and prolonged strife. Dr. Warren wrote, soon after the 19th of April: "The people never seemed in earnest about the matter until after the engagement of the 19th ult., and I verily be on The Carberous Marder's carmill to defendourtin Endour the docs from the butibunny Shand Obflytels they met with in this bloo. the best Doubt boke this forft ted Country in their love to ravage this therefore by with Shire and Sword, the conjure your FAC-SIMILE OF WARREN'S ADDRESS. lieve that the night preceding the barbarous outrages committed by the soldiery at Lexington, Concord, etc., there were not fifty people in the whole colony that ever expected any blood would be shed in the contest between us and Great Britain." Yet two days after the fight at Lexington the Massachusetts Committee of Safety resolved to enlist eight thousand men. Two days after that the news reached New York at noon. There was a popular outbreak; the royal troops were disarmed, the fort and magazines seized, and two transports for Boston unloaded. At five on Monday afternoon the tidings reached Philadelphia, when the bell in Independence Hall was rung, and the people gathered in numbers. When it got so far as Charleston, South Carolina, the people seized the arsenal, and the Provincial Congress proclaimed them "ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes." In Savannah, Georgia, a mob took possession of the powder-magazine, and raised a liberty-pole. In Kentucky a party of hunters, hearing of the battle, gave their encampment the name of Lexington, which it still bears; and thus the news went on. Meanwhile, on May 10th, the Continental Congress convened, and on the same day Ethan Allen took possession of the strong fortress of Ticonderoga. It was the first act of positive aggression by the patriotic party, for at both Lexington and Concord they were acting on the defensive. The expedition was planned in Connecticut and reinforced in Western Massachusetts, but the main reliance was to be placed on Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys," whose daring and energy were already well known. Benedict Arnold, who had been commissioned in Massachusetts for the same purpose, arrived only in time to join the expedition as a volunteer. On May 10, 1775, eighty-three men crossed the lake with Allen. When they had landed, he warned them that it was a dangerous enterprise, and called for volunteers. Every man volunteered. The rest took but a few moments. They entered with a warwhoop the open wicket-gate, pressing by the sentinel, and when the half-clad commander appeared and asked their authority, Allen answered with the words that have become historic, “In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." The Congress was only to meet that day, but it appeared already to be exercising a sort of antenatal authority; and a fortress which had cost eight million pounds sterling and many lives was placed in its hands by a mere stroke of boldness. Crown Point gave itself up with equal ease to Seth Warner, and another dramatic surprise was given to the new-born nation. In the neighborhood of Boston the month of May was devoted to additional preparations, and to what are called, in the old stage directions of Shakespeare's plays, "alarums and excursions." At one time, when a sally from Boston was expected, the Committee of Safety ordered the officers of the ten nearest towns to assemble one-half the militia and all the minute-men, and march to Roxbury. While this was being done, General Thomas, with an ingenuity quite in the style of the above stage. motto, marched his seven hundred men round and round a high hill, visible from Boston, to mislead the British. At another time, when men were more numerous, General Putnam marched all the troops in Cambridge, twenty-two hundred in number, to Charlestown Ferry, the column being spread over a mile and a half, and passing under the guns of the British without attack. At another time, "all of Weymouth, Braintree, and Hingham," according to Mrs. Adams, turned out to drive away a British detachment from Grape Island, where the Americans then landed, burned a quantity of hay, and brought away cattle. A larger skirmish took place at Noddle's Island, near East Boston, where the Americans destroyed a schooner, dismantled a sloop, and captured twelve swivels and four 4-pound cannon. Putnam commanded in this engagement, and the enthusiasm which it called out secured his unanimous election as majorgeneral. Meantime the Provincial troops were gathering for what the Essex Gazette, of June 8th, called, with rather premature admiration, "the grand American army"-an army whose returns for June 9th showed 7644 men. "Nothing could be in a more confused state," wrote Dr. Eliot, "than the army which first assembled at Cambridge. This undisciplined body of men. were kept together by a few who deserved well of their country." President John Adams, writing long after (June 19, 1818), thus summed up the condition of these forces: "The army at Cambridge was not a national army, for there was no nation. It was not a United States army, for there were no United States. It was not an army of united colonies, for it could not be said in any sense that the colonies were united. The centre of their union, the Congress of Philadelphia, had not adopted nor acknowledged the army at Cambridge. It was not a New England army, for New England had not associated. New England had no legal legislature, nor any common executive authority, even upon the principles of original authority, or even of original power in the people. Massachusetts had her army, Connecticut her army, New Hampshire her army, and Rhode Island her army. These four armies met at Cambridge, and imprisoned the British army in Boston. But who was the sovereign of this united, or rather congregated, army, and who its commander-in-chief? It had none. Putnam, Poor, and Greene were as independent of Ward as Ward was of them." This was the state of the forces outside, while the army inside was impatiently waiting for reinforcements, and chafing at the ignoble delay. On May 25th three British generals (Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne) arrived with troops. The newspapers of the day say that when these officers were going into Boston harbor they met a packet coming out, when General Burgoyne' asked the skipper of the packet what news there was. And being told that the town was surrounded by ten thousand country people, asked how many regulars there were in Boston; and being answered, "About five thousand," cried out, with astonishment, “What! and ten thousand peasants keep five thousand king's troops shut up! Well, let us get in, and we'll soon find elbow-room." After this conversation the nickname of “ Elbow was permanently fastened on General Burgoyne. He used to relate that after his reverses, while a prisoner of war, he was received with great courtesy by the people of Boston as he stepped from the Charlestown ferry-boat, but was a little annoyed when an old lady, perched on a shed above the crowd, cried out, in a shrill voice, "Make way! make way! The general's coming; give him elbow-room." Two days before the battle of Bunker Hill, Mrs. Adains wrote to her husband, John Adams: "Gage's proclamation you will receive by this conveyance, and the records of time cannot produce a blacker page. Satan when driven from the realms of bliss exhibited not more malice. Surely the father of lies is superseded. Yet we think it the best proclamation he could have issued." This proclamation announced martial law, but offered pardon to those who would give in their allegiance to the government, "excepting only from the benefit of such pardon Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment." He afterwards remarked that the rebels added "insult to outrage" as, "with a preposterous parade of military arrangement, they affected to hold the army besieged." Two things contributed to bring about the battle of Bunker Hill: the impatience of British troops under the “affectation of a siege; on the other hand, the great increase of self-confidence among the provincials after Lexington and Concord. It was a military necessity, no doubt, for each side, to occupy the Charlestown heights; but there was also a growing disposition to bring matters to a crisis on the first favorable opportunity. Captain (afterwards Lord) Harris wrote home to England (June 12th): "I wish the Americans may be brought to a sense of their duty. One good drubbing, which I long to give them by way of retaliation, might have a good effect towards it." Dr. Warren, on the other hand, wrote (May 16th) that if General Gage would only make a sally from Boston, he would “gratify thousands who impatiently wait to avenge the blood of their murdered countrymen." With such dispositions on both sides, the collision could not be far off. Kinglake says that the reasons for a battle rarely seem conclusive except to a general who |