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of the colonies to renounce commerce with Great Britain, and advisrd .ill the colonies to send delegates to a general Congress, to be .1- sembled in the same place in May of the next year. Meanwhile an act of parliament restrained ' ' the trade and commerce of the pro- vinces df Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire and the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in North America, to Great Britain, Ireland and the British Islands in the West Indies," and prohibited " such provinces and colonies from carrying on any fishery on the banks of Newfoundland or other places therein mentioned, under certain conditions and limitations." This act diminished the food supplies of the poor in Boston, and great distress would have followed but for contributions from other colonies. But, stimulated rather than deterred by this last act of aggression, the colonies, as advised, appointed delegates to another general Congress, all being represented except Canada and Georgia, as before, on its assemblage in May, 1775 Georgia was also repre- sented some two months later. Hostilities had broken out between Great Britain and Massachusetts before this Congress met. The battle of Lexington had been fought, and volunteers from Connecti- cut and Vermont, under Colonel Ethan Allen, had seized upon the military posts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. " New England." says Mr. Grady, ' ' had now crossed the Rubicon ; a step had been taken which imposed on the other colonies the necessity of choosing whether they would stand aloof and permit her to be crushed by Great Britain, or go to her relief with men and money. They choose the latter; the 'cause of Boston ' had become, in a new and fearful sense, ' the cause of all.' '
In reciting the causes which brought about the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the articles of confederation, Mr. Grady shows the relations existing between the different colonies before they assumed the prerogative of sovereign States, and brings out the fact that the struggle with the mother country was begun mainly for the relief of New England, and espe- cially of Massachusetts, from oppressive British legislation. This fact is contrasted with the persistent effort of New England States to take advantage of their federal relations, secured by the adoption of the constitution of the United States, to enhance their wealth at the expense of the other States. This policy seems to have acquired a secular vitality. Begun in the eighteenth century, it has been maintained almost uninterruptedly to the closing year of the nine- teenth, and nothing is more certain than its continued enforcement
