reared aloft the standard of unrestricted liberty, had made the first suggestion; and it was fitting that she should lead the van. Two days in advance of Massachusetts, she appointed the first delegates to the first American Congress.

Other colonies, North and South, rapidly followed; and on the fifth day of September, 1774, the national life showed itself represented and embodied in a Congress of fifty-three delegates assembled in the city of Philadelphia, from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina, -twelve States just coming into form as distinct but mutually dependent civil governments. Georgia, at present restrained by power, was not yet in Congress; but her people would soon triumph, and her representatives would show that she also belonged to the new nation. The war-power of the "Union" was now a visible reality. A rich, haughty, and populous kingdom might despise it, but not with impunity. God had called together this Congress, and he was in it.

The war must now begin; and England would slowly come to the knowledge of the fact, that, when she fired upon a company of "disloyal people," she had killed American citizens.

LEXINGTON AND BUNKER HILL.

A common feeling of danger had produced the beginnings of military organization amongst the colonists. A small amount of military stores had been collected at Concord, some twenty miles from Boston. Gates ordered the destruction of these military stores. He had four thousand men under his command, and with these he determined to end this rebellion. On the 19th of April, 1775, a detachment of eight hundred men, sent out to strike a decisive blow, met at Lexington, six miles from Concord, about one hundred "minute-men" of the colony with arms in their hands, who were peremptorily ordered to " lay down their arms, and dis

perse." It was very strange that they did not do it. They stood up, and received the fire of his Majesty's well-dressed troops. Eight fell dead, the first "martyrs of the Revolution." The survivors retired to join other "minute-men on the hill; and the next fire was returned. The "regulars fled in their turn; and soon the whole British column was in rapid retreat, with minute-men swarming on their front flank and rear; and the whole detachment would have been captured but for the arrival of re-enforcements under Lord Percy. With the utmost caution, the British forces made their way to Bunker Hill, with a loss of three hundred men killed and wounded. The American loss was about eighty-five. The startling news flew over New England, and Boston was soon in a state of siege. When the British forces found protection under the guns of the fleet, they felt relieved. They were no cowards; but they now knew that the colonists would fight, and that to conquer the rebellion was no child's play.

The patriotism of the provincials was roused. Assurances of support came to Massachusetts from New Hampshire to Virginia and the Carolinas; and men, with such arms as they could get, gathered to the camp of freedom outside of Boston. In the mean time, the Green-Mountain Boys rallied under stern old Ethan Allen, who on the 10th of May appeared suddenly in the midst of the fort at Ticonderoga, and demanded its surrender "in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," an authority which the

British commander did not choose to resist.

In the afternoon of the seventeenth day of June, 1775, twelve hundred men under Col. Prescott, with a few from New Hampshire under Stark, having six pieces of artillery behind a redoubt hastily thrown up, waited the attack of three thousand British regulars, commanded by Gens. Howe and Pigot, and covered by destructive batteries in Boston and a terrific fire from war-vessels in the harbor. But these volunteers do not flee. How strangely cool they are! From hills and roofs and steeples, and from worlds invisible, eyes look down

upon the scene, while the most intense anxiety pervades the spectators. On move the powerful assailants until within a hundred yards of this handful of freemen, when suddenly a sheet of flame rises up from behind the redoubt: volley after volley rolls from the little band of heroes; and suddenly the regulars break and flee. A fire so steady, and an aim so deadly, no troops could endure. From this moment, provincial volunteers rose to the rank of a respectable and dreaded enemy. Again the British forces were led up to the attack, and again they recoiled from the terrific fire of the Americans. Not until the third desperate assault, and the ammunition of the colonists was exhausted, did they retire to take up another position, and form the nucleus of the Continental Army under command of the newly-appointed commander-in-chief, the immortal Washington.

For nearly a hundred years, the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill have been under review. They have taken their position as great historical events. They revealed the resolute purpose of right to stand up firmly against might. They settled the question of resistance to despotic force by the force of liberty. They showed that numbers, backed by enormous power, could neither overawe nor conquer a handful of men sustained by the arm of God. The great disproportion between these human forces in battle seemed as if intended to render illustrious the divine power which controlled the conflict.

SARATOGA AND BENNINGTON.

In the spring of 1777, combinations were formed in Canada for the invasion of the United States. A brilliant army of eight thousand men, "besides a large number of Canadian boatmen, laborers, and skirmishers," all under command of Gen. Burgoyne, advanced by the way of Lake Champlain. We held the Fort of Ticonderoga under St. Clair; but the British, dragging their cannon to the top of a high hill south and west from the fort, compelled its evacuation. Our forces

retired southward. The baggage and stores were taken to Skenesborough (now Whitehall) by water, while the principal army moved by land east of the lake. Disaster attended the retreat. Burgoyne pushed on with such energy as to capture all the stores despatched to Skenesborough; and twelve hundred men stopping at Hubberton were attacked by the British under Fraser and Reidesell, and completely routed. Some fled disgracefully, others made a stout resistance; but the triumph of the enemy was complete. Some two hundred were taken prisoners; and the fugitives gathered by St. Clair united with his main command, which, after seven days of toil and suffering, joined Schuyler on the Hudson.

Burgoyne, in the mean time, slowly struggled through the forest, and the obstructions which had been thrown in his way by the Americans, and soon appeared on the Hudson with all the spirit of a conqueror. He had thus far swept every thing before him, and had reached his first great objective point with the loss of only two hundred men. He felt himself sufficiently at leisure to bring up his stores, and re-adjust his command, before driving the rebel Americans into the clutches of Clinton, who, according to the plan of the campaign, was advancing from New York, capturing our posts on the Hudson, expecting to meet Burgoyne in the neighborhood of Albany.

He now issued a new proclamation, calling for ten deputies from each township to assemble at Castleton, to organize under Gov. Skene a loyal government over a conquered country. He expected the prompt submission of "the GreenMountain Boys," just now smarting under the act of Congress refusing to acknowledge their State independence; but he was deceived. The patriotism of Vermont was too profound and pervading to be destroyed by trials, however severe or unjust they might be.

Burgoyne determined to make the campaign comprehensive and decisive. He therefore sent out "Col. St. Leger with two hundred regulars, Sir John Johnson's Royal Greens,

some Canadian Rangers, and a body of Indians under Brant, to harass the New-York frontier from the west." Rallying his neighbors to repel this assault, the gallant Herkimer fell, mortally wounded. St. Leger laid siege to Fort Schuyler, our most western post, near the head of the Mohawk, commanded by Gansevoort and Willett. A sally under Willett repelled the enemy; but four hundred brave Americans fell in the conflict, or under the merciless strokes of savages after they were prisoners of war.

Another collateral plan of the campaign developed itself on the east of the Hudson. Burgoyne sent out Col. Baum, with a strong detachment of Germans, English Canadians, and Indians, as far as Bennington, "to try the affections of the country, to mount Reidesell's Dragoons, to complete Peters's corps of loyalists, and to obtain a larger supply of cattle, horses, and carriages," all of which seemed quite practicable and judicious; but the brave Stark, at the head of the New-Hampshire volunteers, was there, and, pointing his finger toward the British, said, "There they are! We beat to-day, or Molly Stark's a widow!" Baum, seeing the danger began to intrench, and sent in haste to Burgoyne for reenforcements. But the impetuous Stark led up his volunteers in four columns in front and rear; and, after a hot engagement of two hours, the works of the enemy were carried. There was a fearful slaughter among the Germans, and many of the survivors were taken prisoners.

Burgoyne came up to re-enforce the British; but, as Providence ordered, at the same time Warner appeared on the field with his regiment from Manchester, and the battle raged till dark, when victory turned on the side of liberty. The Americans had slain two hundred of their foes; taken "near six hundred prisoners, a thousand stand of arms, as many swords, and four pieces of artillery;" having only fourteen killed, and forty-two wounded." The victory was complete, and "Molly Stark" was not "a widow." The failure of these

* Hildreth, iii. 201.