Washington himself commissioned a little fleet of fishing vessels to intercept supplies for the British army in Boston. Soon after Thanksgiving Day (1775) one of this fleet captured a British brig loaded with military stores. There were thirty-one tons of musket balls, two thousand muskets, and barrels of gunpowder. Washington called this capture "an instance of divine favor." George III thought otherwise.

Because of lack of roads the cannon captured in the spring at Ticonderoga and Crown Point could not be sent to Boston until the snow came. They were then brought on forty-two sleds drawn by eighty yoke of oxen. Washington now had sufficient cannon and ammunition to justify him in seizing and fortifying Dorchester Heights, which overlook Boston from the south. The British commander saw that he could not now hold the city, so he sailed away with all his army to Halifax, Nova Scotia (March, 1776). He carried with him one thousand inhabitants of Boston who took the side of the British government and were called loyalists. They did not dare to remain behind for fear of losing their lives as well as their property.

Increase of desire for complete independence. The colonists heard three items of news from abroad which made more of them determined to declare themselves independent. These were: (1) the rejection of the “Olive Branch Petition,” (2) the proclamation of the king ordering that the rebellion be suppressed and the traitors brought to justice, and (3) the hiring of German soldiers, called Hessians because many of them came from the state of Hesse-Cassel (hěs' käs'el). The king hired these soldiers because not enough of the British were willing to fight against their kinsmen in America. "Well, brother rebel," said a southern member of the Continental Congress to a member from New England, "we have now got a sufficient answer to our petition. I want nothing more, but am ready to declare ourselves independent."

The Declaration of Independence. The colonies declared their independence of Great Britain by a document adopted by the

second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The legislature of North Carolina was the first to authorize her representatives to vote for independence. Virginia made the motion for independence in the Congress, and Massachusetts seconded it.

The most famous lines in the document, which is known as the Declaration of Independence, are:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Now in the Congressional Library at Washington. On this desk Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the author of the Declaration, which is a demand for the natural rights of man and for government based on the consent of the governed. It is also a censure of George III for interfering with such government by unfair laws, taxation, trials without jury, and armed troops. Jefferson voiced the ideas of all lovers of liberty in such clear and imperishable language that some of his sentences are almost as well known as common passages in the Bible. What Jefferson wrote in this Declaration has since affected human action throughout the world. Parts of the Declaration are to-day known by children in Korea and China. "Author of the Declaration of American Independence" comes first on Jefferson's monument.

John Hancock, of Boston, president of the Congress at Philadelphia which adopted the Declaration of Independence, signed his name to the document in letters so large that he said George III could read it without spectacles.

Change in government. The Declaration of Independence called the new nation the "United States of America." Each of the thirteen colonies became a state. On the advice of John Adams, often called the "Statesman of the Revolution," each state provided for its own government as if it had been a separate nation.

Three of the states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, made but little change in their colonial charters. Almost all the alteration needed was to omit the king's name from public documents, and substitute for it the word "people." Nine states made new constitutions. These usually contained a "bill of rights," that is, a statement of the self-evident or natural rights of human beings, such as the right to free speech, to private ownership of property, to trial by jury, and to worship as they chose. The new state governments were especially forbidden to take away any of the natural rights of man. The state constitutions provided for an executive known as the governor, a legislature or lawmaking body, and judges to decide questions of law and justice.

Eight days after the Declaration of Independence, a committee began to draw up Articles for a Confederation or loose union of states. These Articles were not finished until the next year, and they did not become binding until the last state signed them (1781). The Confederation was, however, in practical existence after independence was declared, or the war could not have been managed. The Articles of Confederation provided for a central Congress composed of representatives of all the states. This body was given the right to determine peace and war, make treaties, borrow money, issue currency, establish post offices, call on the states for an army, build a navy, and ask for money "for the common good." All the thirteen states had equal voting power.

The Congress of the Confederation thus formed had no power to compel the states to obey its orders, but it was then thought that every state would want to do what was right. It was not then realized that different states might have opposite ideas of "what was right."

Summary of Points of Emphasis for Review.-(1) Lexington and Concord and the reason for the fighting there, (2) effect on colonies outside of New England, (3) Bunker Hill and its meaning, (4) Ethan Allen at Lake Champlain, (5) what the second Continental Congress did, (6) unpreparedness of colonists, (7) expedition to Canada, (8) evacuation of Boston, (9) three events that made the colonists desire independence, (10) Declaration of Independence, (11) the states and the Confederation.

Activities. Draw a map, showing Lexington, Concord, Boston harbor, Boston, Bunker Hill, Dorchester Heights, the position of the British ships. If you prefer, use a sand pile to show these.

Imagine yourself Paul Revere and tell the class about your experiences on the night of April 18, 1775.

Suppose you had been attending a Lexington school (April 19, 1775), how would you have described the minutemen and the events of the day in a letter to a friend in a Boston school?

Be able to give the class and your home circle an interesting account of the battle of Bunker Hill.

Read the Declaration of Independence. Select its three most striking thoughts. How many times is the Deity mentioned? What is the last word in the Declaration?

Read Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride, Emerson's Concord Hymn, O. W. Holmes's Lexington and Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle. Select from any one of these poems fifteen lines which you think give the best picture.

References for Teachers.-Martyn, Artemas Ward, the First Commander in Chief of the American Revolution; Wrong, Washington and his Comrades in Arms (Chron. of Am.); Van Tyne, Am. Rev. I.-V.; Trevelyan, Am. Rev., Part I.; Fiske, Am. Rev., I., 117-197; Sparks, Men Who Made the Nation, 79-118; Channing, Hist. of the U. S., III., 155-215; Greene, Foundations of Am. Nationality, XIX., XX.; Hart, Am. Hist. Told by Contemporaries, II., 454-463, 472-479, 481-483, 530-543, 546-554; Fisher, True Story Am. Rev., 258–270; Wilson, Ford, or Lodge, George Washington.

For Pupils. Scudder, George Washington; Fiske, War of Independence, 85-103; Elson, Side Lights on Am. Hist., I., 1−23; Coffin, Boys of '76, 16-81; Hart, Camps and Firesides of the Revolution, 191-212; Foote and Skinner, Makers and Defenders of Am., 31-56; Hawthorne, Grandfather's Chair, 168-226; Thompson, Green Mountain Boys (fiction).

CHAPTER XIII

PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION

The fighting shifts to the middle colonies.-General Howe, the British commander, sailed from Halifax to New York, as Washington had prophesied. Washington drew up his army on

and near Brooklyn Heights, to defend the city. Howe with a larger force defeated detachments of the American army in skirmishes which are called the battle of Long Island. Washington could have been trapped there by the British fleet if he had not shown rare skill in transporting his army across the East River at night in a fog.

A young graduate of Yale College, Nathan Hale, volunteered to try to learn for Washington what the British would do next. He secured valuable information, but he was caught and hanged as a spy. On the scaffold he said: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

There followed "the times that try men's souls." The British captured Fort Washington, near the north end of Manhattan Island, and its garrison of 3000 men. Washington, after a skirmish at