Governor Bernard's Interference

When the Massachusetts Assembly met at the close of May, 1769, they simply organized, and then resolved that it was incompatible with their dignity and freedom to deliberate while confronted by an armed force; and that the presence of a military and naval armament was a breach of privilege. They refused to enter upon the business of furnishing supplies of any kind, or discussing any topic excepting that of a redress of their grievances. They petitioned the governor to remove the troops from the town, but their reasonable request was met by a haughty refusal. Not only this, but the governor adjourned the Assembly to Cambridge, and informed them that he was going to England to lay a statement of the affairs of the colony before the king. The House instantly adopted a petition to his majesty, asking for the withdrawal of Bernard from the colony forever; and they also adopted a resolution declaring that the establishment of a standing army in the colony in time of peace, was not only an invasion of natural rights, but a violation of the British Constitution, highly dangerous to the people, and unprecedented. Perceiving the Assembly to be incorrigible, the governor dissolved them and sailed for England, leaving the province in the care of the Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Hutchinson. Proofs of Bernard's duplicity, greed, petty malice, mischievous exaggeration, falsehoods, and continual plottings for the destruction of the Massachusetts free government, so well known here, had been sent to England by one of his political friends, and caused his immediate recall. He never recrossed the Atlantic, and died in 1779.

Meanwhile the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis and other places had renewed their non-importation leagues with vigor; and Washington, at Mount Vernon, assisted by his neighbor, George Mason, had matured the plan for such an association which, as we have observed, he laid before the Virginia House of Burgesses when they reassembled after they had been dissolved by Governor Botetourt. That patriot afterward wrote to his correspondent in London, from whom he ordered goods: "You will perceive, in looking over the several invoices, that some of the goods there required are upon condition that the act of Parliament imposing a duty on tea, paper, &c., for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, is totally repealed; and I beg the favor of you to be governed strictly thereby, as it will not be in my power to receive any articles contrary to our non-importation agreement, which I have subscribed, and shall religiously adhere to, and should if it were, as I could wish it to be, ten times as strict." Mason wrote to Washington: "Our all is at stake; and the little conveniences and comforts of life, when set in competition with our liberty, ought to be rejected, not with reluctance, but with pleasure."

In view of the movements in America, the British Parliament hesitated. They perceived that the colonies were forming a more formidable combination against British commerce and manufactures than any before; and some of the more sensible men in Parliament urged the repeal of the tea act, and so end the controversy. "So favorable an opportunity," they said, "may never recur." But Lord North replied: "We will not consent to discuss the question because of the combinations in America. To do so would furnish a fresh instance of haste, impatience, levity, and fickleness. I see nothing uncommercial in making the Americans pay a duty on tea."

North was only the echo of the monarch, who swayed this minister with a perfect control. The king had made it an inflexible rule never to redress a grievance unless such redress was prayed for in a spirit of obedience and humility. He was also determined to assert the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, and insisted that one tax must always be laid to keep up that right. So the king and his pliant minister clung to the duty on tea. Hills-borough, under the direction of North, sent a Circular to all the colonies, in which a promise was given that no more taxes for revenue should be laid upon them, and that the duties upon paper, painters' colors and glass should be taken off by a repeal of the law levying them. It was believed that this concession would satisfy the Americans, forgetting that a principle broader and deeper and more vital than any statute law was at the bottom of the discontent in the colonies. British statesmen and publicists of the aristo-cratic party demurred at this concession. Dr. Johnson, then a pensioner of the government and afterward author of the tract entitled Taxation no Tyranny, growled out his dissatisfaction in the coarse expression: "The Americans are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." And the short-sighted Hillsborough, exaggerating the sentiments of the monarch, said: "We can grant nothing to the Americans except what they may ask with halters around their necks."