request of the colonels of militia, Eden, at Annapolis, gave up the arms and ammunition of the province to the freemen of the county. Pleased with his concession, the provincial convention distinguished itself by its moderation; and its delegates to congress determined to labor for a reconciliation. In Virginia [where, in the night of April 20th, Governor Dunmore had carried off the gunpowder stored in the colony's magazine at Williamsburg, and where, as a consequence, the excited people were already in arms, though no further action had yet been taken], on the 2d of May, at the cry from Lexington, the independent company of Hanover and its county committee were called together by Patrick Henry. The soldiers, most of them young men, elected him their chief, and marched for Williamsburg, on the way greatly increasing in numbers. Alarmed by the 'insurrections,' Dunmore convened the council, and in a proclamation of the 3d pretended that he had removed the ammunition, lest it should be seized by slaves. Message after message could not arrest the march or change the purpose of Henry. … At sunrise on the 4th the governor's messenger met Henry at New Kent, and, as a compensation for the gunpowder taken out of the magazine, paid him £330, for which he was to account to the convention of Virginia. The sum was found to be more than the value of the powder, and the next Virginia convention directed the excess to be paid back. … In twelve or thirteen days the message from Lexington was borne to Newbern, in North Carolina, where it 'wrought a great change.' The governor, in his panic, ordered the cannon in the town to be dismounted; and, after a remonstrance made in the name of the inhabitants by Abner Nash, 'the oracle of their committee and a principal promoter of sedition,' he shipped his wife to New York and fled to Fort Johnston, where a sloop-of-war had its station. In South Carolina, Charles Pinckney, on learning the inflexibility of parliament, using power intrusted to him by the provincial congress, appointed a committee of five to place the colony in a state of defence; on the 21st of April, the very night after their organization, men of Charleston, without disguise, under their direction, seized all the powder in the public magazines, and removed 800 stand of arms and other military stores from the royal arsenal. The tidings from Lexington induced the general committee to hasten the meeting of the provincial congress, whose members, on the 2d of June, Henry Laurens being their president, associated themselves for defence against every foe; 'ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes to secure her freedom and safety.' They resolved to raise two regiments of infantry and a regiment of rangers. … The people of Charleston are as mad as they are here in Boston,' was the testimony of Gage.