promise the unhappy quarrel which had broken out. New York was ill-prepared for war, and its material interests inclined a large proportion of the citizens to desire a restoration of old ties.

The larger body sitting at Philadelphia was less urgent in this respect. It was thinking more of the grievances under which the country was suffering, and of the best way of putting its case before the world. A document was agreed to on the 6th of July, in which the wrongs of America were recapitulated; and Lord North's conciliatory proposals were condemned, as insidiously designed to divide the colonies. The affairs at Lexington and Concord, the alleged embodying of Canadians, Indians, and insurgent slaves to serve against the provincials, the seizure of ships, the intercepting of provisions, and other acts of hostility,-were also mentioned; and the document (which, like that of June 12th, was the production of Jefferson) concluded with a direct and unequivocal declaration of an intention to oppose the Royal Government to the utmost extremity. "We are reduced," said the members of Congress, "to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to irritated Ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Our cause is just, our union is perfect, our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. Before God and the world we declare that the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume we will employ for the preservation of our liberties; being, with one mind, resolved to die freemen rather than live slaves." It was denied by the delegates that they had raised armies with a design of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent States. Necessity, they observed, had not yet driven them to that desperate measure. They had taken up arms to protect their property against violence actually offered; and they would not lay them down until hostilities should cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed should be removed.

In addition to this document, and to the second petition to the King already mentioned, Congress voted an address to the people of Great Britain, who were addressed in affectionate language as "Friends, Countrymen, and Brethren." After another statement of the wrongs of America, it was asked if the descendants of Englishmen could tamely submit to such injuries. "No!" exclaimed the delegates of the United Colonies, answering their own question, we never will. While we revere the memory of our gallant and virtuous

ancestors, we never can surrender those glorious privileges for which they fought, bled, and conquered. Admit that your fleets and armies can destroy our towns and ravage our coasts: these are inconsiderable objects-things of no moment to men whose bosoms glow with the ardour of liberty. We can retire beyond the reach of your navy, and, without any sensible diminution of the necessaries of life, enjoy a luxury which, from that period, you will want, the luxury of being free. Our enemies charge us with sedition. In what does this sedition consist? In our refusal to submit to unwarrantable acts of injustice and cruelty? If so, show us a period in your history in which you have not been equally seditious We are reproached with harbouring the project of independence; but what have we done that can warrant this reproach? Abused, insulted, and contemned, we have carried our dutiful petitions to the throne, and we have applied to your justice for relief. What has been the success of our endeavours? The clemency of our sovereign is unhappily diverted; our petitions are treated with indignity, our prayers answered by insults. application to you remains unnoticed, and leaves us the melancholy apprehension of your wanting either the will or the power to assist us. Even under these circumstances, what measures have we taken that betray a desire of independence? Have we called in the aid of those foreign Powers who are the rivals of your grandeur? Have we taken advantage of the weakness of your troops, and hastened to destroy them before they were reinforced? Have not we permitted them to receive the succours we could have intercepted?" After reminding the English people that the extinction of liberty in America would prepare the way for its destruction in the old country also, the address proceeded :-"A cloud hangs over your head and Ere this reaches you, it may probably burst upon us. Let us then (before the remembrance of former kindness be obliterated) once more repeat these appellations which are ever grateful to oir ears; let us entreat Heaven to avert our ruin, and the destruction that threatens our friends, brethren, and countrymen on the other side of the Atlantic."

ours.

Our

way to strengthen the kindly regards of those in the old country who had taken up the cause of the colonists, and to give them a fair ground for continuing their disinterested advocacy with decency and reason. Yet, at the very moment that the members of Congress uttered these honeyed words to the people of England and Scotland, they issued an address to the people of Ireland, which was little else than a covert incentive to that country to rise in revolt against the race by which it had been subjected. They dwelt much on the oppression of the Irish people; hinted at the opportunities of redress which were then opening; and added that the innocent and cruelly ill-treated Americans naturally desired the sympathy and good-will of a humane and virtuous people, who had themselves suffered under the rod of the same oppressor. The two-fold intention of this address was to create a diversion in Ireland in favour of the colonists, and at the same time to conciliate the support of the numerous Irish emigrants in America. In one respect the delegates fell into a

curious error.

They expressed to the Irish great amazement and sorrow at finding the name of Howe in the catalogue of their enemies; as if the Howes had been an Irish family. They were apparently misled by the fact that an Irish peerage had been conferred on the grandfather of the existing generation. The Howes were an old English stock, and the mother of the three brothers associated with America was a German lady.

On the 2nd of July, Washington reached the camp before Boston, where his great organising genius was sorely needed to give something like form and consistency to the chaotic mass of raw material of which the patriotic army consisted. The separate corps raised by the provinces were governed by distinct rules, so far as they could be said to be governed by any rules at all. The men had entered for varying terms of service, and the longest was but short. Even the army of the United Colonies was only to be enlisted until the end of the year. Amongst the New Englanders there was an entire absence of the feeling of professical troops—a total want of order and discipline. Nobody even knew how many men there were in the field, and the soldiers came and went as they liked. One of the first acts of Washington was to direct that a return of the state of the army should be made. The Commander-in-Chief thought but poorly of the New England levies from a scientific point of view, and never sympathised with, or perhaps very clearly understood, the character

Mr. Bancroft has proceeded on the same false assumption.

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of the people in that part of America. It is curious to note how completely the northern and southern colonies had divided into two distinct nationalities -a circumstance which, in our own times, conspired with other causes to bring about the civil war of 1861-5. In various communications written about this period, Washington spoke of the Connecticut troops as pervaded by a dirty and mercenary spirit, and as being guilty of scandalous conduct. He complained of the dearth of public spirit and want of virtue; spoke of stock-jobbing and fertility in low arts for the obtaining of advantages; and prayed God that he might never witness the like again. And, in a letter dated the 10th of February in the following year, he remarked that, notwithstanding all the public virtue ascribed to the people of Massachusetts, he had never come across any nation that paid greater adoration to money than they did. As, however, Washington's experience of nations can scarcely be described as very wide, his opinion in this respect may not be of the highest value. It is worth citation only as illustrating the diversity of character existing between Virginia and New England-the child of Monarchy and the child of Republicanism. All the more intense must have been the feeling of antagonism to Great Britain, which could bind together, "into a mass irrefragably firm," the discordant elements of American colonial life.

The two opposing armies were now encamped very near one another. The Royal forces occupied not only Boston, but the whole of Charleston peninsula, their sentries extending a short distance beyond the Neck. Redoubts and batteries were scattered about, and between six and seven thousand highly-disciplined and seasoned troops stood prepared for any further action. The colonial army was posted in a semi-circle from the west end of Dorchester to Malden, a distance of nine miles. The centre of the line was at Cambridge, where Ward commanded; and all about the little towns, and country ways, and steep passes between hill and hill, were defensive works, contrived with no small tact. The men were not dressed after any uniform pattern, and, with a few exceptions, did not present a very soldier-like spectacle. Some were lodged in tents; others in extemporised huts, made of boards, sailcloth, turf, brushwood, reeds, or anything that came to hand; others, again, in regular dwelling-houses. In these hurried musters there was a great deal of excellent material; but it

Letter of the Rev. William Emerson, printed by Mr. Sparks in the Appendix to Vol. III. of his edition of the Writings of Washington.

needed education and the stern rigours of command. Despite his rather contemptuous opinion of New England virtue, Washington admitted that the men gathered about Boston were active, zealous, and courageous. But he perceived a degree of insubordination which made him uneasy, and he could not but be sensible that the officers, for the most part, were quite inadequate to their duties. For the correction of their repeated wrong-doings, the Commander-in-Chief was obliged to hold frequent courts-martial, and to make many examples. It was with difficulty that he could enforce a proper degree of respect for the officers, and of obedience to their orders; for, as both the privates and their military superiors came from the same class, the former saw no reason why they should not, at all seasons and under all circumstances, be on a footing of equality. The result was that each did what seemed to himself most advisable, and concerted action became almost impossible. A species of despotism was necessary among these unregulated masses of men; and, with a firm hand, a wise head, and a cheerful disposition, Washington soon effected an important change. Whenever he considered it necessary, he did not scruple to administer the lash. The men were kept at labour even on Sundays, strengthening the lines, and fortifying weak places. These engineering works were in part planned and executed by Henry Knox, of Boston, who had been appointed to the command of a battalion of artillery, and who in time introduced so much improvement into the American ordnance that some of the best judges in Europe expressed their admiration of his genius. The largest number of effectives then under the command of Washington was fourteen thousand five hundred. Of these, many were very inferior soldiers; but, altogether, the force, when to some extent organised, promised not ill for the future of the revolted provinces.

At this period, Lee mixed himself up with certain negotiations which appear to have excited against him a degree of suspicion on the part of the patriots. In answer to a note which he had addressed to Burgoyne from Philadelphia in June, the latter invited Lee to an interview within the British lines, for the purpose of mutual explanations with a view to the restoration of peace. In this communication, which was sent in July, Burgoyne said he knew that Great Britain was ready to open her arms upon the first overture of accommodation. Without asking advice of a council of war, Lee requested the Massachusetts Congress to depute one of their body to be a witness of what should pass ; but the delegates declined to sanction the meeting,

and Lee thereupon publicly declined to accept the invitation which had been conveyed to him, but transmitted to Burgoyne a secret missive, in which he declared that the Americans had the certainty of being supported by France and Spain. Although this statement may have been imprudent, and Lee was apparently not authorised in making it, there is surely very insufficient ground for charging him with anything like a treacherous intention. He seems throughout the war to have been unable entirely to divest himself of his character of an Englishman (though inclined at times to an excess of violence), and he probably hoped, up to a rather late period, to bring about a reconciliation between the colonies and the mother country, in which he would himself occupy the position of an armed mediator. But his subsequent efforts in the cause of American independence are not such as to warrant the supposition that he was a traitor to the people whose sword he had consented to hold, though his conduct may in some respects have been blamable. Doubtless his position was equivocal; but he had thrown in his lot with the Americans, and with them he remained to the close of his life.

Frequent skirmishes occurred from time to time, but nothing of importance during the remainder of July. In the field of politics, however, Massachusetts was exhibiting all her old energy. The people chose a House of Representatives, and the Provin cial Congress dissolved itself. By the 21st of July. the Massachusetts Government was permanently constituted, and an annual Council of twenty-eight was elected by the Legislature, which was itself to be re-elected every year. The executive powers of the province were confided to this Council, and a share in the work of legislation was also conferre i on it. Forty thousand pounds were assessed on polls and estates, and a further sum was raised on bills of public credit for small amounts. The sup port of the army before Boston was for the present left to voluntary contributions, and the system, irregular though it was, seems at first to have worked fairly. The farmers of the surrounding country sent in supplies unsolicited, and the men were well fed, though there was absolutely no commissariat. It was evident, however, that this method could not go on for ever, or even for long. The whole conduct of the forces was an affair of chance, and chance will never operate favourably as a continuous rule. Washington saw how much was needed to convert the armed mob of provincials into a regular army, capable of meeting the trained regiments of Great Britain. He sent in a report to the Continental Congress, in which the defects of the several levies were pointed out

with no sparing hand. Similar complaints were made by Schuyler with respect to the northern army at Ticonderoga. Sentinels, he alleged, would sleep on their posts; privates would treat their officers as if they were on terms of exact equality; and discipline was entirely disregarded. The Congressional delegates read these reports, and trembled for the result of a war. They still clung to the hope of peace-not, indeed, out of any real loyalty, or any actual desire for perpetuating the connection between the two countries, but from fear of provoking too far the wrath of a monarch who had at his command many battalions of professional fighting-men, with abundant supplies, and all the resources of a wealthy nation. Accordingly, no steps were taken to increase the patriot hosts, nor was much even attempted towards the improvement of those bodies which were already in the field.

Franklin, who was by this time back at Philadelphia, was again directing his attention to the more effective confederation of the colonies. Reverting in some measure to his Albany scheme of 1754, he submitted to Congress a plan for uniting the colonies in one nation. Each colony was to have its own Parliament, and the right to amend its own laws and constitution whenever it pleased; and the Federal Government was to attend to affairs of national importance, and to govern the waste lands. Congress was to consist of but one legislative body, to be chosen annually, and one of its committees was to wield the executive power. Το this Union, not only the English provinces in North America were invited to accede, but even Ireland, which was regarded as a colony. The Confederation was put forward as a temporary arrangement; but it was intimated that it would become perpetual if Great Britain still refused to satisfy the demands of the Americans. This daring scheme, which plainly had for one of its chief objects the excitement of a rebellion in Ireland, was for a time set aside by Congress, whose councils were characterised by not a little nervous timidity. Some members of Congress, however, were far in advance of the collective sentiment. John Adams, in particular, was for at once establishing a constitution and a general government. His views on this subject were expounded in a set of letters to New England, and were intercepted by the Royalists, who published them as evidence of the extreme designs of some among the malcontents. Like all deliberative bodies, Congress contained a number of men of very divergent views, and it is probable that certain of its numbers were really desirous of seeing a friendly termination to the dis

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pute. But the majority were doubtless restrained by a reasonable fear of what might ensue on an unsuccessful rebellion. When Congress adjourned on the 1st of August, nothing had been settled in principle; yet, as the reader is aware, a great many steps had been taken which made it all the less likely that the quarrel would be compromised-all the more probable that a violent separation would take place.

gress

The want of a strong central Government threw additional burdens upon Washington. He was desperately in need of money; for, although Conhad voted him five hundred thousand dollars, to pay the soldiers and meet the other expenses of the time, it was in paper currency, and the persons who were to sign the bills were in no hurry to discharge that duty. An equally serious matter was the failure of powder, of which there was so little that the provincials could not at that date have fought a general action. Washington therefore sent urgent messages to the other New England colonies, to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Bermudas, from which he obtained such supplies as they were able to furnish; and it is said that some was even procured from the British forts on the coasts of Africa, in exchange for rum. Powder-mills also were erected at Philadelphia and New York. Of the enthusiasm of the country, Washington had no reason to complain. His riflemen numbered more than Congress itself had authorised; and among them was one Daniel Morgan, the captain of a Virginian company, though himself a native of New Jersey, who afterwards obtained great fame as a leading hero of the revolutionary struggle. Morgan was a man of extremely humble origin, who, despite the poverty of his early years, had contrived to teach himself many things, and to acquire a knowledge of the theory and practice of During Braddock's expedition, he had acted as a waggoner, and in 1774 he was with Dunmore in his operations against the Indians on the Ohio. He was now at the head of a company of ninetysix backwoodsmen, whom he had raised in ten days. His unusual height, for he measured more than six feet, made him one of the most conspicuous figures in the army; and his courage, energy, and intelligence were soon manifest in the field. The backwoodsmen from the western settlements were among the best troops of the colonists. Many of them had marched a distance of eight hundred miles with remarkable quickness, and their presence in camp added greatly to the picturesqueness, as well as strength, of the American army. They were painted, and to some extent dressed,

war.