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George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8, Chapter 47: (search)
shattered by balls and shells. By the English account, the destruction was still greater. At the opening of a severe winter, the inhabitants were turned adrift in poverty and misery. The wrath of Washington was justly kindled, as he heard of these savage cruelties, this new exertion of despotic barbarity. Death and destruction mark the footsteps of the enemy, said Greene; fight or be slaves is the American motto; and the first is by far the most eligible. Sullivan was sent to fortify Portsmouth; Trumbull, of Connecticut, took thought for the defence of New London. Meantime, the congress at Philadelphia was still Chap. XLVII.} 1775. Oct. halting in the sluggishness of irresolution; and, so long as there remained the dimmest hope of favor to its petition, the lukewarm patriots had the advantage. No court as yet had power to sanction the condemnation of vessels taken from the enemy. On the third of October, one of the delegates of Rhode Island laid before Congress their instru
George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8, Chapter 56: (search)
gh the concurrence of all the colonies could not be obtained. If none of the rest will join, said Samuel Adams to Franklin, I will endeavor to unite the New England colonies in confederating. I approve your proposal, said Franklin, and if you succeed, I will cast in my lot among you. But even in New England the actors who obeyed the living oracles of freedom wrought in darkness and in doubt; to them the formation of a new government was like passing through death to life. The town of Portsmouth in New Hampshire disavowed the intention of separating from the parent country; the convention of that colony, which was the first to frame a government of its own, remembered their comparative weakness, and modestly shrunk from giving the example of a thorough change: they retained their old forms of a house of representatives and a council; they provided no substitute for their governor who had fled, but merged the executive power in the two branches of the legislature; and they authoriz