Meantime the Congress of the thirteen United Colonies had been in session at Philadelphia, resolving itself into a committee of the whole, from day to day, to consider “the state of trade in the colonies.” Patriots by the thousand had answered the cries of distress at Lexington by gathering with their muskets about Boston. The battle of Bunker Hill, the most glorious defeat recorded in the annals of American warfare, had been fought and lost, because the supplies of gunpowder, brought by the colonists in the old-fashioned cowhorns, had failed them. Of missiles there was apparently no lack--they would have used pebbles from the beach had no others been available and powder abundant. But the want of gunpowder became chronic, and in considering the state of trade in the colonies the Congress found that of all branches of that trade the one needing their most careful attention was the trade in gunpowder. It was a trade that did not thrive under the circumstances; but there was one source of supply that did not escape the attention of such able-minded as well as able-bodied citizens as Capt. Jeremiah O’Brien and his ilk afloat. That source was in the supply ships that provided for the British forces, and in the smaller cruisers that waited on the great ships of the British fleet. The sailormen of the coast pointed to the supplies afloat, and the legislators adopted the views of the sailormen. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut provided small cruisers on their own account and sent them out seeking the enemy’s supply ships, which, because the rebellious colonies had theretofore no sort of a navy, came to Boston and other ports in the king’s possession, unarmed and without convoy. The far-sighted Washington, who had been placed in command of the heterogeneous forces about Boston, took hold of this matter and brought it to the attention of the Congress. In the mind of Washington it was an expedient well worth trying, but apparently he regarded it only as a temporary expedient. For during the summer and early fall of 1775, when the need of gunpowder became and remained most urgent, the colonies were fighting only for their rights as British subjects, as the reader remembers, and not for national independence. A few long-headed leaders undoubtedly saw the drift of current events, but with every address to the throne there was sent a protestation of loyalty.