held up to the orator's view several bullets in the palm of his hand, and attempted to banish the audience by the cry of fire. Warren gracefully extinguished the menace, by dropping his handkerchief over the minatory hand.1 A ludicrous account of the day, in the usual travesty of the Royalist news paper pieces of intelligence, appeared in "Rivington's Gazette," in New York, in which the handkerchief flourishes. Welch Fusileers, seated on the stairs, His services in this capacity were most active and efficient. It was by his vigilance that the country was warned, on the eve of the Battle of Lexington, of the advance of the British troops. He was in Boston at the moment, was advised of the movement, dispatched William Dawes and Paul Revere to sound the alarm and acquaint Samuel Adams and Hancock, who were at Lexington, of their danger, and arranged the signal-light on the steeple of the North Church. When he left Boston that night, he said to a person of whom he was taking leave, "Keep up a brave heart. They have begun it-that either party could do; and we'll end it-that only one can do." On the return of the British troops, in their disastrous flight, Warren was at Cambridge with the Committee of Safety. Leaving this body with General Heath, he advanced to take part in the running fight, when a curl on the side of his head was carried off by a bullet. Dr. Warren was now fairly enlisted in the public Revolutionary service. In 1772 he was one of the original members of the Committee of Correspondence formed at Boston, stimulating the zeal and keeping up prompt communication among the towns of Massachusetts. When a convention was held at Suffolk, to check, if possible, the threatened military occupation of Boston Neck, he prepared the address to Governor Gage on the subject. On the dissolution of the General Court by the latter in September, 1774, that body-the popular legislative assembly of Massachusetts-resolved itself into a Provincial Congress, and speedily or ganized the military service of the State. Militia men were enrolled, and an Executive Committee of the Congress, of thirteen of its members, constituted the Committee of Public Safety. Warren was elected a delegate from Boston to the Congress; was chosen its President in the absence of Hancock, at Philadelphia, and put at the head of the Committee of Safety. 1 A. H. Everett's Life of Warren. Sparks' American Biography, 1st Series, X. p. 112. The fatal day of Bunker's Hill was now rapidly approaching. On the twenty-seventh of May, Warren served as a volunteer under Putnam in the skirmishing affair of driving off the cattle from Noddle's Island, in Boston harbor, a small matter in the history of a great campaign, but of some value, for its proof of the bravery of the native troops at the time. On the sixth of June, Warren had the satisfaction of superintending an exchange of prisoners, a scene of joy and congratu lation which restored a number of suf 'Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 77. fering captives to their homes. On the of Safety resolved to establish a posi fourteenth of June, he was appointed by the Provincial Congress a MajorGeneral. tion on Bunker Hill. William Prescott, the grandfather of the historian, was placed in command of a thousand It had now become evident that the men, and the next night, that of the British officers meditated some aggres- sixteenth, marched, as he conceived his sive movements upon the country out- instructions, to Breed's Hill. A re side of Boston, and the Committee of doubt was marked out, and an inSafety and Council of War were in trenchment raised by the extraordinary consultation to defeat their projects. energy of the band, between midnight It was thought advisable to occupy and dawn, when the work was first Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights discovered by the British. How well on opposite eminences over against the that earthwork and its adjoining town, for the purpose of annoyance fence, matted with hay, were defended and defence, but, by the counsel of through the sultry noon by the body Warren, who showed great prudence of unrefreshed, night-worn farmers, in the matter, the movement was with what death to the invaders, is delayed till the army should be better matter of history. As the news spread provided. Its arms and ammunition of the actual engagement, as the fires were ludicrously weak to contend with of Copp's Hill and the vessels of war the thoroughly armed government force in the harbor sped against the devoted of picked regulars. The spirit of the work, as the smoke of burning CharlesAmerican farmers was indeed high to town darkened the bright day, one encounter such odds. In the loose and another came to the aid of the state of the service, and the uncertain gallant Prescott, who awaited the command of the approaching engage- attack in his redoubt. Stark brought ment, each man seems a volunteer on his levies to the defence of the hill; a forlorn hope. Necessity, indeed, Pomeroy and Warren came alone. needed no law; but these patriots The last arrived in the afternoon, made no pause to question the neces- shortly before the first assault of sity. The British must be kept, if Howe and his forces. He had been possible, in Boston. That was all they with the Provincial Congress, of which knew of the matter. It was under- he was president, the day before, had stood that on the eighteenth of the passed the night in Watertown, and month, Gage would take possession of reached Cambridge indisposed in the Charlestown, the peninsula to the north morning. The news of the British of Boston, on which stood Bunker's attack shook off his headache; he conand Breed's Hill. The latter, nearest sulted with the Committee of Safety, to the town, was the scene of the great and hurried to that " gory bed" of conflict, though its more inland neigh- bonor, the redoubt on Breed's Hill. bor has carried off the honor of the He was met by Putnam on the field, On the fifteenth, the Committee who requested his orders. He had name. none to give, only to ask, "Where ous scenes, of which she was almost an he could be most useful." Putnam eye-witness. "I would not have you pointed to the redoubt, with an inti- be distressed about me," she says, mation that he would be covered. tenderly. "Danger, they say, makes "I come not," was his reply, "for a people valiant. Hitherto I have been place of safety, but where the onset distressed, but not dismayed. I have will be most furious." Putnam still felt for my country and her sons. I pointed to the redoubt, as the main have bled with them and for them. point of attack. Here Prescott ten- Not all the havoc and devastation they dered him the command: his answer have made, has wounded me like the again was in the same spirit. "I came death of Warren. We want him in as a volunteer, to learn from a soldier the Senate; we want him in his profesof experience." He encountered the sion; we want him in the field. We full perils of that gallant defence, mourn for the citizen, the senator, the marked by its fearful anxiety in the physician, and the warrior."1 failure of the scanty ammunition. He was the last, we are told, in the trenches, and at the very outset of the retreat fell, mortally struck by a ball in the forehead. So ended this gallant life, on the height at Breed's Hill, on that memorable June 17, 1775. ren. "Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori," the line of that noble ode of Horace, urging the youth of Rome to the fierce Parthian war-it was bravely pronounced by Warren the night before The nation had many sighs for War- the battle to a friend who represented The men of his time bore witness to him the dangers of the coming to his worth and valor in the manliest, encounter-let it be a motto for his sincerest language. By the side of tomb, and live with his memory to the public Eulogies, we are most inspire all true-hearted Americans, touched with the few full, truthful when the country shall again need words of Abigail Adams, writing to such offerings. her husband, at the Congress at Philadelphia, from the midst of these peril 'Letters of Mrs. Adams, I. 49. Braintree, July 5, 1775. JOHN HANCOCK. JOHN HANCOCK, the prosperous, bus- | town. Wholly devoted to business, he tling Boston merchant, and busy patriot was as regular and punctual at his store of the Revolution, had good Puritan as the sun in his course.' blood in his veins. His grandfather, the Rev. John Hancock, a man of unusual ability and vigor, the octogenarian preacher of Lexington, was eminent for his usefulness. His son, also named John, the parent of John Hancock, the subject of this sketch, died in middle age, minister of Braintree. Upon the sudden death of his uncle by apoplexy, in 1764, Hancock inherited the business, and a large share of the property. The position of a successful, enterprising merchant, in those days, was one of considerable importance, even alongside of the lawyers and members of the government, who constiJohn Hancock was born at the Brain- tuted the elite of provincial society. tree parsonage, January 23, 1737. The Hancock, too, had the prestige of wealth death of his father, when he was but and the family piety-for there were seven years of age, broke up the family no persons of more consequence in old household, and the child was taken to New England than the clergy. He Lexington to his grandfather, then at started upon life, then, in his twentythe venerable age of seventy-three. He seventh year, when he came into pos had also a most serviceable friend in session of his uncle's fortune, with emihis uncle, Thomas Hancock, a wealthy nent advantages. He had been put in Boston merchant, and a man of liberal the way of a good education, as we ideas, gratefully held in remembrance at have seen, had profited by ten years of Harvard, for his endowment of an ori- prosperous trade, and had enjoyed ental professorship. This relative pro- some opportunities of foreign travel in vided for his education at the Boston connection with the business. Mr. Grammar School, and at Harvard, Loring, always curious in his researches where he graduated in 1754. He was into the history of old Bostonians, and then received in his uncle's counting. | never more successful than in his inhouse. "And what a school was this! Four large ships constantly plying between Boston and London, and other business in proportion. He became an example to all the young men of the 92 vestigations into the life of Hancock, tells us of his visiting London with Pownal, at the expiration of his govern. 'John Adams to William Tudor, Works, X. 259. |