pend upon the council for the support of the small remains of royal and parliamentary power now left; the whole of which has been gradually impeached, arraigned, and condemned under my eye."

There was a brilliant celebration of the 14th of August, which was the third anniversary of the uprising against the Stamp Act, when the appearance of the town was not unlike that of Boston on a Fourth of July. Bernard did not fail to extract out of this celebration additional signs of a riotous spirit in the town. There was a great procession, and Bernard (Aug. 29) said that one person in it had been the foremost man in a riot, who was celebrating his mob exploits; and two of the principal merchants rode in the foremost chariots, who in this way were countenancing mobs. If these merchants were John Hancock and Thomas Cushing, or James Bowdoin and William Phillips, they were the last persons who would have countenanced riots. Candid observers saw the truth, and said, in the British press, that the popular leaders were much more concerned at any riots than the friends of the Administration, who seem pleased with them, because they sustained their representation that troops were a necessity to keep the people in order.1

A long correspondence between civil and military officials, relative to the introduction of troops, came to a result in August. The representations of the state of the town, by Bernard, Hutchinson, and others,

1 London Chronicle, April 22, 1769, has a letter which says: “I was at Boston last October, and found that the patriot leaders of the opposition were much more concerned at any mobs that happened than the Government people. These last seemed pleased with them, as countenancing their representations, — the necessity of sending soldiers to keep them in order."

were direct to the point, that it was under the dominion of a mob. But William Knox, of London, a keen observer, after looking closely into American affairs down to the 24th of this month, wrote to his friend, Mr. Grenville, that all was quiet at Boston, and that the non-importation agreement went no further than to avoid importing articles on which duties had been laid. He says, "I looked over all the Boston newspapers, and did not find one rash or violent expression; and the entries, inwards and outwards, at the custom-house, were as many as usual. There are advertisements also for the sale of English goods and Madeira wines, and notices of the meeting of county courts, and such sort of things as are commonly transacted in times of tranquillity."1 On the 31st of August, General Gage, at New York, sent his aide-de-camp, Captain Sheriff, to Boston, on the pretence of private business, bearing a letter addressed to Bernard, stating that one regiment, the Fourteenth, had been ordered from Halifax to Boston, but that it would be left for him to say whether the order made out for the Twenty-ninth regiment should be withheld or transmitted. General Gage, in requesting a reply to this letter, said, "The contents of this, as well as of your answer, and every thing I now transact with you, will be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic." Bernard received this letter on Saturday evening, September Third.

When the public had nothing but rumors as to the coming of troops, there appeared in the "Boston Gazette" of Sept. 5, a communication with the cap

1 The Grenville Papers, iv. 367.

tion of "READER, ATTEND!" which, under a series of queries, urged that in theory the acts of the Administration, by breaking the compact between the colonies and the mother country, had dissolved their union. It arraigned with great severity the course of the Crown officials. As the governor had dissolved the legislature, it was proposed that the towns of the province should be invited to elect delegates authorized to meet and consider public affairs, remonstrate to the king, and declare that there was nothing this side of eternity which they dreaded more than being broken off from his Government. "If an army," it read, "should be sent to reduce us to slavery, we will tell them that we are willing and desirous to be their fellow-subjects. We are Englishmen, and claim the privileges of Englishmen; but we are never willing to be slaves to our fellow-subjects; and, if this will not satisfy them, we will put our lives in our hands, and cry to the Judge of all the earth, who will do right."

This communication caused a great sensation in official circles, and led to important action. Bernard says, in a letter to Lord Hillsborough, "In the 'Boston Gazette' of the 5th instant appeared a paper, containing a system of politics exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of an occasional enthusiast. But I persuaded myself that it came out of the cabinet of the faction, and was preparatory to some actual operations against the Government. In this persuasion, I considered, that, if the troops from Halifax were to come here on a sudden, there would be no avoiding an insurrection, which would at least fall upon the Crown officers, if

it did not not amount to an opposition to the troops. I therefore thought it would be best that the expectation of the troops should be gradually communicated, that the heads of the faction might have time to consider well what they were about, and prudent men opportunity to interpose their advice." Accordingly he says that he "took an occasion to mention to one of the council, in the way of discourse, that he had private advice that troops were ordered to Boston, but had no public orders about it."

When passion was moving a community so powerfully, and when this community was a type of the indignant feeling, in all the colonies, at the encroachments of arbitrary power, Warren again appeared on the public stage as a popular leader. The question in reality to be met and decided was, whether the American cause was to be wrecked on the rock of a premature insurrection, or whether it was to be led on by cautious and wise steps, under the dominion of law, until it should develop into the majesty of a successful revolution.1

Before Thursday night, Bernard says, the intelligence which he communicated to a member of the council spread all over the town. A petition to the selectmen was now numerously signed, praying for a town-meeting. "Your petitioners," it says, after reciting the governor's declaration, "apprehensive that the landing of troops in the town, at this particular

1 Bernard, July 11, 1768, wrote to John Pownal, for years under-secretary of state to Lord Hillsborough, “We are now just entering into the critical situation which I have long ago foreseen must come sooner or later; that is, the time of trial, whether this town, &c., will or will not submit to Great Britain, when she is in earnest in requiring submission. Hitherto the Sons of Liberty have triumphed."

juncture, will be a matter of great uneasiness, and perhaps be attended with consequences much to be dreaded, humbly beg the town may be forthwith legally convened to request of His Excellency the grounds of such declaration, and to consider the most wise and prudent, and most considerate, loyal, and salutary measures to be adopted on such an occasion." The selectmen issued the usual warrant for a meeting, to be held on the following Monday, in Faneuil Hall. "A town-meeting," Bernard promptly advised Hillsborough, "is appointed for Monday. I hope it will be for the best; but I can't be answerable for events in so precarious a body as a popular assembly."

On Saturday, the governor and his friends were much disturbed by signs and reports which they judged indicated an insurrection. Somebody had put a turpentine barrel in the skillet that hung at the top of the beacon-pole on Beacon Hill, which was alleged to be the signal for a rising; and it was reported that Samuel Adams said, "On lighting the beacon, the people of the town would be joined by thirty thousand men from the country, with bayonets fixed." Bernard subsequently said that the plan was for five hundred men, who had been enrolled for this purpose, to capture the castle, to seize the governor and lieutenant-governor, take possession of the treasury, set up their standard, and put in force the old charter.1 The belief in this plan explains the haste of members of the council in asking the governor to call a meet

1 "It is now known," Bernard wrote, Dec. 23, 1768, "that the plan was to seize the governor and lieutenant-governor, and take possession of the treasury, and then set up their standard."