no right to send troops here to invade the country; if they come, they will come as foreign enemies." "We will not submit to any tax," he spoke out, "nor become slaves. We will take up arms, and spend our last drop of blood before the king and parliament shall impose on us, or settle crown officers, independent of the colonial legislature, to dragoon us.' It was not reverence for kings, he would say, that brought the ancestors of New England to America. They fled from kings and bishops, and looked up to the King of kings. "We are free, therefore," he concluded, "and want no king." "The times were never better in Rome, than when they had no king, and were a free state.” As he reflected on the extent of the colonies in America, he saw that the vast empire which was forming must fashion its own institutions, and reform those of England. Sept. 1768. But, at this time, Massachusetts had no representative body. Bernard had hinted that instructions might be given to forbid the calling of the assembly, even at the annual period in May; and to reduce the province to submission by the indefinite suspension of its legislature. Was there no remedy? The men of Boston and the villages round about it were ready to spring to arms. But of what use were unconnected" movements? Ten thousand men had assembled suddenly, in 1746, on the rumor of the approach of a French expedition; thirty thousand could at a signal come forth, with gun in hand, to drive the British troops into the sea; but was there the steady courage to keep passion in check and restrain disorder? 66 On the fifth of September, there appeared in the "Boston Gazette" a paper in the form of queries, directing attention to the original charter of the colony, which left to the people the choice of their governor, and reserved to the crown no negative on their laws. Wednesday, the seventh, the "Senegal" left the port. The next day, the "Duke of Cumberland" sailed for Nova Scotia, and Bernard let it be known that both vessels of war were gone to fetch three regiments. Sullen discontent appeared on almost every brow. On the ninth, a petition was signed for a town-meeting "to consider of the most wise, constitutional, loyal, and salutary measures" in reference to the expected arrival of troops. 1768. Sept. Union was the heart's desire of Boston; union first with all the towns of the province, and next with the sister colonies; and the confidence which must precede union could be established only by self-control. On Saturday, Otis, Samuel Adams, and Warren met at the house of Warren, and drew up the plan for the town-meeting, the resolves, and the order of the debates. Otis had long before pointed out the proper mode of redress in the contingency which had now occurred. All day Sunday, Bernard suffered from "false alarms and threats as usual; " insisted that a rising was agreed. upon; and, in his fright at an empty barrel placed on the beacon, actually called a meeting of the council. 1768. On Monday the twelfth, the inhabitants of Boston gathered in a town-meeting at Faneuil Hall, where the arms belonging to the town, to the number of four hundred muskets, lay in boxes on the floor. After a fervid prayer from Cooper, minister of the congregation in Brattle Street, and the election of Otis as moderator, a committee inquired of the governor the grounds of his apprehensions that regiments of his majesty's troops were daily to be expected; and requested him to issue precepts for a general assembly. On the next morning at ten o'clock, report was made to the town that Bernard refused, and that troops Sept. 13. were expected. Rashness on the part of the people of Boston would have forfeited the confidence of their own province, and the sympathies of the rest; while feebleness would have overwhelmed their cause with ridicule. It was necessary for them to halt, but to find a position where it was safe to do so; and they began their defences with the declaration that "it is the first principle in civil society, founded in nature and reason, that no law of the society can be binding on any individual, without his consent, given by himself in person, or by his representative of his own free election." They further appealed not to natural rights only, but to the precedents of the Revolution of 1688; to the conditions on which the house of Hanover received the throne; to the bill of rights of William and Mary; and to their own charter; and then they proceeded to resolve, "That the inhabitants of the town of Boston will, at the utmost peril of their lives and fortunes, maintain and defend their rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities." To remove uncertainty respecting these rights, they voted "that money could not be levied, nor a standing army be kept up in the province, but by their own free consent." 1768. This report was divers times distinctly read and Sept. 13. considered, and it was unanimously voted that it be accepted and recorded. The record remains to the honor of Boston among all posterity. "There are the arms," said Otis, pointing to the chests in which they lay. "When an attempt is made against your liberties, they will be delivered." One man cried out impatiently that they wanted a head; another, an old man, was ready to rise and resume all power; a third reasoned that liberty, like life, may be defended against the aggressor. But every excessive opinion was overruled or restrained; and the town, following the precedent of 1688, proposed a convention in Faneuil Hall. To this body they elected Cushing, Otis, Samuel Adams, and Hancock a committee to represent them; and directed their selectmen to inform the several towns of the province of their design. It was also voted by a very great majority that every one of the inhabitants should provide himself with fire-arms and ammunition. A cordial letter was read from the merchants of New York, communicating the agreement of themselves and the mechanics to cease importing British goods. It was also unanimously voted that the selectmen wait on the several ministers of the gospel within the town, to desire that the next Tuesday might be set apart as a day of fasting and prayer; and it was so kept by all the Congregational churches. 1768. On the fourteenth, just after a vessel had arrived Sept. 14. in forty days from Falmouth, bringing news how angry people in England were with the Americans, that three regiments were coming over, that fifty state pris 1768. Sept. oners were to be sent home, the selectmen issued a circular, repeating the history of their grievances, and inviting every town in the province to send a committee to the convention, to give "sound and wholesome advice,” and “prevent any sudden and unconnected measures." The city of London had never done the like in the great rebellion. The proceedings of the meeting in Boston had a greater tendency towards a revolution than any previous measures in any of the colonies. Bernard was sure that, but for the Romney," a rebellion would have broken out; he reported a design against the castle, and "that his government was subdued." The offer of a baronetcy and the vice-government of Virginia coming to hand, he accepted them "most thankfully," and hoped to embark for England in a fortnight. He had hardly indulged in this day-dream for twenty-four hours, when his expectations were dashed by the account of Botetourt's appointment, and he began to fear that he should lose Massachusetts also. Of a sudden he was become the most anxious and unhappy man in Boston. On Monday, the nineteenth, Bernard announced to the council that two regiments were expected from Ireland, two others from Halifax, and desired that for one of them quarters might be prepared within the town. "The process in quartering,” replied the council," must be regulated by the act of parliament;" and that required the civil officers to "quarter and billet the officers and soldiers in his majesty's service in the barracks; and only in case there was not sufficient room in the barracks to find other quarters for the residue of them." The council therefore, after an adjournment of three days, during which "the militia were under arms, exercising and firing," spoke out plainly, that, as the barracks at Castle William were sufficient to accommodate both regiments ordered from Halifax, the act of parliament required that they should be quartered there. Upon this, Bernard produced the letter of General Gage, by which it appeared that one only of the coming regiments was ordered for the present to Castle William, and one to the town of Boston. "It is no disrespect to the general," answered the council, "to say that no order whatsoever, coming from a general or a secretary of war, or any less authority than his majesty and parliament, can supersede an act of parliament;" and they insisted that General Gage could not have intended otherwise, for the act provided "that, if any military officer should take upon himself to quarter soldiers in any of his majesty's dominions in America otherwise than was limited and allowed by the act, he should be ipso facto cashiered, and disabled to hold any military employment in his majesty's service." The council, who were conducted in their opposition by James Bowdoin, one of the most heartily loyal men in the king's dominions, were in the right in the interpretation of the law, and were prudent in their advice; but Bernard only drew from their conduct a new reason for urging the forfeiture of the colony's charter. 1768. On the appointed day, Thursday, the twenty-second Sept. of September, the anniversary of the king's coronation, about seventy persons, from sixty-six towns, came together in Faneuil Hall in convention; and their number increased, till ninety-six towns and eight districts, nearly every settlement in the colony, were represented. By the mere act of assembling, they showed that, if the policy of suppressing the legislature should be persisted in, legislative government could still be instituted; and they marked their own sense of the character of this meeting by electing the speaker and clerk of the late house of representatives to the same offices in the convention. "They have committed treason," shouted all the crown officers in America. "At least the selectmen, in issuing the circular for a convention, have done so ;" and pains were taken to get at some of their original letters with their signatures. "Boston," said Gage, "is mutinous," "its resolves treasonable and desperate." "Mad people procured them; mad people govern the town and influence the province." The convention requested the governor to summon the constitutional assembly of the province, in order to consider |