XXX. Another bill soon followed, " for better regulating the CHAPTER government of Massachusetts Bay," amounting, in fact, to an abrogation of the charter. This bill gave to the 1774. crown the appointment of counselors and judges of the April 15. Superior Court. The appointment of all other officers, military, executive, and judicial, was bestowed on the governor, independently of any approval by the council. The selection of jurors was taken from the selectmen of the towns and given to the sheriffs. All town meetings, except for elections, were prohibited. A third bill, intended to meet cases like that of the Boston massacre, and to protect the servants of the crown against the verdicts of colonial juries, provided for the trial in England of all persons charged in the colonies with murders committed in support of government. These bills-opposed by Barre, Conway, Johnstone, Pownall, Dunning, Burke, and Fox; supported by North, Attorney-general Thurlow, Lord George Germaine, and Jenkinson, afterward Earl of Liverpool, and for many years prime minister-were carried in both houses by a majority of more than four to one. A fourth bill, for quartering troops in America, a new edition of the former act, was also brought in by the ministers. Chatham rose in the House of Lords to oppose this bill, and, in spite of feeble health, spoke with all his old animation, going over the whole ground, and declaring his unalterable opinion that Britain had no right to tax America. A fifth act, known as the Quebec Act, designed to prevent that newly-acquired province from joining with the other colonies, restored in civil matters the old French law-the custom of Paris-and guaranteed to the Catholic Church the possession of its ample property, amounting to a fourth part or more of the old French grants, with CHAPTER full freedom of worship. The calling of an Assembly XXX. was indefinitely postponed, the legislative authority, ex1774. cept for taxation, being committed to a council nomina ted by the crown. The boundaries of the province were also extended to the Mississippi on the west, and the Ohio on the south, so as to include, besides the present Canada, the territory now the five states northwest of the Ohio. In the Commons, Burke brought forward a motion to repeal the tax on tea. In his speech on this occasion, the earliest of the splendid series of his published parliamentary orations, he reviewed the history of the attempt to tax the colonies, and proposed to go back to the state of things before the passage of the Stamp Act. But the ministers were resolved, by making an example, to terrify the colonies into submission. Not a little to Hutchinson's mortification, Gage, directed to resume his command in America, had been commissioned also as governor of Massachusetts, to which rebellious province four additional regiments were ordered. As May 13. Gage entered the harbor, a town meeting, at which Samuel Adams presided, had assembled to take the Port Bill into consideration, news of which had just arrived. This was an occasion of great and solemn anxiety. In the common cause, Boston had thrown herself into the gap. Would the other mercantile cities of America-would the country at large-look on quietly and see her suffer? It was proposed to renew the non-importation agreement as to all British goods; and Paul Revere, a Boston mechanic, an active "Son of Liberty," was sent to New York and Philadelphia to invoke sympathy and co-operation. May 17. Public meetings at Providence and Newport responded to Boston, and suggested the idea of a Continental Con gress. XXX. The Connecticut Legislature, then in session, CHAPTER passed a series of resolutions pointedly condemning the late acts of Parliament, and recommending the assembly 1774. of a Continental Congress. The old Committee of Cor- May 24. respondence at New York was composed principally of "Sons of Liberty" of the middle class, headed by M'Dougall, Sears, Willett, and Lamb, upon whose discretion the more wealthy citizens did not entirely rely. News arriving of the Boston Port Bill, at a public meet- May 15. ing held on the occasion the old committee was dissolved, and a new one elected, composed of fifty-one members, in which many of the principal citizens took part. This committee, however, was not quite ready to come into the non-importation plan. In a letter to Boston May 23. they proposed instead "a congress of deputies from the colonies," and in another letter a few days after, they requested the Boston committee to fix the time and place of meeting. A similar view was taken in Philadelphia, and similar suggestions were made by a committee appointed at May 26. a public meeting in that city. Their letter suggested, also, the policy of paying the East India Company for their tea, if the difficulty could be got over in that way. The inhabitants of Annapolis, more ardent, wished to adopt the non-importation agreement at once, and simi- May 21. lar resolutions were passed at a public meeting in Baltimore county, and other counties in Maryland. The Virginia House of Burgesses, in session when news of the Boston Port Bill arrived, appointed the first of June, the day on which the bill was to go into operation, to be observed as a fast. This suggestion, taken up and carried out in Philadelphia and many other places, gave a sensible exhibition of the public feeling. Dunmore dissolv- May 26. ed the Assembly; but most of the members met the XXX. CHAPTER next day and signed a declaration that an attack upon one colony was an attack upon all, threatening ruin to 1774. the rights of all unless repelled by the "united wisdom of the whole ;" and the committee of correspondence was advised to communicate with the other colonies on the expediency of a general Congress. Letters arriving from Boston, Philadelphia, and Annapolis, some twentyMay 30. five of the nearest delegates were called together by letter from the speaker. Some were for adopting the nonimportation agreement at once; but it was finally resolved to refer the matter to a convention of all the late burgesses, to meet at Williamsburgh on the first of August. May 26. Shortly after Gage's arrival, he met the General Court at Boston for the annual election of counselors. That business over, he adjourned the court to Salem. He had gone to the extent of his charter authority in rejecting thirteen of the twenty-eight elected counselors, but those who remained did not at all suit his purpose. On June 7. the reopening of the court, in reply to his address delivered at Boston, they reflected so severely on his two immediate predecessors that he refused to hear the reply read through. The representatives passed resolutions advising the citizens of Boston to be firm and patient, and the people of the other towns to assist their distressed brethren of the metropolis. They recommended an entire abstinence from the use of British goods, and of all articles subject to parliamentary duty. They also requested the governor to appoint a fast; and when he refused, appointed one themselves. In compliance with suggestions made, as we have seen, from various quarters, they adopted a resolution that "a meeting of committees from the several colonies on this continent is highly expedient and necessary, to consult upon the XXX. present state of the country, and the miseries to which CHAPTER we are and must be reduced by the operation of certain acts of Parliament; and to deliberate and determine on 1774. wise and proper measures to be recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and re-establishment of our just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the res toration of union and harmony between Great Britain and America, which is most ardently desired by all good men." The first of September was designated as the time, and Philadelphia as the place of meeting. Thomas Cushing, the speaker, James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, were chosen delegates. A treasurer was appointed, and the towns were called upon to pay in their respective shares of the sum of £500, voted to the delegates in payment of their expenses, to be assessed on the inhabitants according to the last apportionment of provincial taxes. Hardly was this business completed, when Gage, informed of what was going on, sent the provincial sec- June 17. retary to dissolve the court. Finding the doors shut, and being denied admittance, the secretary read on the steps the governor's proclamation. So ended the last session of the last provincial General Court of Massachusetts. The non-importation and non-consumption agreement recommended by the General Court had been adopted at a public meeting in Boston in the form of "a solemn June 8. league and covenant," to commence on the first of October next. Gage attempted in vain to prevent the other towns from joining in it. Public meetings continued to be held by different towns and counties through the colonies, by all of which the resolution was avowed to support Massachusetts in the pending quarrel. Boston was wholly dependent upon commerce, and the |