its present alarming height,
governor Gage had issued writs for the election of members to a
general assembly. These writs were afterwards countermanded by
proclamation; but the proclamation was disregarded; the elections were
held; and the delegates, who assembled and voted themselves a
provincial congress, conducted the affairs of the colony as if they
had been regularly invested with all the powers of government; and
their recommendations were respected as sacred laws.

[Sidenote: Prepares for defence.]

They drew up a plan for the defence of the province; provided
magazines, ammunition and prepares stores for twelve thousand militia;
and enrolled a number of minute men, a term designating a select part
of the militia, who engaged to appear in arms at a minute's warning.

On the approach of winter, the general had ordered temporary barracks
to be erected for the troops, partly for their security, and partly to
prevent the disorders which would unavoidably result from quartering
them in the town. Such however was the detestation in which they were
held, that the select men and committees obliged the workmen to desist
from the work, although they were paid for their labour by the crown,
and although employment could, at that time, be seldom obtained. He
was not much more successful in his endeavours to obtain carpenters in
New York; and it was with considerable difficulty that these temporary
lodgments could be erected.

The agency for purchasing winter covering for the troops was offered
to almost every merchant in New York; but such was the danger of
engaging in this odious employment, that not only those who were
attached to the party resisting the views of administration, but those
also who were in secret friendly to those views, refused undertaking
it, and declared "that they never would supply any article for the
benefit of men who were sent as enemies to their country."

[Sidenote: King's speech to parliament.]

In Great Britain, a new parliament was assembled; and the King, in his
opening speech, informed them, "that a most daring spirit of
resistance and disobedience still prevailed in Massachusetts, and had
broken forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature; that the
most proper and effectual measures had been taken to prevent these
mischiefs; and that they might depend upon a firm resolution to
withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of
this legislature over all the do