But the thought of a colonial navy was abroad--it was even then officially before the Congress, although it had not been acted upon. Officially, the subject of establishing a colonial navy came from Rhode Island, where Capt. Abraham Whipple and his paving-stones had conquered the schooner _Gaspé_. On August 26, 1775, the two houses of the Rhode Island legislature concurred in ordering their representatives in the Congress to propose the establishment of a navy “at the expense of the continent.” So cautious were the members of the Congress in handling the matter that, when, on October 3d, one of the Rhode Island delegates--presumably Samuel Ward, who was their leader--called the attention of the Congress to the proposal of his legislature, they did not even mention the matter definitely in the minutes of the day. The minutes read: “One of the delegates for Rhode Island laid before the Congress a part of the instructions given them,” etc. “The proposal met great opposition,” and even the briefest consideration of the matter had to go over to a later day. “In the Congress at Philadelphia, so long as there remained the dimmest hope of favor to its petition, the lukewarm patriots had the advantage.” But a time was coming when they were to change their feelings in this matter radically and in a day. They had ordered the forces afloat and ashore “carefully to refrain from acts of violence which could be construed as open rebellion,” but before the end of the year they had taken such a long step toward the Declaration of Independence that to turn back was impossible. It was on October 31st that the change of sentiment was wrought. One cannot help wishing that what a newspaper man in these days would call “a crackerjack reporter” might have been present to describe the stir in the Congress when, on that day, one messenger arrived to announce that the British king had succeeded in hiring 20,000 of “the finest troops in Europe”--Germans--to fight against the colonists, while a second messenger followed with the story of the desperate plight of the people of Falmouth, who had been driven from their homes to face a Maine winter by the assault of the infamous Mowat. But if we lack the picture we have the record of what was done in consequence of the news then received.