Feigning sudden illness, he was allowed to leave the Assembly. He went immediately to the governor and acquainted him with the proceedings in progress. ** Gage sent his secretary to dissolve the Assembly by proclamation, but the patriots were too vigilant for him. The doors of the Assembly were locked, and the keys were safely deposited in Samuel Adams's pocket. The secretary read the proclamation on the stairs, but it was unheeded by the patriots within.
They proceeded to adopt and sign a "Solemn League and Covenant," in which all former non-importation agreements and cognate undertakings were concentrated, and a committee was appointed to send the covenant, as a circular, to every colony in America. *** They also adopted the other plans matured by Adams and others, and a resolution that "a meeting of committees, from the several colonies on this continent, is highly expedient and necessary, to consult upon the present state of the country, and the miseries to which we are and must be reduced by the operation of certain acts of Parliament, and to deliberate and determine on wise and proper measures to be recom-
* The political complexion of the new Council did not please Gage. He exercised the prerogative given to him by the charter to the fullest extent in rejecting thirteen of the elected counselors. The remainder were not much more agreeable to him.
** General Gage was then residing at the house of Robert Hooper, Esq., in Danvers, about four miles from Salem.
***All who felt an attachment to the American cause were called upon to sign it; and the covenanters were required to obligate themselves, in the presence of God, to cease all commerce with England, dating from the last of the ensuing month of August, until the late wicked acts of Parliament should be repealed and the Massachusetts colony reinstated in all its rights and privileges; to abstain from the use of any British goods whatsoever; and to avoid all commerce or traffic with those who refused to sign the League. Finally, it was covenanted that those who refused to sign the League should be held up to public scorn and indignation by the publication of their names. The articles of the League were transmitted by circulars to all the other provinces, with invitations to the inhabitants to affix their names thereto. Philadelphia alone, as a city, did not accept the invitation to join in such a measure, preferring to refer the matter to a general Congress, and agreeing to execute faithfully all measures therein agreed upon.
**** A biographical sketch of this distinguished patriot will be found among those of the signers of the Declaration of Independence printed in the Supplement.
Appointment of Delegates to a Continental Congress.—Denunciation of the "League."—Closing of the Port of Boston.
mended to all the colonies for the recovery and re-establishment of our just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and America, which is most ardently desired by all good men." They designated the 1st of September as the time, and Philadelphia as the place of meeting. Thomas Cushing, the Speaker of the Assembly, James Bowdoin, many years a member of the Council, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, were chosen delegates. A treasurer was appointed, and the towns were called upon to pay their respective shares of the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars, voted to the delegates in payment of their expenses. The whole business being ended, the Assembly adjourned indefinitely, and thus ended the last session of the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay, under a royal governor.
Gage was greatly irritated by the proceedings of the Assembly, and the acts of the people of Boston in sustaining these traitorous measures. He refused to receive the answer of the General Court to his address, and issued a strong proclamation in denunciation of the League as an unlawful combination, hostile to the crown and Parliament, and ordering the magistrates to apprehend and bring to trial all who should be guilty of signing it. The people laughed at his proclamation, defied the pliant magistrates, and signed the League by thousands. Uncompromising hostility was aroused, and the arm of bold defiance was uplifted, even in the midst of distress and the menaces of foreign bayonets.