unity gave force to the expressions and acts of the home Government, as when in 1761 the enforcement of the Navigation Acts by general search-warrants (see Assistance, Writs of) caused strong resentment against the home Government, especially in New England, where the Admiralty attempted to enforce the law, many vessels being seized, and the colonial trade with the West Indies being seriously affected. In 1765 the passing of an act of Parliament (see Stamp Act) for collecting a colonial revenue by requiring the use of stamps not only upon many business papers and legal documents, but also upon certain articles of ordinary use, caused general indignation, and led even to riots. Steps were promptly taken to unite against the common danger of an extension of the authority of Parliament; the famous Stamp Act Congress, in which nine colonies were represented, met at New York in September, 1765, and issued a statement of grievances and a declaration of rights. The stamps were destroyed or reshipped to England, and popiilar societies, called ‘Sons of Liberty’ (q.v.), were formed in the chief towns. In 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed, to the general relief of the colonists; but the principle of colonial taxation by Parliament was reaffirmed, and in 1767 duties were levied on glass, paper, printers' colors, and tea. This renewed attempt produced, in 1768, disturbances in Boston, where Governor Gage was furnished with a military force to preserve order and enforce the laws, and where thenceforth the relations between the House of Representatives and the royal Governor were especially strained, much bitter feeling among the people being caused by the so-called Boston massacre (q.v.) of March 5, 1770. In 1773 the duties were repealed, excepting 3d. a pound on tea, when the matter resolved itself into a question of principle, and from North to South the people became determined that this tax should not be paid. In Boston a crowd, disguised as Indians, threw a cargo into the harbor (December 16, 1773). As a penalty for such acts, Parliament passed, in 1774, a series of punitive statutes, including the so-called Charter Act, by which the popular element in the provincial government of Massachusetts was greatly reduced and by which the former independence and authority of town-meetings was strictly limited, and including also the Boston Port Bill (q.v.), by which the chief town of New England was to be no longer a port of entry. Boston was reduced to great distress, but received the active sympathy and encouragement of all the colonies.
The people of Massachusetts, relying upon the theory that their charter partook of the nature of a compact which could be altered or abrogated only by the consent of themselves and of the King, denied the right of Parliament to pass statutes in any way modifying their charter rights, and insisted that the course of the King and Parliament released the colonists from all obligations and reduced them, so far as government was concerned, to a ‘state of nature.’ Thus, as early as the fall of 1774 the colonists began to organize local government on the assumption that administrative relations with England had been terminated, and that the authority of the home Government had ceased. Under such circumstances it was inevitable that the Administration should undertake to apply a policy of repression. For further details of colonial history, see, besides the articles already referred to, the articles on the various States.
War of Independence. It was now determined to enforce the authority of Parliament over the colonies, and a fleet, containing several ships of the line and 10,000 troops, was sent to America. The colonies, still asserting their loyalty, and with little or no thought of separation from the mother country, prepared to resist what they considered the unconstitutional assumptions of the home Government and the unwarranted violations of their rights as English citizens. Volunteers were drilling and depots of provisions and military stores were being formed. The sending of a small force from Boston to seize one of these depots at Concord. Mass., and to capture two of the most prominent provincial leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were staying temporarily at Lexington, led to engagements at Lexington and at Concord (see Lexington), and the real beginning of the Revolutionary War, on April 19, 1775. The British troops were compelled to retreat, and the news of this event promptly brought from fifteen to twenty thousand armed provincials to the vicinity of Boston, to which place the British, then numbering less than 4000, were effectually confined. On May 25, 1775, reinforcements under Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne increased the strength of the British army to 10,000 men. Outlying royal forts and arsenals, with their arms and munitions, were taken possession of by the colonists, and on May 10th and May 11th respectively Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the principal Northern fortifications, were surprised by organized forces, and their artillery and stores appropriated. A congress of the colonies, known as the Continental Congress, had assembled at Philadelphia in September, 1774, and after appeals to the home Government, which proved unavailing, this body resolved to raise and equip an army of 20,000 men, and on June 15, 1775, appointed George Washington commander-in-chief. On June 17th, Breed's Hill, in Charlestown, near Boston, where a considerable force of Americans had hastily intrenched themselves, was taken by assault by the British troops, but with so heavy a loss that the defeat had for the provincials the moral effect of a victory. (See Bunker Hill, Battle of.) After a winter of great privation, during which they were closely besieged within the only city in their control, the British were compelled on March 17, 1776, to evacuate Boston, carrying away in their fleet to Halifax a large number of Loyalists. To forestall an expected attack by Sir Guy Carleton, Governor of Canada, upon Ticonderoga, an American force under Montgomery was sent in August, 1775, to invade Canada by way of Lake Champlain, while in September another American force under Benedict Arnold was sent from Cambridge through the forests of Maine against Quebec. Montgomery captured Chambly, Saint Johns, and Montreal, but on December 31, 1775, the Americans were defeated before Quebec, Montgomery being killed and Arnold wounded, and in the summer of 1776 the Americans were forced to abandon Canada.
After the evacuation of Boston the British
