cease. He suggested, as the remedial policy, a prosecution of its champions, and their punishment by fines, imprisonments, and disqualifications for public trusts. He proposed that parliament should adopt this course towards communities who enjoyed a free municipal life, provincial legislatures, the public meeting, and a free press, in the vain hope of rooting out a custom which liberal thinkers recognize as the basis of free government.

Another vital idea was the Union. The patriots now held "that the whole force of American politics was collected in this line. By uniting, we stand; by dividing, we fall." This doctrine was regarded by Hutchinson as fatal to a continuance of the connection with England; and, to counteract it, he advocated the policy of forming several unions. He suggested one union for the Canadas, one for the New-England provinces, one for the middle colonies from New York to Virginia, and one for the Carolinas, with separate governments for each. In his view, the formation, in this way, of several unions would tend to diminish the political strength of the colonies, and to incline them to retain their dependence on England, which he regarded to be the best for their permanent welfare; while one solid union tended directly to independence. Holding these views, he closely watched and commented freely on any signs of disunion. When the Tory partisans said that the Sons of Liberty of Boston were despised by the Sons of Liberty of the other colonies, he would write in a hopeful strain. He had a better basis for his prophecies in the criminations and divisions that grew out of the non-importation scheme, when he would

exultingly say that the Union was broken, and express the hope that it would never be restored. His reasonings and prophecies on this theme, seen for years in his letters, are solid compliments to the foresight and statesmanship which kept the popular movement true to the idea, as a kindling guiding-star, that the American people, though cast by circumstances into the forms of separate communities, were destined by the law of geographical affinity and of material interests, to be infolded in one Union, to live under one constitution, and to have but one national flag.

Warren had much political intercourse with Hutchinson during the succeeding five years. Their aims were as divergent as their principles were antagonistical, and their career presents striking contrasts. Indeed, seldom are seen more marked exhibitions of wisdom in youth, and folly in age, than are supplied in the views of Warren, as, at twenty-five, he analyzed the genius of his countrymen, and labored with the steady aim of preserving their rights; and the utterances of Hutchinson, as, at threescore, he aimed at preserving the colonies in a state of dependence on England, and urged the necessity of an abridgment of colonial liberties. Warren's thought was suited to the condition of the people, and in harmony with the · progressive spirit of the age; Hutchinson, siding more and more with the principles and designs of a cold and selfish British aristocracy, urged, as applicable to communities enjoying well-nigh the entire cluster of the liberties, a policy that must be judged incompatible with the spirit of a free Government.

When Hutchinson became the acting governor, the ministry had announced that they intended to pro

pose, at the next session of parliament, a repeal of a portion of the revenue acts wholly on commercial considerations; and the popular leaders in the colonies were pressing with great zeal an adherence to the non-importation agreement, in the hope of obtaining a repeal of the whole act, on the ground of constitutional right. In pursuance of these objects, the merchants of Boston had held a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, which, after passing spirited resolves, adjourned to meet on a future day. Hutchinson was now asked to employ the troops to disperse this meeting. He had urged their introduction; had predicted that their presence would make the Boston saints as tame as lambs; had ascribed to their timely landing the service of preventing a great catastrophe; and considered them to be necessary for the future vindication of the national authority. Though he said that "the confederacy of the merchants was certainly a very high offence," he shrunk from the arbitrary work of directing foreign bayonets against the right of public meeting. The patriotic merchants were not interrupted in their proceedings. "I am very sensible," Hutchinson wrote to Lord Hillsborough, "that the whole proceeding is unwarrantable; but it is so generally countenanced in this and in several of the colonies, and the authority of Government is so feeble, that an attempt to put a stop to it would have no other effect than still further to inflame the minds of the people. I can do no more than

1 Letter to Jackson, Oct. 4, 1769. On the 6th, he suggested an act of parliament, disqualifying all officials who had been concerned in these combinations from holding any public office.

represent to your lordship, and wait for such instructions as may be thought proper."

Warren, I have stated, was a member of a committee that was appointed to consider the expediency of vindicating the town from the misrepresentations of the Crown officials, which reported at a town-meeting in October. The town then made an "Appeal to the World," which was drawn up mostly by Samuel Adams, and was a candid and manly State paper. The committee who were appointed to circulate this appeal consisted of Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, Richard Dana, Joshua Henshaw, Joseph Jackson, and Benjamin Kent; names that have shed lustre on the country. They said, in their Circular Letter which accompanied the Appeal, that "the people will never think their grievances redressed till every revenue act is repealed, the board of commissioners dissolved, and the troops removed." Reason and truth, imbued with the cardinal quality of sincerity, uttered in this way, exerted a marked influence in the formation of public opinion. Hutchinson felt the force of this consideration. "We find, my lord, by experience," he wrote to Lord Hillsborough, Oct. 19, 1769, "that associations and assemblies, pretending to be legal and constitutional, assuming powers that belong only to established authority, prove more fatal to this authority than mobs, riots, or the most tumultuous disorders; for such assemblies, from erroneous or imperfect notions of the nature of Government, very often meet with the approbation of the body of the people; and, in such case, there is no internal power which can be exerted to suppress them. Such case we are in at present, and shall probably

continue in it until the wisdom of parliament delivers us from it." This is a significant recognition of the effect of the regular action of popular power as it was guided by the leading patriots.

Warren this year (1769) was one of a committee to transmit the thanks of the town to Colonel Barré, and one of the signers of the letters which the patriots sent to Franklin and Wilkes.

The next mention of Warren, besides an appearance in a law-case,1 is in connection with the masonic order. This year the St. Andrew's Lodge, of which he was a member, united with two lodges, which consisted of members who belonged to the British regiments then in Boston, in sending a petition to the Earl of Dalhousie, Grand Master of Masons in Scotland, for a grand lodge; and they received from him a commission, "appointing Joseph Warren, Esq., Grand Master of Masons of Boston, New England, and within one hundred miles of the same." He was installed (Dec. 27) at the Masons' Hall; in the Green Dragon Tavern, which was in Union Street; and among the grand officers of this second Grand Lodge on the American continent were Thomas Crafts and Paul Revere, two zealous patriots; and Captains French and Molesworth, two officers of the Twenty-ninth Regiment. There was on this occasion

1 The "Boston Gazette " of Dec. 18, 1769, has the following paragraph: "Last week an interesting trial came on before the supreme court, now sitting here; wherein Dr. Joseph Warren, administrator on the estate of Nathaniel Wheelwright, Esq., late of Boston, deceased, was plaintiff, for the recovery of part of the estate which the said Nathaniel had made over to Charles W. Apthorp, Esq. The trial lasted four days, and we hear the jury brought in their verdict in favor of the administrator."

2 Moore's Masonic Memoir of Joseph Warren, 109.

* By virtue of a commission lately received from the Right Honorable and Most Worshipful, the Earl of Dalhousie, Grand Master of Ancient, Free, and