careful of his possessions thus to lose a quantity of eau-de-vie that it contained, and turning round, returned amidst a shower of balls, picked up the treasure and brought it off safe. When on the march to the hill, Capt. Washburn gave leave to any one who felt disinclined to go, to return, but no one availed himself of this license. Col. Barnes was tried by a Court Martial for his conduct that day, but, from some palliating circumstances, was acquitted.

We have been the more particular in our account of this company of men, as it was the first raised in the town which we are describing, and these, and other anecdotes connected with the Battle of the 17th June, 1775, are attested by living witnesses.**

Besides those we have named as having marched from this town, who took part in the battle of the 17th June, 1775, there are others still residing here, who were also actors in that glorious day. Mr. Caleb Barton and Capt. John Holden, who afterwards served as an officer during the war of the revolution, are the persons to whom we allude. There was residing here, till within a few years, a black man, who, we have good reason to believe, was the one who shot Maj. Pitcairn, whose death forms so affecting an incident in that bloody affray. History relates that he was shot by a negro, and from the story of the one we allude to, and many corroborating circumstances, we are led to conclude that he was the person who did the deed. The person to whom we refer was named Peter Salem; he was a servant of Gen. Nixon during the revolution, was a native of Framingham, and removed here a few years since, where he died. Major Pitcairn was shot as he was mounting the redoubt, and fell into the arms of his son. His loss was a severe one to the British, and added not a little to their regret at the events of that day.

In April, 1776, the town of Leicester, agreeably to a resolve of the General Assembly, raised a sum of money to purchase ammunition and entrenching tools, and the same year raised a sum of money to pay for transporting the provisions to Watertown the year before, which they had furnished for the army. The poll taxes of all from this town who were in the continental army, were abated by the town, and the families of these soldiers were taken care of, and provided with whatever their necessities required, at the expense of their fellow citizens. In 1778, the sum of £30, of the then

The names of the survivers are, Nathan Craige, Thomas Sprague, of Spencer, Isaac Livermore and Mathew Jackson, of Leicester, Daniel Hubbard formerly of Leicester, but now of Wallingford, Vt. and Elias Green.

currency, was voted to every continental soldier raised in this town, and a committee appointed to estimate the services performed by each citizen in the war, to which committee each man rendered an account, as well of the money paid by him, as of the services he had rendered, for the purpose of equalizing the burthens among the inhabitants. In 1779, the town raised £1000 for the payment of enlisted men for the ensuing year, and appointed a committee to employ men for this purpose, whenever they should be needed to supply the drafts upon the town. In the same year, they raised £4000, to pay the soldiers they had hired, and the contingent expenses attendant upon the same, and in a few months added £500 to this grant. In 1780, £5000 were, at first, raised for the pay of the soldiers, and in July, upwards of £22,000 were raised, one half to employ soldiers, and the other half to pay their "six months' men," then in the army. They, at the same time, voted one hundred and ten bushels of corn to every soldier who should march from this town, and in November of the same year, £60,000 were granted, to pay the soldiers for their services. These sums must have been enormous for a town of the size and wealth of this, at that time, even after reducing them by the depreciated value of the currency, which, as appears by the records of the town, was in the ratio of 40 to 1.*

These were not all the sums raised during this year by the town. Frequent calls for Beef were made upon them for the supply of the army, and in 1780, they raised £200 of the "new money," to comply with one of these calls, and the next year, £80 in silver, were appropriated for the same purpose. These sacrifices did not, by any means, embrace all that the inhabitants were called upon to make. The inhabitants were divided into classes, which, in 1780, consisted of ten, and whenever detachments of soldiers were called for, it was the duty of the respective classes to furnish their proportionate number, either from themselves, or by hiring substitutes. The bounties paid, for this purpose, were often large and burdensome in the extreme. A sum as high as $300 was, in some instances, paid to induce individuals to enlist. And these sums form no part of the computation of the foregoing sums. The classes, not only were obliged to go into the neighboring towns to procure their quotas, but, in some instances, sent as far as New York to hire

We may judge somewhat of the value of the money, from a vote passed in 1780, "to pay Capt. Leviston £3 15s. for a horse to go to the taking of Burgoyne."

those men to enlist whose terms were expiring. The frequency of the drafts, and the length of the time for which those who first enlisted were holden, drew, in turn, almost every young man in town into the "service," at one time or other. The amount raised at different times, even in this town, now seems to be incredible, and we should almost apprehend some mistake in the matter, if we were not assured of the truth of the records by some who are living witnesses of the sufferings and privations of our fathers in the struggle. We are assured, by a gentleman of high standing and reputation, that his father, who was a respectable farmer in that day, was, more than once, compelled to dispose of portions of the neat stock from his farm, for the purpose of promptly meeting the payment of his proportion of the public taxes. Nor was this a solitary instance.

But we do not mention these instances of voluntary sacrifices, as evidence of any peculiar devotedness in this people to the cause of patriotism. They probably did no more, in proportion to their ability, than other towns around them. But a detail of these burdens and sacrifices is enough, without a single comment, to fix the character of the town for patriotism and public spirit. They have been enough too, we trust, to show, that the spirit of this people did not expend itself in idle resolutions, in favor of rights which they shrunk from defending in the hour of danger.

It must strike every one with some surprise, that, during the suspension of all judicial and executive authority in the state, the great mass of the people should have been kept quiet and orderly. It was truly a moral spectacle; it was a nation bursting the bands in which they had been bound, and ruling and governing themselves in an orderly and peaceable manner. The force of public opinion, at any time great, was then irresistible. The recommendations of Congress were law, and the committee of safety saw that the laws were executed, against whom no one dare rebel. In this, they were fully countenanced by the people, who, in their fre quent meetings and discussions of national affairs, became convinced, that union and order were necessary to their existence as a people, and they had virtue enough to guard these most sacredly. Many of the votes upon these subjects we have already mentioned; others are upon the records, a few of which we would add. In 1777, a committee was appointed, to ascertain who were unfriendly to the government, and report their names to the general sessions of the Peace, and one man was voted by the town to be of that class, and

116

reported accordingly. The committees of safety and correspondence in towns, were usually constituted of the most influential citizens, whose number and character were sure to carry respect. In 1777, this committee here, consisted of Col. Joseph Henshaw, John Fletcher, Benjamin Richardson, James Baldwin, Jr., Isaac Green, Phinehas Newhall, and William Henshaw, and in subsequent years was enlarged in numbers.

In 1776, the inhabitants of this town opposed the attempt made by the legislature, to have the people form a constitution of government, because so many, whose voice should be heard in so important a question, were then absent in the service of their country. But when the proposal was made in 1779, they unanimously voted to instruct their representative to vote for a convention to form such a constitution. Seth Washburn and William Henshaw were the delegates in that convention from Leicester. When the constitution was presented to the people for their acceptance, the inhabitants of this town, at a meeting, held June 1, 1780, acted upon each of its articles separately, and adopted them almost unanimously, except the 3d article in the Bill of Rights, and some modification of one or two other articles, and voted, that if these corrections could not be effected, to accept of the same as it was presented to them, and directed their delegates to act accordingly. Col. Seth Washburn was chosen the first representative under the Constitution, and the votes for Governor, at the first election, were, 69 for John Hancock, 2 for James Bowdoin, and 1 for James Sublivan.

From the peace of 1783 till the commencement of the difficulties in 1786, nothing of particular interest occurred, deserving a place here. The town partook of the excitement of that period, and in the year 1786, chose their delegates to represent them in a county convention, to whom they detailed the grievances which they wished to have remedied. The convention sat in this town, and the delegates chosen were David Henshaw, Esq. and the late Col. Thomas Denny. They were both decided friends of the government, and possessed firmness of character together with great acuteness; and when, at length, the convention met, they so disconcerted the measures of those unfriendly to the government, that, after an ineffectual attempt to carry them through, the convention rose, and their meeting was dissolved without having effected any thing. The town also instructed their representative at the General Court, upon the subject of the real grievances under which

they were suffering, and which they wished to have redressed, but charged him by no means to agree to any change in the constitution of government. They had ever been opposed to the "tender act," as unconstitutional, and they now directed their representative to oppose its passing, when it should be acted upon by the legislature. This direct interference of the people with the State legislation, by means of instructions to their representatives, having been long discontinued, it is rather a subject of curiosity, in reading them now, to see how many of the general topics that would be likely to come under the notice of the legislature, were embraced within their scope. If representatives held themselves bound by their instructions, there was hardly a subject of interest that could arise, upon which they were not ready to act at once. This was literally the government of the people. The town were as prompt in acting upon subjects affecting the whole nation, as upon those of local interest alone. And when the subject of the confederacy of the colonies, in 1778, was proposed to them, they unanimously approved of the measure, and directed their representative "to aid it by all that lay in his power." Indeed, there was a surprising unanimity in all their proceedings during this dark and portentous era of our history. They were, undoubtedly, influenced in their measures by à few patriotic, public spirited men, who had most ardently engaged in the cause of liberty, and who had, withal, judgment and sagacity enough "to guide the whirlwind and direct the storm" of public feeling, so as to secure the independence of the country and the good of posterity. Some of these we have already named, but we are conscious that we cannot do them justice. The private histories of those men, and the anecdotes connected with them, illustrative of their characters and the character of the times in which they lived, have been forgotten, and but little can now be recalled. Those were days in which the individual character of every man was known and tried. A man must be for or against the existing government. In 1778, a list of every man in town, of the age of 21 years, and upwards, was made out, and each one called upon to take the oath of allegiance to the State, and those who should refuse were to be reported to the town. But, we believe, few, if any, had the hardihood to refuse to take the oath at that stage of the war. They would hardly have risqued the danger of popular power, when the people was the only power to which they could have appealed for protection against the sanction of such a call.