About noon, the gentlemen who had been conferring together in the Council-Chamber appeared in the eastern gallery of the Town-House in King Street, and there read to the assembled people what was entitled a “Declaration of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Inhabitants of Boston, and the Country Adjacent.”  The document contains a brief narrative of the oppressions that had been suffered by the Colony, under the recent maladministration.  Towards the end it refers in a few words to “the noble undertaking of the Prince of Orange, to preserve the three kingdoms from the horrible brinks of Popery and Slavery, and to bring to a condign punishment those worst of men by whom English liberties have been destroyed.”  One point was delicate; for among the recent Counsellors of the Governor had been considerable men, who, it was hoped, would hereafter act with the people.  It is thus disposed of:—­“All the Council were not engaged in these ill actions, but those of them which were true lovers of their country were seldom admitted to, and seldomer consulted at, the debates which produced these unrighteous things.  Care was taken to keep them under disadvantages, and the Governor, with five or six more, did what they would.”  The Declaration concludes as follows:—­

“We do therefore seize upon the persons of those few ill men which have been (next to our sins) the grand authors of our miseries; resolving to secure them, for what justice, orders from his Highness, with the English Parliament, shall direct, lest, ere we are aware, we find (what we may fear, being on all sides in danger) ourselves to be by them given away to a foreign power before such orders can reach unto us; for which orders we now humbly wait.  In the mean time, firmly believing that we have endeavored nothing but what mere duty to God and our country calls for at our hands, we commit our enterprise unto the blessing of Him who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured ourselves, to join with us in prayers and all just actions for the defence of the land.”

Andros sent the son of the Chief Justice with a message to the ministers, and to two or three other considerable citizens, inviting them to the Fort for a conference, which they declined.  Meanwhile the signal on Beacon Hill had done its office, and by two o’clock in the afternoon, in addition to twenty companies in Boston under arms, several hundred soldiers were seen on the Charlestown side, ready to cross over.  Fifteen principal gentlemen, some of them lately Counsellors, and others Assistants under the old Charter, signed a summons to Andros.  “We judge it necessary,” they wrote, “you forthwith surrender and deliver up the government and fortification, to be preserved and disposed according to order and direction from the Crown of England, which suddenly is expected may arrive, promising all security from violence to yourself or any of your gentlemen or soldiers in person or estate.  Otherwise we are assured they will endeavor the taking of the fortification by storm, if any opposition be made.”