CAPTURE OF BOSTON. The month of September wore away. October came, and with it the opening of the “peace convention” which O’Halloran had called on the first day of his power at Washington. But its sessions were cut short by the unexpectedly speedy action of England. On the declaration of the British Government that war existed with the United States, cable communication between the United Kingdom and the United States had been broken. The arrest of the French and German ministers had caused irrepressible indignation in the Governments they represented, and the refusal of the triumvirate in power at Washington to heed their demands for reparation and apology had been followed by almost simultaneous declarations of war from Paris and Berlin. All communication with the United States from any part of their dominions was peremptorily forbidden. No news could be received from Europe except by roundabout and tedious routes, and little was known of what was being done there; but no one among the revolutionary leaders dreamed of a blow being struck before the opening of the ensuing spring. It was therefore with something like stupefaction that they heard, on the morning of the very day on which their farcical “peace convention” met, of the arrival in the port of Halifax of a powerful British fleet, consisting of seventeen armored fighting ships and thirty of the largest steamships formerly plying across the Atlantic, which had been transformed for the time being into troop-ships, conveying an army of twenty-eight thousand men and an immense amount of ammunition and warlike supplies. This fleet, said the first despatch which was handed to O’Halloran just before he rose to open the convention, was coaling up as rapidly as the conveniences in the port would permit, evidently with the intention of making a speedy descent at some point on the American coast. O’Halloran showed the despatch to Wagner; but both considered that it must be a hoax. It was impossible, they agreed, that England could have had a fleet in readiness and transports at hand, and men and arms prepared so as to strike across the three thousand miles of intervening sea within a month from the date on which hostilities had been declared. They consequently decided to ignore the despatch. But other despatches soon followed, confirming the news. They came from such sources that even O’Halloran was convinced of their entire truth. Summoning the two other members of “the Government,” he laid his additional information before them.