%136.  The British driven from Boston, March 17, 1776.%—­After eight months of seeming idleness, Washington, early in March, 1776, seized Dorchester Heights on the south side of Boston, fortified them, and so gave Howe his choice of fighting or retreating.  Fight he could not; for the troops, remembering the dreadful day at Bunker Hill, were afraid to attack intrenched Americans.  Howe thereupon evacuated Boston and sailed with his army for Halifax, March 17, 1776.  Washington felt sure that the British would next attack New York, so he moved his army there in April, 1776, and placed it on the Brooklyn hills.

%137.  Independence resolved on.%—­Just one year had now passed since the memorable fights at Concord and Lexington.  During this year the colonies had been solemnly protesting that they had no thought of independence and desired nothing so much as reconciliation with the King.  But the King meantime had done things which prevented any reconciliation: 

1.  He had issued a proclamation declaring the Americans to be rebels.

2.  He had closed their ports and warned foreign nations not to trade with them.

3.  He had hired 17,000 Hessians[1] with whom to subdue them.

[Footnote 1:  The Hessians were soldiers from Hesse and other small German states.]

These things made further obedience to the King impossible, and May 15, 1776, Congress resolved that it was “necessary to suppress every kind of authority under the crown,” and asked the colonies to form governments of their own and so become states.

On the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee, acting under instructions from Virginia, offered this resolution: 

     Resolved

That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Prompt action in so serious a matter was not to be expected, and Congress put it off till July 1.  Meanwhile Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to write a declaration of independence and have it ready in case it was wanted.  As Jefferson happened to be the chairman of the committee, the duty of writing the declaration was given to him.  July 2, Congress passed Lee’s resolution, and what had been the United Colonies became free and independent states.

[Illustration:  Campaigns of 1775-1776]

[Illustration:  %The Pennsylvania Statehouse, or Independence Hall[1]]

[Footnote 1:  From the Columbian Magazine of July, 1787.  The tower faces the “Statehouse yard.”  The posts are along Chestnut Street.  For the history of the building, read F. M. Etting’s Independence Hall.]