Addition

cles imported into the colonies showed a disposition to conciliate, (1770.) Two years passed before any cerning act appeared in relation to the colonies; nor could

al act con

trials. that then enacted be called a provocation. In consequence of the occurrence at Portsmouth, a bill passed Parliament to secure the trial in England of any incendiaries of the royal stores or ships in America, (1772.) It did not please the colonists, not even the great party of moderation, to think that they had brought this sentence upon themselves. The truth was, that the less moderate the course of things, the fewer moderate men there were to bring things back to moderation. What was done only by the violent was upheld in many instances by the prudent; a common sympathy was fast fusing all parties. So Boston now held its town meeting, and put forth its memorial not only against the acts of which it had to complain, but against those which it seemed to have to apprehend.

Tea de

Boston.

The next year showed how fast the colonies were stroyed in driving on. It began with resolutions from Virginia, where a committee was appointed to correspond with the other colonies. To the closer union thus proposed, Rhode Island was the first to adhere, but without immediate results. Yet, as the year advanced, the colonists found themselves the better prepared to combine in resistance to the introduction of large quantities of tea, still subject to duty. It was the plan partly of the East India. Company and partly of the ministry; the former hoping to dispose of their swollen stock, the latter to obtain some of the taxes that appeared to have been levied in vain upon the colonies. Philadelphia was the first to take the field by town meeting against tea and taxation. Boston soon followed; and when the proceedings of town meetings, both ordinary and extraordinary, came to nought, as the governor stood fast for the East India Company and the ministry,

the three vessels that had come in with tea were boarded, and their cargoes thrown into the dock. It was a sad event for many even of the more resolute citizens; but the majority, under the lead of Samuel Adams, was now composed of the rash as well as the resolute; a party from the country having been most active in the destruction of the tea, (December, 1773.) A few weeks later, a smaller quantity of tea, imported to private order, was also destroyed at Boston, (February, 1774.)

And else

trade.

The same thing happened at New York and Anwhere. napolis. But the larger portion of the tea received at New York, and all received at Philadelphia, was swiftly returned to England. This returning the tea, or the storing it where it would soon lose its virtue, as in Charleston, was a far wiser course than destroying it. The process of destruction was also the less bold. It was effected by men disguised, or else so maddened as to scorn disguise. Slave It has already appeared how small a part of the provocations to the colonies consisted in mere measures of taxation. A signal instance of the comprehensive inflictions from the mother country came up in the midst of the transactions lately occurred. The repugnance of the colonies to the slave trade, reviving in these times of struggle, brought out renewed expressions of opposition and abhorrence. Virginia attempted by her assembly to lay restrictions on the traffic; but the royal governor was at once directed by the authorities at home to consent to no laws affecting the interests of the slave dealers, (1770.) The efforts of other colonies met with similar obstacles. Bills of assemblies, petitions to the king, called forth by the startling development of the trade,* were alike ineffect

* In less than nine months, 6431 slaves were imported into the single colony of South Carolina, from Africa and the West Indies.

ual. "It is the opinion of this meeting,”—thus ran the resolves of the county of Fairfax, George Washington chairman, "that during our present difficulties and distress, no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British colonies on this continent; and we take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade,” (1774.)

Chastisement of Massa

chusetts

ton.

Provocations were gathering heavily and rapidly. Massachusetts and Boston, foremost in the tea troubles, and, soon after, in the disturbances occasioned and Bos- by royal salaries to the governors and judges of the colonies, were singled out for peculiar chastisement. The Boston port bill closed the harbor of that town to all importation and exportation. Then General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British forces in the colonies, was appointed governor of Massachusetts. Not content with creating this state of siege, the ministry brought in a bill for the better regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay, by which the colony was virtually deprived of its charter. The councillors and superior judges were all to be appointed by the crown; the inferior judges and other officers being left to the nomination of the governor, who was invested with a sort of absolute authority. No town meetings were to be held, except for elections, unless the governor saw fit to make any further exceptions. No juries were to be summoned, except by the sheriffs, that is, by the officers of the governor. To crown the whole, a third bill provided that persons charged with murder in sustaining the government, should be sent to another colony or to England for trial-a shrewd precaution, considering the certainty of collision between the people and the government under the system about to be enforced. Such were the measures by which Massachusetts was to be crushed and her sister colonies overawed. The crisis had come with the spring and summer of 1774.

Quebec

Another proceeding of the same period was inact. tended to separate the thirteen colonies from their neighbors on the continent. The French settlers in the west had shown some signs of sympathy with the English colonies, not, indeed, by any direct coöperation, or even intercourse, but by the same irrepressible instincts after liberty. When their petition for a form of government in which they could have some share was met by a system in which none but the royal officials had any part, the French in the Illinois country protested against it with all the feryor of their nature, (1773.) To keep such spirits down, especially to keep them from combining with the kindred. spirits of the English colonies, seems to have been the main object of the Quebec act, by which that province, extended from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Mississippi, was placed under a government mostly of royal officials. At the same time, the French were conciliated by the restoration of their law and of their church, (1774.)

Conven

cial Con

gress in

Massachusetts.

Thus cut off from their northern and western tions and neighbors, the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies Provin- gathered together against the mother-land. A circular from Boston to the towns of Massachusetts called upon them to make common resistance to the recent acts. Several of the towns, or rather counties, met by delegates in convention at Boston to resolve upon measures of defence, amongst which "the military art" and "a Provincial Congress" were prominent. A convention of Middlesex county at Concord resolved that “to obey them," that is, the acts of Parliament, "would be to annihilate the last vestiges of liberty in this province," (August.) Ten days after, (September,) a convention of Suffolk county at Milton recommended that the detested acts "should be rejected as the attempts of a wicked administration to enslave America." The next month, (October,)

the House of Representatives voted itself a Provincial Congress. This was decisive. But that it was done, must be ascribed not merely to the inherent independence of Massachusetts, but to the pervading sympathy of the sister colonies.

spirit.

National "Has not this," wrote Washington, nearly three months before, in relation to the acts of Parliament and the proceedings of Governor General Gage," has not this exhibited an unexampled testimony of the most despotic system of tyranny that was ever practised in a free government? Shall we supinely sit, and see one province after another fall a sacrifice to despotism? My nature recoils at the thought of submitting to measures which I think subversive of every thing that I ought to hold dear and valuable." Such was the tone of every true voice, the feeling of every true heart. A national spirit was aroused.

Continen

gress.

More than a year previously, Benjamin Franklin tal Con- now agent not only for Pennsylvania, but for Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia -- wrote officially to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, recommending a General Congress, (1773.) But it was not until ten months afterwards that the project was taken up, and then not in Massachusetts, but in Rhode Island. Virginia followed close, recommending that the Congress should be annual, and voting that "an attack upon one colony was an attack upon all British America,” (May, 1774.) Rhode Island was the first to appoint delegates; Massachusetts doing the same almost immediately, and the other colonies, Georgia excepted, imitating these examples. The method of appointment varied from choice by the assembly, or by a convention of the whole colony, to choice by committees, county and town, or by a single committee. It was a noble body that met at Philadelphia on the 5th of September,