It was in the speech of Feb. 6, 1765, that Barré applied the words "Sons of Liberty" to the patriots in America, which they readily adopted (Bancroft, v. 240; Thornton's Pulpit, 131). Dr. J. H. Trumbull, in a paper, "Sons of Liberty in 1755", published in the New Englander, vol. xxxv. (1876), showed that the term had ten years earlier been applied in Connecticut to organizations to advance theological liberty. It is also sometimes said that the popular party at the time of the Zenger trial had adopted the name. The new organization embraced the young and ardent rather than the older and more prudent patriots, and at a later period they became the prime abettors of the non-importation movements. For their correspondence in New England, see Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. (x. 324) and the Belknap Papers (MSS., iii. p. 110, etc.) in the Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet. A list of those dining together in 1769 at Dorchester is given in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Aug., 1869. The correspondence of those in Boston with John Wilkes, 1768-69, is noted in the Brit. Mus. Catal., Add. MSS. 30,870, ff. 45, 46, 75, 135, 222. H. B. Dawson's Sons of Liberty in N. Y. was privately printed in N. Y., 1859.
[177] A letter of Aug. 11, 1764, from Halifax had forewarned the colonial governors of the intention (N. Y. Col. Docs., vii. 646; N. J. Archives, ix. 448).
[178] Thomas's Hist. of Printing, Am. Antiq. Soc. ed., ii. 223; Sargent's Dealings with the Dead, i. 140, 144; Lossing's Field-Book, i. 466; Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 159; Thomas Paine's "Liberty Tree Ballad" in the Penna. Mag., July, 1775; and Moore's Songs and Ballads of the Rev., p. 18. The selecting of a large tree and its dedication to the cause became general. Cf. Silas Downer's Discourse, July 25, 1768, at dedication of a tree of liberty in Providence (Providence, 1768), and the Providence Gazette, July 30, 1768 (Sabin, v. 20, 767; J. R. Bartlett's Bibliog. of R. I., p. 112; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,622).
[179] Hutchinson had expressed disapproval of the Stamp Act; but doubting its expediency did not affect his judgment of the necessity of enforcing it (P. O. Hutchinson, i. 577; ii. 58). On the destruction of his house, see his own statement in P. O. Hutchinson's Governor Hutchinson, i. 70, 72, and his letter, dated Aug. 30, 1765, in the Mass. Archives, xxvi. 146, printed in the Mass. Senate Docs. (1870, no. 187, p. 3). He says: "The lieutenant-governor, with his children, lodged the next night at the Castle, but after that in his house at Milton, though not without apprehension of Danger." Quincy's diary (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., iv. 47) preserves Hutchinson's speech, when a few days later he took his seat on the bench, clad with such clothing as was left to him. Cf. the accounts in Boston Newsletter, Sept. 3, 1765; Parliamentary History, iv. 316; Conduct of a late Administration, 102; Memorial Hist. Boston, iii. 14, etc.; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Jan., 1862, p. 364.
[180] Boston Town Records, 1758-1769, p. 152 (Rec. Com. Rept., xvi.).
[181] These papers are given in Hutchinson's Mass. Bay (iii. 467, 471, 476). Samuel Dexter was the head of the committee to draft the reply of the assembly, but it is thought Sam. Adams wrote the paper (Bancroft, v. 347). Cf. Speeches of the Governors of Mass., 1765-1775, and the answers of the House of Representatives, with other public papers relating to the dispute between this Country and Great Britain (Boston, 1818). This collection was edited by Alden Bradford, and is sometimes cited by historians as "Bradford's Collection", "Mass. State Papers", etc.
There is a portrait of Dexter (b. 1726; d. 1810) by Copley, and a photograph of it in Daniel Goodwin, Jr.'s Provincial Pictures (Chicago, 1886).
[182] There is a likeness of Andrew Oliver, by Copley, in the possession of Dr. F. E. Oliver; and a photograph of it is in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society (Perkins's Copley, p. 90), and in P. O. Hutchinson's Governor Hutchinson (vol. ii. 17); and a woodcut in Mem. Hist. Boston (iii. 43). Another portrait, by N. Emmons (1728), is given in a photograph in P. O. Hutchinson's Governor Hutchinson (i. 129).
[183] This paper is preserved, and a fac-simile is given in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., June, 1872, and in the Mem. Hist. Boston (iii. 15). Cf. Bancroft, orig. ed., v. 375, etc.
For other accounts of the feelings and proceedings in Boston and Massachusetts, see a letter of Joshua Henshaw, in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. (1878, p. 268), and the histories of Boston by Snow and Drake; Tudor's Otis; John Adams's Works (iii. 465; x. 192, 197); Adams-Warren Correspondence, p. 341; Frothingham's Warren; Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 50; the instructions of Lexington, in Hudson's Lexington, p. 88; the instructions of Braintree, in John Adams's Works, iii. 465, and many other similar documents; beside Dr. Benjamin Church's poem, The Times (Boston Pub. Library, H. 95, 117, no. 3).