he
believed, would be enough to settle the business. The Americans,
Sandwich said, were cowardly and undisciplined; they would not stand a
cannon-shot. That they would not fight was the firm opinion of all but
a very few. More than this, it was generally expected that Massachusetts
would not be supported by the other colonies, and no special military
preparation was thought necessary. On June 1, Boston harbour was closed.
The busy little town lay desolate, its wharfs were deserted, its
warehouses shut up, its streets silent; its merchants were threatened
with ruin, its seamen, shipwrights, and labourers and their families
with starvation. The act was enforced to the utmost, and small as Gage's
force was, it was sufficient to keep the town in subjection. Its
punishment was heavy, but surely not heavier than its offences. Be this
as it may, it was worse than ineffectual. The penal acts irritated the
Americans and did not intimidate them. Boston was regarded as suffering
for the common cause. Supplies poured in from the towns and villages of
New England, from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; and a
continental congress was decided on. Encouraged by the prospect of
support, the revolutionary party in Massachusetts defied Gage's
authority; gatherings of armed men took place, and warlike preparations
were set on foot. Gage began to fortify Boston Neck and brought in some
guns which might otherwise have been seized by the people.

On September 5 the continental congress met at Philadelphia. Of the
thirteen colonies only Georgia was unrepresented. Yet the delegates came
with different instructions and different intentions, and even among
delegates from the same province there was much difference of opinion.
As a body the congress did not meet with any predetermined revolutionary
purpose. Many loyalists and indeed moderate men of both parties believed
that it would be a means of arranging a reconciliation with Great
Britain, and though the most decided loyalists would have nothing to do
with it, even they hoped for a good result:[92] one-third of the
delegates, John Adams said, were whigs, one-third tories (loyalists),
and the rest mongrel. A proposal for a new constitution with a president
over all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council
to be elected by the several assemblies and to act in connexion with
parliament, was only negatived by the votes of six colonies to five. Yet
the revolutionists gai