General Gage Appointed Governor: Samuel Adams and Boston
The port of Boston was closed at meridian on the Ist of June. At that hour, muffled church-bells in Philadelphia and other places tolled a funeral knell. The day had been appointed as a fast in many regions, and the churches were crowded with worshippers, who devoutly implored Heaven's mercies for the inhabitants of Boston, and strength and liberty for themselves. The law was rigorously enforced. Not a vessel of any kind was allowed to be used in the harbor. Not a pound of hay, nor a sheep or calf, could be brought in a boat from the islands, nor a stick of lumber, or package of merchandise, could be taken by water from wharf to wharf. Not a parcel of goods could be ferried across to Charlestown; and business of every kind was immediately paralyzed. A cordon of vessels-of-war inclosed the town, and several regiments that soon arrived made Boston an immense garrison. Orders came to Gage from England, to order his soldiers to shoot any citizens who should not be docile, and he was assured, for his comfort, that, by the provisions of a recent law, all trials of officers and troops for homicide in America would be removed to Great Britain. Gage had orders to arrest, when he should deem it prudent to do so, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren, and send them to England to be tried for treason. Adams knew this; and with the halter almost about his neck, he said of his beloved and stricken Boston: "She suffers with dignity; and rather than submit to the humiliating terms of an edict, barbarous beyond precedent under the most absolute monarchy, she will put the malice of tyranny to the severest test. An empire is rising in America; and Britain, by her multiplied oppressions, is accelerating that independency which she dreads. We have a post to maintain, to desert which would entail upon us the curses of posterity."
The utter prostration of all business in Boston soon produced widespread suffering. All classes felt the scourge of the unnatural oppressor. With faith that deliverance would come, they bore the severe chastisement with wonderful equanimity. Soldiers to enslave them appeared at every turn; and cannon to overawe them soon menaced their lives and property from every eminence on the peninsula; yet no rash act incited by anger or suffering, marred the dignity of their fortitude. The sympathy of the people everywhere was warmly excited. The Press and the Pulpit suggested the sending of relief to the smitten inhabitants, and very soon money, grain, flour and live-stock were on their way toward Boston, accompanied by letters of condolence. This food for the suffering poor seemed like relief sent to a beleagured garrison, on whose existence a great cause depended. "Hold on; and hold out to the last; as you are placed in the front rank, if you fail all will be over," said a letter accompanying a substantial gift. "Don't pay for an ounce of the damned tea," wrote Christopher Gadsden of Charleston, when, at the middle of June, he shipped the first contribution of rice from the Carolina planters. Georgians sent sixty barrels of rice; and from the more northerly colonies went grain and sheep and beeves, with money. The city of London, in its corporate capacity, sent three-quarters of a million dollars for the relief of the poor of Boston. The people of Marblehead and Salem offered the free use of their wharves and stores to the Boston merchants, for they scorned to profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors.
When the Massachusetts Assembly met at Salem on the 7th of June, there was a very full attendance. Samuel Adams cautiously sounded the opinions of the members, and ascertained that a large majority were republicans. Then he presented the plan for future action, which he and James Warren had perfected. The few loyalists in that body were amazed at the audacity of the propositions, and one of them, feigning sickness, got leave of absence. He hastened to the governor (then living near Salem) and acquainted him with the seditious proceedings of the legislature. Gage immediately sent a proclamation by his secretary, Thomas Flucker, commanding the Assembly to dissolve. The governor was outgeneraled. When the secretary came, the door of the Assembly was locked, and the key was in Samuel Adams's pocket. Flucker was not permitted to enter the room, so he read the proclamation on the stairs, near the door, but to dull ears within, for the patriots would not listen to it. They proceeded to adopt a "Solemn League and Covenant" concerning non-importations; and agreeing with New York in the proposition for a General Congress, they appointed James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Thomas Cushing and Robert Treat Paine to represent massachusetts in the proposed General Congress. Pursuant to a request of the New York Committee of Correspondence, the Assembly fixed the time and place for the meeting of the Congress. They named Philadelphia as the place, and the beginning of September next ensuing as the time; and in a circular which they sent to the other colonies, the time and place were mentioned. After carrying out the other measures proposed in the plan of Adams and Warren, the Assembly adjourned indefinitely. So ended the last session of the Assembly of Massachusetts under a royal governor.
On the same day an immense town-meeting, presided over by John Adams, was held in Faneuil Hall. The inhabitants by vote refused to make any provision for paying the East India Company for its tea destroyed, because they were surrounded by bayonets and ships-of-war. They ratified the acts of the Assembly, and assumed an absolutely defiant attitude.