ked to fight for their rights, they must at all hazards not
be allowed to say that Congress oppressed them more than Parliament!

For the moment all this was no more than a confession that the
Association, originally designed as a finely chiseled stepping-stone to
reconciliation, was likely to prove a stumbling-block unless the King
graciously extended his royal hand to give a hearty lift. It presently
appeared that the King refused to extend his hand. October 31, 1775,
information reached America that Richard Penn and Arthur Lee, having
presented the petition to Lord Dartmouth, were informed that the King
would not receive them, and furthermore that no answer would be returned
to the Congress. Ignoring the petition was to exhibit only one degree
more of contempt for that carefully prepared document than the Congress
had shown for Lord North's Resolution on Conciliation; and now that the
olive branch had been spurned on both sides, it was a little difficult
to see how either side could possibly refuse the sword.

That the colonies would refuse the sword was not very likely; but, as
if to make a refusal impossible, the British Government, on December 22,
1775, decided to thrust the sword into their hands. This at all events
was thought by many men to be the effect of the Prohibitory Act, which
declared the colonies outside the protection of the Crown, and which,
for the purpose of reducing them to submission, laid an embargo upon all
their trade and proclaimed their ports in a state of blockade.

"I know not [John Adams wrote] whether you have seen the Act of
Parliament called the Restraining Act or Prohibitory Act, or Piratical
Act, or Act of Independency--for by all these titles is it called. I
think the most apposite is the Act of Independency; the King, Lords,
and Commons have united in sundering this country from that, I think,
forever. It is a complete dismemberment of the British Empire. It throws
thirteen colonies out of the royal protection, and makes us independent
in spite of supplications and entreaties. It may be fortunate that the
act of Independency should come from the British Parliament rather than
from the American Congress; but it is very odd that Americans should
hesitate at accepting such a gift from them."

The majority of those who refused to accept it--and the number was
large--retired, with saddened hearts for the most part, into the ranks
of the British Loyalists; only a few, with John Dickins