And thus the gloomy days went by, slowly but surely bringing nearer and nearer the now inevitable problem of independence. Rhode Island, with her hundred and thirty miles of coast line, her two navigable rivers, and triple passage from the ocean, was in constant exposure. We have seen how she was harassed by Wallace in January, 1776. In February more houses and a windmill were burned and more stock plundered on Prudence, and a descent for plunder made on Point Judith. With this last the names of several persons suspected of being Tories were mixed up, giving the Committee of Safety much to do. Difficulties between the citizens of Newport and the soldiers under General West, encamped on the island, arose in a measure from the same cause. West resigned because men whom he had arrested as Tories had been set at liberty by the Assembly. Among them was Governor Wanton. The first act of the eventful drama closes with the evacuation of Boston, on the 17th of March. For a day it was believed that the British fleet was entering the bay, but the alarm proved false. The American army went to New York, passing through Rhode Island on its march. While these events, so grievous in the present, so full of a glorious future, were passing, Samuel Ward, who had so nobly represented the highest conscience and culture of Rhode Island in the Continental Congress, was dying of small-pox in Philadelphia--the advanced post of civil heroism. An upright and conscientious man, who had drawn from books and men those lessons which make men wise in judgment and firm in principle and bold in action. Had he lived a few weeks longer his name would have been foremost among the signers. A marble monument was voted him by Congress, "in testimony of the respect due to his memory, and in grateful remembrance of his public services." The last Colonial Assembly of Rhode Island met on the 1st of May. On the 4th, two months before the Congressional Declaration of Independence, it solemnly renounced its allegiance to the British crown, no longer closing its session with "God save the King," but taking in its stead as expressive of their new relations, "God save the United Colonies." CHAPTER XXV. RHODE ISLAND BLOCKADED.--DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE INDORSED BY THE ASSEMBLY.--NEW TROOPS RAISED.--FRENCH ALLIANCE.--UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO DRIVE THE BRITISH FROM RHODE ISLAND.