George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[331] people of Boston; ‘touch not the unclean thing;’ and

chap. XVII.} 1765. Sept.

to make sure of a vigilance which could not be lulled, they elected Samuel Adams to be their representative, in the place made vacant by the death of Thacher. On the day on which Samuel Adams took his seat, he found the legislature adopting resolves, that all courts should do business without stamps; on which Bernard, in a fright, prorogued it till nine days before the first of November.

The eye of the whole continent watched with the intensest anxiety the conduct of New-York, the capital of the central province, and Headquarters of the standing forces in America; having a septennial assembly, a royal council, ships of war anchored near its wharfs, and within the town itself a fort, mounting many heavy cannon.¹ There the authority of the British government was concentrated in the hands of Gage, the general, whose military powers, as ample as those of a Viceroy, extended over all the colonies, and who was ‘extremely exasperated’² at the course of events, as well in New-York as Massachusetts. But he was at a loss what to do. Besides, the officers of government had no confidence in one another. In Boston, Gage was not esteemed a man of ‘capacity;’ and he, in his turn, thought Bernard pusillanimous. At New-York, he called upon the civil power to exert itself more efficiently. ‘All civil authority is at an end,’³ answered Colden; ‘the presence of a battalion is the only way to prevent mischief.’ ‘It will be more safe for the government,’ interposed the Council⁴ of the province of New-York,