The resolves were to be enforced till the provincial congress should otherwise ordain, or the British parliament resign its arbitrary pretensions with respect to America. At the same time, the militia companies were directed to provide themselves with arms; and Thomas Polk and Joseph Kenedy were appointed to purchase flints, lead, and powder.

On the thirty-first of May the resolutions were signed by Brevard as clerk of the committee, and were adopted by the people with the enthusiasm which springs from the combined influence of religion and the love of civil liberty. The resolves were transmitted with all speed to be printed in Charleston; they startled the governors of Georgia and North Carolina, who forwarded them to the British government. An authentic copy of the resolves was despatched by order of the convention to the continental congress, that the world might know their authors had renounced their allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and constituted a government for themselves.

The messenger stopped on his way at Salisbury; and there, to a crowd round the court-house, the resolves were read and approved. The western counties were the most populous part of North Carolina; and the royal governor had written: "I have no doubt that I might command their best services at a word on any emergency. I consider I have the means in my own hands to maintain the sovereignty of this country to my royal master in all events." And yet he was obliged to transmit the resolutions of Mecklenburg, which he described as "most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the laws and constitution, and setting up a system of rule and regulation subversive of his majesty's government."

CHAPTER XIII.

MASSACHUSETTS ASKS FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON AS COMMANDERIN-CHIEF.

MAY-JUNE 17, 1775.

"UNHAPPY it is," said Washington, "to reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" He foresaw the long contest which was to precede the successful vindication of the liberties of America; and from the first he avowed to his friends "his full intention to devote his life and fortune" to the cause. To mark the necessity of immediate preparation for war, he wore in congress his uniform as an officer.

Franklin, who knew with certainty that every method of peaceful entreaty had been exhausted, reproved irresoluteness and delay. "Make yourselves sheep," he would say, "and the wolves will eat you;" and again, "God helps them who help themselves;" adding, hopefully: "United, we are well able to repel force by force." Thus "he encouraged the revolution," yet wishing for independence as the spontaneous action of a united people. The people of the continent, now that independence was become inevitable, still longed that the necessity for it might pass by.

In this state of things Dickinson seconded the motion of Jay for one more petition to the king; but his determination to sustain Massachusetts was never in doubt. He did not ask merely relief from parliamentary taxation; he insisted on

security against the encroachments of parliament on charters. and laws so distinctly and firmly that Samuel Adams pronounced the Farmer a thorough Bostonian.

On the twenty-fourth, the chair of the president becoming vacant by the departure of Peyton Randolph, John Hancock of Massachusetts was elected unanimously in his stead; and Harrison of Virginia conducted him to the chair, saying: "We will show Britain how much we value her proscriptions;" for the proscription of Samuel Adams and Hancock had long been known, though it had not yet been proclaimed. On the twenty-fifth directions were given to the provincial congress in New York to fortify posts at the upper end of the island near King's Bridge, and on each side of Hudson river in the Highlands. A post was to be taken near Lake George.

On that same day Duane moved in the committee of the whole, that "the opening of a negotiation to accommodate the unhappy disputes subsisting between Great Britain and the colonies be made a part of the petition to the king." After a warm debate of two days, it was unanimously resolved "that, for safety against every attempt to carry the unconstitutional acts into execution by force of arms, the colonies be immediately put into a state of defence; but that, with a sincere desire of contributing by all the means, not incompatible with a just regard for their undoubted rights and true interests, to the promotion of this most desirable reconciliation, an humble and dutiful petition be presented to his majesty." To this the motion of Duane was added in spite of an unyielding opposition.

All this while congress counselled New York to arm and train its militia, and to embody men for the protection of its chief city against invasion. On the twenty-ninth, by the hand of Jay, they again addressed the Canadians, but without setting before them adequate motives for rising.

This is the moment when the proposal of Lord North to settle the strife between Great Britain and the thirteen colonies was pressed upon the attention of the American people. On the thirtieth Willing of Philadelphia brought before congress a paper without signature yet unquestionably authentic, which, after an appeal to the affections of the colonists for the

king and country, declared that the overture contained in the resolution of the house of commons on the basis of relief of the colonies from taxation by parliament was honorable for Great Britain and safe for the colonies; that neither king, nor ministry, nor parliament, nor the nation would admit of further relaxation; but that, if it should not be accepted, "a perfectly united ministry would employ the whole force of the kingdom to reduce the rebellious and refractory provinces and colonies." An acceptance of the offer by congress would have been an acquiescence in the parliamentary change of the charter of Massachusetts.

Lord North and Lord Dartmouth earnestly desired to win the consent of Virginia to this insidious offer, and for that purpose Lord Dunmore, by their injunctions, summoned the house of burgesses of Virginia to meet on the first day of June 1775. Peyton Randolph, the speaker, who had presided over the congress at Philadelphia, entered Williamsburg with an escort of independent companies of horse and foot, which eclipsed the pomp of the governor, and in the eyes of the people raised the importance of the newly created continental power. The session was opened by a speech recommending accommodation on the basis of Lord North's resolve. But the moment chosen for the discussion was inopportune; Dunmore's menace of a servile insurrection had filled the South with horror and alarm. The retreat from Concord had raised the belief that the American forces would prove invincible; and some of the burgesses appeared in the uniform of the provincial troops, wearing a hunting-shirt of coarse homespun linen over their clothes, and a woodman's axe at their sides.

Jefferson came down from Albemarle with clear perceptions of public duty. When parliament oppressed the colonies by imposing taxes, he would have been content with their repeal; when it mutilated the charter and laws of Massachusetts, he still hoped for conciliation through the wisdom of Chatham; but after Lexington green had been stained with blood, he, like Dickinson, would no longer accept acts of repeal unless accompanied by security against further aggression.

The burgesses approved the conduct of the Indian war of the previous year, and provided for its cost; but the gov

ernor would not pass their bill, because it imposed a specific duty of five pounds on the head, about ten per cent on the value, of every slave imported from the West Indies. The last exercise of the veto power by the king's representative in Virginia was for the protection of the slave-trade.

The assembly, having on the fifth thanked the delegates of the colony to the first congress, prepared to consider the proposal of Lord North. The anxious governor sent them an apology for his removal of the powder belonging to the province, and reminded them that he had ventured his life in the service of Virginia; but the burgesses, after taking testimony which proved his avowed intention to raise, free, and arm slaves, selected Jefferson to draught their reply.

While the house was thus employed, Dunmore, learning from Gage that Samuel Adams and Hancock were soon to be proscribed, and fearing he might be detained as a hostage, suddenly, in the night following the seventh of June, went on board the Fowey at York, giving, as a reason for his flight, his apprehension of "falling a sacrifice to the daring atrociousness and unmeasurable fury of great numbers of the people."

The burgesses paid no heed to his angry words. On the twelfth, in the words of Jefferson, they addressed to him as their final answer that, "next to the possession of liberty, they should consider a reconciliation as the greatest of all human blessings, but that the resolution of the house of commons only changed the form of oppression, without lightening its burdens; that government in the colonies was instituted for the colonies themselves; that the British parliament had no right to meddle with their constitution, or prescribe either the number or the pecuniary appointments of their officers; that they had a right to give their money without coercion, and from time to time; that they alone were the judges, alike of the public exigencies and the ability of the people; that they contended not merely for the mode of raising their money, but for the freedom of granting it; that the resolve to forbear levying pecuniary taxes still left unrepealed the acts restraining trade, altering the form of government of Massachusetts, changing the government of Quebec, enlarging the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, taking away the trial by jury, and keeping