Excerpt from The Capture of Fort William and Mary: December 14 and 15, 1774 Throughout the year 1774 the people of Portsmouth and vicinity shared in full measure the unrest that was felt throughout the whole country. Much sympathy was expressed for the people of Boston, and the populace were beginning to show signs of resisting the odious domination of the British ministry. The assembly had shown a disposition to refuse to vote the necessary supplies and men for Fort William and Mary. In May a message was sent from the committee at Portsmouth to the committee at Boston, promising assistance in anything agreed upon by the colonies.2 On June 8th, Governor' Wentworth dissolved the assembly which he had from time to time adjourned to prevent action toward the appointment of delegates to a provincial congress.3 On July 4, twenty-seven-chests of tea had been quietly brought into Portsmouth. A town-meeting was immediately called. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.