[81] Bradford, History of Mass., i. 97.
[82] Parliamentary Hist., xvi. 375.
[83] 7 Geo. III. ch. 41, Statutes at Large, vol. x. 340.
[84] 7 Geo. III. ch. 46, Ibid., 369. Bancroft's account of these Acts is not quite accurate (History, vi. 84, 85): "By another Act (7 Geo. III. ch. xli.) a Board of Customs was established at Boston, and general Writs of Assistance were legalized." The execution of the Laws of Trade was placed under the direction of Commissioners of Customs, "to reside in the said Plantations", where the king should direct,—not localized at Boston. It was by ch. xlvi. sec. x., not xli., that Writs of Assistance were legalized. But a more serious error is in the statement that "Townshend's revenue was to be disposed of under the sign-manual at the king's pleasure. This part of the system had no limit as to time or place, and was intended as a perpetual menace." This is far from being accurate. By section iv. it is provided that the revenue arising from the act should be applied, in the first place, "for the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government" in the colonies; and the residue was to be paid into the receipt of the Exchequer, and entered separate and apart from all other moneys, and reserved to be disposed by Parliament for the defence of the colonies. It was the civil administration alone that could be paid by the king's warrant. The expense of the army could be appropriated only by Parliament; and the difference is worthy of attention.
[85] It was reported at a town meeting held at Boston on October 28, 1767, in which James Otis presided, that Lynn, in the previous year, had turned out forty thousand pairs of women's shoes,—an industry which has since grown to very large proportions,—and that another town had made thirty thousand yards of cloth (Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, 208).
[86] Mass. State Papers, 121, 124, 134.
[87] The circular letter was not adopted without opposition. Bernard says that the proposition was first rejected two to one; and after the measure was finally carried, in order to give the appearance of greater unanimity, the former proceedings of dissent were obliterated from the journal (Letters, 8).
[88] Mass. State Papers, 113.
[89] Abstracts of these papers convey no adequate idea of their strength. They must be read in their completeness, and so read, in connection with Lord Mansfield's speech in the House of Lords, one sees the arguments of each party stated at their best.
[90] Hutchinson's History, iii. 188.