It will be observed that the siege cannot satisfactorily be considered as a distinct series of military or semi-military events, abruptly beginning and still more abruptly ending. Such a view would reduce the siege to a mere matter of local history, having little connection with the larger movements of the American Revolution, and appearing almost as an accident which might have happened at any other centre of sufficient population.[1] On the contrary, neither the siege nor the Revolution were accidents of history. That the Revolution was bound to come about, and that its beginnings were equally bound to be at Boston, these were conditioned in the nature, first of the colonists in general, and second of the New Englanders in particular. However striking were certain of the occurrences, they were of less importance than their causes and consequences. Accordingly I shall consider as an organic series the more important of those events which happened in Boston during the reign of George the Third, and which ended when the last of his redcoats departed from the town. In fact, in order to be perfectly intelligible I must first devote a few pages to a consideration of previous conditions. "Any one," wrote George E. Ellis in the "Memorial History of Boston,"[2] "who attempts to trace the springs, the occasions, and the directing forces of the revolt ... cannot find his clew a year short of the date when the former self-governed Colony of Massachusetts Bay became a Royal Province." He is right in pointing out that in 1692 the struggle took open form. Yet even then the controversy was not new. In other form it had been carried on for more than half a century previous. Its ultimate origin lay in the fact that the very charter under which the colony was planted differed from all other documents granted by any English king. This difference lay in the omission of the condition, usual in such charters, that its governing board should meet in London practically for the purpose of supervision by the king. That the omission of this condition was the result of wisdom on the part of the founders, and stupidity on the part of the officers of the king, seems undeniable. The founders, unhappy and alarmed at the political and religious situation in England under Charles the First, were seeking to provide for themselves and their families a refuge from his oppressions. Secure in their charter, they presently left England for good. When they sailed for America they did all that could be done to cut themselves off from interference by the crown.