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upon the colonists in times of profound peace. It has also been resolved in parliament, that colonists, charged with committing certain offences, shall be transported to England to be tried.

"But should we enumerate our injuries in detail?-By one statute it is declared that parliament can of right make laws to bind us in all cases whatever.'-What is to defend us against so enormous, so unlimited a power ?"

The declaration next recounts the fruitless petitions, appeals, and remonstrances of the colonies, the inhuman outrages, and slaughters committed on the inhabitants of Massachusetts, under the orders of Governor Gage, by the royal forces, his proclamation of martial law, the burning of Charlestown, &c., and concludes thus :—

"We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of 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. Honour, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom, which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.

"Our cause is just our union is perfect: our internal resources are great, and if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the divine favor towards us, that his providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up into our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operations, and possessed the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly. before God and the world declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator has graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabated firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties, being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than live like slaves...

"Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, we

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assure them, that we mean not to dissolve the union, which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced to excite any other nation to war against them. We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states. We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or suspicion of offence. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder condition than servitude or death.

"In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birth-right, and which we ever enjoyed until the late violation of it, for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves; against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of our aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.

"With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and impartial Ruler of the universe, we most devoutly implore his divine goodness to conduct us happily through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war."

The proposition of Lord North, for conciliation, was taken into consideration, and rejected with great unanimity, as illusory in all its promises, and "altogether unsatisfactory;" because it proposed only a "suspension of the mode, not a renunciation of the pretended right to tax;" because it did "not repeal the several acts of parliament for restraining the trade and altering the form of government of one of the colonies;" and because it did not explicitly "renounce" the power of suspending the colonial legislatures, and that of legislating "in all cases whatever." The Committee, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Richard Henry Lee, concluded their report by invoking the reflection of the whole world, upon the cruel and deceit ful character of the British plan. "When," say they, "these things are laid together and attentively considered, can the world be deceived into an opinion, that we are unreasonable, or can it hesitate to believe us that nothing but our own

exertions may defeat the ministerial sentence of death, abject submission ?"

A second petition to the king, and addresses to the inhabitants of Great Britain, to the Irish people, and to the authorities of Jamaica, were also adopted. Addresses were also made to the Indians. Congress then adjourned to meet again in September.

The petition to the king was intrusted to the care of Mr. Penn and Arthur Lee, who presented it to Lord Dartmouth on the 1st of September. After a few days delay, they were coldly informed that no answer would be given; an insulting treatment of the humble remonstrances of United America, which served to convince the most timid of the necessity of persevering in their preparations to decide the controversy by arms, if they would not submit to unlimited tyranny..

Congress re-assembled in September, and a few weeks afterwards, General Gage sailed for England, leaving the-command of the British forces to General Howe.

More and more vigorous measures were constantly required, till by degrees Congress were compelled to assume all the functions of a regular government, which were, in general, acquiesced in from the necessity of the case, or by express enactment of the several provincial conventions acting in behalf of the individual colonies. It was found necessary to take strong measures against domestic enemies, and Congress authorized the arrest of such persons "going at large, who might endanger the safety of the colonies, or the liberties of America." They determined to carry on their own deliberations in secret, denouncing expulsion, with the stigma of being an enemy to the liberties of America, upon every person who should violate the order.

The main army of the Americans continued to blockade the royal forces in the town of Boston. Congress had, however, unfortunately adopted the plan of short enlistments; and a few months of inactivity in camp, under circumstances of want and comparative privation, had diminished the military ardor of new levies. A task of great difficulty was before the new commander-in-chief. His appeals, addresses, remonstrances, and invocations, addressed to the interests, feelings, and patriotism of Congress, were earnest and unremitting.

Few of those whose time had already expired had res enlisted in October, and the term of none extended beyond

the 1st of January following. Congress made liberal offers, and General Washington summoned the neighbouring colonies to send their militia to the aid of the general cause, which requisitions were complied with readily. The new troops arrived in considerable numbers, and the army was gradu ally re-modelled; but not to any efficient extent, until the month of February 1776. With all these efforts, on the last day of December, the whole force enlisted did not amount to ten thousand men. The lines were sometimes in a state almost defenceless, but fortunately no attack was made upon them by the enemy. No sufficient reason has been assigned for this neglect of General Howe, which was of the highest importance to the American cause. "It is not," said General Washington in his communications to Congress, "in the page of history to furnish a case like ours. To maintain a post, within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together, without ammunition, and at the same time disband one army and recruit another, within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is more, probably, than ever was attempted."

The policy of short enlistments, which produced so much difficulty here, and was the occasion of infinite mischief during the whole war, was partly forced upon Congress by necessity, and partly the result of a jealous dread of the expense and danger of a permanent standing army. They did not at first calculate upon a protracted contest, and were destitute of means for future payments; and a confidence was entertained that draughts upon the militia would be readily answered, to any extent required for the defence of colonial liberty. How frequently these calculations were disappointed, will be seen in the subsequent events of the war.

Such as we have described, was, at the end of the year, the condition of affairs in Massachusetts, and especially in the neighbourhood of Boston. General Washington was em ployed with indefatigable industry in keeping his forces to gether and bringing them into a state of discipline and preparation, in order to make a successful attack upon the town. General Howe with the English troops, was cooped up within the town; and by the activity of the American cruisers, authorized by Congress, his supplies, as well of subsistence as of military stores, were diminished until his situation became one of great difficulty. Neither army felt the disposition, nor made any demonstration, towards an attack upon the other.

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Connected with these operations of the main army was the expedition against Canada, ordered by Congress in September. It was a bold step of hostility against the mother country, which was considered at the time, by some of the fast friends of American rights, to be a departure from the legitimate objects for which they had taken up arms, and an aggression upon the territories of Great Britain, not warranted by the state of the controversy. The defence of the measure is, the universal conviction, that General Carleton. who commanded in Canada, was instructed by the British government, and provided with ample means, to prepare an expedition to co-operate with the forces of General Howe, in subduing the colonies. They were informed that munitions of war, money, and troops, were to be concentrated there for an invasion of the Anglo-American colonies; and they knew that large and unusual powers had been conferred upon the new governor. His talents and popularity were great, and they had reason to fear his influence in reconciling the Canadians to the measures of the British government, with some of which they had been discontented, as well as to dread the military strength he could bring against them. The capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, already mentioned, opened the way for an expedition; and Colonel Arnold, who, with Colonel Ethan Allen, had seized upon those posts, was earnest in pressing upon Congress the policy of invading Canada. They finally acquiesced; and late in the season two detachments were dispatched on this duty, one under the command of Generals Schuyler and Montgomery, by the customary route through Lake Champlain, to the St. Lawrence, and the other under Colonel Arnold by the river Kennebec in Maine, and by forced marches through the wilderness.

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The first detachment, consisting of a body of New England troops, about 1100 in number, arrived at Ticonderoga, and proceeded down the lake, early in September. General Schuyler, who had been left at Albany, to negotiate with the Mohawk Indians, in order to secure the rear of the march, joined them at Cape la Motte. From that place they moved to the ISLE AUX Noix, from which place they issued a proclamation to the Canadians, and soon after effectSept. 10. ed a landing at St. John's, the first British post, 115 miles North of Ticonderoga. After a slight skirmish with the Indians, the fort was found too strong for assault,

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