Cooper's Novels Author:James Fenimore Cooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IIONEL LINCOLN; THE LEAGUER OF BOSTON CHAPTER I. " .My weary loul they nci'in to loolhe, And, radoleat of joy and youth, " To breathe a wcond prin." ... more » Gray. No American can be ignorant of the principal events that induced the parliament of Great Britain, in 1774, to lay those impolitic restrictions on the port of Boston, which so effectually destroyed the trade of the chief town in her western colonies. Nor should it be unknown to any Amencan, how nobly, and with what devotedness to the great principles of the controversy, the inhabitants of the adjacent town of Salem refused to profit by the situation of their neighbours and fellow-subjects. In consequence of these impolitic measures of the English government, and of the laudable unanimity among the capitalists of the times, it became a rare sight to see the canvass of any other vessels than such as wore the pennants of the king, whitening the forsaken waters of Massachusetts Bay. Towards the decline of a day in April. 1775, Vol. i. 2 however, the eyes of hundreds had been fastened on a distant sail, which was seen rising from the bosom of the waves, making her way along the forbidden track, and steering directly for the mouth of the proscribed haven. With that deep solicitude in passing events which marked the period, a large group of spectators was collected on Beacon- Hill, spreading from its conical summit far down the eastern declivity, all gazing intently on the object of their common interest. In so large an assemblage, however, there were those who were excited" by very different feelings, and indulging in wishes directly opposite to each other. While the decent, grave, but wary citizen was endeavouring to conceal the bitterness of the sensations which soured his mind, under the appearance of a col...« less