HE councils of New England were as vigorous as her mili tary operations. On the 5th of May, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts published a resolution importing "th... Gen. Gage has, by his late transactions, utterly disqualified himself from serving this colony, either as its governor, or in any other capacity; and that, therefore, no obedience is in future due to him ; but that, on the contrary, he ought to be considered and guarded against as an unnatural and inveterate enemy to the country." From this period the authority of Gage in Massachusetts reposed on the bayonets of his soldiers, and was confined within the limits of the town they occupied. But in the close of the same month his prospects seemed to brighten; and his force at least gained an increase from the arrival at Boston of a considerable accession to his troops from Britain, along with the Generals Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton, all of whom had acquired high military reputation in the last war. Gage, thus reinforced, prepared to act with more vigour and decision than he had latterly displayed. He began by issuing a proclamation, which offered, in the king's name, a free pardon to all the American insurgents who should forthwith lay down their arms, and return to the habits and duties of peaceable subjects, "excepting only from the benefit of such pardon Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences," it was added, "are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment;" and announced the dominion of martial law in Massachusetts, "as long as the present unhappy occasion shall require." And thus, as Edmund Burke remarked, the British commander offered mercy to those who were openly in arms and actually besieging him in his station, while he excluded from mercy two men who were five hundred miles from him and actually at the time (as members of the second congress) sitting in an assembly which had never by statute been declared illegal. To signalize Adams and Hancock in this manner was to employ the only means within his competence of endearing these men and their principles to the Americans, whom the proclamation, instead of intimidating or dividing, served but additionally to unite and embolden. From the movements visible among the British troops, and their apparent preparations for some active enterprise, the Americans were led to believe that Gage designed to issue from Boston and penetrate into the interior of Massachusetts; whereupon, with a view to anticipate or derange the supposed project of attack, the Provincial Congress suggested to Putnam and Thomas, who held the chief command in the army which blockaded Boston, that measures should be taken for the defence of Dorchester Neck, and that a part of the American force should occupy an intrenched position on Bunker's Hill, which ascends from and commands the entrance of the peninsula of Charlestown. Orders were accordingly communicated to Colonel Prescott, with a detachment of a thousand men, to take possession of that eminence; but, through some misapprehension, Breed's Hill, instead of Bunker's Hill, was made the site of the projected intrenchment. By his conduct of this perilous enterprise, and the heroic valour he displayed in the conflict that ensued, Prescott honourably signalized a name which his descendants have farther adorned with the highest trophies of forensic and literary renown. About nine o'clock of the evening, [June 16,] the detachment moved from Cambridge, and, silently traversing Charlestown Neck, gained the summit of Breed's Hill unobserved. This eminence is situated at the extremity of the peninsula nearest to Boston; and is so elevated as to overlook every part of that town, and so near it as to be within the reach of cannon-shot. The American troops, who were provided with intrenching tools, instantly commenced their work, which they pursued with such diligence, that, before the morning arrived, they had thrown up a redoubt of considerable dimensions, and with such |