On the 22d March, 1775, the provincial congress assembled again at Concord, and set to work in organizing their army, and in devising an address to the Mohawks, with the purpose of securing them to the patriot side. They also prepared to use the Stockbridge Indians as mediators with their neighbors, who were already tampered with, as was believed or alleged, by emissaries from Canada. It was already known that the people of the New Hampshire Grants were preparing to seize Ticonderoga as soon as the war-cloud should burst. [Illustration: BETWEEN BOSTON AND MARLBOROUGH. Sketched from a MS. map in the library of Congress, which is seemingly the original or copy of the map made by one of Gage's secret parties sent to observe the country.] News sped rapidly by relays of riders. It was not long after Patrick Henry had said in Virginia, "We must fight; an appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left for us",[356] before the words were familiar in Massachusetts, and John Adams, who knew, said that Virginia was planting wheat instead of tobacco. At Providence they were burning tea in the streets, and men went about erasing the advertisements of the obnoxious herb from the shop-windows. Everywhere they were quoting the incendiary speech of John Wilkes, the lord mayor of London, whose retorts upon the ministry were relished as they were read in the public prints. As if to test whether March should pass without bloodshed,[357] Gage on the 30th sent Earl Percy out of town with a brigade, in light marching order, and he went four miles, to Jamaica Plain, and returned. The minute-men gathered in the neighboring towns, but no encounter took place.[358] So April came, with the rattle of the musket still unheard. On the second day two vessels arrived at Marblehead, bringing tidings that Parliament had pledged its support to the king and his ministers, and that more troops were coming. On the 8th a committee reported to the provincial congress on an armed alliance of the New England colonies, and messengers were sent to the adjacent governments.[359] Connecticut responded with equipping six regiments; New Hampshire organized her forces as a part "of the New England army", and Rhode Island voted to equip fifteen hundred men. In Virginia it looked for a while as if the appeal to arms would not be long delayed, for Dunmore fulminated against their convention; and he even threatened to turn the slaves against their masters, and he did seize the powder at Williamsburg, of which the province had small store at best. Calmer counsels prevailed, and the armed men who had gathered at Fredericksburg dispersed to reassemble at call. * * * * *