second Congress met. The members were instructed to the general effect that they should consult together and adopt such measures as were best calculated to secure the just rights of the colonists and redress their grievances. Voting by colonies, but occasionally listening to utterances which implied that Americans were now thrown into a single mass, this body sent addresses to the king, to the people of the colonies, of Quebec First Continental Congress. and of Great Britain, and prepared a declaration of rights. It is a significant fact that an address was not sent to either of the houses of parliament. In its statement of rights the Congress (known as the First Continental Congress) limited itself to those which it believed had been infringed since 1763. These acts they described as innovations, and claimed themselves to be the true conservatives who only desired peace on the basis of the former Constitution. Even Joseph Galloway's elaborate plan of union (see Galloway) between Great Britain and the colonies was debated at great length and was laid on the table by a majority of only one, though later all reference to it was expunged from the record. But, on the other hand, the warlike “Suffolk Resolves” (see Milton, Mass.) were approved, as was the opposition which Massachusetts was making to the recent acts of parliament; and the view was expressed that, if an attempt were made to execute them by force, all America should support Massachusetts. Though the work of this Congress was deliberative, it performed one positive act which contained the germ out of which new governments were to develop. That was the issue of the Association, or non-importation and non-exportation agreement, accompanied with resolutions for the encouragement of agriculture and home manufactures and for the organization of committees to carry these measures into effect. Coercion, according to the principle of the boycott, was to be applied by the colonies and other local bodies to all who declined to accept and obey the terms of the Association. This policy had been followed at intervals since the time of the Stamp Act. It had been The Association, or Non-Importation and Non-Exportation Agreement. revived and urged by very many local and provincial bodies during the past few months. The Congress had been called with a view to its enforcement throughout the continent. Its issue of the Association gave this policy wide extension, and at the same time strengthened the system of committees, whose energies were henceforth to be chiefly devoted to its enforcement. The Association became the touchstone by which loyalty to the colonies, or loyalty to the king, was determined. Those whose loyalty to the king forbade their submission to the new regulations now felt the coercive power of committees, even to the extent of virtual trial, imprisonment or banishment. Local bodies, acting under general regulations of Congress, and all revolutionary in character, accomplished these results and thus laid the foundation of the new governments. From this action the First Continental Congress derived its chief significance.
56. The line of policy thus indicated was not such as would conciliate the home government, though it is doubtful if at that time anything short of an acknowledgment of the principle of the Declaratory Act would have been effective. All measures of congresses and committees, everything which did not emanate from the assemblies and come through legal channels, savoured of sedition and was little likely to secure a hearing. The Association, with its threats and coercive spirit, and depending as it did upon extra-legal bodies for enforcement, was a direct blow at the commercial system of the empire and could scarcely help provoking retaliation. When the Congress adjourned, some of its members predicted war. In New England the impression that war was inevitable was widespread. In Massachusetts a provincial congress was at once organized, which assumed the reins of government and began to prepare for defence. A committee of safety was chosen to carry on the work during recesses of the Congress. Thomas Gage, the governor, began fortifying Boston, while he looked about for opportunities to seize military stores which the colonists were accumulating. The raising of voluntary militia companies was soon begun in Virginia. In South Carolina, as earlier in Boston and New York, a quantity of tea was now actually destroyed, and a general committee assumed practical control of the province. From New York City and Philadelphia as centres the process of revolutionizing the two most conservative provinces was carried on. When parliament met, at the close of 1774, the king and ministers declared that a most daring spirit of resistance existed in Massachusetts, which was countenanced by the other colonies, where unlawful combinations against the trade of Great Britain were already widely extended. In these opinions the government had the support of the majority in the two houses, and in a joint address the rebellion in Massachusetts was declared to be a fact. As a conciliatory measure Chatham proposed that parliament agree by resolution not to levy any tax upon the colonies, but that the Continental Congress be required to make a free grant of a perpetual revenue which should be fully at the disposition of parliament, the Congress fixing the quota which should be paid by each province. But the imperialist and mercantilism ideas of Chatham were expressed in the further provisions that the system of trade and navigation should not be changed and that the army might be lawfully kept in any part of the dominions where it was deemed necessary, though it should never be used to violate the just rights of the people. Edmund Burke, in his great speech on conciliation, advocated a return to the system of requisitions and did not consider a representation of the colonists in parliament as a possibility. But these motions were rejected, and a resolution introduced by Lord North was passed. This contained no recognition of extra-legal bodies, but provided that when the assembly of any colony should engage to support civil government within the colony and contribute according to its ability to the common defence, the king and parliament would then forbear to levy any more taxes on that province except what were necessary for the regulation of trade. The colonies, with the exception of New York, North Carolina and Georgia, were excluded from the fisheries, as a counter stroke to the Association. North's resolution proved utterly futile, and the two parties drifted steadily toward war, though, as Burke never tired of asserting, the British government in its military estimates made no adequate provision for meeting the crisis.
57. On the 19th of April 1775 hostilities began in Massachusetts. They had been narrowly escaped two months before, Outbreak of Hostilities; Lexington and Concord; Bunker Hill. when, on a Sunday, Gage had sent an expedition by water to Salem in search of powder. Now, on a week-day, a force was sent overland to Concord, 20 m. from Boston, to seize or destroy the military stores which the colonists had brought together at that village. The minute-men were warned to oppose the approaching force, and at Lexington (q.v.), a village situated on the road to Concord, occurred a skirmish in which the first blood of the American War of Independence was shed. The troops marched on to Concord (q.v.) and destroyed such of the stores as had not been removed or concealed. On their return march they were pursued by a galling fire from behind fences and buildings, and had it not been for the arrival of a relieving force the command would have been destroyed before it reached the protection of the British vessels of war at Boston. The “Lexington alarm” brought in throngs of militiamen from all parts of New England. Officers were appointed by the provincial congress of Massachusetts and by similar bodies in the other colonies, and immediately the so-called siege of Boston began. Cannon, as well as every other form of military equipment, were now in great demand. In order to secure a supply of the former and at the same time strike a telling blow at British authority in the north, Ticonderoga (q.v.) was surprised and taken on the 10th of May. Men from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the New Hampshire Grants (later Vermont) co-operated in this enterprise. It was soon followed by a dash into Canada, by steps which involved New York in the affair, and by the organization of a military force under General Philip Schuyler for permanent service on the northern frontier.
