In de pen dence and Nation Building 37In addition to all the other outrages perpetrated by the crown,
Hutchinson was replaced as governor of Massachusetts by General
Thomas Gage, accompanied by an army of 4 , 000 soldiers, who prom-
ised to put an end to the colonists’ resistance to British law. “The die is
cast,” King George informed Lord North. “The colonists must either
triumph or submit.”
Submit they would not. Once more delegates assembled from all the
colonies, except Georgia, to agree on demands and devise plans to
make Britain acknowledge their basic rights as Englishmen. This First
Continental Congress convened in Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia on
September 5 , 1774 , and included such radical activists as Sam and John
Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee
of Virginia. However, moderates led by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylva-
nia preferred a more conciliatory policy. They offered a variation of the
Albany Plan of Union, but the Congress rejected it. Instead, the Con-
gress adopted a Declaration written by John Adams, which affi rmed
the rights of colonists to “life, liberty, & property,” and condemned the
recent acts of Parliament as “unconstitutional, dangerous, and destruc-
tive.” Again they used the word “Congress,” asserting once more their
existence as separate, individual, and sovereign states.
Forthwith, the delegates demanded repeal of the Intolerable Acts,
and of all taxes by Parliament. Moreover, they agreed to collective eco-
nomic action involving nonimportation of British goods, starting on
December 1 , 1774 , and nonexportation of American goods on Septem-
ber 1 , 1775. This Continental Association was to be enforced by local
committees within each colony. When this Congress adjourned, the
delegates truly believed that they had vindicated American rights.
They agreed to reassemble the following May.
But events soon developed that pitched the colonies into all- out war
with the colonial authorities. On April 18 , 1775 , General Gage in Mas-
sachusetts sent 1,000 troops to seize suspected supplies of guns and
ammunition at Concord. Paul Revere rode out of Boston to warn
Americans of the approach of the soldiers. At Lexington a company of
colonial minutemen tried to block the advance of the British and were
fired upon. Eight minutemen died in the clash. The British troops
continued to Concord, where they destroyed whatever weapons were
found, and then turned around and headed back to Boston. But along