had its beginning, according to Professor Joel Parker, in the action of the inhabitants of Charlestown, Massachusetts, when they adopted, on February 10, 1634-35, an order, which still stands on the record-book, "for the governm't of the Towne by Selectmen," thus giving to eleven persons, "wth the advice of Pastor and teacher desired in any case of conscience," the authority to manage their local affairs for one year. Since Professor Parker wrote, however, the researches of the Boston Record Commission have brought to light a similar grant of power by the planters of Dorchester (Oct. 8, 1633), authorizing twelve men, "selected of the company" to have charge of its affairs. This form of self-government, which could be perfectly combined with the existence of slavery on a small scale, was inconsistent with a system of great plantations, like those in the Southern colonies; and it was this fact more than anything else which developed such difference in character as really existed. The other fact that labor was held in more respect in the Northern colonies than in the Southern had doubtless something to do with it; but, after all, there was then less philosophizing on that subject than now, and the main influence was the town meeting. When John Adams was called upon by Major Langbourne to explain the difference of character between Virginia and New England, Mr. Adams offered to give him a receipt for creating a New England in Virginia. It consisted of four points, "town meetings, training-days, town schools, and ministers." Each colony really based its local institutions, in some form, on English traditions; but the system of town government, as it prevailed in the Eastern colonies, has struck deepest root, and has largely influenced the new civilization of the West. Thus, with varied preparation, but with a common need and an increasing unity, the several colonies approached the 19th of April, 1775, when the shot was fired that was "heard round the world."

X.

THE DAWNING OF INDEPENDENCE.

HEN France, in 1763, surrendered Canada to England,

WHE

it suddenly opened men's eyes to a very astonishing fact. They discovered that British America had at once become a country so large as to make England seem ridiculously small. Even the cool-headed Dr. Franklin, writing that same year to Mary Stevenson in London, spoke of England as "that petty island which, compared to America, is but a steppingstone in a brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one's shoes dry." The far-seeing French statesmen of the period looked at the matter in the same way. Choiseul, the Primeminister who ceded Canada, claimed afterwards that he had done it in order to destroy the British nation by creating for it a rival. This assertion was not made till ten years later, and may very likely have been an after-thought, but it was destined to be confirmed by the facts.

We have now to deal with the outbreak of a contest which was, according to the greatest of the English statesmen of the period, "a most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical war." No American writer ever employed to describe it a combination of adjectives so vigorous as those here brought together by the elder Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham. The rights for which Americans fought seemed to them to be the common rights of Englishmen, and many Englishmen thought the same. On the other hand, we are now able to do

justice to the position of those American loyalists who honestly believed that the attempt at independence was a mad one, and who sacrificed all they had rather than rebel against their King. "The annals of the world," wrote Massachusettensis, the ablest Tory pamphleteer in America, "have not been deformed with a single instance of so unnatural, so causeless, so wanton, so wicked a rebellion." When we compare this string of epithets employed upon the one side with those of Pitt upon the other, we see that the war at the outset was not so much a contest of nations as of political principles. Some of the ablest men in England defended the American cause; some of the ablest in the colonies took the loyal side.

Boston in the winter of 1774-75 was a town of some 17,000 inhabitants, garrisoned by some 3000 British troops. It was the only place in the Massachusetts colony where the royal governor exercised any real authority, and where the laws of Parliament had any force. The result was that its life was paralyzed, its people gloomy, and its commerce dead. The other colonies were still hoping to obtain their rights by policy or by legislation, by refusing to import or to consume, and they watched with constant solicitude for some riotous demonstration in Boston. On the other hand, the popular leaders in that town were taking the greatest pains that there should be no outbreak. There was risk of one whenever soldiers were sent on any expedition into the country. One might have taken place at Marshfield in January, one almost happened at Salem in February, yet still it was postponed. No publicity was given to the patriotic military organizations in Boston; as little as possible was said about the arms and stores that were gathered in the country. Not a life had been lost in any popular excitement since the Boston Massacre in 1770. The responsibility of the first shot, the people were determined, must rest upon the royal troops. So far was this carried that it was honestly attributed by the British soldiers to cowardice alone. An officer, quoted by

Frothingham, wrote home in November, 1774: "As to what you hear of their taking arms to resist the force of England, it is mere bullying, and will go no farther than words; whenever it comes to blows, he that can run the fastest will think himself best off; believe me, any two regiments here ought to be decimated if they did not beat in the field the whole force

of the Massachusetts province; for though they are numerous, they are but a mere mob, without order or discipline, and very awkward at handling their arms."

But whatever may have been the hope of carrying their point without fighting, the provincial authorities were steadily collecting provisions, arms, and ammunition. Unhappily these essentials were hard to obtain. On April 19, 1775, the committees of safety could only count up twelve field-pieces in Massachusetts; and there had been collected in that colony 21,549 fire-arms, 17,441 pounds of powder, 22,191 pounds of ball, 144,699 flints, 10, 108 bayonets, 11,979 pouches, 15,000 canteens. There were also 17,000 pounds of salt fish, 35,000 pounds of rice, with large quantities of beef and pork. Viewed as an evidence of the forethought of the colonists, these statistics are remarkable; but there was something heroic and indeed almost pathetic in the project of going to war with the British government on the strength of twelve field-pieces and seventeen thousand pounds of salt fish.

Yet when, on the night of the 18th of April, 1775, Paul Revere rode beneath the bright moonlight through Lexington to Concord, with Dawes and Prescott for comrades, he was carrying the signal for the independence of a nation. He had seen across the Charles River the two lights from the churchsteeple in Boston which were to show that a British force was going out to seize the patriotic supplies at Concord; he had warned Hancock and Adams at Rev. Jonas Clark's parsonage in Lexington, and had rejected Sergeant Monroe's caution against unnecessary noise, with the rejoinder, “You'll have noise enough here before long-the regulars are coming out." As he galloped on his way the regulars were advancing with steady step behind him, soon warned of their own danger by alarm-bells and signal-guns. When Revere was captured by some British officers who happened to be near Concord, Colonel Smith, the commander of the expedition, had already