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pursued; and giving him the strongest assurances, " that they would support him in such farther measures as might be found necessary to maintain the civil magistrates in a due execution of the laws within the Massachusetts Bay, and beseeching him to direct the governor to take the most effectual methods for procuring the fullest information touching all TREASONS committed within that government fince the 30th December 1767, and to transmit the same, with the names of the perfons most active in the commiffion of fuch offences, in order that his majesty might issue a special commiffion for hearing and determining the faid offences within the realm, pursuant to the statute of the 35th year of Henry VIII." In reply his Majesty assured them, " that he would not fail, in the mode they had recommended, to give the most effectual orders for bringing the authors of the late disorders in the province of Mafsachusetts to CONDIGN PUNISHMENT." Thus was an obsolete and tyrannical statute of the most arbitrary of the English monarchs revived in the reign of George III. in the vain hope to fubdue that unconquerable spirit of liberty in America, which only blazed the more fiercely and dangeroufly for the repeated attempts to over-whelm or extinguish it. " Confider well," said colonel Barré to the minifters, when the address was pending in the house of commons, " what you are doing. Why will you deceive yourselves and us? You know that it is not this or that place only that difputes your right, but every part. They tell you with one voice, from one end of the continent to the other, that you have no right to tax America." When this address reached the western shore of the Atlantic, the assemblies of Massachusetts and New York no longer existed; but Virginia, on this occafion, assumed the lead with equal spirit and firinness. On the 16th of May (1769) they came to several resolutions, copies of which they ordered their speaker to transmit to the different assemblies throughout the continent, and to request their concurrence. These refolutions solutions imported, "That the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of the colony is now, and ever hath been, in the house of burgesses, with consent of the council, and of the king, or governor for the time being:- That it is the privilege of the inhabitants to petition their sovereign for redress of grievances; and that it is lawful to procure the concurrence of his majesty's other colonies in dutiful addresses, praying the royal interposition in favor of the violated rights of America: That all trials for treason, or misprision of treafon, here committed, ought to be in and before his majesty's courts within the faid colony; and, that sending accused persons to be tried beyond the seas, is highly derogatory to the rights of British subjects." These resolutions were followed by an humble address to the king, beseeching his royal interpofition to quiet the minds of his loyal subjects in the colonies, and to avert those dangers and miseries which will ensue from a departure from the ancient rules and maxims of government." The next day, lord Bottecourt, the governor, declared to the assembly, that these resolutions had made it his duty to dissolve them; and that they were diffolved accordingly. The assembly immediately voted themselves into a convention, and choofing the late speaker, Peyton Randolph, esq. moderator, they entered unanimously into an association against importing, not only the taxed commodities, but wines and other articles; and the simple recommendations of this convention had throughout the province all the force and efficacy of law. The neighboring province of Maryland followed the example of this great and leading colony, in refpect to the non-importation agreement; and the North Carolina assembly adopting, by an express vote, the resolutions passed by Virginia, were also diffolved by governor Tryon. The general court of Massachusetts being called together in the course of the summer 1769, in conformity to their charter, immediately presented an address to his excellency the governor, for the removal of the naval and military force sta tioned in the town and harbor of Boston; to which the go. vernor returned for answer, " that he had no authority over his majesty's ships in this port, or his troops within this town." The house refusing to proceed to business while they were furrounded with an armed force, the governor adjourned the court to the town of Cambridge; foon after which they passed resolutions fimilar to those of Virginia; and alfo a vote, "that the sending an armed force into the colony, under pretence of afsisting the civil power, is highly dangerous to the people, unprecedented, and unconstitutional." The governor calling upon them to declare, whether they would or would not make provifion for the troops agreeably to the injunctions of the act of parliament? the house answered, " As we cannot consistently with our honor or interest, much less with the duty we owe to our constituents; so we never shall make any provifion of funds for the purposes in your feveral messages." Upon this the governor prorogued them to the 10th of January 1770, to meet at Boston. The proposition adopted by the British parliament, for transporting persons from America in order to trial in Great Britain, by a forced and unheard of conftruction of the old statute of Henry VIII. excited prodigious alarm throughout the continent. The house of representatives of Virginia, in their address to the king, express with feeling and dignity the sentiments which, wounded by such cruel provocation, must necessarily animate the breasts of freemen. "When we confider," say they, "that, by the established laws and constitution of this colony, the most ample provision is made for apprehending and punishing all those who shall dare to engage in any treasonable practices against your majesty, or disturb the tranquillity of government, we cannot without horror think of the unusual, and, permit us with all humility to add, unconstitutional and illegal mode recommended to your majesty, of seizing and carrying beyond the sea the inhabitants of America suspected of any crime, and of trying such perfons in any other manner than by the ancient and long-established course of proceedings: for how truly deplorable must be the cafe of a wretched a wretched American, who, having incurred the displeasure of any one in power, is dragged from his native home-conveyed to a distant land, where no friend will alleviate his distresses, and where no witness can be found to testify his innocence!"

In the course of this summer (1769) was transmitted to the governors of the different provinces the famous circular letter of lord Hillfborough, containing a virtual renunciation of future taxation, and an engagement, so far as the ministers of the crown could engage, to repeal, on the principles of commercial expediency, the taxes already subsisting on glafs, paper, and colors. But America was now too much irritated and inflamed to be easily or speedily appeased. The exception of the duty on tea was regarded as infidious, and indicatory of minifterial fraud and finesse; and it was universally declared, that nothing less than a repeal of all the revenue acts, and the other odious and oppreffive laws paffed in the present reign, could lay the foundation of a folid and permanent re-union between Great Britain and her colonies.

The refidence of the military at Boston, far from preserving the peace of the town, was the occafion of perpetual tumult and disturbance. The governor, Sir Francis Bernard, from the violence of his temper, grew every day more obnoxious to the inhabitants, and the licentiousness of the Bofton populace seemed to threaten his personal safety; notwithstanding which, he scrupled not to walk frequently alone and unattended at his villa in the vicinity of the metropolis. On being asked whether he had no apprehenfions of danger, he replied, "No; they are not a blood-thirsty people." He was at length recalled in the autumn of 1769, in order to lay before the king the true state of the province, and was succeeded by Mr. Hutchinson, who had long filled the post of lieutenant governor. Early in the spring of the enfuing year 1770, a quarrel between the military and the townsmen of Boston took place, more ferious than any of those which had preceded it. A private of the 29th regiment passing early on the Saturday morning along a public rope-walk, was provoked by insulting words to engage a party of his comrades to attack the rope-makers. The battle being indecisive, it was determined to fight it out on the Monday. The populace being in the interim fully apprised of the intended encounter, affembled in great numbers armed with clubs and other weapons at the time appointed; the bells also ringing an alarum, and violent clamors of "town-born, turn-out," being heard in all parts of the city. The mob directed its course to Murray's barracks, and dared the foldiery by very offenfive language to combat, which they were with great difficulty prevented from doing by the officers. At length retiring from the barracks, the populace were addressed in the street by "a tall large man in a red cloak and a white wig;" and after listening for some minutes to his harangue with great attention, they exclaimed with shouts and huzzas " for the mainguard!" for which they immediately began their route in different divisions. Captain Preston, the officer on duty, on the appearance of the frantic multitude, who with oaths and execrations pressed in upon the foldiers, advancing to the very points of the bayonets, endeavored by every effort to restrain the foldiers from violence. But a party the most furious of the populace, in sailors habits, struck the guns down with their clubs, and a blow was aimed by one of them at Captain Preston. On which a confused noise of " fire!" was heard, and several pieces being discharged, ten or twelve perfons were killed or wounded. The drums now beat every where to arms! and the townsmen assembled to the amount of many thousands: but the governor at length making his appearance in person, they were prevailed upon, it being now moonlight, to disperse. The next morning the people again collected in vast bodies, and the governor assembling a council was urged to order the immediate removal of the troops; to which he most reluctantly assented, being told by Mr. Oliver the lieutenant governor, that he had no other op

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