boar advanced towards me with bristles erect, and running, sideways as is the attidude of battle among hogs; when I would stop, he would stop and champ and froth like a prancing charger would his bridle-bit. When I would endeavor to go on (for I had a hope, that I could have reached a fence not very far off) he would run sideways after me. I contended with him in this way for some time, but found it impossible to reach the fence; I then dropped my basket, containing the dinner, and had the hope that as I would run towards the house, he would have stopped to devour the contents thereof, and let me go. I started at full speed for the house and seeing my master's daughter at the wood-pile, I called aloud to her. The boar however did not stop to taste its contents but ran after me, overtook and threw me down.Mrs. called to my master who was then in the house. They both ran accompanied by a large dog and succeeded in taking him off me, but not until he had sunk his tusks into my back so that a finger might have been thrust through into my inside. They succeeded with the help of the dog in catching him, which when they did my master, with a large stone broke off his tusks and some of his teeth and then let him run. The belief was that had not help been thus afforded me, he would have torn me to pieces, and had it not been that my masier's daughter was at the time at the wood-pile, I might have cried in vain, ere help would have been extended to me. This woman was married and lived in Reading, but was on a visit to her father's at the time-she was quite another kind of woman when compared with her mother-she was always very kind to me when on visits to her father's, and upon this occasion manifested her joy in my rescue, and was very tender to me in my then injured and helpless state. Lewis sent Murrier word that if he still would permit the boar to run at large, he would shoot him wherever found. Murrier put him up to fatten, which no doubt secured the person of others from his fierce attacks thereafter.

Whilst I remained in the family of Lewis another ac

cident befel me which came near ending my life; it hap pened in hay harvest; we were engaged in hauling hay and whilst taking in the last load into the barn, a sonin-law of Lewis' drove the wagon wheels over a stump, which pitched me off head-foremost against a rock and with such violence as to crack my skull. I was much injured by this accident for a time and must attribute it in a great measure to my own carelessness and contempt of danger, for, after I had finished building the hay upon the wagon, I laid me down upon my back on the top of the load, an act that no persons in their senses should at any time be guilty of. It is fair and not unreasonable to state, that a great proportion of accidents fatal and otherwise are the results of carelessness, which is to say in other words, not exercising the rational powers of mind possessed, in order to obtain a forecast as to what is really prudent and right or what is imprudent, wrong and most profoundly ignorant and foolish in the extreme.

Servitude with these cruel-hearted people was very irksome to me. When I look back upon the scenes of hardships I was made to endure, the continual scoldings meted out to me, and the unmerciful corrections I received at their hands, I can but liken myself to a person in the midst of a den of rattlesnakes, afraid to move in any one direction for fear of encountering the venomous fangs or bite of those having the power over me. My cloathing was of the coarsest cast. I recollect, that when linen collars and wristbands were put upon my coarse tow-linen shirts, I was very proud indeed. In eating I was often the subject of pot luck. Lewis had a nephew that lived with him some time and his victuals like mine were often "begrudged," as the saying is. This lad was perhaps eighteen years old, I remember that the old man lectured him occasioually upon the art of eating. One day the old man was lecturing his nephew upon eating, trying perhaps, to break my back over the shoulders of the nephew, said he to his nephew, "thee should always quit eating and rise from the table hungry." Indeed uncle (said the nephew) I always eat until I am full and

then I like to take a good chunk of pie with me in my fiist, to eat after that again, by way of a finish to my meal as a topper out.

CHAPTER II.

"In 1773, committees of correspondence were organized in Massachusetts, and at the instance of the Virginia House of Burgesses, "standing committees" were chosen throughout the colonies, and by means of a frequent conference, each colony was put in possession of the determinations of the whole. Meetings of the people were frequently held and the "SONS of LIBERTY" every where were alive to the interests of the colonies and were up, active and doing.

The duty imposed by the King and Parliament of Great Britain upon the colonies with reference to the article of tea, the people regarded as a flagrant and wanton assumption of power upon the part of the Ministers, Parliament and King of Great Britain.

The people owned themselves subjects of the Crown, but, subjects with constitutional rights; and they could not concede to any body, the right of infringing upon those rights, without their own unqualified assent thereto.

Large quantities of tea had been consigned to different points in the colonies. The people of Philadelphia and New York refused to purchase or to accept of it, on any terms. They "sent the ships back to London and they sailed up the Thames, to proclaim to all the nation that New York and Pennsylvania would not be enslaved. The people of Charleston unloaded the tea and stored it in cellars where it perished."

The people of Boston acted differently, they utterly refused to receive it, and a large number of the citizens habited as "Mohawk Indians" went aboard of the ves

sels, broke open the whole number of chests containing the tea and cast it overboard. The surface of the waters in the vicinity of the wharves and for some distance out was literally coated with drifting tea.

In September of the next year, 1774, the meeting of the first Continental Congress took place at Philadelphia, in order to concert measures for the better protection of the colonies against the arbitrary encroachments of the King, Ministers and Parliament of Great Britain and the governors of the crown in each of the colonies.

General Washington (then styled Colonel) sat in that first Congress when it assembled, as a deputy from the colony of Virginia.

This choice concentration of much of the best intellectual powers and deep wisdom of the colonies, it would seem aimed not firstly at Independence. That body, with that humbleness which still characterized the members thereof and the people of the colonies whom they represented as loyal subjects of his Majesty the King of England, voted a series of resolutions touching the grievances they were enduring. It voted a declaration or Bill of Rights, exhibiting the causes that led to the stand which the colonies had took from the beginning of the difficulties, and set forth in a lucid and unsophisticated manner their rights as colonies, and the protection that those rights claimed for them as citizens at the hands of their sovereign. It voted a number of addresses by way of appeals. It also petitioned the King for a redress of grievances, and whilst those resolutions, declaration of rights, addresses, petitions, &c. &c., were "pronounced by competent authority," to have been "master pieces" of the age in "wisdom, dignity," lofty, patriotic strength and sublimity of language and "moral courage," the Ministers and Parliament, with the King at their head, blinded by their avariciousness and rage, looked upon and conceived them to be nought but tirades of insult, impudence and the sheerest nonsense.

Mr. Frost states that the determination upon the part of the people of New England was that their course

should be such that in the event of hostilities breaking out, the royal party should be the aggressors. But in the event of such a disasterous state of things existing their determinations were to act as one, upon the defensive, and repel in the strength of their might any hostile attack that might be made by the royal forces against them.

The colonists had collected some military stores at Concord (a place situated 18 or 20 miles from Boston,) to destroy which a detachment of royal forces had been despatched by the royal Governor and were under the command of Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn. This royal force was met and opposed by the aroused citizens at Lexington, and a number killed and wounded on both sides. This battle, denominated the "battle of Lexington," was the first battle of the revolution.

The British forces after the continental militia gave way, (the militia costituting a small body compared with “800 grenadiers and infantry" whom they opposed) pursued their design, and moved on to Concord for the purpose of destroying the military stores.

The continental militia rallied again, joined by others of the citizens that flew to the assistance of their continental brothers and marched to Concord. The loy alists opened a fire upon the colonists and a general engagement took place. The royalists were beaten and put to the route. This engagement constituted the second battle of the revolution. The royalists were pursued by an annoying fire and whilst enduring this, three regiments under the commmand of General Lord Percy came to their aid; reinforced thus they plundered and fired the town of Lexington and a number of houses. were consumed.

At West Cambridge the colonists were joined by the noble Warren, and also by General Heath, and the militia encouraged by their presence poured in upon the royalists a very destructive fire and contined to dog them, hanging on their sides and rear in their flight. The reinforcement under Lord Percy formed itself into a hollow