In a brief reply to this elaborate address, the next day, General Gage said that the riots and the resolves of the town had induced His Majesty to order four regiments to protect his loyal subjects in their persons and properties, and to assist the civil magistrates in the execution of the laws; that he trusted the discipline and order of the troops would render their stay in no shape distressful to His Majesty's dutiful subjects; and that he hoped the future behavior of the people would justify the best construction of past actions, and afford him a sufficient foundation to represent to His Majesty the propriety of withdrawing the most part of the troops. This was very paternal, haughty, and very English. However, the activity of the commander, in bargaining for stores, houses, and other places to be used as barracks for the soldiers, indicated better behavior in the future on the part of crown officials than the browbeating of the local authorities, from the Council down to the Justices, in the vain attempt to make them do what the law did not require them to do, and what their feelings, as well as their sense of right, forbade their doing. In a short time the good people had the satisfaction of seeing the redcoats move out of Fanueil Hall and the Town-House into quarters provided by those who sent them into the town, and of reflecting on the moral victory which their idolized leaders had won in standing firmly by the law.
It was now in the mouths, not only of the Patriots, but of Loyalists of the candid type of those who signed the recent address to General Gage, that, as it was evident things had been grossly misrepresented to the Ministers, when truth and time should set matters fairly right before the Government there would be a change of policy; and so Hope, in her usual bright way, lifted a little the burden from heavy hearts in the cheering words through the press (October, 1768),--"The pacific and prudent measures of the town of Boston must evince to the world that Americans, though represented by their enemies to be in a state of insurrection, mean nothing more than to support those constitutional rights to which the laws of God and Nature entitle them; and when the measure of oppression and mi..st...al iniquity is full, and the dutiful supplications of an injured people shall have reached the gracious ear of their sovereign, may at length terminate in a glorious display of liberty."
The journals, a few days after these events, announced that "the worshipful the Commissioners of the Customs, having of their own free will retreated in June to the Castle, designed to make their re-entrance to the metropolis, so that the town would be again blessed with the fruits of the benevolence of the Board, as well as an example of true politeness and breeding"; and soon afterwards this Board again held its sessions in Boston. It was further announced, that the troops that had been quartered in the Town-House had moved into a house lately possessed by James Murray, which was near the church in Brattle Street, (hence the origin of "Murray's Barracks," which became historic from their connection with the Boston Massacre,)--that James Otis, at the session of the Superior Court, in the Town-House, moved that the Court adjourn to Faneuil Hall, because of the cannon that remained pointed at the building, as it was derogatory to the honor of the Court to administer justice at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the bayonet,--that the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments had arrived from Cork, and were quartered in the large and commodious stores on Wheelwright's Wharf,--and that Commodore Hood, the commander of His Majesty's ships in America, had arrived (November 13) in town. It is stated that there were now about four thousand troops here, under the command of General Pomeroy, who was an excellent officer and became very popular with the citizens.
The town, meanwhile, continued remarkably quiet. There was no call for popular demonstrations during the winter; and the Patriots confined their labors to severe animadversions on public measures, and efforts to tone the people up to a rigid observance of the non-importation scheme. The crown officials endeavored to enliven the season with balls and concerts, and at first were mortified that few of the ladles would attend them; but they persevered, and were more successful. "Now," Richard Carey writes, (February 7, 1769,) "it is mortifying to many of the inhabitants that they have obtained their wishes, and that such numbers of ladies attend. It is a bad thing for Boston to have so many gay, idle people in it." There is much comment, in the letters and journals, upon these balls and concerts, and some of it not very flattering to the ladies who countenanced them.
Meantime there appeared (January 10, 1769) an extra "Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser," a broadside or half-sheet, printed in pica type, but only on one side, which, under the heading of "Important Advices," spread before the community the King's speech to Parliament. This state-paper, which was read the world over, represented the people of Boston as being "in a state of disobedience to all law and government, and to have proceeded to measures subversive of the Constitution, and attended with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off their dependence upon Great Britain"; and it contained a pledge "to defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious persons who, under false pretences, had but too successfully deluded numbers," and whose designs, if not defeated, could not fail to produce the most serious consequences, not only to the Colonies immediately, but, in the end, to all the dominions of the Crown.
The Patriots remarked, (January 14, 1769,) that the countenances of a few, who seemed to enjoy a triumph, were now very jocund; but that His Majesty's loyal subjects were distressed that he had conceived such an unfavorable sentiment of the temper of the people, who, far from the remotest disposition to faction or rebellion, were struggling, as they apprehended, for a constitution which supported the Crown, and for the rights devised to them by their Charter and confirmed to them by the declaration of His Majesty's glorious ancestors, William and Mary, at that important era, the Revolution. These words are from an article entitled "Journal of the Times," of which notice will be taken presently; and they came out of what Bernard used to term the cabinet of the faction. Other words, from Thomas Cushing, who was not an ultra Whig, run, as to His Majesty,--"He must have been egregiously misinformed. Nothing could have been farther from the truth than such advices. I hope time, which scatters and dispels the mists of error and falsehood, will place us in our true light, and convince the Administration how much they have been abused by false and malicious misrepresentations." Official falsehood and malice did their appointed work, doubtless, in inflaming the British mind; but the root of the difficulty was the feeling, so general at that time in England, that every man there had a right to govern every man in America. The King represented this imperialism.
The King's speech, threatening resolves adopted in Parliament, startling avowals in the direction of arbitrary power uttered in the debates, gave fresh significance to the quartering of troops in Boston, and forced upon the Patriots the conviction that these troops were not here merely to aid in maintaining a public peace that was not disturbed, or in collecting revenue that was regularly paid, but were indicative of a purpose in the Ministry to change their local government, and subjugate them, as to their domestic affairs, to foreign-imposed law. "My daily reflections for two years," says John Adams, who lived near Murray's Barracks, "at the sight of those soldiers before my door, were serious enough. Their very appearance in Boston was a strong proof to me that the determination in Great Britain to subjugate us was too deep and inveterate ever to be altered by us; for everything we could do was misrepresented, and nothing we could say was credited." This statement is abundantly confirmed by contemporary facts. Nothing that the Patriots could say availed to diminish the alarm which was felt by the British aristocracy at the obvious tendency of the democratic principle. The progress of events but revealed new grandeur in the ideas of freedom and equality that had been here so intelligently grasped, and new capacities in the republican forms in which they had found expression. This was growth. The mode prescribed to check this growth was a change in the local Constitution, and this would be "the introduction of absolute rule" in Massachusetts.
The voluminous correspondence, at this period, between the members of the British Cabinet and Governor Bernard shows that this purpose of changing the Constitution was entertained by the Ministers and was warmly urged by the local crown officials. Thus, John Pownall, the Under-Secretary, avowed in a letter addressed to the Governor, that such a measure was necessary, and that such "had been long his firm and unalterable opinion upon the fullest consideration of what had passed in America"; and in the same letter be says that the Government had under consideration "the forfeiture of the Charter and measures of local regulation and reform."
The Governor, for years, had urged this in general, and of late had named the specific measure of so altering the constitution of the Council, that, instead of being chosen by the Representatives, it should be appointed by the Crown; and he was vexed because his superiors did not consider the Charter as at their mercy. "I have just now heard," he wrote, October 22, 1768, to Lord Barrington, "that the Charter of this government is still considered as sacred. For, most assuredly, if the Charter is not so far altered as to put the appointment of the Council in the King, this government will never recover itself. When order is restored, it will be at best but a republic, of which the Governor will be no more than President." A month later (November 22, 1768) he wrote to John Pownall,--"If the Convention and the proceedings of the Council about the same time shall give the Crown a legal right or induce the Parliament to exercise a legislative power over the Charter, it will be most indulgently exercised, if it is extended no farther than to make an alteration in the form of the government, which has always been found wanting, is now become quite necessary, and will really, by making it more constitutional, render it more permanent. With this alteration, I do believe that all the disorders of this government will be remedied, and the authority of it fully restored. Without it, there will be a perpetual occasion to resort to expedients, the continual inefficiency of which will speak in the words of Scripture,--'You are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.'"
As week after week passed and no orders came from the Secretary of State to make arrests of certain individuals who had been conspicuous in the late town-meetings, and no legislation was entered upon as to the Charter, the crown officials were greatly agitated; and Bernard says (December, 1768) that they were "under the apprehension that the Government of Great Britain might not take the full advantage of what the late mad and wicked proceedings of The Sons of Liberty [faction] had put in their hands. They say that the late wild attempt to create a revolt and take the government of the Province out of the King's into their own hands affords so fair an opportunity for the supreme power to reform the constitution of this subordinate government, to dispel the faction which has harassed this Province for three years past, and to inflict a proper and not a severe censure upon some of the heads of it, that, if it is now neglected, they say, it is not like soon, perhaps ever, to happen again." And the Governor said that he heard much of this from all the sensible men with whom he conversed. What a testimonial is this record in favor of republican Boston and Massachusetts! So complete was the quiet of the town, so forbearing were the people under the severest provocations, that this set of politicians were out of all patience, and feared they never would see another riot out of which to make a case for abolishing the cherished local government. The Patriots, Bernard says in this letter, did not experience this agitation. "Those persons," he writes, "who have reason to expect a severe censure from Great Britain do not appear to be so anxious for the event as the friends and well-wishers to the authority of the Government." The Patriots intended no rebellion, and they experienced no apprehension. They put forth no absurd claims to meddle with things that were common and national, and they asked simply to be let alone as to things peculiar and local.