John Wilkes

When the duplicity, the desires, and the acts of Bernard became known, the citizens of Boston could restrain their indignation with difficulty. Satisfied that the troops would come sooner or later, they resolved to put the engine of non-importation, which had worked so powerfully before, into vigorous operation. In August [1768] nearly all the merchants of Boston subscribed such a league, to go into operation on the first of January following, hoping, through the influence of the British merchants, to restrain the hand of the government uplifted to smite the Americans. The Sons of Liberty were active everywhere, and watched every movement of the crown officers. They soon discovered a British military officer in their city, evidently making preparations for barracks for troops. They gave the alarm. A town-meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, when James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and John Adams were appointed a committee to wait on the governor to ascertain whether the visit of the military officer was for such a purpose, and to request him to call a special session of the legislature. Bernard told them that troops were about to be quartered in Boston, and he refused to call the Assembly until he might hear from home. The governor was evidently alarmed, for he knew the great popularity of the men who stood before him. All Boston stood behind them, but its whole population was not more than sixteen thousand souls. His tone was more pacific than usual. Judging them by his own standard of morality, he had actually stooped to make some of these men his friends by bribes. He sent a commission to John Hancock, as a member of his council. That patriot tore the paper into shreds in presence of the people. He offered the lucrative office of advocate-general in the court of admiralty to John Adams, who instantly rejected it. He cautiously approached the sturdy Puritan, Samuel Adams, with honeyed words and an offer of place, but received such a rebuke that the words I have already quoted were afterward wrung from Hutchinson--"He is of such an obstinate and inflexible disposition that he could never be conciliated by any office or gift whatsoever."

The governor's refusal to call the Assembly impelled the town-meeting to recommend a convention of delegates from all the towns in the province to be held in Boston, under the plausible pretext that the prevailing apprehension of war with France required a general consultation. Apprehending war with the mother country was the real cause for the movement. The convention assembled on the 22d of September, 1768, when more than a hundred delegates represented every town and district in the province but one. Thomas Cushing, Speaker of the Assembly, presided. They petitioned the governor to summon a general court. He answered by denouncing the convention as a treasonable body. They disclaimed all pretension to political authority, professed the utmost loyalty to the king, and said they had met in that "dark and distressing time to consult and advise as to the best manner of preserving peace and good order." The governor, in daily expectation of troops from Halifax, which, on his requisition, Gage had ordered to Boston, assumed a haughty tone, warned them to desist from further proceedings, and admonished them to disperse without delay. The Convention, unmoved by his words, remained in session four days, took moderate action, and stood firm in their purpose. They adopted a petition to the king, an address to the people setting forth the alarming state of the country, and advised abstinence from all violence, and submission to legal authority.

The people were now thoroughly alive to a sense of their dangers and duties. The great political questions of the hour occupied their minds. The pulpit became a sort of political forum. Patriotism and Christianity were regarded as twin sisters. Order everywhere prevailed. Excitement had given way to Reason. The other colonies were watching Massachusetts intently. Virginia sent her salutatory greetings. The good Governor Botetourt, in pursuance of his prescribed duty, had dissolved her Assembly. They reorganized in a private house, and then adopted a non-importation agreement presented by George Washington. Other colonies sent cheering words, especially after troops had landed in Boston in the early autumnal days; and at nearly every public gathering in the several colonies, the stirring Massachusetts Song of Liberty was sung. That song was so powerful in moulding the popular mind in favor of union and resistance, that I give it below, entire, with the music, as it appeared when first printed in a Boston newspaper: