Governor Oliver, as stated by himself, went into Boston, and made assurances both to General Gage and to the Admiral on the station, which prevented a body of troops from being sent to disperse the large body of people who assembled at Cambridge on this occasion; and to these assurances it was owing, undoubtedly, that the day passed without bloodshed. But for the peaceable demeanor of those whom he met in the morning,—the landholders of the neighboring towns,—the first collision between the King's troops and the inhabitants of Massachusetts, would have occurred, very likely, at Cambridge, and not at Lexington. A detachment was sent to the former town the day before, to bring off some pieces of cannon, and from this circumstance arose, principally, the proceedings related by Governor Oliver. Indignant because the "redcoats" had been sent upon such an errand, thousands from the surrounding country assembled in the course of the day, (September 2d.) armed with guns, sticks, and other weapons; and when the Lieutenant-Governor's promise on his return from Boston, rendered it certain that they would not be opposed by the troops, they exacted from every official who lived at Cambridge full compliance with their demands, as has been stated.
From this period Governor Oliver lived in Boston, until March, 1776, when at the evacuation he accompanied the Royal Army to Halifax, and took passage thence to England.
His mansion near Mt. Auburn is the house in which he resided at the time he was mobbed by four thousand Disunionists. When Benedict Arnold with his Connecticut Company arrived at Cambridge just after the fight at Lexington, they were quartered in this house. After Bunker Hill the house became a hospital and the dead were buried in the opposite field. The mansion was afterwards the residence of Governor Gerry, and at a later period was owned and occupied by Prof. James Russell Lowell, which made it still more famous under the name of "Elmwood."
He was proscribed and banished in 1778 and in the year following was included in the Conspiracy Act, and his large estate confiscated. Though he forfeited his estates in Massachusetts, he was better situated financially than most of his fellow sufferers, for he was wealthy from his professions in the West Indies, still owned by his descendants. He was a studious man and lived in retirement in England. He died at Bristol, Nov. 29, 1815, aged 82, and left six daughters.
PETER OLIVER.
Chief Justice of Massachusetts.
Peter Oliver, son of Daniel Oliver and brother of Andrew Oliver, the Lieutenant Governor, born in 1713, married Mary, daughter of William Clark. His son Peter, Jr., married Sarah, daughter of Governor Hutchinson. Peter Oliver, Sr., graduated from Harvard College in 1730. He received the degree of L.L. D. He was appointed to the supreme bench of the province, September 15, 1756.
An affair happened at the close of the year 1773, which drove Adams and all his factions into madness. It was a grant from the King of a salary to the judges of the Supreme Court. The Assembly had endeavoured to keep the judges in absolute dependence upon their humor and because they found them rather too firm to coincide with their views in the subversion of government, they made them the object of their resentment. The judges of the Court had the shortest allowance from the General Assembly of any publick officers, even their Doorkeeper had a large stipend. The judges' travel on their circuits were from 1100 to 1500 miles in a year. Their circuit business engrossed seven months of the year during the extremes of heat and cold in a severe climate. For all their service, the highest grant made to them was £120 sterling per year, and it had been much less; the Chief Justice had £30 sterling more.
His Majesty taking the cases of the judges into consideration, and from his known justice and benevolence, ordered their salaries to be paid out of his revenues in America, such salaries as would keep them above want, and below envy. The judges upon hearing of His Majesty's intention of such a grant had agreed to accept it, but four of them who lived at and near the focus of tarring and feathering, the town of Boston flinched in the day of battle, they were so pelted with soothings one day, and with curses and threatenings the next, that they prudentially gave the point up. The Chief Justice was now left alone in the combat, his brethren had but lately been seated on the Bench. He had been 17 years in the service, and had sunk more than £2000 sterling in it. He had offered not to accept of the grant (if His Majesty would permit him to do so), provided the Assembly would reimburse him one-half of his loss in their service, and for this he would resign his seat on the Bench. The Chief Justice very luckily lived at Middleborough, about 30 miles from Boston, or perhaps he would have followed suit of his brethren in giving up the King's grant. A message was sent to him by the Lower House signed "Samuel Adams, Clerk," requiring him to make explicit answer whether he would accept of the King's grant, or of their grant. He replied that he should accept the King's grant. Nothing less than destruction now awaited him. Col. Gardner, who was afterwards killed at Bunker Hill, declared in the General Assembly, that he himself would drag the Chief Justice from the Bench, if he should sit upon it.