PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICANS.
In the mean time military preparations had been continued in America. Inflamed by publications and harangues on every side, the Americans had been active in preparing for the approaching contest. No thought of concession or conciliation was entertained: provincial and private meetings all breathed the language of defiance to the mother country, and threatened resistance to taxation, external or internal, as well as to every other act of coercion. A great impetus was given to the popular movement by the resolutions of congress. A few assemblies there were, indeed, as that of New York, who at first refused to admit these resolutions, but they were soon induced to join the confederation. Every province prepared its levies and its cannon and its military stores for the deadly strife. And at length that strife commenced. While the houses of parliament in England were yet echoing with the oratory of its empassioned members, the hillsides of America were reverberating with peals of musketry. The banner of revolt was first unfolded in the province where the spirit of resistance first showed itself—that of Massachusets Bay. The aversion which General Gage had shown to the adoption of violent measures and the forbearance of the troops had rather tended to increase than to allay hostile feelings in that province, and at length the proceedings of the people became so alarming, that the general was compelled to adopt measures to put it out of their power to effect mischief.