Colonial

The New York assembly now made its submisdivisions. sion to the quartering act. In doing so it gave great offence to many of the people, one of whom was thrown into prison for his violent denunciation of the assembly. Neither he nor the assembly showed much wisdom in thus contending at a time when union was so much required. But there were parties amongst the colonists, just as there had been, indeed, from the beginning, but now more distinctly marked and more widely separated. No less than five divisions existed, the central and the most substantial being that of the class already mentioned as chief in the colonies. This was flanked, on one side, by two orders more or less inclined to submit to the mother country, and on the other side by two orders more or less inclined to defy the mother country. To begin with the royalists, their name explaining itself; then came the neutrals, as they may be styled, neither precisely royalist nor precisely colonist; next the colonists proper, in their close and resolute ranks - the men on whom the issue depended more than on any others; and after them the more excited parties, first of the Sons of Liberty, as they called themselves,* and second of the rioters. Thus, with royalists and neutrals on one wing, and with Sons of Liberty and rioters on the other, the main body of the colonists had but a weary and an anxious march.

Boston massacre.

The difficulties of the case were nowhere more apparent than in Boston. A constant tendency to riot on the part of a portion of the townspeople required as much energy on the part of the better class as any provocations from abroad against which they were contending. While the wiser Bostonians were endeavoring to procure

* From the words of Barre's famous speech of 1765. Many of the original Sons of Liberty were of the class described as the better one of the time; but, at the present period, the order was made up of the more turbulent spirits, yet not the most turbulent of all.

the withdrawal of the troops quartered amongst them, a party of men and boys involved themselves in a quarrel with the soldiers, the end of which was blood. This Boston

Massacre, as it was called, did but add to the burden of the moderate and the effective citizens. The soldiers who had fired upon the people required to be defended upon a charge of murder; the authorities in England required to be convinced that the violence of the populace was as much deplored as the musketry of the soldiery. It marks the increasing passions of the times, that the two advocates retained by the English officer in command on the night of the affray, though they were no less tried patriots than John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., should have fallen under censure for undertaking the defence. Happily for the fame of Boston, they secured the safety of the accused, only two out of nine being brought in guilty, and those of manslaughter alone, for which they were branded in the hand and then discharged, (1770.)

Other

ances.

Boston was not alone in these disturbances. North disturb- Carolina saw a large portion of her interior settlers banded together as Regulators * against the colonial government; nor were they brought to reason without a battle, in which they were defeated by a volunteer force from the orderly portion of the colony, (1771.) In the north, again, the burning of storehouses at Portsmouth, and the destruction of the revenue schooner Gaspe in Narraganset Bay, kept up the flames of rashness and of outrage, (1772.) The Gaspe, or its officers, however, had done all that was possible to provoke its doom.

The mother country had been pursuing a comparatively gentle course. The repeal of the duty upon many arti

* A name first applied in South Carolina to a party undertaking to execute the laws for themselves; in modern phrase, Lynch-law men.

Addition

al act con

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 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.)

trade.

And else- 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.)

Chastise

Massachusetts

ton.

Provocations were gathering heavily and rapidly. ment of 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.