"The tyrant!" said the impatient Samuel Adams, as he read the proceedings at the late opening of parliament; “his speech breathes the most malevolent spirit, and determines my opinion of its author as a man of a wicked heart. I have heard that he is his own minister; why, then, should we cast the odium of distressing mankind upon his minions? Guilt must lie at his door; divine vengeance will fall on his head;" and, with the aid of Wythe of Virginia, the patriot set vigorously to work to bring on a confederation and independ

ence.

On the day after the publication of "Common Sense," Wilson came to congress with the king's speech in his hand; and, quoting from it the words which charged the colonists with aiming at a separation, he moved the appointment of a committee to explain to their constituents and to the world the principles and grounds of their opposition, and their present intentions respecting independence. He was strongly supported. On the other hand, Samuel Adams insisted that congress had already been explicit enough, and rallied the bolder members, in the hope to defeat the proposal; but, in the absence of John Adams, even his colleagues, Cushing and Paine, sided with Wilson, and the vote of Massachusetts formed a part of his majority. When Cushing's constituents heard of his wavering, they elected Elbridge Gerry in his place; at the moment, Samuel Adams repaired to Franklin. In a free conversation, these two great sons of Boston agreed that confederation must be speedily brought on, even though the concurrence of every colony could not be obtained. "If none of the rest will join,' said Samuel Adams to Franklin, "I will endeavor to unite the New England colonies in confederating." "I approve your proposal," said Franklin; "and, if you succeed, I will cast in my lot among you."

On the sixteenth, Franklin, who best knew the folly of expecting peace through British commissioners, endeavored to get a day fixed for the consideration of his plan of a confederacy; but he was opposed by Hooper, who, contrary to his own wishes, obeyed the instructions of North Carolina, and the majority was against him. The inexorable malice of the king and his officers could alone impel the thirteen colonies to

a united assertion of independence. It soon left no option to the oldest and largest and most populous of them all.

Driven from the land of Virginia, Dunmore maintained command of the water by means of a flotilla composed of three vessels-of-war, carrying altogether fifty-four guns, aided by ships, light vessels, and tenders. His first outrage was on the press. Finding fault with the newspaper published by John Holt at Norfolk, he sent on shore a small party, who brought off two printers and the materials of a printing-office.

A few months later this precedent was followed in New York. Isaac Sears, entering the city with a party of mounted volunteers from Connecticut, rifled the printing-house of the tory Rivington; but the act was censured by the committee and convention of New York as an infringement of the liberty of the press, and a dangerous example to their enemies.

In Virginia the war began with the defence of Hampton, a small village at the end of the isthmus between York and James rivers. An armed sloop, driven on its shore in a gale, had been rifled and set on fire. Dunmore blockaded the port. Its inhabitants summoned to their aid one company of the Virginia regulars and another of minute-men, besides a body of militia. On the twenty-sixth of October, Dunmore sent tenders into Hampton Roads to burn the town. The guard marched out to repel them, and George Nicholas, who commanded the Virginians, discharged his musket at one of the tenders. It was the first gun fired in Virginia against the British; his example was followed by his party. The British on that day vainly attempted to land. In the following night the Culpepper riflemen were despatched to Hampton. The next day the British renewed the attack; the fire of the riflemen killed a few and wounded more. One of the tenders was taken, with its armament and seven seamen; the rest were towed out of the creek. The Virginians lost not a man.

*

In England, Dunmore had been taken at his word, and Lord Dartmouth had enjoined him, with the regulars whom he was authorized to send for, and "the men whom he had said he could raise from among Indians, negroes, and other persons," to bring together "at least force enough to withstand

attacks, if not to reduce the colony to obedience." He accordingly raised the king's flag, proclaimed martial law, required every person capable of bearing arms to resort to his standard under penalty of forfeiture of life and property, and declared freedom to "all indented servants, negroes, or others, appertaining to rebels," if they would "join for the reducing the colony to a proper sense of its duty." "I hope," said he, "it will oblige the rebels to disperse to take care of their families and property." The men to whose passions he appealed were either convicts, bound to labor in expiation of misdeeds, or Africans, some of them freshly imported. They formed the majority of the population on tide-water, and on the lonely plantations dwelt in clusters around the homes of their owners. Dunmore further sent for the small detachment of regulars stationed in Illinois and the North-west; authorized John Connolly to raise a regiment in the backwoods of Virginia and Pennsylvania; commissioned Mackee, a deputy superintendent, to raise one of western savages; and directed them all to march to Alexandria, For himself he undertook to "raise one regiment of white people, to be called the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia; the other of negroes, to be called Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian."

Connolly was arrested in Maryland in November, and the movements at the West were prevented. The general congress promptly invited Virginia to institute a government of her own. A thrill of indignation effaced all differences of party. William Campbell and Gibson stood ready to march from Fincastle and West Augusta with rifle companies of "as fine men as ever were seen." In the valley of the Blue Ridge the congregations of Germans, quickened by the preaching of Muhlenberg, were eager to take up arms.

The Virginians could plead, and did plead, that "their assemblies had repeatedly attempted to prevent the horrid traffic in slaves, and had been frustrated by the cruelty and covetousness of English merchants, who prevailed on the king to repeal their merciful acts." Had Dunmore been undisputed master of the country when he attempted to enroll the negroes, a social revolution might have ensued. An appeal to them from a fugitive governor could leave no permanent trace.

Norfolk, almost entirely deserted by native Virginians, became the refuge of the factors of Glasgow merchants, who were imbodied as its loyal militia.

The committee of safety at Williamsburg, informed of these transactions, sent a regiment and about two hundred minute-men, under the command of Colonel Woodford, to defend the inhabitants of the low country. With the minutemen, John Marshall, afterward chief justice of the United States, served as a lieutenant. They came down on the south side of the Elizabeth river. Informed of their approach, Dunmore, collecting volunteers and what regular troops he could. muster, took a well-chosen position on the north side of the Great Bridge, on a piece of firm ground accessible only by a long causeway over a marsh. The Virginians threw up a breastwork at the south end of the same causeway. After some delay, Dunmore was so rash as to risk an attempt to surprise them. On the eighth of December, after dark, he sent about two hundred regulars, composed of all that had arrived of the fourteenth regiment, and of officers, sailors, and gunners from the ships, mixed with townsmen of Norfolk. After the break of day and before sunrise, Leslie planted two fieldpieces between the bridge and the causeway, and gave orders for the attack; but, at the first discharge of the cannon, the bravest of the Virginians rushed to the trenches. The advance party of regulars, about one hundred and twenty in number, led by Fordyce, a captain in the fourteenth, were met on the causeway by a well-directed fire; while Stevens, with a party of the Culpepper minute-men, posted on an eminence about a hundred yards to the left, took them in flank. They wavered; Fordyce, with a courage which was the admiration of all beholders, rallied them and led them on, till, struck with many rifle-balls, he fell dead within a few steps of the breast work. The regulars then retreated, after a struggle of about fourteen minutes, losing over sixty in killed and wounded. Fordyce was buried by the Virginians with the honors due to his gallantry.

In the following night Leslie abandoned the fort and retreated to Norfolk. Nothing could exceed the consternation of its Scotch inhabitants: rich factors, with their wives and children, leaving their large property behind in midwinter,

crowded on board ships, scantily provided with even the necessaries of life. Poor people and runaway negroes were huddled together, without comfort or even pure air.

On the fourteenth, Robert Howe, from North Carolina, assumed the command and took possession of Norfolk. Just one week later the Liverpool ship-of-war and the brig Maria were piloted into the harbor. They brought the three thousand stand of arms, with which Dunmore had promised to imbody negroes and Indians enough to reduce Virginia. Martin of North Carolina obtained a third part of them.

The governor sent a flag of truce on shore to inquire if he and the fleet might be supplied with fresh provisions, and was answered in the negative. Showing his instructions to Belew, the captain of the Liverpool, the two concurred in opinion that Norfolk was "a town in actual rebellion, accessible to the king's ships;" and they prepared to carry out the king's instructions for such "a case."

non.

On New Year's day, 1776, the Kingfisher was stationed at the upper end of Norfolk; a little below her the Otter; Belew, in the Liverpool, anchored near the middle of the town; and next him lay Dunmore; the rest of the fleet was moored in the harbor. Between three and four in the afternoon a severe fire was begun from about sixty pieces of canWhen night was coming on, Dunmore ordered out several boats to burn warehouses on the wharfs, and hailed to Belew to set fire to a large brig which lay in the dock. The vessels of the fleet emulated each other in sending boats on shore to spread the flames along the river; and, as the buildings were chiefly of pine wood, the conflagration, driven by the wind, spread with amazing rapidity. Mothers with little ones in their arms were seen by the glare, running to get out of the range of cannon-balls. Several times the British attempted to land with artillery, but were driven back. The cannonade, with but one short pause, was kept up till two the next morning. The flames raged for three days, till four fifths of the houses were reduced to ashes and heaps of ruins.

In this manner the royal governor burned the best of the towns in England's oldest and most loyal colony, to which Elizabeth had given a name, Raleigh devoted his fortune, and