rs of the parent state, would
induce administration to recede from its high pretensions, and restore
harmony and free intercourse. This opinion had derived strength from
the communications made them by their zealous friends in England. The
divisions and discontents of that country had been represented as much
greater than the fact would justify; and the exhortations transmitted
to them to persevere in the honourable course which had been commenced
with so much glory, had generally been accompanied with assurances
that success would yet crown their patriotic labours. Many had engaged
with zeal in the resistance made by America, and had acted on a full
conviction of the correctness of the principles for which they
contended, who would have felt some reluctance in supporting the
measures which had been adopted, had they believed that those measures
would produce war. But each party counted too much on the divisions of
the other; and each seems to have taken step after step, in the hope
that its adversary would yield the point in contest, without resorting
to open force. Thus, on both sides, the public feeling had been
gradually conducted to a point, which would, in the first instance,
have been viewed with horror, and had been prepared for events, which,
in the beginning of the controversy, would have alarmed the most
intrepid. The prevailing sentiment in the middle and southern colonies
still was, that a reconciliation, on the terms proposed by America,
was not even yet impracticable, and was devoutly to be wished; but
that war was to be preferred to a surrender of those rights, for which
they had contended, and to which they believed every British subject,
wherever placed, to be unquestionably entitled. They did not hesitate
therefore which part of the alternative to embrace; and their
delegates united cordially with those of the north, in such measures
as the exigency required. The resolution was unanimous that, as
hostilities had actually commenced, and as large reinforcements to the
British army were expected, these colonies should be immediately put
in a state of defence, and the militia of New York be armed and
trained, and kept in readiness to act at a moment's warning. Congress
also determined to embody a number of men, without delay, for the
protection of the inhabitants of that place, but did not authorise
opposition to the landing of any troops which might be ordered to that
station by the crown. The convention