dom itself. They were inspired by the thought that the Providence which rules the world demanded of them heroic selfdenial as the champions of humanity, and they never doubted the fellow-feeling of the continent.

As soon as the act was received, the Boston committee of correspondence, by the hand of Joseph Warren, invited eight neighboring towns to a conference "on the critical state of public affairs." On the twelfth, at noon, Metcalf Bowler, the speaker of the assembly of Rhode Island, came before them. with the cheering news that, in answer to a recent circular letter from the body over which he presided, all the thirteen governments had pledged themselves to union. Punctually, at the hour of three in the afternoon of that day, the committees of Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, Charlestown, Lynn, and Lexington, joined them in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, where for ten years the freemen of the town had debated the question of justifiable resistance. The lowly men who now met there were most of them accustomed to feed their own cattle, to fold their own sheep, to guide their own ploughs; all were trained to public life in the little democracies of their towns; some of them were captains in the militia and officers of the church according to the discipline of Congregationalists; nearly all of them communicants, under a public covenant with God. They grew in greatness as their sphere enlarged. Their virtues burst the confines of village life. They felt themselves to be citizens not of little municipalities, but of the whole world of mankind. In the dark hour, light broke upon them from their own truth and courage. Placing Samuel Adams at their head, and guided by a report prepared by Joseph Warren of Boston, Thomas Gardner of Cambridge, and others, they agreed unanimously on the injustice and cruelty of the act, by which parliament, without competent jurisdiction and contrary as well to natural right as to the laws of all civilized states, had, without a hearing, set apart, accused, tried, and condemned the town of Boston. The delegates from the eight towns were reminded by those of Boston that that port could recover its trade by paying for the tea which had been thrown overboard; but they held it unworthy even to notice the offer, promising on their

part to join "their suffering brethren in every measure of relief."

The meeting knew that a declaration of independence would have alienated their sister colonies, nor had they as yet found out that independence was the desire of their own hearts. To suggest nothing till a congress could be convened would have seemed to them like abandoning the town to bleed away its life. The king had expected to starve its people into submission; in their circular letter to the committees of the other colonies they proposed, as a counter action, a general cessation of trade with Britain. "Now," they added, "is the time when all should be united in opposition to this violation of the liberties of all. The single question is, whether you consider Boston as suffering in the common cause, and sensibly feel and resent the injury and affront offered to her? We cannot believe otherwise; assuring you that, not in the least intimidated by this inhuman treatment, we are still determined to maintain to the utmost of our abilities the rights of America."

The next day, while Gage was sailing into the harbor, Samuel Adams presided over a very numerous town-meeting, at which many were present who had hitherto kept aloof. The thought of republican Rome, in its purest age, animated their consultations. The port act was read, and in bold debate was pronounced repugnant to law, religion, and common sense. At the same time those, who from loss of employment were to be the first to encounter want, were remembered with tender compassion, and measures were put in train to comfort them. Then the inhabitants, by the hand of Samuel Adams, made their appeal "to all the sister colonies, inviting a universal suspension of exports and imports, promising to suffer for America with a becoming fortitude, confessing that singly they might find their trial too severe, and entreating not to be left to struggle alone, when the very being of every colony, considered as a free people, depended upon the event."

On the seventeenth, Gage, who had remained four days with Hutchinson at Castle William, landed at Long Wharf, amid salutes from ships and batteries. Received by the council and civil officers, he was escorted by the Boston cadets. whom Hancock commanded, to the state-house, where the

council presented a loyal address, and his commission was proclaimed with three volleys of musketry and as many cheers. He then partook of a public dinner in Faneuil Hall, at which he proposed "the prosperity of the town of Boston." His toast in honor of Hutchinson "was received with a general hiss." Yet many favored a compromise, and put forward a subscription to pay for the tea. On the eighteenth, Jonathan Amory very strongly urged that measure in town-meeting, but it was rejected by the common voice. There still lingered a hope of relief through the intercession of Gage; but he was fit neither to reconcile nor to subdue. By his mild temper and love of society he gained the good-will of his boon companions and escaped personal enmities; but in earnest business he inspired neither confidence nor fear. He was so poor in spirit and so weak of will, so dull in his perceptions and so unsettled in his opinions, that he was sure to vacillate between words of concession and merciless severity. He had promised the king that with four regiments he would play the "lion," and troops beyond his requisition were hourly expected; but he stood too much in dread of the leading patriots of Boston to attempt their arrest.

The people of Massachusetts were almost exclusively of English origin; beyond any other colony, they loved the land of their ancestors; for that reason were they more sensitive to its tyranny. Taxing them without their consent was robbing them of their birthright; they scorned the British parliament as "a junto of the servants of the crown, rather than the representatives of England." Not disguising to themselves their danger, but confident of victory, they were resolved to stand together as brothers for a life of liberty.

The merchants of Newburyport were the first who agreed to suspend all commerce with Britain and Ireland. Salem, the place marked out as the new seat of government, in a very full town-meeting and after unimpassioned debates, decided almost unanimously to stop trade not with Britain only, but even with the West Indies. If in Boston a few still proposed to purchase a relaxation of the blockade by "a subscription to pay for the tea," the majority were beset by no temptation so strong as that of routing at once the insignificant number of troops who

had come to overawe them. But Samuel Adams, while he compared their spirit to that of Sparta or Rome, inculcated "patience as the characteristic of a patriot;" and the people, having sent forth their cry to the continent, waited self-possessed for voices of consolation.

New York anticipated the prayer of Boston. Its people, who had received the port act directly from England, felt the wrong to that town as a wound to themselves, and even the lukewarm kindled with resentment. From the epoch of the stamp act, their Sons of Liberty, styled by the royalists "the Presbyterian junto," had kept up a committee of correspondence. Yet Sears, Macdougall, and Lamb, still its principal members, represented the mechanics of the city more than its merchants; and they never enjoyed the confidence of the great landed proprietors, who by the tenure of estates in New York formed a recognised aristocracy. To unite the province, a more comprehensive combination was required. The old committee, while they accepted the questionable policy of an immediate suspension of commerce with Britain, proposed a general congress of deputies from all the colonies. These recommendations they forwarded through Connecticut to Boston, with entreaties to that town to stand firm; and, in full confidence of approval, they sent them to Philadelphia, and through Philadelphia to every colony at the south.

The inception of the continental congress of 1774 was the last achievement of the Sons of Liberty of New York. On the evening of the sixteenth of May they convoked the inhabitants of their city. A sense of the impending change tempered passionate rashness. Some who were in a secret understanding with officers of the crown sought to evade all decisive measures; the merchants were averse to headlong engagements for suspending trade; the gentry feared lest the men who on all former occasions had led the multitude should preserve the control in the day which was felt to be near at hand, when an independent people would shape the permanent institutions of a continent. Under a conservative influence, the motion prevailed to supersede the old committee of correspondence by a new one of fifty, and its members were selected by open nomination. The choice included men from all classes. Nearly a

third part were of those who followed the British standard to the last; others were lukewarm, unsteady, and blind to the nearness of revolution; others again were enthusiastic Sons of Liberty. The friends to government claimed that the majority was inflexibly loyal; the control fell into the hands of men who still aimed at reconciling a continued dependence on England with the just freedom of the colonies.

The port act was rapidly circulated through the country. In some places it was printed upon paper with a black border, and cried about the streets as a barbarous murder; in others, it was burnt in the presence of a crowd of the people. On the seventeenth, the representatives of Connecticut made a declaration of rights. "Let us play the man," said they, "for the cause of our country; and trust the event to Him who orders all events for the best good of his people." On the same day, the freemen of the town of Providence, unsolicited from abroad and after full discussion, voted to promote "a congress of the representatives of all the North American colonies." Declaring "personal liberty an essential part of the natural rights of mankind," they expressed the wish to prohibit the importation of negro slaves, and to set free all negroes born in the colony.

On the nineteenth, the city and county of New York inaugurated their new committee with the formality of public approval. Two parties appeared in array: on the one side, men of property; on the other, tradesmen and mechanics. Foreboding a revolution, they seemed to contend in advance whether their future government should be formed upon the basis of property or on purely popular principles. The mass of the people were ready to found a new social order in which they would rule; but on that day they chose to follow the wealthier class if it would but make with them a common cause; and the nomination of the committee was accepted, even with the addition of Isaac Low as its chairman, who was more of a loyalist than a patriot.

In Philadelphia, where Wedderburn and Hutchinson had been burnt in effigy, the letter from the New York Sons of Liberty had been received, and when, on the nineteenth, the messenger from Boston arrived with despatches, he found