142. Anti-Social Tendencies of the Pre-Revolutionary Measures
a. Closing of the Courts
From "Passages from an Autobiography" in John Adams' Works (II, 420-421).
The passage illustrates one of the forces that drove many of the respectable classes into Tory ranks.
An event of the most trifling nature in appearance, and fit only to excite laughter in other times, struck me into a profound reverie, if not a fit of melancholy. I met a man who had sometimes been my client, and sometimes I had been against him. He, though a common horse-jockey, was sometimes in the right, and I had commonly been successful in his favor in our courts of law. He was always in the law, and had been sued in many actions at almost every court. As soon as he saw me, he came up to me, and his first salutation to me was, "Oh! Mr. Adams, what great things have you and your colleagues done for us! We can never be grateful enough to you. There are no courts of justice now in this Province and I hope there never will be another." Is this the object for which I have been contending? said I to myself, for I rode along without any answer to this wretch. Are these the sentiments of such people, and how many of them are there in the country? Half the nation, for what I know; for half the nation are debtors, if not more, and these have been, in all countries, the sentiments of debtors. If the power of the country should get into such hands, and there is great danger that it will, to what purpose have we sacrificed our time, health and every thing else? Surely we must guard against this spirit and these principles, or we shall repent of all our conduct. However, the good sense and integrity of the majority of the great body of the people came into my thoughts, for my relief, and the last resource was after all in a good Providence.
b. Mob Violence, to enforce the "Association"
From an anonymous parody, expressing the loyalist's dilemma, in Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, I, 169.
To sign, or not to sign!—That is the question:
Whether 'twere better for an honest man
To sign—and so be safe; or to resolve,
Betide what will, against 'associations'
And, by retreating, shun them. To fly—I reck
Not where—and by that flight to 'scape
Feathers and tar, and thousand other ills
That Loyalty is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To fly—to want—
To want—perchance to starve! Ay there's the rub!