1772.

Inhabitants of Providence, in Rhode Island, had, in March, 1772, complained to the deputy governor of Lieutenant Dudingston, commander of the "Gaspee." Hopkins, the chief justice, on being consulted, gave the opinion "that any person who should come into the colony and exercise any authority by force of arms, without showing his commission to the governor, and, if a customhouse officer, without being sworn into his office, was guilty of a trespass, if not piracy." The governor, therefore, sent a sheriff on board the "Gaspee," to ascertain by what orders the lieutenant acted. Dudingston referred the subject to the admiral, who answered from Boston: "The lieutenant, sir, has done his duty. I shall give the king's officers directions that they send every man taken in molesting them to me. As sure as the people of Newport attempt to rescue any vessel, and any of them are taken, I will hang them as pirates." Dudingston seconded the insolence of his superior officer, insulted the inhabitants, plundered the islands of sheep and hogs, cut down trees, fired at market-boats, detained vessels without a colorable pretext, and made illegal seizures of goods of which the recovery cost more than they were worth.

On the ninth of June, the Providence packet was returning to Providence, and, proud of its speed, went gayly on, heedless of the "Gaspee." Dudingston gave chase. The tide being at flood, the packet ventured near shore; the "Gaspee" confidently followed; and, drawing more water, ran aground on Namquit, a little below Pawtuxet. The following night, a party of men in six or seven boats, led by John Brown and Joseph Brown of Providence, and Simeon Potter of Bristol, boarded the stranded schooner, after a scuffle in which Dudingston was wounded, took and landed its crew, and then set it on fire. The whole was conducted on a sudden impulse; yet Sandwich resolved never to leave pursuing the colony of Rhode Island, until its charter should be taken away. "A few punished at Execution dock would be the only effectual preventive of any further attempt," wrote Hutchinson, who wished to see a beginning of punishing American offenders in England. There now existed a

statute authorizing such a procedure. Two months before, the king had assented to an act for the better securing dockyards, ships, and stores, which made death the penalty for destroying even the oar of a cutter's boat or the head of an empty cask belonging to the fleet, and subjected the accused to a trial in any county in Great Britain; and this act extended to the colonies.

For the last five years, there had been no contested election in Boston. Deceived by the apparent tranquillity, the friends of government attempted to defeat the choice of Samuel Adams as representative; but the malice of his enemies rendered him still dearer to the people, and he had more than twice and a half as many votes as his opponent.

The legislature was for the fourth year convened at Cambridge; but the governor had grown weary of his pretensions, and, against his declared purpose, adjourned the session to the accustomed house in Boston.

1772. July.

The assembly of Massachusetts at that place gave attention to the gradual change in the constitution of the colony effected by the payment of the king's civil officers through warrants under his sign manual, drawn on a perennial fund raised by an act of parliament. They regarded the charter as "a most solemn compact," which bound them to Great Britain. By that charter, they held, they were to have a governor and judges, over whom the power of the king was protected by the right of nomination, the power of the colony by the exclusive right of providing support. These views were imbodied by Hawley in a report to the assembly, and, on the tenth of July, adopted by a vote of eighty-five to nineteen. It followed, and was so resolved, that a governor who, like Hutchinson, was not dependent on the people for support, was not such a governor as the people had consented to, at the granting of the charter; the house most solemnly protested "that the innovation was an important change of the constitution, and exposed the province to a despotic administration of government." The inference was unavoidable. If the principle contained in the preamble to Townshend's revenue act should become the rule of administration, obedience would no longer be due to the

governor, and the rightful dependence on England would be at an end.

1772.

On the seventh of August, the secretary, with eager haste, announced that the king, with the " en- Aug. tire concurrence of Lord North, had made provision

for the support of his law servants in the province of Massachusetts Bay." This act, constituting judges, who held their offices at the king's pleasure, stipendiaries of the crown, was the crisis of revolution.

Meantime, Hillsborough was left with few supporters except the herd of flatterers who had made his vanity subservient to their selfishness. The king was weary of him; his colleagues conspired to drive him into retirement. The occasion was at hand. Franklin had negotiated with the treasury for a grant to a company of about twenty-three millions of acres of land, south of the Ohio and west of the Alleghanies; Hillsborough, from the fear that men in the backwoods would be too independent, opposed the project. Franklin persuaded Hertford, Gower, Camden, the secretaries of the treasury, and others, to become shareholders in his scheme; by their influence, the lords of council disregarded the adverse report of the board of trade, and decided in favor of planting the new province. Hillsborough was too proud to brook this public insult; and the king, soothing his fall by a patent for a British earldom, accepted his resignation. But Thurlow took care that the grant for the western province should never be sealed; and the amiable Dartmouth, who became secretary for the colonies, had been taught to believe with Lord North and the king, that it was necessary to carry out the policy of consolidation, as set forth in Townshend's preamble.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE TOWNS OF MASSACHUSETTS HOLD CORRESPONDENCE.

1772. Aug.

AUGUST, 1772-JANUARY, 1773.

"WE must get the colonies into order, before we engage with our neighbors," were the words of the king to Lord North in August; and, though nothing could be more unlike than the manners of George III. and Louis XV., a cordial understanding sprung up between them, and even a project for a defensive alliance, that monarchy might triumph in France over philosophy, in America over the people.

If, in other affairs, Louis XV. was weak of purpose, on the subject of royal authority he never wavered. To him Protestants were republicans; and he would not even legalize their marriages. Bold in doing ill, he violated the constitutions of Languedoc and Brittany without scruple, employing military force against their states. The parlia ment of Paris, even more than the other companies of judges, had become an aristocratic senate, not only distributing justice, but exercising some check on legislation. Louis XV. demanded their unqualified registry of his edicts. "Sire," remonstrated the upright magistrate Malesherbes, in 1771, "to mark your dissatisfaction with the parliament of Paris, the most essential rights of a free people are taken from the nation. The greatest happiness of the people is always the object and end of legitimate power. God places the crown on the head of kings to preserve to their subjects the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. This truth flows from the law of God and from the law of nature, and is peculiar to no constitution. In France, as in all mon

archies, there exist inviolable rights, which belong to the nation. Interrogate, sire, the nation itself: the incorruptible testimony of its representatives will at least let you know if the cause which we defend to-day is that of all this people, by whom you reign and for whom you reign.” "I will never change," replied Louis. Exiling Malesherbes, he overturned all the parliaments, and reconstructed the courts. "The crown is rescued from the dust of the rolls," cried his flatterers. "It is the tower of Babel," said others, "or chaos come again, or the end of the world." But the shameless vices of the monarch brought foul dishonor on himself and degraded the throne.

Sept.

The king of England, likewise, had no higher 1772. object than to confirm his authority. The ministers of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, were signing at St. Petersburg the treaty for the first partition of Poland; he neither questioned its justice nor inquired into its motives. Towards European affairs, the British policy, like that of France, was one of inertness and peace. Poland might perish, and one province after another be wrested from the Porte, that Louis XV. might repose in voluptuous indulgence, and George III. obtain leisure to reduce America.

There, in New England, the marriage vow was austerely sacred; no corrupt court tainted innocence; no licentious aristocracy competed for superiority in excesses. There industry created wealth, and divided it between all the children; and none professed that the human race lives for the few. There every man was, or expected to become, a freeholder; the owner of the land held the plough; he who held the plough held the sword also; and liberty, acquired by the sacrifices and sufferings of a revered ancestry, was guarded, under the blessing of God, as a sacred trust for posterity. There Hopkins, discoursing from the pulpit to the tillers of the soil, or to merchants and mariners, founded morals on the doctrine of disinterested love; establishing it as the duty of every one to be willing to sacrifice himself for the glory of God, the freedom of his country, the wellbeing of his race.

The younger Quincy misunderstood his countrymen, when