WARREN'S LAST NOTE.
The original is among the Heath Papers (Mass. Hist. Soc.), and is given in fac-simile in Frothingham's Warren, p. 506; and reduced (as above) in G. A. Coolidge's Brochure of Bunker Hill, p. 34.
One of the new British generals now lent his literary skill to his commanding general, for Burgoyne was a playwright and had an easy way of vaporing, which was quite apparent in Gage's proclamation of June 12,[399] to warn the rebellious and infatuated multitudes, and to hold out forgiveness to all but Samuel Adams and John Hancock.[400] The provincial congress, through Warren, prepared a counter-manifesto, but events were rushing too speedily to leave time for its publication. On the very day of issuing his proclamation Gage wrote to Dartmouth that he was intending to attack the rebels, "which every day becomes more necessary."[401]
NOTICE TO THE MILITIA.
After an original in the volume of Proclamations in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society.
On the 14th Warren was made the second major-general of the Massachusetts forces, and his active spirit gave encouragement, since the inalertness of Ward was creating much concern. Early in the morning of the 17th Warren left Watertown, and the provincial congress convened without him, but they knew the emergency. A broadside exists of this day, in which they call upon the neighboring militia to hold themselves in readiness. In the anxious hours of this, St. Botolph's day,[402] with all eyes on Boston, the Continental Congress had chosen Washington to be their military chief,[403] and had adopted the forces which were about to show that Boston was not besieged idly. It took time then for Cambridge to know what was happening in Philadelphia; but the assembled legislators at Watertown might well hope for what had really happened, when, as the fateful day wore on, messengers arrived, declaring that the Continental funds were to be used to help supply this beggared army, and that all the aspirations of its provincial congress to set up a civil government of their own had met the approval of the continent.[404]