Stories about General Warren, in relation to the fifth of March massacre, and the battle of Bunker Hill

by Rebecca Warren Brown

Mary. What are taxes, dear mother?

Mrs. M. Taxes are monies paid for the support of those who govern us. You know that every city and town makes choice of men whom they can trust, to meet together to say what and how much these taxes shall be. Now it was not possible that we should send men every year to England, to meet with the rulers there, to agree on what we ought to pay, and, unless we did, we should be taxed unjustly. Therefore the only way to be taxed fairly, was to choose people ourselves to tax us. The king would neither let us say what we ought to pay, nor would he let us say who should govern us. He insisted on our suffering men whom he sent over, to govern us; and he obliged us to pay them, even though they oppressed us.

William. What a shame! I do not wonder our people determined not to submit to it.

Mrs. M. The people were so much attached to the king and their mother country, as England was always called, that they would not have resisted this; at least not so early after their settlement in this country, had the king stopped here. But he chose, notwithstanding all our remonstrances and petitions, to continue to impose taxes without our consent. We could hardly buy an article which came from England, that we did not have to pay for it more than its worth, so that the king might have part of the money. As almost every thing we consumed was brought from England, this tax of course bore very heavy on a young country. But still this was not the reason it was resisted; it was because it was unjust to impose any taxes on a free people, without their consent. Gen. Warren endeavored, with all the powers of his vigorous mind, to make the people understand their rights. His arguments, and those of others who thought like him, had so far convinced them of the necessity of resisting these taxes, that, when a cargo of tea arrived at the port of Boston, on every pound of which there was a heavy duty, a number of people, disguised in Indian dresses, entered the vessel in the night which contained it, broke open the chests of tea, and threw all that was in them, into the water. They thus showed that they preferred to have their families go without an article which was much valued by them, rather than to pay for it by yielding, in the slightest degree, to an act that would endanger their liberties. Their wives, so far from repining at this deprivation, determined, from that moment, not to touch a drop of their favorite beverage until they could have it free from taxes.

Mary. That was right. I am glad they did what they could to support those brave men.

Mrs. M. After this daring act, the king determined to make us submit by force. He therefore sent over more soldiers to control us; he had always kept some here; and he sent Gen. Gage to command them, and to be our Governor. He also sent ships filled with armed men, to occupy our harbour, and to prevent any other vessels from coming to our assistance. Should you not think that the Boston people would now be tempted to give up the point?

William. Yes, mamma, I should; for I do not see how they could see any prospect of gaining it with their town and their harbour filled with British soldiers.

Mrs. M. So far from giving it up, they only determined more strenuously to endeavor to gain it. They would not suffer any of the British rulers or judges to meet. They closed all the court houses where these men wanted to meet, and decided all their disputes and difficulties themselves: indeed, they were so determined not to need these courts, that the utmost order and regularity reigned among them. Sometimes, indeed, the British officers or the soldiers which thronged the streets would exasperate the people so much, that they collected in mobs, determined to avenge themselves on them. At such times Gen. Warren repeatedly exposed his life in the midst of these mobs, to soothe them and restrain them from acts of violence. His persuasive eloquence seldom failed to bring them to their duty, and to make them ashamed of what they were about to do. He would tell them that it was a very bad way to show they could govern themselves, by committing acts which would let every one see they had neither justice nor humanity; that while so many good men were doing all in their power to free them from the oppression of others, it was a great injury to the cause of freedom for them to oppress in their turn; and thus to take upon themselves to both judge and punish others without giving those whom they disliked an opportunity to defend themselves. At first, the men who composed these mobs would try to drive him away, and make a noise to prevent his being heard. While they did this, he would stand calmly and look at them. His intrepidity, his commanding and animated countenance, and, above all, their knowledge that he was in reality on their side, as far as it was right to be, would soon make them as eager to hear as he was to speak, and, finally, they would disperse to their houses, with the most perfect confidence that they could not do better than to leave their cause in such hands.

Although Gen. Warren thus restrained the people from revenging the insults of the British, he did not escape them himself. They took every opportunity of calling him a rebel, and telling him, as they did all those who were on his side, that he would meet the fate of a rebel, that of being hung. You know there is a piece of land which connects Boston to Roxbury, called the neck, do you not?