General Gage, doubtful what reception he should meet at Boston, proceeded with great caution. Four additional regiments were ordered to the rebellious town, but he went thither from New York unattended by any military except his staff. On the day when he
* A fact not noticed in the former consideration of the Quebec Act is worthy of record, as showing the actual despotic tendency of Parliamentary enactments at that time. By a provision of the act in question, the total revenue of the province of Canada was consigned, in the first instance, to a warrant from the Lord of the Treasury, for the purpose of pensioning judges during pleasure, and the support of a civil list, totally unlimited. This first Lord of the Treasury, or prime minister, was thus in actual possession of the whole revenue of the province, and unrestrained in its expenditure, except by general instructions to use it "to defray the expenses of the administration of justice, and to support civil government in the colonies." Similar despotic ingredients were profusely sprinkled throughout the whole batch of measures brought forward by Lord North to rule the Americans. The superficial observer is apt to consider the zeal of the Americans against Parliamentary measures highly intemperate and sometimes censurable, for apparently trifling causes aroused the most violent action. But the colonists clearly perceived the huge monster of despotism artfully covered under a fair guise, and what seemed but an insect, magnified by the microscope of prejudice, they knew to be the germ of a monster reality. The three per cent, duty on tea, considered alone, was but a grain of sand as an obstacle to friendly feelings, but the principle that slept there was a towering Alp.
** Peter Oliver, brother of Andrew Oliver, the stamp-master already noticed, was born in 1713, and graduated at Harvard in 1730. He was appointed judge of the Superior Court in 1756, and became chief justice when his brother-in-law, Hutchinson, was appointed governor. He was impeached by the Massachusetts Assembly in 1774. Judge Oliver soon afterward went to England. He died at Birmingham in October, 1791, aged nearly seventy-nine years.
Arrival of General Gage in Boston.—Meeting In Faneuil Hall.—Excitement among the People—. Newspaper Devices.
entered the harbor the town was greatly excited, news of the Port Bill having just May 13, 1774 arrived. He landed at Long Wharf, and was received with much respect by the immense crowd of people that met him. He was entertained by the magistrates and others at a public dinner, and on that evening Hutchinson was burned in effigy on the Common, in front of John Hancock's mansion.
The next day a numerously attended town meeting, at which Samuel Adams presided, was held in Faneuil Hall to consider the Port Bill. The people were, indeed, at their "wits' end." The decree had gone forth to blight the town; a governor, commissioned to execute the ministerial will, was present, and soldiers were on their way to support his authority.