1 A part of a view published in London, August 10, 1776, and made by Lieut.-Col. Thomas James, of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, June 30, 1776. It represents the position
of the fleet during "the attack on the 28th of June, which lasted nine hours and forty minutes." The position of the ships is designated by A, "Active," 28 guns; B, "Bristol,"
flagship, 50 guns; C, "Experiment," 50 guns: D, "Solebay," 28 guns. The "Syren," 28 guns, and "Acteon," 28 guns, and the "Thunder," bomb-ketch, were nearer the spectator
as was the "Friendship," of 28 guns. L is Sullivan's Island; M, a narrow isthmus, defended by an armed hulk, N; the mainland is O; myrtle-grove, P.

Faden also issued at the same time, as made by Col. James, a long panoramic view of Sullivan's and Long islands, showing the American and British camps on the opposite sides of the dividing inlet.

cation of Canada. Cf. Brent's Life of Archbishop Carroll; and B. W. Campbell's "Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll" in U. S. Cath. Mag., iii. The unfortunate comments (Oct. 21, 1774) of the Continental Congress on the Quebec Act was much against the persuasions of the commissioners, and it was soon evident that all their efforts, on this side at least, were futile. (Cf. Force's Am. Archives, ii. 231.)

After Franklin and John Carroll had left Montreal, Charles Carroll and Chase remained, endeavoring to support the military councils.1

I. THE ATTACK ON SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, JUNE, 1776. Clinton's proclamation to the magistrates of South Carolina, June 6, 1776, is in Ramsay's Revolution in South Carolina, i. 330. Lee's report to Washington (July 1, 1776) is in Sparks's Correspondence of the Revolution, i. 243; to Congress (July 2d), in Ibid., ii. 502; in Lee's Memoirs, p. 386; in Force's American Archives, 5th ser., i. p. 435; N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1872, pp. 100, 107; and in Dawson (p. 139). John Adams (Familiar Letters, 203) notes the exhilaration which the news caused in Philadelphia.

There are other contemporary accounts in Gen. Morris's letter in the N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll.,

66

1875, p. 438; in R. W. Gibbes's Doc. Hist. of
the Amer. Rev., 1776-1782, pp. 2-19; in Force's
Archives; in Frank Moore's Diary of the Rev.,
i. p. 257; in Moore's Laurens Correspondence, p.
24. A
'new war song" of the day, referring to
the battle, is given in Moore's Songs and Bal-
lads of the Rev., p. 135. A broadside account was
printed in Philadelphia, June 20, 1776 (Hilde-
burn's Bibliog., no. 3342). A plan of the attack
after a London original was published in Phila-
delphia in 1777, with a "Description of the at-
tack in a letter from Sir Peter Parker to Mr.
Stephens, and an extract from a letter of Lieut.
Gen. Clinton to Lord Geo. Germaine" (Hilde-
burn, no. 3539).

The earliest general account is by Moultrie himself in his Memoirs of the American Revolution. Cf. Gordon's Amer. Rev.; and John Drayton's Memoirs of the American Revolution [through 1776] as relating to the State of South Carolina (Charleston, 1821, two vols.). Of the later general historians, reference may be made to Bancroft (orig. ed.), vol. viii. ch. 66, and final revision, iv. ch. xxv., a full account; to Dawson, i. ch. 10; to Carrington, ch. 27, 28; to Gay, iii. 467; Irving's Washington, ii. ch. 29; Lossing's Field-Book, ii. p. 754. Something can be gleaned from Garden's Anecdotes of the Revolu

1 Their letters, written in May, are in Force's Archives, and the originals are preserved in the Archives at Washington; but Brantz Mayer says (Carroll's Journal, 1876, p. 37) that their report of June 12, 1776, could not be found. Their last letter, however, of May 27th, which Mayer prints (p. 38), gives their results. It is also in Force (vi. 589). The papers of General Thomas show their letters addressed to him of May 6, 12, and 15.

2 After a print published in London by Faden, August 10, 1776, taken by Lieut.-Col. James, the day after the fight.

KEY.-A, Charlestown; B, Ashley River; C, Fort Johnston; D, Cummins Point; E, part of Five-Fathom Hole, where all the fleet rode before and after the attack; F, station of the headmost frigate, the "Solebay," two miles and three quarters from Fort Sullivan, situated to the northward of G; H, part of Mt. Pleasant; I, part of Hog Island; K, Wando River; L, Cooper River; M, James Island; N, breakers on Charlestown Bar; O, rebel schooner of 12 guns.

There is "An exact prospect of Charlestown, the metropolis of South Carolina," in the London Mag., 1762, a folding panoramic view, which shows the water-front with ships in the harbor.

Maj. Gen. Robert Howe's report on the defences of Charlestown, some months later (Oct. 9th), is in the Amer. Archives, iii. 49.

CHAPTER III.

THE SENTIMENT OF INDEPENDENCE, ITS GROWTH AND CONSUMMATION.

THE

BY GEORGE E. ELLIS, D. D., LL. D.,

President Mass. Hist. Society.

HE assertion needs no qualification that the thirteen colonies would not in the beginning have furnished delegates to a congress with the avowed purpose of seeking a separation from the mother country; and we may also affirm, that, with a possible forecast in the minds of some two or three members, such a result was not apprehended. If any deceptive methods as was charged at the time—were engaged in turning a congress avowedly called to secure a redress of grievances into an agency for securing independence, they will appear in the sharp scrutiny with which. we may now study the inner history of the subject. And if an explanation of the course of the Congress can be found, consistent with its perfect sincerity, we must then seek to trace the influences alike of the new light which came in upon the delegates, and of successive aggravating measures of the British government, in substituting independence as its object. Though it is certain that Samuel Adams, fretting under the hesitations of Congress, had proposed to an ardent sympathizer that the four New England colonies should act in that direction by themselves, his own clear judgment would have satisfied him that that step would have been futile unless the other colonies followed it. If there were but a single colony from which no response could be drawn, the consequences would have been obstructive. That different sections of the country should have furnished leaders so in accord as Samuel Adams, Richard H. Lee, and Gadsden was a most felicitous condition. A congress, then, composed of delegates from all the colonies was the indispensable and the only practicable method for working out the scheme of independence, and even such a congress must avoid basing its action on local grievances. The reserve which the delegates from Massachusetts found it politic to practise, in not obtruding their special grievances, was well decided upon from the first, and proved to be effective. That the circumstances required patience in such men as the Adamses is abundantly evident from the frankness with which they wrote outside of Congress of the temporizing and dilatoriness of what went on in it.

have been won to it. The whole method of the steady strengthening of the spirit of alienation from Great Britain was a working of popular feeling in channels different from those of ordinary official direction and oversight.

It was but fair to assume that the objects of the first Congress would be defined by the instructions furnished by those who sent or commissioned its members. The delegates from New Hampshire were bid "to consult and adopt such measures as may have the most likely tendency to extricate the colonies from their present difficulties, to secure and perpetuate their rights, liberties, and privileges, and to restore that peace, harmony, and mutual confidence which once happily subsisted between the parent country and her colonies." Massachusetts bade her delegates "deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious,1 and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men." Rhode Island's charter governor empowered the delegates "to join in consulting upon proper measures to obtain a repeal of the several acts of the British Parliament, &c., and upon proper measures to establish the rights and liberties of the colonies upon a just and solid foundation." Connecticut authorized its delegates "to consult and advise on proper measures for advancing the best good of the colonies." The delegates from New York were trusted without any particular instructions, having merely a general commission "to attend the Congress at Philadelphia." So, also, New Jersey appointed its delegates "to represent the colony of New Jersey in the said General Congress." Pennsylvania sent a committee from its own Assembly in behalf of the province "to consult upon the present unhappy state of the colonies, and to form and adopt a plan for the purposes of obtaining redress of American grievances, ascertaining American rights upon the most solid and constitutional principles, and for establishing that union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies which is indispensably necessary to the welfare and happiness of both." The deputies from the three Lower Counties were "to consult and determine upon all such prudent and lawful measures as may be judged most expedient for the colonies immediately and unitedly to adopt, in order to obtain relief for an oppressed people, and the redress of our general grievances."

It will be observed that the instructions from these eight colonies are moderate and pacific in terms, without menace, or a looking to any other results than harmony. Something a little more emphatic appears in what follows. The Maryland delegates were to use all efforts in their power in the Congress "to effect one general plan of conduct operating on the commercial relations of the colonies with the mother country." Virginia bade her delegates "consider of the most proper and effectual manner of so oper1 This last word recognized the jealousy and apprehension felt in Massachusetts about the sending over of bishops to the province.