Part 37 (2/2)
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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.sage of the ”Stamp Act.”
The Second Congress a.s.sembled in Philadelphia in September, 1774, and pledged the colonies to support Ma.s.sachusetts in her conflict with the English ministry, and after pet.i.tioning 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 Was.h.i.+ngton.
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.
Was.h.i.+ngton 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 made a strong speech, in which he asked why a tyrant ever exercised tyranny, and he answered the question by saying it was because the people were unable to resist.
”Let us be strong enough to enforce our demands,” said he, ”and the king or his ministers will fall back and concede all we ask.”
He waited to see the effect of his words.
There was silence.
”Yes, brothers, it is only the strong that obtain justice. The weak pet.i.tion and are spurned, the strong ask and they are listened to with attention, and their demands granted.
<script>