embark, the Americans on the heights, expecting an immediate conflict, kindled with joy. Washington said: "Remember, it is the fifth of March, a day never to be forgotten; avenge the death of your brethren." But Percy took his transports no farther than the castle; in the afternoon a gale came up from the south, and about midnight drove two or three vessels on shore; rain fell in torrents on the morning of the sixth; a movement against the American lines must have ended in the ruin of the British army. A second council of war advised the instant evacuation of Boston.

There was no time even to propose a capitulation for the safety of the refugees, and the best that could be offered them was a passage in crowded transports from the cherished land of their nativity to the naked shores of Nova Scotia. The British confessed before the world their inability to protect their friends, who had risked everything in their cause. What trust could now be reposed in their promises?

On the eighth, Howe, through the selectmen of Boston, wished to come to an understanding with Washington that the town should be spared, provided he might leave it without molestation. The unauthenticated proposal could meet with no reply from the American commander-in-chief; but, from want of ammunition, he was obliged to use his artillery sparingly, while Howe was hastening his embarkation. A chosen British army, sent at the expense of more than a million pounds sterling to correct revolted subjects and assert the authority of the British parliament, after being imprisoned for many months in the town they were to have crushed, found no safety but in flight.

In these hours the ministry had heard of the safety of Quebec, and would not hearken to a doubt of speedily crushing the rebellion. On the morning of the fourteenth of March, the British secretary of state listened to Thayendanegea, otherwise named Joseph Brant, a Mohawk, of the Wolf tribe, the chosen chief of the confederacy of the Six Nations, who spoke thus: "Brother, we hope to see these bad children, the New England people, chastised. The Indians have always been ready to assist the king." And Germain replied: "Continue to manifest attachment to the king, and be sure of his favor."

"Unconditional submission" was the watchword; and when on the evening of the same day the duke of Grafton attempted once more, in the house of lords, to plead for conciliation, Dartmouth approved sending over "a sufficient force to awe the colonies into submission;" Hillsborough would "listen to no accommodation short of the acknowledgment of the right of taxation and the submission of Massachusetts to the law for altering its charter;" and Mansfield, ridiculing the idea of suspending hostilities, laughed moderate counsels away. In the laying waste which was a part of the plan, New England was to be spared the least.

The second night after this display in the British parliament to restrain the ministry had been defeated, Washington gained possession of Nook Hill, and with it the power of opening the highway from Roxbury to Boston. At the appearance of this work, the British army and more than eleven hundred refugees began their embarkation at four in the morning, and in less than six hours were put on board one hundred and twenty transports; before ten they were under way, and the citizens of Boston, from every height and every wharf, could see the fleet sail out of the harbor in a line extending from the castle to Nantasket road.

The lives of Thacher and Mayhew and Dana and Molineux and Quincy and Gardner, of Warren and the martyrs of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, had not been in vain. The flight had been so precipitate that the British general was obliged to remain several days in Nantasket road, to adjust the ships for the voyage. He was still within sight of the spires of Boston, when a ship-of-war from England hailed him, and delivered him despatches applauding the reasons which he had given for not leaving Boston, and deprecating its evacuation.

Troops from Roxbury moved into Boston; others from Cambridge crossed in boats. Everywhere appeared marks of hurry in the flight of the British; among other stores, they left behind them two hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, of which one half were serviceable; twenty-five hundred chaldrons of sea-coal; twenty-five thousand bushels of wheat; three thousand bushels of barley and oats; one hundred and fifty horses; bedding and clothing for soldiers. British store-ships,

ignorant of the retreat, successively entered the harbor without suspicion, and fell into the hands of the Americans; among them a ship which, in addition to carbines, bayonets, gun-carriages, and all sorts of tools necessary for artillery, had on board more than seven times as much powder as Washington's whole stock when his last movement was begun.

On the next day Washington ordered five of his best regiments to march under Heath to New York. On the twentieth the main body of the army made its entry into Boston. Except one meeting-house and a few wooden buildings which had been used for fuel, the houses were left in a good condition. When, two days later, the restrictions on intercourse with the town were removed and the exiles and their friends streamed in, all hearts were touched at "witnessing the tender interviews and fond embraces of those who had been long separated." For Washington, crowded welcomes and words of gratitude hung on the faltering tongues of the liberated inhabitants; the selectmen of Boston addressed him in their name: "Next to the Divine Power, we ascribe to your wisdom that this acquisition has been made with so little effusion of human blood;" and in reply he paid a just tribute to their fortitude.

When the quiet of a week had revived ancient usages, Washington attended the Thursday lecture, which had been kept up from the days of Winthrop and Wilson, and all rejoiced with exceeding joy at seeing this New England Zion once more a quiet habitation; they called it "a tabernacle of which not one of the stakes should ever be removed, nor one of the cords be broken." The Puritan ancestry of Massachusetts seemed holding out their hands to bless the deliverer of their children.

On the twenty-ninth the two branches of the legislature addressed him jointly, dwelling on the respect he had ever shown to their civil constitution, as well as on his regard for the lives and health of all under his command. "Go on," said they, "still go on, approved by heaven, revered by all good men, and dreaded by tyrants; may future generations, in the peaceful enjoyment of that freedom which your sword shall have established, raise the most lasting monuments to the name of Washington." And in his answer he renewed his pledges

of "a regard to every provincial institution." When the continental congress, on the motion of John Adams, voted him thanks and a commemorative medal of gold, he modestly transferred their praises to the men of his command, saying: "They were, indeed, at first a band of undisciplined husbandmen; but it is, under God, to their bravery and attention to duty that I am indebted for that success which has procured me the only reward I wish to receive, the affection and esteem of my countrymen."

And never was so great a result obtained at so small a cost of human life. The putting the British army to flight was the first decisive victory of the industrious middling class over the most powerful representative of the medieval aristocracy, and the whole number of New England men killed in the siege of Boston after Washington took the command was less than twenty; the liberation of New England cost less than two hundred lives in battle, and the triumphant general as he looked around enjoyed the serenest delight, for he saw no mourners among those who greeted his entry.

The men who so thoroughly represented the people of the civilized world had shown patience as well as fortitude. How long they waited, and, when the right moment came, how bravely they rose! How magnanimously they responded to the inward voice which bade them claim freedom as a birthright, and dread an acquiescence in its loss as a violation of the peace of the soul!

For New England the dependence on England was at an end. The next general assembly that met in Rhode Island, on the fourth day of May discharged the inhabitants of that colony from allegiance to the king of Great Britain by the unanimous vote of the upper house, and in the house of deputies, where sixty were present, with but six dissentient voices.

CHAPTER XXI.

ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE.

FEBRUARY-APRIL 1776.

On the ninth day of February John Adams had resumed his seat in congress, with Elbridge Gerry for a colleague, and with instructions from his constituents to establish liberty in America upon a permanent basis. He was in the happiest mood of mind, for the independence of his country seemed to him so bound up with the welfare of mankind that Providence could not suffer its defeat.

Looking into himself, he saw weaknesses enough, but neither meanness nor dishonesty nor timidity. Overweening selfesteem was his chief blemish. Having more learning than Washington, better knowledge of freedom as grounded in law than Samuel Adams, clearer insight into the constructive elements of government than Franklin, more readiness in debate than Jefferson, he could easily fancy himself the greatest of them all. He was capable of thinking himself the centre of any circle to which he had been no more than a tangent; and in

age vanity sometimes bewildered his memory; but it did not impair the integrity of his conduct. He was humane and frank, generous and clement; if he could never sit placidly under the shade of a greater reputation than his own, his envy had hardly a tinge of malignity. He went to his task, sturdy and cheery and brave; he was the hammer and not the anvil, and it was for others to shrink from his blows. His courage was unflinching in debate, and everywhere else; he never knew what fear was. To his latest old age he saw ten times as much pleasure as pain in the world, and was ready to begin life anew and fight its battle over again.