overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on
our free soil. For two years our ancestors were kept in sullen
submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their
allegiance to the mother-country, whether its head chanced to be a
Parliament, Protector or popish monarch. Till these evil times,
however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, and the colonists
had ruled themselves, enjoying far more freedom than is even yet the
privilege of the native subjects of Great Britain.

At length a rumor reached our shores that the prince of Orange had
ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the triumph of
civil and religious rights and the salvation of New England. It was
but a doubtful whisper; it might be false or the attempt might fail,
and in either case the man that stirred against King James would lose
his head. Still, the intelligence produced a marked effect. The people
smiled mysteriously in the streets and threw bold glances at their
oppressors, while far and wide there was a subdued and silent
agitation, as if the slightest signal would rouse the whole land from
its sluggish despondency. Aware of their danger, the rulers resolved
to avert it by an imposing display of strength, and perhaps to confirm
their despotism by yet harsher measures.

One afternoon in April, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros and his favorite
councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the
governor's guard and made their appearance in the streets of Boston.
The sun was near setting when the march commenced. The roll of the
drum at that unquiet crisis seemed to go through the streets less as
the martial music of the soldiers than as a muster-call to the
inhabitants themselves. A multitude by various avenues assembled in
King street, which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century