spirited meeting, and headed a
subscription paper with his own gift of fifty pounds. A special
chronicle could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds. Cheered by the
universal sympathy, the inhabitants of Boston 'were determined to hold
out and appeal to the justice of the colonies and of the world;'
trusting in God that 'these things should be overruled for the
establishment of liberty, virtue and happiness in America.'"[340]

It is worthy of inquiry, as to how information could be so rapidly
circulated throughout colonies sparsely settled over a territory larger
than that of Europe, and expressions of sentiment and feeling elicited
from their remotest settlements? For, as Dr. Ramsay says, "in the three
first months which followed the shutting up of the port of Boston, the
inhabitants of the colonies, in hundreds of small circles as well as in
their Provincial Assemblies and Congresses, expressed their abhorrence
of the late proceedings of the British Parliament against Massachusetts;
their concurrence in the proposed measure of appointing deputies for a
_General_ Congress; and their willingness to do and suffer whatever
should be judged conducive to the establishment of their
liberties."[341] "In order to understand," says the same author, "the
mode by which this flame was spread with such rapidity over so great an
extent of country, it is necessary to observe that the several colonies
were divided into counties, and these again subdivided into districts,
distinguished by the names of towns, townships, precincts, hundreds, or
parishes. In New England, the subdivisions which are called towns were,
by law, bodies corporate; had their regular meetings, and might be
occasionally convened by their officers. The advantages derived from
these meetings, by uniting the whole body of the people in the measures
taken to oppose the Stamp Act, induced other provinces to follow the
example. Accordingly, under the Association which was formed to oppose
the Revenue Act of 1767, Committees were established, not only in the
capital of every province, but in most of the subordinate districts.
Great Britain, without designing it, had, by her two preceding attempts
at American revenue, taught her colonies not only the advantage but the
means of union. The system of Committees which prevailed in 1765, and
also in 1767, was revived in 1774. By them there was a quick
transmission of intelligence from the capital towns through the
subordina