1774. 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. May. 1774. May. CHAPTER II. NEW YORK PROPOSES A GENERAL CONGRESS. MAY, 1774. 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 throughout New York, formed a recognised aristocracy. To unite the province on the side of liberty, a more comprehensive combination was required. The old committee advocated the questionable policy of an immediate suspension of commerce with Britain; but they also proposed, and they were the first to propose, 66 a general congress. These recommendations they forwarded through Connecticut to Boston, with entreaties to that town to stand firm; and, in full confidence of approval, they applied not to New England only, but to Philadelphia, and through Philadelphia to every colony at the south. Such was the inception of the continental congress of 1774. It was the last achievement of the Sons of Liberty of New York. Their words of cheering to Boston, and their summons to the country, had already gone forth, when, on the evening of the sixteenth of May, they convoked the inhabitants of their city. A sense of the impend ing 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, like John Jay, still aimed at reconciling a continued dependence on England with the just freedom of the colonies. Meantime, the port act was circulated with incredible rapidity. In some places, it was printed upon mourning paper with a black border, and cried about the streets as a barbarous murder; in others, it was burnt with great solemnity in the presence of vast bodies 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. The third day after these spontaneous movements, 1774. the city and county of New York inaugurated their May 19. 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. It was plain that knowledge had penetrated the mass of the people, who were growing accustomed to reason for themselves, and 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. The letter from the New York Sons of Liberty had been received in Philadelphia, where Wedderburn and Hutchinson had been burnt in effigy; and when, on the nineteenth, the messenger from Boston arrived with despatches, he found Charles Thomson, Thomas Mifflin, Joseph Reed, and others, preparing to call a public meeting on the evening of the next day. On the morning of the twentieth, the king gave in 1774. May 20. person his assent to the act which made the British commander in chief in America, his army, and the civil officers, no longer amenable to American courts of justice; and also to that which mutilated the charter of Massachusetts, and destroyed the freedom of its town-meetings. "The law," wrote Garnier, "the extremely intelligent" French chargé, "must either lead to the complete reduction of the colonies, or clear the way for their independence." "I wish from the bottom of my heart," said the Duke of Richmond, during a debate in the house of lords, "that the Americans may resist, and get the better of the forces sent against them." Four years later, Fox observed: "The alteration of the government of Massachusetts was certainly a most capital mistake, because it gave the whole continent reason to think that their government was liable to be subverted at our pleasure and rendered entirely despotic. From thence all were taught to consider the town of Boston as suffering in the common cause." 1774. May. While the British parliament was conferring on Gage power to take the lives of Bostonians with impunity, the men of Philadelphia were asking each other if there remained a hope that the danger would pass by. The Presbyterians, true to their traditions, held it right to war against tyranny; "the Germans, who composed a large part of the inhabitants of the province, were all on the side of liberty;" the merchants refused to sacrifice their trade; the Quakers in any event scrupled to use arms; a numerous class, like Reed, cherished the most passionate desire for a reconciliation with the mother country. In the chaos of opinion, the cause of liberty needed wise and intrepid counsellors; but, during the absence of Franklin, Pennsylvania fell under the influence of Dickinson. His claims to public respect were indisputable. He was honored for spotless morals, eloquence and good service in the colonial legislature. His writings had endeared him to America as a sincere friend of liberty. Possessed of an ample fortune, it was his pride to call himself a "farmer." Residing at a country seat which overlooked Philadelphia and the Delaware River, he delighted in study and repose, and was wanting in active vigor of will. Free from personal cowardice, his shrinking sensitiveness bordered on pusillanimity. "He had an excellent heart, and the cause of his country lay near it;" "he loved the people of Boston with the tenderness of a brother;" yet he was more jealous of their zeal than touched by their sorrows. They will have time enough to die," were his words on that morning. "Let them give the other provinces opportunity to think and resolve. If they expect to drag them by their own violence into mad measures, they will be left to perish by themselves, despised by their enemies, and almost detested by their friends." Having matured his scheme in solitude, he received at dinner Thomson, Mifflin, and Reed; who, for the sake of his public co-operation, acquiesced in his delays. 66 In the evening, about three hundred of the principal citizens of Philadelphia assembled in the long room of the City Tavern. The letter from the Sons of Liberty of New |