III. 1774 own internal regulation, an annual congress of all CHAP. the colonies for the perpetual assertion of common rights, were the policy of Virginia. When the report May. of her measures reached England, the king's ministers were startled by their significance; and called to mind how often she had been the model for other colonies. Her influence continued undiminished; and her system was promptly adopted by the people of North Carolina. "Lord North had no expectation that we should be thus sustained," said Samuel Adams; "he trusted that Boston would be left to fall alone." But the love of liberty in America did not flash like electricity on the surface; it penetrated the mass with magnetic energy. The port-act had been received on the tenth of May; and in three weeks, less time than was taken by the unanimous British parliament for its enactment, the continent, as "one great commonwealth," made the cause of Boston its own. CHAPTER IV. MASSACHUSETTS APPOINTS THE TIME AND PLACE FOR A June 1. JUNE, 1774. CHAP. ON the first day of June, Hutchinson embarked for IV. England; and as the clocks in the Boston belfries 1774 finished striking twelve, the blockade of the harbor began. The inhabitants of the town were chiefly traders, shipwrights, and sailors; and since no anchor could be weighed, no sail unfurled, no vessel so much as launched from the stocks, their cheerful industry was at an end. No more are they to lay the keel of the fleet merchantman, or shape the rib symmetrically for its frame, or strengthen the graceful hull by knees of oak, or rig the well proportioned masts, or bend the sails to the yards. The king of that country has changed the busy workshops into scenes of compulsory idleness, and the most skilful naval artisans in the world, with the keenest eye for forms of beauty and speed, are forced by act of parliament to fold their hands. Want scowled on the laborer, as he sat with his wife and IV. June 1. children at his board. The sailor roamed the streets CHAP. listlessly without hope of employment. The law was executed with a rigor that went beyond the inten- 1774. tions of its authors. Not a scow could be manned by oars to bring an ox, or a sheep, or a bundle of hay from the islands. All water carriage from wharf to wharf, though but of lumber, or bricks, or lime, was strictly forbidden. The boats between Boston and Charleston could not ferry a parcel of goods across Charles River; the fishermen of Marblehead, when from their hard pursuit, they bestowed quintals of dried fish on the poor of Boston, were obliged to transport their offering in wagons by a circuit of thirty miles. The warehouses of the thrifty merchants were at once made valueless; the costly wharves, which extended far into the channel, and were so lately covered with the produce of the tropics and with English fabrics, were become solitary places; the harbor, which had resounded incessantly with the cheering voices of prosperous commerce, was now disturbed by no sounds but from British vessels of war. At Philadelphia, the bells of the churches were muffled and tolled; the ships in port hoisted their colors at half mast; and nine-tenths of the houses, except those of the Friends, were shut during the memorable First of June. In Virginia, the population thronged the churches; Washington attended the service, and strictly kept the fast. No firmer or more touching words were addressed to the sufferers than from Norfolk, which was the largest place of trade in that "well-watered and extensive dominion," and which, from its deep channel and nearness to "Our CHAP. the ocean, lay most exposed to ships of war. IV. hearts are warmed with affection for you," such was 174. its message; "we address the Almighty Ruler to June. support you in your afflictions. Be assured we consider you as suffering in the common cause, and look upon ourselves as bound by the most sacred ties to support you." Jefferson, from the foot of the Blue Ridge of the Alleghanies, condemned the act, which in a moment reduced an ancient and wealthy town from opulence to want, and without a hearing and without discrimination, sacrificed property of the value of millions to revenge-not repay-the loss of a few thousands. "If the pulse of the people beat calmly under such an experiment by the new and till now unheard of executive power of a British parliament," said the young statesman, "another and another will be tried, till the measure of despotism be filled up." At that time the king was so eager to give effect to the law which subverted the charter of Massachusetts, that acting upon information confessedly insufficient, he, with Dartmouth, made out for that province a complete list of councillors, called mandamus councillors from their appointment by the crown. Copies of letters from Franklin and from Arthur Lee had been obtained; Gage was secretly ordered to procure, if possible, the originals, as the means of arraigning their authors for treason. Bernard and Hutchinson had reported that the military power failed to intimidate, because no colonial civil officer would sanction its employment: to meet the exigency, Thurlow and Wedderburn furnished their opinion, that such power belonged to the governor IV. 1774. June. himself as the conservator of the peace in all cases CHAP. whatsoever. "I am willing to suppose," says Dart- ~~~ mouth, "that the people will quietly submit to the correction their ill conduct has brought upon them;" but in case they should not prove so docile, Gage was required to bid the troops fire upon them at his discretion; and for his encouragement, he was informed that all trials of officers and troops for homicides in America, were, by a recent act of parliament, removed to England. This system of measures was regarded by its authors as a masterpiece of statesmanship. But where was true greatness really to be found? At the council board of vindictive ministers? In the palace of the king who preferred the loss of a continent to a compromise of absolute power? Or in the humble mansion of the proscribed Samuel Adams, who shared every sorrow of his native town? "She suffers," said he, "with dignity, and rather than submit to the humiliating terms of an edict, barbarous beyond precedent under the most absolute monarchy, she will put the malice of tyranny to the severest trial." "An empire is rising in America; and Britain, by her multiplied oppressions, is accelerating that independency which she dreads. We have a post to maintain, to desert which would entail upon us the curses of posterity. The virtue of our ancestors inspires us; they were contented with clams and muscles. For my own part, I have been wont to converse with poverty; and however disagreeable a companion she may be thought to be by the affluent and luxurious who never were acquainted with her, I can live happily with her the remainder of my |