kum, wife of the town-crier, he was indebted for his knowledge of reading and writing. Farming, fishing, and shoe-making seem to have been the chief employment of his earlier years. In 1758 he attempted to enlist in the army to serve against the French, but did not "pass muster he was equally unsuccessful in attempts to join the navy, and then resumed shoemaking. In the various disturbances in Boston from the time of the passage of the Stamp Act, Hewes, who was both excitable and patriotic, was generally concerned. He was among the foremost in the destruction of the tea at Boston. When the Americans invested the city, and many patriots were shut up under the vigilant eyes of the British officers, Hewes was among them. He managed to escape, and entered the naval service of the colonies as a privateer, in which he was somewhat successful. Afterward he joined the army, and was stationed for a time at West Point, under General M'Dougal. He was never in any land battle, except with the Cow Boys and Skinners, as they were called, of the neutral ground of West Chester. After the Revolution he returned to Boston, and again engaged in business upon the sea. He, like Kinnison, was one of the thousands of that time utterly unknown to the world, except within the small love-circle of family relationship and neighborly regard; and even this present slight embalming of their memory would not have occurred, had not the contingency of great longevity distinguished them from other men. Although personally unknown, their deeds are felt in the political blessings we enjoy. When the Bunker Hill Monument was completed and was dedicated, on the 17th of June, 1843, Mr. Hewes, then one hundred and one years old, was there, and honored by all. Returning to the residence of his son, at Richfield, in Otsego county, New York, some sixty miles west of the Hudson, he soon went down into the grave, when more than a century old, "a shock of corn fully ripe." The events of the 16th of December produced a deep sensation throughout the British realm. They struck a sympathetic chord in every colony, and even Canada, Halifax, and the West Indies had no serious voice of censure for the Bostonians. But the ministerial party here and the public in England were amazed at the audacity of the American people; and the friends of the colonists in Parliament were, for a moment, silent, for they had no excuse to make in behalf of their transatlantic friends for destroying private property. But with the intelligence of the event went an intimation that the town of Boston was ready to pay the East India Company for the tea, and so the question rested at once upon its original basis—the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies. Ministers were bitterly indignant, and the House of Lords was like a "seething caldron of impotent rage." The alleged honesty of the Americans was entirely overlooked, and ministers and their friends saw nothing but open rebellion in the Massachusetts colony. Strange as it may appear, the king did not send a message to Parliament on the subject until the 7th of March, several weeks after the disturbances at Boston were known to government. Then he detailed the proceedings, and his message was accompanied by a variety of papers, consisting of letters from Hutchinson, Admiral Montague, and the consignees of the tea; the dispatches of several colonial governors (for menaces of similar violent measures had been uttered in other colonies); and some of the most exciting manifestoes, hand-bills, and pamphlets put forth by the Americans. The king, in his message, called upon Parliament to devise means immediately to suppress these tumultuous proceedings in the colonies.
On the receipt of the message and the accompanying papers in the House of Commons, an address of thanks to the king, and of assurances that he should be sustained in his efforts to preserve order in America, was proposed. This proposition, with the message and papers, produced great excitement, and the House became, according to Burke, "as hot as Faneuil Hall or the Old South Meeting-house at Boston." The debate that ensued was excessively stormy. Ministers and their supporters charged open rebellion upon the colonies, while the opposition denounced, in the strongest language which common courtesy could tolerate, the foolish, unjust, and wicked course of the government. They reviewed the past; but ministers, tacitly acknowledging past errors, objected to retrospection, and earnestly pleaded for strict attention to the momentous present. They asked whether the colonies were or were not longer to be considered dependent upon Great Britain, and, if so, how far and in what
The Boston Port Bill proposed and adopted.—Debates in Parliament.—Apparent Defection of Conway and Barré.—Burke
manner. If it was decided not to give them up to independence, then ministers were ready to act efficiently. This question they wished settled as preliminary to further action. The appeal struck upon a tender chord, and awakened national sympathies; the address was adopted by an overwhelming majority, without a division.
Feeling his position strengthened by this vote, Lord North brought forth the first of his vigorous schemes for subjugating the colonics and punishing the town of Boston. On the 14th of March he offered a bill which provided for the removal of customs, courts of justice, and government officers of every kind from Boston to Salem; and that "the 1774 landing, discharging, and shipping of wares and merchandise at Boston, or within the harbor thereof," should be discontinued. It provided, also, that when the Bostonians should fully submit, the king should have the power to open the port. * This was the famous Boston Port Bill, an act which crushed the trade of the city, and brought the greatest distress upon its inhabitants.
Lord North justified the harsh measure, by asserting that Boston was the center of rebellious commotion in America, "the ringleader in every riot, and set always the example which others followed." He thought that to inflict a signal penalty upon that city would strike at the root of the evil, and he referred to precedents where whole communities had been punished for the crimes of some of their members. The most violent language was used, by some of the supporters of the ministers, against the Americans. "They are never actuated by decency or reason; they always choose tarring and feathering as an argument," said Mr. Herbert. Mr. Van, another ministerial supporter, denounced the people of Boston as utterly unworthy of civilized forbearance. "They ought to have their town knocked about their ears and destroyed!" he exclaimed, and concluded his tirade of abuse by quoting the factious cry of old Roman orators, "Delenda est Carthage." ** Mr. Rose Fuller proposed the imposition of a fine; and even Barré and Conway, the undaunted friends of America, approved of the measure as lenient, and affecting only a single town. They voted for the bill, and for this apparent disaffection the people of Boston removed their portraits from Faneuil Hall. But Burke, who at that time began his series of splendid orations in favor of American liberty, denounced the whole scheme as essentially unjust, by confounding and pun-
* The celebrated Charles James Fox, son of Lord Holland, made his first speech in Parliament on this bill. It was a strange beginning of his brilliant career. He objected to the power vested in the British crown to reopen the port of Boston. Neither party supported his suggestion.