found D'Anville's squadron in its magnificent array. It drove ship against ship. It capsized and sank some of the noblest vessels.

It tore the masts out of others.

It discour

aged their crews and their officers. All that was left of this gallant squadron (which was to burn our "hen-coops" here) took refuge in Halifax Bay or crept back under jury-masts to France. In the harbor of Chebucto, as they called Halifax, the wrecks of the fleet were repaired as best they might be. D'Anville and his first officer both died, one as a suicide, and the other from the disgrace of the discomfiture. It is said in Nova Scotia that you may see some of the ships now, if you will look down at the right place in the clear sea, off Cape Sable. A miserable handful of the vessels straggled back to France at the opening of the winter.

The colonists of New England had thus learned two lessons, one in 1745, and one in 1746. In 1745 they had learned that without any assistance from their own king they could storm and take the strongest fortress in America. In 1746 they learned that the anger of the strongest prince in Europe was powerless against them. Those who believed in the immediate providence of God thought that He stretched out His arm in their defense. Those who did not, thought that in the general

providence of God, a people who were three thousand miles away from the greatest sovereign of the world might safely defy his wrath. Curiously enough, in the next year, 1747, the people of Boston had an opportunity to learn a third lesson by measuring strength with their own sovereign.

In that year Admiral Knowles, in command of the English squadron,-rather a favorite till then, I fancy, with the people here, happened to want seamen. He availed himself of that bit of unwritten law which held in England till within my own memory, by impressing seamen from the docks. A memorial of the General Court says that the English government had carried this matter so far that, as they believed, three thousand Americans were at that time in the service of the British navy, having been unwillingly impressed there. But Knowles carried it farther yet. He took on board his fleet some hundreds of shipcarpenters, mechanics, and laboring men; and Boston broke out into a blaze of excitement and fury. There followed the first of the series of proceedings which, with various modifications, lasted for thirty years, until General Howe withdrew the British fleet and army from

Boston. It was a combination of riots and town-meetings, the town-meetings expressing seriously what the rioters did not express so well, the rioters giving a certain emphasis, such as was understood in England, as to the intention of the town-meetings of Boston. We have the most amusing details of this affair in a very valuable and interesting history just published by Mr. John Noble. The rioters seized Knowles's officers whom they found in the town, and shut them up for hostages. Knowles declared that he would bombard the town. But what with the General Court and the town-meetings and the magistrates and the rest, he was soothed down, the people gave up their hostages, and he gave up the men whom he had seized. Boston had measured forces in this affair with King George. Both were satisfied with the result; and, if I may so speak, this first tussle ended

in a tie.

Here were three trials of strength in three years. And the Boston people learned in each of them the elements of their real power. When, nearly twenty years after, Otis made his eloquent protest against the Writs of Assistance, he did not succeed. The Court