[June 29.] General Gage was so alarmed at the idea of _a solemn league and covenant_, that he issued a strong proclamation against it, stiling it an unlawful, hostile, and traiterous combination. He charged all magistrates to apprehend and secure for trial, such as should have any share in aiding or abetting the foregoing or any similar covenant. The charge was needless; for the engagement was so unguardedly expressed, and so extremely ensnaring, that it was severely censured by many of the best and warmest sons of liberty in and about Boston, who refused to give it support; so that however it might be venerated out of the colony, it sunk into obscurity at home; and changed its form into one that was less exceptionable, and yet equally well calculated to stop the trade with Great-Britain, and that accorded with those entered into about the same time, in various parts of the continent, without any previous concert with each other, any more than with Boston. The coincidence of sentiments and measures given into by individuals and assemblies, larger and smaller, in the several and more distant colonies, without any previous contrivance, has been so remarkable, that persons the furthest removed from superstition, have inclined to ascribe it to a special providence of God. They have been seemingly actuated by one and the same spirit, nearly at the same instant. When letters have been dispatched from Boston to fellow-patriots afar, asking or giving advice; letters from these have been upon the road, giving or asking the very advice which was wanted—the like in other matters. Not that there is a uniformity in all points through the continent. The people may be divided into two great classes. One is for rushing headlong into the greatest extremities, without waiting till other measures are tried, or receiving the general sense of the colonies; and though eager for holding a congress, would leave it nothing to do but to prosecute the violence which they have began. The other is averse to violent measures, till all other means are ineffectually tried. They wish further applications to be made to Britain, and the grievances they complain of, with the rights which they claim, to be clearly stated and properly presented. This, they say, can be effectually done only by a general congress. There is a third party, who are friends to the British administration, or rather who do not totally disapprove of its measures; but their voice is so low, that except in a few particular places, it can scarcely be distinguished. The friends to colonial rights have a great advantage over them, not only from the goodness of their cause, but their possessing most of the presses on the continent. These are chiefly in the hands of the whigs, and news-papers publishing essays and other compositions against the prevailing opinions of the people, have not a universal spread, and cannot prove so profitable to the proprietors, as those on the other side of the question. The command