Before the general agitation had risen to its present alarming height, governor Gage had issued writs for the election of members to a general assembly. These writs were afterwards countermanded by proclamation; but the proclamation was disregarded; the elections were held; and the delegates, who assembled and voted themselves a provincial congress, conducted the affairs of the colony as if they had been regularly invested with all the powers of government; and their recommendations were respected as sacred laws.
Prepares for defence.
They drew up a plan for the defence of the province; provided magazines, ammunition and prepares stores for twelve thousand militia; and enrolled a number of minute men, a term designating a select part of the militia, who engaged to appear in arms at a minute's warning.
On the approach of winter, the general had ordered temporary barracks to be erected for the troops, partly for their security, and partly to prevent the disorders which would unavoidably result from quartering them in the town. Such however was the detestation in which they were held, that the select men and committees obliged the workmen to desist from the work, although they were paid for their labour by the crown, and although employment could, at that time, be seldom obtained. He was not much more successful in his endeavours to obtain carpenters in New York; and it was with considerable difficulty that these temporary lodgments could be erected.
The agency for purchasing winter covering for the troops was offered to almost every merchant in New York; but such was the danger of engaging in this odious employment, that not only those who were attached to the party resisting the views of administration, but those also who were in secret friendly to those views, refused undertaking it, and declared "that they never would supply any article for the benefit of men who were sent as enemies to their country."
King's speech to parliament.
In Great Britain, a new parliament was assembled; and the King, in his opening speech, informed them, "that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience still prevailed in Massachusetts, and had broken forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature; that the most proper and effectual measures had been taken to prevent these mischiefs; and that they might depend upon a firm resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of this legislature over all the dominions of the crown."
Proceedings of that body.
The addresses re-echoed the sentiments of the speech; all amendments to which were rejected in both houses by considerable majorities.[243] Yet the business respecting America was not promptly introduced. Administration seems to have hesitated on the course to be adopted; and the cabinet is said to have been divided respecting future measures. 1775The few friends of conciliation availed themselves of this delay, to bring forward propositions which might restore harmony to the empire. Lord Chatham was not yet dead. "This splendid orb," to use the bold metaphor of Mr. Burke, "was not yet entirely set. The western horizon was still in a blaze with his descending glory;" and the evening of a life which had exhibited one bright unchequered course of elevated patriotism, was devoted to the service of that country whose aggrandisement seemed to have swallowed up every other passion of his soul. Taking a prophetic view of the future, he demonstrated the impossibility of subjugating America, and urged, with all the powers of his vast mind, the immediate removal of the troops from Boston, as a measure indispensably necessary, to open the way for an adjustment of the existing differences with the colonies. Not discouraged by the great majority against this motion, he brought forward a bill for settling the troubles in America, which was rejected by sixty-one to thirty-two voices.
The day after the rejection of this bill, lord North moved, in the house of commons, an address to his Majesty, declaring that, from a serious consideration of the American papers, "they find a rebellion actually exists in the province of Massachusetts Bay." In the course of the debate on this address, several professional gentlemen spoke with the utmost contempt of the military character of the Americans; and general Grant, who ought to have known better, declared that "at the head of five regiments of infantry, he would undertake to traverse the whole country, and drive the inhabitants from one end of the continent to the other."