George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[154]

Chapter 34:

Does Massachusetts rescind?—Hillsborough's Colonial Administration continued.

---

June—July, 1768.

some weeks would elapse before these orders

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

would become known in the Colony. Meantime, the Commissioners of the Customs assumed more and more airs of haughtiness, with the strangest superciliousness¹ expressed publicly their hatred to the country, and in executing their office, did not shun to give offence. The Romney, a ship of fifty guns sent from Halifax at their request, had, for about a month, lain at anchor in the harbor, and forcibly and insolently impressed New England men returning from. sea. On the morning of the tenth of June, one man [155] who had been impressed, was rescued; and when

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

Nathaniel Waterman went on board the Romney to liberate another by offering a substitute, Conner, the Captain, indulged in a storm of anger. ‘No man,’ said he, ‘shall go out of this vessel. The town is a blackguard town, ruled by mobs; they have begun with me by rescuing a man whom I pressed this morning. By the Eternal God, I will make their hearts ache before I leave it.’² And he continued his impressments, in violation, as the lawyers and people of Boston believed, of an explicit statute.

The Commissioners had a rankling hatred against John Hancock, partly because he with his company of the Boston Cadets had refused to act as escort,³ on the day of the General Election, if they were in the procession; and partly because he openly denounced the revenue Acts. His sloop, named ‘Liberty,’ had discharged her cargo and had taken in freight for a new voyage; when suddenly, on Friday the tenth of June, near sunset, and just as the laborers were returning home, the officers of the customs, obeying the written directions of the Commissioners,⁴ seized her for a false entry, which it was pretended had been made several weeks before. The collector thought she might remain at Hancock's Wharf after she had received the broad arrow;⁵ but the Comptroller had concerted to moor her under the guns of the Romney, which lay a quarter of a mile [156] off, and ‘made a signal for the man of war's boats to

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

come ashore.’

‘You had better let the vessel lie at the wharf,’ said Malcom, to the office. ‘I shall not,’ answered Hallowell the Comptroller, and gave directions to cut the fasts. ‘Stop, at least, till the owner comes,’ said the people who crowded round. ‘No, damn you,’ cried Hallowell, ‘cast her off.’ ‘I'll split out the brains of any man, that offers to reeve a fast, or stop the vessel,’ said the Master of the Romney; and he shouted to the marines, to fire. ‘What rascal is that, who dares to tell the marines to fire?’ cried a Bostoneer; and, turning to Harrison, the Collector, a well-meaning man, who disapproved the violent manner of the seizure, he added, ‘The owner is sent for; you had better let the vessel lie at the wharf till he comes down.’ ‘No, she shall go,’ insisted the Comptroller;! ‘and show me the man who dares oppose it.’⁶ ‘Kill the damned scoundrel,’ cried the Master. ‘We will throw the people from the Romney overboard,’ said Malcom, stung with anger. ‘By God, she shall go,’ repeated the Master and he more than once called to the marines, ‘Why don't you fire?’⁷ and ‘bade them fire.’⁸ So they cut her moorings, and with ropes in the barges, the sloop was towed away to the Romney.

A crowd ‘of boys and negroes’⁹ gathered at the [157] heels¹⁰ of the Custom House Officers, and threw

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

stones, bricks and dirt at them, alarming them, but doing no serious mischief; and while Samuel Adams, Hancock and Warren, with others, were deliberating what was to be done, a mob broke windows in the house of the Comptroller and of an Inspector, and failing to find a boat belonging to the Romney, seized on the Collector's pleasure-boat, dragged it in triumph to Boston Common and burnt it. After this, at about one o'clock, they dispersed,¹¹ and the town resumed its quiet.

On Saturday nothing indicated a recurrence of riots; and the Council¹² had only to appoint a committee to ascertain the facts attending the seizure by the examination of witnesses on the following Monday.

The Commissioners had not been harmed, nor approached, nor menaced. But they chose to consider the incident of the last evening an insurrection, and were provoked that their representations were so little heeded. Four of the five, went on board the Romney;¹³ perhaps a little from panic, but more to support their own exalted notions of their dignity; terrify the town by fear of revenge on the part of England; and ensure the active interposition of the British Government. Temple, one of their number, refused to take part in the artifice, and remained in full security on shore. [158]

During the usual quiet of Sunday,¹⁴ while all the

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

people were ‘at meeting,’ the fugitive officers informed Bernard by letter that they could not, ‘consistent with the honor of their commission, act in any business of the revenue under such an influence, as prevailed’ in Boston, and declared their wish to withdraw to the castle. ‘They have abdicated,’ said the people of Boston, and ‘may they never return.’ They really were in no danger, and every body knew it. They were playing a game to deceive the Ministry. The Council found that the riot of Friday had been only ‘a small disturbance.’ ‘Dangerous disturbances,’ reported Gage, whose information came from royalists, ‘are not to be apprehended.’¹⁵

While the Commissioners stifled their doubts about the wisdom of their conduct, by resolving that ‘the honor of the Crown would be hazarded by their return to Boston,’¹⁶ its inhabitants on the fourteenth met at Faneuil Hall, in a legal town meeting. The attendance was so great that they adjourned to the Old South Meeting House, where Otis was elected moderator, and welcomed with rapturous applause.

In the course of a debate, one person observed that every captain of a man-of-war, on coming into harbor, should be subordinate to the Legislature of the Colony. William Cooper¹⁷ proposed, ‘that if any one should promote the bringing troops here, he [159] should be deemed a disturber of the peace and a trai-

Chap XXXIV} 1768. June.

tor to his country.’¹⁸ An address to the Governor was unanimously agreed upon, which twenty-one men were appointed to deliver.

On adjourning the meeting to four o'clock the next afternoon, Otis, the moderator, made a speech to the inhabitants, strongly recommending peace and good order; and expressing a hope that their grievances might, in time, be removed. ‘If not,’ said he, ‘and we are called on to defend our liberties and privileges, I hope and believe we shall, one and all, resist even unto blood; but I pray God Almighty, that this may never so happen.’¹⁹

Meantime the committee moved in a procession of eleven chaises to the house of the Governor in the country, to present the Address, in which the Town claimed for the province the sole right of taxing itself, expressed a hope the Board of Customs would never re-assume the exercise of their office, commented on impressment, and demanded the removal of the ship Romney from the harbor. In words which Otis approved and probably assisted to write, they said: ‘To contend with our parent state is the most shocking and dreadful extremity, but tamely to relinquish the only security we and our posterity retain for the enjoyment of our lives and properties, without one struggle, is so humiliating and base, that we cannot support the reflection. It is at your option to prevent this distressed and justly incensed people [160] from effecting too much, and from the shame and

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

reproach of attempting too little.’²⁰

Bernard received the address with obsequious courtesy; and the next day gave in writing an in offensive answer, clearing himself of the responsibility for the measures complained of, and promising not indeed to remove the Romney, but to stop impressments. ‘I shall think myself,’ he said, ‘most highly honored if I can be in the lowest degree an instrument in preserving a perfect conciliation between you and the parent state.’²¹

No sooner had he sent this message, than he, and all the officers of the Crown at once busied themselves in concert²² to get regiments ordered to Boston. The Commissioners of the Customs saw in the disturbances of the tenth of June, ‘an insurrection rather than a riot.’²³ A nameless writer, vouched for by the Commissioners, declared, ‘that there was certainly a settled scheme to oppose even the King's troops' landing; that the promoters of the present evils were ready to unmask and openly discover their long and latent design to rebel.’ ‘He that runs may read,’ wrote another; ‘without some speedy interposition, a great storm will arise.’²⁴ The Comptroller and even the worthy Collector reported a ‘general spirit of insurrection, not only in the town, [161] but throughout the province.’²⁵ On the fifteenth of

Chap XXXIV} 1768. June.

June, the Commissioners of the Customs wrote to Gage and to Hood, demanding further protection; for, said they, ‘the leaders of the people of Boston will urge them to open revolt.’²⁶

To the Lords of ,the Treasury they reported ‘a long concerted and extensive plan of resistance to the authority of Great Britain,’ breaking out in ‘acts of violence sooner than was intended;’ and they gave their opinion ‘that nothing but the immediate exertion of military power would prevent an open revolt of the town of Boston, and probably of the Provinces.’²⁷

‘If there is not a revolt,’ wrote Bernard to Hillsborough, ‘the leaders of the Sons of Liberty must falsify their words and change their purposes.’²⁸ Hutchinson sounded the alarm to his various correspondents, especially to Whately,²⁹ to whom Paxton also sent word, that ‘unless they should have immediately two or three regiments, it was the opinion of all the friends to government, that Boston would be in open rebellion.’³⁰ To interpret and enforce the correspondence, Hallowell, the comptroller, was despatched as their emissary to London.³¹

To bring troops into Boston, was the surest way of hastening an insurrection; the letters, soliciting them, may have been kept secret, but the town [162] divined their purpose; and at its legal meeting on

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

Friday, the seventeenth, instructing its representatives in words prepared by John Adams,³² it put its sentiments on record. ‘After the repeal of the last American Stamp Act,’ it said,

we were happy in the pleasing prospect of a restoration of tranquillity and harmony. But the principle on which that detestable act was founded continues in full force, and a revenue is still demanded from America, and appropriated to the maintenance of swarms of officers and pensioners in idleness and luxury. It is our fixed resolution to maintain our loyalty and due subordination to the British Parliament, as the Supreme Legislative in all cases of necessity for the preservation of the whole empire. At the same time, it is our unalterable resolution, to assert and vindicate our dear and invaluable rights and liberties, at the utmost hazard of our lives and fortunes; and we have a full and rational confidence that no designs formed against them will ever prosper.

Every person who shall solicit or promote the importation of troops at this time, is an enemy to this town and Province, and a disturber of the peace and good order of both.

Instructions in Appendix Hutchinson, III. 489-491.

Having given these instructions the Town Meeting broke up. The Assembly, which was in session, had been a spectator of the events; and the very next morning, on motion probably of Otis, a joint committee was raised to inquire ‘if measures had been taken, or were taking, for the execution of the [163] late Revenue Acts of Parliament by a naval or

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

military force.’³³

In the midst of these scenes arrived Hillsborough's letter, directing Massachusetts to rescind its resolutions.³⁴ After timid³⁵ consultations between Bernard, Hutchinson and Oliver, after delays till the town meetings were fairly over, and after offers from Bernard to act as a mediator,³⁶ on Tuesday, the twenty-first of June, the message was delivered. In the afternoon, when it was read a second time to a full house and a gallery crowded with one or two hundred persons,³⁷ Otis spoke for nearly two hours.

‘The King,’ said he, ‘appoints none but boys for his Ministers. They have no education but travelling through France, from whence they return full of the slavish principles of that country. They know nothing of business when they come into their offices, and do not stay long enough in them to acquire that little knowledge which is gained by experience; so that all business is really done by the clerks.’ He passed an encomium on Oliver Cromwell, and extolled the times preceding his advancement, and particularly the sentence pronounced by the people of England on their King, contrasting the days of the Puritans with the present days, when the people of England no longer knew the rights of Englishmen. He praised, in the highest language, ‘the elegant, pure, and nervous Petition to the King,’ [164] adopted the last session by the Assembly, but

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

rejected by the Minister. And showing the impossibility of their consenting to rescind measures of an Assembly which had ceased to exist, measures which had already been executed, measures which they more and more approved of, ‘I hope,’ said he, ‘another Congress will take place.³⁸ When Lord Hillsborough knows that we will not rescind our acts, he should apply to Parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britain rescind their measures or they are lost for ever.’³⁹

Meantime the Governor became ludicrously panicstruck. At one moment he fancied that the people would rise and take possession of the castle; and, in the next he wished to withdraw to the castle for security.

The Assembly were aware that they were deliberating upon more important subjects than had ever engaged the attention of an American Legislature. They knew that the Ministry was bent on humbling them. The continent was watching to see if they dared be firm. They were consoled by the sympathy of Connecticut,⁴⁰ and New Jersey.⁴¹ But when the letter from Virginia⁴² was received, it gave courage more than all the rest. ‘This is a glorious [165] day,’ said Samuel Adams, using words which, seven

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. June.

years later, he was to repeat. ‘This is the most glorious day ever seen,’ responded his friend, Samuel Cooper. The merchants of Boston met, and successfully renewed the agreement not to import from England.⁴³

The House, employing the pen of Samuel Adams⁴⁴ without altering a word, reported a letter⁴⁵ to Lord

Hillsborough, in which they showed that the Circular Letter of February was, indeed, the declared sense of a large majority of their body; and expressed their reliance on the clemency of the King, that to petition him would not be deemed inconsistent with respect for the British constitution, nor to acquaint their fellow-subjects of their having done so, be discountenanced as an inflammatory proceeding.

Then came the great question, taken in the fullest House ever remembered. The votes were given by word of mouth, and against seventeen that were willing to yield, ninety-two refused to rescind. They finished their work by a message to the Governor, thoroughly affirming the doings from which they had been ordered to dissent. On this Bernard, trembling with fear,⁴⁶ prorogued them, and then dissolved the Assembly.

Massachusetts was left without a Legislature

July

Its people had no intention to begin a rebellion; but only to defend their liberties, which had the [166] sanction of natural right and of historic tradition.

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

‘The Americans,’ observed the clear-sighted Du Chatelet,⁴⁷ ‘have no longer need of support from the British Crown, and see in the projects of their metropolis measures of tyranny and oppression.’ ‘I apprehend a breach between the two countries,’ owned Franklin.⁴⁸ ‘I was always of opinion since the accession of George the Third, that matters would issue the way you now expect,’ wrote Hollis⁴⁹ to a New England man, who predicted independence; ‘you are an ungracious people. There is original sin in you. You are assertors of Liberty, and the principles of the Revolution.’

‘The whole body of the people of New Hampshire were resolved to stand or fall with the Massachusetts.’ ‘It is best,’ counselled the good Langdon⁵⁰ of Portsmouth, ‘for the Americans to let the King know the utmost of their resolutions, and the danger of a violent rending of the Colonies from the mother country.’ ‘No Assembly on the Continent,’ said Roger Sherman⁵¹ of Connecticut, ‘will ever concede that Parliament has a right to tax the Colonies.’ ‘The Parliament of England has no more jurisdiction over us,’ declared the politicians of that Colony, ‘than the Parliament of Paris.’⁵² ‘We cannot believe,’ wrote William Williams⁵³ of Lebanon, ‘that they will draw the sword on their own children; but [167] if they do, our blood is more at their service than

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

our liberties.’

In New-York, the merchants still held those meetings, which Hillsborough called, ‘if not illegal and unwarrantable, very unnatural, ungrateful, and unbecoming.’ ‘The circumstances of the Colonies demand firmer union,’⁵⁴ said men of Pennsylvania. ‘The Colonies,’ wrote Chandler,⁵⁵ the churchman, ‘will soon experience worse things than in the time of the late Stamp Act, or I am no prophet.’ The Assembly of Maryland treated Lord Hillsborough's letter with the contempt he had ordered them to show for the Circular of Massachusetts. ‘We shall not be intimidated by a few sounding expressions from doing what we think is right,’ said they in their formal reply;⁵⁶ and they sent their thanks to Massachusetts, ‘their sister Colony, in whose opinion they declared they exactly coincided.’⁵⁷ As for South Carolina, they could not enough praise the glorious ninety-two who would not rescind; toasting them at banquets, and marching by night through the streets of Charleston, in processions to their honor by the blaze of two and ninety torches.

English statesmen were blindly adopting measures to carry out their restrictive policy;⁵⁸ establishing in America Courts of Vice Admiralty at Halifax, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston,⁵⁹ on the [168] system of Grenville; taking an account of the cost to

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

the Exchequer of the Stamp Act, so as to draw on the sinking fund to liquidate the loss;⁶⁰ or meditating to offer the Colonies some partial and inadequate representation in Parliament;⁶¹ inattentive to the character of events which were leading to the renovation of the world. Not so the Americans. Village theologians studied the Book of Revelation⁶² to see which seal was next to be broken, which angel was next to sound his trumpet. ‘Is not God preparing the way in his Providence,’⁶³ thus New England ministers communed together, ‘for some remarkable revolutions in Christendom, both in polity and religion?’ And as they pondered on the prophecies of the New Testament, they were convinced that ‘the time was drawing very near, when the man of sin would be destroyed, and the Church,’ which, in the mouth of New England divines, included civil and religious liberty, ‘would rise and spread through the nations.’

Who will deny that the race has a life and progress of its own, swaying its complex mind by the guiding truths which it developes as it advances? While New England was drawing from the Bible proof of the nearness of the overthrow of tyranny, Turgot at Paris, explained to David Hume the perfectibility and onward movement of the race.⁶⁴ ‘The British Government,’ said he, [169] ‘is very far from being an enlightened one. As yet

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

none is thoroughly so. But tyranny combined with superstition, vainly strives to stifle light and liberty by methods alike atrocious and useless; the world will be conducted through transient disorders to a happier condition.’

In that progress the emancipation of America was to form a glorious part; and was the great object of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs. ‘We must put aside projects and attend to facts,’ wrote Choiseul⁶⁵ to Du Chatelet in July, after a conversation of six hours with a person intimately acquainted with America.

My idea, which perhaps is but a reverie, is, to examine the possibility of a treaty of commerce, both of importation and exportation, of which the obvious advantages might attract the Americans. Will it not be possible to present them, at the moment of a rupture, an interest powerful enough to detach them at once from their Metropolis? According to the prognostications of sensible men, who have had opportunity to study the character of the Americans, and to measure their progress from day to day in the spirit of independence, this separation of the American Colonies from the metropolis, sooner or later, must come. The plan I propose hastens its epoch.

It is the true interest of the Colonies to secure for ever their entire liberty, and establish their direct commerce with France and with the world. The great point will be to secure their neutrality, which will necessarily bring on a treaty of alliance [170] with France and Spain. They may want

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

confidence in the strength of our navy; they may raise suspicions of our fidelity to our engagements; they may fear the English squadrons; they may hope for success against the Spaniards and against ourselves. I see all these difficulties and do not dissemble their extent; but I see also the controlling interest of the Americans to profit by the opportunity of a rupture to establish their independence. This cannot be done without risks; but he that stops at difficulties will never attempt any thing.

We have every reason to hope, that the Government on this side will conduct itself in a manner to increase the breach, not to close it up. Such is its way. True, some sagacious observers think it not only possible but easy to reconcile the interests of the Colonies and the mother country; but I see many obstacles in the way, I meet too many persons of my way of thinking, and the course pursued thus far by the British Government seems to me completely opposite to what it ought to be to effect this conciliation.

While time and humanity, the principles of English liberty, the impulse of European Philosophy, and the policy of France were all assisting to emancipate America, the British colonial Administration, which was to place itself as a barrier against destiny and stop the natural force of moral causes in their influence on the affairs of men, vibrated in its choice of measures between terror and artifice. From a prevailing opinion of Hillsborough's abilities, American affairs were left by the other Ministers very [171] much to his management;⁶⁶ and he took his opin-

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

ions from Bernard. That favorite Governor was now promising the Council of Massachusetts, that if they would omit to discuss the question of the power of Parliament, he would support their Petition for relief. The Council followed the advice,⁶⁷ and Bernard, as a fulfilling of his engagement, wrote a letter which he showed to several of them, recommending that part of the Petition praying relief against such Acts as were made for the purpose of drawing a revenue from the Colonies.⁶⁸ Then in a secret letter of the same date, he sent an elaborate argument⁶⁹ against the repeal or any mitigation of the late revenue Act; quieting his conscience for the fraud by saying, that ‘drawing a revenue from the Colonies,’ meant carrying a revenue out of them; and that he wished to see the revenue from the Port Duties expended on the resident officers of the Crown.⁷⁰

Great Britain at that time had a colonial Secretary [172] who encouraged this duplicity, and wrote an

Chap. XXXIV.} 1768. July.

answer to be shown the Council,⁷¹ keeping up the deception, and even using the name of the King, as a partner in the falsehood.⁷² Hillsborough greedily drank in the flattery offered him, and affected distress at showing the King the expressions of the partiality of his correspondent.⁷³ In undertaking the ‘very arduous task of reducing America into good order,’ he congratulated himself on having ‘the aid of a Governor, zealous, able and active,’ like Bernard, who, having educated Hutchinson for his successor, was now promised the rank of a baronet, and the administration of Virginia.