The inhabitants vied with each other; and, about dusk, they were seen streaming, from all quarters, to Hanover Square, every man and boy with his lamp or lantern. In a brief space, Liberty Tree was converted into a brilliant constellation. Like the sparkling waters, during the burning of Ucalegon’s palace, described by Homer, the boughs, the branches, the veriest twigs of this popular idol
————“were bright,
With splendors not their own, and shone with sparkling light.”
It appears, by the journals of that day, from which most of these particulars are gathered, that our fathers—what inimitable, top-gallant fellows they were!—took a pleasant fancy into their heads, that these lamps would shed a brighter lustre, if the poor debtors, in jail, could join in the general joy, under Liberty Tree. Accordingly they made up a purse and paid the debts of them all! There was a general jail delivery of the poor debtors, for very joy. Well: a Boston boy, of the old school, was a noble animal—how easily held by the heart-strings!—with how much difficulty, by the head or the tail!
An antiquarian friend, to whom I am already under sundry obligations, has obligingly loaned me an interesting document, in connection with the subject of Liberty Tree; under whose shade I propose to linger a little longer.
No. XLII.
March 22, 1765. George III. and his ministers took it into their heads to sow the wind; and, in an almost inconceivably short time, they reaped the whirlwind. They scattered dragons’ teeth, and there came up armed men. They planted the stamp act, in the Colonial soil, and there sprang into life, mature and full of vigor, the Liberty Tree, like Minerva, fully developed, and in perfect armor, from the brain of Jupiter. Whoever would find a clear, succinct, and impartial account of the effect of the stamp act, upon the people of New England, may resort to Dodsley’s Annual Register, page 49, of that memorable year. “The sun of liberty has set,” wrote Franklin home, “but you must light up the candles of industry and economy.”
The life of that act of oppression was short and stormy. March 18, 1766, its miserable requiem was sung in Parliament—“an event,” says the Annual Register, of that year, page 46, “that caused more universal joy, throughout the British dominions, than, perhaps, any other, that can be remembered.” How such a viper ever found its way into the cradle of liberty is quite a marvel—certain it is, the genius of freedom, with the power of Hercules, speedily strangled it there.
In America, and, especially, in Boston, the joy, as I have already stated, was very great; and some there were, beyond all doubt, who were delighted, to find an apology, for going back to monarchical usages. Even liberty may be, sometimes, irksome, at first, to him, who has long lived a slave; and it is no small grievance, I dare say, to such, to be deprived of the luxury of calling some one, Lord and Master, after the flesh. However monstrous, and even ridiculous, the idea of a king may seem to us, republicans, born in this wonderfully bracing atmosphere—there are some, who have a strong taste for booing and genuflection, and the doffing of beavers, and throwing up of “greasy caps,” and rending their throats, for very ecstacy, when the royal coach is coming along, bearing the heir apparent, in diapers. This taste, I suppose, like that for olives, must be acquired; it cannot be natural.
May 19, and 20, 1766, the face of the town of Boston was dressed in smiles—a broad grin rather, from ear to ear, from Winnisimmet to Roxbury. Nothing was talked of but “a grateful people,” and “the darling monarch”—which amounts to this—the “darling monarch” had graciously desisted, from grinding their faces any longer, simply because he was convinced, that the “grateful people” would kick the grindstone over, and peradventure the grinder, should the “darling” attempt to give it another turn.