it unconstitutional and tyrannical, and contributed largely towards influencing the legislature to place a veto upon it. Superior might eventually overpowered this opposition and enforced the contribution from the citizens. But spirits like that of Lewis Morris were not to be subdued. An unquenchable fire was only smothered to gather strength beneath the volcanic surface that then covered it. It was kept alive by fresh fuel added by Mr. Grenville and his more subtle successor Mr. North. The statute of Henry the eighth was revived, which doomed malecontents to be sent to England for trial; the Boston port bill, its handmaid, was passed and the cords of slavery were drawn more tightly. The last petitions and remonstrances in the magazine of patience were finally exhausted, and then it was that it was replenished with more potent materials. Mr. Morris had now become a prominent man, a bold and substantial whig, rather too ardent to send to the conciliatory Congress of 1774. But the time soon arrived when the people required just such a man, and in April, 1775, he was elected to the Continental Congress. Even then the majority attributed their sufferings to the ministers and not to the king, and still hoped he would cease to be an automaton and prove himself a man worthy of the high station he occupied. But hopes were vain, the juices of the olive branch became absorbed by the sponge of venal power, and the virtues of the sword were next to be tried. Already had the purple current stained the streets of Boston and the heights of Lexington—already had the groans of dying Americans, slain by the hands of those whom they had fed, pierced the ears of thousands—already were widows and orphans weeping for husbands weltering in blood and fathers covered with gore. Vigorous measures of defence followed—legions of foreign troops flooded the land—a dark and gloomy hour had arrived. Soon after his appearance in Congress, Mr. Morris was placed upon a committee of which the illustrious Washington was chairman, appointed to devise measures to obtain a supply of the munitions of war. This was a desideratum not readily acquired. Comparatively a sling and a few smooth stones were all the patriots had with which to commence the combat with the British Goliah. But with all these disadvantages, the battle of Bunker Hill convinced the veterans of Europe that men determined on liberty or death were not to be tamely subdued.