but the effort of the British government to avert this danger. The conquest of Canada, by making the colonies more important, only disposed the ministry to enforce obnoxious laws that had hitherto been dead letters.

Such laws were the "Navigation Act," and the "Sugar Act," and what were known generally as the "Acts of Trade," all aimed at the merchants of New England and New York. Out of this grew the "Writs of Assistance," which gave authority to search any house for merchandise liable to duty, and which were resisted in a celebrated argument by James Otis in 1761. Then came the " Declaratory Resolves" of 1764, which were the precursors of the "Stamp Act." The discussion occasioned by these measures was more important than any other immediate effect they produced; they afforded an academy of political education for the people. Those who had called themselves Whigs gradually took the name of Patriots, and from Patriots they became "Sons of Liberty." Every successive measure struck at once the double chord of patriotism and pocket, so that "Liberty and property" became the common cry. The colonists took the position, which is found everywhere in Otis's "Rights of the Colonies," that their claims were not dependent on the validity of their charters, but that their rights as British subjects were quite sufficient to protect them.

From this time forth the antagonism increased, and it so roused and united the people that the student wonders how it happened that the actual outbreak was delayed so long. It is quite remarkable, in view of the recognized differences among the colonies, that there should have been such unanimity in tone. There was hardly anything to choose, in point of weight and dignity, between the protests drawn up by Oxenbridge Thacher in Massachusetts, by Stephen Hopkins in Rhode Island, by the brothers Livingston in New York, and by Lee and Wythe in Virginia. The Southern colonies, which suffered least from the exactions of the home government, made common

cause with those which suffered most. All the colonies claimed, in the words of the Virginia Assembly, "their ancient and indestructible right of being governed by such laws respecting their

internal polity and taxation as were derived from their own consent, with the approbation of their sovereign or his substitute."

The blow fell in 1765, with the Stamp Act-an act which would not have been unjust or unreasonable in England, and

was only held so in America because it involved the principle of taxing where there was no representation. For a moment the colonies seemed stunned; then the bold protest of Patrick Henry in Virginia was taken up by James Otis in Massachusetts. He it was who proposed an "American Congress" in 1765, and though only nine out of the thirteen colonies sent delegates, this brought them nearer than ever before. It drew up its "Declaration of Rights." Then followed, in colony after colony, mobs and burnings in effigy; nobody dared to act as stamp officer. When the news reached England, the Earl of Chatham said: "The gentleman tells us that America is obstinate, America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted." Then came the riot between people and soldiers, called the "Boston Massacre," in 1770, and the capture by the people of the armed British schooner Gaspee, off Rhode Island, in 1772. In 1773 the tea was thrown into the harbor at Boston; at Annapolis it was burned; at Charlestown it was stored and left to spoil; at New York and Philadelphia it was returned. The next year came the Boston Port Bill, received with public mourning in the other colonies, and with grim endurance by the Bostonians. A thriving commercial city suddenly found itself unable to receive any vessel whose cargo had not been first landed at a port then thirty miles away by road -Marblehead-or to discharge any except through a customhouse at Plymouth, then forty miles by road in the other direction. All the industries of the place were stopped, and the price of fuel and provisions rose one-third; for every stick of wood and every barrel of molasses had to be landed first on the wharf at Marblehead, and then laboriously reshipped to Boston, or be sent on the long road by land. But as tyranny usually reacts upon itself, the voluntary contributions which came from all parts of the colonies to the suffering city did more to cement. a common feeling than years of prosperity could have done.

In this chafed and oppressed position the people of Boston

Continental Congress had met at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, with a sole view to procuring a redress of grievances, the people of every colony pledging themselves in one form or another to abide by the decision of this body. In July of that

year, long before the thought of separation took shape even in the minds of the leaders, Ezra Stiles wrote this prophecy: "If oppression proceeds, despotism may originate an American Magna Charta and Bill of Rights, supported by such intrepid and persevering importunity as even sovereignty may hereafter judge it not wise to withstand. There will be a Runnymede in America." Such was the change from 1640 to 1774; the mother-country which to Hooke signified paradise, to Stiles signified oppression; the one clergyman wrote to deprecate war in England, the other almost invoked it in America.

The Congress met, every colony but little Georgia being soon represented. Its meeting signified that the colonies were at last united. In Patrick Henry's great opening speech he