John Adams, at Philadelphia, read to Patrick Henry from a paper of Joseph Hawley, that the result of the action of the ministry rendered it necessary to fight. "I am of that man's opinion", replied the ardent Virginian.[341] With the new year (1775) that opinion was becoming widespread. _Ames' Almanac_ (1775), published in Boston, was printing, for almost every family in New England to read, "a method for making gunpowder", so that every person "may easily supply himself with a sufficiency of that commodity." Day by day news came to Boston from every direction of the indorsement of Congress, and of the wild-fire speed of the dispersion of the military spirit. Those who remembered the 40,000 men who marched towards Boston at the time of the D'Anville scare, thirty years before, said the enthusiasm then was nothing like the present. Somehow Gage began to feel more confident. He had in January 3,500 men in his Boston garrison, and almost as many more were expected, and he did not hesitate to send (January 23) Captain Balfour and a hundred men, with two cannon, to Marshfield, to protect the two hundred loyalists there, who had signed the articles by which Timothy Ruggles was hoping to band the friends of government together, and the reports which Balfour sent back seemed to satisfy the governor that the measure was effective.[342]
On the first of February, 1775, the second provincial congress assembled at Cambridge, and they soon issued a solemn address to the people, deprecating a rupture, but counselling preparations for it.[343] It was not then known that Gage had won over Dr. Church, and that through this professing patriot the British headquarters in Boston were informed of the doings of congress. Church's defection encouraged the tories, and on the 6th, handbills appeared in Boston, reminding the patriots of the fate of Wat Tyler.[344] A few days later Cambridge was alarmed by the report that troops were coming out of Boston to disperse them; but the day passed without the proof of it. The Committee of Safety were anxious, for they knew that the other colonies and their friends in England were fearful that the conflict would be precipitated without the consent of congress; and the authority of congress was now so dominant that its cognizance of such measures was essential to the continuance of the sympathy with Massachusetts which now existed. No one at this time was more solicitous for this prudent measure than Joseph Hawley, and no one in Massachusetts had a steadier head. On the 18th Peter Oliver wrote from Boston to London: "Great preparations on both sides for an engagement, and the sooner it comes the better."[345] "Every day, every hour widens the breach!" wrote Warren to Arthur Lee, two days later.[346] Already the provincial congress had conferred on the Committee of Safety (February 9) the power to assemble the militia, and John Thomas and William Heath had been added to the general officers. The committee, on the 21st, had voted to buy supplies for 15,000 men, including twenty hogsheads of rum. On the same day Sam. Adams and Warren signed a letter to the friends of liberty in Canada, and secret messengers were already passing that way. Presently, on the 26th, the impending conflict was once more averted.