The Colonial Government and its adherents were, of course, none the less antagonistic to it, because they were powerless to suppress the growing revolt or to protect the Colonists from the effects of the revolutionary action of the Congress. The farmers throughout the Colony continued their agricultural labors in continued indifference, unmindful of that approaching catastrophe which was, so very soon afterwards, to overwhelm themselves as well as others and to involve all, alike, in one common ruin of every thing which was or which could be dear to them. Of those commercial and mercantile classes among whom the Congress

had originated and by whom it had been fostered, very many disapproved the violence of its declared policy -- of that policy which had closed the doors to all hopes for Reconciliation and Peace, and which had opened the doors, invitingly, to Revolution and Rebellion, to War and Ruin -- and drew back from those who continued to sustain the Congress and who, then, were preparing to enforce its decrees ; while the latter portion of those classes, allied with the revolutionary faction whom those commercial and mercantile classes had previously declined to recognize and for whom, individually and collectively, only that superficial respect which practical politicians have always entertained for those, of lower ranks of society, whom they have sought to employ as the means of their own advancement to place and influence and wealth, was entertained, proceeded to enforce, by fair means or by foul, the various decrees, thinly disguised as " recommendations," which the Congress had enacted.