So far as the Revolution grew out of the Massachusetts controversy between the king's representatives and the General Court, its progress may be traced in the Speeches of the Governors of Massachusetts, 1765 to 1775, and the Answers of the House of Representatives to the same.[157] These authentic documents, with the Journals of the House and the Records of the Town of Boston, may be referred to as showing the temper with which the parties treated each other, and the questions that were of paramount interest. The student will not find it easy to ascertain the facts which should make the history of the period. Contemporaneous accounts were generally drawn up with a partisan disregard of truth, and too much has been written subsequently in the same spirit. For the critical period of 1768, when the troops were sent over on account of the revenue riots, we have Bernard's Letters, which, though representing only one side, were written under a sense of official responsibility to the government. Though much complained of at the time as wanting in candor, their statements were evaded rather than controverted by the Answer of the Major Part of the Council, in a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough (April 15, 1769), as well as in The Vindication of the Town of Boston (Oct. 18, 1769), drafted by Samuel Adams. For the entire period covered by this chapter, I find no narrative apparently more just, or opinions more candidly expressed, than in Ramsay's History of the American Revolution. Remote from the scene of the conflict, Ramsay shared the passions of neither party.
The most important events of this period were the passage of the Boston Port Bill, and other related measures. The reasons which led to these acts are set forth at length in The Report from the Committee on the Disturbances in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, April 20, 1774.[158] In this report may be seen the strength of the British case. Franklin's view of the matters referred to in the Report of the Lords may be found in a paper entitled Proceedings in Massachusetts,[159] and the bill itself was discussed in an interesting pamphlet by Josiah Quincy, Jr., Observations on the Act of Parliament.[160]
Franklin's paper was a clever argument in which he treated facts so as to serve his purpose rather than that of historic truth. His use of Oliver's phrase, "to take off the original incendiaries", which was a pleasant ad hominem hit, has been adopted seriously by Bancroft,[161] in a chapter entitled "A Way to Take off the Incendiaries." The concessions which Franklin was willing to make for a settlement of the difficulties, as late as December 4, 1774, may be seen in "Some Special Transactions of Dr. Franklin in London, in Behalf of America", in Ramsay.[162]
The argument of Otis on the Writs of Assistance is the first well-arranged expression of the gathering opposition,[163] and what John Adams called "the heaves and throes of the burning mountain", forerunning the eruption, were shown in James Otis's A vindication of the conduct of the House of Representatives of the province of the Massachusetts-Bay; more particularly, in the last session of the general assembly (Boston, 1762).[164]
John Dickinson and Joseph Galloway were already pitted against each other on the question of maintaining the proprietary government of Pennsylvania, or of seeking a royal one.[165]
Frothingham[166] says the earliest organized action against taxation was when the town of Boston passed instructions to its representatives, May 24, 1764, the original writing of which is among the Samuel Adams MSS. The paper was printed in the newspapers of the day, and shortly afterwards in the famous tract of Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies asserted and proved,[167] in which, however, he failed, with all his fervid and cogent reasoning, to stand in every respect by the advanced position which he had taken in his plea against the Writs of Assistance.[168]