CHAP. days, if I can thereby contribute to the redemption of my country." IV. 1774. June. These were his words, with the knowledge that the king's order for his arrest was hanging over his head, to be enforced, whenever troops enough were brought together to make it safe. The Boston committee looked the danger full in the face. On the second of June, they received and read the two bills, of which the one was to change the charter and subvert the most cherished rights of the province; the other, to grant impunity to the British army for acts of violence in enforcing the new system. "They excited," says their record, "a just indignation in the mind of the committee," whose members saw their option confined to abject submission or an open rupture. They longed to escape the necessity of the choice by devising some measure which might recall their oppressors to moderation and reason. Accordingly, Warren, on the fifth, reported "a solemn league and covenant" to suspend all commercial intercourse with the mother country, and neither to purchase nor consume any merchandise from Great Britain after the last day of the ensuing August. The names of those who should refuse to sign the covenant, were to be published to the world. Copies of this paper were forwarded to every town in the province, with a letter entreating the subscriptions of all the people, "as the last and only method of preserving the land from slavery without drenching it in blood." The proposition proved the desire for conciliation. Had a country which was without manufactures and munitions of war, been resolved to take up arms, it IV. 1774. June. would have extended its commerce, in order to accu- CHAP. mulate all articles of first necessity. "Nothing," said the patriots, "is more foreign from our hearts than a spirit of rebellion. Would to God they all, even our enemies, knew the warm attachment we have for Great Britain, notwithstanding we have been contending these ten years with them for our rights. What can they gain by the victory, should they subjugate us? What will be the glory of enslaving their children and brothers? Nay, how great will be the danger to their own liberties?" Thus reasoned the people of the country towns in Massachusetts; and they signed "the league and covenant," confident that they would have only to sit still and await the bloodless restoration of their rights. In this expectation they were confirmed by the opinions of Burke and of Franklin. From the committee room in Faneuil Hall, Samuel Adams hastened to the general assembly, whose first act at Salem was a protest against the arbitrary order for its removal. The council, in making the customary reply to the governor's speech at the opening of the session, laid claim to the rights of Englishmen without diminution or "abridgment." But as they uttered their hope, "that his administration would be a happy contrast to that of his predecessors," Gage interrupted their chairman, and refused to receive the address; because the conduct of those predecessors had been approved, and therefore the expression "was an insult to the king, and an affront to himself." But the right of a legislative body to express an opinion on a subordinate executive officer was undeniable. Even the king in person hears an address IV. 1774. June. CHAP. from the house of commons, however severely it may reflect on a minister. When Gage treated the censure on Bernard and Hutchinson as a personal conflict with the sovereign, his petulance only the more tended to bring that sovereign himself into disrepute. The house of representatives was the fullest ever known. The continent expected of them to fix the time and place for the meeting of the general congress. This required the utmost secrecy; for they were watched by officers in the royal service, and any perceptible movement would have been followed by an instant dissolution. In the confusion of nominations, Daniel Leonard, of Taunton, who had won his election by engaging manners and professions of patriotism, which yet were hollow, succeeded in being appointed one of the committee of nine on the state of the province. Restrained by well-founded distrust of his secret relations, that committee was therefore cautious to entertain nothing but vague propositions for conciliation; so that Leonard deceived not himself only, but the governor, into the belief, that the legislature would lead the way to concession, and that on the arrival of more troops, an indemnity to the East India company would be publicly advocated. The whole continent was looking towards Boston. "Don't pay for an ounce of the damned tea," wrote Gadsden on the fourteenth of June, as he shipped for the poor of Boston the first gifts of rice from the planters of Carolina. On that day, the fourth regiment, known as "the king's own," encamped on Boston Common; the next, it was joined by the forty IV. 1774. June. third. Two companies of artillery and eight pieces CHAP. of ordnance had already reinforced Castle William; and more battalions of infantry were hourly expected. The friends of government increased their activity, exerted every art to win over the tradesmen, and assumed a menacing aspect. "There will be no congress," they said; "New York will never appoint members; Massachusetts must feel that she is deserted." To a meeting of tradesmen, a plausible speaker ventured to recommend for consideration the manner of paying for the tea; and he met with so much success, that after some altercation, they separated without coming to any resolution. But Warren, who exerted as much energy to save his country as others to paralyze its spirit, proved to his friends, that the payment in any form would open the way for every compliance even to a total submission; and he was himself encouraged by the glowing letter from Baltimore. "Vigilance, activity, and patience," he cried, "are necessary at this time; but the mistress we serve is Liberty, and it is better to die than not to obtain her." "We shall be saved," he added; and that no cloud might rest on the "fortitude, honesty, and foresight" of Boston, a town meeting was called for the following Friday. Samuel Adams received a summons to come and guide its debates; but a higher duty kept him at Salem. The legislative committee of nine appeared so tame, that Leonard returned to Taunton on business as a lawyer. Meantime, Samuel Adams had on one evening secretly consulted four or five of his colleagues; on another a larger number; on the third so many as thirty; and on the morning of Friday, June. CHAP. the seventeenth of June, confident of having the perIV. fect control of the house, one hundred and twenty1774. nine being present, he locked the door, and proposed the measure he had matured. The time fixed for the congress was the first day of September, the place Philadelphia, where there was no army to interrupt its sessions. Bowdoin, who, however, proved unable to attend, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine were chosen delegates. To defray their expenses, a tax of five hundred pounds was apportioned on the province. The towns were charged to afford speedy and constant relief to Boston and Charlestown, whose fortitude was preserving the liberties of their country. Domestic manufactures were encouraged, and it was strongly recommended to discontinue the use of all goods imported from the East Indies and Great Britain, until the public grievances of America should be radically and totally redressed. In the midst of these proceedings the governor sent his secretary with a message for dissolving the assembly. But he knocked at its door in vain, and could only read the proclamation to the crowd on the stairs. "I could not get a worse council, or a worse assembly," reported Gage; "with exceptions, they appear little more than echoes to the contrivers of all the mischief in the town of Boston, those demagogues now spiriting up the people throughout the province to resistance." The number which on that same day thronged to the town meeting in Faneuil Hall, was greater than the room would hold. Samuel Adams was not missed, for his kinsman, John Adams, was elected mode |