TO STEPHEN SAYRE.1
[MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.]
BOSTON NOVr 16 1770
SIR,
I should before now have acknowledgd your favor of the 5 June,2 but my being obligd to attend the Session of the General Court for 7 weeks3 & other necessary Avocations prevented it. I return the Letters signd Junius Americanus deliverd to me by Mr Cary,4 by your direction to be a valueable present. The Author has servd the American Cause in a manner in which I have long wishd some able pen would have undertaken to do it by appealing to the good Sense of the Body of the Nation. I believe the general Inclination there is to wish that we may preserve our Liberties; and perhaps even the Ministry could for some Reasons find it in their hearts to be willing that we shd be restord to the State we were in before the passing of the Stamp Act, were it not that a Set of detestable Men were continually writing from hence that we shd carry our Claims still higher & there wd be no Bounds to our Demands. I can venture to assure you that there is no Foundation for such Assertions, nor do I think they are really believd by any. The People here are indeed greatly tenacious of their just Rights & I hope in God they will ever firmly maintain them. Every Attempt to enforce the plan of Despotism will certainly irritate them; While they have a Sense of freedom they will oppose the Efforts of Tyranny; and altho the Mother Country may at present boast of her Superiority over them, she may perhaps find the Want of that Superiority, when by repeated provocations she shall have totally lost their Affections.—All Good Men surely wish for a cordial Harmony between the two Countrys. Great Britain can lose Nothing which she ought to retain by restoring the Americans to their former State, & they I am satisfied will no further contend; While the Struggle continues Manufactures will still increase in America in spite of all Efforts to prevent it; & how far Britain will be injurd by it, ought certainly to be well considerd on your side the Atlantick.
Our Merchants have receded from their Nonimportation Agreement. They held it much longer than I ever thought they would or could. It was a grand Tryal which pressd hard upon their private Interest. But the Landholders find it for their Interest to manufacture and it is their happy Consideration that while they are most effectually serving their Country they are adding to their private fortunes. The representatives of the people have this day agreed to promote Manufactures in their respective Towns, & the House have appointed a special Committee5 to form a plan for the effectual Encouragement of Arts Agriculture Manufactures & Commerce in this province; & even the Administration of a Bernard could not tend more to sharpen the Edge of resentment which will perpetually keep alive the Spirit of Manufactures than that which we are now blessd with. Lt Governor Hutchinson, more plausible indeed than Bernard, seems resolvd to push the same plan & the people plainly see that a Change of Men is not likely to produce a Change of Measures—so soon are the Words of the one verified when he said of the other that he could rely upon him as he could on himself.
Our House of Representatives have been inducd to do Business this Session, against their former remonstrances, principally from a Necessity which they apprehended they were under of attending to what mt be doing on your Side the Water. They accordingly chose an Agent. I gave my Suffrage with about a third part of the House, for Dr Lee—but Dr Franklin being personally known to many of the Members had the preference—both the Gentlemen were highly spoken of in the House, & afterwards Dr Lee was appointed to the Trust, by a very full vote in Case of the Death or Absence of Dr Franklin.
Our State Tryals as we may call them have at length come on. Preston is acquitted by a Jury!6 It is to be remarkd that the Baker of the Regiment, who indeed wd have had himself excusd, and three others were put on as Talesmen Preston having challengd Eighteen. One of the three was a known Intimate of Prestons and another had declared before that if he was to be of the Jury he wd sit till Doomsday before he wd consent to a Verdict agt him. Evidence to prove that the Soldiers were the Aggressors of which there was plenty was not admitted. The main Question was whether he orderd the Men to fire—diverse persons swore positively that he did, but they differing about the Circumstance of his Dress, & others swearing, one that he was very near him & did not hear him give the orders, & others that some other person unknown gave them, operated in his favor. But no Weight that I can learn was given, to full proof that he led the Soldiers armd with loaded Musquets & Bayonets. This he had a Right, nay it was his Duty to do, because the Centinel was in Danger & we must presume the People were the Aggressors. This Principle I suppose will clear the Soldiers whose Tryals begin on Tuesday next.7 Richardson who was convicted of the Murder of young Snider so long ago as March, remains unhangd, the Court not having yet determind upon his Motion for another Tryal. You may easily observe that we have catchd the impartial Spirit of the Kings friends, a synonimous term for friends of Govt here, from the Mother Country. I had not the opportunity of attending Prestons Tryal, but am in hopes of having a minute Accot of it from a sensible Gentleman who was present—if I can obtain it I will write you more precisely upon the Subject.
Before I conclude I must mention to you that the Minister has taken a Method which in my Opinion has a direct tendency to set up a despotism here, or rather is the thing it self—and that is by sending Instructions to the Governor to be the rule of his Administration & forbiding him as the Govr declares to make them known to us, the Design of which may be to prevent his ever being made responsible for any measures he may advise in order to introduce & establish arbitrary power over the Colonies. Mr Hutchinson has pushd this point with all the Vigour of Bernard, which has occasiond warm messages between him & the Assembly as you may observe in the Boston Gazette for several Weeks past. But of this I shall be more particular in my next.
I shall be proud of an epistolary Correspondence with you, and with Dr
Lee to whom tho personally unknown to him I beg you wd make my
Compliments. I am with strict truth.
1A resident of London, and at one time sheriff; his relations with the colonists appear in the letters printed in this volume. 2A copy is in S. A. Wells, Samuel Adams and the American Revolution, vol. i. pp. 293, 294. 3The session began September 26 and ended November 20. 4Probably Richard Cary, of Charlestown, Mass. Letters by him are in Papers Relating to Public Events in Massachusetts, pp. 113, 122, 124. 5On November 16; Samuel Adams was a member of the committee. 6The stenographic report of Preston's trial was sent to England, but never published in America. Works of John Adams, vol. ii., p. 236. 7The Trial of the British Soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot was published at Boston in 1770, 1807 and 1824, and was reprinted in History of the Boston Massacre, Albany, 1870, pp. 123-285.