The General Court was in session at the time, but no effectual

proceedings were taken against the rioters. Public sympathy was with

them in their purposes, if not in their measures. But the inhabitants

of Boston, in town meeting on the 14th, in an address to Governor

Bernard, probably drawn by Otis,[92] among other matters complained

of being invaded by an armed force. With grim humor, the address

represents the commissioners, who had fled for safety to the Castle,

as having "of their own notion" relinquished the exercise of their

commission, and expressed the hope that they would never resume it, and

demanded of the governor to give immediate order for the removal of

the "Romney" from the harbor. Some weeks later (June 30) the Council

passed the customary resolution, setting forth "their utter abhorrence

and detestation" of the riotous proceedings, and desiring that the

governor, through the attorney-general, would prosecute all guilty

persons, that they and "their abettors might be brought to condign

punishment."[93]

When the circular letter was laid before the ministry, April 15,

1768, it caused great excitement in parliamentary circles, and led

to the gravest mistake which was made by the government during

the entire Revolutionary period. Other measures, perhaps without

exception, had a show of necessity; nor, as the British Constitution

was then interpreted by the highest authority, were they clearly

unconstitutional. But when the Earl of Hillsborough, speaking

for the king, June 21, 1768, required the Massachusetts House of

Representatives to rescind their circular letter on pain of immediate

dissolution, there was a violation of the constitutional right of

the House to express their opposition to measures deemed injurious

to their constituents, and to communicate their sentiments to other

colonies whose interests were similarly affected. Equally unwise was

Hillsborough's letter to the colonial assemblies, requiring them to

disregard the Massachusetts circular. Responses to the circular letter,

when they expressed the sentiments of the assemblies rather than those

of the royal governors, were in full sympathy with Massachusetts.[94]

The representatives, says Bernard, "have been much elated, within

these three or four days, by some letters they have received in

answer to the circular letter",[95] and Hutchinson thought that "the

strength which would be derived from this union confirmed many who

would otherwise have been wavering."[96] But when Governor Bernard

(June 21, 1768) communicated to the House instructions from the king

to rescind the circular letter, and recommended immediate action as

of important consequence to the province, no doubt it caused anxiety.

Under a similar pressure New York had receded. The House apprehended

the gravity of the situation, and took seven or eight days for

consideration, and even then desired to consult their constituents. But

when Bernard informed them that further delay would be considered as

a refusal, they voted, 92 to 17, not to rescind, and "the number 92",

Hutchinson says, "was auspicious, and 17 of ill omen, for many months

after, not only in Massachusetts Bay, but in most of the colonies on

the continent."[97] They doubtless were influenced by Otis, who spoke

with great power, and, according to Bernard, unsparingly denounced the

ministry and "passed an encomium on Oliver Cromwell."[98] Massachusetts

deliberately disobeyed the king's command, and defied his power. Before

dissolution, the House agreed (June 30, 1768) upon a message to the

governor, arguing the question very fully, and declaring their refusal

to rescind; a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough; and a Report and

Resolves, in which they repeat the story of their grievances, doings,

and rights with great fullness and ability.[99]

The effect of this action, so honorable to the House, was unfavorable

upon the ministry. De Berdt, the London agent, in a letter to the

House, August 12, 1768, giving the substance of a conversation with

the Earl of Hillsborough, says that his lordship informed him that he

would have used his influence for the repeal of the Townshend Acts, and

believed he could have obtained it; but since the news respecting the

non-rescinding of the circular letter, the matter was in doubt. "The

crown must be supported, or we sink into a state of anarchy."

In July, 1768, General Gage, then at New York, had been directed by the

ministry to remove one or two regiments to Boston; and when the news

of the riots of March 18 reached England, on August 14, two additional

regiments were ordered from Ireland. When rumors of these orders became

rife in Boston, there were indications that the country would be raised

to prevent the landing of the troops; but different counsels prevailed.

A town meeting was held in Faneuil Hall on the 12th and 13th of

September, which agreed to call a meeting of the towns.[100] Ninety-six

towns and eight districts were finally represented in the convention

which assembled at the time appointed (September 22). Their first

act was a petition to the governor setting forth their apprehensions

in respect to a standing army. This the governor refused to receive,

but he expressed his opinion of the unauthorized meeting they were

holding, directed them to separate instantly, and threatened to assert

the prerogatives of the crown. After a recital of grievances, with

declarations of loyalty and promises of assistance to civil magistrates

in suppressing disorders, they adjourned on the 29th. Their proceedings

were moderate,—a moderation induced, as some supposed, by the arrival

at Nantasket, September 28, from Halifax of a fleet of seven armed

vessels, with nearly a thousand troops.[101] If contempt of the royal

prerogative, after the refusal to rescind the circular letter, could

have been more pointedly expressed, it was by holding a provincial

convention without sanction of law. Between these measures and April

19, 1775, no step involving a new principle was taken. The burning of

the "Gaspee" in 1772 and the destruction of the tea in 1773 were merely

the filling in of a picture firmly sketched in outline.

The refusal of the provincial council and of the town to provide

for quartering the royal troops on their arrival was a practical

nullification of the Mutiny Act, which served still further to

strain the relations between Massachusetts and the British ministry.

Parliament came together November 8, 1768. Both Houses were swift to

condemn the late proceedings of the General Court of Massachusetts

and of the town of Boston. On December 15 these acts were made the

basis of eight resolutions, introduced by the Earl of Hillsborough,

and an address to the king, moved by the Duke of Bedford, to obtain

information respecting the actors in the riotous proceedings since

December 10, 1767, with a view, if deemed advisable, of ordering

their transportation to England for trial. These were passed by the

House of Commons (January 26, 1769), after a debate in which the

whole subject of American affairs was discussed.[102] The news of

these proceedings at first created some uneasiness in Boston among

those implicated; but apprehension subsided when it was learned from

their friends in England that the voting of Bedford's Address by the

two Houses was merely political;[103] that lenient, not rigorous,

measures were intended by the ministry; and that the late act laying

duties would be repealed. This intelligence reassured the patriotic

party, but correspondingly depressed the tories, who saw no hope in

the vacillating policy of the ministry.[104] A policy was much needed.

Chatham had resigned in October, 1768, and the Duke of Grafton became

the nominal, as he had long been the real, head of the ministry. Lord

North, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had charge of the revenue. The

Duke of Grafton favored the total repeal of the Townshend duties,

but Lord North favored the retention of that on tea, as a matter of

principle; and so it was decided by a majority of one in the Cabinet

Council. Parliament rose May 9, and four days later the Earl of

Hillsborough reported to the several colonies the resolutions of the

government on the circular letter. Lord Hillsborough's letter gave

little comfort to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, whose

firmness was commended by Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the threat

of transportation of the Bostonians to England for trial under a

statute of Henry VIII. called forth from the latter colony vigorous

resolutions and an address to the king, May 16, 1769.[105] Jefferson

has given the history of these resolutions.[106] This action did not

meet the approval of Lord Botetourt, the governor of Virginia, and he

dissolved the House of Burgesses. This, however, did not prevent the

delegates from meeting at the Apollo, in the Raleigh tavern, and, as

citizens, entering into a non-importation agreement which bore the

names of Henry, Randolph, Jefferson, and Washington, and became an

example to all the colonies.[107] During the remainder of the year 1769

the progress of the Revolution was confined chiefly to Massachusetts,

and there it assumed the form of an altercation between the House of

Representatives and the governor in respect to the presence of the

king's forces.[108] Coming in for their annual session near the end

of May, the House, unwilling even to organize in the presence of the

military, sent a message to the governor, remonstrating against so

gross a breach of its privileges, and requesting him to give orders to

remove the standing army, the main guard of which was kept with cannon

pointed at the very door of the State House.[109] There was no design

in this arrangement, but it was very menacing, nevertheless. For nearly

two weeks messages kept passing back and forth, to the purport, on the

governor's side, that he had no authority to remove the troops, they

being under the commander-in-chief; and on the part of the House, that

they would do no business while the troops remained. It occurred to the

governor that, if he could not remove the troops, he could remove the

General Court; and this he did by directing the secretary to adjourn it

to Cambridge. The Court did not appreciate this stroke of humor, and

proceeded to business only after a protest of necessity. But Bernard's

career was drawing to a close. June 28th he informed the House that the

king desired him to repair to Great Britain. July 8th the House passed

nineteen resolutions,[110] covering the whole ground of dispute with

the home government, and arraigning the governor for various political

misdemeanors. They petitioned for his recall; and Governor Bernard

left the province, accompanied by the reproaches of the House and

manifestations of joy by the people. He did not succeed in a position

in which all who had preceded him and all who followed him failed. He

could not serve well two masters.

[Illustration: PLAN OF KING STREET AND VICINITY.

NOTE.—The plan on the following page is a reduction from that used in

the trial following the massacre, and was made by Paul Revere. It now

belongs to the MS. collections of the writer of this chapter. The key

to the letters in the street, a part of the original drawing, is lost.

Those attached to the buildings, etc., are substituted for the legends

which are in the original, and which would be illegible in the reduced

scale of the present reproduction. They signify as follows:—

A, Doct^r Jones; B, Doct^r Roberts; C, Brigdens, goldsmith; D, John

Nazro, store; E, Main Street; F, Town house; G, Brazen Head; H, Benj.

Kent, Esq., house; I, Mrs. Clapham; J, Exchange Tavern; K, Exchange

Lane; L, Custom House; M, Col. Marshall's house; N, "N.B. The pricked

line is the Gutter;" O, Mr. Paine's house; P, Mr. Davis's house; Q,

Mr. Amory's house; R, Quaker Lane; S, Warden and Vernon's shop; T,

Levi Jening, shop; U, Mr. Peck, wa[t]ch maker, shop; V, Court Square;

W, whipping-post; X, J. & D. Waldo, shop; Y, Pudin Lane; Z, G. C.

Phillips, house; 1, Ezk. Prince, Esq., office; 2, Guard House; 3, Mr.

Bowse, shop.

Revere engraved a large folding picture of the massacre, which appeared

in the official _Short Narrative_, which has been reproduced in the

_Old State House Memorial_ (Boston, 1882, p. 82) and in the _Mag. of

Amer. Hist._ (Jan., 1886, p. 9), in an article on Revere by E. H. Goss.

A reëngraving of Revere's plate is in the London (Bingley) edition of

the same, and on a smaller scale in the other London (Dilby) edition,

and this last is reproduced in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 40.

Thomas's _Mass. Kalendar_ (1772) has a woodcut representation, after

Revere's drawing. Cf. nos. 579 to 583 of the _Catal. of the Cab. of the

Mass. Hist. Soc._—ED.]

When Sir Francis Bernard[111] sailed for England on board the

"Rippon", in August, 1769, he left the administration in the hands

of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson. For several months nothing of

importance took place, except misunderstandings growing out of the

non-observance of the non-importation agreements (which were renewed

March, 1770), and quarrels between the troops and the populace which

resulted in the deplorable scenes of March 5, 1770. The circumstances

which led to this affair are too well known to need recital in

detail. While the town was occupied by British regiments, collisions

were constantly occurring. None knew better than the populace the

helplessness of the soldiers to resent insult or injury by arms.

Even in case of riots, the reading of the Act and the intervention

of the civil power were necessary preliminaries to firing upon the

crowd. Nothing but confinement of the soldiers to their barracks could

have prevented collisions with the populace. The patriot leaders had

determined to get rid of the regiments at all cost. The affair at

Gray's wharf on Saturday, March 2, led to the more serious affray on

Monday, the 5th. On the evening of that day, between seven and eight

o'clock, the cry of fire and ringing of bells drew together a large

crowd, which was followed by a collision with the troops, and resulted

in the death of three persons and wounding of several others, two

mortally. The Boston Massacre soon became known throughout the country,

and aroused a spirit of resistance hitherto unfelt. Its immediate

effect was the withdrawal of the troops from the town to the Castle,

on account of the resolute attitude assumed by Samuel Adams. The men

who lost their lives in this affray were buried in one grave, to which

they were followed by an immense procession, and for some years the

anniversary of their death was observed by commemorative ceremonies.

All classes in the community joined in execrating the soldiers, and

gave no ear to justifying or mitigating circumstances. Inflamed and

grossly inaccurate accounts of the transactions were drawn up and

scattered through the colonies and sent to Great Britain. But time

somewhat allayed the first feeling of animosity; and when the facts

became better known, it clearly appeared that the soldiers had fired,

without orders, upon the crowd only when it had become necessary in

defence of their lives. Captain Preston (October 24) and the soldiers

(November 27) engaged in the affray were brought to trial on a charge

of murder, and were all acquitted, except two soldiers who were

convicted of manslaughter. These were slightly branded, and all of them

were liberated. John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., appeared in their

defence, and with equal honor the jurors did their duty in accordance

with the law and the evidence. The news of the events of March 5

became known in London April 21, through Mr. Robertson. one of the

commissioners of the customs.[112]

[Illustration: THE COURT AT THE TRIAL

A fac-simile of a group of original autographs belonging to the

writer of this chapter. Winthrop was the clerk of the court. The

Attorney-General Sewall drew the indictment, but did not appear for the

king.—ED.]

The Townshend act, though drawn conformably to the colonial

distinctions between internal and external taxes, produced the

same dissatisfaction as the Stamp Act had done. There was no real

difference. If Parliament could lay external taxes, it could lay

internal taxes. Non-importation agreements in the several colonies

followed in 1769, and so long as they were observed, even without

great strictness, were disastrous to British merchants, the value of

whose exports to the American colonies between Christmas in 1767 and

Christmas in 1769 fell off nearly £700,000 sterling; or, if we take

the figures for those colonies where the agreement was most effective,

in New England from £419,000 to £207,000, in New York from £482,000 to

£74,000.[113] Though the agreement was not observed equally in all the

colonies, nor in entire good faith in any,—Massachusetts and Rhode

Island, particularly, suffered some discredit in this respect, as

compared with New York and Philadelphia,—the general result seriously

alarmed British merchants, who petitioned Parliament for the repeal of

the Townshend act.[114] These petitions were considered in the House

of Commons March 5, 1770, and Lord North, in accordance with Earl

Hillsborough's circular letter, proposed to take off all the duties

laid by the Townshend act of 1767, except that on tea, which he would

preserve as a sort of declaratory act, especially since the conduct of

the Americans had been such as to prevent an entire compliance with

their wishes.[115] Governor Pownall offered as an amendment the entire

repeal of the act, and supported his motion in an extremely able and

interesting speech.[116]

[Illustration: THE COUNSEL OF THE GOVERNMENT AND OF THE ACCUSED

A fac-simile of a group of signatures belonging to the writer of this

chapter.—ED.]

Pownall's amendment was lost by a vote of 204 to 142. The merchants

failed to procure a repeal of the duties, although Alderman Trecothic

made one more effort in their behalf, on the 9th of April, "in a very

sensible speech."[117]

When the news of the Boston Massacre reached England late in April,

1770, it recalled attention to American affairs, which, after the

defeat of Trecothic's motion, seemed to have been laid aside for the

remainder of the session. Trecothic called for the papers.[118] While

waiting for them, Governor Pownall made a speech on the "powers of

government [which] the crown can and ought to grant to the dependencies

of the realm; what form and power of government the British subject

in those parts ought to be governed by; what powers are granted,

both civil and military; and what arrangements, and means taken, for

administering and executing these powers."[119] Burke, in the second of

eight resolutions, affirmed "that a principal cause of the disorders

which have prevailed in North America hath arisen from the ill-judged

and inconsistent instructions given, from time to time, by persons in

administration, to the governors of some of the provinces of North

America."[120] Later, the same resolutions were brought forward in

the House of Lords by the Duke of Richmond. But Burke was not acting

in good faith. A close observer wrote at the time: "It is plain

enough that these motions were not made for the sake of the colonies,

but merely to serve the purposes of the opposition, to render the

ministry, if possible, more odious, so that they may themselves come

into the conduct of affairs, while it remains very doubtful whether

they would do much better, if at all, than their predecessors."[121]

This resulted well for the colonies, and, in the long run, for the

progress of liberal ideas in both countries. But to those who wished

for the continuance of the British connection, and believed in its

practicability, it must have been a matter for profound regret that

the liberal leaders, from Chatham to Fox, simply found fault with the

acts of the ministry, and proposed nothing instead. The ministry,

conciliatory to-day and severe to-morrow, had no fixed policy. American

affairs gave way to the exigencies of a general election, just as

we have lately seen in this country, great interests jeopardized by

the unwillingness of both political parties to treat them on the

eve of a presidential election. If, instead of this vacillating

and inconsistent policy, both parties had given their attention to

devising some rational system of colonial administration, as proposed

by Pownall,[122] leaving local affairs to the colonists, but placing

imperial affairs under a permanent board, not changeable with every

ministry, the colonies and the mother-country might have remained

united, perhaps for a generation, longer.

The Townshend duties, except those on tea, were repealed in April; but

this did not satisfy the colonists, and dissensions arose among the

merchants of the several colonies in regard to the non-importation

agreement. Those of New York became dissatisfied with Boston and

Newport merchants, who had agreed to import non-dutiable articles,

even before the news of the repealing act; and in October, 1770, all

sections fell into the same plan, but no teas were to be imported. The

Sons of Liberty in New York in vain resisted this arrangement.

In Massachusetts the patriots were seldom without causes of just

complaint. Governor Hutchinson, in obedience to instructions of General

Gage, had delivered (September 10) the keys of Castle William, in

Boston harbor, which belonged to the province, to Colonel Dalrymple,

who was the servant of the king; and following royal instructions, had

refused to convene the General Court at Boston, instead of Cambridge,

or to assent to any bill by which the assessors (in 1771) could tax the

officers of the crown.[123] These exercises of the royal prerogative,

and the payment of the governor's salary by the crown, involved

constitutional questions of higher import, as the British Constitution

then stood, than the question of parliamentary supremacy, and were

matters of unceasing contention. In 1770, Franklin was chosen London

agent of the colony, although not without some objection, in the place

of De Berdt, recently deceased (May), and Hutchinson was appointed

governor in March, 1771.

In 1772, although it was a year of general quiet, two events happened,

which, in different ways, promoted the purposes of the more ardent

patriots,—the burning of the "Gaspee" at Providence in June, and the

formation of committees of correspondence in November. On the 9th of

June, Lieutenant Dudingston, commander of the "Gaspee", who had shown

great activity in the revenue service at Rhode Island, in undertaking

to intercept the "Providence Packet", Captain Lindsay, ran aground on

Namquit Point. While in this position, the "Gaspee" was boarded on the

following night by a party of citizens led by John Brown, a respectable

merchant. In the _mêlée_ the lieutenant was wounded and the vessel was

burned. The affair created a great sensation in England, and it was

ordered that those engaged in it should be sent to England for trial.

For this purpose the home government appointed colonial commissioners,

who sat at Newport from the 4th to the 22 January, 1773, to inquire

into the matter.[124] At the end of their deliberations they required

Wanton, the governor of Rhode Island, to arrest the offenders, for

trial in England. He appealed for directions to the Assembly, as did

Stephen Hopkins, the chief-justice of the highest court. That body

referred the matter to the discretion of the chief-justice, and he

accordingly refused to arrest, or to allow the arrest of, any person

for transportation.[125] Nothing came of the order except ill-humor in

England and indignation in the colonies, where it was regarded as an

invasion of their constitutional right of trial by their peers.

Samuel Adams was always busy on political subjects; nor were subjects

wanting. The Earl of Hillsborough had been succeeded in the American

department (August 4, 1772) by Lord Dartmouth; but the change in

administration made no change in the policy of paying the salaries

of the provincial judges by the king, and thus rendering them less

dependent on the popular will. This was thought to be in derogation of

colonial rights, especially so long as the judges held their seats only

during the king's pleasure.

[Illustration: JOSEPH WARREN.

From a pastel owned by the heirs of the late Hon. C. F. Adams. It is

unfinished below the chest.—ED.]

Accordingly, a town meeting assembled in Faneuil Hall, October 28,

and adjourned November 2d. Samuel Adams moved "that a committee of

correspondence be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state

the rights of the colonies, and of this province in particular, as

men, as Christians, and as subjects; to communicate and publish the

same to the several towns in this province and to the world, as the

sense of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof that

have been, or from time to time may be, made; also requesting of each

town a free communication of their sentiments on this subject."[126]

This was the beginning of an organization (November 22), entered into

with hesitation by some of the leading patriots of Boston, which

finally secured the public confidence, and became a great power for the

concentration of popular sentiment.

[Illustration: PRINTED PAGE.

Slightly reduced from an original in the Boston Public Library.—ED.]

It undoubtedly led to the larger measure of intercolonial

correspondence instituted by Virginia during the next spring; and not

the least of its claims to consideration is the fact that it engaged

the attention and secured the services of Joseph Warren as the trusted

lieutenant of Samuel Adams.[127]

The American Revolution rests upon grounds so high and clear, and was

carried forward by measures so honorably conceived and so persistently

adhered to, that all who adopt its principles must regret any

circumstance in its history by which the opinion of candid people is

divided. Such a division is found in connection with the Hutchinson

letters. The story is briefly this:—In the years 1768 and 1769

Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, then officers in Massachusetts,

appointed by the crown, and sworn to a faithful discharge of their

duties, with several other persons, in a private correspondence with

Thomas Whately, an English gentleman, formerly, but not then, connected

with the government, communicated facts about colonial affairs the

truth of which has never been impugned, and expressed opinions which

Tories might honestly entertain. These letters in some unexplained

manner found their way—either from the cabinet of the person to whom

they were addressed, after his death, or, as is more likely, from the

papers of George Grenville, to whom Whately had probably entrusted

them for perusal—into the hands of Franklin, the colony agent in

London, by whom they were sent in 1773, with an unsigned letter, to

the speaker of the Massachusetts House. The injunctions in respect to

them were loosely regarded, and they were published by a breach of

faith which implicated a large body of men. They were made the basis of

a petition by the General Court to the king for the removal of their

writers from the offices which they held; but after a hearing before

the Privy Council, January 29, 1774, the petition, which the province

did not attempt to support by evidence, was dismissed as "groundless,

vexatious, and scandalous." Two days later, Dr. Franklin was removed

from the office of deputy postmaster-general for the colonies,—a

circumstance of great consequence to the American cause, since it

irrevocably committed to it one who had been thought its lukewarm

promoter.

Massachusetts, which had led in most of the Revolutionary movements,

did not take the lead in establishing committees of correspondence

between the colonies. That honor belongs to Virginia; and its

chief cause was the action of the commissioners in the "Gaspee"

case. March 12, 1773, Dabney Carr, who had been put forward at the

suggestion of Jefferson, moved certain resolutions in the Virginia

House of Burgesses, which, supported by Richard Henry Lee and Patrick

Henry, were unanimously adopted. Rhode Island followed in adopting

similar measures. On May 28th the Massachusetts House responded to

Virginia.[128] Hutchinson justly considers this as one of the most

important and daring movements of the patriotic Party during the

Revolution.[129] It paved the way for the union of the colonies and

for the General Congress which was convened at Philadelphia the next

year.

To the patriots of Philadelphia belongs the credit of making the first

public demonstration against the project of the East India Company for

transporting their accumulated stock of tea to America, in a series

of resolutions passed October 18, at a meeting held in the State

House.[130] News of the intention of the company to do this had reached

America in August. Samuel Adams was ready. The towns in the province

of Massachusetts were aroused by Joseph Warren's circular letter in

behalf of the Committee of Correspondence, September 21, 1773, and

the Philadelphia resolutions were adopted in Faneuil Hall. Constant

communications were kept up between the importing colonies. Ships

loaded with tea were dispatched about the month of August to Boston,

New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, but the tone of the public

press in those towns indicated a determination not to allow the sale of

the cargoes. The Charleston consignees, on the request of the people,

resigned; those at Boston refused. November 28, one of the tea ships

arrived in Boston, followed not long after by two more. These were

placed under guard by the patriots. The consignees would neither resign

nor return the tea, and the time was near at hand when they would

be seized for non-payment of duties. Thursday, December 16, a large

meeting of the citizens was held at the Old South Church, at which

Josiah Quincy, Jr., spoke in words that have become historical. After

all efforts to induce Hutchinson to grant a pass for the return of the

tea (which he thought would be illegal) had proved futile, a war-whoop

was sounded at the door of the Old South, and a large company of men

disguised as Indians rushed to Griffin's wharf. Teas to the value

of £18,000 were thrown from the vessels into the sea, and the same

treatment was bestowed upon another cargo which came some weeks later.

This act, although applauded throughout the colonies, was not imitated

by them; other means were found to prevent the sale of the teas.[131]

While the news of these events was on its way to England, John Adams

signalized his zeal in the patriotic cause and evinced his faith in the

provincial constitution by leading in the impeachment of Chief-Justice

Oliver for having accepted his salary from the crown instead of the

people, in derogation of their fundamental rights.[132]

Governor Hutchinson, finding himself powerless to quell the storm,

determined to put himself in closer communication with the ministry by

going to England, but was delayed by the death of Lieutenant-Governor

Oliver, until he was finally superseded by General Gage, who arrived in

Boston May 13, 1774. As he was about to leave, he received an address,

dated May 30, approving his conduct, and signed by many respectable

Tories; but some of them were afterwards obliged by threats of popular

violence to make their recantations in the newspapers. June 1, he

sailed from Boston, and never saw his native shore again.[133] In

the mean time an account of the destruction of the teas had reached

England, and produced great indignation, which was shared to some

extent by the most ardent friends of the colonists, whose efforts to

mitigate and delay the punishment visited upon the offending people of

Boston were unavailing. On the 7th of March, the king sent a message

communicating the despatches from America; and on the 14th Lord North

brought in the Boston Port Bill, which transferred the commerce of

Boston, after the 1st of June, to Salem, but gave power to the king, in

council, to restore it, upon the return of order and full compensation

to the owners for the teas destroyed. Having passed both Houses, this

received the king's assent March 31, and took effect June 1. While

the measure was pending in the House of Lords, Lord North introduced

another bill, which provided for the appointment of councillors by the

crown, the appointment and removal by the governor of judges of the

superior courts, justices of the peace, and other minor officers, and,

with the consent of the council, of sheriffs. The governor's permission

was made necessary for the holding of town meetings, except for the

choice of officers. It was also provided by another act that offenders

and witnesses might be transported for trial to the other colonies, or

to England.[134]

These severe measures did not pass without resistance or protest by the

liberal party in Parliament. They reached Boston June 2, 1774, were

printed in the newspapers on the 3d, and soon found their way into all

the colonies, where they excited indignation against the ministry and

sympathy for the people of Boston, which was manifested by liberal

contributions for relief when afterwards the loss of business had

brought distress. If anything more was needed to arouse the anger of

New England, it was supplied by the Quebec Bill, less objectionable

to that section because it extended the bounds of Canada over regions

for which the colonies had contended, than because it perpetuated

civil and ecclesiastical institutions hateful to the descendants of

Puritans. Hutchinson thought that these severe measures would bring

the recalcitrant Bostonians to reason. But he was mistaken. The matter

had already passed from the forum of reason, and was reserved for the

arbitrament of impending war. Instead of being subdued, the spirit of

the people became more resolute.

The Boston Port Bill, designed as a punishment for the destruction of

the tea, brought ruin to the commerce of Boston, and distress to all

whose subsistence depended upon it; but its political effect was to

draw the colonies together, and that was so effectually promoted by the

vigorous action of the committee of correspondence that the idea of a

continental congress soon became general.

[Illustration: A CONTEMPORARY PRINT.

Sketched from a finely executed mezzotint, published in London in 1774.

The man thrown from his horse seems to be Gage. The original belongs to

the Boston Public Library.—ED.]

On May 26, 1774, Governor Gage informed the General Court that by

the king's command its sessions would be held at Salem from June 1st

until further orders. The court was convened at that place, and the

patriots, guided by Samuel Adams, were making arrangements for a

general congress at Philadelphia, when the governor, getting a hint of

their action, sent Flucker, the provincial secretary, with a message to

dissolve them. The secretary, however, found the door of the chamber

of the Representatives locked; and before it was opened, that body had

determined that "a committee should be appointed to meet, as soon as

may be, the committees that are or shall be appointed by the several

colonies on this continent, to consult together upon the present state

of the colonies", and had chosen James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John

Adams, Thomas Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine delegates thereto. Such

was the origin in Massachusetts of the first Continental Congress which

met at Philadelphia September 5, 1774.[135]

The 17th of June, the day on which delegates to the Continental

Congress were chosen, is also notable for "the Port Act" meeting in

Faneuil Hall. From the general distress among the laboring classes in

Boston the Tories had expected a reaction in favor of the ministry;

consequently a counter demonstration by the patriots was deemed

advisable. In the absence of Samuel Adams, then at Salem, John Adams

was chosen moderator, and from this time he was one of the most

conspicuous actors in the American Revolution. Joseph Warren was also

present, and active in the cause which, a year later, he consecrated

with his blood. The action of the town became widely known from a

broadside, which is here reproduced.

After the repeal of the Stamp Act and the modifying of the Townshend

act, there remained nothing to threaten seriously the pockets of

the colonists. The tea duty had been retained to save the claim

of parliamentary supremacy, which was not likely to be asserted

in any offensive way. The navigation acts must soon have given

way to a more liberal and equitable policy, and everything out of

Massachusetts—certainly out of New England—indicated that the people

were becoming tired of strife, and were ready for a return to more

cordial relations with the mother country. This was what Samuel Adams

feared, and determined to prevent. To this end nothing could have been

more efficient than his policy in respect to the teas, and nothing

more to his mind than the consequent action of Parliament. After this

a contention which had been mainly local became general. The essential

modification of the Massachusetts charter was a blow which imperilled

every colonial government, and made the cause of Massachusetts that of

every other colony,—a cause for which other colonies manifested their

sympathy not only in relieving the distress occasioned by the closing

of the port of Boston, but by uniting in declarations of their common

right to maintain the integrity of a system of government which had

been forming through many generations.

The Congress of 1774 was the inevitable result of the conduct of the

British ministry subsequent to the peace of 1763. This served only to

engender discontent in the colonies, and to strengthen the purpose

of the patriotic party to hasten a revolution which many regarded as

inevitable in time. The parliamentary government of the colonies fell

into confusion for want of a well-defined policy and a consistent

administration. But instead of such a policy, colonial affairs were

regulated by ministers as wide apart in their views as Grenville,

Rockingham, Townshend, Grafton, Shelburne, Hillsborough, Lord North,

and Earl Dartmouth. Nothing could have kept the colonies as an integral

part of the empire except some plan such as Franklin or Pownall might

have devised and Shelburne might have administered. But the colonies

were remote and but little known, and in the complication of European

affairs, and amid the contentions of parties, they received only slight

and intermittent attention from the ministry or the Parliament. No

statesman save Choiseul seems to have understood the completeness of

the change in interests which had been brought about by the extinction

of the French power in America, or the necessary advance of the

colonies under a new régime to a place among the great powers of the

world. The colonists themselves felt, rather than understood, their

relations to nationality and to the commerce of the world. This was the

time chosen by the British ministry to impose upon them the restrictive

mercantile system of Charles II.

[Illustration: BROADSIDE, JUNE 17, 1774.

The original is in the Boston Public Library. There are other

significant broadsides of about this time. On June 8th, the citizens of

Boston issued an address to their countrymen relative to the blockade

of their port, and on July 26th they adopted a letter on the blockade,

which was sent to the several towns,—both in broadside.—ED.]

It is doubtful, however, whether any policy could have rendered

permanent the subjection of the colonies, even such a nominal

subjection as that in which they had always been held. In looking

for the causes of the Revolution, it is well to discriminate between

those which were general in their effects and those which were local.

The latter had been more actively operative and of longer existence

in Massachusetts, where the Revolution began, than in any other

colony. These were interwoven with the civil and ecclesiastical

history of her people, which made them peculiarly apprehensive in

respect to threatened invasion of rights which they had secured only

by expatriation. Although the peculiar experience of Massachusetts

did not cause the Revolution, it is doubtful whether, except for that

experience, the Revolution would have occurred for some years. Nor was

resistance to the Anglican ecclesiastical pretensions, connected as

they were with the most odious features of the prerogative, confined

to New England, but made itself felt in New York and in Virginia.[136]

The general causes were the ever present and ever active strife between

parties,—the liberals and the conservatives,—arising from a diversity

of political ideas, and intensified by ambition, interest, and personal

animosities. But the proximate causes of the Revolution will be found

in that change of policy which led the ministry, at the close of a war

that had strained the colonies to the utmost, to enforce the navigation

laws, to lay taxes, to invoke the prerogative, and finally to overthrow

the government of Massachusetts, and thus to threaten the autonomy of

the people under the provincial constitutions.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE change in British colonial policy contemplated by the ministry

during the progress of the French War, and entered upon between 1763

and 1774, developed those causes of dissatisfaction which had been

intermittently operative for more than a century, and finally led to

war in 1775. In the preceding chapter I have omitted, or passed lightly

over, many incidents of the period which had no particular political

significance, and dwelt more at length on the principles and causes

which led to the Revolution. I shall pursue the same course in this

essay.

The growth and development of the colonies brought forward, in

succession, two practical questions. The first was, how far the

interests of the colonies, as appendages to the crown, but subject,

nevertheless, to an undefined parliamentary authority, could be

subordinated to the interests of the trading and manufacturing classes

in England. This was purely an economic question, and the answer to

it in England assumed the subjection of the colonies and the validity

of the mercantile system, neither of which was vigorously contested

by the colonists so long as neither was rigidly enforced. But the

question changed during the progress, and more especially at the close,

of the French War, and then became this: How far could the interests

of the colonies be subordinated to the necessities of an imperial

revenue and the political policy of an empire? Hence arose the second

question: What degree of autonomy could be allowed to the colonies, as

integral parts of the empire, entitled to its privileges and subject

to its burdens, when both were to be determined consistently with the

constitutional prerogatives of the king and the supremacy of Parliament

on the one side, and on the other with the natural and acquired rights

of the colonies?

Regarded purely as an economic question, it was a matter of

indifference to the colonists whether their pockets were depleted

by the enforcement of an old policy or by the adoption of a new

policy. The Sugar Act of 1733, if enforced, would have produced a

parliamentary tax. The Grenville Act of 1764 did no more. But the

former was intended as a regulation of trade; the latter to produce a

revenue. This difference of intent raised a constitutional question,

and it was on this constitutional question, behind which lay the real

economic question, that the patriotic party chose to fight the battle.

Grenville's Act, as an external tax, produced but little; and the Stamp

Act, as an internal tax, not a farthing.

It was, therefore, mainly on the constitutional question—of the right

to tax, rather than to throw off intolerable burdens—that people

divided into parties. As Webster said, "They went to war against a

preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration."[137] To

understand the attitude of the tories on the economic question as

well as on the constitutional question, we must consider the state of

colonial affairs which led to the Congress of 1754, and the tentative

efforts of that body to find consistent and reciprocal relations of the

colonies to the imperial government, for union, defence, and revenue.

To understand the attitude of the patriots, we must consider the

reasons of the ministry for rejecting such a union, and their efforts

to force each colony into relations to the crown and Parliament deemed

by them consistent and reciprocal, but regarded by the colonists as

subversive of their rights as Englishmen, and of their rights acquired

by charters, growth, development, and usage, which, as they justly

claimed, had become constitutional.

Though the enforcement of the navigation laws and acts of trade, at

the close of the French War, is regarded by historians as one of the

principal causes of the Revolution, I fail to find a satisfactory

or entirely accurate account of them, either as the basis of the

mercantile system, or, later, of a revenue system. Such a treatment

would hardly be practicable in the limits of a general history. These

laws have been elaborately discussed by Thomas Mun, Sir Josiah Child,

Sir William Patty, Charles Davenant, Joshua Gee, John Ashley, and, not

to mention others, Adam Smith and Henry Brougham. But these authors

wrote with reference to their influence, as part of the mercantile

system, on British interests. How they affected colonial interests is

the question which chiefly concerns us.

To answer this question we must know not merely what those laws

enacted, but to what state of colonial trade they originally and

successively applied. For instance, what, from time to time, by

development of agricultural or other industries, between 1640 and 1774,

had the colonists to sell, and what, as they increased in wealth, did

they wish to purchase; and where, left to the unrestricted course of

trade, would they have carried their products, and where purchased

their merchandise? In other words, what would they have done and become

under free trade?

Then we must know what changes in this normal condition of trade were

intended by the navigation laws, and to what extent and with what

effect their partial enforcement operated before 1763. With these facts

before us, we could estimate with some exactness the valid objections

to the new system on the part of the colonists, when enforced by the

British navy, commissioners of customs, admiralty courts, and writs of

assistance, and what was their influence in bringing on the Revolution.

Having made up the debit account, we should be able to set against

it the compensations in naval protection, bounties,[138] drawbacks,

British capital, and long credits, in developing colonial agriculture

and commerce.[139]

Unfortunately there does not exist any history of the commerce of

the American colonies, from the Commonwealth to 1774, as affected

by navigation laws, acts of trade, and revenue measures. No one who

has read the twenty-nine acts which comprise this legislation will

recommend their perusal to another; for, apart from their volume, the

construction of these acts is difficult,—difficult even to trained

lawyers like John Adams, whose business it was to advise clients

in respect to them.[140] Nor have special students, like Bancroft,

stated their effect with exact precision, as in respect to the Act of

1663;[141] and notably in respect to the Townshend Act of 1767,[142]

where his error amounts to a perversion of its meaning. Palfrey has

been more successful, though not entirely free from error.[143] The

author of the _Development of Constitutional Liberty_,[144] a work

of uncommon research and ability, reads the act of 1672 as though it

prohibited the carrying of fish from Massachusetts to Rhode Island

except by the way of England, failing to notice that it was not one

of the "enumerated articles", or that even those could pass directly

from colony to colony upon payment, at the place of export, of duties

equivalent to those laid upon their importation to England. To give a

monographic treatment to the subject would require familiarity with

the construction of statutes, and exact information not only of the

shifting conditions of colonial trade, but of the evasions which called

forth supplemental acts, or constructions of existing acts by the Board

of Trade.[145]

In Burke's _Account of the European Settlements in America_[146] much

may be found respecting colonial products and commerce, and especially

those of New England (in ch. vii.), which leaves little to be desired

concerning the sources of her wealth, and the complaints of British

merchants of the methods by which it had been acquired. But I have

found nowhere else so full and clear an account of the course of trade

of Boston at the time of the Revolution, and the effect upon it of the

enforcement of the navigation laws and acts of trade in 1770, as in an

anonymous pamphlet entitled _Observations of the Merchants at Boston in

N. E. upon Several Acts of Parliament, 1770_.[147]

An essential part of this history is that which relates to the medium

of exchange, and to the attempts of Parliament to regulate the

issue of paper money as a legal tender in the interests of British

merchants.[148]

The history of the navigation laws suggests the similarity of the

causes which led to the successive revolutions of 1689 and 1775 in

Massachusetts. The violation of these laws was a principal reason for

the abrogation of the first charter, in 1684, graphically described

by Palfrey,[149] and their enforcement by courts of admiralty, under

Dudley, Andros, and Randolph, was one cause of the overthrow of

the Andros government in 1689.[150] The resistance to the same and

additional enactments, when enforced as revenue measures, led to

the alteration of the second charter in 1774, and this again led to

revolution by the united colonies.

One of the most efficient instruments in the execution of the

navigation laws was the writs of assistance granted by the court in

Massachusetts in 1761.[151]

If the student of American history finds difficulty in accepting the

common accounts of the constitutional opinions and motives of two

fifths of the colonists, among whom were many who must be regarded as

intelligent and respectable, his doubts as to the accuracy of these

narratives receive some confirmation when he becomes familiar with the

history of the Congress of 1754, the circumstances which led to it, and

the opinions of some of its representative men. A comparison of their

views will show how far they were willing to go in the "abridgment of

English liberties", for the sake of union, defence, and government.

Franklin, Hutchinson, and Pownall formed plans for union, and all were

at Albany in 1754, and participated in the discussions, though Pownall,

not being a member, explained his views outside the congress.[152]

The difference between Pownall, Hutchinson, and Franklin was this:

that while all contemplated the union of the empire under one general

government as something dictated by the interest of all the parts,

Hutchinson limited the power of the President more than Franklin,

and Pownall was unwilling to contemplate the transfer of its seat

to America; the prospect of which gave Franklin no concern. "The

government cannot be long retained without union. Which is best, to

have a total separation, or a change of the seat of government?"[153]

Speculations as to the results of such a union are now idle, unless

for the interest drawn towards them by Professor Seeley's _Expansion

of England_, and Franklin's belief, expressed in 1789, "that if the

foregoing plan [that of 1754], or something like it, had been adopted

and carried into execution, the subsequent separation of the colonies

from the mother country might not so soon have happened, nor the

mischiefs suffered on both sides have occurred, perhaps, during another

century."[154]

A comparison of the views of such men as Franklin, Hutchinson, and

Pownall, expressed before they were forced into partisan relations to

the impending conflict, help us in forming opinions respecting their

conduct when affairs, no longer within the control of individuals, were

swept onward by an uncontrollable impulse. Neither the colonies[155]

nor the ministry approved of the proposed union; and when the new

policy of raising a revenue was inaugurated the colonies were without

defined integral relations to the mother country, and the government

without administrative machinery for their regulation. The result was

confusion. The press became heated, and an angry war of pamphlets

ensued. At first the controversy was confined to the distinction

between internal taxes and commercial regulations, but soon it involved

the whole question of parliamentary power. This was elaborately and

temperately discussed in the _Farmer's Letters_, by John Dickinson,

but nowhere in America with more fulness (within the period covered by

this chapter) than by Governor Hutchinson and the two Houses of the

Massachusetts General Court, in messages and answers respectively, in

January and February, 1773.[156]

So far as the Revolution grew out of the Massachusetts controversy

between the king's representatives and the General Court, its progress

may be traced in the _Speeches of the Governors of Massachusetts,

1765 to 1775, and the Answers of the House of Representatives to the

same_.[157] These authentic documents, with the _Journals of the House_

and the _Records of the Town of Boston_, may be referred to as showing

the temper with which the parties treated each other, and the questions

that were of paramount interest. The student will not find it easy

to ascertain the facts which should make the history of the period.

Contemporaneous accounts were generally drawn up with a partisan

disregard of truth, and too much has been written subsequently in the

same spirit. For the critical period of 1768, when the troops were sent

over on account of the revenue riots, we have Bernard's _Letters_,

which, though representing only one side, were written under a sense of

official responsibility to the government. Though much complained of

at the time as wanting in candor, their statements were evaded rather

than controverted by the _Answer of the Major Part of the Council_, in

a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough (April 15, 1769), as well as in

_The Vindication of the Town of Boston_ (Oct. 18, 1769), drafted by

Samuel Adams. For the entire period covered by this chapter, I find no

narrative apparently more just, or opinions more candidly expressed,

than in Ramsay's _History of the American Revolution_. Remote from the

scene of the conflict, Ramsay shared the passions of neither party.

The most important events of this period were the passage of the Boston

Port Bill, and other related measures. The reasons which led to these

acts are set forth at length in _The Report from the Committee on the

Disturbances in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay_, April 20, 1774.[158]

In this report may be seen the strength of the British case. Franklin's

view of the matters referred to in the Report of the Lords may be found

in a paper entitled _Proceedings in Massachusetts_,[159] and the bill

itself was discussed in an interesting pamphlet by Josiah Quincy, Jr.,

_Observations on the Act of Parliament_.[160]

Franklin's paper was a clever argument in which he treated facts so as

to serve his purpose rather than that of historic truth. His use of

Oliver's phrase, "to take off the original incendiaries", which was a

pleasant _ad hominem_ hit, has been adopted seriously by Bancroft,[161]

in a chapter entitled "A Way to Take off the Incendiaries." The

concessions which Franklin was willing to make for a settlement of

the difficulties, as late as December 4, 1774, may be seen in "Some

Special Transactions of Dr. Franklin in London, in Behalf of America",

in Ramsay.[162]

[Illustration]

EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE argument of Otis on the Writs of Assistance is the first

well-arranged expression of the gathering opposition,[163] and what

John Adams called "the heaves and throes of the burning mountain",

forerunning the eruption, were shown in James Otis's _A vindication

of the conduct of the House of Representatives of the province of

the Massachusetts-Bay; more particularly, in the last session of the

general assembly_ (Boston, 1762).[164]

John Dickinson and Joseph Galloway were already pitted against each

other on the question of maintaining the proprietary government of

Pennsylvania, or of seeking a royal one.[165]

Frothingham[166] says the earliest organized action against taxation

was when the town of Boston passed instructions to its representatives,

May 24, 1764, the original writing of which is among the Samuel Adams

MSS. The paper was printed in the newspapers of the day, and shortly

afterwards in the famous tract of Otis, _The Rights of the British

Colonies asserted and proved_,[167] in which, however, he failed, with

all his fervid and cogent reasoning, to stand in every respect by the

advanced position which he had taken in his plea against the Writs of

Assistance.[168]

[Illustration: JAMES OTIS.

After a statue of James Otis, by Crawford, in the chapel at Mount

Auburn. The usual portrait of Otis is by Blackburn, painted in 1755,

and now owned by Mrs. H. B. Rogers. The earliest engraving of it which

I have noticed is by A. B. Durand in Tudor, and again in the _Worcester

Magazine_ (1826), vol. i. It has been engraved by W. O. Jackman, J.

R. Smith, O. Pelton, and best of all by C. Schlecht, in Gay's _Pop.

Hist. U. S._, iii. 332. Cf. Loring's _Hundred Boston Orators_, and

the woodcut in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 6. The earliest engraved

likeness is probably a rude cut on the title of Bickerstaff's _Almanac_

(1770), which is reproduced in Lossing's _Field-Book of the Rev._, i.

486.

There is a photograph of the house where Otis was killed by lightning

(May 28, 1783) in Bailey's _Andover_, p. 86. Cf. _Appleton's Journal_,

xi. 784. The principal detailed authority on the career of Otis (born,

1724; died, 1783) is William Tudor's _Life of James Otis_, which

Lecky, in his _England in the Eighteenth Century_ (iii. 304), calls "a

remarkable book from which I have derived much assistance." Francis

Bowen wrote the life in Sparks's _Amer. Biog._, vol. xii. John Adams

had an exalted opinion of Otis, and Otis's character receives various

touches in Adams's _Works_ (x. 264, 271, 275, 279, 280, 284, 289-295,

299, 300). Bancroft depicts him in 1768 (vol. vi. 120, orig. ed.),

but he failed rapidly later by reason of the blows he received in an

assault in Sept., 1769, provoked by him. Cf. Greene's _Hist. View_ (p.

322); D. A. Goddard in _Mem. Hist. Boston_ (iii. 140); Barry's _Mass._

(ii. 259).]

One of the ablest as well as one of the most temperate expressions of

the stand taken by the colonies was in Stephen Hopkins's _Rights of the

Colonies examined; published by Authority_ (Providence, 1765).[169]

Similar arguments were set forth in behalf of Connecticut by its

governor.[170]

Already, in 1764, when Oxenbridge Thacher printed his _Sentiments

of a British American_, he had formulated the arguments against the

navigation acts and British taxation, which ten years later, in

the Congress of 1774, Jay embodied in his Address to the British

People.[171]

John Adams, in later years, when distance clarified the atmosphere,

looked upon the conflict which Jonathan Mayhew waged with Apthorpe, and

with the abettors of all schemes for imposing episcopacy on the people

by act of Parliament, as the repelling of an attack upon the people's

right to decide such questions for themselves, and as but a forerunner

of the great subsequent question.[172]

[Illustration: JONATHAN MAYHEW.

Copied from a mezzotint engraving in the American Antiquarian Society's

possession, marked "Richard Jennys, jun., pinxt et fecit."

A portrait by Smibert, and engraved by J. B. Cipriani, is in Hollis's

_Memoirs_ (1780), p. 371; and a reëngraving has been made by H. W.

Smith. Cf. Bradford's _Life of Mayhew_; Thornton's _Pulpit of the

Rev._; _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, ii. 245, with note on his portraits.

The principal source of detailed information about Mayhew is Alden

Bradford's _Memoir of the life and writings of Jonathan Mayhew_

(Boston, 1838). Cf. Tudor's _Otis_ (ch. 10); Thomas Hollis's _Memoirs_;

Tyler's _Amer. Lit._ (ii. p. 199); touches in _John Adams's Works_ (iv.

29; x. 207, 301); and on his death, Dr. Benjamin Church's _Elegy_, Dr.

Chauncy's discourse, both in 1766, and the _Life of Josiah Quincy,

Jr._, p. 384.]

The issue on the question of taxation without representation was

forced, after many indications of its coming,[173] when the British

Parliament passed the Grenville Act in 1764, and in the next year what

is known as the Stamp Act, a tax on business papers, increasing their

cost at different rates, but sometimes manyfold.[174] The question

of the authorship of the bill is one about which there has been some

controversy,[175] and, contrary to the general impression, the truth

seems to be that the consideration of the bill caused little attention

in and out of Parliament, and the debates on it were languid.[176]

In May a knowledge of the passage of the Stamp Act reached Boston,[177]

and it was to go into effect Nov. 1st. In June the Massachusetts

legislature determined to invite a congress of all the colonies in

October. In August it was known that Jared Ingersoll for Connecticut

and Andrew Oliver for Boston had agreed to become distributors of the

stamps. The mob hanged an effigy of Oliver on the tree afterwards

known as Liberty Tree,[178] and other outrages followed. The governor

did not dare to leave the castle. Dr. Mayhew delivered a sermon,

vigorous and perhaps incendiary, as Hutchinson averred when he traced

to it the passions of the mob which destroyed his own house in North

Square on the evening of August 26th.[179] The town contented itself

with passing a unanimous vote of condemnation the next day.[180] On

Sept. 25th Bernard addressed the legislature in a tone that induced

them to reply (Oct. 25th), and to fortify their position by resolves

(Oct. 29th).[181] Finally, in December, Andrew Oliver,[182] the stamp

distributor, was forced to resign, and on the 17th to sign an oath that

he would in no way lend countenance to the tax.[183]

The spirit in Boston was but an index of the feelings throughout all

the colonies.[184] The histories of the several States and the lives of

their revolutionary actors make this clear.[185]

In October, 1765, what is known as the Stamp Act Congress assembled

in New York, in the old City Hall.[186] Its proceedings are in print,

and its deliberations are followed in the general histories and in the

lives of its members.[187]

Franklin had, with considerable opposition, been appointed the London

agent of Pennsylvania in 1764, and, being in that city, was accused by

James Biddle of promoting the passage of the Stamp Act, but his letters

show how he seems only to have yielded when he could not prevail in

opposing.[188]

In July, 1765, the Rockingham administration came in, followed by

the parliamentary sparring of Grenville and Pitt. In February, 1766,

Dr. Franklin was examined before the House of Commons as to the

temper of the colonies respecting the Stamp Act. He gave them some

good advice,[189] and a full report of the questions and answers is

preserved.[190] Parliament having passed the so-called Declaratory

Act (March 7th) in vindication of its prerogatives, Pitt and Conway

effected the repeal of the Stamp Act (March 18th), and vessels

immediately sailed to carry the news to the colonies.[191] The whole

question of taxation, thus brought squarely to an issue by the

controversy over the Stamp Act, induced frequent rehearsals of argument

in debates and pamphlet, and the later historians have summarized the

opposing views.[192]

Josiah Tucker, the Dean of Gloucester, began in 1766 a series of

tracts, which he continued for ten years, in which he advanced

sentiments respecting the colonies, not very flattering, while at the

same time he held to arguments which few at the time admitted the force

of, when he advocated the peaceful separation of America from the

crown.[193]

The most important presentation of the Tory insistence in defence

of the Stamp Act policy came directly—or, at least, through his

secretary, Charles Lloyd—from Grenville himself, in his attack on the

Rockingham party, in the _Conduct of the late Administration examined,

with Documents_.[194]

[Illustration: GEORGE THE THIRD.

Reproduction of a print in Entick's _General Hist. of the Late War_

(3d ed., 1770), iv. frontispiece. A profile likeness, showing the king

in armor, is in Murray's _Impartial History of the present War in

America_, (London, 1778).]

The movements for organization to suppress importation, which had

begun in 1765, taking shape particularly in Philadelphia in Oct.

and Nov.,[195] were brought into definite prominence by the votes

of Boston, Oct. 28, 1767,[196] copies of which were circulated in

broadside, as shown in the annexed fac-simile.[197] The influence of

these had more marked effect in England than had followed any previous

manifestations of that kind.[198]

[Illustration: PRINTED PAGE]

[Illustration: HANDBILL

Copy of a broadside in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society.]

Some other fac-similes are also given indicative of the prevailing

coercive measures, which soon became popular. The next year (1768)

committees were appointed in New York to consider the expediency of

entering into measures to encourage industry and frugality and to

employ the poor, and by 1769 the movement looking to independence of

the British manufacturers became general through the colonies.[199]

[Illustration: FROM EDES AND GILL'S NORTH AMERICAN ALMANACK, 1770.]

In February, 1768, the Massachusetts House of Representatives, by

a circular letter addressed to the other colonies, invited them to

consultation.[200] It drew from Hillsborough a circular letter of

warning to the continent,[201] and in May Virginia issued a letter

inviting a conference.[202] On June 10, 1768, the seizure of the sloop

"Liberty" brought further riotous proceedings in its train.[203]

[Illustration: PROSCRIBING AN IMPORTER.

After an original handbill in the Mass. Hist. Soc. library.]

What is known as the "War of the Regulators", or "Regulation", a series

of riotous disturbances in North Carolina, 1768-1771, has usually been

held to be one of the preliminary uprisings against British oppression.

A. W. Waddell, in a paper in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._ (1871,

p. 81), contends that it was nothing but a lawless outburst, and

advances evidence to prove that the participants were but a small

majority of the people, with no great principle in view; that they were

ignorant, never republicans, became Tories, and were opposed by the

prominent Whig leaders. He considers that Caruthers and other local

historians[204] are responsible for the common misconception arising

from their attempt to reflect credit on North Carolina for what is

claimed to be an early patriotic fervor.

[Illustration: LANDING OF THE TROOPS IN BOSTON, 1768.

Fac-simile of an engraving by Paul Revere, which appeared in _Edes and

Gill's North American Almanack_, Boston, 1770. It is reëngraved in S.

G. Drake's _Boston_, p. 747, and in S. A. Drake's _Old Landmarks of

Boston_, p. 119. KEY: 1, The "Beaver", 14 guns; 2, "Senegal", 14; 3,

"Martin", 10; 4, "Glasgow", 20; 5, "Mermaid", 28; 6, "Romney", 50; 7,

"Launaston", 40; 8, "Bonetta", 10.

Revere also engraved a large copperplate of the same event, which is

given in heliotype fac-simile, on different scales, in the _Boston

Evacuation Memorial_ (p. 18) and _Mem. Hist. of Boston_ (ii. 532). Cf.

also Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 356; Dearborn's _Boston Notions_,

126, etc. The same view of the town was again used by Revere, but

extended farther south, in a cut in the _Royal American Mag._ (1774),

which is given in fac-simile in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, ii. 441.

There is also a water-color mentioned in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 2d

ser., ii. 156. On Revere as an engraver, see W. S. Baker's _American

Engravers_, Philad., 1875, and the list in _N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg._,

1886, p. 204.

In Sept. (dated 14th) the selectmen of Boston sent a circular to the

other towns, calling a convention (_Boston Rec. Com. Rept._, xvi. 263)

to consider the declaration of Bernard "that one or more regiments

may soon be expected in this province" (original broadside in Mass.

Hist. Soc., _Misc. MSS._, 1632-1795). It is printed and explained in

that society's _Proceedings_, iv. 387. The convention sat from Sept.

22d to 29th. On the 30th, in the early morning, the British fleet

took soundings along the water-front, and in the afternoon a number

of war-ships came up from the lower harbor and anchored with springs

on their cables. On Oct. 1st the landing took place. The news spread

through the land, and the irritation was increased. (Cf. _Mass. Hist.

Soc. Proc._, xx. 9; Barry, _Mass._, ii. 370; Loring, _Boston Orators_,

75; _Franklin's Works_, vii. 418.)

The question of the expense of quartering troops had been raised by

Massachusetts and New York in 1767 (Hutchinson, iii. 168), and a letter

of Gage on the subject is in the Shelburne Papers, vol. li. (_Hist.

MSS. Com. Rept._, v. 219). Cf. Hillsborough to Governor Franklin in _N.

J. Archives_, x. p. 12. The message of the Assembly to Bernard, praying

for their removal (May 31, 1769), is in Hutchinson (iii. App. 497).]

A contemporary vindication of the movement, and of Herman Husband,

the leader, bringing the history of the commotions down to 1769 only,

evidently based on material furnished by Husband, was printed in Boston

in 1771.[205] Husband himself seems, during the preceding year, to

have printed anonymously, giving no place of publication, a narrative

of his own, fortified by the letters of Tryon and others, with the

remonstrances and counter-statements.[206]

[Illustration:

This cut from Nathaniel Ames's _Astronomical diary or Almanack_, 1772,

Boston, is inscribed "The Patriotic American Farmer, J-N D-K-NS-N,

Esq., Barrister-at-Law, who with Attic Eloquence and Roman spirit hath

asserted the liberties of the British Colonies in America." Cf. Scharf

and Westcott's _Philadelphia_, i. 276.

C. W. Peale's portrait of Dickinson (1770) was engraved by I. B.

Forrest. Cf. _Catal. of Gallery of Penna. Hist. Soc._ (1872), no. 161;

Lossing's _Field-Book_, i. 476.

On Dickinson's influence, see "The great American essayist" in the

_Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Feb., 1882, p. 117; Sept., 1883, p. 223; Read's

_Life of George Read_, 49, 79; Wells's _Adams_, ii. 38; Quincy's

_Josiah Quincy, Jr._, 104; Green's _Hist. View_, 370; Lossing's

_Field-Book_, i. 476. Cf. letters of Dickinson in _Mem. Hist. Boston_,

iii. 22; Lee's _Life of A. Lee_, ii. 293, 296, etc.]

The most conspicuous presentation of the American side in 1768 were

the famous _Farmer's Letters_, as they were usually called, of John

Dickinson.[207]

Some of the most important of the documents of the Boston patriots

were printed in London under the supervision of Thomas Hollis, long a

devoted friend of the colonists.[208]

During 1768 and 1769 we find record of the workings of political

sentiments in the colonies in abundant publications.[209]

The most important development in 1769 came from some letters which had

been addressed by Governor Bernard and General Gage to the ministry,

and to which, in the exercise of his rights as a member of Parliament,

Alderman Beckford had obtained access and taken copies, subsequently

delivered by him to Bollan, who transmitted them to Boston, where they

were at once printed. From these letters the public learned of the

urgency which the governor had used with the government to induce it to

institute more stringent measures of repression.[210]

The publication of these letters led to the printing of _An appeal to

the world; or a vindication of the town of Boston, from many false

and malicious aspersions contain'd in certain letters and memorials,

written by Governor Bernard, General Gage [etc.]. Published by order of

the town_ (Boston, 1769),[211] and induced also a letter to the Earl of

Hillsborough.[212]

[Illustration: WILLIAM LIVINGSTON.

Fac-simile of the engraving in Sedgwick's _Life of William Livingston_.

Cf. Lossing's _Field-Book_, i. 330.]

There are in the _Sparks MSS._ (no. xx.) copies of annotations which

Franklin, then in London, made on the margins and fly-leaves of sundry

pamphlets, which just at this time were engaging attention in London,

and these comments show how the struggle was regarded by a mind of

Franklin's astuteness, amid the influences of the British capital.

Sparks printed parts of these annotations in his _Familiar letters and

miscellaneous pieces by Dr. Franklin_, and again in his edition of

_Franklin_, vol. iv.[213] Some letters which passed between Franklin

and William Strahan in 1769 are also of great interest.[214]

The Boston Massacre of March, 1770, was the violent culmination of

prevailing passions, and was in a measure induced by the sacrifice of

life which resulted from the boarding by a press-gang from the "Rose"

frigate of a ship belonging to Hooper, of Marblehead,[215] and by the

riotous proceedings which, in Jan., 1770, brought about the death

of the boy Snider.[216] Soon after the affray of March, the town of

Boston published a _Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston_

(Boston, Edes and Gill, 1770),[217] which depicted the condition

of the people at the time, and gave an appendix of depositions,

including one of Jeremy Belknap.[218] Copies were sent to England at

once,[219] but the rest of the edition was kept back till after the

trial, when "Additional Observations" were appended.[220] The volume,

thus completed, was reprinted in New York in 1849, with notes and

illustrations by John Daggett, Jr.; and again in Frederick Kidder's

_History of the Boston Massacre_ (Albany, 1870), which is the most

considerable monograph on the subject.[221]

[Illustration: FROM BICKERSTAFF'S BOSTON ALMANAC, 1769.

This song was written by John Dickinson, with some assistance from Dr.

Arthur Lee, and was sent (printed in the _Penna. Chronicle_, July 4,

1768) by Dickinson from Philadelphia to Otis, accompanied by a letter

dated July 4, 1768. It was sung to the tune "Hearts of Oak", and was

made conspicuous in Boston by being sung at Liberty Hall and the

Greyhound Tavern in Aug., 1768. It had been reprinted in the _Boston

Gazette_, July 18th. An amended copy, "the first being rather too

bold", was given in the _Penna. Chronicle_ July 11th. In September it

appeared as a broadside, with the music. Edes and Gill's _Almanac_, in

reprinting it in 1770, says it is "now much in vogue in North America."

(Cf. Tudor's _Life of Otis_, pp. 322, 501; Moore's _Songs and Ballads

of the Rev._, p. 37; Drake's _Town of Roxbury_, p. 166; _Mem. Hist. of

Boston_, iii. p. 131.)

A parody appeared in the _Boston Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1768 (Moore, p.

41). This parody gave rise to the "Massachusetts Song of Liberty",

which is given in Edes and Gill's _Almanac_ (1770), as well as in

Bickerstaff, under the full title of _The Parody parodized, or the

Massachusetts Liberty Song_. It has been ascribed to Mrs. Mercy Warren.

(Cf. Moore, p. 44; Lossing, _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 487.) The

_Almanac_ (Edes and Gill) of 1770 also contains "A new Song composed by

a Son of Liberty and sung by Mr. Flagg at Concert Hall, Boston, Feb.

13, 1770."]

A stenographic report was made of the trial of Preston, and sent to

England, but it has never been published.[222]

The trial of eight of the soldiers took place Nov. 27, 1770, and John

Hodgson,[223] the stenographer of the earlier trial, made a Report,

_The trial of William Wemms, ... published by permission of the Court_

(Boston, 1770),[224] which gives the evidence and pleas of counsel,

and a report of the trial of Edward Manwaring and others, accused of

firing on the crowd from the windows of the custom-house. They were

acquitted.[225] [Illustration: FROM BICKERSTAFF'S BOSTON ALMANAC,

1770.]

[Illustration: PART OF INSTRUCTIONS TO BOSTON REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 15,

1770.

The original draft of these instructions, in the handwriting of Josiah

Quincy, Jr., is among the Quincy MSS. in the cabinet of the Mass.

Hist. Society. This is a reproduction of the last page, showing the

signatures of Richard Dana and of Cooper, the town clerk.]

The principal statement on the government side was _A Fair Account of

the late unhappy disturbance at Boston, extracted from the depositions

that have been made concerning it by persons of all parties, with an

appendix containing affidavits and evidences not mentioned in the

narrative that has been published at Boston_ (London, 1770).[226]

This _Fair Account_ contained a deposition of Secretary Andrew

Oliver, tending to show that the soldiers were justifiably defending

themselves; and making public the doings of the governor's council

thereupon. This "breach of a most essential privilege" excited

animadversion, and the council censured Oliver.[227] The purport of the

English presentations is to show that the soldiers did not fire till

duly provoked by assaults, and the more candid American writers, like

Ramsay, Abiel Holmes, Hildreth, and others, seem to allow this.[228]

Bancroft (orig. ed., vi. 347) has a long note on the evidence about

the provocation and first assault. He gives ten reasons for thinking

Preston gave orders to fire, and six reasons for thinking the

provocation was not sufficient to justify the firing. The evidence in

this form is omitted in the final revision of Bancroft.

The anniversary of the Massacre was observed in Boston till the

struggle for Independence was passed, and a series of annual orations

commemorates the continued and aroused feelings of the people.[229]

The appendix to the third volume of Hutchinson's _History_ records

the sparring of Hutchinson and the legislature during the next six

months.[230]

The list of Haven in Thomas (ii. 606) gives the American tracts

published in 1770; but the more significant ones of the year appeared

in London.[231]

The year 1771 was less eventful. In England, it seemed for a while as

if the worst had passed. W. S. Johnson had written at the close of

the preceding year (Dec. 29, 1770), "The general American controversy

is at present looked upon here as very much at an end."[232]

Franklin had been made the agent for Massachusetts;[233] he was

still putting tersely to his correspondents the American view of the

controversy,[234] and he had a conference with Hillsborough.[235]

Hutchinson in March had succeeded to the governor's chair, with

reluctance, as he professed.[236] The American tracts may be gleaned in

Haven's list.[237]

The events of 1772 are of more interest. The Boston patriots emphasized

their arguments in their instructions to their representatives in

May.[238] Later (July 14th) they passed a remonstrance against taxation

and sent it to the king.[239]

[Illustration:

NOTE.—The annexed cut is part of a handbill in the library of the

Mass. Hist. Society.]

There are diverse views as to the originator of the committees of

correspondence. Gordon's opinion (i. 312) that James Warren was the

instigator was adopted by Marshall, but is held by Bancroft (vi.

428) to be erroneous. John Adams gave the first movement to Samuel

Adams.[240] One of the first-fruits of the committee, as a provincial

measure, was the report drafted by Samuel Adams (Nov. 2, 1772), which

was printed as the _Rights of the Colonies_.[241] The vote passed by

Virginia, March 12, 1773, was the immediate cause of intercolonial

activity.[242]

The seizure and destruction of the revenue vessel Gaspee in

Narragansett Bay, June 10, 1772, is considered by Rhode Island writers

as the earliest aggressive conduct of the patriots. John Russell

Bartlett,[243] in the _R. I. Colonial Records_ (vol. vii. pp. 57-192),

gathers all the documentary evidence, and this was in 1861 published

separately as _A History of the Destruction of his Britannic Majesty's

Schooner Gaspee ... accompanied by the Correspondence connected

therewith; the action of the General Assembly of Rhode Island thereon,

and the official journal of the ... Commission of Inquiry appointed by

King George III._[244]

Early in 1773 the patriots of Boston produced what is called "the most

elaborate state paper of the Revolutionary contest in Massachusetts."

This is the reply of the House of Representatives to the governor in

the contest then waging with him.[245]

The act which included the duty on tea had passed Parliament June 29,

1767, and in March, 1770, it had been repealed, except, in order to

maintain the theoretical right of Parliament to tax, the tax on tea had

been retained in force. Pownall[246] had exerted his utmost to make the

repeal include tea. The test was deferred till it was announced[247]

that the East India Company was assisted by government in sending over

a surplus of tea which they had. A series of impassioned gatherings in

Boston, and demonstrations not so boisterous in the other colonies, led

to the destruction of the tea in Boston harbor, and elsewhere resulted

in the transshipment of the tea whence it came.[248]

[Illustration: A BOSTON WARNING.

After an original in the Mass. Hist. Society.]

[Illustration: A PHILADELPHIA POSTER.

After an original in the library of the Pennsylvania Hist. Society.]

Another significant event of 1773 was the episode of the Hutchinson

letters. They had been written (1767-1769), from Boston, to Thomas

Whately, and came, after the latter's death (June, 1772), by some

unknown means, into Franklin's hands. When Cushing[249] and the

patriots printed them,—for the rumor of their existence led the

"people abroad" to compel their publication,[250]—Franklin made no

complaint, and bore with reserve the defamation which was visited

upon him in England, and which is still repeated by later English

writers,[251] Franklin finally prepared a statement in vindication,

but it was not published till Temple Franklin printed his edition

of _Franklin's Works_.[252] The letters were printed without any

indication of Franklin's connection with them; but when a duel grew

out of the publication, in which a brother of Whately was wounded

by Mr. Temple,[253] who had been accused of purloining the letters,

Dr. Franklin, to prevent a further meeting, published a note in the

_Public Advertiser_, acknowledging his agency.[254] Sparks appends a

note in his edition,[255] in which he refutes the claim of Dr. Hosack

(_Biographical Memoir of Dr. Hugh Williamson_, 1820) that Williamson

had been the medium of transmitting the letters.[256]

Mr. R. C. Winthrop, in discussing the question,[257] introduces a

paper of George Bancroft, "Whence came the papers sent by Franklin to

Cushing in his letter of Dec. 2, 1772?" Bancroft's conclusion is that

Whately sent the letters to Grenville (who died Nov. 13, 1770), and

they were found among his papers, and through some agency or consent of

Temple passed into Franklin's hand.[258]

[Illustration: QUINCY'S DEDICATION.

This is the original draft of the dedication to Quincy's tract on the

Port Bill, the MS. of which is among the Quincy MSS. in the cabinet of

the Mass. Hist. Society. Its full title is _Observations on the act of

parliament commonly called the Boston port-bill; with thoughts on civil

society and standing armies_ (Boston, 1774; Philad., 1774; London,

1774. It is reprinted in the _Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr._ Cf. Sabin,

xvi. 67,192, etc.)]

The letters, when laid before the Massachusetts Legislature, produced

some resolutions (June 25, 1773),[259] followed by a petition to the

king,[260] asking that Hutchinson and Oliver might be removed from

office. This led to the presence of Franklin before the Privy Council,

and the attack on Franklin's character by Wedderburn.[261]

[Illustration: THE QUINCY MANSION.

After a water-color painted by Miss Eliza Susan Quincy in 1822. The

house was built in 1770, by the father of the patriot, Josiah Quincy,

Jr. The original sketch is among the Quincy MSS. in the Mass. Hist.

Soc. cabinet. Cf. cut in _Appleton's Journal_, xiv. 161. Of Josiah

Quincy, Jr., there was an engraving made in his lifetime, which was

held to be a good likeness, and from this, and with the family's

assistance, Stuart, fifty years after Quincy's death, painted the

picture which is engraved in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 37.]

[Illustration: HEADING OF A HANDBILL.

Fac-simile of the top portion of an original broadside in Mass. Hist.

Society's library. The bills were that for the impartial administration

of justice, and that for better regulating the government of the

province of Massachusetts Bay.]

The earliest significant movement in 1774 was the impeachment

of Peter Oliver, chief justice, and younger brother of the late

lieutenant-governor, for receiving his salary from the crown,—the

controversy respecting the governor and other officers being thus made

independent of the people, having been one which had been active for

two years past.[262]

Gen. Gage had landed in Boston May 17th, to put in force, June 1st,

what is known as the Boston Port Bill (approved March 31, 1774), or _An

Act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time as are therein

mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods,

wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour of Boston,

in the province of Massachuset's Bay, in North America_.[263]

While Salem and Marblehead were thus made chief ports of entry, the

commerce of Boston was suddenly checked, and the town was forced to a

dependence for succor upon other towns and other colonies.[264]

The effect of the measures on the other colonies was instant and

widespread.[265]

One of the immediate results in Massachusetts because of these

oppressive acts was a retaliatory "Solemn League and Covenant" agreed

upon in the provincial assembly,—a combination made more or less

effectual by the active agency of Boston and Worcester in issuing

broadsides against the use of imported British goods.[266]

In July, 1774, close upon his arrival in London, Hutchinson held an

interview with the king, and set forth his opinions of the condition of

affairs in the colonies.[267]

In August, 1774, Gage received the two acts mentioned in the annexed

fac-simile of a handbill.[268]

It is claimed by Dawson[269] that the movements of 1774 in New York

Were precipitated by the merchants and their adherents, "aristocratic

smugglers", who formally organized themselves in May, 1774; and it was

on the 6th of July that Alexander Hamilton made his stirring appeal at

"the great meeting in the fields."[270] Further south a similar spirit

prevailed.[271]

[Illustration: HANDBILL.

Fac-simile of an original in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society,

where is another, dated Sept. 2, 1774, quoting this, and including an

address by Gen. Brattle to the public, deprecating the current belief

that his action in writing that letter was inimical to the cause. Cf.

H. Stevens's _Catal._ (1870), no. 261. See on this mater John Andrews's

diary in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 351, 354.]

The question of originating the Congress of 1774 is one upon which

there has been some controversy. It seems evident that the first

proposal for a congress for general purposes was in a vote of

Providence, R. I., May 17, 1774.[272] Cushing of Massachusetts and Dr.

Franklin appear to have exchanged views on the subject in 1773.[273]

Hancock seems to have suggested a congress in March, 1774.[274] In May

the Sons of Liberty in New York formally proposed a Congress.[275] A

resolution of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, June 17th,

looked towards one, and similar action took place in the House of

Burgesses in Virginia.[276]

[Illustration]

The Congress opened with a concession of the New England members, when

Samuel Adams proposed the Episcopalian Duché for chaplain.[277] John

Adams tells how the scheme of the Congress struck him,[278] and we

learn from him something of the appearance and bearing of an assembly,

where the "Tories were neither few nor feeble", and the political

feelings were far from being in unison. "One third Whigs, another

Tories, the rest mongrel", he says.[279] Franklin thought that only

unanimity and firmness could conduce to any good effect from it.[280]

For the local feeling in Philadelphia and among the members assembled

there at the time, see John Adams's diary, Ward's diary,[281] and

Christopher Marshall's diary.

The original edition of the _Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress

held in Philadelphia, Sept. 5, 1774_ (Philad., 1774), bore the earliest

device of the colonies, twelve hands grasping a column based on Magna

Charta, surmounted by a liberty cap with the motto _Hanc tuemur_.[282]

What we know of the debates, apart from the proceedings, is chiefly

derived from some brief notes by John Adams.[283]

The Congress put forth a Declaration of Rights, and a draft of it

is preserved in a hand thought to be that of Major Sullivan, of New

Hampshire. Wells (_Sam. Adams_, ii. 234) thinks that Samuel Adams had a

hand in it, as it resembles the pamphlet issued by the Boston Committee

of Correspondence in 1772. The original draft of it, with the final

form, is given in the _Works of John Adams_,[284] who claimed the

authorship of article iv.

The petition of Congress to the king was drafted by John

Dickinson.[285] It was signed in duplicate, and both copies were

successively sent to Franklin, one of which is in the Public Record

Office, and the other, retained by Franklin, is among the Franklin MSS.

in the library of the Department of State at Washington.[286]

The petition to the king was first printed in London by Becket in

_Authentic Papers from America, submitted to the dispassionate

consideration of the public_ (London, 1775). This produced a card

(Jan. 17, 1775) from Bollan, Franklin, and Arthur Lee, calling the

copy of the petition "surreptitious as well as materially and grossly

erroneous" (_Sparks Catal._, p. 84).

It is sometimes said that R. H. Lee, and sometimes that John Jay,

wrote the "Address to the People of Great Britain" which the Congress

adopted.[287] They also passed a "Memorial to the inhabitants of the

colonies."[288]

On the 9th of September the people of Boston and the neighborhood met

outside the limits of the town, and passed a paper, drawn up by Joseph

Warren, more extreme and less dignified than was demanded, known as

the "Suffolk Resolves",[289] and this was transmitted to the Congress,

where, when the Resolves were read, as John Adams says, there were

tears in the Quaker eyes. Jones[290] says that the loyalists had joined

the Congress to help in claiming redress for grievances, but that the

approval of these Resolves rendered their continuance with the Congress

in its measures impossible. Hutchinson[291] says that when the Resolves

were known in England, they were more alarming than anything which had

yet been done.[292]

On Sept. 28th Joseph Galloway introduced his plan of adjustment,

calling for a grand council to act in conjunction with Parliament in

regulating the affairs of the colonies. The scheme was finally rejected

by a vote of six colonies to five, after having allured many of the

leading men to its support.[293]

The Congress, Oct. 20th, adopted the Articles of Association, pledging

in due time the country to non-importation, non-exportation, and

non-consumption, so as to sever completely all commercial relations

with England.[294]

In the summer of 1774 the British Parliament had, after some

opposition, passed what is known as the "Quebec Bill", restoring the

old French law in the civil courts of Quebec, securing rights to the

Catholic inhabitants, and extending the limits of that province south

of Lake Erie as far as the Ohio.[295]

[Illustration: CONGRESS OF 1774.]

The debates[296] in Parliament caused much diversity of opinion, and

gave rise to a number of pamphlets.[297] The Congress of 1774 sought

to counteract this action by an address to the inhabitants of Quebec,

which was distributed both in English and French.[298]

[Illustration]

Pownall in London told Hutchinson that every step of the Congress was

known to the ministry.[299] We know that Dartmouth, probably through

Galloway, received accounts of the temper of the delegates,[300] and

that Joseph Reed was in communication with Dartmouth at the time.[301]

The revolutionary measures advocated by the Congress were far from

receiving general acceptance,[302] and in New York they elicited some

sharp and vigorous controversial pamphlets.[303] It was the general

opinion at the time that Samuel Seabury was the author of two of the

ablest of these tracts, though the claims for their authorship are now

divided between Seabury and Isaac Wilkins, while each may have assisted

the other in a joint production[304] which rendered at this time the

name of a "Westchester Farmer" famous.[305]

[Illustration: JOSIAH QUINCY'S DIARY.

This is reproduced from a page of the diary of Josiah Quincy, Jr.,

which was kept while he was in London in 1774. It is the beginning of

his description of an interview with Lord North. The original diary is

among the Quincy MSS. in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society. Quincy

had sailed from Salem Sept. 28, 1774, and was not averse to having the

Tories think that he was going for his health; but Gage seemed to have

had a suspicion that about this time somebody was going over with bad

designs (P. O. Hutchinson, 296). We learn from the same source (p.

301) that North thought his interviewer was "a bad, insidious man,

designing to be artful without abilities to conceal his design",—a

view that Hutchinson no doubt had helped the minister to form. With

Quincy's spirit, we can imagine how North's warning that there must

be submission before reconciliation would be taken. There was some

suspicion also that Quincy was making observations upon Franklin to

discern how far that busy genius could be trusted. Franklin seems to

have satisfied him, and on his homeward voyage Quincy dictated to a

sailor the report to the patriots that he had every reason to fear

he would not live to deliver in person, as indeed he did not. It is

preserved, and printed in his _Life_, where will be found his journal

kept in London. Joseph Reed's letters to him, while in London, are in

_The Life of Joseph Reed_, i. 85, etc. Quincy made out lists in London

of the friends and foes of America among the merchants. Cf. letter of

William Lee, April 6, 1775, in _Sparks MSS._, xlix. vol. ii.]

Another leading Tory writer at this time was Dr. Myles Cooper, the

president of King's College, who was as sharply assailed for his

_Friendly Address_[306] as the "Westchester Farmer" was.

Something of an official character belongs to _A true state of

the proceedings in the Parliament of Great Britain, and in ...

Massachusetts Bay, relative to the giving and granting the money of the

people of that province, and of all America, in the House of Commons,

in which they are not represented_ (London, 1774), for Franklin is said

to have furnished the material for it, and Arthur Lee to have drafted

it.[307]

One of the most significant of the American tracts of 1774 was John

Dickinson's _Essay on the constitutional power of Great Britain over

the colonies in America_.[308]

The journals of the provincial congress of Massachusetts (1774-1775)

are in the _Mass. Archives_ (vol. cxl.), and have been printed as

_Journal of each Provincial Congress of Mass. 1774-75, and of the Com.

of Safety, with an Appendix_ (Boston, 1838). The proceedings of the

session of Nov. 10, 1774, were circulated in a broadside.

In England we have the debates of Parliament, such correspondence as is

preserved, and the records of passing feeling, to help us understand

the condition of public opinion.[309]

The Assembly of New York met in January, 1775. Dawson contends that

the usual view of the loyal element controlling its action is not

sustained by the facts, and that in reality neither patriot nor Tory

was satisfied with its action.[310]

The feeling in Virginia is depicted in Giradin's continuation

of Burk's _Virginia_ (which was written under the cognizance of

Jefferson), in Rives's _Madison_, and in Wirt's _Patrick Henry_.[311]

[Illustration: LORD NORTH.

From Murray's _Impartial History of the Present War_, i. 96. Cf.

_London Mag._ (1779, p. 435) for another contemporary engraving.]

The Congress of 1775 met in Philadelphia, May 10th. Quebec had been

invited to send delegates.[312] Lieut.-Gov. Colden kept the majority

of the New York Assembly from sending delegates.[313] John Hancock was

chosen president, May 24th.[314]

The proceedings are given in the _Journals of Congress_.[315]

Perhaps the best expression of argumentative force on both sides was

reached in the controversy waged by John Adams against Jonathan Sewall,

as he always supposed, but in reality against Daniel Leonard, of

Taunton, as it has since been made evident.[316]

[Illustration: CHATHAM.

From the title of _Bickerstaff's Boston Almanac_ for 1772,—the common

popular picture of him. Cf. the head in _Gentleman's Mag._, March, 1770.

In 1768, Edmund Jennings of Virginia, being in London, and seeking,

probably unsuccessfully, to get a portrait of Camden for some

"gentlemen of Westmoreland County" who had subscribed for that purpose,

contented himself with commissioning young "Peele, of Maryland", then

in London, to make a picture of Chatham, following "an admirable bust

by Wilton, much like him, though different from the common prints."

Jennings presented it to R. H. Lee in a letter dated Nov. 15, 1768, and

the _Virginia Gazette_ of April 20, 1769, says it had just arrived. The

picture was placed in Stratford Hall, Lee's house, but was transferred

to the Court-House of Westmoreland in 1825, or thereabouts. In 1847 it

was transferred to the State of Virginia, and placed in the chamber

of the House of Delegates in Richmond, where it now is. It represents

Chatham "in consular habit, speaking in defence of American liberty."

Cf. _Va. Hist. Reg._, i. p. 68; _Richmond Despatch_, Sept. 26, 1886.

There is an engraving of Hoare's portrait of Chatham, representing him

sitting and holding a paper, given in fac-simile in _Mag. of Amer.

Hist._, Feb., 1887. On the statue of Pitt at Charleston, S. C., see

_Mag. of Amer. History_, viii. 214. For medals, see account by W. S.

Appleton in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xi. 299. D'Auberteuil, in his

_Essais_, ii. 93, gives a curious picture of Pitt in Parliament on

crutches, with more gout in his features than in his legs. Cf. Doyle's

_Official Baronage_, i. 359.]

One of the most powerful pleas for conciliation was made in Richard

Price's _Observations on the nature of civil liberty ... and the

justice and policy of the war with America_ (London, 1776, in six

editions, at least; Boston, 1776, etc.).[317]

[Illustration: DR. PRICE.

From the _London Magazine_, May, 1776 (p. 227). "Published by R.

Baldwin, June 1, 1776."]

For the mutations and progress of opinion in England at this time we

may follow Bancroft (orig. ed., vol. viii.) and Smyth (_Lectures_, nos.

31-33), and the latter compares the expressions of this progress as

recorded in Ramsay and the _Annual Register_.[318]

[Illustration]

For the aspects of political leadership in Parliament during 1775-76,

and the struggles in debates, see the _Parliamentary History_ and the

_Amer. Archives_,[319] and we may offset among the general histories

the Tory sympathies of Adolphus (_England_, ii. ch. 24) with the

liberal tendencies of Massey (_Hist. of England_), but the lives of

the principal leaders bring us a little nearer to the spirits of the

hour.[320]

During 1775 Franklin in London was maintaining his correspondence with

his American friends,[321] and conferring with Chatham upon plans of

conciliation,[322] and discussing the ways of compromise with Lord and

Lady Howe.[323]