UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 373 



the house of commons for promoting an accommodation met also 

 with a similar fate. The number of his majesty's troops was ordered 

 to be augmented ; and an act was passed for restraining the commerce 

 of the New-England colonies, and to prohibit their fishery on the 

 banks of Newfoundland. A motion was, indeed, afterwards made in 

 the house of commons, by lord North, first lord of the treasury, for 

 suspending the exercise of the right of taxation in America, claimed 

 by the British parliament, in such of the colonies as should, in their 

 general assemblies, raise such contributions as were approved of by 

 the king in parliament. This motion was carried, and afterwards 

 communicated to some provincial assemblies: but it was rejected by 

 them as delusive and unsatisfactory, and only calculated to disunite 

 them. The petition from the congress to the king was ordered by 

 his majesty to be laid before the parliament; whereupon Dr. Frank- 

 lin, and two other American agents, solicited to be heard at the bar 

 of the house of commons, on behalf of the colonies, in support of 

 that petition : but their application was rejected ; it being said, that 

 the American congress was no legal assembly, and that therefore 

 no petition could be received from it by the parliament with pro- 

 priety. 



It was on the 19th of April, 1775, that the first blood was drawn in 

 this memorable war, at Lexington and Concord in New-England. 

 This was occasioned by general Gage sending a body of troops to 

 destroy some military stores that were at Concord. They succeeded 

 in their design, but were extremely harassed, and forced to a quick 

 retreat; 65 of them were killed, 170 wounded, and about 20 made 

 prisoners. The Americans were computed not to have lost more 

 than 60, including killed and wounded. Immediately after, numerous 

 bodies of the American militia invested the town of Boston, in which 

 general Gage and his troops were. In all the colonies they prepared 

 for war with the utmost despatch ; and a stop was almost every where 

 put to the exportation of provisions The continental congress met 

 at Philadelphia on the 10th of May, 1775, as proposed, and soon 

 adopted such measures as confirmed the people in their resolutions 

 to oppose the British government to the utmost. Among their first 

 acts, were resolutions for the raising of an army, and the establish- 

 ment of a paper currency for its payment. They assumed the 

 appellation of " the United Colonies of America," who were securi- 

 ties for realizing the nominal value of this currency. They also strict- 

 ly prohibited the supplying of the British fisheries with any kind of 

 provisions ; and, to render this order the more effectual, stopped all 

 exportation to those colonies, islands, and places, which still retained 

 their obedience. 



In the mean time, a body of provincial adventurers, amounting to 

 about 240 men, surprised the garrisons of Ticonderoga and Crown 

 Point. These fortresses were taken without the loss of a man on 

 either side : and the provincials found in the forts a considerable 

 number of pieces of cannon, besides mortars, and sundry kinds of 

 military stores. The force of Great Britain in America was now 

 augmented, by the arrival at Boston from England of the generals 

 Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton, with considerable reinforcements. 

 But the continental congress were so little intimidated by this, that 

 they voted, a few days after, that the compact between the crown and 

 the people of Massachusetts Bay was dissolved, by the violation of 



Vol. II. 3 B 



