U. S._, iv. 170).
[47] "For some time before and after the termination of the war of
1755, a considerable intercourse had been carried on between the
British and Spanish colonies, consisting of the manufactures of Great
Britain imported by the former and sold to the latter, by which the
British colonies acquired gold and silver, and were enabled to make
remittances to the mother country" (Ramsay, _Amer. Rev._, i. 44).
[48] _History_, ii. p. 147.
[49] _Works_, x. 345.
[50] The expression is Governor Bernard's in January, 1764
(Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 123, note). The consequences
of breaking up the West India trade by the enforcement of the
navigation laws, and its influence upon the minds of the commercial
colonies, will more fully appear in the following facts. The sugar
colonies, being cultivated by slaves, afforded an insufficient
market for English manufactures. Consequently, the large ships which
were needed to bring off sugar and molasses were obliged to proceed
thither without profitable freight. But the Northern colonies, and New
England in particular, could supply the islands with the commodities
they needed,—cattle, horses, lumber for buildings, casks for sugar
and molasses. A cargo of these commodities sent to the islands was
exchanged for sugar and molasses, which were brought to New England; or
for bullion, which, with a cargo of sugar, was carried to Old England.
The freight money and bullion were exchanged for British merchandise,
which was brought to New England, thus making a profitable double
voyage. With her advantages of position and of profitable freight, New
England also became the carrier of the sugar of the French islands to
Spain.
[51] As to illicit trade in Rhode Island, and the measures to prevent
it, see Bartlett's _Destruction of the Gaspee_, 6.
[52] _History_, iii. 108.
[53] _Ibid._, iii. 106.
[54] _Hist. U. S._, final revision, iii. 73. Two things in the above
summary require explanation. Merchandise imported into England was
subject to heavy duties; but if it was reëxported to America, then
these duties, in whole or in part, were repaid to the importer, and the
result would be that the colonists could purchase wines and Continental
goods cheaper than could be done by British subjects at home. To
equalize this burden, and still to derive a revenue, these drawbacks
were reduced; and, of course, the British Exchequer would gain the
amount of this reduction.
In the Treaty of 1763, two small islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon,
on the south coast of Newfoundland, were accorded to France for the
convenience of her fishing vessels. But they had been made ports of an
illicit trade with the American colonies. Hence the prohibition of all
trade with them.
[55] Printed as an appendix to Otis's _Rights of the British Colonies_.
[56] _Journal of the House_, 1764, 53. This paper was not Otis's
pamphlet with a similar title, though it may have been the substance of
it. See Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic_, 169, _n._
[57] _Ibid._, 66.
[58] _Ibid._, p. 72.
[59] The reader of Tudor's _Life of Otis_, 170, would infer that
Hutchinson was chosen agent at this time instead of in the January
preceding. _House Journal_, 1763-4, 236.
[60] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 112.
[61] Minot's _History_, ii. 168.
[62] _Mass. State Papers_, 18 _et seq._
[63] Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, p. 171.
[64] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 103. Two Americans, Franklin and
William S. Johnson, were reporting on the Wilkes turmoils in England,
at this time, to their home correspondents. Cf. Franklin's _Works_
(Sparks's ed.), vii. 401, 403; Bigelow's _Life of F._, ii. 9; _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Coll._, xlix., 270 _et seq._
[65] Bancroft, _History_, v. 275.
[66] These resolutions are in Ramsay, _Amer. Rev._, i. 59.
[67] The proceedings, with the circular letter, may be found in the
_Mass. State Papers_, 35.
[68] Of the colonies south of New England, South Carolina was the first
to agree to the proposed congress. Ramsay, _Amer. Rev._, i. 68.
[69] Later, in December, he was compelled to renounce his office under
circumstances of special ignominy, from which his age and character
afforded no protection.
[70] Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 184.
[71] Frothingham gives a summary of these papers, with the names of the
committees who drafted them (_Rise of the Republic_, pp. 186, 187).
[72] Though this day was observed in several colonies by the tolling of
bells, closing of shops, funeral processions, and other demonstrations
of hostility to the act, there was no violence (Ramsay, _Amer. Rev._,
i. 68, 70).
[73] _Mass. State Papers_, 61.
[74] _Parliamentary History_, xvi. 133 _et seq._
[75] _Mass. State Papers_, 81.
[76] _Mass. State Papers_, 91, 92.
[77] _Mass. State Papers_, 94.
[78] _Parliamentary History_, vol. xvi. 359; _Prior Documents_, 134.
During the adjournment a double broadside had been issued, containing
the proposed bill for compensation, an extract from Secretary Conway's
letter to Governor Bernard, and letters from De Berdt, the agent,
advising compliance with the parliamentary recommendation. A copy is in
the Boston Public Library.
[79] Mahon's _Hist. of Eng._, v. 81.
[80] _Parliamentary History_, vol. xvi. 331.
[81] Bradford, _History of Mass._, i. 97.
[82] _Parliamentary Hist._, xvi. 375.
[83] 7 Geo. III. ch. 41, _Statutes at Large_, vol. x. 340.
[84] 7 Geo. III. ch. 46, _Ibid._, 369. Bancroft's account of these
Acts is not quite accurate (_History_, vi. 84, 85): "By another Act (7
Geo. III. ch. xli.) a Board of Customs was established at Boston, and
general Writs of Assistance were legalized." The execution of the Laws
of Trade was placed under the direction of Commissioners of Customs,
"to reside in the said Plantations", where the king should direct,—not
localized at Boston. It was by ch. xlvi. sec. x., not xli., that Writs
of Assistance were legalized. But a more serious error is in the
statement that "Townshend's revenue was to be disposed of under the
sign-manual at the king's pleasure. This part of the system had no
limit as to time or place, and was intended as a perpetual menace."
This is far from being accurate. By section iv. it is provided that the
revenue arising from the act should be applied, in the first place,
"for the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of
_civil government_" in the colonies; and the residue was to be paid
into the receipt of the Exchequer, and entered separate and apart from
all other moneys, and reserved to be disposed _by Parliament_ for the
defence of the colonies. It was the civil administration alone that
could be paid by the king's warrant. The expense of the army could
be appropriated only by Parliament; and the difference is worthy of
attention.
[85] It was reported at a town meeting held at Boston on October 28,
1767, in which James Otis presided, that Lynn, in the previous year,
had turned out forty thousand pairs of women's shoes,—an industry
which has since grown to very large proportions,—and that another town
had made thirty thousand yards of cloth (Frothingham's _Rise of the
Republic_, 208).
[86] _Mass. State Papers_, 121, 124, 134.
[87] The circular letter was not adopted without opposition. Bernard
says that the proposition was first rejected two to one; and after the
measure was finally carried, in order to give the appearance of greater
unanimity, the former proceedings of dissent were obliterated from the
journal (_Letters_, 8).
[88] _Mass. State Papers_, 113.
[89] Abstracts of these papers convey no adequate idea of their
strength. They must be read in their completeness, and so read, in
connection with Lord Mansfield's speech in the House of Lords, one sees
the arguments of each party stated at their best.
[90] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 188.
[91] Gordon, i. 231. Governor Bernard has given an account of these
transactions in a series of letters addressed to Shelburne or
Hillsborough, and published in a collected volume. It is a graphic
narrative, in many cases of events in which he had participated, or
which he had learned from eye-witnesses. Apparently they are as fair
as other partisan accounts of the transactions, which may be found in
various histories. The truth yet waits to be told; but it will not be
accurately told by one who assigns all sublimated virtues to one party,
and the most malignant depravity to the other.
[92] See Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 192, and 488 for the address.
[93] _Mass. State Papers_, 156.
[94] For a summary of these replies, see Frothingham's _Rise of the
Republic_, 213.
[95] _Letters 41._
[96] _History_, iii. 196.
[97] _Ibid._, iii. 197; see also Frothingham, 239.
[98] _Letters 40._
[99] _Mass. State Papers_, 147.
[100] Otis was chairman. On the first day several committees were
appointed: one to learn from Governor Bernard the grounds of his
apprehensions that additional regiments were expected; another to
present a petition for convening the General Court "with the utmost
speed;" and a third to take into consideration the state of public
affairs, and report salutary measures at an adjourned meeting. The
next day the governor replied that his information in regard to the
troops was private: when he had public letters on the subject he would
communicate them to the Council. As for calling another assembly, he
could do nothing without his majesty's commands. Whereupon a series of
resolutions and votes was passed to the effect that the inhabitants
of Boston would defend the king, the charter, and their own rights;
that levying of money within the province, or keeping a standing army,
except by consent of the General Assembly, was in violation of the
charter and of natural rights; that the several towns be asked (the
letter is in Hutchinson, iii. 492) to send delegates to a convention to
be held on the 22d; that on account of a "prevailing apprehension, in
the minds of many, of an approaching war with France", the inhabitants
be provided with arms; and that the ministers in town set apart a day
of fasting and prayer. A broadside of these proceedings was published,
of which a fac-simile is in the Boston Public Library.
[101] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 212. They were the Fourteenth,
Twenty-ninth, and part of the Fifty-ninth British regiments.
[102] _Parliamentary History_, vol. xvi. 476 _et seq._; Mahon's
_History_, v. 240; Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 219.
[103] W. S. Johnson, _Trumbull Papers_, 317.
[104] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 221.
[105] _Ibid._, iii. 494.
[106] _Writings_, i. 3 (Boston ed.).
[107] North Carolina adopted resolutions similar to those of Virginia,
and associations were formed to prevent importation of British goods.
Ramsay, _Amer. Rev._, i. 84.
[108] Part of the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth regiments, under
Colonels Mackey and Pomeroy, arrived at Boston November 10th.
[109] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 233.
[110] _Ibid._, vol. iii. 498.
[111] He was created a baronet March 20, 1769 (Gordon, _History_, i.
275).
[112] An unpublished letter of this date, from Charles Lloyd to George
Grenville, giving an account of the affair, is in the possession of the
writer.
[113] W. S. Johnson, _Trumbull Papers_, 423.
[114] May, 1770. "Agreeably to a vote of the town of Boston, Capt.
Scott sailed from thence this month for London, with the cargo of goods
he had brought from thence, contrary to the non-importation agreement;
to give evidence, on the other side the water, of the sincerity of said
agreement" (_Mass. Hist. Coll._, ii 44).
[115] W. S. Johnson, _Trumbull Papers_, 421. The Minute of the Cabinet,
May 1, 1769, by which Hillsborough was authorized to make the promise
contained in his circular letter, may be seen in Mahon's _History of
England_, v. Appendix, xxxvii.; and the reasons upon which the minute
rests are both interesting and significant—"upon consideration of such
duties having been laid contrary to the _true principles of commerce_."
[116] _Parliamentary History_, xvi. 855, 979
[117] W. S. Johnson, _Trumbull Papers_, 430.
[118] W. S. Johnson, _Trumbull Papers_, 435.
[119] _Parliamentary History_, xvi. 981
[120] _Ibid._, 1006.
[121] W. S. Johnson, _Trumbull Papers_, 437.
[122] _Administration of the Colonies._
[123] _Mass. State Papers_, 306.
[124] Lossing's _Field-Book of the Revolution_, i. 630. For a full
account of this affair, see Bartlett's _History of the Destruction of
the Gaspee_.
[125] W. E. Foster's _Stephens Hopkins_, Pt. ii. 95.
[126] Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 266.
[127] For a full account of the formation and purpose of the Committee
of Correspondence, with the names of the Boston members, see
Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 263.
[128] See resolutions and members of the committee in _Mass. State
Papers_, 400.
[129] _History_, iii. 397.
[130] Ramsay gives these resolutions. _Hist. Amer. Rev._, i. 98.
[131] Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 294; Hutchinson's
_History_, iii. 441.
[132] Hutchinson's _History_, iii. 441.
[133] He died at Brompton, England, June 3, 1780.
[134] Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 347.
[135] The action of the other colonies in respect to the proposed
Continental Congress may be found in Frothingham's _Rise of the
Republic_, 331, n.
[136] See authorities in _John Adams_, a pamphlet by the writer of this
chapter, 1884.
[137] _Works_, iv. 109. I find in the works of no other writer,
historical or political, more accurate conceptions of the causes,
immediate and remote, of the Revolution, and so fair and judicial a
statement of them. _Works_, i. 24, 92.
[138] Bancroft, v. 250.
[139] See _Rights of Great Britain asserted against the claims of
America_ (London, 1776).
[140] _Works_, x. 321.
[141] _History_, ii. 43.
[142] _Ibid._, vi. 85.
[143] _Hist. N. E._, ii. 444.
[144] New York, 1882 by Eben Greenough Scott.
[145] In the absence of such a work, the student will find something
to his purpose in the _Hutchinson Papers_ (Prince Soc. ed.), ii. 150,
232, 265, 301, 313 _et passim_; _Andros Tracts_, ii. 69, 215, 224, 233
_et passim_; Sewall's _Letters_, i. 4; Chalmers's _Political Annals_,
in the notes particularly, and in his _Introduction to the History
of the Revolt of the Colonies_; Palfrey, _Hist. New England_, ii.
444; iii. 276, 279, _n._ For the commerce and products of Virginia in
1671, and the effect of the navigation laws, see Chalmers's _Political
Annals_, 327; and in 1675, _Ibid._, 353, 354; and for duties imposed
on commerce by colonial assemblies, _Ibid._, 354, 404. For complaints
of British merchants to Charles II. of infractions of the navigation
laws by New England, _Ibid._, 400, 433, 437. See Ramsay's _American
Revolution_, i. 19, 22, 23, 45, 46, 49; and Franklin's _Works_, iv. 37,
for British trade with the colonies. Jefferson's _Notes_, 277, gives
the amount of Virginia exports just before the Revolution. _Queries and
Answers_, relative to the commerce of Connecticut in 1774 (_Mass. Hist.
Coll._, vii. 234), affords much interesting information as to shipping,
sailors, and importations from Great Britain, the course and subjects
of foreign trade of the colony. For similar papers relating to New
York, see O'Callaghan's _Documentary Hist. of New York_, 8vo ed., vol.
i. 145, 699, 709, 737, and vol. iv. 163.
[146] _Works_, Boston ed., vol. ix.
[147] _The Late Revelations Respecting the British Colonies_ (published
at Philadelphia, 1765, and attributed to John Dickinson) contains
valuable statistics of commerce, and discusses the British commercial
and revenue policy with great ability; also, _Considerations on the
Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies_, attributed to
Daniel Dulaney, of Maryland, 1765; _The Right to the Tonnage_, by the
same, Annapolis, 1766.
[148] Cf. Felt's _Massachusetts Currency_; Pownall's _Administration of
the Colonies_, 102 _et seq._
[149] _Hist. N. E._, iii. ch. ix.
[150] Sewall says that the first admiralty court was held July 5, 1686,
and that several ships had been seized for trading contrary to the acts
(_Letters_, i. 34). Dudley was inaugurated May 26, 1686, and soon got
to the work of enforcing the laws. See also _Andros Tracts_, iii. 69.
[151] The history of these writs is given, with a fulness and
accuracy which leaves nothing to be desired, in the Appendix to
_Quincy's Reports_, by Horace Gray, Jr. (now Mr. Justice Gray, of
the Supreme Court of the United States). Besides other sources of
unpublished information, in England and America, Mr. Gray had access
to the _Bernard Papers_ (now in Harvard University library); in his
administration these writs were legalized and efficiently used.
[152] See Vol. V. p. 612. For more than a century in the government
of the colonies political considerations were subordinated to a
commercial policy; New England was favored during the Protectorate,
and Virginia after the Restoration, equally on political grounds. But
with the beginning of the French War this commercial policy began to
give way to an imperial policy. To the Congress of 1754 is due the
distinction of being the only body, among similar gatherings before
or since, which of its own motion seriously entertained and adopted a
project of bringing the colonies, as a unit, into defined relations
to the mother country, for general government in respect to their
defence. Nobody saw more clearly than Franklin, or has more explicitly
pointed out the necessity of some general government for the defence
of the colonies (_Works_, by Sparks, iii. 32 _et seq._); and to secure
these ends he was willing to go further, in some respects, even than
Hutchinson. He admitted the power and necessity of parliamentary action
in the alteration of colonial charters (_Works_, iii. 36). He provided
that the President-General should be appointed and his salary paid
by the crown (3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, v. 70); that the Speaker should
be approved by the President-General, thus admitting the validity of
the prerogative (_Works_, iii. 44; and see Plan, that the assent of
the President-General should be requisite to all _acts_ of the Grand
Council, instead of all _laws_, as stated by Bancroft, iv. 123); and
that the Grand Council should have power to "lay and levy such general
duties, imposts, or taxes as to _them_ shall appear most equal and
just" (_Works_, iii. 50). Bancroft, in summarizing the Plan of Union,
drawn by Franklin, says (_Hist._, iv. 124) the general government
was empowered "to make laws and levy just and equitable taxes", thus
giving the impression that the powers of the Council were limited by
absolute justice and equity, or by what each colony should so judge.
But this is what Franklin neither meant nor said. He lodged the powers
in the sole discretion of the Council, which is quite a different
thing. Grenville or Townshend asked no more for Parliament. The General
Assembly of Connecticut knew what the words meant. In their reasons
for rejecting the proposed plan (I _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vii. 212) they
say, "The proposal, in said plan contained, for the President-General
and Council to levy taxes, &c., _as they please_, throughout this
extensive government, is a very extraordinary thing, and against _the
rights and privileges of Englishmen_." Their objections to Franklin's
Plan read like an answer of the Massachusetts General Court, drawn by
Samuel Adams, to a message of Bernard. The governor and council of
Rhode Island had similar fears. They said that they found it to be "a
scheme which, if carried into execution, will virtually deprive this
government, at least, of some of its most valuable privileges, if
not effectually overturn and destroy our present happy constitution"
(_Rhode Island Hist. Tracts_, ix. 61). And that sturdy patriot, Stephen
Hopkins, who was associated with Franklin, Hutchinson, Pitkin, and
Howard in the Albany Plan, was subjected to much worry for invoking the
parliamentary authority in modifying the Rhode Island charter, and was
driven to self-vindication in A _True Representation_ (_Ibid._, I).
Whatever modifications Franklin's opinions may have undergone in later
years on other matters, "it was his opinion thirty years afterwards
that his plan was near the true medium" (_Works_, iii. 24, Sparks's
note).
There is a plan of union in the handwriting of Thomas Hutchinson
(_Mass. Archives_, vi. 171, and in the _Trumbull MSS._, in Mass. Hist.
Soc., i. 97; and printed in Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_,
Appendix) which probably expressed his sentiments in 1754, when it
was rejected by the General Court. Like Franklin, he was willing to
acknowledge and invoke the parliamentary authority for the union, with
the power in the Grand Council to levy such taxes as they deemed just
and equal; but, unlike Franklin, he did not allow the President to
negative the choice of the Speaker by the Grand Council.
But no one wrote from a more varied experience, or more careful
examination of colonial constitutions, and of their possible relations
to the mother country, than Thomas Pownall. His connection with the
Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, as their secretary in 1745,
made him familiar with the difficulties of colonial administration
from the British point of view; and his successive administrations,
as lieutenant-governor, or governor, of New Jersey, Massachusetts,
and South Carolina from 1755 to 1761, extended his acquaintance with
the state of colonial affairs in the Northern, Middle, and Southern
colonies. He was a moderate Whig, and, like all moderate men in those
days, his counsels were duly regarded by neither party. He embodied
his views in a work entitled _The Administration of the Colonies_,
which passed through several editions. His scheme was elaborate and
wise, if his concurrence with Franklin in points which they treat in
common may be regarded as a test of wisdom. His commercial scheme was
predicated on the general law that colonial trade follows capital, and,
while sharing the benefits, pays profit to it. He would have left that
trade free to develop itself within certain limits; but inasmuch as it
must tend somewhere,—to the English, French, or Dutch,—he thought it
right that the trade of English colonies should pay profit to England,
as the country whose navy defended it, and by whose capital it was
developed. But England ought to grasp this trade only as the centre
of a commercial dominion of which America was a part and entitled to
parliamentary representation, which he thought practicable. In theory
he acknowledged the prerogative of the crown in respect to colonial
government, but recognized the necessity of parliamentary intervention,
and would have reduced both to cases of actual necessity, and would
always have subordinated the question of power to the dictates of
reason and expediency.
[153] See letter of Pownall to Franklin, on this subject, and
Franklin's remarks (_Works_, iv. 199).
[154] See the whole passage, not often quoted by historians, in
Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 149, _n._
[155] Sidney S. Rider (_Rhode Island Hist. Tracts_, 9, xxx.) denies
that Rhode Island rejected the Plan, as affirmed by Sparks.
[156] _Massachusetts State Papers._
[157] Published at Boston in 1818, and edited by Alden Bradford. It is
often quoted as _Mass. State Papers_. The answers were chiefly from the
industrious pen of Samuel Adams.
[158] _Journals of the House of Lords_, xxxiv. 124.
[159] _Works_, iv. 466.
[160] _Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr._, 355.
[161] _History_, vi. p. 244.
[162] _Hist. of the Revolution_, i. 175.
[163] What we know of this speech is derived mainly from the notes of
it taken by John Adams (_Works_, ii. 521-525), and from the reminiscent
account of it which Adams gave to William Tudor in 1818, with his
description of the scene in court during its delivery. Minot, in his
_Hist. of Massachusetts_, 1748-1765 (vol. ii. 91-99), worked up these
notes, and they form the basis of the narrative in Tudor's _Life of
Otis_ (p. 62). The legal aspects have been specially examined by
Horace Gray in an appendix to the _Reports of Cases in the Superior
Court 1761-1772, by Josiah Quincy, Jr., printed from his original
manuscripts, and edited by Samuel M. Quincy_ (Boston, 1865). Cf. _John
Adams's Works_, x. pp. 182, 233, 244, 274, 314, 317, 338, 342, 362.
Cf. also _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 58; ii. 124, 521; and the Adams-Warren
Correspondence in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xliv. 340, 355. Cf. also
Hutchinson's _Mass. Bay_, vol. iii.; _Essex Institute Hist. Coll._,
Aug., 1860; Bancroft's _United States_, ii. 546, 553; Thornton's
_Pulpit of the Rev._, 112; Barry's _Massachusetts_, ii. 264; Everett's
_Orations_, i. 388; Scott's _Constitutional Liberty_, 237; _Mem. Hist.
Boston_, iii. 5; Palfrey's _Compend. Hist. N. E._, iv. 306; Wells's
_Sam. Adams_, i. 43. There is a copy of one of these writs in the
cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society. W. S. Johnson wrote to Governor
Trumbull that the process was in vogue in England (_Trumbull Papers_;
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xlix. pp. 292, 374), as it is to-day. The
most conspicuous instance of an attempt to search under these writs was
when the officers tried to enter the house of Daniel Malcom in Oct.,
1766, and were forcibly resisted. The papers connected with this, as
transmitted to London, and telling the story on both sides, are among
the _Lee Papers_ in Harvard College library (vol. i. nos. 14-25).
[164] Sabin, xiv. p. 84. Haven in Thomas, ii. p. 559; _John Adams_, x.
p. 300. Lecky skilfully sketches the condition of the colonies at this
time (_England in the Eighteenth Century_, iii. ch. 12), and Lodge's
_Short Hist. of the English Colonies_ depicts, under the heads of the
various colonies, the prevailing characteristics.
[165] Dickinson's speech in the Assembly, May 24, 1764, passed through
two editions (Philad., 1764), and was reprinted in London (1764).
(Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,387-88.) Galloway's _Speech in Answer_
(Philad., 1764; Carter-Brown, iii. 1,395) was reprinted in London
(1765), with a preface by Franklin (Carter-Brown, iii. 1,452), and
Dickinson's _Reply_ was printed in London, 1765 (Carter-Brown, iii.
1,444). Dickinson's speech is also in his _Works_ (i. p. 1). Cf.
_Franklin's Works_, iv. pp. 78, 101, 143.
[166] _Rise of the Republic_, p. 167.
[167] It is analyzed in _John Adams's Works_ (x. 293), and in
Frothingham, p. 169. It was published in Boston in 1765, and in London
the same year, by Almon, and was circulated through the instrumentality
of Thomas Hollis (Sabin, xiv. p. 83).
[168] _John Adams's Works_, x. 189. Cf. Palfrey, _New England_
(Compend. ed., iv. 343), and Tudor's _Otis_. See _ante_, p. 28.
[169] Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,456; Sabin, viii. no. 32,966; _Cooke
Catalogue_, no. 1,202. It was reprinted in London in 1766, at the
instigation of the Rhode Island agent, as _The Grievances of the
American Colonies carefully examined_ (Sparks, no. 1,272; Cooke, no.
1,203). There is a reprint in the _R. I. Col. Records_, vi. 416. The
London text is followed in Selim H. Peabody's _American Patriotism_
(N. Y., 1880). The original edition of all was published by order of
the R. I. Assembly in 1764, but no copy is known. Cf. Wm. E. Foster's
_Stephen Hopkins, a Rhode Island Statesman; study in the political
history of the eighteenth century_ (Providence, 1884,—no. 19 of _R. I.
Hist. Tracts_), who examines (ii. p. 227) the claims of Hopkins to its
authorship, for the tract was printed anonymously. Cf. Frothingham's
_Rise of the Republic_, p. 172; Palfrey's _New England_ (Compend.
ed.), iv. 369. Hopkins's tract was controverted in a _Letter from a
gentleman at Halifax_ (Newport, 1765,—Sabin, x. 40,281); and James
Otis replied in a _Vindication of the British Colonies against the
aspersions of the Halifax gentleman_ (Boston, 1765; Carter-Brown, iii.
no. 1,480); and this in turn was followed by a _Defence of the Letter_,
etc. (Newport, 1765), and _Brief Remarks_ (Brinley, i. nos. 190, 198).
A tract usually cited by a similar title, but which was called at
length _Coloniæ Anglicanæ illustratæ: or the Acquest of dominion and
the plantation of Colonies made by the English in America, with the
rights of the Colonists examined, stated, and illustrated. Part I._
(London, 1762; Sabin, ii. 6,209; Carter-Brown, iii. 1,314) was never
completed, and was mostly occupied with irrelevant matter. Its author
was William Bollan, who was dismissed as the Massachusetts agent during
that same year, and John Adams (x. 355) says he scarce ever knew a book
so utterly despised. Otis (Tudor, p. 114) expressed his contempt for it
(Sabin, ii. p. 265-6).
[170] _Reasons why the Brit. Colonies in America should not be charged
with internal taxes_, etc. (New Haven, 1764). It is reprinted in _Conn.
Col. Records_, vol. xii. Cf. Pitkin's _United States_, i. 165, and
Ingersoll's _Letters_, p. 2.
[171] Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,427. _John Adams's Works_, iv. 129; x.
292. Palfrey, iv. 349. Thacher died in 1765, aged 45 years.
[172] Mayhew had early sounded the alarm, and Thornton begins his
_Pulpit of the Revolution_ with a reprint of Mayhew's sermon in 1750
on _Unlimited submission and non-resistance to the higher powers_
(Boston, 1750; again, 1818; Brinley, no. 1,529). The controversy
with Apthorpe, who was settled over Christ Church in Cambridge, as
representative of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts, began with his _Considerations on the institution and
conduct of the Society_, etc. (Boston, 1763), to which Mayhew responded
in his _Observations on the charter and conduct of the Society_, etc.,
_designed to show their non-conformity to each other_ (Boston, 1763;
London, 1763; Stevens's _Hist. Coll._, i. no. 383; Haven, p. 564).
Dr. Caner, of King's Chapel, Boston, replied in _A Candid Examination
of Dr. Mayhew's Observations_, etc. (Boston, 1763). Another _Answer_
(London, 1764) was perhaps by Apthorpe. Mayhew published _A Defence
of his Observations_ (Boston, 1763), and a second defence, called
_Remarks_, etc. (Boston, 1764; London, 1765), which was followed by
a _Review_ by Apthorpe (London, 1765). These and other tracts of the
controversy are recorded in Stevens's _Hist. Coll._, i. nos. 378-391;
in Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,433, 1,465; in Haven's list, pp. 562, 564,
565.
[Illustration]
A later controversy, between Thomas Bradbury Chandler and Charles
Chauncy, produced other tracts printed in New York, Philad., and Boston
(1767-68). Cf. Brinley, iv. nos. 6, 127-31, and Haven's list; and for
these religious controversies, Thornton's _Pulpit_, p. 109; Lecky, iii.
435; Palfrey's _New England_ (Compend. ed., iv. 324); E. H. Gillett
in _Hist. Mag._, Oct., 1870; Perry's _Amer. Episc. Church_, i. 395;
Gambrall's _Church life in Colonial Maryland_ (1885); O. S. Straus's
_Origin of Repub. form of gov't in the U. S._ (1885), ch. 3 and 7;
_Doc. Hist. N. Y._, iv. 198, 202.
[173] Cf. Bancroft (original ed., ii. 353; vi. 9); _Adams's Works_ (x.
236); _Dawson's Sons of Liberty in N. Y._ (p. 42); Barry's _Mass._
(ii. 252-255); _Scott's Development of Constitutional Liberty_ (pp.
189-214). In 1764 courts of vice-admiralty for British America had
been established (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xvii. 291), and the sugar
act passed, placing a duty on molasses, etc.,—a modification of the
act of 1733. "I know not", wrote John Adams in 1818, "why we should
blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American
independence." _John Adams's Works_, x. 345.
[174] _Ames's Almanac_ for 1766 has this notice: "Price before the
Stamp Act takes place, half-a-dollar per dozen, and six coppers single;
after the act takes place, more than double that price." The act was
called, _Anno regni Georgii III. regis Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ, &
Hiberniæ, quinto. 1765. An act for granting and applying certain stamp
duties, and other duties in the British colonies and plantations in
America, towards defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and
securing the same_ [etc.]. It was reprinted at once in Boston, New
London, New York, and Philadelphia, and will be found in the official
records and in various modern books like Spencer's _Hist. U. S._ (i.
274), etc. The stamps are found in various cabinets (_Catal. Mass.
Hist. Soc. Cab._, pp. 104, 118, 123, 125), and cuts of the stamp are
found in _Mem. Hist. Boston_ (iii. 12), Thornton's _Pulpit of the
Rev._, etc.
[175] Cf. Bancroft, orig. ed., v. 151. There was a proposition for a
colonial stamp act in a tract published in London in 1755, called _A
Miscellaneous Essay concerning the courses pursued by Great Britain in
the affairs of the Colonies_ (London, 1755).
[176] Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Cent._ (iii. 324). Mahon (v.
86) quotes Burke's speech of 1774 as proving the small interest in the
debate of 1765, and thinks that Walpole's failure to mention the debate
in his letters proves the truth of Burke's recollections. Adolphus
had earlier relied on Burke. Mahon even intimates that Barré's famous
speech was an interpolation in the later accounts; but the _Letters_
printed by Jared Ingersoll show that it was delivered. (Cf. _Palfrey's
Review of Mahon_.) The _Parliamentary History_ says that Barré's speech
was in reply to Grenville; but Ingersoll says Charles Townshend was the
speaker who provoked it. Cf. Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_ (p.
175); Ryerson's _Loyalists_ (i. 294); H. F. Elliot on "Barré and his
Times" in _Macmillan's Mag._, xxxv. 109 (Dec., 1876); and _Hist. MSS.
Com. Report_, viii. pp. 189, 190.
It was in the speech of Feb. 6, 1765, that Barré applied the words
"Sons of Liberty" to the patriots in America, which they readily
adopted (Bancroft, v. 240; Thornton's _Pulpit_, 131). Dr. J. H.
Trumbull, in a paper, "Sons of Liberty in 1755", published in the
_New Englander_, vol. xxxv. (1876), showed that the term had ten
years earlier been applied in Connecticut to organizations to advance
theological liberty. It is also sometimes said that the popular
party at the time of the Zenger trial had adopted the name. The new
organization embraced the young and ardent rather than the older and
more prudent patriots, and at a later period they became the prime
abettors of the non-importation movements. For their correspondence
in New England, see _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ (x. 324) and the Belknap
Papers (MSS., iii. p. 110, etc.) in the Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet. A
list of those dining together in 1769 at Dorchester is given in _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc._, Aug., 1869. The correspondence of those in Boston
with John Wilkes, 1768-69, is noted in the _Brit. Mus. Catal._, Add.
MSS. 30,870, ff. 45, 46, 75, 135, 222. H. B. Dawson's _Sons of Liberty
in N. Y._ was privately printed in N. Y., 1859.
[177] A letter of Aug. 11, 1764, from Halifax had forewarned the
colonial governors of the intention (_N. Y. Col. Docs._, vii. 646; _N.
J. Archives_, ix. 448).
[178] Thomas's _Hist. of Printing_, Am. Antiq. Soc. ed., ii.
223; Sargent's _Dealings with the Dead_, i. 140, 144; Lossing's
_Field-Book_, i. 466; _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 159; Thomas Paine's
"Liberty Tree Ballad" in the _Penna. Mag._, July, 1775; and Moore's
_Songs and Ballads of the Rev._, p. 18. The selecting of a large tree
and its dedication to the cause became general. Cf. Silas Downer's
_Discourse, July 25, 1768, at dedication of a tree of liberty in
Providence_ (Providence, 1768), and the _Providence Gazette_, July 30,
1768 (Sabin, v. 20, 767; J. R. Bartlett's _Bibliog. of R. I._, p. 112;
Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,622).
[179] Hutchinson had expressed disapproval of the Stamp Act; but
doubting its expediency did not affect his judgment of the necessity
of enforcing it (P. O. Hutchinson, i. 577; ii. 58). On the destruction
of his house, see his own statement in P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor
Hutchinson_, i. 70, 72, and his letter, dated Aug. 30, 1765, in the
_Mass. Archives_, xxvi. 146, printed in the _Mass. Senate Docs._ (1870,
no. 187, p. 3). He says: "The lieutenant-governor, with his children,
lodged the next night at the Castle, but after that in his house at
Milton, though not without apprehension of Danger." Quincy's diary
(_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iv. 47) preserves Hutchinson's speech,
when a few days later he took his seat on the bench, clad with such
clothing as was left to him. Cf. the accounts in _Boston Newsletter_,
Sept. 3, 1765; _Parliamentary History_, iv. 316; _Conduct of a late
Administration_, 102; _Memorial Hist. Boston_, iii. 14, etc.; _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc._, Jan., 1862, p. 364.
[180] _Boston Town Records, 1758-1769_, p. 152 (_Rec. Com. Rept._,
xvi.).
[181] These papers are given in Hutchinson's _Mass. Bay_ (iii. 467,
471, 476). Samuel Dexter was the head of the committee to draft the
reply of the assembly, but it is thought Sam. Adams wrote the paper
(Bancroft, v. 347). Cf. _Speeches of the Governors of Mass., 1765-1775,
and the answers of the House of Representatives, with other public
papers relating to the dispute between this Country and Great Britain_
(Boston, 1818). This collection was edited by Alden Bradford, and is
sometimes cited by historians as "Bradford's Collection", "Mass. State
Papers", etc.
There is a portrait of Dexter (b. 1726; d. 1810) by Copley, and a
photograph of it in Daniel Goodwin, Jr.'s _Provincial Pictures_
(Chicago, 1886).
[182] There is a likeness of Andrew Oliver, by Copley, in the
possession of Dr. F. E. Oliver; and a photograph of it is in the
cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society (Perkins's _Copley_, p. 90), and
in P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor Hutchinson_ (vol. ii. 17); and a
woodcut in _Mem. Hist. Boston_ (iii. 43). Another portrait, by N.
Emmons (1728), is given in a photograph in P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor
Hutchinson_ (i. 129).
[183] This paper is preserved, and a fac-simile is given in _Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc._, June, 1872, and in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_ (iii.
15). Cf. Bancroft, orig. ed., v. 375, etc.
For other accounts of the feelings and proceedings in Boston and
Massachusetts, see a letter of Joshua Henshaw, in _N. E. Hist. and
Geneal. Reg._ (1878, p. 268), and the histories of Boston by Snow and
Drake; Tudor's Otis; _John Adams's Works_ (iii. 465; x. 192, 197);
_Adams-Warren Correspondence_, p. 341; Frothingham's _Warren_; Loring's
_Hundred Boston Orators_, p. 50; the instructions of Lexington, in
Hudson's _Lexington_, p. 88; the instructions of Braintree, in _John
Adams's Works_, iii. 465, and many other similar documents; beside Dr.
Benjamin Church's poem, _The Times_ (Boston Pub. Library, H. 95, 117,
no. 3).
[184] Bancroft, orig. ed., v. ch. 14; _Boston Rec. Com. Rept._, xvi.
p.155.
[185] For details, see—
For New Hampshire, a letter from Portsmouth, Jan. 13, 1766, to the New
Hampshire agent in London, in the Belknap MSS. (Mass. Hist. Soc., 61,
C. p. 108).
For Connecticut, Stuart's _Governor Trumbull_; Jared Ingersoll's
_Letters relating to the Stamp Act_ (New Haven, 1766); and some tracts
by Governor Fitch (_Brinley Catal._, nos. 2,116-2,118).
For New York, the _Journal of the N. Y. Assembly_; histories of the
City and State of New York; _N. Y. Col. Docs._, vii. 770; _N. Y. Hist.
Soc. Coll._, 1876; Lossing's _Schuyler_, i. 203; Leake's _Lamb_, ch.
2-4; a long and interesting letter from Wm. Smith to Geo. Whitefield
in _Hist. MSS. Com. Rept._, ii. (Dartmouth Papers); a letter of R. R.
Livingston to General Monckton, in _Aspinwall Papers_, ii. 554; _Penna.
Mag. of Hist._, ii. 296; J. A. Stevens in _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, June,
1777 (i. 337), and on "Old Coffee-Houses" in _Harper's Monthly_, lxiv.
p. 493 (see view of Burns's Coffee-house, the headquarters of the Sons
of Liberty, in Valentine's _Manual of N. Y. City_, 1858, p. 588; 1864,
pp. 513, 514; and in Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 456); and Dawson's
_Sons of Liberty_ in N. Y.
For New Jersey, letter of Governor Franklin to Lords of Trade, in _N.
J. Archives_, ix. 499, with other papers.
For Pennsylvania, Sparks's _Franklin_, vii. 297, 303, 307, 308,
310-13, 317-19, 328; the account in the _Penna. Gazette_, no. 1,239,
Supplement, reprinted in Hazard's _Reg. of Penna._, ii. 243; Watson's
_Annals of Philad._, vol. ii.; Muhlenberg's journal in _Penna. Hist.
Soc. Coll._, vol. i. 78; Wallace's _Col. Bradford_, p. 95.
For Delaware, _Life of Geo. Read_, p. 30.
For Maryland, the Gilmor Papers in the Maryland Hist. Soc.
library, vol. iii., division 2; and references in vol. xi. of the
Stevens-Peabody index of Maryland MSS.
For Virginia, the Resolves (May 29th) of the Assembly (to which Patrick
Henry made his bold speech), given in Hutchinson's _Mass._, iii., App.
p. 466; Geo. Tucker's _United States_, i., App., and cf. _Franklin's
Works_, vii. 298; C. R. Hildeburn in _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, ii. 296;
_Huguenot Family_, p. 424; Ryerson's _Loyalists_, i. 286; and Randall's
_Jefferson_, i. ch. 2.
For North Carolina, J. H. Wheeler's _Reminiscences and Memoir of No.
Carolina_ (1884).
For South Carolina, R. W. Gibbs's _Doc. Hist. of the Amer. Rev._, p. 1;
Niles's _Principles and Acts_ (1876), p. 319; _Charleston Year-Book_,
1885, p. 331, with a fac-simile of broadside of schedule of stamps;
Ramsay's _South Carolina_; Flanders's _Rutledge_, p. 456. There are in
the _Sparks MSS._ (xliii. vol. iv.) various official letters of the
governors of the different colonies to the home government. Gage's
reminiscent letter to Chalmers is in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (xxxiv.
367, etc.); and other letters are in the _Hist. Mag._ (May, 1862, vol.
vi. 137).
[186] Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._ (iii. 341), for a view of the hall.
[187] _Authentic Account of the proceedings of the Congress held in
New York in 1765 on the subject of the American Stamp Act_ (Philad.,
1767; Lond., 1767; Philad., 1813; in Almon's _Tracts_, 1773; in Niles's
_Principles and Acts_, 1876, p. 155,—see Sabin, xiii. nos. 53,537,
etc.); _Journal of the first Congress of the American Colonies, N.
Y., Oct. 7, 1775, ed. by Lewis Cruger_ (Sabin, iv. 15,541). They
passed a declaration of rights, an address to the king, a memorial to
the lords, and a petition to the commons. (Cf. Hutchinson's _Mass._,
vol. iii., App. pp. 479, 481, 483, 485; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vii.
87, 89; H. W. Preston's _Docs. illus. Amer. Hist._,1886). John Adams
and McKean at a later day exchanged memories of the Congress (_John
Adams's Works_, x. 60, 63). Beardsley, in his _W. S. Johnson_ (p. 32),
explains the position of that member for Connecticut. Cf., among the
general writers, Bancroft, v. ch. 18; N. C. Towle, _Hist. and Analysis
of the Constitution_, 307; Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 185;
Palfrey's _New England_, iv. 399; Barry's _Mass._, ii. 304; Dunlap's
_New York_, i. 416; Green's _Hist. View of the Amer. Rev._, 72; Lossing
in _Harper's Monthly_, xxvi. 34, and Mahon's _England_, v. 126.
Timothy Ruggles (b. 1711), who later joined the Tories, was chosen
president by a single vote. Cf. sketch in _Worcester Mag._ (1826), vol.
ii., p. 54, and Sabine's _Amer. Loyalists_.
[188] _Works relating to Franklin in Boston Pub. Lib._, p. 20;
Bancroft, orig. ed., v. 306; _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, viii. 426, and
x. 220; Sparks's _Franklin_, i. 290; iv. 156, 161, 206; vii. 281; x.
429-32; Parton's _Franklin_, i. 436. The grounds of the accusation
against Franklin are discussed in a correspondence of Franklin with
Dean Tucker (Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 518; Bigelow's _Franklin_, i.
460-466), and Tucker so far admitted his error as to omit the passage.
[189] Smyth's _Lectures_, ii. 383.
[190] _The Examination of Franklin_ [before the House of Commons]
_relative to the repeal of the American Stamp Act in 1766_
(Williamsburg, n. d.; London, 1766; Philad.? 1766?; n. p. and n. d.;
London, 1767—the titles vary in some of these editions). The report is
also in Almon's _Prior Documents_ (London, 1777, pp. 64-81; Sparks's
_Franklin_ (iv. p. 161; cf. vii. 311, 328); Bigelow's _Franklin_, i.
467); Bancroft, v. 428; Ryerson, i. 308.
[191] In recording the debates in Parliament, Bancroft (orig. ed., v.
383, 415) used the accounts in the _Political Debates_, in Walpole's
_Letters_, the _précis_ in the French archives, the report set down
by Moffat of Rhode Island, and the copious extracts made by Garth,
a member, who sent his notes to South Carolina. William Strahan's
account is given in the _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, April, 1886, p. 95.
It is said in P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor Hutchinson_ (i. 288) that
Pitt was in doubt at first which side to take. Cf. lives of Pitt and
editions of his speeches, and the comment in Mahon, v. 133, 138, and
Ryerson, i. 302. Smyth (ii. 365) considers the protest of the lords
against the repeal (_Protests of the Lords_, ed. by J. E. T. Rogers,
ii. 77) the best exposition of the government view of taxation. For
a Paris edition of this _Protests_, with Franklin's marginal notes,
see _Brinley Catal._, no. 3,219. See also, for English comment,
Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_ (i. ch. 7), and Lecky, (iii. 344); and for
American, Bancroft, v. 421, 450; _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, iii. 19; and
in _Franklin's Works_ (iv. 156; vii. 308, 317).
There were rumors of the coming repeal in Boston as early as April 1st
(Thornton's _Pulpit_, 120), but the confirmation came May 16th, when
public rejoicing soon followed, and on a Thanksgiving, July 24, Charles
Chauncy delivered a _Discourse_ in Boston (Boston, 1766; reprinted by
Thornton, p. 105). The _Boon Catalogue_ (no. 2,949) and others show
numerous sermons in commemoration of the repeal; and the public prints
give the occasional ballads (F. Moore's _Songs and Ballads_, p. 22).
The town of Boston ordered portraits of Conway and Barré to be painted,
and the pictures hung in Faneuil Hall till the British made way with
them during the siege (_Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii, 181). There is a head
of Conway in the _European Mag._ (i. 159), and another in the _London
Mag._, April, 1782.
The Mass. Assembly, June 20th, thanked Pitt. Cf. _Mass. State Papers_,
by Bradford, pp. 10, 92. For the general scope of the whole period
of the Stamp Act turmoil, see, on the American side, beside the
contemporary newspapers, Tudor's _Otis_, ch. 14; Bancroft, v. ch.
11, etc.; Gay, iii. 338; Palfrey, iv. 375; Barry, ii. ch. 10; E. G.
Scott's _Constitutional Liberty_, p. 253; Irving's _Washington_, i.
ch. 28; Parton's _Franklin_, i. 459-483; Bigelow's _Franklin_, i. 457;
Thornton's _Pulpit_, etc., 133; Lossing's _Field-Book_, i. 463; ii.
877. Sparks made sketches and notes for a history of the Stamp Act,
which are in the _Sparks MSS._, no. xliv. On the English side, beside
the acts themselves and the current press, the _Annual Register_,
_Gentleman's Mag._, etc., see Le Marchant's _George the Third by
Walpole_, ii. 217, 236, 260, 277; the _Pictorial Hist. England_; Mahon;
Massey; C. D. Yonge's _Constitutional Hist. England_, ch. 3; Sir Thomas
Erskine May's _Const. Hist. England_, ii. 550-562; _Rockingham and his
Contemporaries_, i. 250; Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 319; Macknight's
_Burke_, i. ch. 10, 11; J. C. Earle's _English Premiers_ (London,
1871), vol. i. ch. 5; Smyth's _Lectures_, ii. 379, 423; Lecky, iii.
314, 340 ("Every farthing which it was intended to raise in America, it
was intended also to spend there"), and Ryerson's _Loyalists_, i. ch.
10.
[192] There was a _History of Amer. Taxation from 1763_, published
in a third ed. at Dublin in 1775 (Sabin, vii. 32,125). Franklin
contended that at this time taxation of the colonies was a popular
idea in England (_Works_, vii. 350), while Smyth found that at a later
day (_Lectures_, ii. 371) he could get sympathy in speaking of "the
miserable, mortifying, melancholy facts of our dispute with America."
See synopsis of the arguments _pro et con_ in _Life of George Read_,
76; Palfrey, iv. 327; Smyth's _Lectures_, ii. 471; Green's _Hist.
View_, 55; Gardiner and Mullinger's _Eng. Hist. for Students_ (N. Y.,
1881), p. 183. Cf. also Bigelow's _Franklin_, i. 515; Foster's _Stephen
Hopkins_, ii. 244.
A few of the most indicative tracts on the subject may be mentioned:—
Soame Jenyns's _Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies
briefly considered_ (London, 1765; also in his _Works_, 1790, vol. ii.
p. 189), which was answered in James Otis's _Considerations on behalf
of the British Colonies_, dated Boston, Sept. 4, 1765 (Boston and
London, 1765).
George Grenville is credited with the authorship of _The Regulations
lately made concerning the Colonies and the taxes imposed upon them
considered_ (London, 1765,—Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,472; _Sparks
Catal._, p. 83).
William Knox, the agent of Georgia, printed _The Claim of the Colonies
to exemption from internal taxes imposed by authority of Parliament
examined_ (Lond., 1765). The _Brinley Catal._, no. 3,218, shows
Franklin's copy, with his annotations.
Daniel Dulaney's _Considerations on the propriety of imposing taxes
in the British Colonies for the purpose of raising a revenue by Act
of Parliament_ (North America, 1765; Annapolis, 1765; New York, 1765;
London, 1766) is in most copies without the author's name. (Cf. Sabin,
v. no. 21,170; Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,438-39, 1,503; Brinley, i.
no. 188; also Frothingham's _Rise of the Repub._, p. 194, and _Chatham
Correspondence_, iii. 192.)
_The late regulations respecting the British colonies in America
considered in a letter from a gentleman in Philadelphia to his friend
in London_ (Philad., 1765; Lond., 1765) is usually said to have been by
John Dickinson. It is included in his _Political Writings_, vol. i. A
brief tract of two pages, _A denunciation of the Stamp Act_ (Philad.,
1765), is also said to be Dickinson's.
The right of Parliament is sustained, but the Stamp Act as a measure
condemned, in _A letter to a member of Parliament wherein the power of
the British legislature and the case of the colonists are briefly and
impartially considered_ (London, 1765,—Sabin, x. 40,406; Carter-Brown,
iii. 1,462).
_Objections to the taxation of our American Colonies briefly
considered_ (Lond., 1765).
See also Charles Thomson's letter to Cook, Laurence & Co., Nov. 9,
1765, in _N. Y. Hist. Society Coll._ (1878, p. 7).
[193] The first is a _Letter from a merchant in London to his nephew
in No. America relative to the present posture of affairs in the
Colonies_ (Lond., 1766), and the last _A series of answers to certain
popular objections against separating from the rebellious colonies and
discarding them entirely: being the concluding tract of the Dean of
Gloucester on the subject of American affairs_ (Gloucester, 1776). The
dean's plan of separation is best unfolded, however, in his _Humble
Address and Ernest appeal_ (London, 1775; 3rd ed., corrected, 1776).
The views of Tucker are given synoptically by Smyth (_Lectures_, ii.
392), Lecky (iii. 421), Hildreth (iii. 58). If Haven's list is correct,
only two of Tucker's tracts were reprinted in the colonies. Cf.
_Menzies Catal._, no. 1,997. The letters of Franklin and Wm. S. Johnson
reflect opinions in England at this time.
[194] Published in London in 1767, two editions; Boston, 1767; also in
Almon's _Tracts_, vol. iii. Cf. Sabin, iv. nos. 15,202-3; Brinley, iii.
p. 185; Carter-Brown, iii., no. 1,498. 18 It is sometimes attributed
to C. Jenkinson. The published tracts of 1766 are enumerated in
Carter-Brown and Haven under 1766; in Cooke, 1,336, 1,929, 1,934; in
Brinley, i. p. 21; ii. p. 154; and in Sabin, under the authors' names.
During 1767 also there was something of a flurry in the religious part
of the community induced by a sermon (London, 1767) which the Bishop
of Landaff had preached before the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, in Feb., in which he had styled the Americans
"infidels and barbarians." William Livingston, of New York, addressed a
_Letter to the Bishop_ (London, 1768), and Charles Chauncy, of Boston,
published a _Letter to a friend_ (Boston, 1767), in which the bishop
was taken to task, while an anonymous friend undertook a _Vindication
of the Bishop_ (New York, 1768). Cf. Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,585,
1,629, 1,630.
The other tracts of 1767 are not numerous. Cf. Carter-Brown, and Haven
under 1767.
[195] Sabin, xiv. 61,646.
[196] _Rec. Com. Rept._, xvi. p. 22.
[197] Following a copy in the Mass. Hist. Soc. library.
[198] Franklin (Sparks), vii. 371, 373, 376, 378, 387; (Bigelow), i.
551, 556. The resolutions were printed in the public prints, in _Ames's
Almanac_ (1768), etc.
[199] For the movements in Boston, see Frothingham's "Sam. Adams's
Regiments" in the _Atlantic Monthly_, June and Aug., 1867, and Nov.,
1863. The letter of the town to Dennis Deberdt, the London agent, sets
forth their side of the case (_Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 29). John Mein,
the Boston printer, one of the proscribed, published his _State of
the importation of Great Britain with the port of Boston from Jan. to
Aug., 1768_, to show that his assailants were also importers (Stevens's
_Hist. Coll._, i. no. 393; Quaritch, 1885, no. 29,618). There is one
of the agreements among the Boston merchants, Aug. 14, 1769, in _Misc.
MSS._, 1632-1795, in Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet. Samuel Cooper tells
Franklin how the agreements are adhered to (Sparks's _Franklin_, vii.
448). Moore, _Songs and Ballads of the Rev._, p. 48, gives some verses
from the _Boston Newsletter_, urging the "daughters of liberty" to
lend their influence in this direction. In the early part of 1770
the movement seemed to be vigorous (_Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 150;
cf. papers of Cushing, Hancock, and others, in _Letters and Papers_,
1761-1776, in Mass. Hist Soc. cabinet). Late in the year Hutchinson
could write: "The confederacy in all the governments against importing
seemed in the latter end of the summer to be breaking to pieces" (P. O.
Hutchinson, i. 24). For such matters in Philadelphia, see Scharf and
Westcott's _Philadelphia_; Franklin (Sparks), vii. 445; (Bigelow), ii.
39. In Delaware, see _Life of George Read_, 82. In Charlestown (S. C.)
there was a controversy over the non-importation association, in which
Christopher Gadsden and John Mackenzie supported the movement, and W.
H. Drayton and William Wragg opposed it. These letters, which appeared
in Timothy's _S. C. Gazette_, June-Dec., 1769, were issued together in
_The letters of Freeman_, etc. ([London], 1771, Brinley, no. 3,976).
[200] Thornton, _Pulpit of the Rev._, 150. It is printed in the _Penna.
Archives_, 1st ser., iv. 286, and _N. Jersey Archives_, x. 14.
[201] _New Jersey Archives_, x. 14.
[202] _New Jersey Archives_, x. 21. Cf. William E. Foster on the
development of colonial coöperation, 1754-1774,—a chapter in his
_Stephen Hopkins_, vol. ii. A symbol, common at this time, of a
disjointed snake, the head representing New England, and the other
fragments standing for the remaining colonies, and accompanied
by the motto "Join or Die", seems to have first appeared in _The
Constitutional Courant_, no. 1, Sept. 21, 1765, and was used later by
the _Boston Evening Post_. Cf. _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Nov., 1882, p.
768; 1883, p. 213; and Preble's _Hist. of the Amer. Flag_.
[203] Hutchinson's side of the story is in his _History_, iii. 189. At
a large town meeting, over which Otis presided, and at which no direct
reference was made to the riots, the people recapitulated grievances,
and petitioned (_Rec. Com. Rept._, xvi. 254) the governor to order
the "Romney" away from the harbor. Hutchinson (iii. App. J and K)
prints the address and the instructions which were given to their
representatives. (Cf. _John Adams's Works_, iii. 501.) The examination
of Robert Hallowell, controller of the port, is in the _Lee MSS._ (H.
C. library), i. no. 40.. Johnson (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xlix. 301)
speaks of the effect in England. See the general historians, and also
special reports in _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1868, p. 402; 1869,
p. 452; and also 1883, p. 404, for Hancock's spirit of challenge in
naming a sloop, the next year, the "Rising Liberty."
[204] Caruthers's _Life of Dr. Caldwell_; Foote's _Sketches of No.
Carolina_; Martin's _Hist. of No. Carolina_; a paper by Francis L.
Hawks in _Revolutionary Hist. of No. Carolina_, ed. by W. D. Cooke
(Raleigh and New York, 1853), which has a sketch of the "Battle of
Alamance;" papers by David L. Swain in the _University Magazine_
(Chapel Hill, N. C.); J. H. Wheeler's _Reminiscences and Memoirs of
No. Carolina_ (1884); _Southern Literary Messenger_, xi. 144, 231. Cf.
also Lossing's _Field-Book of the Rev._, ii. 577, and Jones's _New York
during the Rev._, ii. 5; and a paper on James Few, "the first American
anarchist", in _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Nov., 1886.
[205] _A Fan for Fanning and a Touchstone for Tryon, containing an
impartial account of the rise and progress of the so much talked of
Regulation in North Carolina, by Regulus_ (Brinley, ii. no 3,866). They
had organized for the purpose of "regulating public grievances." Such,
at least, was their profession.
[206] _An impartial relation of the first rise and cause of the recent
differences in public affairs in North Carolina, and of the past
tumults and riots that lately happened in that province.... Printed for
the Compiler_, 1770 (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,744).
[207] _Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the inhabitants of the
British Colonies_ (Philad., Boston, New York, 1768). They originally
appeared in twelve numbers in the _Penna. Chronicle and Universal
Advertiser_, between Dec. 2, 1767, and Feb. 15, 1768. When reprinted
in London (1768) Franklin added a preface, and they were again printed
there in 1774. (Cf. Sparks's _Franklin_, i. 316; iv. 256; vii. 391,
x. 433; Bigelow's _Franklin_, i. 566; Sabin, v. nos. 20,044-20,052;
Haven, p. 594; Carter-Brown, iii. 1,620, 1,621.) They are included
in Dickinson's _Political Writings_ (Wilmington, 1801, vol. ii.).
Lecky (iii. 419) calls these letters "one of the ablest statements
of the American case." Cf. Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, p.
208, and Shea's _Hamilton_, p. 255. For Boston's letter of gratitude
to Dickinson, see _Record Com. Rept._, xvi. p. 243. Lecky (iii. 320,
348) thinks the ablest presentation of the case against the colonies
is _The Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies_ (London,
1769; Boston, 1769), written to offset the _Farmer's Letters_. Bancroft
says that Grenville himself wrote the constitutional argument in it,
and the Board of Trade furnished the material. The pamphlet itself is
usually ascribed to William Knox, the Under-Secretary of State, though
the names of Whately, Israel Mauduit, and John Mein have been sometimes
preferred. (Cf. Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,666; Sabin, x. p. 532.)
[208] _The True Sentiments of America contained in a Collection of
Letters sent from the House of Representatives of the Province of
Massachusetts Bay to several persons of high rank in this kingdom.
Together with certain papers relating to a supposed Libel on the
Governor of that Province and a Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal
Law_ (London, 1768). The volume includes the petition to the king
of Jan. 20, 1768; the letter of Jan. 12, 1768, to Dennis Deberdt;
letters to Shelburne, Conway, Camden, Chatham, and others,—most of
these papers being written by Sam. Adams; Joseph Warren's attack on
Bernard, from the _Boston Gazette_ and the _Dissertation on the Canon
and Feudal Law_, attributed here to Jeremy Gridley, but written in fact
by John Adams (Sabin, viii. 32,551; Brinley, ii. 4,163 Menzies, 946;
Carter-Brown, iii. 1,603. Cf. _John Adams's Works_, x. 367).
_A Letter to the Right Honorable the Marquis of Rockingham from the
Province of Massachusetts Bay_, Jan. 12, 1768, signed by the Speaker,
was circulated in broadside (copy in Mass. Hist. Soc. library). Warren
was writing in the public prints at this time (Loring's _Hundred Boston
Orators_, 53). Samuel Cooper was corresponding with William Livingston
(Sedgwick's _Livingston_, pp. 136-138). Bernard was writing to
Hillsborough, Nov. 30, 1768, that "Bowdoin had all along taken the lead
in the Council in their late extraordinary proceedings" (_Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, viii. 86). The Boston merchants printed _Observations on
several acts of parliament passed in the 4th, 6th, 7th years of [the]
reign of [George III.]: also on the conduct of the officers of the
customs since those acts were passed, and the board of commissioners
appointed to reside in America_ (Boston, 1769),—Sabin, xiii. 56,501;
Carter-Brown, iii. 1,690. Cf. Hutchinson's character of Bowdoin
(_Massachusetts_, iii. 293).
[Illustration: James Bowdain]
There is among the Chalmers Papers in the _Sparks MSS._ (no. x. vol.
ii.) a paper dated June, 1768, without signature, which begins, "Being
in the gallery a few days before the Assembly was dissolved, I heard
Mr. Otis make a long speech, part of the substance of which was, as
near as I can remember, couched in the following terms", etc.; and
(_Ibid._, vol. iii.) there is the affidavit of Richard Sylvester,
a Boston innholder, sworn to before Hutchinson, and describing the
speeches of the Boston leaders.
For the spirit of the hour, see the lives of the chief Boston patriots,
like Sam. Adams, and a summary of the progress of opinion in Amory's
_James Sullivan_ (Boston, 1859). Admiral Hood was so far deceived that
in 1769 he wrote from Boston that the spirit of sedition had fallen
(_Grenville Papers_, iii.).
[209] Not to name the newspapers, see the address of Georgia to the
king (_Sparks MSS._, xlix. ii.); that of New Jersey (_N. J. Archives_,
x. 18); that of Virginia, May 16,1769 (Hutchinson's _Mass. Bay_, iii.
App. p. 494). On these royal petitions, see Ryerson's _Loyalists_, i.
ch. 14.
A collection of papers of which William Livingston, as is supposed, was
one of the writers, and which were printed in the _New York Gazette_
and in other newspapers, were published separately as _A Collection of
Tracts from the late newspapers_ (Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_,
244; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,617; Brinley, iv. no. 6,135). The
correspondence of the Philadelphia merchants is in the _Sparks MSS._,
lxii.
[210] Hutchinson's view of the matter is in his vol. iii. p. 227. These
and other letters and papers were included in several publications,
published about the same time:—
_Letters to the Earl of Hillsborough from Gov. Bernard, General Gage,
and the Honorable his Majesty's Council for the province of Mass.
Bay, with an appendix containing divers proceedings referred to in
said letters_ (Boston, folio, 1769; Salem, quarto, 1769; London, n.
d.,—Sabin, ii. 4,924; Carter-Brown, iii. 1683).
_Letters to the Ministry from Gov. Bernard, General Gage, and Commodore
Hood; and also memorials to the lords of the treasury from the
commissioners of the customs, with sundry letters and papers annexed
to said memorials_ (Boston, 1769; London, n. d.,—Sabin, ii. 4,923;
Carter-Brown, iii. 1,684).
_A third extraordinary Budget of Epistles and Memorials between Sir
Francis Bernard, some natives of Boston, and the present ministry,
against North America and the true interests of the British Empire and
the rights of mankind_ (no imprint,—Sabin, ii. 4,927; Haven in Thomas,
ii. p. 600).
_Copies of letters from Sir Francis Bernard to the Earl of
Hillsborough_ (two editions, without place, and one, Boston,
1769,—Sabin, ii. 4,921).
There had already been efforts made by the Boston authorities to get at
the contents of these letters by a request to Bernard for a statement
respecting his transmissions to England (_Mass. State Papers_, ed.
Bradford, 115, 120; _Papers_ pub. by the Seventy-Six Soc.; Lee MSS.
in Harvard College library, i. nos. 42-45). Bernard ascribed all his
tribulations to his enforcement of the laws of trade (Bernard Papers in
_Sparks MSS._, iii. 150). For Bernard's character, see _John Adams_,
iv. 21, Mahon, v. 235, and Palfrey in his review of Mahon. Bernard left
Boston Aug. 2, 1769.
[211] The general belief is that the author of this defence was Samuel
Adams (Wells, i. 282; Bancroft, vi. 312), though it has been ascribed
to William Cooper, to James Otis, and to Otis and Adams combined.
Cf. Barry's _Mass._, ii. 399; Franklin, viii. 459; _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc._, i. 485; _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. p.28; Carter-Brown, iii. nos.
1,643, 1,644, 1,716. See Report as spread on the Town Records, in _Rec.
Com. Rept._, xvi. p. 303.
[212] _A letter to the right honourable the earl of Hillsborough,
on the present situation of affairs in America._ _Also an appendix
in answer to a pamphlet intitled, The constitutional right of
Great-Britain to tax the colonies_ (London, 1769; Boston, 1769,—Sabin,
viii. p. 297; Carter-Brown, iii. 1,681).
This also has been attributed to S. Adams; but Hutchinson (iii. 228,
237) believed that James Bowdoin was the writer.
[213] The notes include comments on the _Protest of the Lords against
the repeal of the Stamp Act_ (_Franklin_, iv. 206); on _A letter from
a merchant in London_ (iv. 211); on _Good Humour, or a way with the
Colonies_ (iv. 215); on _An inquiry into the nature and causes of the
present disputes_ (iv. 281); on _The true constitutional means of
putting an end to the disputes_ (iv. 298). On Franklin in London at
this time, see Sparks's _Franklin_, vii. 338, 350, 354, etc. The tracts
above noted are said by Sparks to be in the Philadelphia Athenæum,
but some of these titles appear, as having Franklin's notes, in the
_Brinley Catal._ ii. nos. 3,218-22. Israel Mauduit's _Short View of the
Hist. of the Colony of Mass. Bay_ (Lond., 1769) is noted in Brinley,
and not by Sparks.
[214] Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 258. Some letters of Strahan (1767-8,
etc.) are in the _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, x. 322. The letters of Wm.
Samuel Johnson are also of importance (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._,
xlix.). He describes Barré and others in debate. Barré, in March, 1769,
predicted the loss of the colonies (Smyth, _Lectures_, ii. 384), and
in April Johnson is writing, "It seems pretty probable that we shall
go on contending, and fretting each other, till we _become_ separate
and _independent_ empires" (Beardsley's _Life of W. S. Johnson_, p. 65;
also see pp. 38, 42).
A few of the other more significant pamphlets of 1769 may be mentioned:
_The rights of the Colonies and the extent of the legislative authority
of Great Britain_ (London, 1769), by Phelps, the under-secretary to
Lord Sandwich. Allan Ramsay's _Thoughts on the origin and nature of
government_ (London, 1769). Alexander Cluny's _American Traveller,
or Observations on the British Colonies in America by an old and
experienced trader_ (London, 1769), said to have been instigated
by Chatham. _The present state of liberty in Great Britain and her
Colonies_ (London, 1769). _The present state of the Nation_ (London,
1768), by Robert Tickle, and the reply to it, called _Considerations
on the dependencies of Great Britain_ (London, 1769), and Burke's
_Observations_ on it in his _Works_ (Boston, 1865, i. p. 269). _The
Case of Great Britain and America_, _addressed to the King and both
houses of parliament_ (London, 1769; Philad., 1769). Richard Bland's
_Enquiry into the rights of the British Colonies, intended as an answer
to The Regulations lately made concerning the Colonies_ (Williamsburg,
1769; London, 1769). Cf. Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,646, 1,652, 1,660,
1,661; Stevens's _Hist. Coll._, i. 510; Sabin, xvi. nos. 61,401, 67,679.
[215] Hutchinson's _History_, vol. iii. _John Adams's Works_, ii. 224;
ix. 317; x. 204.
[216] Barry's _Mass._, ii. 407 and references.
[217] Reprinted in London in three editions the same year. Brinley, i.
no. 1,655, etc.; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,719, etc.; Haven in Thomas,
ii. p. 608.
[218] Not the historian, but his uncle. Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._,
xi. 240.
[219] The letter of the Boston committee, covering the copy sent to the
Massachusetts agent in London, is among the Lee Papers in the Univ. of
Virginia. There is a fac-simile of its signatures in the _Mem. Hist.
Boston_, iii. 39. Some copies of the _Narrative_ have a list of the
persons in England to whom copies were sent.
The _Letter from the Town of Boston to C. Lucas, Esq., one of the
Representatives of the City of Dublin, in Parliament, inclosing a Short
Narrative_, etc., was printed in Dublin, 1770 (_Cooke Catal._, iii. no.
256; Sabin, x. no. 40,348). The other contemporary American accounts
are in the _Boston Gazette_, March 12th (bordered with black lines);
Jos. Belknap's in _Belknap Papers_ (MS., i. 69); letter of William
Palfrey to John Wilkes, and one of Governor Hutchinson in _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, vol. vi. 480 (March, 1863).
The accounts in Gordon (vol. i.) and Hutchinson (vol. iii. 270) are
also those of contemporaries. Cf. documents in _Hist. Mag._, June,
1861, and in Niles's _Principles and Acts of the Rev._ Dickinson, on
March 31st wrote of it to Arthur Lee, from Philadelphia. Lee's _Life of
A. Lee_, ii. 299.
Crispus Attucks, one of the slain, usually called a mulatto, is held
by J. B. Fisher, in the _Amer. Hist. Record_ (i. 531), to have been a
half-breed Indian. Cf. _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 32; George Livermore's
_Historical Research_.
[220] Separately, Boston, 1770 (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,721; Haven in
Thomas, ii. p. 608).
[221] There are other later accounts in J. S. Loring's _Hundred Boston
Orators_; Frothingham's "Sam. Adams's Regiments" (_Atlantic Monthly_,
June and Aug., 1862, and Nov., 1863), which is epitomized in his _Life
of Warren_ (ch. 6); Wells's _Samuel Adams_; Tudor's _Otis_; Bancroft's
_United States_ (orig. ed., vi. ch. 43, with references); histories of
Boston by Snow and Drake, and the _Mem. History of Boston_, iii. 38,
135; Barry's _Mass._, ii. 409; Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. ch. 14.
[222] _John Adams's Works_, x. 201. The brief used by John Adams is in
the Boston Public Library, and a fac-simile of the opening paragraph is
in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 38. It is printed by Kidder (p. 10).
A portrait of Lynde, the presiding judge, is given in the _Memorial
Hist. of Boston_ (ii. 558), and in the _Diaries of Benj. Lynde and
Benj. Lynde, Jr._ (Bost., privately printed, 1880), where will be found
all that remains of his charge. Sam. Adams's "Vindex" criticised the
arguments for the defence in the _Mass. Gazette_. Cf. Buckingham's
_Reminiscences_, i. 168.
[223] He was a Scotch bookbinder in Boston. Thomas's _Hist. of
Printing_ (1874), ii. 228.
[224] Brinley, i. 1659; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,722; Haven in Thomas,
ii. p. 608.
[225] This volume was reprinted in Boston in 1807 and 1824, and in
Kidder's monograph (1870). Other contemporary accounts of the trial
are in Hutchinson (iii. 328); by S. Cooper in _Franklin's Works_ (vii.
499); and reminiscences are in _John Adams's Works_, x. 162, 201,
249. Cf. _Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr._ (ch. 2), and P. W. Chandler's
_American Criminal Trials_ (vol. i.).
[226] Brinley, i. no. 1,658.
[227] Cf. _Proc. of his Majesty's Council, relative to the deposition
of Andrew Oliver, Esq._ (Boston, 1770, Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,752).
[228] The principal later English accounts are in Stedman, Mahon (v.
268), Grahame (iv. 310), Ryerson's _Loyalists_ (i. ch. 16). Lecky
(_England in the Eighteenth Century_, iii. 369, 401) thinks Bancroft
shows violent partisanship, and says that "few things contributed
more to the American Revolution than this unfortunate affray. Skilful
agitators perceived the advantage it gave them, and the most fantastic
exaggerations were dexterously diffused."
[229] A fac-simile of the _Mass. Spy_, March 7, 1771, with its
blackened columns, is given in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_ (iii. 135).
On the same day Revere showed illuminated pictures of the scene from
his house in North Square. The orations were gathered and published
collectively by Peter Edes in 1785, and this book appeared in a second
edition in 1807. The successive speakers were Thomas Young, James
Lovell, Benjamin Church (third ed. was corrected by the author), John
Hancock, Joseph Warren (two editions), Peter Thacher, Benj. Hichborn,
Jonathan W. Austin, William Tudor, Jonathan Mason, Thomas Dawes, Geo.
R. Minot, and Thomas Welsh. These orations were published separately,
and Hancock's is said by Wells (ii. 138) to have been largely written
by Samuel Adams. Hancock's was reprinted in New Haven. Some of them are
in Niles's _Principles and Acts_ (1876), p. 17; and Loring (_Hundred
Boston Orators_) particularly commemorates them.
When Warren's oration in 1772 was published, a poem by James Allen
(1739-1808) was to have accompanied it, but some of the committee,
having doubts of Allen's sentiments, suppressed it, when the poet's
friends later published it separately as _The poem which the town
of Boston had voted unanimously to be published with the late
oration; with observations relating thereto; together with some very
pertinent extracts from an ingenious composition never yet published_
[Anon.] (Boston, 1772). Cf. _Brinley Catal._, iv. no. 6,771; J. C.
Stockbridge's _Harris Coll. of Amer. Poetry_ (Providence, 1886), p. 8.
The oration of Thacher, delivered at Watertown during the siege of
Boston, is said to be rarest of all the separate issues (Cooke, no.
2,428).
A sermon on the massacre, by the Rev. John Lathrop, of the Second
Church in Boston, "preached the lord's day following", was first
printed in London, 1770, and reprinted in Boston, 1771 (Carter-Brown,
iii. 1,792; Haven in Thomas, ii. p. 610).
[230] These documents are Hutchinson's address, Apr. 26th (p. 505);
the instructions of Boston to its representatives, May 15th (p. 508;
cf. _John Adams's Works_, ix. 616); and various other documents
interchanged between them which largely concern Hutchinson's removing
the Assembly to Cambridge (pp. 515-542).
In June, 1770, it would seem that Hutchinson's life was threatened
because of the passions aroused by the massacre, and there is in the
Mass. Hist. Soc. library (_Misc. MSS._, 1632-1795) a brief note of his
written on being advised to protect himself, dated June 22, 1770, at
Milton. It is printed in the Society's _Proceedings_, Jan., 1862, p.
361.
[231] Arthur Lee's _Political detection_ (London, 1770), being letters
addressed to Hillsborough, Bernard, and others (Carter-Brown, iii.
1,760).
Edmund Burke's _Thoughts on the Cause of the present discontents_ (3d
ed., London, 1770,—in _Works_, Boston ed., 1865, i. p. 433).
Catharine Macaulay's _Observations on a pamphlet entitled Thoughts on
the Cause of the present discontents_ (London, 1770).
_Extract of a letter from the House of Representatives of the Mass. Bay
to their agent, Dennys de Berdt, with some remarks_ (London, 1770).
There is a portrait of De Berdt in the State House, Boston.
[232] Beardsley's _Life of W. S. Johnson_, p. 84.
[233] Instructions of the House of Representatives to Franklin, in
Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet.
[234] _Works_, vii. 486, 488, 493, 501.
[235] _Ibid._, vii. 508.
[236] P. O. Hutchinson, ii. 79. Some interesting letters of Hutchinson
(1771-1772) are in the English Public Record Office, and are printed in
the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xix. 129-140.
[237] One of an indicative English stamp is Allan Ramsay's _Hist. Essay
on the English Constitution, wherein the right of Parliament to tax our
different provinces is explained and justified_ (Sabin, xvi. 67,675).
[238] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xii. 9.
[239] A duplicate of the original document is in the Lee Papers
in the University of Virginia library. Cf. Franklin's account of
his conversation with Dartmouth, _Works_, viii. 25, 28; and of his
presentation of the petition and one forwarded the next year (viii.
47). For duplicates of originals, see _Calendar of Lee Papers_, p. 5
(vol. ii. nos. 5-7).
[240] _John Adams's Works_, iv. 34; Frothingham's _Warren_, 200,
Wells's _Sam. Adams_, i. 509, ii. 62; Grahame's _United States_, iv.
328; Barry's _Mass._, ii. 448; Goodell's _Provincial Laws_, v. index.
Something of the sort seems to have been suggested in Rhode Island,
Oct. 8, 1764, in a letter to Franklin (_Works_, vii. 264). Dawson
(_Sons of Liberty in N. Y._, 61-64) finds the earliest movement in the
New York Assembly, Oct. 18, 1764. Thornton (_Pulpit of the Rev._, 45,
191) notes the suggestion in a letter of Jonathan Mayhew, June 8, 1766,
to James Otis, that there might be a communion of colonies, as there
was a communion of churches.
[241] Prefiguring, as John Adams said, the Declaration of Rights in
1774, and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Wells's _Adams_,
i. 501, where it is printed; _John Adams's Works_, ii. 514; Haven in
Thomas, ii. p. 622. Franklin's preface to the English edition of the
_Rights_ is in his _Works_, iv. 381. Cf. Francis Maseres's _Occasional
Essays_ (London, 1809). The proceedings of Boston, Oct. 28th and Nov.
20th, were also printed. The letters of John Andrew from Boston begin
at this time (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 316-412).
[242] Wirt's _Patrick Henry_, 3d ed., p. 87, _Life of R. H. Lee_,
i. 89; _No. Amer. Rev._, March, 1818; Randall's _Jefferson_, i. 80;
Tucker's _Jefferson_, i. 52; _Franklin's Works_, viii. 49. Frothingham
(_Rise of the Republic_, 284, 312, 327) traces the growth of the
committee, and determines the time of appointing such a committee
by each colony. The correspondence of the Rhode Island Committee is
in the _R. I. Col. Rec._, vii. On the committee in New York, see
Dawson's _Westchester County_, 10. Philadelphia appointed one May 20,
1774 (4 Force, i. 340). Sparks points out the distinction between the
Committees of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety (_Gouverneur
Morris_, i. 31).
[243] Mr. Bartlett was born Oct. 23, 1805, and died in May, 1886. His
life was so largely devoted to advancing the study of American history
that this record needs to be made, and reference given to Professor
William Gammell's _Life and Services of the Hon. John Russell Bartlett,
a paper read before the Rhode Island Historical Society_ (Providence,
1886), and the tribute by Charles Deane in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc.
Proc._, Oct., 1886.
[244] Mr. Wm. R. Staples had earlier published the _Documentary Hist.
of the destruction of the Gaspee_ (Providence, 1845). An account by
Ephraim Bowen is given in S. G. Arnold's _Rhode Island_ (vol. ii. ch.
19, 20). For local accounts, see _Providence Plantations_ (Providence,
1886), pp. 58, 359; O. P. Fuller's _Warwick, R. I._ (p. 101); Foster's
_Stephen Hopkins_ (ii. 83, 245); E. M. Stone's _John Howland_ (p. 35).
For the political bearings to the country at large, see Frothingham's
_Rise of the Republic_ (p. 278); Parton's _Jefferson_ (ch. 14, 15);
_Life of R. H. Lee_ (i. 85); Lossing's _Field-Book_ (ii. 60). There are
in the _Sparks MSS._ (xliii. vol. i. p. 140, etc.) the letters of the
British Admiral Montague, and depositions copied from papers in the
English Archives. G. C. Mason, in the _R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll._, vii.
301, etc., traces the presence of different English war vessels in the
bay between 1765, and 1776. Cf. _New Jersey Archives_, x. 375, 395.
[245] Sam. Adams seems to have drafted this reply, with aid on
law-points from John Adams, the latter being almost the exclusive
author of the reply of the House to the second speech of the governor.
Wells thinks Hawley may have had a hand in these papers. Cf. Quincy's
_Quincy_, p. 113; _Life, etc., of John Adams_, i. 118-133, ii.
310; Wells's _Sam. Adams_, ii. 29, 31, 41; Tudor's _Otis_, p. 410;
Bradford's _Mass. State Papers_, 336, 399; Bancroft, orig. ed., vi.
446-453; Niles's _Principles_ (1876 ed., pp. 79, 87); _Speeches of his
Excellency, with the answers of his Majesty's Council and the House of
Representatives_ (Boston, 1773). A meeting of the town of Boston was
held in Faneuil Hall, March 8, 1773, "to vindicate the town from the
gross misrepresentations of his Excellency's message to both Houses",
and its proceedings were circulated in broadside.
One of the most violent of the tracts of this year was _The American
Alarm, or the Bostonian Plea, by a British Bostonian_ (Boston,
1773,—Stevens's _Nuggets_, no. 3,257). Joseph Reed was writing to
Dartmouth on the condition of affairs (Reed's _Reed_, i. ch. 2); and
as respects the feelings farther south, see Gov. Wright's letters from
Georgia to Dartmouth, in the _Georgia Hist. Soc. Coll._, vol. iii.
[246] Pownall (b. 1722; d. 1805), who knew America well from residence
and official station, proved a man of great forecast, and a prudent,
conciliatory friend of both countries. We have his speech in Parliament
in 1769 (Haven in Thomas, ii. 604, 649), and know how impatient
Parliament was of his wisdom (Smyth, _Lectures on Mod. Hist._, Bohn's
ed., ii. 384-85). We see his admirable spirit in his correspondence
(1772) with James Bowdoin (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, v. 238).
Pownall had first published his _Administration of the Colonies_
(London, 1764) at the very outset of the dispute, and it was enlarged
in 1765. In an appendix to the edition of 1766 he made a strong
statement of his views in opposition to the right of Parliament to tax
America, and he reprinted this in a fourth ed. (1768), and also issued
it separately. In the fifth edition (1774) he added a second part,
giving his plan of pacification. The last edition was in 1777 (Sabin,
xv. nos. 64,841, etc.; Carter-Brown, iii. nos. 1,425, 1,470, 1,537,
1,636). In 1780 Pownall published a tract that has acquired some fame,
as a forecast of the future republic (Harper's _Cyclo. of U. S. Hist._,
ii. 1,151), entitled _A Memorial to the Sovereigns of Europe on the
present state of affairs between the old and new world_ (London, 1780).
Somebody undertook what was rather fancifully called _A Translation_
of this tract into plainer language (London, 1781,—_Brinley Catal._,
no. 4,109), but it did not meet with Pownall's approval. In 1783 he
published a _Memorial addressed to the sovereigns of America_ (Lond.,
1783,—Sabin, xv. nos. 64,824, etc.). On his tracts, see Shea's
_Hamilton_, p. 261. There is a portrait of Pownall at Earl Orford's in
Norfolk (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Nov., 1875), and an engraving of it
published in 1777, of which there is a reproduction in the _Mag. of
Amer. Hist._, Nov., 1886, with an account of the governor by Robert
Ludlow Fowler. The painting in the gallery of the Mass. Hist. Soc. is
said to have been painted from this engraving. Cf. _Mem. Hist. Boston_,
ii. 63.
[247] First in a Philadelphia paper, Sept. 29, in a letter dated
London, Aug. 4.
[248] We have full reports of the Boston meetings. The newspapers give
us the accounts of the earlier irregular conferences, and the town
printed the reports of the first regular town meetings in _The votes
and proceedings of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the town
of Boston, in town meeting assembled, according to law, the 5th and
18th days of Nov., 1773_ (Boston, 1773). It was reprinted in London
by Franklin, with a preface. The call of the committee for the later
meetings exists in Mr. Bancroft's collection, in the handwriting of
Joseph Warren (Frothingham's _Warren_, 255), and was circulated in
broadside. The reports of the meetings of Nov. 29th and 30th exist in
the original minutes in the handwriting of William Cooper among the
papers in the Charity Building in Boston, and have been printed by Dr.
Green in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ (xx. 10, etc.). The prepared
record was printed in a broadside dated Dec. 1, 1773, and a copy is
preserved in the Boston Public Library. It represents the meeting as
called "for consulting, advising, and determining upon the most proper
and effectual method to prevent the unloading, receiving, or vending
the detestable tea sent out by the East India Company, part of which
has just arrived in this harbor." Hutchinson wrote from Milton, Nov.
30, to his son, one of the consignees of the tea, who had taken refuge
in the Castle, that the proclamation, warning the meeting to dissolve,
which he had just sent into Boston, might "possibly cause [him] to take
[his] lodging at the Castle also" (P. O. Hutchinson, i. 94). The full
report of these meetings was also printed in the Boston newspapers,
and particularly in the _Boston Gazette_ of Dec. 6th, whose report
was reprinted in one of _Poole's Mass. Registers_, and in the _Boston
Journal_, Dec. 15, 1849.
Of the meeting of Dec. 16, 1773, and the raid of the "Mohawks" upon
the tea-ships, an account was printed in the _Boston Gazette_ of Dec.
20th (Buckingham's _Reminiscences_, i. 169), and in the _Boston Evening
Post_ of Dec. 20th (_Bay State Monthly_, April, 1884, p. 261), and
the spread of these accounts as they were copied through the country
can be followed in the postscript of the _Penna. Gazette_ of Dec.
24th. The speech of Josiah Quincy, Jr., at the meeting, as reported
by himself and sent back to his wife after he had reached England, is
the only harangue of this critical stage of the controversy in Boston
of which we have any detailed account (_Life of Quincy_, 2d ed., 124;
Frothingham's _Warren_, 39; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Dec. 16, 1873).
The conclave which planned the raid was held in Court Street (Drake's
_Old Landmarks of Boston_, 81; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Dec., 1871,
for an account of the punch-bowl around which the conclave was held).
There are a number of contemporary journals and statements respecting
these riotous proceedings. The letter of the Mass. Ho. of Rep. to
Franklin, Dec. 21, is preserved in the Lee MSS. (Harvard College
library, vol. ii. no. 14), and is printed in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._
(xxxiv. 377). There are details in the Andrews letters (_Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, viii. 325), in Newell's diary (_Ibid._, Oct., 1877), in
the Jolley narrative (_Ibid._, Feb., 1878, p. 69), in John Adams's
diary (_Ibid._, Dec., 1873, and his letter, Dec. 17, to James Warren,
in _Works_, ix. 333). A copy of the testimony of Dr. Hugh Williamson
before the Privy Council, Feb. 19, 1774, copied from his own draft, and
relating the destruction of the tea, was transcribed from the original
in 1827, while in the possession of Dr. Hosack, and is included in the
_Sparks MSS._ (lii. vol. iii.). Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xxxiv.
373, etc.
All this and other documentary evidence can be found in Force; in
Niles's _Principles and Acts_ (1876), p. 96; in the _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, Dec. 16, 1873; and in Francis S. Drake's _Tea Leaves:
being a collection of letters and documents relating to the shipment
of tea to the American colonies in the year 1773, by the East India
tea company. Now first printed from the original manuscript. With
an introduction, notes, and biographical notices of the Boston tea
party_ (Boston, 1884). The only considerable narrative of an actor in
the "Mohawk" raid is G. R. T. Hewes's _Traits of the Tea Party_ (N.
Y., 1835), which was written out for him by B. B. Thacher. Cf. also
_Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party, with a memoir of Hewes_ (N. Y.,
1834); Loring's _Hundred Boston Orators_ (p. 554). The last survivor
was Capt. Henry Purkitt, who died March 3, 1846. A picture of David
Kinnison, also called the last survivor, is in Lossing's _Field-Book of
the Revolution_ (i. 499). Of Samuel Phillips Savage, the moderator of
the meeting of Dec. 16th, there is a portrait owned by Mr. G. H. Emery,
engraved in Drake's _Tea-leaves_.
Hutchinson gives his view of the transactions in the third volume (pp.
422-441) of his _Massachusetts_. (Cf. Ryerson's _Loyalists_, i. 383.)
There is among the Bernard Papers (vol. viii. p. 229), in the _Sparks
MSS._, a paper giving the story as those in authority transmitted it to
the home government.
Among the later American sources, see Frothingham's _Warren_ (ch. 9),
his _Rise of The Republic_ (ch. 8), and his paper in _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._ (Dec. 16, 1873): Tudor's _Otis_ (ch. 21); Wells's _Adams_
(ii. ch. 28), Ramsay's _Amer. Rev._ (i. 373); Holmes's _Annals_ (ii.
181); Palfrey's _New England_ (iv. 427); Barry's _Mass._ (ii. ch.
15); Bancroft's _United States_ (orig. ed., vi. ch. 50); Lossing's
_Field-Book_ (i. 496); and his paper in _Harper's Monthly_ (iv. 1);
Snow's _Boston_; the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_ (iii. 46-51); _Essex Inst.
Hist. Coll._ (xii. 197); _Niles's Register_ (1827), from Flint's
_Western Monthly Rev._ (July, 1827).
The first accounts of the destruction of the tea which reached London
(Jan. 19, 1774) were printed in the London newspapers of Jan. 21st and
in the _Gentleman's Mag._ (1774, p. 26), copied in Carlyle's _Frederick
the Great_ (vi. p.524). Cf. Mahon (v. 319); May's _Const. Hist. Eng._
(ii. 521); Massey's _England_ (ii. ch. 18); McKnight's _Burke_ (ii.
ch. 20); Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_ (ii. ch. 8). Lecky, in his _Eng. in
the Eighteenth Century_ (iii. p. 371), speaks of the speech of George
Grenville, reported by Cavendish, as particularly worthy of attention.
Cf. _Parliamentary History_ and Force's _Amer. Archives_ (4th ser., i.
133).
For the commotions in the other colonies, see, for New Hampshire,
beside the histories, the _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vii. 408, 413, and
the letter of July 26, 1774, in the Chas. Lovell Papers (Mass. Hist.
Soc.). For Connecticut, the general histories of the State, Peters's
_Connecticut_, and McCormick's reprint, to be corrected by J. L.
Kingsley's _Hist. Address_ (1838), _New Englander_ (1871, p. 248),
and _Scribner's Mag._, June, 1878. Cf. also J. H. Trumbull's _Blue
Laws true and false_. Dawson (_Westchester County_, p. 7) claims that
the refusal of the New York authorities to allow the tea ship Nancy
to enter the harbor was more significant than the riot in Boston, and
he cites various authorities. Cf. Lossing's _Schuyler_ (i. ch. 16)
and Leake's _Lamb_ (ch. 6). For Pennsylvania, see the histories of
Philadelphia; Niles's _Principles and Acts_ (1876, p. 201); Reed's
_Life of Joseph Reed_ (i. ch. 2) for his letters to Dartmouth;
Madison's _Works_ (i. 10). For North Carolina, see _Hist. Mag._ (xv.
118).
[249] For a portrait of Cushing, see _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, iii. 34.
[250] _Journals of the House_, 1773; _Boston Gazette_; Alden Bradford's
ed. of _Mass. State Papers_; _Gent. Mag._, July, 1773. The letters were
first published June 16, 1773 (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Oct., 1877, p.
339).
_Copy of letters sent to Great Britain by Thomas Hutchinson and
Andrew Oliver, and several other persons born and educated among
us; which original letters have been returned to America_ (Boston,
1773; reprinted in Salem, 1773). _The letters of Gov. Hutchinson and
Lieut.-Gov. Oliver, 1st and 2d ed._ (edited by Israel Mauduit) (London,
1774). _The representations of Gov. Hutchinson and others contained in
certain letters transmitted to England, and afterwards returned from
thence_ (Boston, 1773). These letters are reprinted in _Franklin before
the Privy Council_ (Philad., 1859). Cf. _Works relating to Franklin in
the Boston Public Library_, pp. 21, 22; Sabin, vi. p. 344, Haven in
Thomas, ii. 632, 633; Stevens's _Hist. Coll._, i. p. 166.
[251] Mahon (v. 323) thinks it strange that any American of high
standing should care to justify or palliate the conduct of Franklin.
Goldwin Smith (_Study of History_, N. Y., 1866, p. 213) says: "Franklin
alone, perhaps, of the leading Americans, by the dishonorable
publication of an exasperating correspondence, which he had improperly
obtained, shared with Grenville, Townshend, and Lord North the guilt
of bringing this great disaster on the English race." Lecky (_England
in the Eighteenth Century_, iii. 380, 416) alleges rather hastily that
Hutchinson had once been concerned in using Franklin's letters with
a certain disregard of rights. (Cf. Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 450.)
Some memoranda of Chalmers are in the _Sparks MSS._ (x. vol. iv.) Cf.
Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_ (vi. 105); Massey's _England_
(vol. ii.); Adolphus's _England_ (vol. ii. 34); Walpole's _Last
Journals_, i. 255, 289.
[252] It is included in Sparks's edition, iv. 405, and embraces
Franklin's letters to Cushing and his replies. Cf. also Sparks's
_Franklin_, i. 356, viii. (his letters), 72, 79, 81, 85, 98, 100,
116, 117; Bigelow's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 130, 141, 158, 187, 206;
Parton's _Franklin_, i. 560, 564, 582.
[253] _A faithful account of the transaction relating to a late affair
of honour between J. Temple and W. Whateley, containing a particular
history of that unhappy quarrel_ (London, 1774). On Temple's connection
with the Hutchinson letters, see the citations of the contemporary
correspondence in Temple Prime's _Some account of the Temple Family_
(N. Y., 1887), pp. 61-85.
[254] _Franklin's Works_, iv. 435.
[255] _Ibid._, iv. 441.
[256] Cf. _Boston Daily Advertiser_, April 3 and 5, 1856.
[257] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xvi. 43; R. C. Winthrop's _Speeches_,
1878-1886, p. 1.
[258] Cf. Bancroft's _United States_, orig. ed., vi. 435; Almon's
_Biog., lit., and polit. anecdotes_ (Lond., 1797); Wells's _Sam. Adams_
(ii. 74); Barry's _Mass._, ii. 462. Hutchinson's own account of the
transactions is given in his third volume (pp. 400-418), which may
be supplemented by sundry references in P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor
Hutchinson_ (pp. 82-93, 577; ii. 79), part of which refer to that
editor's own views. C. F. Adams (_Adams's Works_, ii. 319) thinks the
evidence nearly conclusive that John Temple was the person who gave the
letters to Franklin. (Cf. P. O. Hutchinson, pp. 205, 210, 221, 222,
232, 353.) Cf. statement in _Mass. Archives_, "Miscellaneous", i. 386.
[259] Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 426; _Sparks MSS._, xlviii.
[260] Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 430. Cf. _Ibid._, viii. 93, 103, 110.
Cf. Bigelow's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 189.
[261] An account of it is given in Israel Mauduit's edition of _The
letters of Gov. Hutchinson_, etc. (London, 1774), with an abstract
of Wedderburn's speech. There is a description of this scene in
Bowring's _Memoir of Jeremy Bentham_ (p. 59; cf. _Monthly Mag._, Nov.
10, 1802, and Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 451). Gage wrote from London
to Hutchinson, Feb. 2, 1774, that no man's conduct was ever so abused
for so vile a transaction as Franklin's. There is a letter of Burke
on the hearing (_Sparks MSS._, xlix. ii.). There is a contemporary
double-folio print, _Proceedings of his majesty's Privy Council on
the address of the Assembly of Mass. Bay to remove the Governor and
Lieutenant Governor, with the substance of Mr. Wedderburn's speech_
(Mass. Hist. Soc.). The whole proceedings are given in _Franklin before
the Privy Council in behalf of the Province of Mass. Bay, to advocate
the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver_ (Philad., privately printed,
1859). Arthur Lee has a word to say on the scene (_Life of A. Lee_, i.
240, 273). Franklin is said to have worn a suit of Manchester velvet
during this castigation from Wedderburn, which he did not put on again
till he signed the treaty of alliance with France in 1778 (Mahon, v.
328).
[262] In 1772 the town of Boston had sent a printed circular to the
neighboring towns, asking their advice as to the course best to be
pursued in consequence of the crown's assuming to regulate the judges'
salaries. Hutchinson (_History_, iii. 545, 546) gives the report of the
committee of the Assembly on the grant of the governor's salary from
the crown, and the governor's answer (July, 1772). For John Adams's
controversy with Brattle on this point, see _Adams's Works_, iii. 513.
On Oliver's impeachment, see Hutchinson (iii. 443, 445), and P. O.
Hutchinson (i. 133, 142), and papers in the MS. collection of _Letters
and Papers_, 1761-1776, in Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet.
A portrait of Chief Justice Peter Oliver, by Copley, painted in England
in 1772 (Perkins, p. 89), belongs to Dr. F. E. Oliver of Boston. Cf.
photograph in _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, July, 1886, with a memoir
which was issued separately as _Peter Oliver, the last chief-justice of
the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Mass. Bay. A sketch
by Thomas Weston, Jr._ (Boston, 1886).
Something of the Boston spirit appears in various letters from her
patriots which are printed in Leake's _Lamb_. The _Familiar Letters of
John and Abigail Adams_ begin at this time. Cf. summary in Sargent's
_Andre_, ch. 4. Lecky finds (_Eighteenth Century_, iii. 379) in the
talk of the hour the "exaggerated and declamatory rhetoric peculiarly
popular at Boston." Isaac Royal's letter to Dartmouth, Jan. 18, 1774,
is in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Dec., 1873. There is a letter to the
British officers at Boston attributed to General Prescott (Sabin, x.
40,316).
[263] The action of Parliament can be readily traced in Force, 4th
ser., i. 35. The bill was immediately sent in print to this country,
and it can be found in Force, in the _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vii. 402,
and elsewhere.
[264] There are in the Boston Archives sundry record-books of this
time: list of donations; records of Donation Committee; list of
persons aided; cash-book of the Donation Committee. The House of
Representatives at Salem, June 18, 1774, passed resolutions commending
Boston to the aid of all, and sent these resolutions through the
country in broadsides. The provincial congress at Cambridge, Dec. 6,
1774, recorded their vote and similarly scattered it. (Cf. _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, xiii. 182.) For the gifts which came to Boston, and the
attendant records and correspondence, see _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._,
xix. 158, and vol. xxxiv.; Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 382;
Col. A. H. Hoyt's paper in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, July,
1876. For the help from Virginia, see _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iii.
259.
For notes on the condition of Boston during the operation of the act,
see the Andrews letters in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, July, 1865,
p. 330; Timothy Newell's diary, _Ibid._, Feb., 1859; Thomas Newell's,
_Ibid._, Oct., 1877, p. 335; _M. H. Soc. Coll._, xxxi.; Bowdoin's
letter to Franklin in _Franklin's Works_, viii. 127; letter of Ellis
Gray in _M. H. Soc. Proc._, xiv. 315; Charles Chauncy's _Letter to a
friend ... on the sufferings of the town of Boston_ (Boston, 1774);
_Review of the rise, progress, services, and sufferings of New England,
humbly submitted to the consideration of both houses of Parliament_
(London, 1774); _A very short and candid appeal to free born Britons,
by an American_, i. e. Carolinian (London, 1774). For a general
treatment of the effect of the Port Bill, see, among modern writers,
Bancroft; Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 319, and _Life of
Warren_, ch. 10; Tudor's _Otis_; Wells's _S. Adams_ (ii. 170); Reed's
_Joseph Reed_ (i. ch. 3); lives of John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Jr.; A.
C. Goodell's Address at Salem in _Essex Inst. Hist. Coll._, xiii. p.
1; Pitkin's _United States_ (i. App. 15); Grahame (iv. 358); Sargent's
_Dealings with the Dead_ (i. 152); and the histories of Boston. On
the British side, see _Parliamentary History_, xvii. 1163; _Annual
Register_, xvii. 1159; Donne's _Corresp. of Geo. III. and North_,
i. 174; _Protests of the lords_, ed. by Rogers, ii. 141; Adolphus,
ii. 59; Massey, ii.; _Pict. Hist. Eng. Geo. III._, i. 159; Smyth's
_Lectures_; Mahon (vi. 3); Ryerson's _Loyalists_ (i. 358); Russell's
_Life and Times of Fox_, ch. 5; _Life of Shelburne_, ii. 302; _Chatham
Corresp._, iv. 342; _Rockingham Memoirs_, ii. 238; Macknight's _Burke_,
ii. 50. The London limners made several caricatures out of the hungry
Bostonians.
[265] Cf. letter from Portsmouth, N. H., in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._,
2d ser., ii. 481; Hollister's _Connecticut_, ii. ch. 6; lives of Jay
by Jay and by Flanders, and documents in Force, for the effect in
New York; _Minutes of the Prov. Congress of New Jersey_, p. 3; _New
Jersey Archives_, x. 457, etc. A paper by Joseph Reed on the action in
Pennsylvania (_N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll._, 1878, p. 269) was controverted
by Thomson (_Ibid._, p. 274), who held that Reed had no intimate
knowledge in the matter. Cf. Chas. Thomson's letter to Wm. H. Drayton
in the _Penna. Mag. of Hist._ (ii. 411), from _the Sparks MSS._, and
his letter in the _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc._ (1878, p. 218); Niles's
_Principles and Acts_ (1876), p. 203; Dickinson's _Polit. Works_, i.
285-416. The resolutions of Delaware are in the _Life of George Read_,
pp. 88, 101. For the Maryland action, see Niles (p.258) and McSherry's
_Maryland_. For Virginia, see Rives's _Madison_ (i. 60); Niles (p.
272); _Life of R. H. Lee_ (i. 97); Randall's _Jefferson_ (i. 85);
Parton's _Jefferson_ (p. 130). For North Carolina, McRee's _Iredell_.
[266] The covenant was printed in the _Mass. Gazette_, June 23, 1774,
and is reprinted in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ (xii. 45), where is also
(_Ibid._, xi. 392; also see xii. 46) the protest against the covenant,
and the loyalist signers of the protest (given in _Mass. Gazette_,
July 7, 1774). This drew out a proclamation from Gage, pointing out
the error of illegal combinations (_Mass. Gazette_, June 30, 1774,
and _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xii. 47). It was turned into verse in
ridicule (Moore's _Songs and Ballads of the Rev._, p. 65). Dr. Belknap
gave his reasons for not entering such a combination (_Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc._, 2nd ser., ii. 484). Cf. Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_,
336. Timothy Ruggles soon organized a counter-association of loyalists.
[267] An account of this interview by Hutchinson himself was first
published at length in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xv. p. 326, Oct.,
1877. Cf. _Ibid._, April, 1884, p. 164; P. O. Hutchinson, i. 158, and
ii. preface; Donne's _Corresp. of Geo. III. and North_, i. 194.
[268] There are in the Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet two early, apparently
official copies of the act for regulating the government. Cf. Ramsay's
_Revolution in South Carolina_ (i. 204); Frothingham's _Rise of the
Republic_, p.347, where are various references. Hutchinson wrote from
London that he was opposed to these acts (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._,
Jan., 1862, p. 301). A letter from Jos. Wood, in London, April 18,
1774, makes note of the efforts of the Americans in London to prevent
Parliament committing itself so hastily to the Regulating Act (_Penna.
Mag. of Hist._, x. 265). Something of the spirit of these protests can
be seen in Bishop Shipley's _Speech intended to have been spoken on
the bill for altering the charters of the colony of Massachusetts Bay_
(London, 1774). Cf. in reply _A speech never intended to be spoken in
answer to a speech intended_, etc. (London, 1774). Cf., on Shipley,
_Franklin's Works_, viii. 40. The bishop's views are also expressed
in his _Sermon before the Soc. for the propagation of the Gospel
in foreign parts_ (London, 1773; Norwich, Conn., 1773). There is a
portrait of Shipley in the _European Mag._, April, 1788.
For the debate in Parliament, see Force, 4th series, i. 65; Niles's
_Principles_, etc. (1876 ed.), pp. 414, 419.
[269] _Westchester County, N. Y., during the Amer. Rev._ (Morrisania,
1886), pp. 84, 87.
[270] J. C. Hamilton's _Repub. of the U. S._, i. 55; Shea's _Hamilton_,
ch. 7; Lossing's _Schuyler_, vol. i.; _Life of Peter Van Schaack_;
Jones's _N. Y. during the Rev._, i. 477, 490, etc. John Adams (_Works_,
ix. 407, 411) believed that New York held back. Dawson (_Westchester_,
9) thinks that ignorance or neglect is at the bottom of the usual
view of the New York sluggishness, held to by writers, but he admits
that Gouverneur Morris was doubtful for a while (p. 12; cf. Sparks's
_Life of Morris_); he sets forth the great ability of the Tory organ,
_Rivington's Gazetteer_ (p. 127); he gives a fuller account than Hinman
or Beardsley of the arrest of Samuel Seabury, the "Westchester Farmer",
by Isaac Sears (pp. 127, 136; and on Sears, Jones, ii. 337, 622). Much
can be gleaned from Tryon and Colden's letters to Dartmouth in _N. Y.
Col. Docs._, viii.
[271] Beside the general histories, see, for Pennsylvania, the
resolutions of Northampton County in _Hist. Mag._, ix. 49 (also see
_Penna. Archives_, iii. 543); for Virginia, Jefferson's resolutions, a
_Summary view of the rights of British America_ (Williamsburg, London,
and Philadelphia, 1774); the Fairfax County resolutions (Sparks's
_Washington_, ii. 488), and Irving's _Washington_ (vol. i. ch. 1); for
North Carolina, E. F. Rockwell on Rowan County, in _Hist. Mag._ (xv.
118), and letters in _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._ (xiii. 329); for
South Carolina, _Hist. Mag._, ix. 341, and xxii. 90; and _Southern
Quarterly_, xi. 468; xiv. 37. In a more general way, for movements in
the South, see, for South Carolina, Ramsay, Moultrie, Drayton, R. W.
Gibbs; for North Carolina, Cooke, Jones, Foote, Martin, Caruthers's
_Caldwell_; for Virginia, C. Campbell's _Bland Papers_, Wirt's _P.
Henry_, Randall's _Jefferson_, Parton's _Jefferson_, Rives's _Madison_;
and for Maryland, Purviance's _Baltimore_. For Southern sentiment of a
Tory cast, see Jonathan Boucher's _Views of the Amer. Revolution_.
[272] Force's _Amer. Archives_, 4th ser., i. 333; Dawson's _Westchester
County_, 18; Arnold's _Rhode Island_, ii. 334; W. E. Foster's _Stephen
Hopkins_, ii. p. 232.
[273] Sparks's _Franklin_, i. 350. It is claimed that Sam. Adams was
earlier. Cf. Wells, ii. p. 84.
[274] Bancroft, orig. ed., vi. 508.
[275] Bancroft, orig. ed., vii. 40. To New York the precedence is also
given by Gordon, Ramsay, Hildreth, and Dawson (_Westchester County_, p.
19).
[276] Dawson, pp. 18, 19.
[277] Wells's _Sam. Adams_, ii. 221. Silas Deane's letters home are in
_Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll._, ii.
[278] _Works_, ix. 339. Cf. E. D. Neill in _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, ii.
58; Scharf and Westcott's _Philadelphia_, i. 291.
[279] _John Adams's Works_, ix. 617, x. 78, 173; _Life of Geo. Read_,
93. The Congress met in Carpenter's Hall. (Cf. Scharf and Westcott's
_Philadelphia_, i. 290; Egle's _Penna._, 141; Lossing's _Field-Book_,
ii. 262.)
[280] _Works_, viii. 131, 142. The Congress had been variously
constituted. New York and Pennsylvania had acted outside their
legislatures. John Adams, in going through those States on his way
to Philadelphia, had remarked "that some in them wanted a little
animation." The spirit in New York is shown on the loyal side in
Jones's _New York during the Rev._, i. 449. Cf. J. A. Stevens on
"New York in the Continental Congress" in _The Galaxy_, xxii. 149.
The credentials of the Delaware members are in the _Life of Geo.
Read_, 91. The Virginia delegates were at variance. Patrick Henry was
eager for a fight. R. H. Lee thought Great Britain would revoke her
obnoxious legislature. Washington was undecided. The instructions of
the Virginia delegates are in _Jefferson's Writings_, i. 122. Gadsden
was for forcing the conflict by attacking Gage in Boston; and a rumor
reaching Philadelphia that Boston was undergoing bombardment fanned
the flame, and Samuel Adams wrote home that America would stand by the
devoted town. In Georgia the royal governor had prevented the choice
of delegates, and that province was not represented. The opposing
feelings, North and South, can be gathered from some of the tracts
Which the Congress elicited:—
_A few remarks upon some of the resolutions and votes of the
Continental Congress at Philad. in Sept., and the Provincial Congress
at Cambridge in November, by a friend to Peace and Good order_ (Boston,
1775; same, no date,—Sabin, iv. 15,529). _The two Congresses cut up_
(Boston and New York,—Sabin, iv. 15,597). Thomas Jefferson's _Summary
View of the rights of British America, set forth in some resolutions,
intended for the inspection of the delegates now in convention_
(Williamsburg, 1774; Philad., 1774). _A letter from a Virginian
to the members of the Congress to be held at Philadelphia, Sept.,
1774_ (without place, 1774; Boston, 1774, in three editions; London,
1774),—in opposition to the non-importation combination. _Address
to the deputies in General Congress_ (Aug. 10, 1774, Charlestown, S.
C.,—Sabin, v. 15,511). _Letter from a freeman of South Carolina to
the deputies of North America, assembled in High Court of Congress at
Philadelphia_ (Charlestown, S. C., 1774,—Sabin, x. 40,277).
The relations of the colonies to the Congress appear in the lives of
the leading members. For New England, of which there was not a little
jealousy, and whose members refused to attend Sunday sessions (Wells's
_Sam. Adams_, ii. 237; _Life of George Read_, 97), see C. F. Adams's
_John Adams_; Wells's _Sam. Adams_, vol. ii. 218; Frothingham's _Joseph
Warren_, ch. 12; Quincy's _Josiah Quincy_; Austin's _Elbridge Gerry_,
ch. 5. For the Middle States, see Sedgwick's _William Livingston_;
Lossing's _Schuyler_, i. ch. 17; Shea's (p. 234) and other lives of
_Hamilton_; Read's _Geo. Read_, 93; Jay's _John Jay_, and the life
of Jay in Flanders's _Chief Justices_. For Virginia, the lives of
_Washington_ (Marshall; Sparks, ii. 505; Irving, i. 365); Rives's
_Madison_, i. 51; Lee's lives of Arthur and R. H. Lee; Wirt's _Patrick
Henry_, 105; lives of Jefferson (Tucker, i. ch. 3; Parton, ch. 17). For
South Carolina, the life of Rutledge in Flanders.
The legal aspects are particularly touched in Towle's _Constitution_,
311; _Cocke's Constitutional Hist._, i. 29; Scott's _Development of
Constitutional Liberty_, 166; Oscar S. Strauss's _Origin of Republican
Form of Government_, (N. Y.) 1885. Cf. Daniel Webster's _Address before
the N. Y. Hist. Society_, Feb. 23, 1852, pp. 36, 40; and H. A. Brown's
_Oration on the Centennial of the Congress_, 1874.
The general works to be consulted are Grahame, iv. 373; Bancroft, orig.
ed., vii. 127; Hildreth, vol. iii.; Pitkin, i. ch. 8; Frothingham's
_Rise of the Republic_, 335, 359; Greene's _Hist. View of the Amer.
Rev._, 79; Dunlap's _New York_, i. ch. 29, 31, and Jones's _N. Y.
during the Rev._, i. 468; Gordon's _Pennsylvania_, ch. 20; Mulford's
_New Jersey_, 389.
[281] _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, i. 438.
[282] Sabin, iv. 15,542. A MS. copy of the journal, attested by C.
Thomson, and evidently brought home by Thos. Cushing, a Massachusetts
member, is in the library of the Mass. Hist. Soc. (_Proc._, i. 271).
Later editions are _The whole proceedings of the American Continental
Congress held at Philadelphia_ (New York, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,598);
_Extracts from the journal and from the votes and proceedings of
Congress, published in Philad., reprinted in Boston and London_
(_Ibid._, iv. 15,526-28; Brinley, ii. 3,990; Stevens, _Nuggets_, no.
3,264). There were other editions in Providence, Newport, New London,
Hartford. There were two editions published in London by Almon in 1775
(Sabin, iv. 15,544; Brinley, ii. 3,989). The journal appears also in
the several authenticated series of the _Journals of Congress_, 1777,
1801, 1823, etc.
The correspondence of Congress with Gage (Oct. 10th and 20th) is
contained in the _Journal_, i. 18, 46.
The documents of the Congress are given by Force.
[283] _Works_, i. 150, ii. 340, 366, 370, 382, 387, 393, ix. 339, 343;
his correspondence with Mercy Warren is in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._,
xliv. 348.
[284] Vol. ii. p. 535. It was printed separately at the time in
Philad., Watertown (Mass.), and Newport. It will also be found in the
_Journals of Congress_, i. p. 19; in Ryerson's _Loyalists_, i. p. 411;
in Marshall's _Hist. of the Colonies_, App. ix. p. 481. Cf. Story's
_Constitution_, i. 179; Curtis's _Constitution_, i. 22; Pitkin's
_United States_, i. 283; Hildreth's _United States_, iii. 43; Gay's
_Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 341; Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, p.
371; Greene's _Hist. View_, p. 83; Ramsay's _South Carolina_, i. p. 233.
[285] Cf. note on the authorship of it, in _N. Jersey Archives_, x. 529.
[286] It is printed from this copy, with fac-similes of the signatures,
in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._ (May, 1883, p. 377), together with the
letter transmitting it (Stevens's _Hist. Coll._, i. 167; _Bibl. Hist._,
1870, no. 1,026). Franklin printed it at once in Almon's edition of the
_Journal of the Congress_ (_Works relating to Franklin in the Bost.
Pub. Lib._, p. 24; _U. S. 47th Cong., 1st Sess. Misc. Doc._, no. 21,
p. 20). It is also in the Philad. ed. of the _Journal_, i. 46; and was
separately printed at Boston in 1774 and 1775, and at New York in 1776,
with other documents (Sabin, iv. nos. 15,581-83; Haven in Thomas, ii.
pp. 642-43). It has since been given in Force, 4th ser., i. 934; _N.
H. Prov. Papers_, vii. 437-41; _N. Jersey Archives_, x. 522; Spencer's
_United States_, i. 348, 381; Griffeth's _Historical Notes_, 136. Cf.
Ramsay's _So. Carolina_, i. 242; _John Adams's Works_, i. 159, x. 273;
Frothingham's _Rise of the Republic_, 377; _Amer. Quart. Review_, i.
413.
[287] Cf. _Journals of Congress_, i. 26; Pitkin's _United States_, i.
App. 17; Spencer's _United States_, i. 338; Lee's _Life of R. H. Lee_,
i. 119; Jay's _Life of John Jay_, i. App.; Ramsay's _South Carolina_,
263. There was published in London _A letter to the people of Great
Britain in answer to that published by the American Congress_ (London,
1775,—Sabin, x. no. 40,509).
[288] Given in Ramsay's _Rev. in So. Carolina_, i. 279; _N. H. Prov.
Papers_, vii. 426, etc.
[289] Given in the Appendix of Frothingham's _Joseph Warren_, and in
_Journal Cont. Cong._, i. p. 9. Cf. _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 59; _Life
of George Read_, 95.
[290] _New York during the Rev._, i. 34, 36.
[291] P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor Hutchinson_, i. 272.
[292] Cf. a letter of A. Lee on the effect of the Congress on the
ministry, in _Life of A. Lee_, i. 213.
[293] The plan was published in Philadelphia at the time, and was
included the next year in Galloway's _Candid examination of the mutual
claims of Great Britain and the colonies, with a plan of accommodation
on Constitutional principles_ (New York, 1775, and again in 1780).
This drew out _An Address to the Author of a pamphlet entitled_, etc.,
to which Galloway responded in _A Reply_ (N. Y., 1775). It was later
included in Galloway's _Historical and political Reflections on the
Rise and Progress of the Amer. Rebellion_ (London, 1780). Cf. Force,
4th ser., i. p. 1; Sparks's _Franklin_, vii. 276, viii. 145; Bigelow's
_Franklin_, ii. 249; Gordon, i. 409; _John Adams's Works_, ii. 387,
iv. 141; Jones's _N. Y. during the Rev._, ii. 109, 430; Bancroft,
_United States_, orig. ed., vii. 140; Pitkin's _United States_, i.
299; Hildreth's _United States_, iii. 46; Frothingham's _Rise of
the Republic_, 367, 399; Wells's _Sam. Adams_, ii. 218; Dawson's
_Westchester County_, 34; Graydon's _Memoirs_, 117; lives of Washington
by Marshall and Sparks; lives of John Jay by Jay and by Flanders; and
of Patrick Henry by Wirt.
Jones, in his _New York during the Rev._, i. ch. 2, with notes on pp.
438, 449, 477, 490, explains the relations of the loyalists to this
Congress. Governor Franklin sent the Galloway plan to Dartmouth with
comments (_N. J. Archives_, x. 503).
Galloway explains his relations to this Congress, and divulged more
than the agreement of secrecy was held to warrant, in his _Examination
before the House of Commons in a committee on the American Papers_
(London, 1779; 2d ed., with explanatory notes, 1780; ed. by Thomas
Balch, Philad., for the Seventy-Six Society, 1855). There is a Dutch
version, 1781 (Muller, 1877, no. 1,200). Respecting this examination,
Lecky (ii. pp. 443, 481, etc.) says: "As a loyalist, Galloway's mind
was no doubt biased; but he was a very able and honest man, and he had
much more than common means of forming a correct judgment."
It has been supposed that Galloway conveyed to Governor Franklin the
information which through that official reached Dartmouth (_N. Jersey
Archives_, x. 473). Galloway is said also to have prepared the pamphlet
_Arguments on both sides in the dispute_, etc., which is also reprinted
in the _N. J. Archives_, x. 478. On Galloway, see Sabine's _Loyalists_,
i. 453.
Haven ascribes to Thomas B. Chandler, and Sabin (no. 16,591) to Dr.
Myles Cooper, a tract, _What think ye of Congress now? Or an Enquiry
how far the Americans are bound to abide by and execute the decisions
of the late Continental Congress, with a plan by Samuel_ [sic]
_Galloway, Esq., for a proposed union between Great Britain and her
Colonies_ (N. Y., 1775; Lond., 1775). This pamphlet accuses the New
England republicans of urging the Congress beyond the purpose for which
its members were elected.
[294] The articles were printed in all newspapers, and in those of
Boston, Nov. 7th. They are also in the _Journals of Congress_, i.
23; in Ramsay's _Rev. in South Carolina_, i. 252; in H. W. Preston's
_Docs. illus. Amer. Hist._ (N. Y., 1886), p. 199; in Force, 4th ser.,
i. 915, with fac-simile of signatures; in the _Charleston Year Book_
(1883), p. 216, with fac-similes; in Jos. Johnson's _Traditions and
Reminiscences of the Amer. Rev._ (Charleston, 1851), p. 51, with
fac-similes. The signatures, somewhat reduced, are given herewith from
Smith's _Hist. and Lit. Curiosities_, 2d ser., p. liii. Maryland's copy
of the original printed broadside, with written signatures, is in the
Penna. Hist. Soc. library. Frothingham gives the best account of the
genesis of the document and the effect it had (_Rise of the Republic_,
373, 396). In Massachusetts, a broadside Resolution of the Provincial
Congress, signed by Hancock, Dec. 6th, was sent to all the ministers,
urging them to give their influence to secure a general compliance
(in Boston Pub. Lib., H. 90 _a_, 3). This plan of association was
opposed by Galloway, Duane, and all the South Carolina delegates except
Gadsden. Jones (_N. Y. during the Rev._, i. 438) gives the loyalist
view. _The association of the delegates, etc., by Bob Jinger_, is a
burlesque on the association (_Harris Collection of Amer. Poetry_, p.
13).
[295] Bancroft, orig. ed., vii. 161.
[296] _Cavendish Debates_, ed. by Wright, viz., _Debates of the House
of Commons in 1774 on the bill for making more effectual provision
for the government of the Province of Quebec, with Mitchell's map of
Canada_ (Lond., 1839). See also the proceedings and the bill in _Amer.
Archives_, 4th ser., i. 170-219, 1823-1838. The bill is also in the
Regents of the University of New York's _Report on the boundaries of
the State of N. Y._, i. 90. Cf. Burke's letter on the Quebec Bill and
the bounds of New York in _N. Y. Hist. Coll._, 2d ser., ii. 215, 219;
Mill's _Boundaries of Ontario_, p. 50; Gordon's Sermon in Thornton's
_Pulpit of the Rev._, 217, Shea's _Hamilton_, 324; and _Works of Alex.
Hamilton_.
The satirical print "Virtual Representation", given herewith, follows
an original print in a volume of _Proclamations_ in the library of the
Mass. Hist. Society. Cf. Lossing's _Field-Book of the Rev._, i. 158.
[297] Cf. Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_, iii. 400,
433, on the effect of the act. Cf. also _The Singular and Diverting
Behaviour of Doctor Marriot, His Majesty's Advocate-General; Who was
Examined concerning the Religion and Laws of Quebec; And found means
from his incomparable Wit and Subtility To defeat the Purposes for
which he was brought to the Bar of Parliament On the 3d of June,
1774_ (Phila., 1774). Samuel Johnson's _Hypocrisy unmasked, or a
short inquiry into the religious Complaints of our Amer. Colonies_
(Lond., 1776, 3 editions), defends the bill, and says it extends no
more rights to Catholics than some of the colonies do (Sabin, ix. no.
36,297). _A Letter to Lord Chatham on the Quebec Bill_ reached five
editions (London, 1774; reprinted, Boston, 1774), and was corrected in
the second edition. Sabin (x. 40,468) says it was attributed to Lord
Lyttelton, and more probably to Sir William Meredith. The New York
reprint (1774) gave it as _A letter from Lord Thomas Lyttelton to Wm.
Pitt, Earl of Chatham_ (Stevens, _Hist. Coll._, ii. no. 433). Wilkie
published _The justice and policy of the late Act of Parliament, for
making more effectual provision for the government of Quebec, asserted
and proved; and the conduct of the administration respecting that
province stated and vindicated_ (London, 1774, two editions), which
is attributed to William Knox. Francis Masères published _An account
of the proceedings of the British and other Protestants, inhabitants
of the province of Quebec_, with _Additional papers concerning the
province of Quebec_ (Lond., 1776), and _The Canadian Freeholder ...
shewing the sentiments of the bulk of the freeholders of Canada,
concerning the late Quebeck act_ (Lond., 1777, in three vols.). _An
Appeal to the public, stating and considering the objections to the
Quebec bill_ (London, 1774), was dedicated to the patriotic society of
the Bill of Rights.
[298] _A letter to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec_ (Philad.,
1774). _Lettre addressée aux habitans de la Province de Quebec_
(Philad., 1774). _A clear idea of the genuine and uncorrupted British
Constitution in an address to the inhabitants of the province of
Quebec from the forty-nine delegates in the Continental Congress at
Philadelphia, Sept. 5-Oct. 10, 1774_ (London, 1774). Cf. Sabin, iv.
15,516, ix. p. 293, x. 40,664; _Journals of Congress_, i. 39.
[299] P. O. Hutchinson's _Governor Hutchinson_, i. 296.
[300] _Aspinwall Papers_ (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._), ii. 706.
[301] Cf. Reed's _Life of Reed_, i. 76, 78, 82, and George Bancroft's
_Jos. Reed_, p. 10. Governor Franklin's letters to Dartmouth are in
the _New Jersey Archives_ (x. 473, 503), where the anxiety of the king
is disclosed (_Ibid._ x. 496, 534-5). Chatham's opinion is cited in
Quincy's _Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr._, 268. Later English views are
given in Mahon, vi. 13, and Lecky, iii. 408, 443.
[302] Dawson's _Westchester County_, pp. 36, 37.
[303] On the Tory side were Doctors Cooper, Inglis, Seabury, and
Chandler; on the Whig side, William Livingston, John Jay, and Alex.
Hamilton. Cf. Lossing's _Schuyler_, i. ch. 17.
[304] Dawson, _Westchester County_, p. 137 (see also _Hist. Mag._,
1868, p. 9), contends for Wilkins, and doubts what is put forward as
Seabury's own evidence in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Feb., 1882, p.
117. Cf. _Amer. Quart. Church Rev._, April, 1881; Shea's _Hamilton_,
ch. 7; _Manual of N. Y. City_, 1868, p. 813.
[305] The Seabury-Wilkins tracts are:
_Free thoughts on the proceedings of the Continental congress, held at
Philadelphia, Sept. 5, 1774: wherein their errors are exhibited, their
reasonings confuted and the fatal tendency of their non-importation,
non-exportation, and non-consumption measures, are laid open to the
plainest understanding_ [_etc._]; _in a letter to the farmers, and
other inhabitants of North America in general, and to those of the
province of New York in particular. By a farmer._ [_Signed A. W.
farmer._] (Without place, 1774.)
_The congress canvassed: or, an examination into the conduct of the
delegates, at their grand convention, held in Philadelphia, Sept.
1, 1774. Addressed to the merchants of New York. By A. W., Farmer_
(Philad., 1774).
There was a reply to the Farmer in _Holt's New York Journal_, Dec. 22,
1774 (Dawson, p. 40); but the most extraordinary rejoinder was that
of the youthful Alexander Hamilton, then eighteen years old, in _A
full vindication of the measures of the congress, from the calumnies
of their enemies; in answer to a letter, tender the signature of A.
W., Farmer. Whereby his sophistry is exposed_ [_etc._]; _in a general
address to the inhabitants of America, and a particular address to the
farmers of the province of New York._ [_Signed, A friend to America._]
(New York, 1774.) Cf. P. L. Ford's _Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana_ (N. Y.,
1886), no. 1.
The "Farmer" replied in _A view of the controversy between Great
Britain and her colonies. In a letter to the author of A full
vindication of the measures of congress, from the calumnies of their
enemies. By A. W., Farmer?_ (New York, 1774.)
Hamilton's final rejoinder is _The farmer refuted; or, a more
comprehensive and impartial view of the disputes between Great Britain
and the colonies. Intended as a further Vindication of the congress, in
answer to a Letter from a Westchester farmer, entitled a View of the
controversy between Great Britain and her colonies. By a sincere friend
to America_ (1775). Cf. Ford, no. 3.
These productions of the young Whig are contained in the various
editions of _Hamilton's Works_. Cf. J. Hamilton's _Repub. of the U.
S._, i. 65; Shea's _Hamilton_, p. 330.
[306] _A friendly address to all reasonable Americans on our political
confusions_ (New York, 1774; America, 1774; Lond., 1774; Dublin,
1775; abridged, New York, 1774. Sabin, iv. 16,587-8). A copy with the
author's MS. corrections was sold at Bangs's, N. Y., Feb., 1854, no.
178. The resulting tracts are: _The other side of the question, or a
defence of the liberties of No. America, in answer to a late Friendly
Address_ (N. Y., 1774; Boston, 1775). By Philip Livingston. _Strictures
on a pamphlet entitled a Friendly Address_ (N. Y., 1774; Philad., 1774;
Boston, 1775). This is by Charles Lee, and is reprinted in the Charles
Lee Papers, in _N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll._, 1871, p. 151. _The strictures
on the Friendly Address examined and a refutation of its principles
attempted_ (Philad., 1775, two editions). This is sometimes ascribed to
Thomas B. Chandler, and sometimes to Lieut. Henry Barry. Cooper also
printed _The American querist, or some questions proposed relative to
the present disputes between Great Britain and her American colonies_
(N. Y., 1774; Boston, 1774; London, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 16,586).
[307] It is printed in Almon's _Prior Documents_ (1777), with
Franklin's name, and Sparks includes it in his edition of Franklin (iv.
466). Lee is also said to have had a main hand, aided by Franklin, in
_An appeal to the justice and interests of the people of Great Britain
in the present dispute with America_ (London, 1774). Cf. Sparks's
_Franklin_, iv. 409. Another tract ascribed at the time to Franklin was
really written by James Wilson, namely, _Considerations on the nature
and extent of the legislative authority of the British parliament_
Philad., 1774. Cf, Sparks's _Franklin_, iv. 409.
[308] Philad. and London, 1774; included in _Political Writings of
Dickinson_ (Wilmington, 1801, vol. i.), and in _Penna. Archives_, 2d
ser., iii. 560. Cf. _Hist. Mag._, x. 288. Governor Bernard briefly
set forth his view of _The Causes of the present distractions in
America_ (1774), and also gathered certain letters written from Boston
in 1763-68, and published them as _Select letters on the trade and
government of America_ (London, 1774,—Sabin, ii. 4,920, 4,925). The
government printed a _Report of the Lords' Committee, appointed to
inquire into the several proceedings in the colony of Mass. Bay, in
opposition to the sovereignty of his Majesty_ (London, 1774). Granville
Sharp's _Declaration of the people's natural right to a share in the
legislature_, issued in London (1774), was reprinted in Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia (Haven in Thomas, ii. p. 650).
[309] Cf., for instance, the letters of the king to Dartmouth, in
the Dartmouth Papers (_Hist. MSS. Com. Rept._, ii.); proceedings in
Parliament given in Force, 4th ser., i. 5, and in Niles's _Principles_,
etc.; Hutchinson's diary, including his interview with the king (P. O.
Hutchinson, i. p. 157) and talks with Pownall (p. 251); the picture
of Fox and Barré in debates in Smyth's _Lectures_ (ii. 386), and such
more general accounts as those in Frothingham's _Rise_, etc. (p. 344),
Bancroft's _United States_ (vii. 173, 186, 194), Parton's _Franklin_
(ii. 5), and papers by T. H. Pattison in the _New Englander_ (xl. 571),
and Winthrop Sargent in the _No. Amer. Rev._, lxxx. p. 236. The letters
of Franklin (_Works_, iv.) add much, and the influence and speeches of
Chatham bring him into prominence.
[310] Dawson's _Westchester_, 48, 50, 60, where the authorities of
the diverse views are cited. Its sessions closed April 3d, and it
was the last Assembly under the royal order. Its proceedings are in
Jones's _New York during the Rev._, i. 506. Within a month a general
association was signed (April 29th) in New York of the opposers of
government (Jones, i. 505). The proceedings of the New York and
Elizabethtown committee of observation, relating to infractions of the
non-importation agreements, are in the _N. Jersey Archives_, x. 561.
The records of the provincial congress (which followed) are at Albany,
and are partly printed in Force. The _Sparks MSS._ (no. xxxvii.) show
extracts, 1775-78. (Cf. Dawson, 91. Cf. Hamilton's _Repub. of the U.
S._, i. ch. 3; Reed's _Jos. Reed_, i.93.) As soon as Governor Tryon
discovered the temper of the Continental Congress he sought safety on
board a man-of-war in the harbor (_Ibid._, 118), and later in the year
(Dec. 4th) he addressed a letter to the people of the province, urging
the adoption of plans of reconciliation (_Ibid._, 141).
[311] Henry was a character of which, as time goes on, there is an
appreciating estimate. His grandson, William Wirt Henry, is preparing
an extended memoir, having already sketched his career in the _Hist.
Mag._, xii. 90, 368, xxii. 272, 346; _Penna. Mag. of Hist._, p. 78.
Professor Moses Coit Tyler has embodied new material in his _Patrick
Henry_ of the "American Statesmen Series." Cf. Frothingham's _Rise_,
etc., 179; Mahon, v. 89; and references in _Poole's Index_. For
contemporary judgments, see _John Adams's Works_, i. 208, x. 277;
and Jefferson's letter in _Hist. Mag._, Aug., 1867, and comments
in _Ibid._, Dec., 1867. Alexander Johnston, in his _Representative
American Orations_ (vol. i.), selects Henry's speech in the House of
Delegates, March 28, 1775, as the leading specimen of Revolutionary
oratory. The usual portrait of Patrick Henry is the one by Sully,
representing him with his spectacles raised upon his forehead. It
was engraved by W. S. Leney in 1817. There is a woodcut in Lossing's
_Field-Book_, ii. 439. His is one of the portraits in Independence
Hall. On the class rank of the leading agitators in Virginia, compare
Rives's _Madison_, i. 71; Grigsby on _The Virginia Convention of 1776_;
and John Tyler's _Address at Jamestown, May, 1857_.
[312] _Journals of Congress_, i. 40.
[313] Cf. verses "Loyal York" from _Rivington's Gazetteer_, in Moore's
_Songs and Ballads_, 74.
[314] Sparks's _Washington_, iii. 37. For Hancock's character, see
Wells's _Sam. Adams_, an unfavorable view. Cf. also Sanderson's
_Signers of the Decl. of Ind._; Loring's _Hundred Boston Orators_; C.
W. Upham's speech in the Mass. Legislature, March 17, 1859, on the bill
for preserving the Hancock House. Hancock's correspondence as president
of Congress is in Force, 4th ser., v.; 5th ser., i., ii., iii.
[315] Cf. ed. in 13 vols. Also see _List of delegates, with journal
of their proceedings from May 10 to July 31, 1775_ (Philad.,
1775,—Sabin, x. 41,447). Extracts from the votes, etc., were printed
in New York; and their _Journal_ in Philad. and New York (Haven in
Thomas, ii. 656). There are notes on the debates in _John Adams's
Works_, ii. 445. Cf. _Elliot's Debates_, i. 45. A fac-simile of the
minutes for Dec. 26, 1775, signed by Chas. Thomson, is given in J.
J. Smith's _Hist. and Lit. Curios._, 2d ser., p. xiii. The several
publications of the Congress (included also in their _Journals_) are as
follows:—_Declaration by the representatives of the United Colonies_
... _setting forth the causes and necessity of taking up arms_
(Philad., Watertown, Newport, 1775; London, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,522).
Cf. L. H. Porter's _Outlines of the Const. Hist. of the U. S._, p. 38.
_The twelve United Colonies by their delegates in Congress to the
inhabitants of Great Britain, July 8, 1775_ (Philad., 1775; Newport,
1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,596). It was drafted by R. H. Lee. Cf. his _Life_,
i. 143. Cf. Ramsay's _Rev. in S. Carolina_, p. 362.
_Address of the twelve United Colonies_ ... _to the people of Ireland_
(Philad. and New York, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,512).
_Address from the delegates of the twelve United Colonies to the people
of New England_ (Newport, 1775; reprinted in the _R. I. Hist. Mag._,
1885).
A petition to the king was adopted July 8th. It is said to have been
moulded, in part at least, upon an appeal of Richard Stockton, of
New Jersey, dated Dec. 12, 1774 (_Orderly-book of Sir John Johnson_,
p. 176-78). Cf. Force, 4th ser., iv. 607; Ramsay, i. 355; Sparks's
_Franklin_, i. 372, x. 435; Bancroft, vii. 186; Barry's _Mass._, ii.
60, 61, with references; Lee's _Arthur Lee_, i. 47; ii. 312. The London
agents were instructed to print and circulate it (_Journals_, i. 112).
Mahon (vol. vi.) says that the king was influenced by a mere punctilio
in not replying to it, and Dartmouth writes to Carleton that it found
no favor in or out of Parliament.
On the choice by Congress of Washington as commander-in-chief,
see _John Adams's Works_, ii. 417; Bancroft, orig. ed., vii. ch.
37; Hildreth's _United States_; Hamilton's _Hamilton_, i. 110;
Frothingham's _Rise of the Repub._, 430, and his paper in _Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, March, 1876, and C. F. Adams in _Ibid._, June, 1858.
On the proposed articles of confederation (May 10th) and the debate
thereon, see Sparks's _Franklin_, v. 91; _N. Jersey Archives_, x. 692;
_Secret Journals of Congress_ (July and Aug., 1775); and a contemporary
draft of the articles in _Letters and Papers, 1761-1776_ (MSS. in Mass.
Hist. Soc. library).
In June, 1775, the Congress was called upon to approve the form of
autonomy into which the progress of events had forced the people
of Massachusetts Bay. Mr. A. C. Goodell, Jr., has traced the legal
bearings of successive steps in a paper in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._,
May, 1884, p. 192. The word "province" was renounced, as the dependence
upon the royal governor had ceased; and the word "colony" accepted, as
indicating the modified dependence which still held applicable to the
relations of the people to the throne. Up to April, 1776, the regnal
year was used in acts, but upon the Declaration of Independence being
received, all legislative acts run in the name of the "State." For
the change of government in New Hampshire, see Belknap's _Hist. of N.
Hampshire_, and papers in the Belknap MSS. (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._,
x. 324). An _Historical Sketch of the Hillsborough County Congresses
held at Amherst, N. H., 1774 and 1775, with other Revolutionary
Records_, by Edw. D. Boylston, was published at Amherst in 1884.
On May 10th Congress adopted _Rules and articles for the better
government of the troops raised and to be raised by the twelve United
English Colonies_ (Philad., Watertown, Mass., New York, 1775). Also
in Force, 4th ser., ii., 1855; _N. H. Prov. Papers_, vii. 538; _R. I.
Col. Rec._, vii. 340; _N. J. Prov. Cong._, etc. (1879), p. 264. The
Massachusetts articles of war were much the same. The _Rules_ arranged
by Timothy Pickering were published in 1775, and a presentation copy
from Pickering to Gen. John Thomas, with a letter annexed, belongs to
W. A. Thomas, of Kingston, Mass.
The plan of Congress for organizing the militia is given in their
_Journals_, i. 118. They also caused to be printed W. Sewall's _Method
of making saltpetre_ (Philad., 1775). A paper by C. C. Smith on the
making of gunpowder during the Revolution is in _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc._, March, 1876. As to the manufacture of other munitions of war,
see Bishop's _Hist. Amer. Manuf._, i. ch. 17 and 18, and index, under
cannon and firearms; and J. F. Tuttle on the Hibernia furnace, in the
_N. J. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 2d ser., vi. 148.
An agreement of the members (Nov. 9th) to keep the proceedings secret
is given in fac-simile in _Force_, 4th ser., iii. 1,918. A Committee
of Secret Correspondence, for preserving relations with sympathizers
in Europe, was established Nov. 29th. (Cf. C. W. F. Dumas's letters in
_Diplom. Corresp._, ix.; and _Force_, 5th ser., ii. and iii.)
For the Congress in general, see the histories of Gordon, Pitkin (i.
ch. 9), Bancroft (vii. 353, viii. 25, 51), Grahame (iv. 407), Hildreth
(iii. ch. 31); Greene's _Hist. View_, 89; Frothingham's _Rise_, etc.,
419; Thaddeus Allen's _Origination of the Amer. Union_; Lecky (iii.
465); Ryerson (i. ch. 23); and the histories of the original States.
Also, see lives of the members, etc.,—Franklin (by Sparks, Bigelow,
Parton), Washington (by Marshall, Sparks, Irving), Sam. Adams (by
Wells, ii. ch. 37), John Adams (by Adams, i. 212, ii. 408, x. 163, 171,
396, and his _Familiar Letters_, 83), R. H. Lee (i. 140), Schuyler (by
Lossing, i. 316), Jefferson (by Randall, i. ch. 4, by Parton, ch. 19),
Jay (by Jay), Madison (by Rives, i. 105), Geo. Read (by Read, 110),
Gouverneur Morris (by Sparks, i. 46), Rutledge (by Flanders, ch. 8);
lives of John Alsop and Philip Livingston (_Mag. of Amer. Hist._, i.
226, 303); Silas Deane's letters in _Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll._, ii.;
diary of Christopher Marshall; _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, by John Ward,
ii. 193; _Poole's Index_, p. 295. A memorial of the inhabitants of
Newport to the Congress is in the _R. I. Hist. Mag._, July, 1855. Sam.
Adams wrote, Nov. 16th, from Philadelphia to Bowdoin: "The petition
of Congress has been treated with evident contempt. I cannot conceive
that there is any room to hope for the virtuous efforts of the people
of Britain" (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xii., 227). Walpole (_Last
Journal_, i. 439) describes the effects of the action of this Congress
in England.
The most significant controversial reply in England to the action of
Congress came from a man of whom William S. Johnson (Beardsley, p.
71) was reporting to his American friends that he "was not much above
an idiot" in appearance, but could repay one for his unfavorable
appearance when he spoke,—Dr. Samuel Johnson, who published in 1775
his _Taxation no tyranny, an answer to the resolutions and address
of the American Congress_, passing through four editions in that
year. Macaulay says of it: "The arguments were such as boys use in
debating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as the gambols
of a hippopotamus." Cf. Johnson's works, all editions; Boswell's
_Johnson_; Bancroft, orig. ed., vii. 257-8; Smyth's _Lectures_, ii.
399; Fonblanque's _Burgoyne_, 110; Sabin, ix. 36,303, where (36,304-9)
are various tracts which appeared in answer. Cf. _Cooke Catal._, no.
1,315. One of the most prominent of these replies was an anonymous
_Defence of the resolutions and address of the American congress, in
reply to Taxation no tyranny. By the author of Regulus. To which are
added, general remarks on the leading principles of that work, as
published in the London Evening Post of the 2d and 4th of May; and a
short chain of deductions from one clear position of common sense and
experience_ (London, 1775,—Sabin, iv. 15,523). The next year the same
writer published _A letter to the Rev. Dr._ [Richard] _Price_. Moore's
_Sheridan_ (ch. 3) gives an outline of an intended answer to Johnson.
A sort of semi-official response to the Declaration, made on the part
of the government, appeared in the _Rights of Great Britain asserted
against the claims of America_, which is usually ascribed to Sir John
Dalrymple, though by some to James Macpherson. It appeared in seven or
eight editions at London in 1776, and also the same year at Edinburgh
and Philadelphia, and was translated into French (Sabin, v. 18,347).
Dalrymple is said also to have been the writer of an _Address of the
people of Great Britain to the inhabitants of America_, published
anonymously by Cadell, at London, in 1775. This was a conciliatory
effort at coöperation with certain placating measures, which the
government sought to promote, and copies of the tract in large numbers
are said to have been sent to America for distribution (Sabin, v.
18,346; _Sparks Catal._, no. 709; Stevens, _Nugget_, no. 3,106).
A Portuguese Jew, Isaac Pinto, living in Holland, took up the line of
argument used in the _Rights of Great Britain_, and "employed a venal
pen", as Franklin expressed it, "in the most insolent manner, against
the Americans" (_Sparks Catal._, no. 2,075; _Diplom. Corresp. of the
Rev._, ix. 265). Pinto's tracts were addressed to Samuel Barretts of
Jamaica, and were called _Lettre ... au sujet des troubles qui agitent
actuellement toute l'Amérique Septentrionale_, and a _Seconde Lettre_
(both La Haye, 1776,—Sabin, xv. 62,988-89). The English translation,
_Letters on the American Troubles_, appeared the same year in London
(Sabin, xv. 62,990). Pinto was answered in _Nouvelles observations_,
and a _Réponse_ followed, also La Haye, 1776 (Sabin, xiii. 56,095, xv.
62,991).
Almon published in 1775 an _Appeal to the justice and interests of the
people on the measures respecting America_, and the same year a _Second
appeal_; and later, by the same author, _A speech intended to have been
delivered in the House of the Commons in support of the petition from
the general Congress at Philad._ There has been much difference of
opinion as to the writers of these tracts, the names of Arthur Lee, C.
Glover, Lord Chatham, and Franklin having been mentioned. (Cf. _Cooke
Catal._, iii. no. 1,033; R. H. Lee's _Life of A. Lee_, i. 19.)
[316] "Massachusettensis", a Tory writer, brought out his first letter
in the _Mass. Gazette_, Dec. 12, 1774, and continued them at intervals
till April 3, 1775. The evidence that their writer was Leonard is
presented in Bancroft, orig. ed., vii. 231; by Lucius Manlius Sargent
in the _N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg._, July, Oct., 1864, or vol. xviii.
291, 353 (from the _Boston Transcript_). The letters were separately
published in New York, 1775, as _The present political state of the
province of Mass. Bay in general and the town of Boston in particular_,
and again as _The origin of the Amer. Contest with Great Britain, or
the present political state_, etc.,—both giving the writer as "a
native of New England" (Haven in Thomas, ii. p. 660). What is called
a second and third edition (London, 1776) purports to follow a Boston
imprint, and is called _Massachusettensis, or a series of letters
containing a faithful state of many facts, which laid the foundation
of the present troubles, ... by a person of honor upon the spot_. (Cf.
Sabin, x. p. 219.) There was also an edition in Dublin, 1776 (_Hist.
Mag._, i. 249). Lecky (iii. 419) speaks of these letters as showing
"remarkable eloquence and touching and manifest earnestness." Trumbull,
in the first canto of his _M'Fingal_, had early assumed that Leonard
was the author. See, on Leonard, Sabine's _Amer. Loyalists_ and Ellis
Ames in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xii. 52.
John Adams, on the patriot side, began Jan. 23, 1775, a series of
letters in the _Boston Gazette_, to counteract the effect of those of
"Massachusettensis", and used the signature "Novanglus." The fight at
Lexington broke off further publication for either disputant. Almon
printed an abridgment of these papers in the _Remembrancer_, and they
were later (London, 1783, 1784) published as _A history of the Dispute
with America_, and were included finally in C. F. Adams's ed. of _John
Adams's Works_ (vol. iv.,—see also ii. 405, x. 178-79).
Both series were reprinted together in Boston in 1819, with a preface
by Adams, who then still considered Sewall his adversary. Cf. Edmund
Quincy's _Life of Quincy_, p. 381; Frothingham's _Rise of the Repub._,
393.