acknowledge, as signal instances of the
divine favour towards us, that his providence would not permit us to
be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our
present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation,
and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts
fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before
God and the world, DECLARE that, exerting the utmost energy of those
powers which our beneficent creator hath graciously bestowed upon us,
the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in
defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance,
employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind
resolved to die freemen, rather than to live slaves.

"Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and
fellow subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean
not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted
between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. Necessity has
not yet driven us to that desperate measure, or induced us to excite
any other nation to war against them. We have not raised armies with
ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing
independent states. We fight not for glory, or for conquest. We
exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by
unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of
offence. _They_ boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet
proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death.

"In our own native land in defence of the freedom that is our birth
right, and which we ever enjoyed until the late violation of it, for
the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry
of our forefathers, and ourselves, against violence actually offered,
we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall
cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being
renewed shall be removed, and not before."

Some intelligence respecting the movements of the British army having
excited a suspicion that general Gage intended to penetrate into the
country, the provincial congress recommended it to the council of war
to take measures for the defence of Dorchester neck, and to occupy
Bunker's hill, a commanding piece of ground just within the peninsula
on which Charlestown stands. In observance of these instructions, a
det