A BRIEF OF EVENTS FROM MARCH, 1770, TO DECEMBER, 1774.

THE reasons which led to the repeal of the Stamp Act prevailed also against the act of 1767, which was repealed in March, 1770, excepting as to the duty on tea. The British ministry, with Governor Hutchinson and his fellow-conspirators, found that British bayonets were powerless against non-importation agreements, and that British merchants would not willingly lose their American commerce. Yet Lord North, with singular fatuity, while making this second surrender to the spirit of the "rebel" colonies, said: "A total repeal cannot be thought of till America is prostrate at our feet”! - - an anomalous position, offering terms of capitulation, and in the same breath demanding unconditional submission!

Mr. Pownall, who had a thorough knowledge of the colonies, moved for a total repeal. "If it be asked," he said, "whether it will remove the apprehensions excited by your resolutions and address of the last year for bringing to trial in England persons accused of treason in America, I answer, no. If it be asked, if this commercial concession would quiet the minds of the Americans as to the political doubts and fears which have struck them to the heart throughout the continent, I answer, no. So long as they are left in doubt whether the Habeas Corpus Act, whether the Bill of Rights, whether the Common Law as now existing in England, have any operation and effect in America, they cannot be satisfied. At this hour they know not whether the civil constitutions be not suspended and superseded by the establishment of a military force. The Americans think they have, in return to all their applications, experienced a temper and discipline that is unfriendly; that the enjoyment and exercise of the common rights of freemen have been refused to them. Never, with these views, will they solicit the favor of this House; never more will they wish to bring before Parliament the grievances under which they conceive

themselves to labor. Deeply as they feel, they suffer and endure with a determined and alarming silence. For their liberty they are under no apprehensions. It was first planted under the genius of the constitution; it has grown up into a verdant and flourishing tree; and should any severe strokes be aimed at the branches, and fate reduce it to the bare stock, it would only take deeper root, and spring out again more hardy and durable than before. They trust to Providence, and wait with firmness and fortitude the issue."

The House of Representatives, relying on the Massachusetts charter as a compact, in a message to Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, July 31, 1770, deny that "even his Majesty in Council has any constitutional authority to decide any controversies whatever that arise in this province, excepting only such matters as are reserved in the charter;" and they "are clearly of opinion that your Honor is under no obligation to hold the General Court at Cambridge, let your instructions be conceived in terms ever so peremptory, inasmuch as it is inconsistent and injurious to the province." They quote Mr. Locke on civil government, in the matter of prerogative, that the people have "reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind where there lies no appeal on earth, viz., to judge whether they have just cause to make their appeal to Heaven." They add: "We would by no means be understood to suggest that this people have occasion at present to proceed to such extremity." On June 19th, 1771, they again "protest against all such doctrines, principles, and practices as tend to establish either ministerial or even royal instructions as laws within the province." Hutchinson replied that the charter was a mere grant of "privileges" from the crown, which might be cancelled at any time, and that he must act in conformity to his “instructions" or not at all. In a message to the governor, on July 5th, they say: "We know of no commissioners of his Majesty's customs, nor of any revenue his Majesty has a right to establish in North America; we know and feel a tribute levied and extorted from those who, if they have property, have a right to the absolute disposal of it."

The apparent lull in public feeling in 1770-72 alarmed the patriot leaders; but it was the calm before a storm. The sight of foreign soldiery and hostile fleets to enforce an odious despotism from another land, daily demonstrated that non-resistance was slavery. The capture and destruction of one of the British armed revenue vessels which lined our coasts the Gaspee, at Providence, R. I., on the night of June 10th, 1772- was the first overt act of resistance, and the people said Amen!

It would be difficult, perhaps, to assign to any one specially the idea of committees of correspondence as the most efficient means of unity and of concert of action. As already stated, Dr. Mayhew had, in 1766, suggested the thought to Mr. Otis. Gordon says that Mr. Samuel Adams visited Mr. James Warren, at Plymouth, to confer with him on the best plan for counteracting the misrepresentations of Governor Hutchinson that the discontented were a mere faction, and Mr. Warren proposed the committees of correspondence. Mr. Adams was pleased with it, and the machinery was put in operation at the first favorable opportunity. As the government and defence of a free people depend upon its own voluntary support, and Governor Hutchinson refused a salary from the province, and accepted it of the crown, the General Court did "most solemnly protest that the innovation is an important change of the constitution, and exposes the province to a despotic administration of government."

The Boston "Committee of Correspondence," appointed at this juncture "to state the rights of the colonists as men, as Christians,

and as subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several towns in this province, and to the world," made their report, at a town meeting in Faneuil Hall, on the 20th of November, 1772. They quote freely from "Locke on Government," of which there was a Boston edition published soon after. They declare that, "in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, men have a right to leave the society they belong to and enter into another." That in religion there should be mutual toleration of all professions "whose doctrines are not subversive of society," a principle which excludes the Papists, for they teach "that princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those they call heretics may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing, as far as possible, into the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property, that solecism in politics, Imperium in imperio, leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war, and bloodshed. . . . That the right to freedom being the gift of GOD ALMIGHTY, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave." "The colonists," they say, "have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is submitted." They enumerate, among their grievances, the revenue acts, the presence of standing armies and of hosts of officers for their enforcement; the rendering

1 See page 44.

the governor, judges, and other officers, independent of the people by salaries from the crown, "which will, if accomplished, complete our slavery;" the instructions to the governor whereby he "is made merely a ministerial engine;" the surrender of the provincial fortress, Castle William, to the troops, beyond the provincial control; the suspension of the New York Legislature "until they should quarter the British troops;" "the various attempts which have been made, and are now made, to establish an American Episcopate," though "no power on earth can justly give either temporal or spiritual jurisdiction within this province except the great and general court."

The report, with "a letter of correspondence," was printed and sent to "the selectmen of every town in the province." It was like the match to a well-laid train, and there burst forth from every quarter responses of such spirit and severity against "these mighty grievances and intolerable wrongs," the change in the state of affairs was "so sudden and unexpected," as to greatly alarm and perplex the governor, now helpless and friendless, and his subsequent controversies with the House only tended to strengthen the colonial cause. Virginia approved of all this; the system of correspondence was extended to the colonies, and laid the foundation of that union which resulted in the general congress at Philadelphia, in September, 1774.

The report of the proceedings of the Boston town-meetings was reprinted in London in 1773, with a preface, written by Dr. Franklin, to expose the misrepresentations of Lord Dartmouth and the ministry, that the discontented were only a faction, and to show that the true causes of discontent might be well understood. This greatly irritated the ministry. The discovery and publication, in 1773, of the confidential letters of Oliver, Hutchinson, and other "government" men, exasperated the people against the authors. Then followed the destruction of the tea in Boston harbor, and similar conduct in Philadelphia and New York; and the sequence was, the Boston Port Bill, which recited "That the opposition to the authority of Parliament had always originated in the colony of Massachusetts, and that the colony itself had ever been instigated to such conduct by the seditious proceedings of the town of Boston." It destroyed the commerce of the port. Many were distressed for the necessaries of life; but the act operated as a bond of sympathy between the

1 "No tyranny so secure, none so intolerable, none so dangerous, none so remediless, as that of executive courts.”—Josiah Quincy, Jr., 1772.

colonies, and excited a feeling of brotherhood and union against England. General Gage arrived at Boston May 13, 1774, as commander-in-chief of the king's forces, and as Governor of Massachusetts. "The Episcopal clergy" and others addressed Governor Hutchinson, just before he sailed for England, June 1st, “expressing their approbation of his public conduct, and their affectionate wishes for his prosperity," though he was execrated by all others. On his arrival there he found that the ministry had adopted the policy advised in his letters of 1768-9, and annulled the charter, as to the executive and judicial powers, and thus he saw the ruin of his country, if it could be effected, the work of his own ingratitude and selfish ambition. And, as if intended for a beacon, and an exemplar to the other colonies of the animus and real principles of their enemies, another act established in Canada the Papal Church and a civil despotism in harmony with the history and genius of that hierarchy.

In one of their letters, the patriots say, "that a people long inured to hardships lose by degrees the very notions of liberty; they look upon themselves as creatures, at mercy, and that all impositions laid on by superior hands are legal and obligatory; so debased that they even rejoice at being subject to the caprice and arbitrary power of a tyrant, and kiss their chains. But, thank Heaven! this is not yet verified in America. We have yet some share of public virtue remaining. We are not afraid of poverty, but disdain slavery. The fate of nations is so precarious, and revolutions in states so often take place at an unexpected moment, when the hand of power has secured every avenue of retreat, and the mind of the subject so debased to its purpose, that it becomes every well-wisher to his country, while it has any remains of freedom, to keep an eagle eye upon every innovation and stretch of power in those that have the rule over us. .. Let us disappoint the men who are raising themselves on the ruin of this country.”

The rapid course of events in 1774 electrified the Sons of Liberty. The arrogance of the ministry, and the severity and abruptness of their acts in Parliament, were met by a spirit of stern defiance, and there swept along the Atlantic shores of the American colonies such a chorus for liberty as was never heard before in national tragedy. The Provincial Congress, - representatives of freemen, - assembled now, not by virtue of paltry parchments from blasphemous "sacred Majesty," but by charter from the ALMIGHTY, to whom they make solemn appeal, assumes every power of a legal government; for" says General Gage" their edicts are implicitly obeyed throughout the continent." They "resolve," and