1774. Oct. While the Continental Congress was thus employed, there had been in Massachusetts a session of a body which took to itself the name of the Provincial Congress. The Governor had issued his precepts for the choice of Representatives to a new General Court, but, probably on account of the resignation of the Mandamus Counsellors,1 had altered his mind, and prorogued the Court before the designated day. Ninety Representatives, however, or more, came together; and, the Governor not appearing, as they could not have expected that he would, they chose John Hancock to be their chairman, and voted that they "do now resolve themselves into a Provincial Congress, to be joined by such other persons as have been or shall be chosen for that purpose, to take into consideration the dangerous and alarming situation of public affairs in this Province, and to consult and determine on such measures as they shall judge will tend to promote the true interest of his Majesty, and the peace, welfare, and prosperity of the Province." At Concord, to which town they removed from Salem, they appointed sixteen persons, known as among the most zealous of their number, to constitute "a Committee to take into consideration the State of the Province." They sent a message to the Governor, remonstrating against his "hostile preparations," and resolved that public moneys in the hands of collecting officers should not be paid to the Treasurer of the Province, but should be reserved to await the further directions of "a constitutional Assembly," and that assessors should proceed as usual to apportion the tax levied by the last General Court, and pay it over to receivers authorized by 1 The reasons alleged by him for his change of purpose were "the many tumults and disorders which have since taken place, the extraor dinary Resolves which have been passed in many of the counties, the instructions given by the town of Boston and some other towns to their Representatives, and the present disordered State of the Province." (Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 3.) the several towns and districts. They then adjourned to Cambridge. Assembled at Cambridge, they received from the Governor, in answer to their Address, a defence of his measures as at once harmless and necessary, and a warning to desist from their "illegal and unconstitutional proceedings." Having resolved to sit for the future with closed. doors, they raised Committees "to make as minute an inquiry into the present state and operations of the army as may be," and "to consider what is necessary to be now done for the defence and safety of the Province." They resolved that such Mandamus Counsellors as should have failed, after ten days, to give satisfactory assurances of their determination not to act in that capacity, should be denounced by name in the newspapers "as infamous betrayers of their country," and "rebels against the State." They recommended "to the people of the Province an abhorrence and detestation of all kinds of East India teas," and advised that every town and district appoint a Committee to post up in some public place the names of all . . . . who should sell or consume so extravagant and unnecessary an article of luxury." They appointed a day of thanksgiving, to be held at the customary season, in which special consideration was to be had of "the union, so remarkably prevailing, not only in this Province, but throughout the continent, at this alarming crisis." They resolved on the purchase of powder, ordnance, and ordnance stores to the amount of more than twenty thousand pounds. They constituted a permanent Committee of Safety, with comprehensive military powers; made a complete organization of the militia; embodied a force of minute-men, consisting of one quarter part of the force of the Colony, and appointed to the chief command Jedediah Preble, Artemas Ward, and Seth Pomeroy, veterans of the old French War. They chose a ReceiverGeneral, to act in the place of the Provincial Treasurer, to whom public moneys were no longer to be paid. They invited the Counsellors chosen by the last General Court, but disallowed by the Governor, to attend at their next meeting, as "the constitutional members of his Majesty's Council," that the Congress might "have the benefit of their advice." They sent to the Governor and published in the newspapers a further remonstrance against his course and vindication of their own, in a reply to his answer to their message, and then adjourned their session, to be held again, after three weeks, in the same place.1 1774. Dec. When the Provincial Congress next met, they had received a copy of the proceedings of the Continental Congress, which, after careful deliberations, they approved and ratified for their own jurisdiction. Little remained to be done by them till they should be informed, after the meeting of Parliament, of the reception of their proceedings during the summer and autumn; for sanguine men, and not the sanguine alone, still entertained a hope that the resolution and unanimity which had been manifested in America in respect to a commercial non-intercourse, would lead to a reversal of the oppressive English policy which was complained of. They chose for members from Massachusetts of the next Continental Congress the same four gentlemen who had served in the last, with the addition of John Hancock. They addressed to the towns an appeal for liberal contributions for the relief of Boston and Charlestown, and to the clergy an exhortation to interest themselves with the people of their several congregations in favor of "the resolutions of the Continental Congress, as the most peaceable and probable method of preventing confusion and bloodshed." They ordered a census of the number of inhabitants, and the quantity of exports and imports of merchandise and of the manufactures of all kinds in this Colony, for the use 1 Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 3-48. of the next Continental Congress; and meantime, they recommended increased attention to various kinds of manufactures. They added two general officers, John Thomas and William Heath, to the three already chosen. They issued an Address to the inhabitants, exhorting them at once to constancy, and to abstinence from all disorderly behavior in that " post of honor, because the post of danger, in which they were placed by Providence.' They recommended to the towns a thorough arming and frequent drilling of their minute-men, and expressed their sense of security in the Divine blessing on the prep arations they had made. They then dissolved themselves, with a recommendation to the towns to send Representatives to a similar Congress, to meet after an interval of eight weeks.1 1 Journals of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, 48-74. CHAPTER XIII. Nov. THE British Parliament which enacted the Boston Port Bill was near its legal close, and was dissolved without another session. For the new Parliament, a House of Commons was chosen in which the Ministry commanded a majority still stronger than that by which it had passed the laws so offensive to America. The King made 1774. those laws the first topic in his speech at the opening of the Parliament. "It gives me," he said, “much concern that I am obliged to inform you that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the law still unhappily prevails in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and has in divers parts of it broke forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature. These proceedings have been countenanced and encouraged in other of my Colonies, and unwarrantable attempts have been made to obstruct the Commerce of this Kingdom by unlawful combinations." And he added: "You may depend on my firm and steadfast resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of this legislature over all the dominions of my crown, assuring myself that, while I act upon these principles, I shall never fail to receive your assistance and support.' The answer which had been prepared for the House of Lords 1 By November 29, when Parliament came together, there must have been information in England of all that was most important in the action of the Continental Congress and the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, though not probably of the termination of the sessions of those bodies. |