Not only those who sided with the English power because of fear or interest,—place-holders, sycophants, merchants who hoped to get their trade back through favor, weak men who knew not which side to take and thought the side of government in the long run the safer,—but many a man of dignity and substance also, and many a man of scrupulous principle who revered the ancient English power to which he had always been obedient with sincere and loyal affection, left his home and sought the protection of Gage’s troops. The vigilance of the local committees effectually purged the population outside Boston, as the weeks went by, of those who were not ready to countenance a revolution. There was, besides, something very like military rule outside Boston as well as within it. The provincial congress met, while necessary, from month to month, upon its own adjournment, and, prominent among other matters of business, diligently devoted itself to the enrolment and organization of a numerous and efficient militia. Local as well as general commanders were chosen; there was constant drilling on village greens; fire-arms and ammunition were not difficult to get; and an active militia constituted a very effective auxiliary in the consolidation of local opinion concerning colonial rights and the proper means of vindicating them. It is the familiar story of revolution: the active and efficient concert of a comparatively small number controlling the action of whole communities at a moment of doubt and crisis. There was not much difference of opinion among thoughtful men in the colonies with regard to the policy which the ministers in England had recently pursued respecting America. It was agreed on all hands that it was unprecedented, unwise, and in plain derogation of what the colonists had time out of mind been permitted to regard as their unquestioned privileges in matters of local self-government. Some men engaged in trade at the colonial ports had, it is true, found the new policy of taxation and enforced restrictions very much to their own interest. The Sugar Act of 1733, which cut at the heart of the New England trade with the French West Indies, and which Grenville and Townshend had, in these last disturbing years, tried to enforce, had, it was said, been passed in the first instance at the suggestion of a Boston merchant who was interested in sugar growing in the British islands whence the act virtually bade the colonial importers take all their sugar, molasses, and rum; and no doubt there were many in all the American ports who would have profited handsomely by the enforcement of the law. But, however numerous these may have been, they were at most but a small minority. For a vast majority of the merchants the enforcement of the acts meant financial ruin. Merchants as well as farmers, too, were hotly against taxes put upon them in their own ports by an act of Parliament. They were infinitely jealous of any invasion of their