Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/155

 It seems to have been a matter of concert among the colonial governors, if indeed the poHcy was not dic- tated by the British court, to disarm the people of all the colonies at one and the same time, and thus incapa- citate them for resistance in concert.

To give effect to this measure, the export of powder from Great Britain was prohibited: and an attempt was generally made about the same period, to seize the pow- der and arms in the several provincial magazines. Gage, the successor of Hutchinson in the government of Mas- sachusetts, set the example, by a seizure of the ammuni- tion and military stores at Cambridge, and the powder in the magazines at Charlestown and other places. His ex- ample was followed by similar attempts in other colonies to the north. And on Thursday, the 20th of April, 1 775, captain Henry Collins, of the armed schooner Magda- len, then lying at BurwelFs feriy, on James river, came up at the head of a body of marines, and, acting under the orders of lord Dunmore, entered the city of Williamsburg in the dead of the night, and carried off from the public magazine, about twenty barrels of pow- der, which he placed on board his schooner before the break of day. Clandestine as the movement had been, the alarm was given to the inhabitants early on the next morning. Their exasperation may be easily conceived. The town was in tumult. A considerable body of them flew to arms, with the determination to compel capt. Collins to restore the powder. With much difficulty, however, they were restrained by the graver inhabitants of the town, and by the members of the common coun- cil, who assured them that proper measures should be immediately used to produce a restoration of the pow- der, without the effusion of human blood. The coun-

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