These statutes tended to enslave and outlaw all the inhabitants of the colony.

These tyrannical and oppressive statutes, called into action among those whom they were intended to alarm and subdue, some of the noblest qualities of human character; courage, perseverance, generosity and fidelity. The people of Boston assembled after they were promulgated, and pledging themselves to abide by the principles which they had avowed, re-asserted their rights in still more energetic language. The town of Salem spurned the idea of raising their port on the ruins of its neighbour. The merchants of that place and of Marblehead, offered those of Boston the free use of their wharves and warehouses, till their harbour should be re-opened. In every town of the province, meetings were held to give the people of the capital, assurances of sympathy and support. Contributions were every where made in money, clothing, and provisions for the use of the labouring classes, who were deprived of their customary means of living. The same enthusiastic feeling pervaded all the colonies. The cause of Boston was made the cause of the country. Her sufferings were pitied, her firmness admired, her constancy stimulated others. The ministry believed that by making an example of Boston, they should either force its inhabitants into submission, or if they continued refractory, that the province would be divided, and the other colonies deterred from taking its part. Never were mean and cruel calculations more signally con

founded. The period was one of high and generous emotion. All the common rivalries and local competitions, which in ordinary times may be laudable and necessary, were suspended. Distances seemed lessened, and places remote from each other were brought into close friendship and communion. No one sought for safety by abandoning the sufferer, but the inflictions of ministerial vengeance made all the colonies volunteer, to defend the cause of those on whom the arm of power first fell, and as they had assumed the same principles, so in the hour of trial, they solemnly pledged themselves to partake the same fate.

Chapter XXUH.

Character and Peculiar Circumstances of the People of Boston.

THOUGH the ministerial designs were directed equally against all the colonies, yet a variety of çircumstances concurred to make them bear more heavily on the New-England provinces, in the first instance, and more especially on Massachusetts, against whose capital they were concentrated. This was owing partly to these provinces being the most commercial, and their occupations were therefore more immediately injured by the parliamentary in

novations; in part also, to the vigorous and unmixed character and denser population of the district, and still further to some peculiarities in the charter, and greater activity in the intrigues and enmity of the crown officers; to which may be added, their origin from the puritans and commonwealth's men of England, and the institutions and habits they had established; which although much enfeebled by time, were still to be seen through the transparent surface of society, like the veins and arteries carrying pulsation and life to every portion of the body.

As Boston was the capital where the army was collected, and the seat of the council that was to direct it, and as this city by its resistance, was doomed to be subdued in the first instance, to serve both as an example to others, and a point of departure for the forces of government; the circumstances are worthy of examination, which enabled that town to engage and finally triumph in a contest, so apparently unequal and so fraught with peril.

Boston possessed, at that period, an importance relatively, compared with the several cities of the continent, which as respects commerce and population, has since been transferred to other cities by the natural progress of events. The number of its inhabitants was about seventeen thousand. As they had shewn themselves extremely refractory against the new system, the government resolved, as the minister expressed it, to try the question with them," and reduce them to unqualified submission. The forces employed seemed sufficient for the occa

sion, and the conduct of these citizens in maintaining the struggle for several years without yielding, affords a memorable example of virtue and courage. In a mighty battle it has happened that one party, out-numbered by the other, has been obliged to form its battalions into solid squares, and remain on the defensive against the desperate assaults of a superior force; and the world have admired the discipline and firmness that sustained such a struggle, and eventually achieved the victory; but, to every friend to human rights, how much greater interest does such a spectacle present, when unarmed citizens, surrounded, intersected, out-numbered, insulted by mercenary soldiers, yet still remaining vigilant, resolute, undismayed, are at last triumphant!

Many of the traits to be remarked in the character of the people of the capital, were equally to be found in the inhabitants of the province at large, as well as in those that bordered on it. Among the first may be stated the sobriety and prudence, the pertinacity and independence, which characterized their puritan ancestors, and which descended to them, modified, rather than impaired. The prevailing sect in the country, known by the name of independents or congregationalists, was the one, which of all the forms of protestantism, was the most averse to the domination of a hierarchy. This disposition in that sect, was called into fresh vigor, at this epoch, from the alarm about the establishment of an American episcopate the men who opposed it were the lineal descendants, and in several cases

the direct inheritors in unbroken succession, of hatred against Laud and the English Church, for the persecution of their ancestors. The people at large were much influenced by the clergy, as all their pastors were of their own choice, and were emphatically their fellow citizens, and readily imbibed their jealousies; which was rendered so much the easier, as most of the Crown-officers belonged to the obnoxious church, and sometimes with an offensive ostentation preferred its forms, and sneered at the austere simplicity of the congregational worship.

Next to religion, and still more active in its influence, was the civil organization of the community. The people were the subjects of a distant monarch, but royalty was merely in theory with them. They were not only republican, but democratic, and that in the simplest form. Originally, "the freemen in person," constituted a part of the government of the whole colony, but when they had so far spread, that they could no longer assemble together, they altered the charter to suit their convenience, and sent representatives to the general court, but retained in the organization of all the towns, the principle of a simple democracy. All the officers were annually chosen; and all town affairs were decided upon in general meetings of the citizens, convened at stated peri

*

Chalmers, speaking of this change from a democracy to representative government, which took place in 1634, while he admits the necessity of it, adds, "the legality of those measures, however, cannot easily be supported by fair discussion, or by any other than those principles of independence, which naturally sprang up among such a people, during such a season, and have at all times governed their actions." p. 158.