eomen to wall up the British troops in Boston--to chain the tiger, and
prevent his depredating elsewhere. A Continental Army was organized, and
the supreme command given to George Washington, the hero of the _Great
Meadows_ and of the _Monongahela_. With Titan strength the patriots
piled huge fortifications around Boston, and for nine months they kept
their unnatural enemy a prisoner upon that little peninsula. Then they
drove him in haste out upon the broad Atlantic, and gave peace to the
desolated city. And yet the patriots talked not of political
independence. Righteous concession would have secured reconciliation.
The dismembering blow had not yet fallen. Great Britain was blind and
stubborn still.

Perplexed by dissensions in parliament, and the manifest growth of
sympathy for the Americans in his metropolis, the king was desirous of
making honorable concessions. Foolish ministers and ignorant and knavish
politicians prated of British _honor_, and advised the adoption of
rigorous measures for throwing back the swelling tide of rebellion in
America. It was an easy thing to advise, but difficult to plan, and hard
to execute the schemes proposed. The army of the empire was too much
scattered at distant points to furnish efficient detachments for the
American service. It would have been dangerous to send out levies raised
from the home districts, because the leaven of republicanism was there
at work. Material for an invading force was therefore sought in foreign
markets. Petty German princes happened to have a good supply on hand,
and toward the close of 1775, one of the darkest crimes recorded upon
the pages of English history, was consummated. Seventeen thousand
Germans, known here as Hessians, were hired by the British ministry, and
sent to plunder our seas, ravage our coasts, burn our towns, and destroy
the lives of our people. The king pronounced his subjects in America to
be _rebels_, and virtually abdicated government here, by declaring them
out of his protection, and waging war against them. His representatives,
the royal governors, were expelled from our shores, or driven to the
protection of British arms. All hope for reconciliation faded; petitions
and remonstrances ceased; the sword was drawn and the scabbard thrown
away. The children of Great Britain, who had ever regarded her with
reverence and filial affection, and who never dreamed of leaving the
paternal roof until the unholy chastisements of a parent's