that all the thirteen Colonies had pledged themselves to union. General Thomas Gage, who, in 1773, had succeeded Amherst as commander of the British forces in America, was appointed Governor of Massachusetts, and entered Boston on the seventeenth of May. On the first of June the "Port Bill" went into operation. The Assembly met at the same time at Salem, and on the seventeenth, with locked doors, appointed a gen eral Congress to meet at Philadelphia, on the first of September. The Governor sent his messenger to dissolve the Assembly, but he knocked at the door in vain.

On the sixth of August, Gage received a copy of the act, for the "better regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay." It was intended to awe the other Colonies, and to crush Massachusetts. It decreed that the Governor was to have almost absolute authority; that the councillors and chief judges were to be appointed by the Crown; that town-meetings, except for elections, could only be held at the will of the Governor, and that persons charged with murder should be sent to another Colony, or to England, for trial. Under this act, thirty-six were summoned as "mandamus" councillors; but the indignation of the people was so great against them, that twenty refused to accept the post, and the rest fled to Boston in shame, to seek safety from the army. Gage was obliged to fortify his position, and on the fifth of September, broke ground for earthworks*

The expedition to Louisburg had been a military education to many in New England, and as some of the veterans of that campaign looked at the progress of Gage's works on the "neck," they exclaimed: "Gage's mud walls are nothing to old Louisburg's."

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on Boston "Neck," which connected the city with the mainland.

Another move of the English Parliament must be mentioned. It was the passage of the "Quebec Act," in 1774, ostensibly to regulate the government of Canada, but really intended to raise a barrier

between the Colonies there and the thirteen now on the verge of war. It granted the Canadians the free exercise of the religion of the Church of Rome, and extended the province from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Mississippi River, the territory (subsequently

called the Northwest Territory) to be mainly under royal officials.

On the fifth of September, 1774, the members of Congress met at "Smith's Tavern," in Philadelphia, and selected "Carpenter's Hall" Carpenter's Hall" as the place of their future sessions. Among the members were George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph and Patrick Henry, of Virginia, Samuel and John Adams, of Massachusetts, John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, Christopher Gadsden and John Rutledge of South Carolina, Dr. John Witherspoon, president of the College of New Jersey, Stephen Hopkins, formerly Chief Justice of Rhode Island, and Roger Sherman of the same State..

Speaking of this body, William Pitt said, "For solidity of reason, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclusion under a combination of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it, and all attempts to impose servitude upon such a mighty Continental nation must be in vain. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract when we can, not when we must."

After the body was organized it was voted that the sessions be opened with prayer, and the Rev. Jacob Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, read the psalm for the seventh day of the month (the xxxvth), and then burst out in an extemporaneous prayer of great pathos and earnestness, to the surprise of those present. John Adams, writing to his wife (Sept. 16), gives an interesting account of this circumstance.

The work of Congress consisted in the preparation

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of a Declaration of Rights, an agreement to stop British imports and exports, to discontinue the slave trade after the first of December, an address to the British people (drawn up by Dickinson),* and a petition to the king (drawn up by Jay). On the twentieth of October, the members signed the "American Association," and thus founded the American Nation. Six days later the body adjourned, after having framed an address to the people of Canada, Nova Scotia and the Floridas, and after having made provision for another Congress, if necessary, in the spring of 1775.

Independence had not been demanded, but on the very day that the Congress adjourned steps were taken in Massachusetts that seemed to decide for war steps which, if successful, could result in independence only. Governor Gage had ordered the Massachusetts Assembly to meet at Salem on the fifth of October; but, having changed his mind, he countermanded the writs by a proclamation. The members considered this latter step illegal, and accordingly met on the day first appointed. On the

* John Dickinson, a native of Maryland, was born November 13, 1732, and died February 14, 1808. He entered the Legislature of Pennsylvania in 1764, and was from that time a power in public affairs. In 1768 he published his "Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer," addressed to the colonists. In 1774 he was a member of the first Congress, but opposed the Declaration of Independence, though he had written some of the most important State papers issued by Congress, and in 1788, wrote his “Fabius " letters advocating the adop tion of the Constitution. John Adams wrote of him in July, 1775, as "one whose abilities and virtues, formerly trumpeted so much in America, have been found wanting," and, in 1777, that he "turns out to be the man I have seen him to be these two years. He is in total neglect and disgrace; " but Adams was often prejudiced by his own enthusiasm for the cause.

seventh they constituted themselves a "Provincial Congress," elected John Hancock president, and adjourned to Concord. They then remonstrated with Gage, urged the citizens to organize themselves as "Minute-men," and appointed committees of safety and supplies. On the twenty-third of November the body met again and asked the coöperation of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut in raising a force of twenty thousand men. The committees from the Colonies afterwards met and decided to oppose any offensive acts of Gage. Stores were laid in at Worcester and Concord, and the event awaited. On the first of February the Congress met again at Cambridge, and the sixteenth of March was set apart as a Fast Day for Boston and the region about. On the twenty-third of March the selectmen of the little. town of Billerica, Mass., sent in a spirited protest to Gage, telling the commander of His Majesty's forces in America that "if the innocent inhabitants of our country must be interrupted by soldiers in their lawful intercourse with the town of Boston, and treated with the most brutish ferocity, we shall hereafter use a different style from that of petition and complaint."