one couple to
another, to prevent the party separating.

Warner roused the farmer, and that man was so indignant that he
proposed shooting each of the prisoners.

"No, no," said Allen, "they only obeyed orders. I shall let them go
this time, if they will tell me the name of the informer."

The English soldiers were loyal and refused to purchase their release
on such terms.

After an early breakfast Allen was ready to resume his journey, and he
ordered the prisoners to march before him.

When the farm had been left behind a distance of a mile, he told the
prisoners they were free to go where they liked, but as a precaution
against being followed, he did not unfasten them, knowing that it might
be hours before they succeeded in getting loose.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

The old hall in Philadelphia, where the city fathers met, was filled with
a notable gathering, representing eleven colonies.

Those men constituted the Second Continental Congress.

The first had been held in October, 1765, and a resolution was adopted
declaring that the American colonists, as Englishmen, would not and could
not consent to be taxed but by their own representatives. This
resolution was called forth through the passage of the "Stamp Act."

The Second Congress assembled in Philadelphia in September, 1774, and
pledged the colonies to support Massachusetts in her conflict with the
English ministry, and after petitioning the king and the English people,
adjourned to meet, as it happened, on the very day that Ethan Allen
captured Ticonderoga.

The members of that Congress were all loyal to England. The time for
independence had not come.

But what a galaxy of men!

There were such giants among men as Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry,
Samuel and John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

But among all those men there was not one whose ambition led him to place
self above country.

John Adams told the Congress that the time had come when the English
people must learn that it would be better to die fighting for liberty
than to live in perpetual slavery.

Not a man wanted war.

Washington had been a soldier with Braddock, and had won distinction, but
he was for peace. Jefferson demanded liberty, but he deprecated war.
Sam Adams startled the members by saying that if England persisted in a
policy of coercion it would be necessary to fight, yet even Adams
believed in peace.

John Adams mad