Now, to make the evils of war still clearer, and to bring them home to your door, let us suppose there was war between the counties of Suffolk, on the one side, and Middlesex on the other--this army at Boston, that at Cambridge. Suppose the subject in dispute was the boundary line between the two, Boston claiming a pitiful acre of flat land, which the ocean at low tide disdained to cover. To make sure of this, Boston seizes whole miles of flats, unquestionably not its own. The rulers on one side are fools, and traitors on the other. The two commanders have issued their proclamations; the money is borrowed; the whiskey provided; the soldiers--Americans, Negroes, Irishmen, all the able-bodied men--are enlisted. Prayers are offered in all the churches, and sermons preached, showing that God is a man of war, and Cain his first saint, an early Christian, a Christian before Christ. The Bostonians wish to seize Cambridge, burn the houses, churches, college-halls, and plunder the library. The men of Cambridge wish to seize Boston, burn its houses and ships, plundering its wares and its goods. Martial law is proclaimed on both sides. The men of Cambridge cut asunder the bridges, and make a huge breach in the mill-dam, planting cannon to enfilade all those avenues. Forts crown the hilltops, else so green. Men, madder than lunatics, are crowded into the Asylum. The Bostonians rebuild the old fortifications on the Neck; replace the forts on Beacon-hill, Fort-hill, Copps-hill, levelling houses to make room for redoubts and bastions. The batteries are planted, the mortars got ready; the furnaces and magazines are all prepared. The three hills are grim with war. From Copps-hill men look anxious to that memorable height the other side of the water. Provisions are cut off in Boston; no man may pass the lines; the aqueduct refuses its genial supply; children cry for their expected food. The soldiers parade, looking somewhat tremulous and pale; all the able-bodied have come, the vilest most willingly; some are brought by force of drink, some by force of arms. Some are in brilliant dresses, some in their working frocks. The banners are consecrated by solemn words.[6] Your church-towers are military posts of observation. There are Old Testament prayers to the "God of Hosts" in all the churches of Boston; prayers that God would curse the men of Cambridge, make their wives widows, their children fatherless, their houses a ruin, the men corpses, meat for the beast of the field and the bird of the air. Last night the Bostonians made a feint of attacking Charlestown, raining bombs and red-hot cannon-balls from Copps-hill, till they have burnt a thousand houses, where the British burnt not half so many. Women and children fled screaming from the blazing rafters of their homes. The men of Middlesex crowd into Charlestown.