History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution. Mercy Otis Warren

of their former charter, admiral Graves arrived in Boston, with several ships of the line and a number of transports laden with troops, military stores, and all warlike accoutrements. The troops landed peaceably, took possession of the open grounds, and formed several encampments within the town.

      At the same time arrived the bill for new modelling the government of the Massachusetts. By this bill their former charter was entirely vacated: a council of thirty-six members was appointed by mandamus, to hold their places during the king’s pleasure; all judges, justices, sheriffs, &c. were to be appointed by the governor, without the advice of council, and to be removed at his sole option. Jurors in future were to be named by the sheriff, instead of the usual and more impartial mode of drawing them by lot. All town-meetings without express leave from the governor were forbidden, except those annually held in the spring for the [143] choice of representatives and town-officers. Several other violations of the former compact completed the system.

      This new mode of government, though it had been for some time expected, occasioned such loud complaints, such universal murmurs, that several of the newly appointed counsellors had not the courage to accept places which they were sensible would reflect disgrace on their memory. Two of them^* seemed really to decline from principle, and publickly declared they would have no hand in the dereliction of the rights of their country. Several others relinquished their seats for fear of offending their countrymen; but most of them, selected by Mr. Hutchinson as proper instruments for the purpose, were destitute of all ideas of public virtue. They readily took the qualifying oaths, and engaged to lend their hand to erase the last vestige of freedom in that devoted province.

      The people still firm and undaunted, assembled in multitudes and repaired to the houses of the obnoxious counsellors. They demanded an immediate resignation of their unconstitutional appointments, and a solemn assurance that they would never accept any office incompatible with the former privileges enjoyed by their country. Some of them terrified by the [144] resolution of the people complied, and remained afterwards quiet and unmolested in their own houses. Others, who had prostrated all principle in the hope of preferment, and were hardy enough to go every length to secure it, conscious of the guilty part they had acted, made their escape into Boston where they were sure of the protection of the king’s troops. Indeed that unhappy town soon became the receptacle of all the devotees to ministerial measures from every part of the province: they there consoled themselves with the barbarous hope, that parliament would take the severest measures to enforce their own acts; nor were these hopes unfounded.

      It has been observed that by the late edict for the better administration of justice in the Massachusetts, any man was liable on the slightest suspicion of treason, or misprision of treason, to be dragged from his own family or vicinity, to any part of the king of England’s dominions for trial. It was now reported that general Gage had orders to arrest the leading characters in opposition, and transport them beyond sea, and that a reinforcement of troops might be hourly expected sufficient to enable him to execute all the mad projects of a rash and unprincipled ministry.

      Though the operation of this system in its utmost latitude was daily threatened and expected, [145] it made little impression on a people determined to withhold even a tacit consent to any infractions on their charter. They considered the present measures as a breach of a solemn covenant, which at the same time that it subjected them to the authority of the king of England, stipulated to them the equal enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of free and natural born subjects. They chose to hazard the consequences of returning back to a state of nature, rather than quietly submit to unjust and arbitrary measures continually accumulating. This was a dangerous experiment, though they were sensible that the necessities of man will soon restore order and subordination, even from confusion and anarchy: on the contrary, the yoke of despotism once rivetted, no human sagacity can justly calculate its termination.

      While matters hung in this suspense, the people in all the shire towns collected in prodigious numbers to prevent the sitting of the courts of common law; forbidding the justices to meet, or the jurors to empannel, and obliging all civil magistrates to bind themselves by oath, not to conform to the late acts of parliament in any judiciary proceedings; and all military officers were called upon to resign their commissions. Thus were the bands of society relaxed, law set at defiance, and government unhinged throughout the province. Perhaps this may be [146] marked in the annals of time, as one of the most extraordinary eras in the history of man: the exertions of spirit awakened by the severe hand of power had led to that most alarming experiment of levelling all ranks, and destroying all subordination.

      It cannot be denied that nothing is more difficult than to restrain the provoked multitude, when once aroused by a sense of wrong, from that supineness which generally overspreads the common class of mankind. Ignorant and fierce, they know not in the first ebullitions of resentment, how to repel with safety the arm of the oppressor. It is a work of time to establish a regular opposition to long established tyranny. A celebrated writer has observed, that “men bear with the defects in their police, as they do with their inconveniences and hardships in living:” and perhaps the facility of the human mind in adapting itself to its circumstances, was never more remarkably exemplified, than it was at this time in America.

      Trade had long been embarrassed throughout the colonies by the restraints of parliament and the rapacity of revenue officers; the shutting up the port of Boston was felt in every villa of the New England colonies; the bill for altering the constitution of Massachusetts, prevented all [147] legislative proceedings; the executive officers were rendered incapable of acting in their several departments, and the courts of justice shut up. It must be ascribed to the virtue of the people, however reluctant some may be to acknowledge this truth, that they did not feel the effects of anarchy in the extreme.

      But a general forbearance and complacency seemed for a time almost to preclude the necessity of legal restraint; and except in a few instances, when the indiscretion of individuals provoked abuse, there was less violence and personal insult than perhaps ever was known in the same period of time, when all political union was broken down, and private affection weakened, by the virulence of party prejudice, which generally cuts in sunder the bands of social and friendly connexion. The people irritated in the highest degree, the sword seemed to be half drawn from the scabbard, while the trembling hand appeared unwilling to display its whetted point; and all America, as well as the Massachusetts, suspended all partial opposition, and waited in anxious hope and expectation the decisions of a continental congress.

      This respected assembly, the Amphyctions of the western world, convened by the free suffrages of twelve colonies, met at the time proposed, on the fourth of September, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four. They [148] entered on business with hearts warmed with the love of their country, a sense of the common and equal rights of man, and the dignity of human nature. Peyton Randolph, Esq. a gentleman from Virginia, whose sobriety, integrity, and political abilities, qualified him for the important station, was unanimously chosen to preside in this grand council of American peers.

      Though this body was sensibly affected by the many injuries received from the parent state, their first wish was a reconciliation on terms of reciprocity, justice and honor. In consequence of these sentiments they cautiously avoided, as far as was consistent with the duty due to their constituents, every thing that might tend to widen the breach between Great-Britain and the colonies. Yet they were determined, if parliament continued deaf to the calls of justice, not to submit to the yoke of tyranny, but to take the preparatory steps necessary for a vigorous resistance.

      After a thorough discussion of the civil, political, and commercial interests of both countries, the natural ties, and the mutual benefits resulting from the strictest amity, and the unhappy consequences that must ensue, if driven to the last appeal, they resolved on a dutiful and loyal petition to the king, recapitulating their grievances, and imploring redress: they [149] modestly remonstrated, and obliquely censured the authors of those mischiefs, which filled all America with complaint.

      They drew up an affectionate, but spirited memorial to the people of England, reminding them that they held their own boasted liberties on a precarious tenure, if government, under the sanction of parliamentary authority, might enforce by the terrors of the sword their unconstitutional edicts. They informed