From a pastel owned by the heirs of the late Hon. C. F. Adams. It is unfinished below the chest.—Ed.
Accordingly, a town meeting assembled in Faneuil Hall, October 28, and adjourned November 2d. Samuel Adams moved "that a committee of correspondence be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the colonies, and of this province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several towns in this province and to the world, as the sense of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be, made; also requesting of each town a free communication of their sentiments on this subject."[126] This was the beginning of an organization (November 22), entered into with hesitation by some of the leading patriots of Boston, which finally secured the public confidence, and became a great power for the concentration of popular sentiment.
Slightly reduced from an original in the Boston Public Library.—Ed.
It undoubtedly led to the larger measure of intercolonial correspondence instituted by Virginia during the next spring; and not the least of its claims to consideration is the fact that it engaged the attention and secured the services of Joseph Warren as the trusted lieutenant of Samuel Adams.[127]
The American Revolution rests upon grounds so high and clear, and was carried forward by measures so honorably conceived and so persistently adhered to, that all who adopt its principles must regret any circumstance in its history by which the opinion of candid people is divided. Such a division is found in connection with the Hutchinson letters. The story is briefly this:—In the years 1768 and 1769 Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, then officers in Massachusetts, appointed by the crown, and sworn to a faithful discharge of their duties, with several other persons, in a private correspondence with Thomas Whately, an English gentleman, formerly, but not then, connected with the government, communicated facts about colonial affairs the truth of which has never been impugned, and expressed opinions which Tories might honestly entertain. These letters in some unexplained manner found their way—either from the cabinet of the person to whom they were addressed, after his death, or, as is more likely, from the papers of George Grenville, to whom Whately had probably entrusted them for perusal—into the hands of Franklin, the colony agent in London, by whom they were sent in 1773, with an unsigned letter, to the speaker of the Massachusetts House. The injunctions in respect to them were loosely regarded, and they were published by a breach of faith which implicated a large body of men. They were made the basis of a petition by the General Court to the king for the removal of their writers from the offices which they held; but after a hearing before the Privy Council, January 29, 1774, the petition, which the province did not attempt to support by evidence, was dismissed as "groundless, vexatious, and scandalous." Two days later, Dr. Franklin was removed from the office of deputy postmaster-general for the colonies,—a circumstance of great consequence to the American cause, since it irrevocably committed to it one who had been thought its lukewarm promoter.
Massachusetts, which had led in most of the Revolutionary movements, did not take the lead in establishing committees of correspondence between the colonies. That honor belongs to Virginia; and its chief cause was the action of the commissioners in the "Gaspee" case. March 12, 1773, Dabney Carr, who had been put forward at the suggestion of Jefferson, moved certain resolutions in the Virginia House of Burgesses, which, supported by Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry, were unanimously adopted. Rhode Island followed in adopting similar measures. On May 28th the Massachusetts House responded to Virginia.[128] Hutchinson justly considers this as one of the most important and daring movements of the patriotic Party during the Revolution.[129] It paved the way for the union of the colonies and for the General Congress which was convened at Philadelphia the next year.
To the patriots of Philadelphia belongs the credit of making the first public demonstration against the project of the East India Company for transporting their accumulated stock of tea to America, in a series of resolutions passed October 18, at a meeting held in the State House.[130] News of the intention of the company to do this had reached America in August. Samuel Adams was ready. The towns in the province of Massachusetts were aroused by Joseph Warren's circular letter in behalf of the Committee of Correspondence, September 21, 1773, and the Philadelphia resolutions were adopted in Faneuil Hall. Constant communications were kept up between the importing colonies. Ships loaded with tea were dispatched about the month of August to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, but the tone of the public press in those towns indicated a determination not to allow the sale of the cargoes. The Charleston consignees, on the request of the people, resigned; those at Boston refused. November 28, one of the tea ships arrived in Boston, followed not long after by two more. These were placed under guard by the patriots. The consignees would neither resign nor return the tea, and the time was near at hand when they would be seized for non-payment of duties. Thursday, December 16, a large meeting of the citizens was held at the Old South Church, at which Josiah Quincy, Jr., spoke in words that have become historical. After all efforts to induce Hutchinson to grant a pass for the return of the tea (which he thought would be illegal) had proved futile, a war-whoop was sounded at the door of the Old South, and a large company of men disguised as Indians rushed to Griffin's wharf. Teas to the value of £18,000 were thrown from the vessels into the sea, and the same treatment was bestowed upon another cargo which came some weeks later. This act, although applauded throughout the colonies, was not imitated by them; other means were found to prevent the sale of the teas.[131]