George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

‘ [183] rights and liberties, as under God, to render it im-

Chap. XVI.} 1774. Dec.

possible to destroy them. But we apprise you of your danger, which appears to us imminently great. The minute men, not already provided, should be immediately equipped, and disciplined three times a week, or oftener. With the utmost cheerfulness we assure you of our determination to stand or fall with the liberties of America.’ With such words they adjourned, to keep the annual Thanksgiving which they themselves had appointed; finding occasion in the midst of all their distress to rejoice at ‘the smiles of Divine Providence’ on ‘the union of their own province and throughout the continent.’

As ships of the line successively arrived, they brought for the land service no more than six hundred recruits, which only made good the losses by sickness and desertion; so that altogether Gage had scarcely three thousand effective men. Before the middle of December, it became known that the king in council had forbidden the export of arms to America; at once men from Providence removed more than forty pieces of cannon from the colony's fort near Newport; and the assembly of Rhode Island and its merchants took measures to import military stores.

At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, the fourteenth of December, just after letters were received from Boston, members of the town committee, with other Sons of Liberty, preceded by a drum and fife, paraded the streets till their number grew to four hundred, when they made their way in scows and ‘gondolas’ to the fort at the entrance of the harbor, overpowered the few invalids who formed its