thing which the king wishes to know alone and at CHAP.

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once, any thing which he wishes done quickly and 1774 secretly, here am I, who have at his service a head, May. a heart, arms, and no tongue."

The young monarch, with all his zeal for administrative improvements, had no revolutionary tendencies, and held, like his predecessor, that the king alone should reign; yet his state papers were soon to cite reverently the law of nature and the rights of man; and the will of the people, shrouded in majesty, was to walk its rounds in the palace invisi ble, yet supreme.

The sovereign of Spain, on wishing his kinsman joy of his accession, reminded him, as the head of the Bourbons, of their double relationship by his mother's side, as well as his father's; and expressed the wish for "their closest union and most perfect harmony;" for, said he, “the family compact guarantees the prosperity and glory of our House." At that time, the Catholic king was fully employed in personally regulating his finances, and in preparations to chastise the pirates of Algiers, as well as to extort from Portugal a renunciation of its claims to extend the boundaries of Brazil. The sovereign of France was engrossed by the pressing anxieties attending the dismissal of an odious ministry, and the inauguration of domestic reform; so that neither of the princes seemed at leisure to foment troubles in North America.

Yet, next to Du Barry and her party, there was no such sincere mourner for Louis the Fifteenth as George the Third. The continuance of the cordial understanding between the two crowns would depend upon the persons in whom the young king should

CHAP. place his confidence. To conciliate his good will, the I. London Court Gazette announced him as "king of 1774. France," though English official language had hereMay. tofore spoken only of "the French king," and the Herald's office still knew no other king of France than the head of the House of Brunswick.

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At the same time the British ministers, always jealous of the Bourbons, kept spies to guess at their secrets; to hearken after the significant whispers of their ministers; to bribe workmen in their navy yards for a report of every keel that was laid, every new armament or reinforcement to the usual fleets. Doubting the French assurances of a wish to see the troubles in America quieted, they resolved to force the American struggle to an immediate issue, hoping not only to insulate Massachusetts, but even to confine the contest to its capital.

On the day of the accession of Louis the Sixteenth, the act closing the port of Boston, transferring the board of customs to Marblehead, and the seat of government to Salem, reached the devoted town. The king was confident that the slow torture which was to be applied, would constrain its inhabitants to cry out for mercy and promise unconditional obedience. Success in resistance could come only from an American union, which was not to be hoped for, unless Boston should offer herself as a willing sacrifice. The mechanics and merchants and laborers, altogether scarcely so many as thirty-five hundred able-bodied men, knew that they were acting, not for the liberty of a province or of America, but for freedom itself. They were inspired by the thought that the Providence which rules the world demanded of them heroic self-denial,

as the champions of humanity. The country never CHAP. doubted their perseverance, and they trusted the fel low-feeling of the continent.

As soon as the act was received, the Boston committee of correspondence, by the hand of Joseph Warren, invited eight neighboring towns to a conference "on the critical state of public affairs." On the twelfth, at noon, Metcalf Bowler, the speaker of the assembly of Rhode Island, came before them with the cheering news, that, in answer to a recent circular letter from the body over which he presided, all the thirteen governments were pledged to union. Punctually, at the hour of three in the afternoon of that day, the committees of Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, Charlestown, Lynn, and Lexington, joined them in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, where for ten years the freemen of the town had debated the great question of justifiable resistance. The lowly men who now met there were most of them accustomed to feed their own cattle; to fold their own sheep; to guide their own plough; all trained to public life in the little democracies of their towns; some of them captains in the militia and officers of the church according to the discipline of Congregationalists; nearly all of them communicants, under a public covenant with God. They grew in greatness as their sphere enlarged. Their virtues burst the confines of village life. They felt themselves to be citizens not of little municipalities, but of the whole world of mankind. In their dark hour light broke upon them from their own truth and courage. Placing Samuel Adams at their head, and guided by a report prepared by Joseph

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CHAP. Warren of Boston, Gardner of Cambridge, and others, they agreed unanimously on the injustice and cruelty 1774 of the act, by which parliament, without competent jurisdiction, and contrary as well to natural right as to the laws of all civilized states, had, without a hearing, set apart, accused, tried, and condemned the town of Boston. The delegates from the eight villages were reminded by those of Boston, that that port could recover its trade by paying for the tea which had been thrown overboard; but they held it unworthy even to notice the humiliating offer, promising on their part to join "their suffering brethren in every measure of relief."

To make a general union possible, self-restraint must regulate courage. The meeting knew that a declaration of independence would have alienated their sister colonies, and thus far they had not discovered that independence was really the desire of their own hearts. To suggest nothing till a congress could be convened, would have seemed to them like abandoning the town to bleed away its life without relief or solace. The king had expected to starve its people into submission; in their circular letter to the committees of the other colonies, they proposed as a counter action a general cessation of trade with Britain. "Now," they added, "is the time when all should be united in opposition to this violation of the liberties of all. The single question is, whether you consider Boston as suffering in the common cause, and sensibly feel and resent the injury and affront offered to her? We cannot believe otherwise; assuring you that, not in the least intimidated by this inhuman

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treatment, we are still determined to maintain to the CHAP. utmost of our abilities the rights of America."

The next day, while Gage was sailing into the harbor with the vice-regal powers of commander-inchief for the continent, as well as the civil authority of governor in the province, Samuel Adams presided over a very numerous town meeting, which was attended by many that had hitherto kept aloof. The thought of republican Rome, in its purest age, animated their consultations. The port-act was read, and in bold debate was pronounced repugnant to law, religion, and common sense. At the same time, those who, from loss of employment, were to be the first to encounter want, were remembered with tender compassion, and measures were put in train for their relief. Then the inhabitants, by the hand of Samuel Adams, made their touching appeal "to all the sister colonies, promising to suffer for America with a becoming fortitude, confessing that singly they might find their trial too severe, and entreating not to be left to struggle alone, when the very being of every colony, considered as a free people, depended upon the event."

On the seventeenth of May, Gage, who had remained four days with Hutchinson at Castle William, landed at Long Wharf amidst salutes from ships and batteries. Received by the council and civil officers, he was escorted by the Boston Cadets, under Hancock, to the State House, where the counsel presented a loyal address, and his commission was proclaimed with three volleys of musketry and as many cheers. He then partook of a public dinner in Faneuil Hall. A hope still lingered that relief might come through

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