ses, summoned
by committees of safety, were elected by the Whigs and assumed control
of the colonies, following the example of Massachusetts. The British
colonial government, in short, crumbled to nothing in the spring of
1775. Only Gage's force of a few regiments, shut up in Boston, and a
few naval vessels, represented the authority of England in America.

Again there met a Continental Congress at Philadelphia, whose duty it
was to unify colonial action and to give the colonial answer to the
late parliamentary acts. Once more the ablest men of the colonies were
present, now gravely perturbed over the situation, and divided into two
camps. On the one hand, most of the New Englanders, led by Samuel
Adams and John Adams, his cousin, felt that the time for parley was at
an end, that nothing was to be hoped for from the North Ministry, and
that the only reasonable step was to declare independence. Others
still hoped that George III would realize the extent of the crisis and
be moved to concessions, while yet others, who hoped little, thought
that one more effort should be made to avoid revolution. But none
dreamed of surrender. Of the growing number of Americans who recoiled
in horror from {64} the possibility of independence, and were beginning
to show their dread in every way, not one was in this body. It
represented only the radicals in the several colonies.

The Congress has been charged with inconsistency, for some of its
measures were impelled by the most radical members, others by the
conservatives. On the one hand, it declined to adopt a form of
federation suggested by Franklin, and authorized Dickinson to draw up a
final, respectful, almost obsequious petition to the King to avoid
war--a document called the "Olive Branch"; but, on the other hand, it
appointed Washington to command the troops near Boston as a Continental
commander, adopted a report censuring the conciliatory proposition in
bold language, and issued an address justifying with extravagant
rhetoric the taking up of arms. Still more daring, it went so far as
to arrange to pay the so-called "Continental army" by means of bills of
credit, redeemable by the united colonies. Later, in 1775, it
appointed a secret committee to correspond with friends abroad, and
undertook extensive measures for raising troops and accumulating
military stores. To the revolted colonies, who found themselves with
no legal authorities, it gave the advice to form such