_Roxbury, June 25, 1773._
[1772.] The annual elections of the _Massachusetts_ were in favor of the
friends to colonial liberty; but the state of Mr. _Otis_’s mind
necessarily occasioned his being left out of the list of the _Boston_
representatives.
[May 28.] The general court still met at _Cambridge_, but the governor
adopted a conciliating measure, in declining to negative Mr. _Hancock_,
who was again chosen one of the council.—He had been repeatedly chosen,
and till now as repeatedly negatived; he declined, however, taking his
seat at the board, choosing to remain in the assembly as one of the
Boston members.
[June 13.] Mr. _Hutchinson_ acquainted the house, in answer to a
message, that his majesty had made provision for his support; and then,
after requiring the opinion and advice of the council, upon their oaths,
whether he might now remove the general court to Boston, consistent with
the signification of his majesty’s pleasure to him, and receiving their
unanimous opinion and advice in the affirmative, adjourned them to meet
at Boston. He might have asked and received that very advice long
before.
A committee having been appointed to consider the matter of the
governor’s support being provided for by the king, reported and observed
[July 10.] “That the king’s providing for the support of the governor is
a most dangerous innovation. It is a measure, whereby not only the right
of the general assembly of this province is rescinded, but the highest
indignity is thrown upon it. It is an infraction of the charter in a
material point, whereby a most important trust is wrested out of the
hands of the general assembly.” And the house, the same day, declared by
a message to the governor, “That the making provision for his
excellency’s support, independent of the grants and acts of the general
assembly, and his excellency’s receiving the same, is an infraction upon
the rights of the inhabitants granted by the royal charter.”
The payment of the governors by the crown, is not relished by the
colonies, as it makes them entirely dependent upon that, and wholly
independent of the people and provincial assemblies; and as it destroys
the mutual check which each branch of the legislature ought to have upon
the others, and that balance of power which is essential to all free
governments. It will be a new source of complaint. On the other hand,
the affair which has happened in _Rhode-Island_ government will prove a
fresh provocation to ministry, and tend to fix them in their plans
respecting the colonies.
Lieutenant _Duddington_, the commander of the late armed schooner the
_Gaspee_, had been remarkably assiduous in supporting the laws against
smuggling, and in searching after contraband goods, by which he had
given great offence. He had also brought upon himself the resentment of
many, by firing at the _Providence_ packets (employed in transporting
goods and passengers from thence to _Newport_, and _vice versa_) in
order to oblige the masters to take down their colours, and by chacing
them even into the docks when it had been refused. The _Providence_
packet coming up as usual with colours flying and company on board,
probably a party of pleasure, as is frequent in the summer season, and
refusing to take them down, the lieutenant fired a shot, which being
disregarded, he chaced. [June 9.] It was near upon, or quite high water.
The packet stood in with the land as close as consisted with safety,
designing that the _Gaspee_ should be run a-ground in the chace. The
design succeeded. The Gaspee was soon fast, and could not stir, the tide
having done flowing. The packet proceeded to town. The situation of the
Gaspee, and resentment against the commander, excited the thought of
attacking and destroying her. Mr. _John Brown_, a considerable merchant
of _Providence_, was the principal in the business. Captain _Whipple_
was immediately employed to beat up for volunteers, and a number offered
and engaged to go upon any service for which they were wanted. Several
whale boats were procured and filled with armed men. Mr. Brown
accompanied them in the expedition. Captain Whipple, as they proceeded,
observed to Mr. Brown, that he might lose his life, and that he had a
family, and therefore he required that care should be taken of them in
case of his death. Mr. Brown engaged to do it should that happen. [June
10.] About two o’clock in the morning, they boarded and carried the
schooner, as she lay a-ground about seven miles below Providence. Mr.
Brown himself was the first on board. The lieutenant was wounded. He and
the crew were put on shore, and every thing valuable belonging to him
was taken out and saved for him; after which the Gaspee, with all her
stores, was burned.
Though a reward of five hundred pounds, together with a pardon, if
claimed by an accomplice, has been offered by proclamation for
discovering and apprehending any of the persons concerned: yet the
commissioners appointed to try the matter, have transmitted accounts to
ministry, that _they can obtain no evidence_. If any one had wished to
give evidence, that he might get the reward, yet the thought that he
should risk his life, or be obliged to fly the country and become a
perpetual exile, would naturally have overcome such propensity. It was
too hazardous to turn informer. Some who were secured, in expectation
that they would give intelligence, were assisted by the populace in
making their escape, before any thing material could be learnt from them
by the commissioners.
Governor _Hutchinson_ and his adherents having been used to represent
the party in opposition, as only an uneasy factious few in Boston, while
the body of the people were quite contented; Mr. _Samuel Adams_ was
thereby induced to visit Mr. _James Warren_ of _Plymouth_. After
conversing upon the subject, the latter proposed to originate and
establish committees of correspondence in the several towns of the
colony, in order to learn the strength of the friends to the rights of
the continent, and to unite and increase their force. Mr. Samuel Adams
returned to Boston, pleased with the proposal, and communicated the same
to his confidents. Some doubted whether the measure would prosper, and
dreaded a disappointment, which might injure the cause of liberty. But
it was concluded to proceed. The prime managers were about six in
number; each of whom when separate, headed a division; the several
individuals of which, collected and led distinct subdivisions. In this
manner the political engine has been constructed. The different parts
are not equally good and operative. Like other bodies, its composition
includes numbers who act mechanically, as they are pressed this or that
way by those who judge for them; and divers of the wicked, fitted for
evil practices when the adoption of them is thought necessary to
particular purposes, and a part of whose creed it is, that in political
matters the public good is above every other consideration, and that all
rules of morality when in competition with it, may be safely dispensed
with. When any important transaction is to be brought forward, it is
thoroughly considered by the prime managers. If they approve, each
communicates it to his own division; from thence, if adopted, it passes
to the several subdivisions, which form a general meeting in order to
canvass the business. The prime managers being known only by a few to be
the promoters of it, are desired to be present at the debate, that they
may give their opinion when it closes. If they observe that the
collected body is in general strongly agains the measure they wish to
have carried, they declare it to be improper; is it opposed by great
numbers, but not warmly, they advise to a re-consideration at another
meeting, and prepare for its being then adopted; if the opposition is
not considerable, either in number or weight of persons, they give their
reasons, and then recommend the adoption of the measure. The principal
actors are determined upon securing the liberties of their country, or
perishing in the attempt.
The news of his majesty’s granting salaries to the justices of the
superior court, afforded them a fair opportunity for executing the plan
of establishing committees of correspondence through the colony. The
most spirited pieces were published, and an alarm spread, that the
granting such salaries tended rapidly to complete the system of their
slavery.
[Nov. 2.] A town meeting was called, and a committee of correspondence
appointed, to write circular letters to all the towns in the province,
and to induce them to unite in measures. [Nov. 19.] The committee made a
report, containing several resolutions contradictory to the supremacy of
the British legislature. After setting forth, that all men have a right
to remain in a state of nature as long as they please, they proceed to a
report upon the natural rights of the colonists as men, christians and
subjects; and then form a list of infringements and violations of their
rights. They enumerate and dwell upon the British parliament’s having
assumed the power of legislation for the colonies in all cases
whatever—the appointment of a number of new officers to superintend the
revenues—the granting of salaries out of the American revenue, to the
governor, the judges of the superior court, the king’s attorney and
solicitor general. The report was accepted; copies printed, and six
hundred circulated through the towns and districts of the province, with
a pathetic letter addressed to the inhabitants, who were called upon not
to doze any longer, or sit supinely in indifference, while the iron hand
of oppression was daily tearing the choicest fruits from the fair tree
of liberty. The circular letter requested of each town a free
communication of sentiments on the subjects of the report, and was
directed to the select men, who were desired to lay the same before a
town meeting, which has been generally practised, and the proceedings of
the town upon the business have been transmitted to the committee at
Boston. This committee have their particular correspondents in the
several towns, who upon receiving any special information, are ready to
spread it with dispatch among the inhabitants. It consists of twenty-one
persons, of heterogeneous qualities and professions. The governor, in
expectation of exciting prejudice, and fixing a stigma upon them, their
connections and proceedings, has written to a gentleman in power,
“Strange that a government, which within a century would suffer no
person to be free of the commonwealth who was not one of their church
members, should now take for their leaders, men who openly contemn all
religion, and should join deacons and atheists in one trust; and that
they should be instigated to this by some of the clergy, who make the
highest pretences to devotion; and yet the spirit of political party
produces all this.” He would gladly receive them all into his own arms,
and be devoutly thankful for them, were they to change sides and join in
supporting his administration. But he has unwarily acknowledged, that
the government, or the great body of the people in their legislative and
ruling capacity are in the opposition, which therefore cannot consist
merely of a few factious leaders; and he appears not to have
recollected, that men of opposite principles and characters will unite
heart and hand, in keeping off a general calamity, which will involve
them all in one and the same ruin. The towns in general have chosen
committees of correspondence, and resolved in a stile agreeable to the
wishes of the Bostonians. But the resolutions have not been alway drawn
up by the townsmen. An inhabitant of _Petersham_ applied to that worthy
and disinterested son of liberty, Mr. _Quincy_, whom you will recollect
to have been of the counsel for captain Preston and the soldiers, for
his assistance, and was furnished with the following draft, intended for
Boston, excepting the introduction and the paragraphs marked with a
star, which were added by some other person.
[Jan. 4, 1773.] At a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of
the town of _Petersham_ in the county of _Worcester_, duly assembled
according to law, held by adjournment on the 4th of January, 1773, the
committee chosen on the 30th ult. made the following report, viz. “The
town having received a circular letter from the town of _Boston_,
respecting the present grievances and abominable oppressions under which
this country groans, have thereupon taken into their most serious
consideration the present policy of the British government and
administration, with regard to Great-Britain and these colonies; have
carefully reviewed the mode of election, and the quality of the electors
of the commons of that island; and have also attentively reflected upon
the enormous and growing influence of the crown, and that bane of all
free states, a standing army in the time of peace; and in consequence
thereof are fully confirmed in opinion, that the ancient rights of the
nation are capitally invaded, and the greatest part of the most precious
and established liberties of _Englishmen_ utterly destroyed: And whereas
the parliament of Great-Britain, by various statutes and acts, have
unrighteously distressed our trade, denied and precluded us from setting
up and carrying on manufactures highly beneficial to the inhabitants of
these territories; restricted and prevented our lawful intercourse and
commerce with other states and kingdoms; have also made laws and
institutions touching life and limb, in disherison of the ancient common
law of the land; and moreover have in these latter times, robbed and
plundered the honest and laborious inhabitants of this extensive
continent of their property, by mere force and power; and are now
draining this people of the fruits of their toil, by thus raising a
revenue from them, against the natural rights of man, and in open
violation of the laws of God.
This town, in union with the worthy inhabitants of Boston, now think it
their indispensable duty to consider of the premises and the present
aspect of the times, and to take such steps as upon mature deliberation
are judged right and expedient; and hereupon this town
Resolved, That with a governor appointed from Great-Britain (especially
at this day) during pleasure, with a large stipend, dependant upon the
will of the crown, and controuled by instructions from a British
minister of state, with a council subject to the negative of such a
governor, and with all officers, civil and military, subject to his
appointment or consent, with a castle in the hands of a standing army,
stationed in the very bowels of the land; and that amazing number of
placemen and dependants with which every maritime town already swarms,
no people can ever be truly virtuous, free, or brave:
Resolved, That the parliament of Great-Britain, usurping and exercising
a legislative authority over, and extorting an unrighteous revenue from
these colonies, is against all divine and human laws. The late
appointment of salaries to be paid to our superior court judges, whose
creation, pay, and commission depend on mere will and pleasure,
completes a system of bondage equal to any ever fabricated by the
combined efforts of the ingenuity, malice, fraud, and wickedness of man:
* Resolved, That it is the opinion of this town, that a despotic,
arbitrary government, is the kingdom of this world, as set forth in the
New-Testament, and is diametrically opposite to the establishment of
christianity in a society, and has a direct tendency to sink a people
into a profound state of ignorance and irreligion; and that, if we have
an eye to our own and posterity’s happiness (not only in this world, but
the world to come) it is our duty to oppose such a government:
* And further resolved, That the depriving the colonies of their
constitutional rights, may be fitly compared to the dismembering the
natural body, which will soon affect the heart; and it would be nothing
unexpected for us to hear, that those very persons who have been so
active in robbing the colonies of their constitutional rights, have also
delivered up the constitution of our mother country into the hands of
our king:
Therefore resolved, That it is the first and highest social duty of this
people, to consider of, and seek ways and means, for a speedy redress of
these mighty grievances and intolerable wrongs; and that for the
obtaining of this end, this people are warranted, by the laws of God and
nature, in the use of every rightful art and energy of policy, stratagem
and force.
* And while we are thus under these awful frowns of divine Providence
and involved as this people are in heavy calamities, which daily
increase in number and severity, it is highly becoming towns and
individuals to humble themselves before Almighty God, seriously to
commune with their own hearts, and seek carefully with tears, for the
causes of the prevailing distresses of the land; and while it is
apparent, that pristine piety and purity of morals, have given place to
infidelity, dissipation, luxury, and gross corruption of mind and
morals, there is a loud call for humility, lamentings and reformation;
and it is at this time eminently incumbent on one and all, to seek at
the throne of the great God for those special and remarkable
interpositions of divine Providence, grace and mercy, which have so
ofter saved New-England from both public and private distress and
misery: and as there is great reason to believe, that in past times we
have too much depended upon the exertions of worldly wisdom and
political devices, it becomes us in our present melancholy situation to
rely no longer on an arm of flesh, but on the arms of that all-powerful
God, who is able to unite the numerous inhabitants of this extensive
territory, as a band of brothers in one common cause—who can easily give
that true religion, which shall make us his people indeed; that spirit,
which shall fit us to endure temporal hardships for the procurement of
future happiness; that spirit of valor and irresistable courage, which
shall occasion our aged and our youth to jeopard their lives with joy,
in the high places of the field, for his name and service sake, for the
preservation also of this goodly heritage of our fathers, for the sake
of the living children of our loins, and the unborn millions of
posterity.
* We believe that there are very many, who in these days have kept their
integrity and garments unspotted, and hope that God will deliver them
and our nation for their sake. God will not suffer this land where the
gospel hath flourished, to become a slave of the world; he will stir up
witnesses of the truth; and in his own time, spirit his people to stand
up for his cause, and deliver them. In a similar belief, that patriot of
patriots, the great _Algernon Sidney_, lived and died, and dying
breathed a like sentiment and prophecy, touching his own and the then
approaching times, a prophecy, however, not accomplished until a
glorious revolution.
Approved of by vote of the town, without contradiction.
SYLVANUS HOW, per order.
The govornor, instead of overlooking in his speech, the proceedings of
the towns, has been induced by them to broach the dispute about the
supremacy of the parliament; and has fallen into the snare which
probably some of the politicians had laid for him, expecting to get the
majority of the general court to declare against it. He designed to
recommend himself to the ministry by obtaining a victory: but they will
not thank him for increasing their embarrassments.
[Jan. 25.] The council in their answer, said “The stamp act, with some
preceding and succeeding acts of parliament, subjecting the colonies to
taxes without their consent, was the original cause of all the
uneasiness that has happened since, and has occasioned also an inquiry
into the nature and extent of the authority by which they were made.”
This was the truth. When the stamp act took place, “some people, under
the notion of zeal for liberty, ran into the most excessive
licentiousness, and were guilty in one place and another of the most
lawless, unjust, and tyrannical proceedings; such as pulling down and
destroying houses, abusing persons, endangering men’s lives, destroying
their property, breaking windows, delivering prisoners out of the hands
of justice, putting many into great fear, all contrary to the laws of
the province: but there was nothing of this kind before.”[107] Let me
add, that in all my researches not an instance has occurred to me of the
mob’s having been the death of a single individual, though they might
have proceeded to the most criminal lengths also, had they not been
gratified or diverted from their pursuits. But before that fatal act,
there was not a more loyal, orderly, and peaceable people than the
Americans in general through the whole British empire. All ranks and
conditions gloried in their connection with Great-Britain; rejoiced in
her friendship and protection; and triumphed in her prosperity.
Toward the close of their answer, the house of assembly expressed a
concern at their having been reduced by the speech to the unhappy
alternative, either of appearing by their silence to acquiesce in the
governor’s sentiments as to the supremacy of parliament, or of freely
discussing the point. The house might be concerned, but the leaders were
pleased with the opportunity. The governor replied; and the house in
their rejoinder told him “Although the colony may have submitted _sub
silentio_ to some acts of parliament, that they conceived might operate
for their benefit, they did not conceive themselves bound by any of its
acts which they judged would operate to the injury of individuals.” The
people at large believe, that the house has the best of the argument,
and are confirmed in their opposition to the claims of parliament.
The house voted the usual salaries to the judges of the superior court
early in the session. The governor delayed giving his assent to the
grants; which produced a message to him, requesting his making known the
difficulty that prevented his assenting; to this it was answered, that
he had received information, that his majesty had been pleased to order
salaries to be allowed to the justices of the superior courts, &c. By
this answer the house gained the opportunity of sending a second
message, [Feb.] in which they expressed their resentment at the many
attempts made, effectually to render null and void those clauses in
their charter upon which the freedom of their constitution depends; and
said that they were more and more convinced, that it had been the design
of administration to introduce an arbitrary government into the
province. They declared at the close, their impatience to know, “that
the justices will utterly refuse ever to accept of support in a manner
so justly obnoxious to the people of the province, it being repugnant to
the charter, and utterly inconsistent with the safety of the rights,
liberties, and properties of the people.” To add the greater weight to
their sentiments, and make them the more regarded by all persons, they
come to several resolves [March 3.] respecting the salaries and the
judges; among the rest, “that their dependence on the crown, especially
while they held their commissions during pleasure, tends to the
subversion of justice and equity, and to introduce oppression and
despotic power; and that while they hold during pleasure, any who shall
accept of and depend upon the pleasure of the crown for his support,
independent of the grants of the general court, will discover that he is
an enemy to the constitution, and has it in his heart to promote the
establishment of an arbitrary government in the province.”
The measures pursued on each side the Atlantic are not calculated to
promote harmony.