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OUR STATE has been for the 3d time invaded and our
citizens forcibly arrested, carried away, and incarcerated
in a FOREIGN JAIL. The first time, Mr. Baker and his
neighbors, next Mr. Greely, and now the Land Agent and his
assistants. We have remonstrated and entreated long enough
and to no purpose. We now appeal to arms. We now appeal
to the law of nature, recognized by all communities, for that
protection which has been denied up by the General Government.
Be the issue what it may, upon this question the whole State is
united to a man, and will carry into the conflict its undivided
energies. As we are in this city in the midst of a great
excitement it behooves us all to keep calm and cool and proceed
with the utmost deliberation. Expresses are passing every day
through this city from the Aroostook and from the Province to
Augusta and back--our streets for the last two days have been
filled with the busy preparations for the Aroostook expedition.
The artillery has been forwarded and large quantities of amunition,
provisions, forage, etc. Twenty men are engaged at the Foundry
casting balls. Bodies of the volunteers from the country are
passing through the city hourly, and not less than 500 are now
between this place and Matawamkeag Point. The draft of one
thousand men has been made in this division, and they will all
be on the march to morrow
FELLOW SOLDIERS:-- An unfounded, unjust and insulting
claim of title has been made by the British Government to more
than one-third of the whole territory of your State. More than
this, it insists upon having exclusive jurisdiction and possession
until its claims of title is settled--while in the meantime its
subjects are stripping this territory of its valuable growth of timber,
in defiance of your authority and your power. A few days since
you sent a civil force under your Land Agent, to drive off these
bands of armed plunderers and protect your property from the work of
devastation. But the Agent while employed in the performance of this
duty, with two of his assistants, were seized, transported beyond
the bounds of the State, and incarcerated in a foreign jail
under British authorities. Those who remain are threatened with
a forcible expulsion by British troops, if they do not immediately
leave the territory and abandon your property to proffered
protection of Her Majesty's Lieutenant Governor. And perhaps
before this moment, your soil has not only been polluted by the
invader's footsteps, but the blood of our citizens may have
been shed by British Myrmidons.
Governor Fairfield's
Address to the Troops
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We are marching on to Madawask,
To fight the trespassers;
We'll teach the British how to walk--
And come off conquerors.
We'll have our land right good and clear,
For all the English say;
They shall not cut another log,
Nor stay another day.
They need not think to have our land,
We Yankees can fight well;
We've whipped them twice most manfully,
As every child can tell.
And if the Tyrants say one word,
A third time we will show,
How high the Yankee spirit runs,
And what our guns can do.
They better much all stay at home,
And mind their business there;
The way we treated them before,
Made all the nations stare.
Come on! brace fellows, one and all!
The Red-coats ne'er shall say,
We Yankees, feared to meet them armed,
So gave our land away.
We'll feed them well with ball and shot.
We'll cut these Red-coats down,
Before we yield to them an inch
Or title of our ground.
Ye Husbands, Fathers, Brothers, Sons,
From every quarter come!
March, to the bugle and the fife!
March, to the beating drum!
Onward! my Lads so brave and true
Our Country's right demands
With justice, and with glory fight,
For these Aroostook lands.
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