Part 25

"The town records of Boston [November 2, 1772] say:— 'It was then moved by Mr. Samuel Adams that a Committee of Correspondence be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the colonists and of this Province in particular as men and Christians and as subjects; and to communicate and publish the same to the several towns and to the world as the sense of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been or from time to time may be made.' The motion occasioned some debate and seems to have been carried late at night; the vote in its favor, at last, was nearly unanimous. The colleagues of Adams, who had left him almost alone thus far, now declined to become members of the committee, regarding the scheme as useless or trifling. The committee was at last constituted without them; it was made up of men of little prominence but of thorough respectability. James Otis, in another interval of sanity, was made chairman, a position purely honorary, the town in this way showing its respect for the leader whose misfortunes they so sincerely mourned. {3207} The Committee of Correspondence held its first meeting in the representatives' chamber at the town-house, November 3, 1772, where at the outset each member pledged himself to observe secrecy as to their transactions, except those which, as a committee, they should think it proper to divulge. According to the motion by which the committee was constituted, three duties were to be performed: 1st, the preparation of a statement of the rights of the colonists, as men, as Christians, and as subjects; 2d, a declaration of the infringement and violation of those rights; 3d, a letter to be sent to the several towns of the Province and to the world, giving the sense of the town. The drafting of the first was assigned to Samuel Adams, of the second to Joseph Warren, of the third to Benjamin Church. In a few days tidings came from the important towns of Marblehead, Roxbury, Cambridge, and Plymouth, indicating that the example of Boston was making impression and was likely to be followed. On November 20, at a town-meeting in Faneuil Hall, the different papers were presented: Otis sat as moderator, appearing for the last time in a sphere where his career had been so magnificent. The report was in three divisions, according to the motion. … In the last days of 1772, the document, having been printed, was transmitted to those for whom it had been intended, producing at once an immense effect. The towns almost unanimously appointed similar committees; from every quarter came replies in which the sentiments of Samuel Adams were echoed. In the library of Bancroft is a volume of manuscripts, worn and stained by time, which have an interest scarcely inferior to that possessed by the Declaration of Independence itself, as the fading page hangs against its pillar in the library of the State Department at Washington. They are the original replies sent by the Massachusetts towns to Samuel Adams's committee sitting in Faneuil Hall, during those first months of 1773. One may well read them with bated breath, for it is the touch of the elbow as the stout little democracies dress up into line, just before they plunge into actual fight at Concord and Bunker Hill. There is sometimes a noble scorn of the restraints of orthography, as of the despotism of Great Britain, in the work of the old town clerks, for they generally were secretaries of the committees; and once in a while a touch of Dogberry's quaintness, as the punctilious officials, though not always 'putting God first,' yet take pains that there shall be no mistake as to their piety by making every letter in the name of the Deity a rounded capital. Yet the documents ought to inspire the deepest reverence. They constitute the highest mark the town-meeting has ever touched. Never before and never since have Anglo-Saxon men, in lawful folk-mote assembled, given utterance to thoughts and feelings so fine in themselves and so pregnant with great events. To each letter stand affixed the names of the committee in autograph. This awkward scrawl was made by the rough fist of a Cape Ann fisherman, on shore for the day to do at town-meeting the duty his fellows had laid upon him: the hand that wrote this other was cramped from the scythe-handle, as its possessor mowed an intervale on the Connecticut; this blotted signature, where smutted fingers have left a black stain, was written by a blacksmith of Middlesex, turning aside a moment from forging a barrel that was to do duty at Lexington. They were men of the plainest; but as the documents containing statements of the most generous principles find the most courageous determination, were read in the town-houses, the committees who produced them, and the constituents for whom the committees stood, were lifted above the ordinary level. Their horizon expanded to the broadest; they had in view not simply themselves, but the welfare of the continent; not solely their own generation, but remote posterity. It was Samuel Adams's own plan, the consequences of which no one foresaw, neither friend nor foe. Even Hutchinson, who was scarcely less keen than Samuel Adams himself, was completely at fault. 'Such a foolish scheme,' he called it, 'that the faction must necessarily make themselves ridiculous.' But in January the eyes of men were opening. One of the ablest of the Tories, Daniel Leonard, wrote:—'This is the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued from the egg of sedition. I saw the small seed when it was implanted; it was a grain of mustard. I have watched the plant until it has become a great tree.' It was the transformation into a strong cord of what had been a rope of sand."

_J. K. Hosmer, Samuel Adams, chapter 13._

"In the spring of 1773, Virginia carried this work of organization a long step further, when Dabney Carr suggested and carried a motion calling for committees of correspondence between the several colonies. From this point it was a comparatively short step to a permanent Continental Congress. It happened that these preparations were made just in time to meet the final act of aggression which brought on the Revolutionary War. The Americans had thus far successfully resisted the Townshend acts and secured the repeal of all the duties except on tea. As for tea they had plenty, but not from England; they smuggled it from Holland in spite of custom-houses and search-warrants. Clearly unless the Americans could be made to buy tea from England and pay the duty on it, the king must own himself defeated. Since it appeared that they could not be forced into doing this, it remained to be seen if they could be tricked into doing it. A truly ingenious scheme was devised. Tea sent by the East India Company to America had formerly paid a duty in some British port on the way. This duty was now taken off, so that the price of the tea for America might be lowered. The company's tea thus became so cheap that the American merchant could buy a pound of it and pay the threepence duty beside for less than it cost him to smuggle a pound of tea from Holland. It was supposed that the Americans would of course buy the tea which they could get most cheaply, and would thus be beguiled into submission to that principle of taxation which they had hitherto resisted. Ships laden with tea were accordingly sent in the autumn of 1773 to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston; and consignees were appointed to receive the tea in each of these towns. Under the guise of a commercial operation, this was purely a political trick. {3208} It was an insulting challenge to the American people, and merited the reception which they gave it. They would have shown themselves unworthy of their rich political heritage had they given it any other. In New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston mass-meetings of the people voted that the consignees should be ordered to resign their offices, and they did so. At Philadelphia the tea-ship was met and sent back to England before it had come within the jurisdiction of the custom-house. At Charleston the tea was landed, and as there was no one to receive it or pay the duty, it was thrown into a damp cellar and left there to spoil. In Boston things took a different turn."

_J. Fiske, The War of Independence, chapter 5._

"Acting upon the precedent of the time of the Stamp Act, when Oliver, the stamp commissioner, had resigned his commission under the Liberty Tree, a placard was posted everywhere on the 3d of November, inviting the people of Boston and the neighboring towns to be present at Liberty Tree that day at noon, to witness the resignation of the consignees of the tea, and hear them swear to re-ship to London what teas should arrive. The placard closed,—'Show me the man that dares take this town.' At the time appointed, representatives Adams, Hancock, and Phillips, the selectmen and town clerk, with about five hundred more, were present at the Liberty Tree. But no consignees arrived, whereupon Molineux and Warren headed a party who waited upon them. The consignees, Clarke, a rich merchant, and his sons, Benjamin Faneuil, Winslow, and the two sons of Hutchinson, Thomas and Elisha, sat together in the counting-house of Clarke in King Street. Admittance was refused the committee, and a conversation took place through a window, during which the tone of the consignees was defiant. There was some talk of violence, and when an attempt was made to exclude the committee and the crowd attending them from the building, into the first story of which they had penetrated, the doors were taken off their binges and threats uttered. Molineux, generally impetuous enough, but now influenced probably by cooler heads, dissuaded the others from violence. … A town-meeting on November 5, in which an effort of the Tories to make head against the popular feeling came to naught, showed how overwhelming was the determination to oppose the introduction of the tea. … When news arrived on the 17th that three tea-ships were on the way to Boston, for a second time a town-meeting demanded through a committee, of which Samuel Adams was a member, the resignation of the consignees. They evaded the demand; the town-meeting voted their answer not satisfactory, and at once adjourned without debate or comment. The silence was mysterious; what was impending none could tell. … On the 28th, the first of the tea-ships, the Dartmouth, Captain Hall, sailed into the harbor. Sunday though it was, the Committee of Correspondence met, obtained from Benjamin Rotch, the Quaker owner of the Dartmouth, a promise not to enter the vessel until Tuesday, and made preparations for a mass-meeting at Faneuil Hall for Monday forenoon, to which Samuel Adams was authorized to invite the surrounding towns. A stirring placard the next morning brought the townsmen and their neighbors to the place. After the organization, Samuel Adams, arising among the thousands, moved that: 'As the town have determined at a late meeting legally assembled that they will to the utmost of their power prevent the landing of the tea, the question be now put,—whether this body are absolutely determined that the tea now arrived in Captain Hall shall be returned to the place from whence it came.' There was not a dissenting voice. … In the afternoon, the meeting having resolved that the tea should go back in the same ship in which it had come, Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, protested, but was sternly forbidden, at his peril, to enter the tea. Captain Hall also was forbidden to enter any portion of it. 'Adams was never in greater glory,' says Hutchinson. The next morning, November 30, the people again assembling, the consignees made it known that it was out of their power to send the tea back; but they promised that they would store it until word should come from their 'constituents' as to its disposal. … The Dartmouth each night was watched by a strong guard; armed patrols, too, were established, and six couriers held themselves ready, if there should be need to alarm the country. … During the first week in December arrived the Eleanor and the Beaver, also tea-ships, which were moored near the Dartmouth, and subjected to the same oversight. The 'True Sons of Liberty' posted about the town the most spirited placards. … The days flew by. At length came the end of the time of probation. If the cargo of the Dartmouth had not been 'entered' within that period, the ship according to the revenue laws, must be confiscated. Rotch, the Quaker owner, had signified his willingness to send the ship back to England with the cargo on board, if he could procure a clearance. The customs officials stood on technicalities; under the circumstances a clearance could not be granted. The grim British admiral ordered the Active and the Kingfisher from his fleet to train their broadsides on the channels, and sink whatever craft should try to go to sea without the proper papers. The governor alone had power to override these obstacles. It was competent for him to grant a permit which the revenue men and the admiral must respect. If he refused to do this, then on the next day the legal course was for the revenue officers to seize the Dartmouth and land the tea under the guns of the fleet. It was the 16th of December. A crowd of seven thousand filled the Old South and the streets adjoining. Nothing like it had ever been known. Town-meeting had followed town-meeting until the excitement was at fever heat. The indefatigable Committee of Correspondence had, as it were, scattered fire throughout the whole country. … Poor Quaker Rotch … felt himself, probably, the most persecuted of men, when the monster meeting forced him in the December weather to make his way out to Milton Hill to seek the permit from Hutchinson. … Meantime darkness had fallen upon the short winter day. The crowd still waited in the gloom of the church, dimly lighted here and there by candles. Rotch reappeared just after six, and informed the meeting that the governor refused to grant the permit until the vessels were properly qualified. As soon as the report had been made, Samuel Adams arose, for it was he who had been moderator, and exclaimed: 'This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.' {3209} It was evidently a concerted signal, for instantly … the famous war-whoop was heard, and the two or three score of 'Mohawks' rushed by the doors, and with the crowd behind them hurried in the brightening moonlight to Griffin's wharf, where lay the ships. The tea could not go back to England; it must not be landed. The cold waters of the harbor were all that remained for it. Three hundred and forty-two chests were cast overboard. Nothing else was harmed, neither person nor property. All was so quiet that those at a distance even could hear in the calm air the ripping open of the thin chests as the tea was emptied. The 'Mohawks' found helpers, so that in all perhaps one hundred and fifty were actively concerned. Not far off in the harbor lay the ships of the fleet, and the Castle with the 'Sam Adams Regiments.' But no one interfered."

_J. K. Hosmer, Samuel Adams, chapter 16._

ALSO IN: _W. V. Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, volume 1, pages 372-375, 495-512; volume 2, pages 1-9, 24-29, 61-63, 80-81, 103-130._

_R. Frothingham, Life of Joseph Warren, chapter 9._

_Force's American Archives, volume 1._

See, also, BOSTON: A. D. 1773; and NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (March-April). The Boston Port Bill. The Massachusetts Act and the Quebec Act.

"The spoken defiance of the other colonies had been quite as efficient as the combination of threats and force to which Boston was compelled to resort, but Lord North launched the first retaliatory and punitive measure against that city. … The first of Lord North's bills was the Boston Port Act, which closed the harbor until indemnity for the tea there destroyed should be paid and the king be satisfied that thereafter the city would obey the laws. The demand for indemnity was fair but the indefinite claim of obedience was not only infamous in itself but, as Burke said, punished the innocent with the guilty. … North's second bill was a virtual abrogation of the Massachusetts charter. The council of twenty-eight had been hitherto elected every year in joint session of the assembly. The king might now appoint the whole body to any number, from twelve to thirty-six, and remove them at pleasure. The men so appointed were designated mandamus councillors. Thereafter town-meetings could be held only by permission of the governor and for the sole purpose of electing officers [General Gage was made governor under this act, and four regiments were placed in Boston for his support]. Sheriffs were to return all juries, and were to be named by the governor and hold office during his pleasure. The third bill was really a device of the king's, and it is said that the ministry was confused and shamefaced in presenting it. It ordained that magistrates, revenue officers, or other officials indicted in Massachusetts for capital offences were to be tried either in Nova Scotia or Great Britain. Another measure made legal the billeting of troops, against which Boston had hitherto striven with success, and a fifth, known as the Quebec Act, though depriving that province of the right of habeas corpus, restored the French customary law ('coutume de Paris'), established Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and by extending its boundaries to the Ohio and Mississippi, shut off the Northern English Colonies from westward extension. This was intended as an arbitrary settlement of a vexed question. The Puritans, however, … exclaimed that the next step would be the establishment among them of English episcopacy."

_W. M. Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, chapter 14._

ALSO IN: _A. Johnston, The United States: its History and Constitution, sections. 57-58._

_Parliamentary History, volume 17._

_American Archives, series 4, volume 1, pages 35-220._

_Lord Fitzmaurice, Life of the Earl of Shelburne, volume 2, chapter 8._

On the Quebec Act.

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (April-October). Lord Dunmore's War with the Indians. The Western territorial claims of Virginia.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (May-June). Effects of the Boston Port Bill. The call for a Continental Congress.

"The Boston Port Bill was received in America with honors not accorded even to the Stamp Act. It was cried through the streets as 'A barbarous, cruel, bloody, and inhuman murder,' and was burnt by the common hangman on a scaffold forty-five feet high. The people of Boston gathered together in town-meeting at Faneuil Hall, and expresses were sent off with an appeal to all Americans throughout America. The responses from the neighborhood came like snow-flakes. Marblehead offered the use of its wharves to the Boston merchants; Salem averred that it would be lost to all feelings of humanity were it to raise its fortunes on the ruins of its neighbor. Newburyport voted to break off trade with Great Britain, and to lay up its ships. Connecticut, as her wont is, when moved by any vital occurrence, betook herself to prayer and humiliation, first, however, ordering an inventory to be taken of her cannon and military stores. Virginia, likewise, resolved to invoke the divine interposition, but, before another resolution which called for a Congress could be introduced, her House was precipitately dissolved; whereupon the resolution was brought up and passed at a meeting called in 'the Apollo,' where it was further declared that an attack on one colony was an attack upon all. Two days later the Massachusetts letter itself was received, upon which the Virginians called a convention. From all parts contributions in money poured into Boston, and resolutions were everywhere passed, declaring that no obedience was due the late acts of Parliament; that the right of imperial taxation did not exist; that those who had accepted office under pay of the king had violated their public duty; that the Quebec act establishing Roman Catholicism in Canada was hostile to the Protestant religion, and that the inhabitants of the colonies should use their utmost diligence to acquaint themselves with the art of war, and for that purpose should turn out under arms at least once a week. In the fulness of time, a cordon of ships was drawn around Boston, and six regiments and a train of artillery were encamped on the Common—the only spot in the thirteen colonies where the government could enforce an order. The conflict between constitutional liberty and absolutism had now reached that dangerous point where physical force became one of its elements. … The situation was at once recognized throughout the colonies, and the knowledge that in union there is strength, manifested itself in one general impulse toward a Colonial Congress. Committees of Correspondence were organized in every county, and throngs attended the public meetings. {3210} 'One great, wise, and noble spirit; one masterly soul animating one vigorous body,' was the way John Adams described this impulse. The Canadas alone remained inanimate. … But not so those to whom constitutional liberty was as the breath of life. On the 17th of June (1774) the Massachusetts Assembly, which had been removed by a royal order to Salem, answered Virginia by resolving on a call for a Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The governor, hearing of what was going on, sent the secretary of the colony to dissolve the Assembly, but, finding the doors shut upon him, he had to content himself with reading the message to the crowd outside. The House went on with its work, while, at the same time, a great meeting, with John Adams in the chair, was being held at Boston in Faneuil Hall. Twelve colonies agreed to send delegates to a Continental Congress to be held at Philadelphia in September."

_E. G. Scott, The Development of Constitutional Liberty in the English Colonies of America, chapter 11 (with corrections by the author)._

ALSO IN: _G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision) volume 4, chapter 1._

See, also, BOSTON: A. D. 1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774(May-July). Governor Hutchinson's departure for England. His conversation with King George.