No period in the history of our country surpasses in interest that immediately preceding and including the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Many volumes have been written setting forth the patriotism and heroism of the fathers of the Republic, but the devotion of the mothers and daughters has received far less attention. This volume is designed, therefore, to portray in some degree their influence in the struggle of the Colonies to attain their independence. The narration of events takes the form of a story—a slight thread of romance being employed, rather than didactic narrative, to more vividly picture the scenes and the parts performed by the actors in the great historic drama. It will not be difficult for the reader to discern between the facts of history and the imaginative parts of the story.

Eminent educators have expressed the opinion that history may be more successfully taught through the medium of fiction than by any other form of diction. The novels of Sir Walter Scott, notably “Waverley,” “Ivanhoe,” are cited as presenting pictures of the times more effectively than any purely historic volume. The same may be said of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” as illustrating the state of affairs in our own country preceding the War of the Rebellion. It may be questioned whether any work of fiction in the world’s history has been so far-reaching in its influence as that portrayal of the institution of slavery by Mrs. Stowe. Believing that the spirit of the times can be best pictured by the employment of romance, I have adopted that form of narrative.

The story opens in the fall of 1769. The Stamp Act had been repealed, and the irritation produced by that act had been allayed. It was a period of quiet and rest. The colonists still regarded themselves as Englishmen and loyal to the crown. Information came that His Majesty George III. was determined to maintain his right to tax the Colonies by imposing an export duty on tea, to be paid by the exporter, who, in turn, would charge it to the consumer. The first resistance to that claim was the agreement of all but six of the merchants of Boston not to import tea from England, and the agreement of their wives and daughters not to drink tea so imported. It was a resistance which had its outcome in the destruction of three cargoes of tea by the historic “Tea-Party,”—a resistance which became equally effective in the other Colonies, if less dramatic than in Boston. The determination of the mothers and daughters to abstain from its use brought about a change in social life, and was influential in awakening a public sentiment which had its legitimate outcome in the events at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill.

There were causes other than the Stamp Act, Writs of Assistance, and the Tax on Tea, which brought about the Revolution.

“Whoever would comprehend the causes which led to the struggle of the Colonies for independence,” says John Adams, “must study the Acts of the Board of Trade.”

In this volume I have endeavored to briefly present some of those acts, in the conversation of Sam Adams with Robert Walden, that the school children of the country may have a comprehension of the underlying causes which brought about resistance to the tyranny of the mother country. The injustice of the laws had its legitimate result in a disregard of moral obligations, so that smuggling was regarded as a virtuous act.

In no history have I been able to find an account of the tragic death and dramatic burial of the schoolboy Christopher Snider, given in chapter VIII. It was the expression of sympathy by the people in following the body of the murdered boy from the Liberty Tree to the burial-place that intensified the antagonism between the citizens and the soldiers of the Fourteenth and Twenty-ninth regiments of the king’s troops, which led, the following week, to the Massacre of March 5, 1770. Bancroft barely mentions the name of Snider; other historians make no account of the event.

To explain the motives and the play of forces which brought about the Revolution, I have endeavored to set forth society as it was not only in Boston but in Parliament and at the Court of George III. Most historians of the Revolutionary period regard the debt incurred by Great Britain in the conquest of Canada as the chief cause of the war, through the attempt of the mother country, subsequently, to obtain revenue from the Colonies; but a study of the times gives conclusive evidence that a large portion of the indebtedness was caused by mismanagement and the venality and corruption of Parliament.

To set forth the extravagance and frivolity of society surrounding King George, I have employed Lord Upperton and his companion, Mr. Dapper, as narrators. The student of history by turning to Jessee’s “Life and Times of George III.,” Molloy’s “Court Life Below Stairs,” Waldegrave’s “Memoirs,” Horace Walpole’s writings, and many other volumes, will find ample corroboration of any statement made in this volume.

The period was characterized by sublime enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and devotion, not only by the patriots but by loyalists who conscientiously adhered to the crown. In our admiration of those who secured the independence of the Colonies, we have overlooked the sacrifices and sufferings of the loyalists;—their distress during the siege of Boston, the agony of the hour when suddenly confronted with the appalling fact that they must become aliens, exiles, and wanderers, leaving behind all their possessions and estates,—an hour when there was a sundering of tender ties, the breaking of hearts.

I have endeavored to make the recital of events strictly conformable with historic facts by consulting newspapers, documents, almanacs, diaries, genealogical records, and family histories.

It was my great privilege in boyhood to hear the story of the battle of Bunker Hill told by three men who participated in the fight.—Eliakim Walker, who was in the redoubt under Prescott, Nathaniel Atkinson and David Flanders, who were under Stark, by the rail fence. They were near neighbors, pensioners of the government, and found pleasure in rehearsing the events of the Revolutionary War. My grandfather, Eliphalet Kilburn, was at Winter Hill at the time of the battle.

It was also my privilege to walk over Bunker Hill with Richard Frothingham, author of the “Siege of Boston,” whose home was on the spot where Pigot’s brigade was cut down by the withering fire from the redoubt. Mr. Frothingham had conversed with many old pensioners who were in the redoubt at the time of the battle. In my account of the engagement I have endeavored to picture it in accordance with the various narratives.

I hardly need say that Ruth Newville, Berinthia Brandon, and Mary Shrimpton are typical characters, representing the young women of the period,—a period in which families were divided, parents adhering to King George, sons and daughters giving their allegiance to Liberty.

I am under obligations to the proprietors of the “Memorial History of Boston” for the portrait of Mrs. Joseph Warren. The portrait of Dorothy Quincy is from that in possession of the Bostonian Society; that of Mrs. John Adams from her “Life and Letters.”

The historic houses are from recent photographs.

I trust the reader will not regard this volume wholly as a romance, but rather as a presentation of the events, scenes, incidents, and spirit of the people at the beginning of the Revolution.

Charles Carleton Coffin.