secrets of hidden purposes or political machinations of any sort. It goes without saying that there was bitterness of feeling between the patriotic party and the loyalists; but these were not fixed parties, for as the spirit of independence developed and the uncompromising attitude of the mother country became clear many loyalists, yielding their hope for generous treatment at the hands of the home government, cast in their fortunes with the popular party and many of the adherents of the latter, shrinking from the finality of political independence, found their way into the Tory camp. It was in no spirit of duplicity, but rather of political prophecy that Samuel Adams, on November 4, 1775, wrote to James Warren, president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, as follows: "Every moment should be improved to some serious purpose. It is the age of George III.: and, to do justice to our most gracious king, I will affirm it is my opinion that his councils and administrations will necessarily produce the grandest revolutions the world has ever seen. The wheels of Providence seem to be in their swiftest motion. Events succeed each other so rapidly, that the most industrious and able politicians can scarcely improve them to the full purpose for which they seem to be designed. You must send your best men here: therefore recall me from this service. Men of moderate abilities, especially when weakened by age, are not fit to be employed in founding empires."

The rapid progress of events necessitated a broadening of the policy of the Continental Congress. The policy of confining hostilities to Massachusetts no longer governed the action of Congress, the recommendations to New Hampshire and South Carolina, and every measure since the giving of those counsels had clearly indicated the purpose of the National Assembly to conduct the war in the same spirit that it would have been waged against a Continental adversary. The specific counsel was given to South Carolina on November 4, 1775, to destroy British ships of war and to frustrate any attempt to introduce

British troops into Charleston. On November 17th, Congress created a naval code, and on November 29th, appointed a committee of correspondence with foreign powers. The importance of this adjunct to the general government is indicated by the men appointed. They were Harrison, Franklin, Johnson, Dickinson, and Jay. On December 4th, Congress warned the colonies that it would be dangerous to the general welfare for any one of them to attempt individually to petition the king or Parliament. On the same day that this significant declaration was made it advised Virginia to resist the arbitrary rule of Lord Dunmore and to call a representative assembly for the formation of the local government.

The press of the country had not been timid in giving expression to the sentiments and aspirations of the period; now it boldly advocated independence. The Essex Gazette, November 23, 1775, contained the following: "We expect soon to break off all connection with Britain, and to form a Grand Republic of the American United Colonies, which will by the blessing of Heaven soon work out our salvation, and perpetuate the liberties, increase the wealth, the power, and the glory of this Western World." A soldier

of the Continental Army expressed the sentiment of national aspiration in the following language of rhapsody: "When the throne of independence rises before the eyes of the admiring world, when our seas and our harbors are thronged with ships from the remotest corners of the earth, when our farmers are princes, and our merchants kings, what conscious pleasure must be ours! And what praise shall be given us who are engaged in all the danger and the heat of the day!" Not the least of the inspiring causes of the sentiment of nationality were the reports received from the scenes of strife. Many an account of a courageous deed, pathetic instance, or heroic sacrifice, was borne in letters from the battlefields to humble homes, and found their way into the press. The private correspondence of the day, that of persons inconspicuous as well as that of the men in

direction of affairs, breathes the passionate hope of independence which had become the fixed purpose of the popular party. The sentiments of some of these letters are strikingly similar in the self-consciousness which they reveal to the utterances of the founders of New England. The latter constantly predicted a great commonwealth as the result of their sacrifices and labors; so with the founders of the new nation. Thus Joseph Hawley expressed himself in a letter to Samuel Adams November 12, 1775: "The eyes of all the continent are fastened on your body, to see whether you on this occasion act with firmness and integrity, and with the spirit and despatch which our situation. calls for. It is time for your body to fix on periodical annual elections,―nay, to form into a parliament of two houses. The colonists well knew that Continental sympathy must be an asset for which they should make a strong bid.

The national movement had now become the expression of the American people's profoundest piety. A portentous era in the history of a people, when the springs of action and the streams of consequences cannot be easily related and the movements of the time are therefore mystifying, seldom fails to turn the minds of the people toward Providence as the director of their destinies and the guarantor of their security. This was the case in the revolutionary epoch of American history. The prospect of a long and severe war with the best equipped of European nations was well calculated to induce feelings of seriousness and even of foreboding. The colonists pursued independence not as a forlorn hope, for they recognized the natural advantages which were theirs, but failing to make good their claims upon the battlefield, they were prepared for the desperate alternative of retiring into the unknown wilderness depths to begin anew the effort to establish a government of freedom.

The British government had no less appreciation of the inevitableness of the struggle than the colonists. speech from the throne October 26, 1775, the king declared that the rebellion in the colonies was manifestly for

the purpose of establishing a colonial empire, and stated that, in order to put an end to the uprising, he had increased the naval establishment and the land forces and besides had entered into alliance with several foreign nations. The House of Lords in its address in reply lauded the disposition of his majesty to extend a full pardon to those of the "unhappy and deluded multitude" who might repent of their rashness in taking up arms, and characterized the colonial proceedings as the acts of ambitious and traitorous men who had led their fellow subjects to set up the standard of rebellion. This sentiment was reflected in the choice made of a new intermediary between the colonies and Great Britain. Lord George Germain succeeded Lord Dartmouth in the cabinet as the head of American affairs. He was well known for his violent antipathy to the colonists. His policy was summed up in the single word coercion.

It was painfully clear to the colonies that Great Britain, by this and similar appointments, meant them to understand that the policy of subjugation was fixed. There was now little pretence in patriotic circles of a desire to seek longer to preserve a tie of union which had passed from the point of being onerous to that of being odious. The advice which had been tendered New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Virginia to form local governments was tantamount to revolution. It was this action more than any other which brought sharply to all minds the issue of choosing between king and colonies. The opponents of independence were not necessarily Tories. In many instances they were Loyalists, to whom the authority of the home government, although divested of real potentiality, was something yet to be desired and only to be relinquished when even the semblance of government was denied to the colonies. John Dickinson was one of those who were reluctant to sever the weakened tie of loyalty. He was supported in his position by the Quakers, who issued an address for peace under the title: Address of the People Called Quakers. Yet Dickinson himself saw, as did all the adherents of the Peace Party, that the

only alternatives left them were to "submit to wear their chains or wade through seas of blood to a dear-bought and at best a frequently convulsed and precarious independence." The Peace Party was strong in Pennsylvania and had a considerable following in Delaware and New Jersey. Maryland and the other colonies under proprietary governments included a large number of persons who were influenced by the feeling of self-interest to avow similar opinions.

Under the influence of conservative sentiment which is not an uncommon phenomenon at periods of impending crises, the Pennsylvania Assembly on November 9, 1775, instructed its delegates to Congress as follows: "We strictly enjoin you, that you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from our mother country, or a change of the form of this government." In the same vein were the instructions of the New Jersey Assembly to its delegates on the 28th of the same month. They were charged not only to withhold assent, but to positively reject "any propositions, if such should be made, that may separate this colony from the mother country, or change the form of the government thereof." On December 7th, the Maryland Convention assembled and made a "Declaration" to the effect that the people of that province "never did nor do entertain any views or desires of independency," and that union with the mother country they regarded as their highest felicity and would deplore severance from her as "a misfortune next to the greatest that can befall them." On December 14th, the New York Provincial Congress likewise abjured thoughts of independence other than as they might be forced upon the minds of the people by the "oppressive Acts" of the British government. The resolutions in full were as

follows:

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Congress that none of the people of this colony have withdrawn their allegiance from his Majesty.