Novanglus, and Massachusettensis / or, Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies

by John Adams; Daniel Leonard

A master stroke in politics respecting the agent, ought not to be neglected. Each colony has usually an agent residing at the court of Great Britain. These agents are appointed by the three branches of their several assemblies; and indeed there cannot be a provincial agent without such appointment. The whigs soon found that they could not have such services rendered them from a provincial agent, as would answer their purposes. The house therefore refused to join with the other two branches of the general court in the appointment. The house chose an agent for themselves, and the council appointed another. Thus we had two agents for private purposes, and the expence of agency doubled; and with equal reason a third might have been added, as agent for the Governor, and the charges been trebled.

The additional expence was of little consideration, compared with another inconvenience that attended this new mode of agency. The person appointed by the house was the ostensible agent of the province, though in fact he was only the agent of a few individuals that had got the art of managing the house at their pleasure. He knew his continuing in office depended upon them. An office, that yielded several hundred pounds sterling annually, the business of which consisted in little more than attending the levees of the great, and writing letters to America, was worth preserving. Thus he was under a strong temptation to sacrifice the province to a party; and ecchoed back the sentiments of his patrons.

The advices continually received from one of the persons, that was thus appointed agent, had great influence upon the members of the house of more moderate principles. He had pushed his researches deep into nature, and made important discoveries: they thought he had done the same in politics, and did not admire him less as a politician, than as a philosopher. His intelligence as to the disposition of his majesty, the ministry, the parliament and the nation in general, was deemed the most authentic. He advised us to keep up our opposition, to resolve, and re-resolve, to cherish a military spirit, uniformly holding up this idea, that if we continued firm, we had nothing to fear from the government in England. He even proposed some modes of opposition himself. The spirited measures were always ushered into the house with a letter from him. I have been sometimes almost ready to suspect him of being the primum mobile, and, that like the man behind the curtain at a puppet-shew, he was playing off the figures here with his own secret wires. If he advised to these measures contrary to his better knowledge, from sinister views, and to serve a private purpose, he has wilfully done the province irreparable injury. However, I will do him justice; he enjoined it upon us to refrain from violence, as that would unite the nation against us; and I am rather inclined to think that he was deceived himself, with respect to the measures he recommended, as he has already felt the resentment of that very government, which he told us there was nothing to fear from. This disposition of the house could not have produced such fatal effects, had the other two branches of the legislature retained their constitutional freedom and influence. They might have been a sufficient check.

The councellors depended upon the general assembly for their political existence; the whigs reminded the council of their mortality. If a councellor opposed the violent measures of the whigs with any spirit, he lost his election the next May. The council consisted of twenty-eight. From this principle, near half that number, mostly men of the first families, note and abilities, with every possible attachment to their native country, and as far from temptation as wealth and independence could remove them, were tumbled from their seats in disgrace. Thus the board, which was intended to moderate between the two extremes of prerogative and privilege, lost its weight in the scale, and the political balance of the province was destroyed.

Had the chair been able to retain its own constitutional influence, the loss of the board would have been less felt; but no longer supported by the board, that fell likewise. The Governor by the charter could do little or nothing without the council. If he called upon a military officer to raise the militia, he was answered, they were there already. If he called upon his council for their assistance, they must first enquire into the cause. If he wrote to government at home to strengthen his hands, some officious person procured and sent back his letters.

It was not the person of a Bernard or Hutchinson that made them obnoxious; any other governors would have met with the same fate, had they discharged their duty with equal fidelity; that is, had they strenuously opposed the principles and practices of the whigs; and when they found that the government here could not support itself, wrote home for aid sufficient to do it. And let me tell you, had the intimations in those letters, which you are taught to execrate, been timely attended to, we had now been as happy a people as good government could make us. Gov. Bernard came here recommended by the affections of the province over which he had presided. His abilities are acknowledged. True British honesty and punctuality are traits in his character, too strongly marked to escape the eye of prejudice itself. We know Governor Hutchinson to be amiable and exemplary in private life. His great abilities, integrity and humanity were conspicuous, in the several important departments that he filled, before his appointment to the chair, and reflect honour on his native country. But his abilities and integrity, added to his thorough knowledge of the province, in all its interests and connexions, were insufficient in this case. The constitution itself was gone, though the ancient form remained; the spirit was truly republican. He endeavoured to reclaim us by gentle means. He strove to convince us by arguments, drawn from the first principles of government; our several charters, and the express acknowledgments of our ancestors, that our claims were inconsistent with the subordination due to Great Britain; and if persisted in, might work the destruction of those that we were entitled to. For this he was called an enemy to his country, and set up as a mark for the envenomed arrows of malice and party rage. Had I entertained a doubt about its being the governor, and not the man that was aimed at, the admirable facility with which the newspaper abuse was transferred from Gov. Hutchinson to his humane and benevolent successor, Gen. Gage, almost as soon as he set foot on our shore, would have removed it.

Thus, disaffection to Great Britain being infused into the body of the people, the subtle poison stole through all the veins and arteries, contaminated the blood, and destroyed the very stamina of the constitution. Had not the courts of justice been tainted in the early stages, our government might have expelled the virus, purged off the peccant humors, and recovered its former vigour by its own strength. The judges of the superior court were dependant upon the annual grants of the general court for their support. Their salaries were small, in proportion to the salaries of other officers in the government, of less importance.

They had often petitioned the assembly to enlarge them, without success. They were at this time reminded of their dependance. However, it is but justice to say, that the judges remained unshaken, amid the raging tempests, which is to be attributed rather to their firmness than situation. But the spirit of the times was very apparent in the juries. The grand jurors were elective; and in such places where libels, riots, and insurrections were the most frequent, the high whigs took care to get themselves chosen. The judges pointed out to them the seditious libels on governors, magistrates, and the whole government to no effect. They were enjoined to present riots and insurrections, of which there was ample evidence, with as little success.

It is difficult to account for so many of the first rate whigs being returned to serve on the petit jury at the term next after extraordinary insurrections, without supposing some legerdemain in drawing their names out of the box. It is certain that notwithstanding swarms of the most virulent libels infested the province, and there were so many riots and insurrections, scarce one offender was indicted, and I think not one convicted and punished. Causes of meum et tuum were not always exempt from party influence. The mere circumstance of the whigs gaining the ascendency over the tories, is trifling. Had the whigs divided the province between them, as they once flattered themselves they should be able to do, it would have been of little consequence to the community, had they not cut asunder the very sinews of government, and broke in pieces the ligaments of social life in the attempt. I will mention two instances, which I have selected out of many, of the weakness of our government, as they are recent and unconnected with acts of parliament. One Malcolm, a loyal subject, and as such entitled to protection, the evening before the last winter sessions of the general court, was dragged out of his house, stript, tarred and feathered, and carted several hours in the severest frost of that winter, to the utmost hazard of his life. He was carried to the gallows with an halter about his neck, and in his passage to and from the gallows, was beaten with as cruel stripes as ever were administered by the hands of a savage. The whipping, however, kept up the circulation of his blood, and saved the poor man's life. When they had satiated their malice, they dispersed in good order. This was transacted in the presence of thousands of spectators; some of whom were members of the general court. Malcolm's life was despaired of several days, but he survived and presented a memorial to the general assembly, praying their interposition. The petition was read, and all he obtained was leave to withdraw it. So that he was destitute of protection every hour, until he left the country, as were thousands beside, until the arrival of the king's troops. This originated from a small fracas in the street, wherein Malcolm struck, or threatened to strike a person that insulted him, with a cutlass, and had no connection with the quarrel of the times, unless his sustaining a small post in the customs made it.

The other instance is much stronger than this, as it was totally detached from politics. It had been suspected that infection had been communicated from an hospital, lately erected at Marblehead, for the purpose of innoculating the small-pox, to the town's people. This caused a great insurrection; the insurgents burnt the hospital; not content with that, threatened the proprietors, and many others, some of the first fortunes and characters in the town, with burning their houses over their heads, and continued parading the streets, to the utmost terror of the inhabitants several days. A massacre and general devastation was apprehended. The persons threatened, armed themselves, and petitioned the general assembly, which was then sitting, for assistance, as there was little or no civil authority in the place. A committee was ordered to repair to Marblehead, report the facts, and enquire into the cause. The committee reported the facts nearly as stated in the petition. The report was accepted, and nothing farther done by the assembly. Such demonstrations of the weakness of government induced many persons to join the whigs, to seek from them that protection, which the constitutional authority of the province was unable to afford.