The General Court was in session at the time, but no effectual proceedings were taken against the rioters. Public sympathy was with them in their purposes, if not in their measures. But the inhabitants of Boston, in town meeting on the 14th, in an address to Governor Bernard, probably drawn by Otis,[92] among other matters complained of being invaded by an armed force. With grim humor, the address represents the commissioners, who had fled for safety to the Castle, as having "of their own notion" relinquished the exercise of their commission, and expressed the hope that they would never resume it, and demanded of the governor to give immediate order for the removal of the "Romney" from the harbor. Some weeks later (June 30) the Council passed the customary resolution, setting forth "their utter abhorrence and detestation" of the riotous proceedings, and desiring that the governor, through the attorney-general, would prosecute all guilty persons, that they and "their abettors might be brought to condign punishment."[93]
When the circular letter was laid before the ministry, April 15, 1768, it caused great excitement in parliamentary circles, and led to the gravest mistake which was made by the government during the entire Revolutionary period. Other measures, perhaps without exception, had a show of necessity; nor, as the British Constitution was then interpreted by the highest authority, were they clearly unconstitutional. But when the Earl of Hillsborough, speaking for the king, June 21, 1768, required the Massachusetts House of Representatives to rescind their circular letter on pain of immediate dissolution, there was a violation of the constitutional right of the House to express their opposition to measures deemed injurious to their constituents, and to communicate their sentiments to other colonies whose interests were similarly affected. Equally unwise was Hillsborough's letter to the colonial assemblies, requiring them to disregard the Massachusetts circular. Responses to the circular letter, when they expressed the sentiments of the assemblies rather than those of the royal governors, were in full sympathy with Massachusetts.[94] The representatives, says Bernard, "have been much elated, within these three or four days, by some letters they have received in answer to the circular letter",[95] and Hutchinson thought that "the strength which would be derived from this union confirmed many who would otherwise have been wavering."[96] But when Governor Bernard (June 21, 1768) communicated to the House instructions from the king to rescind the circular letter, and recommended immediate action as of important consequence to the province, no doubt it caused anxiety. Under a similar pressure New York had receded. The House apprehended the gravity of the situation, and took seven or eight days for consideration, and even then desired to consult their constituents. But when Bernard informed them that further delay would be considered as a refusal, they voted, 92 to 17, not to rescind, and "the number 92", Hutchinson says, "was auspicious, and 17 of ill omen, for many months after, not only in Massachusetts Bay, but in most of the colonies on the continent."[97] They doubtless were influenced by Otis, who spoke with great power, and, according to Bernard, unsparingly denounced the ministry and "passed an encomium on Oliver Cromwell."[98] Massachusetts deliberately disobeyed the king's command, and defied his power. Before dissolution, the House agreed (June 30, 1768) upon a message to the governor, arguing the question very fully, and declaring their refusal to rescind; a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough; and a Report and Resolves, in which they repeat the story of their grievances, doings, and rights with great fullness and ability.[99]
The effect of this action, so honorable to the House, was unfavorable upon the ministry. De Berdt, the London agent, in a letter to the House, August 12, 1768, giving the substance of a conversation with the Earl of Hillsborough, says that his lordship informed him that he would have used his influence for the repeal of the Townshend Acts, and believed he could have obtained it; but since the news respecting the non-rescinding of the circular letter, the matter was in doubt. "The crown must be supported, or we sink into a state of anarchy."
In July, 1768, General Gage, then at New York, had been directed by the ministry to remove one or two regiments to Boston; and when the news of the riots of March 18 reached England, on August 14, two additional regiments were ordered from Ireland. When rumors of these orders became rife in Boston, there were indications that the country would be raised to prevent the landing of the troops; but different counsels prevailed. A town meeting was held in Faneuil Hall on the 12th and 13th of September, which agreed to call a meeting of the towns.[100] Ninety-six towns and eight districts were finally represented in the convention which assembled at the time appointed (September 22). Their first act was a petition to the governor setting forth their apprehensions in respect to a standing army. This the governor refused to receive, but he expressed his opinion of the unauthorized meeting they were holding, directed them to separate instantly, and threatened to assert the prerogatives of the crown. After a recital of grievances, with declarations of loyalty and promises of assistance to civil magistrates in suppressing disorders, they adjourned on the 29th. Their proceedings were moderate,—a moderation induced, as some supposed, by the arrival at Nantasket, September 28, from Halifax of a fleet of seven armed vessels, with nearly a thousand troops.[101] If contempt of the royal prerogative, after the refusal to rescind the circular letter, could have been more pointedly expressed, it was by holding a provincial convention without sanction of law. Between these measures and April 19, 1775, no step involving a new principle was taken. The burning of the "Gaspee" in 1772 and the destruction of the tea in 1773 were merely the filling in of a picture firmly sketched in outline.
The refusal of the provincial council and of the town to provide for quartering the royal troops on their arrival was a practical nullification of the Mutiny Act, which served still further to strain the relations between Massachusetts and the British ministry. Parliament came together November 8, 1768. Both Houses were swift to condemn the late proceedings of the General Court of Massachusetts and of the town of Boston. On December 15 these acts were made the basis of eight resolutions, introduced by the Earl of Hillsborough, and an address to the king, moved by the Duke of Bedford, to obtain information respecting the actors in the riotous proceedings since December 10, 1767, with a view, if deemed advisable, of ordering their transportation to England for trial. These were passed by the House of Commons (January 26, 1769), after a debate in which the whole subject of American affairs was discussed.[102] The news of these proceedings at first created some uneasiness in Boston among those implicated; but apprehension subsided when it was learned from their friends in England that the voting of Bedford's Address by the two Houses was merely political;[103] that lenient, not rigorous, measures were intended by the ministry; and that the late act laying duties would be repealed. This intelligence reassured the patriotic party, but correspondingly depressed the tories, who saw no hope in the vacillating policy of the ministry.[104] A policy was much needed. Chatham had resigned in October, 1768, and the Duke of Grafton became the nominal, as he had long been the real, head of the ministry. Lord North, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had charge of the revenue. The Duke of Grafton favored the total repeal of the Townshend duties, but Lord North favored the retention of that on tea, as a matter of principle; and so it was decided by a majority of one in the Cabinet Council. Parliament rose May 9, and four days later the Earl of Hillsborough reported to the several colonies the resolutions of the government on the circular letter. Lord Hillsborough's letter gave little comfort to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, whose firmness was commended by Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the threat of transportation of the Bostonians to England for trial under a statute of Henry VIII. called forth from the latter colony vigorous resolutions and an address to the king, May 16, 1769.[105] Jefferson has given the history of these resolutions.[106] This action did not meet the approval of Lord Botetourt, the governor of Virginia, and he dissolved the House of Burgesses. This, however, did not prevent the delegates from meeting at the Apollo, in the Raleigh tavern, and, as citizens, entering into a non-importation agreement which bore the names of Henry, Randolph, Jefferson, and Washington, and became an example to all the colonies.[107] During the remainder of the year 1769 the progress of the Revolution was confined chiefly to Massachusetts, and there it assumed the form of an altercation between the House of Representatives and the governor in respect to the presence of the king's forces.[108] Coming in for their annual session near the end of May, the House, unwilling even to organize in the presence of the military, sent a message to the governor, remonstrating against so gross a breach of its privileges, and requesting him to give orders to remove the standing army, the main guard of which was kept with cannon pointed at the very door of the State House.[109] There was no design in this arrangement, but it was very menacing, nevertheless. For nearly two weeks messages kept passing back and forth, to the purport, on the governor's side, that he had no authority to remove the troops, they being under the commander-in-chief; and on the part of the House, that they would do no business while the troops remained. It occurred to the governor that, if he could not remove the troops, he could remove the General Court; and this he did by directing the secretary to adjourn it to Cambridge. The Court did not appreciate this stroke of humor, and proceeded to business only after a protest of necessity. But Bernard's career was drawing to a close. June 28th he informed the House that the king desired him to repair to Great Britain. July 8th the House passed nineteen resolutions,[110] covering the whole ground of dispute with the home government, and arraigning the governor for various political misdemeanors. They petitioned for his recall; and Governor Bernard left the province, accompanied by the reproaches of the House and manifestations of joy by the people. He did not succeed in a position in which all who had preceded him and all who followed him failed. He could not serve well two masters.
PLAN OF KING STREET AND VICINITY.
Note.—The plan on the following page is a reduction from that used in the trial following the massacre, and was made by Paul Revere. It now belongs to the MS. collections of the writer of this chapter. The key to the letters in the street, a part of the original drawing, is lost. Those attached to the buildings, etc., are substituted for the legends which are in the original, and which would be illegible in the reduced scale of the present reproduction. They signify as follows:—
A, Doctr Jones; B, Doctr Roberts; C, Brigdens, goldsmith; D, John Nazro, store; E, Main Street; F, Town house; G, Brazen Head; H, Benj. Kent, Esq., house; I, Mrs. Clapham; J, Exchange Tavern; K, Exchange Lane; L, Custom House; M, Col. Marshall's house; N, "N.B. The pricked line is the Gutter;" O, Mr. Paine's house; P, Mr. Davis's house; Q, Mr. Amory's house; R, Quaker Lane; S, Warden and Vernon's shop; T, Levi Jening, shop; U, Mr. Peck, wa[t]ch maker, shop; V, Court Square; W, whipping-post; X, J. & D. Waldo, shop; Y, Pudin Lane; Z, G. C. Phillips, house; 1, Ezk. Prince, Esq., office; 2, Guard House; 3, Mr. Bowse, shop.