CHAPTER XXXIV.

DOES MASSACHUSETTS RESCIND?

HILLSBOROUGH'S COLONIAL

1768. June.

ADMINISTRATION CONTINUED.

JUNE JULY, 1768.

THE Commissioners of the customs, in the manner of executing their office, did not shun to give offence. The "Romney," a ship of fifty guns, sent from Halifax at their request, had, for about a month, lain at anchor in the harbor of Boston, and impressed New England men returning from sea. On the tenth of June, one man who had been impressed was rescued. The request to accept a substitute for another the captain rejected with a storm of angry abuse; and he continued impressments, in violation, as the lawyers and people believed, of an explicit statute.

The sloop "Liberty," belonging to John Hancock, had discharged her cargo and had taken in freight for a new voyage; when, on the same day, near sunset, and just as the laborers had broken off work, the officers of the customs, obeying the written directions of the commissioners, seized her for a false entry, which it was pretended had been made several weeks before. The collector thought she might still remain at the wharf; but, according to previous concert, boats from the man-of-war cut her moorings and towed the sloop away to the "Romney."

A crowd "of boys and negroes" gathered at the heels of the custom-house officers, and threw stones, bricks, and dirt, alarming them, but doing no serious mischief. A mob broke windows in the house of the comptroller and of an inspector, and burned a boat of the collector's on Boston common. At about one o'clock, they dispersed, and the town resumed its quiet.

The next day, nothing indicated a recurrence of riots; and the council appointed a committee to ascertain the facts attending the seizure.

The commissioners had not been harmed, nor approached, nor menaced; but they chose to consider the incident of the last evening an insurrection, and four of the five went on board the "Romney; " perhaps a little from panic, but more to insure the active interposition of the British government. Temple, one of their number, refused to take part in the artifice, and remained in full security on shore.

On Sunday, while all the people were "at meeting," the fugitive officers, pretending that "the honor of the crown would be hazarded by their return to Boston," informed Bernard by letter that they could not, "consistent with the honor of their commission, act in any business of the revenue under such an influence as prevailed" in Boston, and declared their wish to withdraw to the castle. "They have abdicated," said the people of Boston, and "may they never return." Everybody knew they really were in no danger. The council found that the riot of Friday had been only "a small disturbance." "Dangerous disturbances," reported Gage, whose information came from royalists," are not to be apprehended."

June.

On the fourteenth, the attendance was so great at 1768. a legal town-meeting that they adjourned from Faneuil Hall to the Old South meeting-house, where Otis was elected moderator, with rapturous applause.

An address to the governor was unanimously agreed upon, which twenty-one men were appointed to deliver. On adjourning the meeting to the next afternoon, Otis, the moderator, strongly recommended peace and good order; and did not despair that their grievances might, in time, be removed. "If not," said he, "and we are called on to defend our liberties and privileges, I hope and believe we shall, one and all, resist even unto blood; but I pray God Almighty that this may never so happen."

The committee moved in a procession of eleven chaises to the house of the governor in the country, to present the address, in which the town claimed for the province the

sole right of taxing itself, expressed a hope that the board of customs would never reassume the exercise of their office, commented on impressment, and demanded the removal of the "Romney" from the harbor. In words which Otis approved and probably assisted to write, they said: "To contend with our parent state is the most shocking and dreadful extremity, but tamely to relinquish the only security we and our posterity retain for the enjoyment of our lives and properties, without one struggle, is so humiliating and base that we cannot support the reflection. It is at your option to prevent this distressed and justly incensed people from effecting too much, and from the shame and reproach of attempting too little."

1768.

Bernard received this address with obsequious June. courtesy; and the next day gave them a written answer, clearing himself of the measures complained of, promising to stop impressments, and desiring nothing so much as to be an instrument of conciliation between them and the parent state.

No sooner had he sent this message, than he and the officers of the crown busied themselves in concert to get regiments ordered to Boston. The commissioners of the customs besought of Gage and Hood further protection. To the lords of the treasury they reported" a long concerted and extensive plan of resistance to the authority of Great Britain," breaking out in " acts of violence sooner than was intended;" and "that nothing but the immediate exertion of military power would prevent an open revolt of the town of Boston, and probably of the provinces."

"If there is not a revolt," wrote Bernard to Hillsborough, "the leaders of the Sons of Liberty must falsify their words and change their purposes." Hutchinson sounded the alarm to various correspondents, and, through Whately, to Grenville. To interpret and enforce the correspondence, Hallowell, the comptroller, was despatched to London.

The town divined the purpose of its enemies; and, at its legal meeting on the seventeenth, instructing its representatives in words prepared by John Adams, it put its sentiments on record. "After the repeal of the last American

stamp act," it said, "we were happy in the pleasing prospect of a restoration of tranquillity and harmony. But the principle on which that detestable act was founded continues in full force, and a revenue is still demanded from America, and appropriated to the maintenance of swarms of officers and pensioners in idleness and luxury. It is our fixed resolution to maintain our loyalty and due subordination to the British parliament, as the supreme legislative in all cases of necessity for the preservation of the whole empire. At the same time, it is our unalterable resolution to assert and vindicate our dear and invaluable rights and liberties, at the utmost hazard of our lives and fortunes; and we have a full and rational confidence that no designs formed against them will ever prosper.

"Every person who shall solicit or promote the importation of troops at this time is an enemy to this town and province, and a disturber of the peace and good order of both."

1768.

June.

The next morning, the general court, which was in session, on motion probably of Otis, appointed a joint committee to inquire "if measures had been taken, or were taking, for the execution of the late revenue acts of parliament by a naval or military force." In the midst of these scenes arrived Hillsborough's letter, directing Massachusetts to rescind its resolutions; and on the twentyfirst, after timid consultations between Bernard, Hutchinson, and Oliver, it was communicated to the house. The assembly were aware that they were deliberating upon more important subjects than had ever engaged the attention of an American legislature. They were consoled by the sympathy of Connecticut and New Jersey. But, when the letter from Virginia was received, it gave courage more than all the rest. "This is a glorious day," said Samuel Adams, using words which, seven years later, he was to repeat. The merchants of Boston renewed the agreement not to import from England.

The house, employing the pen of Samuel Adams, without altering a word in his draft, reported a letter to Lord Hillsborough, in which they showed that the circular letter of

February was, indeed, the declared sense of a large majority of the body by which it was issued; and they expressed their reliance on the clemency of the king, that to petition him would not be deemed inconsistent with respect for the British constitution, nor to acquaint their fellow-subjects of their having done so be discountenanced as an inflammatory proceeding.

Then came the great question, taken in the fullest house ever remembered. The votes were given by word of mouth; and, against seventeen that were willing to yield, ninetytwo refused to rescind. They finished their work by a message to the governor, thoroughly affirming the doings from which they had been ordered to dissent. On this, Bernard prorogued, and then dissolved the assembly.

1768.

Massachusetts was left without a legislature. Its July. people had no intention but to defend their liberties, which had the sanction of natural right and of historic tradition. "The Americans," observed the clear-sighted Du Châtelet, "have no longer need of support from the British crown, and see in the projects of their metropolis measures of tyranny and oppression." "I apprehend a breach between the two countries," owned Franklin, who could not understand what the Boston people meant by the "subordination" of their assembly to parliament, and thought that, according to the more numerous and weighty arguments, the colonies and Great Britain were separate states, with the same king, but different legislatures.

"The whole body of the people of New Hampshire were resolved to stand or fall with the Massachusetts." "It is best," counselled Langdon, of Portsmouth, "for the Americans to let the king know the danger of a violent rending of the colonies from the mother country." "No assembly on the continent," said Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, "will ever concede that parliament has a right to tax the colonies." "The parliament of England has no more jurisdiction over us," declared the politicians of that colony, "than the parliament of Paris." "We cannot believe," wrote William Williams, of Lebanon, "that they will draw