The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862

The sentiment expressed as to the future was equally gratifying to the Governor. Lord Hillsborough, (November 15, 1768,) in an official letter, said,–"It will, I apprehend, be a great support and consolation for you to know that the King places much confidence in your prudence and caution on the one hand, and entertains no diffidence in your spirit and resolution on the other, and that His Majesty will not suffer these sentiments to receive any alterations from private misrepresentations, if any should come"; and in a private letter, by the same mail, the Secretary said,–"If I am listened to, the measure you think the most necessary will be adopted." It is not easy to see how a Government could express greater confidence in an agent than the Secretary expressed in Francis Bernard; and the talk in Ministerial circles now was, as it was confidentially reported to the Governor, that, as he had nothing to arrange with the faction, and nothing to fear from the people, he could fully restore the King's authority.

The tone of the Governor's letters and the object of his official action, by a thorough repudiation of the democratic principle, and a jealous regard for British dominion, were well calculated to inspire this confidence; for they came up to the ideal, not merely of the leaders of the Tory party, or of the Whig party, but of the England of that day. There was then great confusion in the British factions. Ex-Governor Pownall, after comparing this confusion to Des Cartes's chaos of vortices, remarked, (1768,) in a letter addressed to Dr. Cooper,–"We have but one word,–I will not call it an idea,–that is, our sovereignty; and it is like some word to a madman, which, whenever mentioned, throws him into his ravings, and brings on a paroxysm." The Massachusetts crown officials were continually pronouncing this word to the Ministry. They constantly set forth the principle of local self-government, which was tenaciously and religiously clung to by the Patriots as being the foundation of all true liberty, as a principle of independence; and they represented the jealous adherence to the local usages and laws, which faithfully embodied the popular instincts and doctrine, to be proofs of a decay of the national authority, and the cloak of long-cherished schemes of rebellion. And this view was accepted by the leading political men of England. They held, all of them but a little band of republican-grounded sympathizers with the Patriots, that the principles announced by the Patriots went too far, and that, in clinging to them the Americans were endangering the British empire; and the only question among the public men of England was, whether the Crown or the Parliament was the proper instrumentality, as the phrase was, for reducing the Colonies to obedience. Lord Barrington, in his speech above cited, laid most stress on the denial of the authority of Parliament: all who questioned any part of this authority were regarded as disloyal; and hence Lord Hillsborough's instructions to Governor Bernard ran,–"If any man or set of men have been daring enough to declare openly that they will not submit to the authority of Parliament, it is of great consequence that His Majesty's servants should know who and what they are."

Another class of British observers, already referred to, of the school of Sidney and Milton, lovers of civil and religious liberty, saw in Boston and Massachusetts a state of things far removed from rebellion and anarchy. They looked upon the spectacle of a people in general raised by mental and moral culture into fitness for self-government and an appreciation of the higher aims of life, as a result at which good men the world over ought to rejoice, a result honorable to the common humanity. They pronounced the late Parliamentary acts affecting such a people to be grievances, the course of the Ministry towards them to be oppressive, and the claims set forth in their proceedings to be reasonable; they even went so far as to say that the equity was wholly on the side of the North-Americans. Thus this class, as they rose above a selfish jealousy of political power, fairly anticipated the verdict of posterity. Thomas Hollis, the worthy benefactor of Harvard College, was a type of this republican school. "The people of Boston and of Massachusetts Bay," he wrote in 1768, "are, I suppose, take them as a body, the soberest, most knowing, virtuous people, at this time, upon earth. All of them hold Revolution principles, and were to a man, till disgusted by the Stamp Act, the stanchest friends to the House of Hanover and subjects of King George III."

The representations made to the Ministry, at this time, (October, 1768,) by Bernard, Hutchinson, and Gage, were similar in tone. There was very little government in Boston, according to Gage; there was nothing able to resist a mob, according to Hutchinson; so much wickedness and folly were never before combined as in the men who lately ruled here, according to Bernard. The Commander-in-Chief and the Governor sent despatches to Lord Hillsborough on the same day (October 31, 1768). Gage informed the Secretary that the constitution of the Province leaned so much to the side of democracy that the Governor had not the power to remedy the disorders that happened in it; Bernard informed him that indulgence towards the Province, whence all the mischief had arisen, would ever have the same effect that it had had hitherto, led on from claim to claim till the King had left only the name of the government and the Parliament but the shadow of authority. There was nothing whatever to justify this strain of remark, but the idea which the people had grasped, that they had a right to an equal measure of freedom with Englishmen; but such a claim was counted rebellious. "I told Cushing, the Speaker, some months ago," the Governor says in this letter, "that they were got to the edge of rebellion, and advised them not to step over the line." The reply of the Speaker is not given, but he was constantly disclaiming, in his letters, any purpose of rebellion. Now that Bernard saw, what he had desired to see for years, troops in Boston, he was as ill at ease as before; and at the close of the letter just cited he says,–"I am now at sea again in the old weather-beaten boat, with the wind blowing as hard as ever."

The political winds, however, do not seem to have been damaging any body or thing but the Governor and his cause. During the month of October the crown officials urged the local authorities to billet the troops in the town; but this demand was quietly and admirably met by setting against it the law of the land as interpreted by just men. The press was now of signal service; and all through this period of seventeen months, though it severely arraigned the advocates of arbitrary power, yet it ever urged submission to the law. "It is always safe to adhere to the law," are the grand words of the "Boston Gazette," October 17, 1768, "and to keep every man of every denomination and character within its bounds. Not to do this would be in the highest degree imprudent. What will it be but to depart from the straight line, to give up the law and the Constitution, which is fixed and stable, and is the collected and long-digested sentiment of the whole, and to substitute in its place the opinion of individuals, than which nothing can be more uncertain?" These words were penned by Samuel Adams, and freedom never had a more unselfish advocate; they fell upon a community that was discussing in every home the gravest of political questions; and they were responded to with a prudence and order that were warmly eulogized both in America and England. This respect for Law, when Liberty was as a live coal from a divine altar, adhered to so faithfully for years, in spite, too, of goadings by those who wielded British power, but forgot American right, must be regarded as remarkable. Until the close of Bernard's administration, the town, to use contemporary words, was surprisingly quiet; but during the remainder of the period of the seventeen months, when selfish importers broke their agreement and set themselves against what was considered to be the public safety, they provoked disturbances and even mobs. Still, in an age when, to use Hutchinson's words, "mobs of a certain sort were constitutional," the wonder is, not that there were any, but that there were not more of them in Boston. Besides, the concern of the popular leaders to preserve order was so deep and their action so prompt, that disturbances were checked and suppressed without the use of the military on a single occasion; and hence the injury done both to persons and property was so small, when compared with the bloodshed and destruction by contemporary British mobs, that what Colonel Barré said of the June riots in Boston was true of the outbreaks at the close of this period, namely, that they but mimicked the mobs of the mother-country.

The patience of the people was severely tried on the evening of the landing of the troops, as they filed into Faneuil Hall; and it was still more severely tried, as, on the next day, Sunday, they filed into the Town-House. The latter building was thus occupied under an order from Governor Bernard, who, it was said in the journals, had no authority to give such an order. The legislature and the courts of law held their sessions here, and, what was not known then elsewhere in the world, the General Court was public,–that is, the people were admitted to hear the debates, while in England the public was excluded; it was an offence to report the debates in Parliament, and a breach of privilege for a member to print even his own speech. In consequence of the political advance that had been made here, the galleries of the Hall of the House of Representatives, in December, 1767, for eighteen days in succession, were thronged with people, who listened to the discussion when the most remarkable state-paper of the time was under consideration, namely, the letter which the House addressed to their agent, Mr. De Berdt. It now provoked the people to see these halls, all except the chamber in which the Council held its sessions, occupied by armed men, and the field-pieces of the train placed in the street, pointing towards the building. The lower floor was used as an Exchange by the merchants, who were annoyed by being obliged daily to brush by the red-coats. All this was excessively irritating, and needed no exaggeration from abroad. Still it is but just to the men of that day to present all the circumstances under which they maintained their dignity. "Asiatic despotism," so says a contemporary London eulogy on their conduct, which was printed in the Boston journals, "does not present a picture more odious to the eye of humanity than the sanctuary of justice and law turned into a main guard." And on comparing the moderation in this town under such an infliction with a late effusion of blood in St. George's Fields, the writer says,–"By this wise and excellent conduct you have disappointed your enemies, and convinced your friends that an entire reliance is to be placed on the supporters of freedom at Boston, in every occurrence, however delicate or dangerous."

While the indignation of the Sons of Liberty, under such provocations, was as deep as Hutchinson says their silence was profound, there was, in the local press, the severest denunciation of this use of their forum. The building is called in print this year, (1768,) the Town-House, the State-House, the Court-House, and the Parliament-House. It may be properly termed the political focus of the Province, and it then bore to Massachusetts a similar relation to that which Faneuil Hall now bears to Boston. The goodly and venerable structure that still looks down on State Street and the Merchants' Exchange has little in it to attract the common eye, much less a classic taste; but there is not on the face of the earth, it has been said, a temple, however magnificent, about which circles a more glorious halo. There is much to relieve the remark of Mayor Otis from exaggeration. Its humble halls, for over a generation, had echoed to the appeals for the Good Old Cause made by men of whom it was said Milton was their great forerunner. Here popular leaders with such root in them had struggled long and well against the encroachments of Prerogative. Here the state-papers were matured that first intelligently reconciled the claims of local self-government with what is due to a protective nationality. Here intrepid representatives of the people, on the gravest occasion that had arisen in an American assembly, justly refused to comply with an arbitrary royal command. Here first in modern times was recognized the vital principle of publicity in legislation. Here James Otis, as a pioneer patriot, poured forth his soul when his tongue was as a flame of fire,–John Adams, on the side of freedom, first showed himself to be a Colossus in debate,–Joseph Hawley first publicly denied that Parliament had the right to rule in all cases whatsoever,–and the unequalled leadership of Samuel Adams culminated, when he felt obliged to strive for the independence of his country; and, in the fulness of time, the imperishable scroll of the Declaration, from this balcony, and in a scene of unsurpassed moral sublimity, was first officially unrolled before the people of the State of Massachusetts. Thus this relic of a hero age is fragrant with the renown of

"The men that glorious law who taught,
Unshrinking liberty of thought,
And roused the nations with the truth sublime."

On the 15th of October, General Gage, with a distinguished staff, came to Boston to provide quarters for the troops, and was received at a review on the Common with a salute of seventeen guns by the train of artillery, when, preceded by a brilliant corps of officers, he passed in a chariot before the column. The same journals (October 20) which contained a notice of this review had extracts from London papers, by a fresh arrival, in which it was said,–"The town of Boston meant to render themselves as independent of the English nation as the crown of England is of that of Spain"; and that "the nation was treated by them in terms of stronger menace and insult than sovereign princes ever use to each other."

The journals now announced that two regiments, augmented to seven hundred and fifty men each, were to embark at Cork for Boston; and General Gage informed the local authorities that he expected their arrival, and asked quarters for them, when the subject was considered in the Council. This body now complied so far as, in the words printed at the time, to "advise the Governor to give immediate orders to have the Manufactory House in Boston, which is the property of the Province, cleared of those persons who are in the present possession of it, so that it might be ready to receive those of said regiments who could not be conveniently accommodated at Castle William." This building, as already remarked, stood in what is now Hamilton Place, near the Common, and for twelve years had been hired by Mr. John Brown, a weaver, who not only carried on his business here, but lived here with his family; and hence it was his legal habitation, his castle, "which the wind and the rain might enter, but which the King could not enter."

Mr. Brown, having before declined to let the troops already in town occupy the building, now, acting under legal advice, declined to comply with the present request to leave it; whereupon it was determined to take forcible possession. Accordingly, on the 17th of October, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Sheriff Greenleaf, accompanied by Chief-Justice Hutchinson, went to the Manufactory House for this purpose, but was denied entrance by Mr. Brown, who had fastened all the doors. He appeared, however, at a window, when the Sheriff presented the Governor's order; but Mr. Brown replied, that he never had had any lawful warning to leave the house, and did not look upon the power of the Governor and Council as sufficient to dispossess him; and finally told the Sheriff that he would not surrender his possession to any till required by the General Court, under whom he held, or till he was obliged to do it by the law of the Province, or compelled by force: whereupon the Sheriff and the Chief-Justice retired.

On the nest morning, at ten o'clock, Sheriff Greenleaf, attended by his deputies, again appeared before the house, and again found the doors shut. They, however, entered the cellar by a window, that was partly opened, it is said to let out an inmate,–when, after a scuffle, Mr. Brown declared that the Sheriff was his prisoner; upon which the Sheriff informed the commanding officer of the regiment on the Common of his situation, who sent a guard for his protection. Sentinels were now placed at the doors, two at the gate of the yard, and a guard of ten in the cellar; and as the people gathered fast about the gate, an additional company was ordered from the Common. Any one was allowed to come out of the house, but no one was allowed to go in. The press now harped upon the cries of Mr. Brown's children for bread.

This strange proceeding caused great excitement, and at this stage there was (October 22) a meeting of the Council to consider the subject, when seven of the members waited on the Governor to assure him that nothing could be farther from their intention, when they gave their advice, than to sanction this use of force; and about seven o'clock that evening most of the troops were taken away, leaving only one or two soldiers at a window and a small guard in the cellar. In a few days afterwards all the guards were removed, and finally Mr. Brown was left in quiet possession. The whole affair lasted seventeen days. Shortly after, Mr. Brown prosecuted the Sheriff for trespass, when the Council declined to be accountable for these official doings. He soon announced to the public in a card a resumption of his business. His tombstone bears a eulogy on the bravery which thus long and successfully resisted an attempt to force a citizen from his legal habitation. "Happy citizen," the stone reads, "when called singly to be a barrier to the liberties of a continent!"

Soon after this affair, fifteen members of the Council, and among them several decided Loyalists, signed an address which was adopted at a meeting held without a summons from the Governor, and which was presented (October 27, 1768) directly to General Gage, as "from members of His Majesty's Council." This address is a candid, truthful, and strong exposition of the whole series of proceedings connected with the introduction of the troops. "Your own observation," it says, "will give you the fullest evidence that the town and the Province are in a peaceful state; your own inquiry will satisfy you, that, though there have been disorders in the town of Boston, some of them did not merit notice, and that such as did have been magnified beyond the truth." The events of the eighteenth of March and of the tenth of June were reviewed: the former were pronounced trivial, and such as could not have been noticed to the disadvantage of the town but by persons inimical to it; the latter were conceded to be criminal, and the actors in them guilty of a riot; but, in justice to the town, it was urged that this riot had its origin in the threats and the armed force used in the seizure of the sloop Liberty. The General was informed that the people thought themselves injured, and by men to whom they had done no injury, and thus was "most unjustly brought into question the loyalty of as loyal a people as any in His Majesty's dominions"; and he was assured that it would be a great ease and satisfaction to the inhabitants, if be would please to order the troops to Castle William.

In a brief reply to this elaborate address, the next day, General Gage said that the riots and the resolves of the town had induced His Majesty to order four regiments to protect his loyal subjects in their persons and properties, and to assist the civil magistrates in the execution of the laws; that he trusted the discipline and order of the troops would render their stay in no shape distressful to His Majesty's dutiful subjects; and that he hoped the future behavior of the people would justify the best construction of past actions, and afford him a sufficient foundation to represent to His Majesty the propriety of withdrawing the most part of the troops. This was very paternal, haughty, and very English. However, the activity of the commander, in bargaining for stores, houses, and other places to be used as barracks for the soldiers, indicated better behavior in the future on the part of crown officials than the browbeating of the local authorities, from the Council down to the Justices, in the vain attempt to make them do what the law did not require them to do, and what their feelings, as well as their sense of right, forbade their doing. In a short time the good people had the satisfaction of seeing the redcoats move out of Fanueil Hall and the Town-House into quarters provided by those who sent them into the town, and of reflecting on the moral victory which their idolized leaders had won in standing firmly by the law.

It was now in the mouths, not only of the Patriots, but of Loyalists of the candid type of those who signed the recent address to General Gage, that, as it was evident things had been grossly misrepresented to the Ministers, when truth and time should set matters fairly right before the Government there would be a change of policy; and so Hope, in her usual bright way, lifted a little the burden from heavy hearts in the cheering words through the press (October, 1768),–"The pacific and prudent measures of the town of Boston must evince to the world that Americans, though represented by their enemies to be in a state of insurrection, mean nothing more than to support those constitutional rights to which the laws of God and Nature entitle them; and when the measure of oppression and mi..st…al iniquity is full, and the dutiful supplications of an injured people shall have reached the gracious ear of their sovereign, may at length terminate in a glorious display of liberty."

The journals, a few days after these events, announced that "the worshipful the Commissioners of the Customs, having of their own free will retreated in June to the Castle, designed to make their re-entrance to the metropolis, so that the town would be again blessed with the fruits of the benevolence of the Board, as well as an example of true politeness and breeding"; and soon afterwards this Board again held its sessions in Boston. It was further announced, that the troops that had been quartered in the Town-House had moved into a house lately possessed by James Murray, which was near the church in Brattle Street, (hence the origin of "Murray's Barracks," which became historic from their connection with the Boston Massacre,)–that James Otis, at the session of the Superior Court, in the Town-House, moved that the Court adjourn to Faneuil Hall, because of the cannon that remained pointed at the building, as it was derogatory to the honor of the Court to administer justice at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the bayonet,–that the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments had arrived from Cork, and were quartered in the large and commodious stores on Wheelwright's Wharf,–and that Commodore Hood, the commander of His Majesty's ships in America, had arrived (November 13) in town. It is stated that there were now about four thousand troops here, under the command of General Pomeroy, who was an excellent officer and became very popular with the citizens.

The town, meanwhile, continued remarkably quiet. There was no call for popular demonstrations during the winter; and the Patriots confined their labors to severe animadversions on public measures, and efforts to tone the people up to a rigid observance of the non-importation scheme. The crown officials endeavored to enliven the season with balls and concerts, and at first were mortified that few of the ladles would attend them; but they persevered, and were more successful. "Now," Richard Carey writes, (February 7, 1769,) "it is mortifying to many of the inhabitants that they have obtained their wishes, and that such numbers of ladies attend. It is a bad thing for Boston to have so many gay, idle people in it." There is much comment, in the letters and journals, upon these balls and concerts, and some of it not very flattering to the ladies who countenanced them.

Meantime there appeared (January 10, 1769) an extra "Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser," a broadside or half-sheet, printed in pica type, but only on one side, which, under the heading of "Important Advices," spread before the community the King's speech to Parliament. This state-paper, which was read the world over, represented the people of Boston as being "in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and to have proceeded to measures subversive of the Constitution, and attended with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off their dependence upon Great Britain"; and it contained a pledge "to defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious persons who, under false pretences, had but too successfully deluded numbers," and whose designs, if not defeated, could not fail to produce the most serious consequences, not only to the Colonies immediately, but, in the end, to all the dominions of the Crown.

The Patriots remarked, (January 14, 1769,) that the countenances of a few, who seemed to enjoy a triumph, were now very jocund; but that His Majesty's loyal subjects were distressed that he had conceived such an unfavorable sentiment of the temper of the people, who, far from the remotest disposition to faction or rebellion, were struggling, as they apprehended, for a constitution which supported the Crown, and for the rights devised to them by their Charter and confirmed to them by the declaration of His Majesty's glorious ancestors, William and Mary, at that important era, the Revolution. These words are from an article entitled "Journal of the Times," of which notice will be taken presently; and they came out of what Bernard used to term the cabinet of the faction. Other words, from Thomas Cushing, who was not an ultra Whig, run, as to His Majesty,–"He must have been egregiously misinformed. Nothing could have been farther from the truth than such advices. I hope time, which scatters and dispels the mists of error and falsehood, will place us in our true light, and convince the Administration how much they have been abused by false and malicious misrepresentations." Official falsehood and malice did their appointed work, doubtless, in inflaming the British mind; but the root of the difficulty was the feeling, so general at that time in England, that every man there had a right to govern every man in America. The King represented this imperialism.

The King's speech, threatening resolves adopted in Parliament, startling avowals in the direction of arbitrary power uttered in the debates, gave fresh significance to the quartering of troops in Boston, and forced upon the Patriots the conviction that these troops were not here merely to aid in maintaining a public peace that was not disturbed, or in collecting revenue that was regularly paid, but were indicative of a purpose in the Ministry to change their local government, and subjugate them, as to their domestic affairs, to foreign-imposed law. "My daily reflections for two years," says John Adams, who lived near Murray's Barracks, "at the sight of those soldiers before my door, were serious enough. Their very appearance in Boston was a strong proof to me that the determination in Great Britain to subjugate us was too deep and inveterate ever to be altered by us; for everything we could do was misrepresented, and nothing we could say was credited." This statement is abundantly confirmed by contemporary facts. Nothing that the Patriots could say availed to diminish the alarm which was felt by the British aristocracy at the obvious tendency of the democratic principle. The progress of events but revealed new grandeur in the ideas of freedom and equality that had been here so intelligently grasped, and new capacities in the republican forms in which they had found expression. This was growth. The mode prescribed to check this growth was a change in the local Constitution, and this would be "the introduction of absolute rule" in Massachusetts.

The voluminous correspondence, at this period, between the members of the British Cabinet and Governor Bernard shows that this purpose of changing the Constitution was entertained by the Ministers and was warmly urged by the local crown officials. Thus, John Pownall, the Under-Secretary, avowed in a letter addressed to the Governor, that such a measure was necessary, and that such "had been long his firm and unalterable opinion upon the fullest consideration of what had passed in America"; and in the same letter be says that the Government had under consideration "the forfeiture of the Charter and measures of local regulation and reform."

The Governor, for years, had urged this in general, and of late had named the specific measure of so altering the constitution of the Council, that, instead of being chosen by the Representatives, it should be appointed by the Crown; and he was vexed because his superiors did not consider the Charter as at their mercy. "I have just now heard," he wrote, October 22, 1768, to Lord Barrington, "that the Charter of this government is still considered as sacred. For, most assuredly, if the Charter is not so far altered as to put the appointment of the Council in the King, this government will never recover itself. When order is restored, it will be at best but a republic, of which the Governor will be no more than President." A month later (November 22, 1768) he wrote to John Pownall,–"If the Convention and the proceedings of the Council about the same time shall give the Crown a legal right or induce the Parliament to exercise a legislative power over the Charter, it will be most indulgently exercised, if it is extended no farther than to make an alteration in the form of the government, which has always been found wanting, is now become quite necessary, and will really, by making it more constitutional, render it more permanent. With this alteration, I do believe that all the disorders of this government will be remedied, and the authority of it fully restored. Without it, there will be a perpetual occasion to resort to expedients, the continual inefficiency of which will speak in the words of Scripture,–'You are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.'"

As week after week passed and no orders came from the Secretary of State to make arrests of certain individuals who had been conspicuous in the late town-meetings, and no legislation was entered upon as to the Charter, the crown officials were greatly agitated; and Bernard says (December, 1768) that they were "under the apprehension that the Government of Great Britain might not take the full advantage of what the late mad and wicked proceedings of The Sons of Liberty [faction] had put in their hands. They say that the late wild attempt to create a revolt and take the government of the Province out of the King's into their own hands affords so fair an opportunity for the supreme power to reform the constitution of this subordinate government, to dispel the faction which has harassed this Province for three years past, and to inflict a proper and not a severe censure upon some of the heads of it, that, if it is now neglected, they say, it is not like soon, perhaps ever, to happen again." And the Governor said that he heard much of this from all the sensible men with whom he conversed. What a testimonial is this record in favor of republican Boston and Massachusetts! So complete was the quiet of the town, so forbearing were the people under the severest provocations, that this set of politicians were out of all patience, and feared they never would see another riot out of which to make a case for abolishing the cherished local government. The Patriots, Bernard says in this letter, did not experience this agitation. "Those persons," he writes, "who have reason to expect a severe censure from Great Britain do not appear to be so anxious for the event as the friends and well-wishers to the authority of the Government." The Patriots intended no rebellion, and they experienced no apprehension. They put forth no absurd claims to meddle with things that were common and national, and they asked simply to be let alone as to things peculiar and local.

Meantime Governor Bernard was fairly importuned by Government officials for advice; and again and again he was assured that his judgment was regarded as valuable. "Mr. Pownall and I," Lord Hillsborough says, in a private letter, (November 15, 1768,) "have spent some days in considering with the utmost attention your correspondence." John Pownall, the Under-Secretary here referred to, wrote (December 24, 1768,) to Bernard,–"I want to know very much your real sentiments on the present very critical situation of American affairs, and the more fully the greater will be the obligations conferred." There are curious coincidences in history, and one occurred on the day on which this letter was dated; for Governor Bernard, with a letter of this same date addressed to Pownall, sent him a remarkable communication developing the measures which the Boston crown officials considered to be necessary to maintain the King's authority.

At this time (December, 1768) there appears to have been but little difference of opinion among the prominent Loyalists as to the necessity of an extraordinary exercise of authority in some way, both as a point of honor and as a measure of precaution for the future. On this point Hutchinson was as decided as Bernard, though he was reticent as to the precise shape it ought to take. It would not do, he said, to leave the Colonies to the loose principle, espoused by so many, that they were subject to laws that appeared to them equitable, and no other; nor would it do to drive the Colonies to despair; but if nothing were done but to pass declaratory acts and resolves, it would soon be all over with the friends of Government; and so he wrote, "This is most certainly a crisis."

The remarkable paper just referred to is recorded in Governor Bernard's Letter-Books, without either address or signature, but in the form of a letter, dated December 23, 1768, and marked, "Confidential." It is elaborate and able, but too long for citation here in full. In it the Governor professes to speak for others as well as for himself, and to present the reasonings used in Boston on an important and critical occasion.

The second paragraph embodies the propositions which were recommended by the Loyalists, and is as follows:–"It is said that the Town-Meeting, the Convention, and the refusal of the Justices to billet the soldiers, severally, point out and justify the means whereby, First, the disturbers of the peace of the government may be properly censured, Second, the magistracy of the town reformed, and, Third, the constitution of the government amended: all of them most desirable ends, and some of them quite necessary to the restoration of the King's authority. I will consider these separately."

The Governor represented the town-meeting which called the September Convention as undoubtedly intending to bring about a rebellion,–and the precise way designed is said to have been, to seize the two highest officials and the treasury, and then to set up a standard; and after remarking on the circumstances that defeated this scheme, he inquires why so notorious an attempt should go unpunished because it was unsuccessful. He recommends the passage of an Act of Parliament disqualifying the principal persons engaged in this from holding any office or sitting in the Assembly; and this was urged as being much talked of, and as likely in its tendency to have a good influence in other governments. He presented, as proper to be censured, the Moderator of the town-meeting, Otis,–the Selectmen, Jackson, Ruddock, Hancock, Rowe, and Pemberton,–the Town-Clerk, Cooper,–the Speaker of the Convention, Gushing,–and its Clerk, Adams. "The giving these men a check," he said, "would make them less capable of doing more mischief,–would really be salutary to themselves, as well as advantageous to the Government."

The Governor represented that to reform the magistracy of the town would be of great service, for there were among the Justices several of the supporters of the Sons of Liberty; and their refusal, under their own hands, to quarter the soldiers in town would justify a removal. He recommended that this reform should be by Act of Parliament, and that by beginning in the County of Suffolk a precedent might be established for a like exercise of authority as to other places. Such an act, with a royal instruction to the Governor as to appointments, was looked upon as of such value for the restoration of authority, that "some were for carrying this remedial measure to all the commissions of all kinds in the Government"

The Governor represented the fundamental change proposed as to the Council to be a most desirable object,–"If one was to say," his words were, "quite necessary to the restoration and firm establishment of the authority of the Crown, it would not be saying too much." The justification for this was alleged to be, the sitting of the Convention and certain proceedings of the Council, which, it was argued at some length, broke the condition on which the Charter was granted, and thereby made it liable to forfeiture. It was alleged that the Council had met separately as a Council without being assembled by the Governor, that the people had chosen Representatives also without being summoned by the Governor, and that these Representatives had met and transacted business, as in an Assembly, even after they had been required in the King's name to break up their meeting. Thus both the Council and the people had committed usurpations on the King's rights; and it would surely be great grace and favor in the King, if he took no other advantage than to correct the errors in the original formation of the government and make it more congenial to the Constitution of the mother-country.

The concluding portion of the paper urges general considerations why the local government ought to be changed. "It requires no arguments to show," are its words, "that the inferior governments of a free State should be as similar to that of the supreme State as can well be. And it is self-evident that the excellency of the British Constitution consists in the equal balance of the regal and popular powers. If so, where the royal scale kicks the beam and the people know their own superior strength, the authority of Government can never be steady and durable: it must either be perpetually distracted by disputes with the Crown, or be quieted by giving up all real power to the demagogues of the people." And, after other considerations, the paper closes as follows:–"It is therefore not to be wondered at that the most sensible men of this Province see how necessary it is for the peace and good order of this government that the royal scale should have its own constitutional weights restored to it, and thereby be made much more equilibrial with the popular one. How this is to be done, whether by the Parliament or the King's Bench, or by both, is a question for the Administration to determine; the expedience of the measure is out of doubt; and if the late proceedings of the Convention, etc., amount to a forfeiture, a reformation of the constitution of the government, if it is insisted upon, must and will be assented to."

The Governor, in a letter addressed to John Pownall, which is marked "Private and Confidential," explains the origin and intention of this paper,–a paper which has not been referred to by historians:–

FRANCIS BERNARD TO JOHN POWNALL.

    "Boston, Dec. 24, 1768.

"Dear Sir,–The enclosed letter is the result of divers conferences I have had with some of the chief members of the Government and the principal gentlemen of the town, in the course of which I have scarce ever met with a difference to the opinions there laid down. I have been frequently importuned to write to the Minister upon these subjects, that the fair opportunity which offers to crush the faction, reform the government, and restore peace and order may not be lost, I have, however, declined it, not thinking it decent in me to appear to dictate to the Minister so far as to prescribe a set of measures. Besides, I have thought the subject and manner of dictating it too delicate for a public letter. However, as it appears to me that the welfare of this Province, the honor of the British Government, and the future connection between them both depend upon the right improvement of the time present, I have put the thoughts to writing in a letter, in which I have avoided all personalities which may discover the writer, and even the signing and addressing it. If these hints are like to be of use, communicate them in such a manner that the writer may not be known, unless it is in confidence. If they come too late, or disagree with the present system, destroy the paper. All I can say for them is that they are fully considered and are well intended.

    "I am," etc.

This relation shows that the popular leaders were right in their judgment, that they had broader work before them than to deal with the special matter of taxation, and that the presence of the troops meant the beginning of arbitrary government. The duty of the hour was not shirked. The Patriots could not know the extent of the Governor's misrepresentations; but they knew from the tone of the Parliamentary debates, that they were regarded as children, with a valid claim, perhaps, to be well governed, but not as Englishmen, with coequal rights to govern themselves, and that the British aristocracy meant to cover them with its cold shade. And when the Loyalists arraigned the Charter and town-meetings and juries as difficulties in the way of good order, Shippen, in the "Gazette," (January 25, 1769,) said,–"The Province has been, and may be again, quietly and happily governed, while these terrible difficulties have subsisted in their full force. They are, indeed, wise checks upon power in favor of the people. But power vested in some rulers can brook no check. To assert the most undoubted rights of human nature, and of the British Constitution, they term faction; and having embarrassed a free government by their own impolitic measures, they fly to military power."

It may be asked, What came of the recommendations of Bernard? "I know," Hutchinson wrote, (May 6, 1769,) "the Ministry, when I wrote you last, had determined to push it [the alteration of the Constitution] in Parliament. They laid aside the thought a little while. The latter end of February they took it up again. I have reason to think it is laid aside a second time." There was a third time also. The Patriots for six years endured a steady aggression on their constitutional rights, which had the single object in view of checking the republican idea, when the scheme was taken up and pressed to a consummation. The Parliamentary acts of 1774, as to town-meetings, trial by jury, and the Council of Massachusetts, aimed a deadly blow at the local self-government. It was the subjugation that John Adams judged was symbolized by the military rule of 1768. Not until they saw this, did the generation of that day feel justified in invoking the terrible arbiter of war. Nor did they draw the awful sword until the Thirteen Colonies, in Congress assembled, (1774,) solemnly pledged each other to stand as one people in defence of the old local government. This was in the majesty of revolution. It is profanation to compare with this patience and glory the insurrection begun by South Carolina. She–the first time such an organization ever did it–assumed to be a nation; and then madly led off in a suicidal war on the National Government, although the three branches of it, Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary, recognized every constitutional obligation, and had not attempted an invasion of any local right.

A month after the Governor transmitted his plan for an alteration of the Constitution, he renewed, in an elaborate letter to Lord Hillsborough, (January 24, 1769,) his old allegation, that the popular leaders designed by their September town-meeting to inaugurate insurrection, and by the Convention to make their proposed insurrection general,–and that the plan was, to remove the King's Governor and resume the old Charter. "A chief of the faction"–this was a sample of the evidence–"said that he was always for gentle measures; for he was only for driving the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor out of the Province, and taking the government into their own hands. Judge, my Lord, what must be the measures proposed by others, when this is called a gentle measure." And he advised the Minister, that, to aid him in the execution of the orders he had received, he had formed a Cabinet Council of three principal officers of the Crown, whose zeal, ability, and fidelity could not be suspected. On the next day (January 25) the Governor devoted a despatch to Lord Hillsborough to remarks upon the press, and especially the "Boston Gazette" and Edes and Gill–"They may be said to be no more than mercenary printers," are the Governor's words,–"but they have been and still are the trumpeters of sedition, and have been made the apparent instruments of raising that flame in America which has given so much trouble and is still likely to give more to Great Britain and her Colonies"; and it seemed to the Governor that "the first step for calling the chiefs of the faction to account would be by seizing their printers, together with their papers, if it could be." He would not pronounce any particular piece absolutely treason, but he sent to his Lordship a complete file of this journal from the 14th of August, 1767, "when the present troubles began."

The next official action on the Patriot side was taken by the Selectmen, who, in a touching as well as searching address to the Governor, (February 18, 1769,) requested him to communicate to them such representations of facts only as he had judged proper to make to the Ministry during the past year relative to the town, in order that, by knowing precisely what had been alleged against its proceedings or character, the town might have an opportunity to vindicate itself. After characterizing as truly alarming to a free people the array of ships of war around it and the troops within it, the address proceeds,–"Your Excellency can witness for the town that no such aid is necessary; loyalty to the sovereign, and an inflexible zeal for the support of His Majesty's authority and the happy Constitution, is its just character; and we may appeal to an impartial world, that peace and order were better maintained in the town before it was even rumored that His Majesty's troops were to be quartered among us than they have been since"; and the judgment is expressed, that the opinion entertained abroad as to the condition of things in Boston could have arisen only from a great misapprehension, by His Majesty's Ministers, as to the behavior of individuals or the public transactions of the town.

To this rather troublesome request the Governor returned a very brief and curt answer,–that he had no reason to think that the public transactions had been misapprehended by the Government, "or that their opinions thereon were founded upon any other accounts than those published by the town itself"; and he coolly added,–"If, therefore, you can vindicate yourselves from such charges as may arise from your own publications, you will, in my opinion, have nothing further to apprehend."

A week later, the Selectmen waited on the Governor with another address, which assumed that his reply to the former address had substantially vindicated the town as a corporation, as it had published nothing but its own transactions in town-meeting legally assembled. And now the Selectmen averred, that, if the town had suffered from the disorders of the eighteenth of March and the tenth of June, "the only disorders that had taken place in the town within the year past," the Governor's words were full testimony to the point, that it must be in consequence of some partial or false representations of those disorders to His Majesty's Ministers; and the address entreated the Governor to condescend to point out wherein the town, in its public transactions, had militated with any law or the British constitution of government, so that either the town might be made sensible of the illegality of its proceedings, or its innocence might appear in a still clearer light.

The following sentence constituted the whole of the reply of the royal representative: for what else could such a double-dealer say?

"Gentlemen,–As in my answer to your former address I confined myself to you as Selectmen and the town as a Body, I did not mean to refer to the disorders on the eighteenth of March or of the tenth of June, but to the transactions in the town-meetings and the proceedings of the Selectmen in consequence thereof.

    "FRA: BERNARD.

"Feb. 24, 1769."

The town next, at the annual March meeting, petitioned the King to remove the troops. This petition is certainly a striking paper, and places in a strong light the earnest desire of the popular leaders to steer clear of everything that might tend to wound British pride or in any way to inflame the public mind of the mother-country, and to impress on the Government their deep concern at the twin charges brought against the town of disorder and disloyalty. While lamenting the June riot, they averred that it was discountenanced by the body of the inhabitants and immediately repressed; but with a confidence, they said, which will ever accompany innocence and truth, they declared that the courts had never been interrupted, not even that of a single magistrate,–that not an instance could be produced of so much as an attempt to rescue any criminal out of the hands of justice,–that duties required by Acts of Parliament held to be grievous had been regularly paid,–and that all His Majesty's subjects were disposed orderly and dutifully to wait for that relief which they hoped from His Majesty's wisdom and clemency and the justice of Parliament. After reviewing elaborately the representations that had been made of the condition of the town, with "the warmest declarations of their attachment to their constitutional rights," they pronounced those accounts to be ill-grounded which represented them as held to their "allegiance and duty to the best of sovereigns only by the bond of terror and the force of arms." The petition then most earnestly supplicates His Majesty to remove from the town a military power which the strictest truth warranted them in declaring unnecessary for the support of the civil authority among them, and which they could not but consider as unfavorable to commerce, destructive to morals, dangerous to law, and tending to overthrow the civil constitution. "Your Majesty," was the utterance of Boston, and in one of those town-meetings that were heralded even from the Throne and Parliament as instrumentalities of rebellion, "possesses a glory superior to that of any monarch on earth,–the glory of being at the head of the happiest civil constitution in the world, and under which human nature appears with the greatest advantage and dignity,–the glory of reigning over a free people, and of being enthroned in the hearts of your subjects. Your Majesty, therefore, we are sure, will frown, not upon those who have the warmest attachment to this constitution and to their sovereign, but upon such as shall be found to have attempted by their misrepresentations to diminish the blessings of your Majesty's reign, in the remotest parts of your dominions."

This is not the language of party-adroitness or of a low cunning, but the calm utterance of truth by American manhood. There is no indication of the authorship of the petition, but a strong committee was chosen at the meeting which adopted it, consisting of James Otis, Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushing, Richard Dana, Joseph Warren, John Adams, and Samuel Quincy, to consider the subject of vindicating the town from the misrepresentations to which it had been subjected. This petition, accompanied by a letter penned by Samuel Adams, was transmitted (April 8, 1769) to Colonel Barré, with the request that he would present it, by his own hand, to His Majesty. Both the letter and the petition requested the transmission to Boston of all Bernard's letters, a specimen only of which had now been received. "Conscious," the letter said, "of their own innocence, it is the earnest desire of the town that you would employ your great influence to remove from the mind of our Sovereign, his Ministers, and Parliament, the unfavorable sentiments that have been formed of their conduct, or at least obtain from them the knowledge of their accusers and the matters alleged against them, and an opportunity offered of vindicating themselves."