em
unjustly and posting soldiers in their chief cities to
carry out her will. They were by no means disposed to
submit. As early as 1770 a mob in Boston attacked an
English guard and drew upon themselves its fire, which
caused bloodshed in the city's streets. This was the
prelude of the American Revolution. A brief lull came in
the storm. But as Britain still insisted on the right to
tax the colonies and made an impost on tea the test of
her right, rebels in Boston accepted the challenge and
were inflamed to violence; they swarmed on a tea-ship
which had entered the bay, dragged the packets from the
hold, and cast them into the waters of the harbour. When
news of this act of violence reached England, parliament
passed a bill providing for the shutting up of the port
of Boston and removing the seat of government to Salem.
In 1774 General Gage, the recently appointed governor of
Massachusetts, placed the colony under military rule,
and it was cut off from the rest of the country. The
signal for revolt was thus given, and a general revolution
soon followed.

The colonists immediately divided into two parties; on
the one side were those who felt that they must obey what
they thought to be the call of liberty; on the other were
those who had no desire, and felt no need, to follow a
summons to insurrection against His Majesty the King.
The red man began to see clearly that the whites, the
'Long Knives,' brethren of the same race, would soon be
at one another's throats, and that they, the natives,
could not remain neutral when the war broke out.

During these alarming days Sir William Johnson died, when
scarcely sixty years of age. He had seen that the break
with the motherland was coming, and the prospect was
almost more than he could bear. On the very day of his
death he had received dispatches from England that probably
hastened his end. He was told, under the royal seal, of
the great peril that lay in store for all the king's
people, and he was urged to keep the Six Nations firm in
their allegiance to the crown. On that morning, July
11, 1774, the dying man called the Indians to council,
and spoke what were to be his parting words to the tribes.
They must, he said, stand by the king, undaunted and
unmoved under every trial. A few hours later the gallant
Sir William Johnson, the friend of all the sons of the
forest, the guide and helper of Joseph Brant, had breathed
his last. His estates and titles were inherited