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

The letters just referred to as having been received from England were six in number, five written by Governor Bernard and one by General Gage, which contained specimens of the characteristic misrepresentations of political affairs by the crown officials; and, having been transmitted to the Council, this body felt called upon to act in the matter, which they did (April 15, 1769) in a spirited letter addressed to Lord Hillsborough. This letter is occupied mainly with the various questions touching the introduction and the quartering of the troops. Again were the disorders of the eighteenth of March and the tenth of June reviewed and explained; the charge made by the Governor, that the Council refused to provide quarters for the troops out of servility to the populace, was pronounced to be without foundation or coloring of truth; and the Council boldly charged upon Bernard, that his great aim was the destruction of the constitution to which, as Englishmen and by the Charter, they were entitled,–"a constitution," they remark, "dearly purchased by our ancestors and dear to us, and which we persuade ourselves will be continued to us." Then, also, they charged that no Council had borne what the present Council had borne from Bernard; that his whole conduct with regard to the troops was arbitrary and unbecoming the dignity of his station; and that his common practice, in case the Council did not come into his measures, of threatening to lay their conduct before His Majesty, was absurd and insulting.

The troops, during the progress of the events which have been related, did not redeem the promise, as to discipline and order, which General Gage made for them to the Council. After the arrival of the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments, General Pomeroy continued the commander through the winter, and down to the month of May; and he made himself popular with the inhabitants. Still, the four regiments consisted, to a great degree, of such rough material, that they could not, in the idleness in which they were kept, be controlled. "The soldiers," Andrew Eliot writes, January 29, 1769, "were in raptures at the cheapness of spirituous liquors among us, and in some of their drunken hours have been insolent to some of the inhabitants"; and he further remarks that "the officers are the most troublesome, who, many of them, are as intemperate as the men." Thus, while the temptation to excess was strong, the restraint of individual position was weak, and both privates and officers became subjects of legal proceedings as disturbers of the public peace.

The routine of military discipline grated rudely on old customs. Citizens who, like their ancestors for a century and a half, had walked the streets with perfect freedom, were annoyed at being obliged to answer the challenge of sentinels who were posted at the Custom-House and other public places, and at the doors of the officers' lodgings. Then the usual quiet of Sunday was disturbed by the changes of the guards, with the sounds of fife and drum, and the tunes of "Nancy Dawson" and "Yankee Doodle"; church-goers were annoyed by parties of soldiers in the streets, and the whole community outraged by horse-racing on the Common. Applications for redress had been ineffectual; and General Pomeroy was excused for not checking some of these things, on the ground that he was controlled by a superior officer. His successor, General Mackay, gave great satisfaction by prohibiting, in general orders, (June 15, 1769,) horse-racing on the Common on the Lord's day by any under his command, and also by forbidding soldiers to be in the streets during divine service, a practice that had been long disagreeable to the people.

In one way and another the troops became sources of irritation. The Patriots, mainly William Cooper, the town clerk, prepared a chronicle of this perpetual fret, which contains much curious matter obtained through access to authentic sources of information, private and official. This diary was first printed in New York, and reprinted in the newspapers of Boston and London, under the title of "Journal of Occurrences." The numbers, continued until after the close of Bernard's administration, usually occupied three columns of the "Boston Evening Post," and constituted a piquant record of the matters connected with the troops and general politics. It attracted much attention, and the authors of it formed the subject of a standing toast at the Liberty celebrations. Hutchinson averred that it was composed with great art and little truth. After this weekly "Journal of the Times," as it was now called, had been published four months, Governor Bernard devoted to it an entire official letter addressed to Lord Hillsborough. He said that this publication was intended "to raise a general clamor against His Majesty's government in England and throughout America, as well as in Massachusetts"; and that in this way the Patriots "flattered themselves that they should get the navy and army removed, and again have the government and Custom-House in their own hands." The idea of such disloyal purposes excited the Governor to the most acrimonious criticism. "It is composed," he informed Lord Hillsborough, "by Adams and his associates, among which there must be some one at least of the Council; as everything that is said or done in Council, which can be made use of, is constantly perverted, misrepresented, and falsified in this paper. But if the Devil himself was of the party, as he virtually is, there could not have been got together a greater collection of impudent, virulent, and seditious lies, perversions of truth, and misrepresentations, than are to be found in this publication. Some are entirely invented, and first heard of from the printed papers; others are founded in fact, but so perverted as to be the direct contrary of the truth; other part of the whole consists of reflections of the writer, which pretend to no other authority but his own word. To set about answering these falsities would be a work like that of cleansing Augeas's stable, which is to be done only by bringing in a stream strong enough to sweep away the dirt and collectors of it all together." Doubtless there were exaggerations in this journal. It would be strange, if there were not. If the perversions of truth were greater than the Governor's misrepresentations of the proceedings of the inhabitants on the eighteenth of March, or on the tenth of June, or of what was termed "the September Rebellion," they deserved more than this severe criticism. But, in the main, the general allegations, as to grievances suffered by the people from the troops, are borne out by private letters and official documents; and a plain statement of the course of Francis Bernard shows that they did not exceed the truth as to him.

The troops continued under the command of General Pomeroy until the arrival (April 30, 1769) of Hon. Alexander Mackay, Colonel of the Sixty-Fifth Regiment, a Major-General on the American establishment, and a member of the British Parliament, when the command of the troops, so it was announced, in the Eastern District of America, devolved on him. When General Pomeroy left the town, the press, of all parties, and even the "Journal of the Times," highly complimented his conduct both as an officer and a gentleman.

The crown officials found themselves, at this period, in an awkward situation as to arrests of the popular leaders. They had recommended to the Government what they termed the slight punishment of disqualification, by Act of Parliament, from engaging in civil service; but the Ministry and their supporters determined on the summary proceeding of prosecutions under existing law for treason, thinking that few cases would be necessary,–and all agreed that these should be selected from Boston. On this point of singling out Boston for punishment, whatever other measures might be proposed, there was entire unanimity of sentiment. Thus, Lord Camden, on being applied to by the Prime-Minister for advice, suggested a repeal of the Revenue Act in favor of other Provinces, but the execution of it with rigor in Massachusetts, saying,–"There is no pretence for violence anywhere but at Boston; that is the ringleading Province; and if any country is to be chastised, the punishment ought to be levelled there." As to the policy of arrests, in Lord Barrington's judgment, five or six examples would be sufficient for all the Colonies, and he thought that it was right they should be made in Boston, the only place where there had been actual crime; for "they," his words are, "would be enough to carry terror to the wicked and factious spirits all over the continent, and would show that the subjects of Great Britain must not rebel with impunity anywhere." The King and Parliament stood pledged to make arrests; Lord Hillsborough, in his instructions, had urged them again and again; the private letters of the officials addressed to Bernard were refreshingly full and positive as to the advantage which such exercise of the national authority would be to the King's cause; the British press continually announced that they were to be made; and all England was looking to see representative men of America, who had dared to deny any portion of the authority of Parliament, occupy lodgings in London Tower. And yet, though it had been announced in Parliament that the object in sending troops was to bring rioters to justice, not a man had been put under arrest; and the only requisition that had been made for eight months upon a military power which was considered to be invincible was that which produced the inglorious demonstration at the Manufactory House occupied by John Brown the weaver. So ridiculous was the figure which the British Lion cut on the public stage of Boston!

Governor Bernard not unlikely felt more keenly the awkwardness of all this from having received, as a reward for service, the honor of a Baronetcy of Great Britain. The "Gazette," in announcing this, (May 1, 1769,) has an ironical article addressing the new Baronet thus:–"Your promotion, Sir, reflects an honor on the Province itself,–an honor which has never been conferred upon it since the thrice happy administration of Sir Edmund Andres, of precious memory, who was also a Baronet"; and in a candid British judgment to-day, (that of Lord Mahon,) the honor was "a most ill-timed favor surely, when he had so grievously failed in gaining the affections or confidence of any order or rank of men within his Province." The subject occupies a large space in the private correspondence, and the title was the more flattering and acceptable to the Governor from being exempted from the usual concomitant of heavy expense as fees. But whatever other service he had rendered, he had not rendered what was looked upon as most vital, the service of making arrests.

At this period the Governor held a consultation with distinguished political leaders, consisting of the Secretary, Andrew Oliver, who had been Stamp-Officer, the Judge of Admiralty, Robert Auchmuty, who was an eminent lawyer, and the Chief Justice, Hutchinson, who was counted the ablest man of the party, all ultra Loyalists, to consider the future policy as to arrests,–all doubtless feeling that the non-action course needed explanation. The details of this consultation are given at such length, and with such minuteness, by Bernard, in a letter addressed to Lord Hillsborough, that these learned political doctors can almost be seen making a diagnosis of the prevalent treason-disease and discussing proposed prescriptions. They carefully considered what had been done at the great public meetings, and what had been printed in the "Boston Gazette," which had been all collected and duly certified, and had been faithfully transmitted to Westminster, where distinctions of law were better known than they were in Boston. But, after legal scrutiny there, no specifications of acts amounting to treason had been made out as proper bases for proceedings, and it could not be expected that the local authorities would be wiser than their superiors; and thus this class of offences was set aside. To deal with other matters of treason, and especially with "the Rebellion of September," was found to be involved in difficulties. The members of the faction were now behaving "very cautiously and inoffensively," and so nothing could be made out of the present; and as they would not bear witness against each other as to the past, it was not easy from old affairs to make out cases of treason. Former private consultations of a treasonable character, it was said, lacked connection with overt acts, and the overt acts of a treasonable character lacked connection with the prior consultations: as, for instance, they said, the consultation to seize the Castle was treasonable, but it was not followed by an overt act,–and the overt act of the tar-barrel signal on the beacon-pole was treasonable, but it could not be traced to a prior consultation so as to evidence the intent. So these acute crown officials went on in their deliberations, and came to the conclusion, which Bernard officially communicated (May 25, 1769) to Lord Hillsborough, in the long letter above referred to, that they could not fix upon any acts "that amounted to actual treason, though many of them approached very near to it."

The Governor, meantime, had issued precepts to the towns to return members of the General Court; this made each locality (May, 1769) alive with politics; and he stated to Lord Hillsborough, as a further reason for not polling inquiry into treasonable practices, that he was anxious not to irritate the people more than he felt obliged to. The question of the removal of the troops was now discussed in the little country forums, and the resolves and instructions to the Representatives, printed in the journals, reëcho, in a spirited manner and with great ability, the political sentiment which had been embodied in official papers. They contain earnest protestations of a determination to maintain His Most Sacred Majesty George the Third, their rightful sovereign, his crown, dignity, and family; to maintain their Charter immunities, with all their rights derived from God and Nature, and to transmit them inviolable to their latest posterity; and they charge the Representatives not to allow, by vote or resolution, a right in any power on earth to tax the people to raise a revenue except in the General Assembly of the Province. All urged action relative to the troops, and several put this as the earliest duty of the Assembly, as the presence of the troops tended to awe or control freedom of debate. These utterances of the towns, which the journals of May contain, make a glowing record of the spirit of the time.

The Selectmen of Boston, on issuing the usual warrants for an election of Representatives, requested General Mackay to order the troops out of town on the day (May 8, 1769) of the town-meeting; but though he felt obliged to decline to do this, yet, in the spirit in which he acted during his entire residence here, he kept the troops, on this day, confined to their barracks. The town, after choosing Otis, Cushing, Adams, and Hancock as Representatives, adopted a noble letter of instructions, not only rehearsing the grievances, but asserting ideas of freedom and equality, as to political rights, that had been firmly grasped. They arraigned the Act of Parliament of 4th Geo. III., extending admiralty jurisdiction and depriving the colonists of native juries, as a distinction staring them in the face which was made between the subject in Great Britain and the subject in America,–the Parliament in one section guarding the people of the realm, and securing to them trial by jury and the law of the land, and in the next section depriving Americans of those important rights; and this distinction was pronounced a brand of disgrace upon every American, a degradation below the rank of an Englishman. While the instructions claimed for each subject in America equality of political right with each subject in England, they claimed also for the General Court the dignity of a free assembly, and declared the first object of their labors to be a removal of "those cannon and guards and that clamorous parade that had been daily about the Court-House since the arrival of His Majesty's troops."

The country towns, which now responded so nobly to the demand of the hour, were controlled by freemen. Among these it was rare to find any who could not read and write; they were mostly independent freeholders, with person and property guarded, as it used to be said in the Boston journals of the time, not by one law for the peasant and another law for the prince, but by equal law for all; they exercised liberty of thought and political action, and their proceedings, as they appeared in the public prints, gave great alarm to the Governor. He now informed Lord Hillsborough that the Sons of Liberty had got as high as ever; and that out of a party which used to keep the opposition to Government under, there were reckoned to be not above ten members returned in a House of above one hundred and twenty. After giving an account of a meeting of "the factious chiefs" in Boston, held a few days before the General Court assembled, he says,–"To see that faction which has occasioned all the troubles in this Province, and I may add in America too, has quite overturned this government, now triumphant and driving over every one who has loyalty and resolution to stand up in defence of the rights of the King and Parliament, gives me great concern."

This result of the elections, which the crown officials ascribed to a talent for mischief in the popular leaders, naturally flowed from the exhibition of arbitrary power. The introduction of the troops was a suicidal measure to the Loyalists, and in urging their continuance in the Province the crown officials had been carrying an exhaustive burden; while, even in every failure to effect their removal, the Whigs had won a fresh moral victory. There was, in consequence, a more perfect union of the people than ever. The members returned to the General Court constituted a line representation of the character, ability, and patriotism of the Province; many of the names were then obscure which subsequent large service to country was to make famous as the names of heroes and sages; and such a body of men was now to act on the question of a removal of the troops.

It would be travelling a beaten path to relate the proceedings of this session of the General Court; and only a glance will be necessary to show its connection with the issue that had so long stirred the public mind. Immediately on taking the oath of office, at nine o'clock, the House, through a committee, presented an elaborate and strong protest to the Governor against the presence of the troops. They averred that they meant to be loyal; that no law, however grievous, had in the execution of it been opposed in the Province; but, they said, as they came as of right to their old Parliament-House, to exercise, as of right, perfect freedom of debate, they found a standing army in their metropolis, and a military guard with cannon pointed at their very doors; and, in the strong way of the old Commonwealth men, they protested against this presence as "a breach of privilege, and inconsistent with that dignity and freedom with which they had a right to deliberate, consult, and determine." The Governor's laconic reply was,–"I have no authority over His Majesty's ships in this port or his troops within this town; nor can I give any orders for their removal." The House, resolving that they proceeded to take part in the elections of the day from necessity and to conform the Charter, chose their Clerk, Speaker, and twenty-eight Councillors.

The Governor at ten o'clock received at the Province House a brilliant array of officials, when an elegant collation was served; at twelve, escorted by Captain Paddock's company, he repaired to the Council-Chamber, whence, after approving the choice of Speaker, the whole Government went in procession to the Old Brick Meeting-House, where the election sermon was preached; then succeeded an elegant dinner at Faneuil Hall, which was attended by the field-officers of the four regiments, and the official dignitaries, including Commodore Hood and General Mackay, which, as to the Governor, closed the proceedings of the day.

The House in its choice of Councillors elected several decided Loyalists, though it did not reelect four of this party who were of that body the last year, namely, Messrs. Flucker, Ropes, Paine, and Worthington. The Governor refused his consent to eleven on the list. On the next day he thus wrote of these events:–

FRANCIS BERNARD TO JOHN POWNALL.

    "Boston, June 1,1769.

"Dear Sir,–There being a snow ready to sail for Glasgow, I take the opportunity of sending you the printed account of the election and other proceedings on yesterday and to-day; from which you will perceive that everything goes as bad as could be expected. The Boston faction has taken possession of the two Houses in such a manner that there are not ten men in both who dare contradict them. They have turned out of the Council four gentlemen of the very first reputation in the country, and the only men remaining of disposition and ability to serve the King's cause. I have negatived eleven, among which are two old Councillors, Brattle and Bowdoin, the managers of all the late opposition in the Council to the King's government. There is not now one man in the Council who has either power or spirit to oppose the faction; and the friends of Government are so thin in the House, that they won't attempt to make any opposition; so that Otis, Adams, etc., are now in full possession of this government, and will treat it accordingly. This is no more than was expected. I will write more particularly in a few days.

    "I am," etc.

The Governor could write thus of his political friends of the Council, several of whom, six years later, when the attempt was made to change the Constitution, were thought to have spirit enough to receive appointments from the Crown,–such, for instance, as Danforth, Russell, Royal, and Gray,–and hence were called Mandamus Councillors.

A few days after (May 5, 1769) there was a holiday in Boston, the celebration of the birth-day of the King, which the House, "out of duty, loyalty, and affection to His Majesty," noticed formally, as provided by a committee consisting of Otis, Hancock, and Adams. The Governor received a brilliant party–at the Province House; the three regiments in town, the Fourteenth, Twenty-Ninth, and Sixty-Fourth, paraded on the Common; the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company–it happened to be their anniversary–went through the customary routine, including the sermon, the dinner at Faneuil Hall, and the exchange of commissions on the Common; and in the evening there was a ball at Concert Hall, where, it is said in the Tory paper, there was as numerous and brilliant an appearance of gentlemen and ladies as was ever known in town on any former occasion. The Patriot journals give more space to the celebration, towards evening, in the Representatives' Hall, where, besides the members, were a great number of merchants and gentlemen of the first distinction, who, besides toasting, first the King, Queen, and Royal Family, and second, North America, drank to "The restoration of harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies," "Prosperity and perpetuity to the British Empire in all parts of the world," and "Liberty without licentiousness to all parts of the world." The House thus testified their loyalty to country; but, as the Governor refused to remove the troops, they–the "Boston Gazette" of June 12th said–"had for thirteen days past made a solemn and expressive pause in public business."

Meantime the Governor received in one day (June 10) communications which surprised him half out of his wits and wholly out of his office, and which must have made rather a blue day in his calendar.

The Ministry now vacillated in their high-handed policy, and gave to General Gage discretionary power as to a continuance of the troops in Boston; and this officer had come to the sensible conclusion that troops were worse than needless, for they were an unnecessary irritation and detrimental to a restoration of the harmony which the representative men of both parties professed to desire. Accordingly the Governor received advices that the Commander-in-Chief had ordered the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments, with the train of artillery, to Halifax, and that he had directed General Mackay to confer with his Excellency as to the disposition of the remainder of the troops, whether His Majesty's service required that any should be posted longer in Boston, and if so, what the number should be. The Governor was further requested to give his opinion on this point in writing.

As the Governor had received no intimation of such a change of policy from his friends in England, he could hardly find words in which to express his astonishment. He wrote, two days after, that nothing could be more mal-à-propos to the business of Government or hard upon him; that it was cruel to have this forced upon him at such a time and in such a manner; and as the question was put, it was hardly less than whether he should abdicate government. "If the troops are removed," he wrote, "the principal officers of the Crown, the friends of Government, and the importers of goods from England in defiance of the combination, who are considerable and numerous, must remove also," which would have been quite an extensive removal. He wrote to Lord Hillsborough,–"It is impossible to express my surprise at this proposition, or my embarrassment on account of the requisition of an answer."

The other communication was a right royal greeting. Up to this time the letters to the Governor from the members of the Government, private as well as official, had been to him of the most gratifying character, to say nothing of the gift of the baronetcy. "I can give you the pleasure of knowing," Lord Barrington wrote to him, (April 5, 1769,) "that last Sunday the King spoke with the highest approbation of your conduct and services in his closet to me"; but in a postscript to this letter were the ominous words,–"I understand you are directed to come hither; but Lord Hillsborough authorizes me to say, you need not be in any inconvenient haste to obey that instruction." This order, in the manuscript, is indorsed, "Received June 10, 1769"; and being unique, it is here copied from the original, which has Hillsborough's autograph:–

"GEORGE R.

"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas we have thought fit by our royal license under our signet and sign-manual bearing date the twenty-second day of June, 1768, in the eighth year of our reign, to permit you to return into this our kingdom of Great Britain: Our will and pleasure therefore is, that as soon as conveniently may be, after the receipt hereof, you do repair to this our kingdom in order to lay before us a state of our province of Massachusetts Bay. And so we bid you farewell. Given at our court at St. James the twenty-third day of March, 1769, in the ninth year of our reign.

"By His Majesty's command,             "HILLSBOROUGH."

It was now an active time with the Patriots. Before the Governor had a chance to talk with General Mackay or to write to General Gage, the news spread all over the town that the two regiments were ordered off; and with this there was circulated the story, that Commissioner Temple had received a letter from George Grenville containing the assurance that the Governor would be immediately recalled with disgrace, that three of the Commissioners of the Customs would be turned off directly, and that next winter the Board would be dissolved; and Bernard, who tells these incidents, says that the reports exalted the Sons of Liberty as though the bells had rung for a triumph, while there was consternation among the crown officials, the importers, and the friends of Government. Here was thrust upon Bernard, over again, the question of the introduction of the troops.

The Governor was as much embarrassed by the requisition for an answer in writing as to the two regiments that were not ordered off as he was astonished at the order that had been given; and on getting a note from General Mackay, he gave the verbal answer, that he would write to General Gage. Meantime, while Bernard was hesitating, the Patriots were acting, and immediately applied themselves to counteract the influence which they knew was making to retain the two regiments. One hundred and forty-two of the citizens petitioned the Selectmen for a town-meeting, at which it was declared, that the law of the land made ample provision for the security of life and property, and that the presence of the troops was an insult. After a week's hesitation, the Governor wrote to General Gage, who had promised inviolable secrecy, that to remove a portion of the two regiments would be detrimental to His Majesty's service; to remove all of these troops would be quite ruinous to the cause of the Crown; but that one regiment in the town and one at the Castle might be sufficient. Of course, General Gage, if he paid any respect to the Governor's advice, could do no less than order both regiments to remain. Thus was it that the two Sam Adams Regiments continued in town, designed for evil, but working for the good of the common cause.

Governor Bernard, during the month of June, and down to the middle of July, was greatly disturbed by the manly stand of the General Court; and, because of its refusal to enter upon the public business under the mouths of British cannon, adjourned it to Cambridge. On the night after this adjournment, the cannon were removed. These irritating proceedings made this body still more high-toned. While in this mood, it received from the Governor two messages, (July 6 and 12,) asking an appropriation of money to meet the expenses which had been incurred by the crown officers in quartering troops in Boston. The members nobly met this demand by returning to the Governor (July 15, 1769) a grandly worded state-paper, in which, claiming the rights of freeborn Englishmen, as confirmed by Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, and as settled by the Revolution and the British Charter, they expressly declared that they never would make provision for the purposes mentioned in the two messages. On the same day, it was represented in the House that armed soldiers had rescued a prisoner from the hands of justice, when two constables were ordered to attend on the floor who were heard on the matter, and a committee was then appointed to consider it. But Secretary Oliver now appeared with a message from the Governor to the effect that he was at the Court-House and directed the immediate attendance of the members. They accordingly, with Speaker Cushing at their head, repaired to the Governor, who, after a haughty speech charging them with proclaiming ideas lacking in dignity to the Crown and inconsistent with the Province continuing a part of the British Empire, prorogued the Court until the 10th of January.

The press arraigned the arbitrary proceedings of the Governor with great boldness and a just severity; while it declared that the action taken by the intrepid House of Representatives, with rare unanimity, was supported by the almost universal sentiments of the people. The last act of the Governor, the prorogation of the General Court for six months, was especially criticized; and after averring that such long prorogations, in such critical times, could never promote the true service of His Majesty or the tranquility of his good subjects, it predicted that impartial history would hang up Governor Bernard as a warning to his successors who had any sense of character, and perhaps his future fortune might be such as to teach even the most selfish of them not to tread in his steps.

On the day this prediction was written, (August 1, 1769,) Sir Francis Bernard, in the Rippon, was on his way to England. Congratulations among the people, exultation on the part of the press, the Union Flag on Liberty Tree, salutes from Hancock's Wharf, and bonfires, in the evening, on the hills, expressed the general joy. And yet Francis Bernard was hardly a faithful representative of the proud imperial power for which he acted. He was a bad Governor, but he was not so bad as the cause he was obliged to uphold. He was arbitrary, but he was not so arbitrary as his instructions. He was vacillating, but he was not so vacillating as the Ministers. When he gave the conciliatory reply to the June town-meeting, it was judged that he lowered the national standard, and it seriously damaged him at Court; when he spoke in the imperial tone that characterized the British rule of that day, he was rewarded with a baronetcy. The Governor after months of reflection, in England, on reviewing in an elaborate letter the political path he had travelled, indicated both his deep chagrin and his increase of wisdom in the significant words,–"I was obliged to give up, a victim to the bad policy and irresolution of the supreme Government."

The execution of a bad policy as directed by an irresolute Ministry was now the lot of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson. It was embodied in the question of the removal of the troops; and this question was not decided, until, after months of confusion and distress, the blood and slaughter of His Majesty's good subjects compelled an indignant American public opinion to command their departure from the town of Boston.

LIFE IN THE OPEN AIR

BY THE AUTHOR OF "CECIL DREEME" AND "JOHN BRENT."

KATAHDIN AND THE PENOBSCOT

CHAPTER I

OFF

At five, P. M., we found ourselves–Iglesias, a party of friends, and myself–on board the Isaac Newton, a great, ugly, three-tiered box that walks the North River, like a laboratory of greasy odors.

In this stately cinder-mill were American citizens. Not to discuss spitting, which is for spittoons, not literature, our fellow-travellers on the deck of the "floating palace" were passably endurable people, in looks, style, and language. I dodge discrimination, and characterize them en masse by negations. The passengers of the Isaac Newton, on a certain evening of July, 18–, were not so intrusively green and so gasping as Britons, not so ill-dressed and pretentious as Gauls, not so ardently futile and so lubberly as Germans. Such were the negative virtues of our fellow-citizen travellers; and base would it be to exhibit their positive vices.

And so no more of passengers or passage. I will not describe our evening on the river. Alas for the duty of straight-forwardness and dramatic unity! Episodes seem so often sweeter than plots! The way-side joys are better than the final successes. The flowers along the vista, brighter than the victor-wreaths at its close. I may not dally on my way, turning to the right and the left for beauty and caricature. I will balance on the strict edge of my narrative, as a seventh-heavenward Mahometan with wine-forbidden steadiness of poise treads Al Seràt, his bridge of a sword-blade.

Next morning, at Albany, divergent trains cleft our party into a better and a worser half. The beautiful girls, our better half, fled westward to ripen their pallid roses with richer summer-hues in mosquitoless inland dells. Iglesias and I were still northward bound.

At the Saratoga station we sipped a dreary, faded reminiscence of former joys and sparkling brilliancy long dead, in cups of Congress-water, brought by unattractive Ganymedes and sold in the train,–draughts flat, flabby, and utterly bubbleless, lukewarm heel-taps with a flavor of savorless salt.

Still northward journeying, and feeling the sea-side moisture evaporate from our blood under inland suns and sultry inland breezes, we came to Lake Champlain.

As before banquets, to excite appetite, one takes the gentle oyster, so we, before the serious pleasure of our journey, tasted the Adirondack region, paradise of Cockney sportsmen. There through the forest, the stag of ten trots, coquetting with greenhorns. He likes the excitement of being shot at and missed. He enjoys the smell of powder in a battle where he is always safe. He hears Greenhorn blundering through the woods, stopping to growl at briers, stopping to revive his courage with the Dutch supplement. The stag of ten awaits his foe in a glade. The foe arrives, sees the antlered monarch, and is panic-struck. He watches him prance and strike the ground with his hoofs. He slowly recovers heart, takes a pull at his flask, rests his gun upon a log, and begins to study his mark. The stag will not stand still. Greenhorn is baffled. At last his target turns and carefully exposes that region of his body where Greenhorn has read lies the heart. Just about to fire, he catches the eye of the stag winking futility into his elaborate aim. His blunderbuss jerks upward. A shower of cut leaves floats through the smoke, from a tree thirty feet overhead. Then, with a mild-eyed melancholy look of reproachful contempt, the stag turns away, and wanders off to sleep in quiet coverts far within the wood. He has fled, while for Greenhorn no trophy remains. Antlers have nodded to the sportsman; a short tail has disappeared before his eyes;–he has seen something, but has nothing to show. Whereupon he buys a couple of pairs of ancient weather-bleached horns from some colonist, and, nailing them up at impossible angles on the wall of his city-den, humbugs brother-Cockneys with tales of vénerie, and has for life his special legend, "How I shot my first deer in the Adirondacks."

The Adirondacks provide a compact, convenient, accessible little wilderness,–an excellent field for the experiments of tyros. When the tyro, whether shot, fisherman, or forester, has proved himself fully there, let him dislodge into some vaster wilderness, away from guides by the day and superintending hunters, away from the incursions of the Cockney tribe, and let out the caged savage within him for a tough struggle with Nature. It needs a struggle tough and resolute to force that Protean lady to observe at all her challenger.

It is well to go to the Adirondacks. They are shaggy, and shagginess is a valuable trait. The lakes are very well,–very well indeed. The objection to the region is not the mountains, which are reasonably shaggy,–not the lakes and rivers, which are water, a capital element. The real difficulty is the society: not the autochthonous society,–they are worthy people, and it is hardly to be mentioned as a fault that they are not a discriminating race, and will asseverate that all fish are trout, and the most arrant mutton is venison,–but the immigrant, colonizing society. Cockneys are to be found at every turn, flaunting their banners of the awkward squad, proclaiming to the world with protuberant pride that they are the veritable backwoodsmen,–rather doing it, rather astonishing the natives, they think. And so they are. One squad of such neophytes might be entertaining; but when every square mile echoes with their hails, lost, poor babes, within a furlong of their camps, and when the woods become dim and the air civic with their cooking-smokes, and the subtle odor of fried pork overpowers methylic fragrance among the trees, then he who loves forests for their solitude leaves these brethren to their clumsy joys, and wanders elsewhere deeper into sylvan scenes.

Our visit to the Adirondacks was episodic; and as I have forsworn episodes, I turn away from them with this mild slander, and strike again our Maine track. With lips impurpled by the earliest huckleberries, we came out again upon Champlain. We crossed that water-logged valley in a steamboat, and hastened on, through a pleasant interlude of our rough journey, across Vermont and New Hampshire, two States not without interest to their residents, but of none to this narrative.

By coach and wagon, by highway and by-way, by horse-power and steam-power, we proceeded, until it chanced, one August afternoon, that we left railways and their regions at a way-side station, and let our lingering feet march us along the Valley of the Upper Connecticut. This lovely river, baptizer of Iglesias's childhood, was here shallow and musical, half river, half brook; it had passed the tinkling period, and plashed and rumbled voicefully over rock and shallow.