This Committee of Correspondence was the great executive of our party. It watched unceasingly: it received information from all the societies, clubs, town assemblies, caucuses, and local committees. It distributed all information, all warnings, all rumours, not only from America, but also, through its agents, from abroad.
Many of its members were also members of the "Green Dragon." John Hancock was such a member, and therefore his presence here at the "Wild Goose" was perhaps significant.
That he was about to address the company was apparent, for everybody had now taken chairs and formed a semi-circle around Mr. Hancock, who stood leaning against the great centre-table, coolly taking snuff, and glancing over a written sheet of paper which he held in his left hand.
"It may be," he said, "a trifle premature to discuss here in open meeting those measures of resistance contemplated and now under discussion in the Committee of Correspondence, the Provincial Congress, and the Continental Congress.
"It is sufficient, therefore, for the moment, that you should know that Virginia and South Carolina are at last aroused to the necessity of taking thought for their local defences. I may also add that my Lord Dunmore's government increases in rigour and also in disfavour.
"The Committee of Correspondence has received word direct from Mr. Patrick Henry that he regards the cause of peace as already lost, and urges us to rely on Virginia, at least, for loyal support in whatever measures we may deem necessary to maintain our manhood in the face of all the world."
A murmur of applause swept like a whisper through the room, hushed immediately by cautious gestures and glances at the street outside, which might harbour a spy in its heavy gloom and impenetrable, brooding shadows.
"There is a certain document embodying a proposed declaration," continued Hancock, "which, although at present merely under discussion, I expect to see one day printed, completed, and framed, and hung in every home in these thirteen colonies. You may perhaps imagine what document I refer to, and doubtless many of you sitting here are not yet prepared for that supreme step forward in our manifest destiny. Neither, I may say, are many who have the framing of that declaration under discussion. Time alone will show that future of which I, for one, am so certain.
"I am not here to discuss with you the proposed declaration in question, which is not even yet existent save in the hearts of those who have dared to dream of it.
"I am here to submit to you a list of crimes against our colony of Massachusetts Bay, committed or contemplated by the King of England."