FIRST CONTEST OF THE REVOLUTION.
��191
��to take away the gunpowder and disman- tle the fort. ... I sent the chief-justice to warn them from engaging in such an attempt. He went to them, told them it was not short of rebellion, and entreated them to desert from it and disperse. But all to no purpose. They went to the island; they forced an entrance in spite of Capt. Cochran, who defended it as long as he could. They secured the cap- tain, triumphantly gave three huzzas, and hauled down the king's colors." And the helpless governor soon issued a proclamation which begins : "Whereas, several bodies of men did in the day- time," etc.. etc.
This capture was in the afternoon of the 14th of December, an open and de- termined attack.
Said the commander of the fort, in his official report, dated the same day :
"I prepared to make the best defence I could, and pointed some guns to those places where I expected they would en- ter. About three o'clock, the fort was beset on all sides by upwards of five hun- dred men. I told them on their peril not to enter. They replied they would. I immediately ordered three four-pounders to be fired on them, and then the small arms, and before we could be ready to fire again, we were stormed on all quar- ters, and immediately they secured me and my men, and kept us prisoners about one hour and a half, during which time they broke upon the powder-house, and took all the powder away except one barrel."
Ninety-seven barrels of powder were takeu away, and on the night of the 15th, the patriots returned and carried off all the arms that could be moved.
How men were raised for the expedi- tion; how that powder was afterwards taken up to Durham in boats, in a bitter- ly cold night, the men not allowed to wear shoes lest a spark from the nails should ignite the powder ; how most of it was hidden under the old pulpit from which the patriotic Adams preached ; how the New Hampshire men's powder horns were filled from it when they started for Cambridge, and how John Demeritt, of Durham, hauled thiiher an ox-cart load, arriving just in season to have it served out for Bunker Hill— was written out for me twenty years ago, from the lips of Eleazer Bennett, then
��near a hundred years old, who was prob- ably the last survivor of that daring ex- pedition. And that powder supplied the two New Hampshire regiments at Bun- ker Hill, which, attacked by the veteran Welch Fusileers, were commanded by James Reid and John Stark, and made such slaughter of the best English troops. The daring character of this assault can not be over-estimated. It was an or- ganized investment of a royal fortress, where the king's flag was flying, and where the king's garrison met them with muskets and artillery. It was four months before Lexington ; and Lexing- ton was a resistance to attack, while this was a deliberate assault. It was six months before Bunker Hill. I fail to find anywhere in the colonies, so early an armed assault upon royal authority. So far, it must be held that the first ac- tion in arms, of the Revolutionary war, was in New Hampshire, and by New Hampshire patriots. This attack was treason. It exposed every man concern- ed in it to the penalty of treason. When the war-vessels came, a few days after, the men of the little garrison were placed on board, to be kept as witnesses in the expected trials. When the King heard of this capture, it so embittered him that all hope of concessions was at an end. It made war inevitable. But the trials for treason never took place. The then gov- ernor, John Wentworth, the best of all the royal governors of that day — de- scended from that William Wentworth who was Elder of our Dover first church, and of the same blood with that Earl of Strafford who was beheaded in the time of the first Charles, and with the British premier, the Marquis of Rockingham, — soon sailed away, never again to set foot upon his native soil. John Langdon, af- ter gallant service in the war, and price- less service in its civil support, became governor, and the first President of the Senate of the United States. John Sulli- van, then a lawyer in Durham, was son of that John Sullivan who was once school-master of the town of Dover, and who was the father of governors, and our local traditions insist was born on our side of the Salmon Falls. To him the refugee, Livius, wrote from Montreal,
�� �
