gle Dell. Twice, nay, three times, a year, since third parties have
been in fashion, the delegates of the political churches assemble in
Ipswich to pass patriotic resolutions, and designate the candidates whom
the good people of Essex County, with implicit faith in the wisdom of the
selection, are expected to vote for. For the rest there are pleasant
walks and drives around the picturesque village. The people are noted
for their hospitality; in summer the sea-wind blows cool over its healthy
hills, and, take it for all in all, there is not a better preserved or
pleasanter specimen of a Puritan town remaining in the ancient
Commonwealth.

The 21st of April, 1775, witnessed an awful commotion in the little
village of Ipswich. Old men, and boys, (the middle-aged had marched to
Lexington some days before) and all the women in the place who were not
bedridden or sick, came rushing as with one accord to the green in front
of the meeting-house. A rumor, which no one attempted to trace or
authenticate, spread from lip to lip that the British regulars had landed
on the coast and were marching upon the town. A scene of indescribable
terror and confusion followed. Defence was out of the question, as the
young and able-bodied men of the entire region round about had marched to
Cambridge and Lexington. The news of the battle at the latter place,
exaggerated in all its details, had been just received; terrible stories
of the atrocities committed by the dreaded "regulars" had been related;
and it was believed that nothing short of a general extermination of the
patriots--men, women, and children--was contemplated by the British
commander.--Almost simultaneously the people of Beverly, a village a few
miles distant, were smitten with the same terror. How the rumor was
communicated no one could tell. It was there believed that the enemy had
fallen upon Ipswich, and massacred the inhabitants without regard to age
or sex.

It was about the middle of the afternoon of this day that the people of
Newbury, ten miles farther north, assembled in an informal meeting, at
the town-house to hear accounts from the Lexington fight, and to consider
what action was necessary in consequence of that event. Parson Carey was
about opening the meeting with prayer when hurried hoof-beats sounded up
the street, and a messenger, loose-haired and panting for breath, rushed
up the staircase. "Turn out, turn out, for God's sake," he cried, "or
you wil