“He has a good nose,” said my Aunt Gainor, perhaps conscious of her own possessions in the way of a nasal organ, and liking to see it as notable in another; “but how sedate he is! I find Mr. Peyton Randolph more agreeable, and there is Mr. Robert Morris and John Dickinson.” Then John Adams went by, deep in talk with Roger Sherman, whom I thought shabbily dressed; and behind them Robert Livingston, whom my aunt knew. Thus it was, as I am glad to remember, that I beheld these men who were to be the makers of an empire. Perhaps no wiser group of people ever met for a greater fate, and surely the hand of God was seen in the matter; for what other colony--Canada, for example,--had such men to show? There, meanwhile, was England, with its great nobles and free commons and a splendid story of hard-won freedom, driving madly on its way of folly and defeat. Of what went on within the hall we heard little. A declaration of rights was set forth, committees of correspondence appointed, and addresses issued to the king and people of Great Britain. Congress broke up, and the winter went by; Gage was superseded by Sir William Howe; Clinton and Burgoyne were sent out, and ten thousand men were ordered to America to aid the purposes of the king. The cold season was soon upon us, and the eventful year of ‘75 came in with a great fall of snow, but with no great change for me and those I loved. A sullen rage possessed the colonies, and especially Massachusetts, where the Regulation Acts were quietly disregarded. No counsellors or jurymen would serve under the king’s commission. The old muskets of the French and Indian wars were taken from the corners and put in order. Men drilled, and women cast bullets. Failing to corrupt Samuel Adams and Hancock, Gage resolved to arrest them at Concord and to seize on the stores of powder and ball. “The heads of traitors will soon decorate Temple Bar,” said a London gazette; and so the march of events went on. In the early spring Dr. Franklin came home in despair of accommodation; he saw nothing now to do but to fight, and this he told us plainly. His very words were in my mind on the night of April 23d of this year of ‘75, as I was slowly and thoughtfully walking over the bridge where Walnut crossed the Dock Creek, and where I stayed for a moment to strike flint and steel in order to light my pipe. Of a sudden I heard a dull but increasing noise to north, and then the strong voice of the bell in the state-house. It was not ringing for fire. Somewhat puzzled, I walked swiftly to Second street, where were men and women in groups. I stopped a man and asked what had chanced. He said, “A battle! a battle! and General Gage killed.” Couriers had reached the coffee-houses, but no one on the street seemed to have more than this vague information; all were going toward Chestnut street, where a meeting was to be held, as I learned, and perhaps fuller news given out.