George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

‘ [440] of the union between the mother country and

Chap. XLVIII.} 1772. Dec.

the Colonies.’¹ And in a louder tone the freemen of Gloucester, accustomed to thoughts as free as the ocean which dashes on their bold shore, and brave as became men who from childhood had in their small fishing boats ridden the breakers without fear, declared their readiness to stand for their rights and liberties, which were dearer to them than their lives, and to join with all others in an appeal to the Great Lawgiver, not doubting of success according to the justice of their cause.²

Salisbury, a small town on the Merrimack, counselled an American Union.³ Ipswich, in point of numbers⁴ the second town in the Province, advised ‘that the Colonies in general and the inhabitants of their Province in particular, should stand firm as one man, to support and maintain all their just rights and privileges.’⁵ In the course of December, the Earl of Chatham was reading several New England writings ‘with admiration and love;’ among others an Election Sermon by Tucker, in which he found ‘the divine Sydney rendered practical, and the philosophical Locke more demonstrative;’⁶ and on the very same day, the people of the little town of Chatham, at the extremity of Cape Cod, were declaring their ‘civil and religious principles to be the sweetest ’