the current of water, two other heavy beams, armed on the top with tusks of iron, to pierce the vessels that should attempt to ascend. All these frames, ponderous of themselves, and charged besides with enormous stones, could not be easily broken, subverted, or displaced. Ingeniously contrived, as well as skilfully executed, they were of no little utility, in the course of the war. The Pennsylvanians were also very diligent in providing themselves with arms and ammunition. The provincial assembly had appointed a committee of superintendence, to see that the arms were made with a desirable promptitude, and the requisite perfection. The gunsmiths, and other armorers, were continually watched and stimulated. The assembly also decided, that several battalions should be levied and completely equipped. A great quantity of powder was manufactured in the environs of Philadelphia; a single mill supplied five hundred pounds a week. Every thing, in brief, tended towards war. The governor was unable to resist an inclination so universal; he had no royal troops at his disposal.

The province, and particularly the city, of New York, found themselves in a painful situation. painful situation. They were exposed on all parts, to the insults of the British fleet; the city had even still a garrison, though feeble, of royal troops. New reenforcements were expected from England; and it was known that all the corps that arrived in America, landed at New York, as their destined place of arms. The delegates of the province were therefore instructed, to move the Congress to prescribe the course to be pursued, in case of the arrival of the troops that were already embarked from Ireland for America. The Congress answered, they should stand upon the defensive, allow the English to land, and permit them to occupy the barracks, provided they should behave themselves peaceably; not, however, to suffer that they should erect fortifications, to interrupt the communication between the city and country; if they should employ force, to resist them with force; to transport the munitions of war into the interior of the province; to designate places of refuge for the women and children; finally, the Congress exhorted all the inhabitants to arm, and hold themselves in preparation for, every event.

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But it was not long before they were relieved from these anxious apprehensions. The royal troops arrived; but, instead of landing at New York, they went on shore at Sandy Hook, whence, by the orders of general Gage, they reembarked for Boston. The battle of Breed's Hill had enfeebled the garrison of that city, and new soldiers were needed to fill up the companies. At length, the detachment itself, which for so long a time had been stationed at New York, retired on board a ship of war which was anchored in the port. The city, thus delivered entirely from the presence of the royal troops, was replaced absolutely at its own discretion.

At this epoch, governor Tryon arrived from London at New York. He was a man of an active genius, an ardent character, and possessed of great influence in the province. He was received with marked respect. His continual efforts in favor of the royal cause, were generally crowned with success. Tranquillity, for a certain time, remained undisturbed. Then followed a quarrel, in which a royal ship fired upon the city with balls and grape-shot, because the inhabitants had seen fit to transport artillery from one place to another. A great number took refuge in the country. The governor demanded a conference with the convention, the committee of safety, and the officers of the militia. It was granted. He expressed the deepest concern at the present discord; he begged they would use prudently the power which they had entire; he observed, that violent measures would only widen the breach, and hazard the destruction of the city. This example shows clearly to what terms was reduced, and upon how frail a basis reposed, the royal authority at that time in America; since even in the province of New York, that of all which numbered the most loyalists, the governor was driven to such extremity, that, instead of commanding, he was constrained to pray. Hence also it is manifest, that Tryon had been sent, not to govern a province that would no longer obey him, but to intrigue clandestinely, to sow division, to corrupt the good, and dispense to the wicked their hire.

How opposite such conduct was to the dignity of a powerful nation, and how proper to render it contemptible in the estimation of the universe, every one can imagine for himself. It would have been a much more seemly resolution, if the governor, upon ascertaining the situation of affairs, should have withdrawn from the province, and left it altogether in the power of the patriots; for to govern without commanding, and to command without being obeyed, was a degradation of his rank, and of the royal authority itself.

The general Congress had become greatly alarmed at the artifices of governor Tryon. They feared he would at length succeed in exciting such malignant humors, as might issue in fatal results. They thought it expedient to prevent the evil; and accordingly recommended, that, in all the colonies, every person, of whatever name or condition, whose opinions afforded motives of suspicion, should be arrested, and detained under a sufficient guard; this was the law of suspected persons. The deputies of New York sent copies of it into their province. At this news, governor Tryon, having doubts of some strange resolution, promptly took refuge on board an English vessel moored in the port; he carried off the seal of the province. But, towards the close of the year, with the approbation of the king, he addressed a proclamation to the inhabitants of New York, to apprise them of the dispositions of the prince, and the earnest desire he entertained that some honorable way of reconciliation between the

two parties might be devised. Thus vanished even the shadow of royal authority in this colony, after its action had in reality ceased long since. Such was the success of the hopes the ministers had placed in the manœuvres and intrigues of governor Tryon, whom they had considered as the most proper instrument to act upon a province of such principal importance.

It had recently been divided by the provincial convention into a certain number of districts, each destined to furnish a company. The organisation of these companies was the object of a special regulation. But this appearance of ardor was in many far from being sincere. Even members of the provincial Congress presumed to say, openly, that they would not receive the bills of credit; and that, when the English troops should have arrived, they would join the royal standard. The provincial soldiers themselves were emulous in deserting. So efficacious had been the whispers of Tryon; or, perhaps, so great were the avarice, the fear, or the loyalty, of the inhabitants. Admitting only the latter reason, it would be impossible for the colonists of New York to clear themselves of the reproach of hypocrisy and of cowardice, for not having dared openly to follow the royal banners, and for having, on the contrary, pretended a flaming zeal for the cause which the greater part of the Americans had espoused. But simulation and perfidy are never more frequent than in the political revolutions of empires. Those who lately served kings, afterwards. serve republics; and ardent republicans become all at once royalists, according to the dictates of their ambition or their avarice. Such is the miserable condition of human nature, that it is never consistent with itself; and when a man abandons one party to coalesce with another, he is often more actuated by a culpable motive than a virtuous conviction.

Maryland followed the example of the other provinces. The authority of the ordinary assembly was here also transferred to a convention, which assembled in the city of Annapolis. It proposed the articles of a league, to be composed of its own members, and all the freemen of the province. They pledged their faith reciprocally, and all towards America, to persist, according to their power, in opposition, whether with arms or with commercial restrictions. They decreed, that forty companies of minute-men should be levied; and that all the inhabitants of the province, freemen, from sixteen to fifty years, except only the ministers of religion, and physicians exercising their profession, individuals in the service of the governor, minute-men, artillery-men, and those prevented by their religious opinions from bearing arms, should attach themselves to some one company of militia. Hence it appears how calm, how remote from all blind transport, was this people; since, in such a crisis, individuals, reputed most essential to the general utility, were exempted from military service; and since religious opinions were also perfectly respected.

The regular organisation of the militia ascertained the pay of the officers and that of the soldiers. A committe of safety was invested with the direction of affairs relating to the militia and minute-men; and even with the power of taking, during the recess of the convention, the measures deemed necessary for the good of the province. Subaltern committees were established, for local superintendence upon every point, and for the reciprocal transmission of useful intelligence. Finally, the convention created two hundred and sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars, in bills of credit, in order to defray the charges of the militia. Meanwhile, the people had already forced the gates of the provincial arsenal, and seized the arms and ammunition, which were found there in considerable quantity.

In New Jersey, the royal authority still subsisted in its ancient forms; but it was without power, since it was without arms. Accordingly, the real directing authority was that of the people; which had, for its support, both arms and the general opinion. The militia organised and exercised themselves, according to the regulations published by the provincial Congress. The people had taken possession of the public chest; a sum of twenty to thirty thousand pounds sterling it contained, was appropriated to pay the militia. Besides the provincial militia, the general Congress invited the con⚫vention of New Jersey to levy, without delay, two battalions, at the expense of the public treasure; the officers were to have the same pay as those of the confederate army, and the soldiers to be engaged but for one year. In the meantime, governor Franklin convoked the provincial assembly. In the speech he addressed them, he expressed his grief at the present troubles; and announced, that the commanders of the British fleets upon all the American coasts had orders to act offensively against every port or place whatsoever, in which the officers of the king should be insulted, or in which troops should be levied, forts erected, or the public magazines plundered. He spoke also of the desire of independence; and added, that, as to the safety of his own person, he would refer it to their good faith. The assembly, in their answer, expressly denied any thought of independence; they assured the governor, that he might be tranquil with respect to his safety; and, finally, that as to the disturbances, they deplored them sincerely, but could no nothing to remedy them, since their cause was in the acts of parliament.

The two provinces of Connecticut and Rhode Island were inhabited by men naturally the zealots of liberty; and, not having the restraint of a royal governor, as by their charters they had the privilege of electing their own, they had long since provided themselves with men, arms, and munitions. These measures of safety were the more essential, as the vicinity of the English troops of Boston alarmed their suspicions; and they saw enemy vessels continually upon

the coasts, employed in carrying off provisions, not only for their own use, but also for that of the garrison besieged in that city. Besides this, captain Wallace, commanding a ship of the king, with some other armed vessels, greatly harassed their commerce, capturing daily merchant vessels belonging to one or other of these provinces. At length, he made a furious attack upon the town of Bristol. The houses, the stores, the churches, suffered excessively from the fire of his artillery; which continued till the inhabitants, at evening, consented to supply with fresh meat this man without pity. But these hostilities committed by the vessels of the king against a defenceless town, did but increase the already too violent disgusts of the Americans, who complained of them with much asperity, in a multitude of writings, both public and private.

But Wallace was not of a character to allow himself lightly to be diverted from his resolutions; and perhaps he was also spurred on by necessity. The blame should not be imputed to him, but to those ministers who by their rigorous counsels had provoked the war, without having prepared the requisite means to sustain it; consequently, as it was impossible to fight in the open field, to conquer, it became necessary to pillage, in order to live. Captain Wallace, therefore, employed himself with great activity, in ravaging, by his piracies, the coasts of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The army of Massachusetts sent to the succour of the Rhode Islanders a detachment of soldiers, under the command of general Lee. This man, of a violent character, and little accustomed to respect the laws and public order, when it was in question to favor the American revolution, immediately compelled the people he came to defend, to bind themselves, by the most terrible oaths, to break off all communication with the instruments of ministerial tyranny, vulgarly called, said the words of the oath, the troops and fleets of the king; not to lend them any assistance whatever; to denounce traitors before the public authorities; and to take arms for the defence of American liberty, as often as it should be required of them by the general Congress, or the provincial magistrates. The Congress disapproved this conduct of general Lee; at which he gave himself little concern. He declared

it pusillanimous to respect the civil laws, in the midst of arms; and, in times of revolution, he considered all means legitimate, by which he might attain his ends; a manner of acting, which, if it conducts one revolution to its object, leaves, and even prepares, as experience demonstrates, all the elements of another to follow it.

The assembly of Rhode Island decreed, that those of the inhabitants of the colony who should hold intelligence with the British ministers or with their agents, or should supply the armies or fleets with arms or military or naval stores, or should serve as pilots to the English ships, should incur the pain of death, and the confiscation of their lands and effects. They pronounced the confiscation of the