But worse and worse news came from the north. Boston harbor had been shut up by the English. The people were starving. War ships from England had brought over more troops (many of them hired Germans), and had quartered them on the town. All the country was hot with anger over these things. Food and clothing were sent to Boston. General Washington raised troops of a thousand men, at his own expense, and marched north to her relief.
General Caesar Rodney was one of the important men of Dover at that time. He was a tall, pale, strange looking man, with flashing eyes, and a face, as we are told, “no larger than a good sized apple.” He was a general in the militia, and was heart and soul for independence. He rode about the country, calling meetings, speaking to the people, and urging them to enlist, and urging them, too, to raise money to give to the government. He was at this time suffering from a painful disease, but he spared neither strength nor comfort in the cause of freedom.
Mr. George Read of New Castle, was a very important man in the colonies, too. He was a patriot, and belonged to the militia, but he was very anxious not to begin a war. He argued that England had spent a great deal of money on her American colonies, and that she had a right to try to get some of it back by taxing them. He agreed that the time might come when the colonies would have to be free, but he thought that time had not yet come. He hoped that when it did, the colonies might win their freedom peaceably, and not by battle and bloodshed. He was a calm, quiet, learned man, rather slow of speech, and different in many ways from his quick and fiery friend, Rodney.
A third man who was important in Colonial times was Mr. Thomas McKean. He was a lawyer in New Castle, and was a friend of both these men. Like Rodney, he was for freedom at any cost.
In 1776, when the Colonial Congress was called to meet in Philadelphia, these three men, Rodney, Read and McKean, were sent to it as delegates by the Counties on the Delaware.[5]
This meeting of Congress in the summer of 1776 was the most important meeting that had ever been held. From north and south the delegates came riding to it, from all the thirteen colonies; and they met in the Committee Room of the State House in Philadelphia.
Many serious questions were to be decided by these delegates this year. But the most serious of all the questions was whether the Colonies should declare themselves free and independent states. If they did this, it would mean war with England.
While the question was still being argued about in the committee room, Caesar Rodney was sent for to come back to the Counties on the Delaware. Riots and quarrels and disturbances had broken out there, and no one could quiet them as well as Caesar Rodney. He was very glad to go, for it seemed as though it might be a long time before the delegates would decide on anything, and he hoped to be able to raise some money for the government.
He started out early one morning on horseback, cantering easily along through the cool of the day. It was eighty miles from Philadelphia to Dover, and he broke it by stopping over night at New Castle, which was rather more than half way home. The road he took was the old King’s Highroad, which ran on down through the Counties on Delaware, through Wilmington and New Castle and Dover, as far as Lewes.
General Rodney found a great deal to do down in the Counties. The Whigs and Tories had come to blows. One Tory gentleman only just escaped being tarred and feathered, and carried on a rail. Caesar Rodney was the one who had to quiet all the troubles. Beside this he made speeches, raised moneys and helped get together fresh troops of militia.