[4] “The Board of Trade had proposed ... collecting the duties ... the justice of the restrictions on trade was denied and their authority questioned; and when the officers of the customs asked for ‘writs of assistance’ to enforce them, the colony regarded its liberties in peril. This is the opening scene of American resistance. It began” in 1761 ... “in a court-room ... James Otis ... stood up ... the champion of the colonies.”—Idem., vol. iv., ch. 18, p. 414.
[5] “‘I am determined,’ such were his words, ‘to sacrifice estate ... life in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of England his head and another his throne.’ ... Tracing the lineage of freedom to its origin, he opposed the claims of the British officers by the authority of ‘reason,’ and that they were at war with the ‘Constitution’ he proved by appeals to the Charter of Massachusetts, and its English liberties.... ‘An Act of Parliament against the Constitution is void,’ he said.... ‘The crowded audience seemed ready to take up arms.’”—Idem., vol. iv., ch. 18, pp. 415-6.
[6] “The true interests of Great Britain and her plantations are mutual. Otis in 1763.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 5, p. 90.
[7] See the Representations of the General Assembly at New York to the King, concerning the administration of justice in that province, 1762, mentioned in Idem., vol. v., ch. 5, p. 84. “By the laws of nature and of nations, the voice of universal reason and of God, by the statute law and the common law, this memorial claimed for the colonists the absolute rights of Englishmen, ... such were the views of Otis sent by Massachusetts” in 1764 “to its agent in London.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 10, pp. 198-9.
[8] “Less than forty were willing to receive the petition of Virginia. A third from South Carolina, a fourth from Connecticut, ... a fifth from Massachusetts, ... shared the same refusal. That from New York, no one could be prevailed upon to offer.... The House of Commons would neither receive petitions nor hear council.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 11, p. 246. This was in Feb., 1765.
[9] In 1763 Brown, the Governor of South Carolina, “assumed the power of rejecting members whom the House declared duly elected and returned.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 8, p. 150. In May, 1765, “The Lieutenant-Governor” of Virginia “dissolved the Assembly.”—Idem., ch. 13, p. 277. “Fearing a general expression of the sentiments of the people, through their representatives ... Tyron issued a proclamation in October proroguing the Assembly which was to meet on the thirtieth of November, until the following March. This act incurred the indignation of the people.”—Lossing’s Field Book of the Revolution, vol. ii., p. 568. Later, “Townshend’s revenue, so far as it provided an independent support for the crown officers, did away with the necessity of colonial legislatures.... Governors would have little inducement to call assemblies, and an angry minister might dissolve them without inconvenience to his administration.”—Bancroft’s U. S., vol. vi., ch. 29, p. 85. “An act of Parliament” in 1767 “suspended the functions of its (N. Y.) legislature till they should render obedience to the Imperial Legislature.”—Idem., p. 84. “Bernard ... prorogued them, and then dissolved the Assembly. Massachusetts was left without a legislature.”—Idem., vol. vi., ch. 34, p. 165.
[10] “This commission ... established a military power throughout the continent independent of the colonial governors and superior to them ... in 1756 the rule was established ... that troops might be kept up in the colonies and quartered on them at pleasure without the consent of the American Parliaments.”—Idem., vol. iv., ch. 9, pp. 229-30. In Feb., 1765, “Welbore Ellis, Secretary of War ... made known his intention ‘that the orders of his commander-in-chief and ... the brigadier generals ... should be supreme, and be obeyed by the troops as such in all the civil governments of America.’ ... These instructions rested, as was pretended, on ... the commission” (mentioned above) “... prepared for ... troops in time of war.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 11, p. 235.
[11] In 1762 “was consummated the system of subjecting the halls of justice to the prerogative. The king ... instituted courts, named the judges, removed them at pleasure, fixed the amount of their salaries, and paid them out of funds that were independent of legislative grants.”—Idem., vol. iv., ch. 19, p. 440.
[12] About 1762 “a fund of two thousand pounds was subscribed to a society which the legislature of Massachusetts had authorized for promoting knowledge among the Indians; but the king interposed his negative, and reserved the red man for the Anglican form of worship.”—Idem., vol. iv., ch. 18, p. 430. In 1765 “In North Carolina ... the legislature were even persuaded ... to make provision for the support of the Church of England.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 13, p. 271. “For New York, the Lords of Trade refused to the Presbyterians any immunities but such as might be derived from the British Law of Toleration.”—Idem., vol. vi., ch. 29, p. 84. “O poor New England, there is a deep plot against both your civil and religious liberties, and they will be lost.”—Whitfield in 1764, Idem., vol. v., ch. 10, p. 193.
[13] In Jan., 1750 ... “Mayhew summoned ... defensive war against ‘tyranny and priestcraft.’ ... He preached resistance.”—Idem., vol. iv., ch. 3, p. 60. In Aug., 1765, “Choosing as his text ... Ye have been called to liberty ... he preached fervently in behalf of civil and religious freedom.”—Idem., vol. v., ch. 16, p. 312.