ored liberty in all forms
and became warm partisans of the revolutionary movement."

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL

When the third attack was made, and the Americans' ammunition was
exhausted with the first volley, a desperate hand-to-hand struggle
followed. General Warren was fighting heroically when a British officer
recognized him, seized a musket from a private and shot him dead.]

CHAPTER IV.

THE REVOLUTION--THE WAR IN NEW ENGLAND.

Clauses of the Revolution--The Stamp Act--The Boston Tea
Party--England's Unbearable Measures--The First Continental
Congress--The Boston Massacre--Lexington and Concord--The Second
Continental Congress--Battle of Bunker Hill--Assumption of Command by
Washington--British Evacuation of Boston--Disastrous Invasion of Canada.

CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION.

England was never guilty of greater folly than in the treatment of her
American colonies after the close of the French and Indian War. As has
been said, she was oppressed by burdensome taxation and began seeking
excuse for shifting a large portion of it upon the shoulders of her
prosperous subjects across the sea, who had always been ready to vote
money and give their sons to help in the wars which were almost solely
for the benefit of the mother country. It has been shown that the
intercolonial conflicts were of no advantage to the colonies which were
dragged into them and suffered greatly therefrom. Since the surrounding
territory would soon be necessary for the expansion of the Americans,
they had much to gain by the defeat of the French and their expulsion
from America; but they had done their full share, and it was unjust to
demand further sacrifices from them.

PASSAGE OF THE STAMP ACT.

Hardly had peace been declared, when, in 1764, the British government
asserted that it had the _right_ to tax her colonies. The latter paid
little attention to the declaration, but were rudely awakened in 1765 by
the passage of the Stamp Act, which was to go into effect in November of
that year. It decreed that thenceforward no newspapers or pamphlets
could be printed, no marriage-certificate given, and no documents used
in lawsuits, unless stamps were attached, and these could be bought only
from British agents.

It was ordered further that the oppressive Navigation Acts, which had
been evaded for a hundred years, should be rigidly enforced, while
soldiers were to be sent to America to see that the orders were carrie