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

[195] designed to persuade the people that the Acts of Par-

Chap. XXXVI} 1768. Sept.

liament and the measures of the British Governmentfor their execution, necessarily implied a leaping over all those covenants and compacts which were the basis of the political union with Great Britain; that, therefore, it was expedient for the inhabitants of every town in the Province, to choose representatives for a General Assembly with instructions, on their coming together, to pray for the enlargement of their privileges to the extent of that first original Charter¹ of the Colony, which left to the people the choice of their Governor, and reserved to the Crown no negative on their laws. ‘If,’ continued the writer, ‘an army should be sent to reduce us to slavery, we will put our lives in our hands and cry to the Judge of all the earth, who will do right, saying: Behold—how they come to cast us out of this possession which thou hast given us to inherit. Help us, O Lord, our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude.’

Wednesday, the seventh, early in the morning, the Senegal left the port.² The next day, the Duke of Cumberland, a large ship, sailed for Nova Scotia. On the eighth of September, Bernard let it be known that both vessels of war were gone to fetch three regiments. Sullen discontent appeared on almost every brow.³ On the ninth a Petition was signed for a Town Meeting ‘to consider of the most wise, constitutional, loyal, and salutary ’