Lords," he said, "if the descendants of such illustrious characters [as had founded the Colonies] spurn with contempt the hand of unconstitutional power that would snatch from them such dear-bought privileges as they now contend for? . . . . This, my Lords, though no new doctrine, has always been my received and unalterable opinion, and I will carry it to my grave, — that this country had no right under heaven to tax America. . . . . Instead of adding to their miseries, as the Bill now before you most undoubtedly does, adopt some lenient measures which may lure them to their duty. Proceed like a kind and affectionate parent over a child whom he tenderly loves, and instead of these harsh and severe proceedings, pass an amnesty on all their youthful errors. Clasp them once more in your fond and affectionate arms, and I will venture to affirm you will find them children worthy of their sire." "1 In Lord North's well-stored quiver was one barbed arrow more. In his (or, as it was ostensibly, Lord Dartmouth's) "Act making more effectual provision for the government of the Province of Quebec in North America, was discerned a claim to erect in any Province in America an indefinite authority like that which under a despot of the house of Stuart distressed Massachusetts ninety years before. 1774. A few days after intelligence of the passing of May. the Boston Port Bill reached Massachusetts, the 1 On the Quebec Act there was, between May 26 and June 13, a vehement debate, of which little was known till, in 1839, a new settlement being then projected for Canada, the full notes of Sir Henry Cavendish, who was a member of the House of. Commons from 1768 to 1774, were disinterred from among the Egerton manuscripts in the British Museum, and this portion of them was published in an octavo volume of three hundred pages. Walpole (Memoirs of Reign of George III., II. 333) uses this lan guage: The plan of the establishment of a civil government in Canada "remained unsettled till the year 1774, when the famous bill, called the Quebec bill, in favour of Popery, was passed, and, agreeably to the supposed author Lord Mansfield's arbitrary principles, took away decisions by juries." General Court assembled agreeably to a provision of the charter. General Thomas Gage, who for eleven years had been Commander-in-Chief of the King's forces in North America, now first appeared as Governor of Massachusetts, it being thought to be for the King's service, in the existing circumstances, that the headquarters of the army should be in Boston. Twenty-six Counsellors were chosen for the current year, of whom the new Governor disallowed thirteen, and no step was taken to supply the vacancies. In his brief opening speech, the Governor announced that he had "the King's particular commands for holding the General Court at Salem from the first of next month, until his Majesty shall have signified his royal will and pleasure for holding it again at Boston." The House, by a vote of 123 against 8, "ordered that the Committee of Correspondence be directed to write to the Committees of Correspondence of all the British Colonies on this continent, enclosing a copy of an unprecedented act of the British Parliament for shutting up the Port of Boston and otherwise punishing the inhabitants of said town, and desiring their immediate attention to an act designed to suppress the spirit of liberty;" and considering that "the inhabitants of this Province labored under very great difficulties and distresses which called for a public acknowledgment of the Supreme Ruler of the world, under whose gracious providence alone we may expect relief," they prayed the Governor to appoint a day of solemn prayer and fasting; a request to which, as was probably expected, he gave no attention. They went through the form of "granting to his Majesty the sum of thirteen hundred pounds for the support of his Excellency the Governor," and after a four days' session. were adjourned for ten days, to meet next at Salem. At Salem, the House passed Resolves, complaining, with the usual arguments, of the "very great griev"of being convoked at another place than 1774. June. 1 Boston. They appointed the Speaker, Mr. Hawley, Mr. S. Adams, and six others, to be a Committee "to consider the state of the Province and the Act of Parliament for shutting up the harbor of Boston," and proceeded to business of routine while the Committee was at its work. After a week, the Speaker announced that the fruit of their deliberations was ready. The House received it Iwith closed doors. The Committee reported, and the House adopted, a series of Resolves, recommending an invitation to "the several Colonies on this continent" to meet in Congress" to consult upon the present state of the Colonies, and the miseries to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America, and to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures to be by them recommended to all the Colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies, most ardently desired by all good men;" proposing "to all, and more especially the inhabi tants of this Province, to afford them [the inhabitants of Boston and Charlestown] speedy and constant relief in such way and manner as shall be most suitable to their circumstances, till the sense and advice of our sister Colonies shall be known, in full confidence that they will exhibit examples of patience, fortitude, and perseverance, while they are thus called to endure this oppression for the preservation of the liberties of their country;" requesting the towns, with a view to the expenses about to be incurred, to place moneys in the hands of the Speaker in proportion to the sums levied upon them respectively by the customary Province Tax; and urging upon the inhabitants of the Province to "renounce altogether the 1 The House did not omit to keep alive the claim of the unpaid agents in London. June 14 and 16 it passed votes for compensating Franklin, Bollan, and De Berdt. consumption of India Teas, and, as far as in them lies, discontinue the use of all goods and manufactures whatsoever that shall be imported from the East Indies and Great Britain, until the public grievances of America shall be radically and totally redressed." The Governor, informed how the House was employed, sent the Secretary with his proclamation dissolving the Court, "the proceedings of the House of Representatives in the present session" making that measure - so the Proclamation alleged - -"necessary for his Majesty's service." The Secretary could not obtain admission to the Representatives' Hall, and read the paper outside of the door. It was the last message of a royal Governor to a General Court of Massachusetts. 1774. June 1. On the day of the assembling of the Court at Salem, and of Governor Hutchinson's departure from America, the Boston Port Bill took effect. Boston had been an active commercial town, and in one way or another almost all its inhabitants lived upon commerce. The Port Bill, in closing the harbor to navigation, struck a heavy blow at them all, from those in easy circumstances to those who depended for their day's living on their day's work. Business of all kinds came to a stand-still. Men of property received no rents. Mechanics had no employment. Laboring men could earn no wages. One may gain some partial conception of the state of things in Boston at that time by imagining to what misery one of our large manufacturing towns would be reduced if a fire should sweep away at once all its buildings and machinery. But even such a catastrophe would but imperfectly represent the ruin which was now wrought in Boston; for the population of our manufacturing towns is in great part migratory, having little 1 I have read somewhere that in Boston Custom House, and 411 clearthe year 1772, when its commerce ances. But I cannot now refer to was already much crippled, there the authority. were 587 entries of vessels at the dependence on any immovable property in the place of their present habitation, and able, without much sacrifice, should occasion require it, to transfer their gainful industry to some other place. The day was observed in other parts of the country with demonstrations of public mourning. The Ministry had flattered themselves that the commerce of the country would be carried on by rival ports, profited as these would be by the desertion of the chief town. On the contrary, at the rival ports people were thinking of nothing so much as how the sufferings of Boston, incurred in the common cause, could be lightened. Salem and Marblehead, the two next most important marts of the Province, offered to the Boston merchants the gratuitous use of their wharves and warehouses, and the services of their people in discharging and unloading their vessels. It did not take long for the stagnation to bring actual want. The richer sort in the stricken town, though beginning to be straitened themselves, opened their purses to their more needy neighbors. Presently contributions of money, of fuel, and of different kinds of food came in from the country towns of Massachusetts; then from other parts of New England,' from the Colonies 1774. July. 1 The free constitution of these Colonies makes them such nurseries of freemen as cannot fail to alarm an arbitrary ministry. They only wait a favorable opportunity to abolish their charters, as they have done that of the Massachusetts Bay. We know the principle the Parliament have adopted and openly profess to act upon, that they have a right to alter or annihilate charters when they judge it convenient. And we may depend upon it, whenever they shall think it can be done without raising too great commotions in the Colonies, they will judge it convenient. Some may imagine it was the destroying the tea induced the Parliament to change the government of the Massachusetts Bay. If it was, surely 't is very extraordinary to punish a whole Province and their posterity through all ages, for the conduct of a few individuals. How soon will a riot or some disorder of a few individuals afford them a pretext for the like treatment of all the other charter governments." (Samuel Sherwood, Fast Sermon at Fairfield, Aug. 31, 1774, p. 69.) "Suffer me then to entreat you [of the western parts of the Colony of Connecticut] in some proper way to show your hearty concurrence with other parts of the continent in the cause of American liberty. . . . and to open your hearts |