they have only opposed those new regulations which were instantly to have been executed, and would have annihilated all our rights. For this absolutely necessary and manly step, they have received the approbation of the Continental Congress, one of the most respectable assemblies in the world. They aim at no independency, nor any thing new, but barely the preservation of their old rights."

Since the passage of the Act authorizing the EastIndia Company to export tea to America, the issue had been on the original question of taxation; but the ministry, alarmed at the union of the colonies, declared now to Franklin, through friendly agents, that they would concede the point of taxation, would repeal the Tea Act and the Boston Port Act; but that the two Acts relating to Massachusetts-the Regulating Act and the Act concerning the administration of justice. - must remain as permanent amendments to the local constitution, and as a standing example of the power of parliament. When the momentous issue was narrowed down to the preservation of old customs and rights, the reply of the great American was prompt and decided, and spoke the united voice of the party who constituted the majority of his countrymen: "While parliament claims the right of altering American constitutions at pleasure, there can be no agreement; for we are rendered unsafe in every privilege." Subsequently, Franklin sent, through Lord Howe to Lord North, the following as his last words: "The Massachusetts must suffer all the hazards and mischiefs of war rather than admit the alteration of their charter and laws by

1 Bancroft, vii. 224.

parliament. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."1

The journals reported from time to time the concentration of military and naval force at Boston, and said that, when the whole of the army should arrive, it would consist of about sixty-four hundred men. On the 18th of January, General Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth, "The eyes of all are turned upon Great Britain; and it is the opinion of most people, that, if a respectable force is seen in the field, the most obnoxious of the leaders seized, and a pardon proclaimed for all others, Government will come off victorious, and with less opposition than was expected a few months ago." A letter was now on the way from Lord Dartmouth to the general, containing directions, as "the first essential step to be taken towards re-establishing Government," to arrest and imprison the principal actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress. On the 21st of January, a gentleman in Boston, in writing to his friend in London, said that the Continental Congress "had drawn a line by the banks of the ocean;" had "claimed their own exclusive jurisdiction in all interior concerns and in all cases of taxation;" had "left to Great Britain the exclusive sovereignty of the ocean, and over their trade;" and had placed both upon constitutional principles; and that "it was in vain, it was delirium, it was frenzy, to think of dragooning three millions of English people out of their liberties." He added,

1 Bancroft, vii. 242.

2 From the southern papers we learn, that, agreeably to the recommendation of the Grand Council of America, the several colonies as far as Georgia were continuing their collections for the poor sufferers by the execrable Port Bill.

"There is a spirit prevailing here such as I never saw before. I remember the conquest of Louisburg, in 1745; I remember the spirit here when the Duke D'Anville's squadron was upon this coast, when forty thousand men marched down to Boston, and were mustered and numbered upon the Common, complete in arms, from this province only in three weeks; but I remember nothing like what I have seen these six months past." Neither the king, his ministers, nor the Tory majority in parliament, could be convinced "by the blaze of genius and the burst of thought "1 of Camden, Chatham, and Burke, that there was any thing more serious than "the acts of a rude rabble, without plan, without concert, and without conduct." The first lord of the admiralty declared "the Americans were neither disciplined nor capable of discipline."

The task of restraining the rash among the patriots was becoming harder every day. The leaders on both sides now expected the commencement of war. In the judgment of Lord Dartmouth, if the arrest of the members of the Provincial Congress should occasion hostilities, it were better that the conflict should begin on such grounds than in a riper state of the rebellion. Samuel Adams, on the 29th of January, wrote, "We appear to be in a state of hostility; the general, with regiments, with a very few adherents, on one side, and all the rest of the inhabitants

What can better manifest the union of the colonies, and their firm affection for and sympathy with each other, than these donations, or place in a more striking point of light the inhumanity of that parliament which has made such large and distant charities absolutely necessary to prevent thousands of the inhabitants from starving? - Essex Gazette, Jan. 15, 1775.

1 Josiah Quincy, in Gordon's History, i. 446.

2 Dartmouth's words.

of the province, backed by all the colonies, on the other.... They (the people) are resolved not to be the aggressors in an open quarrel with the troops; but, animated with an unquenchable love of liberty, they will support their righteous claim to it to the utmost extremity."

On the 1st of February, the second Provincial Congress assembled at Cambridge, of which Warren was a member and a prominent actor. It was composed largely of the members of the preceding congress. Warren's name appears in connection with most of the proceedings. On the 9th, the congress re-appointed a committee of safety in a resolve which reads, "That the Hon. John Hancock, Esq., Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Benjamin Church, jun., Mr. Richard Devens, Captain Benjamin White, Colonel Joseph Palmer, Mr. Abraham Watson, Colonel Azor Orne, Mr. John Pigeon, Colonel William Heath, and Mr. Jabez Fisher, be, and hereby are, appointed a committee of safety, to continue until the farther order of this or some other congress or House of Representatives of this province." It was made their duty to observe the movements of all who should attempt to carry into execution the Regulating Act, or the Act relating to the administration of justice; and five of them, one to be an inhabitant of Boston, were authorized, in case they should judge such an attempt was to be made, "to alarm, muster, and cause to be assembled with the utmost expedition," so much of the militia of the province as they should judge to be necessary to oppose such attempts. Another resolve authorized "Hon. Jedediah Preble, Esq., Hon. Artemas Ward, Esq., Colonel Seth Pomeroy, Colonel

John Thomas, and Colonel William Heath" to be general officers, who, as such, for the purpose of resisting all attempts to execute the two Acts, should command the said militia "so long as it should be retained by the committee of safety, and no longer." One of the committee of supplies, Mr. Hall, had declined; and Elbridge Gerry was chosen in his place.

Warren, on the day these resolves were passed, was in Boston.1 On the next day, while a committee

1 A letter, dated Boston, Feb. 6, 1775, says that the Tories, "sensible what effects a continental union must produce," were straining every nerve to counteract the measures of a general congress. The following handbill was distributed this day through the town, which shows the Tory side at this juncture :

"Friends, countrymen, and citizens, - Have you read and weighed His Majesty's speech? the address of the lords and commons of Great Britain? I fear we have got into the wrong box; therefore let us not any longer be led by frenzy, but seize upon and deliver up to justice (at once) those who have seduced us from our duty and happiness, or, depend upon it, they will leave us in the lurch! Nay, I am assured some of them (who had property) have already mortgaged all their substance for fear of confiscation: but that shall not save their their necks; for I am one (of forty misled people) who will watch their motion, and not suffer them to escape the punishment due to the disturbers of our repose. Remember the fate of Wat Tyler, and think how vain it is for Jack, Sam, or Will to war against Great Britain, now she is in earnest! It is greatly inferior to the giants waging war against Olympus! These had strength; but what have we? Our leaders are desperate bankrupts! Our country is without money, stores, or necessaries of war, - without one place of refuge or defence! If we were called together, we should be a confused herd, without any disposition to obedience, without a general of ability to direct and guide us; and our numbers would be our destruction! Never did a people rebel with so little reason; therefore our conduct cannot be justified before God! Never did so weak a people dare to contend with so powerful a State; therefore it cannot be justified by prudence. It is all the consequence of the arts of crafty knaves over weak minds and wild enthusiasts, who, if we continue to follow, will lead us to inevitable ruin. Rouse, rouse. ye Massachusetians, while it be yet time! Ask pardon of God, submit to our king and parliament, whom we have wickedly and grievously offended. Eyes had we, but we saw not; neither have we heard with our ears. Let not our posterity curse us for having wantonly lost the estates that should have been theirs, or for entailing misery upon them, by implicitly adhering to the promises of a few desperadoes. Let us seize our seducers, make peace with our mother-country, and save ourselves and children. Amen.

"BOSTON, Sabbath Eve, Feb. 5, 1775."

"A YEOMAN OF SUFFOLK COUNTY.