XXXI. it was afterwards found that the sum exceeded the CHAP. value of the powder, the next Virginia convention directed the excess to be restored. Two days after the return of the volunteers, Dunmore issued a proclamation against "a certain Patrick Henry," and his "deluded followers;" and secretly denounced him to the ministry as "a man of desperate circumstances, one who had been very active in encouraging disobedience and exciting a spirit of revolt among the people for many years past." On the other hand, the interior resounded with the praise of the insurgents. On the eighth, Louisa county sent them its hearty thanks. On the ninth, Spottsylvania cordially approved their prudent, firm, and spirited conduct; and Orange county in a letter signed among others by the young and studious James Madison, a recent graduate of Princeton college, applauded their zeal for the honor and interest of the country. "The blow struck in Massachusetts," they add, "is a hostile attack on this and every other colony, and a sufficient warrant to use reprisal." 1775. May. 11. On the eleventh, Patrick Henry set off for the May continental congress; and his progress was a triumph. Amidst salutes and huzzas, a volunteer guard accompanied him to the Maryland side of the Potomac ; and as they said farewell, they invoked God's blessing on the champion of their "dearest rights and liberties." CHAPTER XXXII. 1775. May. EFFECTS OF THE DAY OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD CONTINUED: MAY, 1775. CHAP. THE people of South Carolina, who had hoped relief XXXII. through the discontinuance of importations from Britain, did not falter on learning the decision of parlia ment. On the instant, Charles Pinckney, using power intrusted to him by the provincial congress, appointed a committee of five to place the colony in a state of defence; on the twenty-first of April, the very night after their organization, men of Charleston, without disguise, under their direction, seized all the powder in the public magazines, and removed eight hundred stand of arms and other military stores from the royal arsenal. The tidings from Lexington induced the general committee to hasten the meeting of the provincial congress; whose members, on the second of June, Henry Laurens being their president, associated themselves for defence against every foe; "ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes to secure her freedom and safety." They resolved to raise two regiments of infantry, and a regiment of rangers. To this end, one hundred and forty thousand pounds sterling were issued in bills of credit, which for a year and a half the enthusiasm of the people did not suffer to fall in value. XXXII. "We are ready to give freely half or the CHAP. whole of our estates for the security of our liberties," was the universal language. The militia officers threw up their commissions from the royal governor, and submitted to the orders of congress. A council of safety was charged with executive powers. In the midst of these proceedings, Lord William Campbell, their new governor, arrived, and the provincial congress waited on him with an address: "No lust of independence has had the least influence upon our counsels; no subjects more sincerely desire to testify their loyalty and affection. We deplore the measures, which, if persisted in, must rend the British empire. Trusting the event to Providence, we prefer death to slavery." "The people of Charleston are as mad as they are here in Boston," was the testimony of Gage. The skirmish at Lexington became known in Savannah on the tenth of May, and added Georgia to the union. At that time she had about seventeen thousand white inhabitants and fifteen thousand Africans: Her militia was not less than three thousand. Her frontier, which extended from Augusta to St. Mary's, was threatened by the Creeks with four thousand warriors; the Chickasaws, with four hundred and fifty; the Cherokees, with three thousand; the Choctaws, with twenty-five hundred. But danger could not make her people hesitate. On the night of the eleventh, Noble Wimberley Jones, Joseph Habersham, Edward Telfair, and others, broke open the king's magazine in the eastern part of the city, and took from it over five hundred pounds of powder. 1775. May. XXXII. CHAP. In writing to the committee for Boston, they acknowledged the noble stand taken by Massachusetts; 1775 and to the Boston wanderers, they sent sixty-three May. barrels of rice and one hundred and twenty-two pounds in specie. On the king's birthday the pa triots erected a liberty pole; as if to express the wish still to combine allegiance to the king with their devotion to American liberty. "A general rebellion throughout America is coming on suddenly and swiftly," reported their governor. "Matters will go to the utmost extremity." Meantime, great deeds had been achieved by the mountaineers of the north. To hold the city of New York, its harbor, and the river Hudson, and by means of the fortresses on the lakes to keep open a free communication with Canada, was the scheme by which it was hoped to insulate and reduce New England. On Saturday, the twenty-ninth of April, Samuel Adams and Hancock, as they passed through Hartford, had secretly met the governor and council of Connecticut, to promote the surprise of Ticonderoga, which had been planned by the Green Mountain Boys. Ethan Allen was encouraged by an express messenger to hold them in readiness; and the necessary funds were furnished from the treasury of Connecticut. Sixteen men of that colony leaving Salisbury, were joined in Massachusetts by John Brown, who had first proposed the enterprise in a letter from Montreal, by Colonel James Easton, and by not so many as fifty volunteers from Berkshire. At Bennington they found Ethan Allen, who was certainly "the proper man to head his own people." Repairing to the north, he sent the alarm through the XXXII. 1775. May. hills of Vermont; and on Sunday, the seventh of CHAP. May, about one hundred Green Mountain Boys and near fifty soldiers from Massachusetts, under the command of Easton, rallied at Castleton.. Just then arrived Benedict Arnold, with only one attendant. He brought a commission from the Massachusetts committee of safety, which was disregarded, and the men unanimously elected Ethan Allen their chief. On the eighth of May, the party began the march; late on the ninth, they arrived at Orwell. With the utmost difficulty, a few boats were got together, and eighty-three men crossing the lake with Allen, landed near the garrison. The boats were sent back for Seth Warner and the rear guard; but if they were to be waited for, there could be no surprise. The men were, therefore, at once drawn up in three ranks, and as the first beams of morning broke upon the mountain peaks, Allen addressed them: "Friends and fellow-soldiers: We must this morning quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress; and inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge it on, contrary to will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelock." At the word every firelock was poised. "Face to the right," cried Allen; and placing himself at the head of the centre file, Arnold keeping emulously at his side, he marched to the gate. It was shut, but the wicket was open. The sentry snapped a fuzee at him. The Americans rushed into the fort, darted upon the guards, and raising the Indian war whoop, such as had not been heard there since the days of Montcalm, formed on the parade in hollow |