THE HISTORY

OF

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

CHAPTER I.

First Day of the Revolution-Brief Retrospect of the Colonisation of the States-Early History and Progress of Virginia.

On the 14th of September, in the year 1768, a deputation of peaceful citizens, six in number, were seen proceeding through the streets of Boston towards the house of General Bernard, then governor of Massachusetts Bay. They were commissioned by a public meeting assembled in the town-hall, to disabuse his mind of erroneous and angry impressions, either feigned, or felt, in reference to the determined part taken by that state in the controversy (it was but a controversy then) going on between the colonies and the mother country. We know not if the journals of the day announced that he received them with grace and condescension; but their dismissal was abrupt and their report unsatisfactory.

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It was heard with chagrin and regret, yet with no want of firmness. The meeting proceeded to pass strong resolutions, recommending the im mediate establishment of a Convention, and attesting the right and duty of every free citizen to provide himself with arms,* for defence of the public weal. On their way home from the assembly, men were seen collected in small groups, knit closely together, and vehementin voice and gesture, as if discussing some perilous probability; and, from that day forth, decision and courage were substituted for concession and compromise, in the language and conduct of the American people,

The more clearly to comprehend the cause, origin, and first progress of that mighty contest, whose condensed history these pages embrace,a brief retrospect is necessary. At the above period the British colonies forming the funda÷ mental states of the present North American empire, were thirteen in number, extending from the Gulf of Florida on the south, to the River St. Lawrence on the north, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ohio, a vast territory, with considerably less than three millions † of in

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Resolved That as there is an apprehension in the minds of many of an approaching war with Frances those inhabitants who are not provided with arms, be requested duly to observe the laws of the province,b which require that every householder shall furnish himself with a complete stand."(Resolutions, 14th Sep tember, 1768.) Marshal's Life of Washington, volsiitęs per5 o atlussr inory odhan ftert er 900grib The census (that of 1790) shows that the population of the country had been over-rated at the revolution;

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habitants, scattered thinly over its surface. Broad rivers, as yet unprofaned by steam-lofty mountains, to whose heights the foot of civilized man had not reached Land illimitable forests, I whose depths seemed inaccessible to the adven turer rolled, and rose, and spread, land marks of this new world; but walled towns, nor magazines of war, nor guarded fron tiers, nor old associations of renown, were there® to suggest the ambition of a separate history and *q brẻ 99iov an independent destiny.

The thirteen colonies were Virginia, Mary land, North Carolina, South Carolina, Rhode Is land, Massachusetts, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New York. These were planted at different periods, under different English monarchs and different auspices; but at this time all enjoyed nearly the same privileges, and claimed a common liberty. Some had been of slow and difficult growth others acquired at once great prosperity. The history of their infant struggles is interesting to the curious inquirer; but for our purpose a concise resume will be sufficient. no sonotwe

There is no historical fact more generally known -ai to tamoillim Joni me 201 vidтobianoo for, supposing the rate of increase to have been before the census as after it, the people of the thirteen colonies at the time of the Stamp Act, fell considerably short of two millions, and at the declaration of independence they did not reach to two and a half millions." (Progress of Population and Wealth in the United States in Fifty Years, pe 162 New York: 1843.) The English accounts estimate the inhabitants at about three millions. The difference is trifling, and, as far as the great results of the revolution are concerned, little worth a controversy. † moitulover edt de boter Tavo mod bad yummos en to

than the discovery of America by Columbus, a Genoese, then in the service of Spain. That singular man conceived the daring design of sailing under the globe of the earth, and thereby shortening the passage to the East Indies. He applied to various courts in vain for means and authority to attempt this bold experiment. At last, under the protection and flag of Spain, he left Cadiz, in the autumn of 1492; and on the 14th of October one of his crew caught a glimpse of the rich world that, stretching almost from pole to pole, intercepted his passage. Of all man's discoveries, this was the greatest; and to Columbus belongs its unclouded and undivided glory. Two years afterwards, the theory being then more generally recognised, Henry the Seventh of England issued a commission to one Giovani Cabot,* a Venitian, to make a second trial of exploring the north-west passage to India; and that adventurous sailor, or his son, Sebastian, who succeeded him, touching at a point as far north as Labrador, directed his course southward, and coasted the American continent, nearly to the equator, without effecting even a landing. Failing in his grand search, the yoyage of Cabot seemed unproductive; but in after times it furnished England with its oldest, if not its only, title to this immense extent of territory. The claim of ownership was, however, long unasserted; nor was it till the reign of Elizabeth that any steps were taken to colonise those new dominions. In 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert ob

He gave England a Continent, and no one knew his burial place. Bancroft's Hist. of the U. S., vol. 1, p. 14.