"On the 23d of April, the day after the dissolution of the provincial Congress of New York, the news from Lexington burst upon the city. Though it was Sunday, the inhabitants speedily unloaded two sloops which lay at the wharfs, laden with flour and supplies for the British at Boston, of the value of £80,000. … The royal government lay hopelessly prostrate. Isaac Sears concerted with John Lamb to stop all vessels going to Quebec, Newfoundland, Georgia, or Boston, where British authority was still supreme. The people shut up the custom-house, and the merchants whose vessels were cleared out dared not let them sail. In the following days the military stores of the city of New York were secured, and volunteer companies paraded in the streets. … On the 1st of May the people, at the usual places of election, chose for the city and county a new general committee of one hundred, who 'resolved in the most explicit manner to stand or fall with the liberty of the continent.' All parts of the colony were summoned to send delegates to a provincial convention, to which the city and county of New York deputed one-and-twenty as their representatives. … On the 2d of May the New Jersey committee of correspondence called a provincial congress for the 23d at Trenton. To anticipate its influence, the governor convened the regular assembly eight days earlier at Burlington, and laid before them the project of Lord North [adopted by the British parliament in February, offering to each colony freedom from taxation on its making satisfactory provision for the general defense and for support of government]. The assembly could see in the proposition no avenue to reconciliation, and declared their intention to 'abide by the united voice of the continental congress.' Such, too, was the spirit of Pennsylvania. 'Let us not have it said of Philadelphia that she passed noble resolutions and neglected them,' were the words of Mifflin, youngest of the orators who on the 25th of April addressed the town-meeting called in that city on receiving the news from Lexington. Thousands were present, and agreed 'to associate for the purpose of defending with arms their lives, their property, and liberty.' Thomas Paine from that day 'rejected the sullen Pharaoh of the British throne forever.' … In Philadelphia, thirty companies, with 50 to 100 in each, daily practiced the manual exercise of the musket. One of them was raised from the Quakers. … The Pennsylvania assembly, which met on the first day of May, rejecting the overtures of the governor, 'could form no prospect of lasting advantages for Pennsylvania but from a communication of rights and property with the other colonies.' … On the 5th Franklin arrived, after a voyage over the smoothest seas, and the next morning was unanimously elected a deputy to the congress. … In Maryland, at the