XXXIII. ish squadron, with a number of transports, ignorant of CHAPTER that event, arrived, and anchored in Nantasket Roads, below the town. They were soon driven out by the 1776. troops and the militia; and the population volunteered to complete the unfinished fortifications. Three other transports, with Lieutenant-colonel Campbell and two hundred and fifty men, which entered the harbor a few days after, were captured, and the soldiers made prisoners. Increasing expenses had obliged the issue of four ad- Feb. 17. ditional millions of Continental paper, one million of which was in bills of less denomination than one dollar. A Standing Committee was appointed to superintend the treasury, of which the accounts were becoming complicated. An auditor general, with clerks and assistants, was presently appointed, to act under this committee, of April 1. which Gerry, now a delegate from Massachusetts, was an active member, and generally its chairman. Such were the rudiments of the present treasury department. The Marine Committee, by active exertions and at great expense, had fitted out a squadron of eight vessels, which sailed on a cruise under Commodore Hopkins. Feb. The scarcity of powder still continued, though several powder mills had been established in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, as well as manufactories of arms and foundries for cannon. In hopes to obtain a supply of this essential article, Hopkins made a descent on New Providence. He took the governor and some other prisoners, and carried off a quantity of military stores, but failed of the powder. After engaging a British ship of war, which he suffered to escape, he returned to Newport, much to the disgust of Congress, by whom an inquiry was ordered into his conduct. The vacancy occasioned by the non-acceptance of Pomeroy was filled by the appointment of Colonel Frye; March. XXXIII. CHAPTER but he soon resigned, as did John Whitcombe, promoted to the same rank of brigadier, an old officer, like Frye 1776. a colonel in the French war. Arnold was made a brigadier for his gallant conduct at Quebec. Two new military departments, the Southern and the Middle, were established, and six new brigadiers, Armstrong, Thompson, Lewis, Moore, Sterling, and Howe, were commissioned from the middle and southern colonies. The same rank was also conferred on the Baron de Woedtke, a foreign officer, who disappointed the hopes of Congress by turning out a miserable drunkard. Wooster's conduct had not given satisfaction, and Thomas, promoted to the rank of major general, was sent to supersede him. Wooster resigned in consequence; not, however, till he had obtained an inquiry into his conduct, and a favorable report. Generals Thompson and Sullivan were also ordered to the northern department. Great efforts were made to enlist and equip the regiments designed to re-enforce the northern army-a business which met with many discouragements and delays, not alone from the difficulty of enlisting the men, but from the still greater difficulty of supplying them with arms. Dr. Franklin, with Chase, and Charles Carroll, of Maryland, appointed by Congress commissioners to Canada to conciliate the favor and goodwill of the inhabitants, proceeded to Montreal, accompanied by Carroll's brother, a Jesuit, afterward first Catholic archbishop of the United States. After the evacuation of Boston, ten regiments were sent to re-enforce the northern army. A total and final separation from the mother country began, meanwhile, to be publicly discussed. That idea encountered strenuous opposition, but was every where making rapid progress. After two applications from the Convention of New Hampshire for advice as to the form XXXIII of government to be adopted in that province, the Con- CHAPTER tinental Congress had recommended to call a "full and free representation of the people," and if, upon consulta- 1775. tion, it should seem necessary, "to establish such a Nov. 3. form of government as in their judgment will best produce the happiness of the people, and most effectually secure peace and good order in the province during the maintenance of the present dispute between Great Britain and the colonies." Similar advice upon a similar application was given to Virginia, and shortly after to Nov. 4. South Carolina. Dec. 4. This advice seemed a little startling to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and, on occasion of re-electing their Nov. 9. delegates to Congress, they strictly enjoined them "to dissent from, and utterly reject any proposition, 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." To the Assembly of New Jersey, in session at the same time, Governor Franklin complained of the open avowal of sentiments tending to a separation from Great Britain, and of the appearance of essays in the newspapers favorable to that "horrid measure." Several petitions against independency were presented to the Assembly, and the petitioners being called up and examined, declared their apprehension that such a design was in progress. The House replied to the gov ernor, "We know of no sentiments of independency that are, by men of any consequence, openly avowed, nor do we approve of any essays tending to encourage such a measure." They resolved that the reports of independ- Nov. 28 ency were, in their apprehension, "groundless ;" but, at the same time, they voted instructions to their delegates in Congress the same with those just given in Pennsylvania. A new and separate petition to the king was Dec. 5. CHAPTER even proposed, a measure from which they were only XXXIII. dissuaded by the earnest efforts of Dickinson, Jay, and 1775. Wythe, sent as a committee from Congress, and admitted to address the Assembly. 1776. The Convention of Maryland provided for the defense Jan. 1. of that colony by ordering the enlistment of seven independent companies and one battalion, of which William. Smallwood, a member of the Convention, was chosen colonel. The lieutenant colonel was Mordecai Gist, afterward a brigadier general. But, while thus raising Jan. 12. troops, instructions were given, at the same time, to the Maryland delegates in Congress to entertain no proposition of independency without the previous consent and approbation of the Convention. This No little excitement was produced by the publication in Philadelphia about this time of "Common Sense," a pamphlet by Thomas Paine, a recent emigrant from England, and editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. pamphlet, written at the suggestion of Benjamin Rush, a young physician and ardent patriot, argued, in that plain and convincing style for which Paine was so distinguished, the folly of any longer attempting to keep up the British connection, and the absolute necessity of a final and formal separation. Pitched exactly to the popular tone, it had a wide circulation throughout the colonies, and gave a powerful impulse to the cause of independence. A Provincial Convention in New Hampshire, elected Jan. 5. in conformity to the advice of Congress, assumed the character of a House of Representatives, and proceeded to elect a council composed of twelve members, distributed among the several counties. This council, which chose its own president, and constituted the second branch of the Legislature, was in future, like the House of Rep XXXIII. resentatives, to be annually elected by the people. While CHAPTER in session, this legislative body acted also as supreme executive; at other times that authority was exercised 1776. by a Committee of Safety, at the head of which was the president of the council. Nothing was said in the frame of government about a judiciary, but the Assembly constituted a Supreme Court and County Courts much on the model of the colonial judiciary. Mesheck Weare, one of the justices of the Supreme Court, an unambitious but honest and most worthy man, was chosen president of the council and chief justice, offices which he continued to fill, to the general satisfaction, till the end of the war. This arrangement was expressly declared to be temporary, to continue only while the dispute with the mother country lasted. Such was the first example set of "assumption of government," a proceeding not agreed to without a protest on the part of several timid members, who thought that a small colony like New Hampshire ought to have waited for the previous action of New York and Virginia, larger provinces, whose political predicament was similar to hers. With the opening of spring, re-enforcements were sent on from Montreal, and the siege of Quebec was renewed. But the northern army was surrounded with difficulties. Moses Hazen, a half-pay lieutenant in the British army, formerly a captain of Rangers under Wolfe, and distinguished as a partisan, had accepted a commission as colonel of the second Canadian regiment, but he found it difficult to fill the ranks. The Canadians would not take the Continental paper money; the supply of specie was very scanty; and, small as the army was, it was difficult to feed it. Upon the unexpected appearance of some British ships in the river, the besieging May 6. army, under Thomas, retreated to Sorel in a good deal |