they had all fled, except
Governor Franklin of New Jersey, who was under close confinement in East
Windsor, Connecticut. All British authority in the United States had
disappeared, and there was no one for Lord Howe to negotiate with,
unless he should bethink himself of some way of laying his case before
Congress.

[Sidenote: Change in the British military plan, due to the union of
the colonies in the Declaration of Independence.]

Military operations were now taken up in earnest by the British, and
were briskly carried on for nearly six months. They were for the most
part concentrated upon the state of New York. Before 1776 it was
Massachusetts that was the chief object of military measures on the part
of the British. That was the colony that since the summer of 1774 had
defied the king's troops and set at naught the authority of Parliament;
and the first object of the British was to make an example of that
colony, to suppress the rebellion there, and to reinstate the royal
government. The king believed that it would not take long to do this,
and there is some reason for supposing that if he had succeeded in
humbling Massachusetts, he would have been ready to listen to
Hutchinson's request that the vindictive acts of April, 1774, should be
repealed and the charter restored. At all events, he seems to have felt
confident that things could soon be made so quiet that Hutchinson could
return and resume the office of governor. If the king and his friends
had not entertained such ill-founded hopes, they would not have been so
ready to resort to violent measures. They made the fatal mistake of
supposing that such a man as Samuel Adams represented only a small
party and not the majority of the people. They had also supposed that
the other colonies would not make common cause with Massachusetts. But
now, before they had accomplished any of their objects, and while their
troops had even been driven from Boston, they found that the rebellion
had spread through the whole country. They had a belligerent government
to confront, and must now enter upon the task of conquering the United
States.

[Sidenote: Why the British concentrated their attack upon the state
of New York.]

The first and most obvious method of attempting this was to strike at
New York as the military centre. In such a plan everything seemed to
favour the British. The state was comparatively weak in population and
resources; a large proportion