Virginia. The tablet is of Florentine mar- the college by the college of heralds of ble, fashioned in a style to correspond England are placed upon the tablet. with the date of the foundation of the William and Mary is the only American college. The armorial bearings awarded college to possess this distinction.

WILLIAM AND MARY, FORT

William and Mary, FORT. The fol- months engaged in drilling in their mili lowing description of a little-known in- tary exercises in preparation for the ancident in the Revolutionary War was ticipated conflict, carried ninety-seven written by Ballard Smith, former editor kegs of powder and a quantity of smallof the New York World: arms in gondolas to Durham, where they were concealed, in part, under the pulpit It is a curious fact that the most im- of its meeting-house. Soon after the portant as well as the most dramatic inci- battles of Lexington and Concord had dent immediately preceding the Ameri- aroused the people to a realizing sense can Revolution an incident, indeed, that they were actually engaged in hoswhich directly precipitated hostilities- tilities, these much-needed supplies, or a has but slighting mention in any of the histories. It may be well doubted whether even one in every hundred thousand Americans could recall any of the circumstances of this noteworthy event.

This was the attack upon Fort William and Mary in Portsmouth Harbor by a band of young patriots led by John Sullivan, afterwards major-general in the Continental army. The assault was made in December, 1774, four months before the battle of Lexington, and six months before Bunker Hill. It was unquestionably the first act of overt treason. Singularly enough, however, Bancroft makes but a casual reference to it, and in none of the histories is it given more than a paragraph. Yet its immediate consequences were not less momentous than those of Lexington. It was, in fact, the occasion of the conflict at Lexington, and it is more than probable that it saved Bunker Hill from proving a disastrous defeat, if not, indeed, a calamity fatal to further effort for freedom.

portion of them, were brought by him to the lines at Cambridge, where he marched with his company, and were used at the battle of Bunker Hill."

This account is in some respects clearly inaccurate, and it is altogether incommensurate with the importance of the act. The assault was made, not on the 12th, but on the night of the 13th or 14th of December-for there is some conflict of authority on this point, and there is nothing to show that any act of treasonable hostility preceded it. Sparks, in his Life of Sullivan, gives practically the same details, and Bancroft, Botta, and Bryant make only an allusion to the event. In the course of several papers read before the Massachusetts Historical Society, defending Sullivan from aspersions of subsequent disloyalty to the American cause, Mr. Thomas C. Amory, of Boston, who is a grandnephew of the general, furnishes many additional and interesting particulars besides those already quoted; but none of these writers has correlated the facts of the attack, and the exceedingly momentous consequences that directly proceeded from it.

Amory's only reference to it in his Military Services of General Sullivan is this: "Soon after his return home [Sullivan had been a delegate to the Continen- The little village of Durham, New tal Congress] he planned with Thomas Hampshire, clusters about the falls of the Pickering and John Langdon an attack, Oyster River, a tide-water stream that on the night of the 12th of December, ebbs and flows through the broad and upon Fort William and Mary, at New- picturesque Piscataqua into Portsmouth castle, in Portsmouth Harbor-one of the Harbor. A century ago Durham was a earliest acts of hostility against the flourishing ship-building town, on the mother-country; and, by the aid of a highway to Portsmouth, and a "bathingportion of a force he had been for some place" for the stage from Boston to Port

land. Then a long bridge spanned the John Smith on his first voyage to these reach where the waters of the Oyster shores. There was doubtless a survival River and of the "Great Bay" debouch of the chivalric spirit of the tournament into the Piscataqua. The bridge was car- among the young fellows of the village, ried away by the ice in the first quarter and the challenge was accepted. But of the century. Another was built from John Sullivan was renowned for his Dover Point, the course of the highway strength, and it was found that no fitting was changed, the neighboring forests were opponent could be secured. Then James exhausted, and the shipwrights moved Sullivan-afterwards successively judge, up to the Maine coast. The village fell attorney-general, and governor of Massainto a sleep from which it will probably chusetts-volunteered in his brother's never awaken; but one house, built more stead, the battle was fought, and James than a hundred years ago, still crowns was victor. John remained to do great one of the village hills, and before it honor to his adopted home; but, as John grateful America should erect a monu- Adams afterwards wrote of him that his ment, for in that house was planned the profession had yielded him a fortune of initial movement of the Revolution. On £10,000, perhaps the fears of his village the proper site for such a monument was neighbors were not so groundless after buried a store of powder, which, carted down to Charlestown, saved the wearied battalions of Prescott and Stark from capture or annihilation.

Sullivan was born at Somerworth, New Hampshire, in 1740. His father was in the Pretender's service, and fled from Ireland to America. His mother also emigrated from Ireland when a young girl. During the voyage a passenger laughingly asked of her, "And what do you expect to do over in America?"

"Do?" was the reply; "why, raise governors for them, sure." (One of her sons was governor of Massachusetts; a grandson was governor of Maine, another was only lately a United States Senator from New Hampshire, and still another was lieutenant-governor of Illinois.)

all.

From the beginning of the controversies . between the colonies and the mother-country, Sullivan took a most active share in the discussions, and, when the time came, was even more prominent in action. For at least a year before Lexington it is clear that he considered an armed conflict

to be inevitable. He had held a royal
commission
on Governor Wentworth's
staff, and had gathered about him and
drilled thoroughly a company of young
men in and about the village. In the
spring of 1774 he was sent as a delegate
from New Hampshire to the Congress.
Returning in September, it seems that he
believed the appeal to arms could not
much longer be delayed.

On the afternoon of December 13, Paul The most famous of her sons, John Sul- Revere (the same who escaped the vigillivan, was married at twenty, and opened ance of Howe's guards four months later, a law office in Durham. There were then and spread the news along the road from but two lawyers in the entire colony. The Boston to Lexington of Pitcairn's inprofession was apparently not regarded tended march) rode up to Sullivan's with favor, for, on the coming of Sulli- house in Durham. One of the survivors van, it is a tradition that the good citi- of Sullivan's company died only some zens about Durham Falls resisted his thirty years ago, and from his lips, shortsettlement among them with prompt ly before his death, was obtained the vigor. They gathered about his house story of what happened that day. Reone bright evening and threatened to tear vere's horse, he said, was "nearly done" it down if he did not promise to leave. when pulled up at Sullivan's door. The Haranguing them from an upper window, rider had been despatched with all speed Sullivan offered to submit the question to from Boston the day before with mesthe test of single combat. It will be re- sages from the Massachusetts committee membered that New Hampshire alone of of safety that the King in council had the New England colonies was settled, prohibited the importation of arms or not by the Puritans, but by needy sons military stores into the colonies," and of the Cavaliers-sent out with Capt. that two regiments were forthwith to

march from Boston to occupy Portsmouth up and told me Major Sullivan wanted me
and the fort in its harbor. After " bait
ing" his wearied beast, Revere rode on to
Portsmouth.

In Sullivan's mind the hour had evi-
dently come for decisive action. The
story of what followed is briefly told by
Eleazer Bennett, the survivor before men-
tioned: "I was working for Major Sulli-
van," he said, "when Micah Davis came

to go to Portsmouth, and to get all the men I could to go with him. The men who went, as far as I can remember, were Maj. John Sullivan, Capt. Winborn Adams, Ebenezer Thompson, John Demeritt, Alpheus and Jonathan Chesley, John Spencer, Micah Davis, Isaac and Benja min Small, of Durham; Ebenezer Sullivan, Captain Langdon, and Thomas Pick

ering, of Portsmouth; John Griffin, to within a rod or shore. We waded James Underwood, and Alexander Scam- through the water in perfect silence, mell. We took a gondola belonging to mounted the fort, surprised the garriBenjamin Mathes, who was too old to go, son, and bound the captain. In the fort and went down the river to Portsmouth. we found 100 casks of powder and 100 It was a clear, cold, moonlight night. We small-arms, which we brought down to sailed down to the fort at the mouth of the boat. In wading through the water Piscataqua Harbor. The water was so it froze upon us." shallow that we could not bring the boat

What a simple story of heroism! The

men took off their boots that they might New Hampshire. From Governor Went-
not make a noise in mounting the ram- worth's correspondence with the Earl of
parts, and after getting back to the boat
it is of record that they again took them
off, "lest a spark from the iron-nailed
soles might ignite the powder." And
this was in December, in the severe win-
ter of northern New England.

The "gondola "-pronounced by the na-
tives gundolo, with accent on the first
syllable is an unwieldly, sloop-rigged
vessel, still in use in the shallow waters

Dartmouth it would appear that he warn ed Captain Cochran, in command at the fort, of the intended attack; but it is a tradition in Durham that the garrison was awakened from sleep as the party mounted the ramparts. No blood was shed on either side. In his letter to Lord Dartmouth, Sir John (Governor) Wentworth gives some further details. "News was brought to me." he says, of the New England coast. It is appar"that a drum was beating about the ently named on the lucus a non lucendo town to collect the populace together in principle, being of almost the exact shape order to take away the gunpowder and of an old-fashioned wooden kneading-dish dismantle the fort. I sent the chief-jus-broad and flat-bottomed-with bow and tice to them to warn them from engaging stern but little rounded, and carrying a in such an attempt. He went to them, large lateen-sail. Not possibly could a told them it was not short of rebellion, boat be constructed more unlike the gon- and entreated them to desist from it and dola of the Venetian canals. The gun- disperse. But all to no purpose. They dolo" sailed quietly down with the tide to went to the island. They forced an ena dock in Portsmouth town, 9 miles trance in spite of Captain Cochran, who below. There perhaps half a dozen men defended it as long as he could. They were taken on board, including Captain secured the captain, triumphantly gave Langdon, afterwards first president of the three huzzas, and hauled down the King's United States Senate and governor of colors." Captain Cochran made his re

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