The Lieutenant-Governor was apprehensive that this sudden prorogation would cause a great clamor; but he judged that the popular leaders were rather humbled and mortified than roused and enraged by it; and he soon expressed the conviction that this was the right step. But the favorite organ of the Patriots, the "Boston Gazette," in its next issue, of January the eighth, indicates anything but humility. Through it James Otis, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams spoke kindling words to a community who received words from them as things. Otis, in a card elicited by strictures on the "unmanly assault, battery, and barbarous wounding" of himself by Robinson, declared that "a clear stage and no favor were all he ever wished or wanted in court, country, camp, or city"; Hancock, in a card commenting on the report that he had violated the merchants' agreement, "publicly defied all mankind" to prove the allegation, and pledged his coöperation "in every legal and laudable measure to redress the grievances under which the Province and the Continent had so long labored"; and Samuel Adams, under the signature of "Vindex," tested the legality of the prorogation by the terms of the Charter, and adjured every man to make it the subject of his contemplation. "We all remember," are his weighty words, "that, no longer ago than last year, the extraordinary dissolution by Governor Bernard, in which he declared he was purely Ministerial, produced another assembly, which, though legal in all its proceedings, awaked an attention in the very soul of the British empire." He claimed that a Massachusetts executive ought to act from the dictates of his own judgment. "It is not to be expected that in ordinary times, much less at such an important period as this, any man, though endowed with the wisdom of Solomon, at the distance of three thousand miles, can be an adequate judge of the expediency of proroguing, and in effect of putting an end to, an American legislative assembly."
The Lieutenant-Governor had now to meet the severest pressure brought to bear on him by the Tory faction for the employment of the troops, occasioned by a violation on the part of his sons of their agreement as to a sale of goods. They had stipulated with the merchants that an importation of teas made by them should remain unsold, and, as security, had given to the committee of inspection the key of the building in which it was stored. Yet they secretly made sales, broke the lock, and delivered the teas. This was done when the non-importation agreement was the paramount measure,—when fidelity to it was patriotism, was honor, was union, was country,—and when all eyes were looking to see Boston faithful. "If this agreement of the merchants," said "Determinatus" in the "Boston Gazette," "is of that consequence to all America which our brethren in all the other governments and in Great Britain itself think it to be,—if the fate of unborn millions is suspended upon it, verily it behooves not the merchants only, but every individual of every class in city and country to aid and support them, and peremptorily to insist upon its being strictly adhered to. And yet what is most astonishing is, that some two or three persons, of very little consequence in themselves, have dared openly to give out that they will vend the goods they have imported, though they have solemnly pledged their faith to the body of merchants that they should remain in store till a general importation takes place." The merchants met in Faneuil Hall in a large and commanding gathering; for it was composed of the solid men of the town. After deliberation, they proceeded in a body to the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor to remonstrate against the course of his sons. Meantime, the ultra Loyalists pressed him to order the troops to disperse the meeting; the Commissioners savagely urged, that "there could not be a better time for trying the strength of the government"; and others said, "It were best to bring matters to extremities." The commanding officers of the troops now expected work, and prepared for it. Dalrymple dealt out twelve rounds of cartridges to the men. But Hutchinson involuntarily shrank from the bloody business of this programme. He tried other means than force. He appealed to the justices of the peace, and through the sheriff he commanded the meeting, in His Majesty's name, to disperse. But the intrepid merchants, in a written paper, in Hancock's handwriting, averred that law warranted their proceeding; and so they calmly adhered to the action that patriotism dictated. Hutchinson at length sent for the Moderator, William Phillips, of fragrant Revolutionary renown and of educational fame, and stipulated to deposit a sum of money to stand for the tea that had been sold, and to return the balance of it to the store. The concession was accepted. In explanation of his course, and with special reference to the action of the Commissioners in this case, Hutchinson pleaded a want of power, under the Constitution, to comply with their demand. "They did not consider the Constitution," he remarked, "and that by the Charter I can do nothing without the Council, the major part of whom are against me, and the civil magistrates, many of whom made a part of the body which was to be suppressed; so that there could not have been a worse occasion [to call out the troops], and I think anything tragical would have set the whole Province in a flame, and maybe spread farther."
Thus Hutchinson, as well as Franklin, dreaded the effect of a serious collision between the citizens and the troops. At this time the feeling was one of sullen acquiescence in their presence. "Molineaux," he says, February 18, 1770, "to whom the Sons of Liberty have given the name of Paoli, and some others, are restless; but there seems to be no disposition to any general muster of the people again." And yet the newspapers were now crowded with unusually exciting matter, and so continued up to the first week in March: articles about the Liberty-Pole in New York being cut down by the military and replaced in a triumphal procession by the people; about McDougal's imprisonment for printing free comments on the Assembly for voting supplies to the troops; the famous address of "Junius" to the King, in which one count is his alienation of a people who left their native land for freedom and found it in a desert; the details of the shooting, by an informer, of Christopher Snider, the son of a poor German, and of the imposing funeral, which moved from the Liberty-Tree to the burial-place. The importers now feared an assault on their houses; whereupon soldiers were allowed as a guard to some, while others slept with loaded guns at their bedsides. These things deserve to be borne in mind; for they show how much there was to exasperate, when the popular leaders were called upon to meet a paroxysm without a precedent in the Colonies.
It seemed to the Patriots astonishing that the Ministry persisted in keeping troops in Boston. There was no spirit of resistance to law; there was no plot maturing to resist the Government; the avocations of life went on as usual; the popular leaders, men of whom any community might be proud, averred that their opposition to public measures had been prudent and legal, and that they had not taken "a single step that could not be fully justified on constitutional grounds"; and the demand in the public prints was continuous to know what the troops were wanted for, and how they were to be used. On the other hand, the ultra Loyalists as continuously represented that the town was full of a rebellious spirit, was a nest of disorder, and threatened the leaders in it with transportation. Hutchinson seems to have apprehended that this misrepresentation had been carried so far as to be suicidal; for he advised Lord Hillsborough, that, "in matters that had no relation to the dispute between the Kingdom and the Colonies, government retained its vigor, and the administration of it was attended with no unusual difficulty." This is to the point, and conclusive. This was the truth on which the popular leaders rested; and hence it seemed to them a marvel that the Ministry, to use the words of Samuel Adams, should employ troops only "to parade the streets of Boston, and, by their ridiculous merry-andrew tricks, to become the objects of contempt of the women and children."
It would be a tedious and profitless task to go over the bickerings and quarrels that occurred between the inhabitants and the soldiers. The high-spirited citizens, on being challenged in their walks, could not keep their temper; the roughs, here as in every place, would have their say; and the coarse British soldier could not be restrained by discipline; yet in all the brawls, for seventeen months, not a gun was fired in an affray. Fist had been met with fist, and club with club; and not unfrequently these quarrels were settled in the courts. The nature of such emergency as would justify the troops in firing on the people was acutely discussed in the newspapers, and undoubtedly the subject was talked about in private circles and in the political clubs. "What shall I say?" runs an article in the "Gazette." "I shudder at the thought. Surely no provincial magistrate could be found so steeled against the sensations of humanity and justice as wantonly to order troops to fire on an unarmed populace, and more than repeat in Boston the tragic scene exhibited in St. George's Fields." It was a wanton fire on an unarmed populace that was protected against; and the protest was by men who involuntarily shrank from mob-law as they would from the hell of anarchy. They apprehended an impromptu collision between the people and the troops; they knew that an illegal and wanton fire on the people would produce such collision; the danger of this result formed, undoubtedly, a large portion of the common talk; and the frequency and manner in which the subject was discussed elicited from General Gage the rather sweeping remark, that every citizen in Boston was a lawyer. Every citizen was interested in the support of public liberty and public order, and might well regard with deep concern the threats that were continually made, which, if executed, would disturb both. Hutchinson, in one of his letters, thus states the conclusions that were reached:—"Our heroes for liberty say that no troops dare to fire on the people without the order of the civil magistrate, and that no civil magistrate, would dare to give such orders. In the first part of their opinion they may be right; in the second they cannot be sure until they have made the trial."
On Friday, the second of March, in the forenoon, as three soldiers were at Gray's Ropewalks, near the head of India Wharf, they were asked by one of the workmen to empty a vault. Sharp altercation followed this insult, and the soldiers went off, but soon returned with a party of their comrades, when there was a challenge to a boxing-match, and this grew into a fight, the rope-makers using their "wouldring-sticks," and the soldiers clubs and cutlasses. It proved to be the most serious quarrel that had occurred. Lieutenant-Colonel Carr, commander of the Twenty-Ninth, which, Hutchinson said, was composed of such bad fellows that discipline could not restrain them, made a complaint to the Lieutenant-Governor relative to the provoking conduct of the rope-maker which brought on the affray; and thus this affair became the occasion of political consultation, which tended to intensify the animosity between the parties.
On Saturday, the report was circulated that the parties who were engaged in this affray would renew the fight on Monday evening; on Sunday, Carr and other officers went into the ropewalk, giving out that they were searching for a sergeant of their regiment; but though on these days there was much irritation, the town was comparatively quiet.
On Monday, the Lieutenant-Governor laid the complaint of Lieutenant-Colonel Carr before the Council, and asked the advice of this body, which gave rise to debate about the removal of the troops,—members freely expressing the opinion, that the way to prevent collisions between the military and the people was to withdraw the two regiments to the Castle. No important action was taken by the Council, although the apprehension was expressed that the ropewalk affair might grow into a general quarrel. And it is worthy of remark, that, ominous as the signs were, the Lieutenant-Governor took no precautionary measures, not even the obvious step of having the troops restrained to their barracks. His letters, and, indeed, his whole course, up to the eventful evening of this day, indicate confidence in the opinion that there was no intention on the part of the popular leaders to molest the troops, and that the troops, without an order from the civil authority, would not fire on the citizens.
Nor was there now, as zealous Loyalists alleged, any plan formed by the popular leaders, or by any persons of consideration, to expel the troops by force from the town, much less the obnoxious Commissioners of the Customs; nor is there any evidence to support the allegation on the other side, that the crown officials, civil or military, meditated or stimulated an attack on the inhabitants. The Patriots regarded what had occurred and what was threatened, like much that had taken place during the last seventeen months, as the motions of a rod of power needlessly held over the people to overawe them, serving no earthly good, but souring their minds and embittering their passions; the crown officials represented this chafing of the free spirit at the incidents of military rule as a sign of the lost authority of Government and of a desire for independence. Among the fiery spirits, accurately on both sides the mob-element, the ropewalk affair was regarded as a drawn game, and a renewal of the fight was desired on the ground that honor was at stake; while to spirit up the roughs among the Whigs, to use Dr. Gordon's words,—"the newspapers had a pompous account of a victory obtained by the inhabitants of New York over the soldiers there in an affray, while the Boston newspapers could present but a tame relation of the result of the affray here." These facts account satisfactorily for the intimations and warnings given during the day to prominent characters on both sides, and for the handbill that was circulated in the afternoon. The course things took fully justifies the remark of Gordon, that "everything tended to a crisis, and it is rather wonderful that it did not exist sooner, when so many circumstances united to hasten its approach."
There was a layer of ice on the ground, a slight fall of snow during the day, and a young moon in the evening. At an early hour, as though something uncommon was expected, parties of boys, apprentices, and soldiers strolled through the streets, and neither side was sparing of insult. Ten or twelve soldiers went from the main guard, in King Street, across this street to Murray's Barracks, in Brattle Street, about three hundred yards from King Street; and another party came out of these barracks, armed with clubs and cutlasses, bent on a stroll. A little after eight o'clock, quite a crowd collected near the Brattle-Street Church, many of whom had canes and sticks; and after a spell of bantering wretched abuse on both sides, things grew into a fight. As it became more and more threatening, a few North-Enders ran to the Old Brick Meeting-House, on what is now Washington Street, at the head of King Street, and lifted a boy into a window, who rang the bell. About the same time, Captain Goldfinch, of the army, who was on his way to Murray's Barracks, crossed King Street, near the Custom-House, at the corner of Exchange Lane, where a sentinel had long been stationed; and as he was passing along, he was taunted by a barber's apprentice as a mean fellow for not paying for dressing his hair, when the sentinel ran after the boy and gave him a severe blow with his musket. The boy went away crying, and told several persons of the assault, while the Captain passed on towards Murray's Barracks, but found the passage into the yard obstructed by the affray going on here,—the crowd pelting the soldiers with snowballs, and the latter defending themselves. Being the senior officer, he ordered the men into the barracks; the gate of the yard was then shut, and the promise was made that no more men should be let out that evening. In this way the affray here was effectually stopped.