The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862

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Mr. Brown, having before declined to let the troops already in town
occupy the building, now, acting under legal advice, declined to
comply with the present request to leave it; whereupon it was
determined to take forcible possession. Accordingly, on the 17th of
October, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Sheriff Greenleaf,
accompanied by Chief-Justice Hutchinson, went to the Manufactory House
for this purpose, but was denied entrance by Mr. Brown, who had
fastened all the doors. He appeared, however, at a window, when the
Sheriff presented the Governor's order; but Mr. Brown replied, that he
never had had any lawful warning to leave the house, and did not look
upon the power of the Governor and Council as sufficient to dispossess
him; and finally told the Sheriff that he would not surrender his
possession to any till required by the General Court, under whom he
held, or till he was obliged to do it by the law of the Province, or
compelled by force: whereupon the Sheriff and the Chief-Justice
retired.

On the nest morning, at ten o'clock, Sheriff Greenleaf, attended by
his deputies, again appeared before the house, and again found the
doors shut. They, however, entered the cellar by a window, that was
partly opened, it is said to let out an inmate,--when, after a
scuffle, Mr. Brown declared that the Sheriff was his prisoner; upon
which the Sheriff informed the commanding officer of the regiment on
the Common of his situation, who sent a guard for his protection.
Sentinels were now placed at the doors, two at the gate of
the yard, and a guard of ten in the cellar; and as the people gathered
fast about the gate, an additional company was ordered from the
Common. Any one was allowed to come out of the house, but no one was
allowed to go in. The press now harped upon the cries of Mr. Brown's
children for bread.

This strange proceeding caused great excitement, and at this stage
there was (October 22) a meeting of the Council to consider the
subject, when seven of the members waited on the Governor to assure
him that nothing could be farther from their intention, when they gave
their advice, than to sanction this use of force; and about seven
o'clock that evening most of the troops were taken away, leaving only
one or two soldiers at a window and a small guard in the cellar. In a
few days afterwards all the guards were removed, and finally Mr. Brown
was left in quiet possession. The whole affair lasted seventeen
days. Shortly after, Mr. Brown prosecuted the Sheriff for trespass,
when the Council declined to be accountable for these official
doings. He soon announced to the public in a card a resumption of his
business. His tombstone bears a eulogy on the bravery which thus long
and successfully resisted an attempt to force a citizen from his legal
habitation. "Happy citizen," the stone reads, "when called singly to
be a barrier to the liberties of a continent!"

Soon after this affair, fifteen members of the Council, and among them
several decided Loyalists, signed an address which was adopted at a
meeting held without a summons from the Governor, and which was
presented (October 27, 1768) directly to General Gage, as "from
members of His Majesty's Council." This address is a candid, truthful,
and strong exposition of the whole series of proceedings connected
with the introduction of the troops. "Your own observation," it says,
"will give you the fullest evidence that the town and the Province are
in a peaceful state; your own inquiry will satisfy you, that, though
there have been disorders in the town of Boston, some of them did not
merit notice, and that such as did have been magnified beyond the
truth." The events of the eighteenth of March and of the tenth of
June were reviewed: the former were pronounced trivial, and such as
could not have been noticed to the disadvantage of the town but by
persons inimical to it; the latter were conceded to be criminal, and
the actors in them guilty of a riot; but, in justice to the town, it
was urged that this riot had its origin in the threats and the armed
force used in the seizure of the sloop Liberty. The General was
informed that the people thought themselves injured, and by men to
whom they had done no injury, and thus was "most unjustly brought into
question the loyalty of as loyal a people as any in His Majesty's
dominions"; and he was assured that it would be a great ease and
satisfaction to the inhabitants, if be would please to order the
troops to Castle William.

In a brief reply to this elaborate address, the next day, General Gage
said that the riots and the resolves of the town had induced His
Majesty to order four regiments to protect his loyal subjects in their
persons and properties, and to assist the civil magistrates in the
execution of the laws; that he trusted the discipline and order of the
troops would render their stay in no shape distressful to His
Majesty's dutiful subjects; and that he hoped the future behavior of
the people would justify the best construction of past actions, and
afford him a sufficient foundation to represent to His Majesty the
propriety of withdrawing the most part of the troops. This was very
paternal, haughty, and very English. However, the activity of the
commander, in bargaining for stores, houses, and other places to be
used as barracks for the soldiers, indicated better behavior in the
future on the part of crown officials than the browbeating of the
local authorities, from the Council down to the Justices, in the vain
attempt to make them do what the law did not require them to do, and
what their feelings, as well as their sense of right, forbade their
doing. In a short time the good people had the satisfaction of seeing
the redcoats move out of Fanueil Hall and the Town-House into quarters
provided by those who sent them into the town, and of reflecting on
the moral victory which their idolized leaders had won in standing
firmly by the law.

It was now in the mouths, not only of the Patriots, but of Loyalists
of the candid type of those who signed the recent address to General
Gage, that, as it was evident things had been grossly misrepresented
to the Ministers, when truth and time should set matters fairly right
before the Government there would be a change of policy; and so Hope,
in her usual bright way, lifted a little the burden from heavy hearts
in the cheering words through the press (October, 1768),--"The pacific
and prudent measures of the town of Boston must evince to the world
that Americans, though represented by their enemies to be in a state
of insurrection, mean nothing more than to support those
constitutional rights to which the laws of God and Nature entitle
them; and when the measure of oppression and mi..st...al iniquity is
full, and the dutiful supplications of an injured people shall have
reached the gracious ear of their sovereign, may at length terminate
in a glorious display of liberty."

The journals, a few days after these events, announced that "the
worshipful the Commissioners of the Customs, having of their own free
will retreated in June to the Castle, designed to make their
re-entrance to the metropolis, so that the town would be again blessed
with the fruits of the benevolence of the Board, as well as an example
of true politeness and breeding"; and soon afterwards this Board again
held its sessions in Boston. It was further announced, that the troops
that had been quartered in the Town-House had moved into a house
lately possessed by James Murray, which was near the church in Brattle
Street, (hence the origin of "Murray's Barracks," which became
historic from their connection with the Boston Massacre,)--that James
Otis, at the session of the Superior Court, in the Town-House, moved
that the Court adjourn to Faneuil Hall, because of the cannon that
remained pointed at the building, as it was derogatory to the honor of
the Court to administer justice at the mouth of the cannon and the
point of the bayonet,--that the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments
had arrived from Cork, and were quartered in the large and commodious
stores on Wheelwright's Wharf,--and that Commodore Hood, the commander
of His Majesty's ships in America, had arrived (November 13) in
town. It is stated that there were now about four thousand troops
here, under the command of General Pomeroy, who was an excellent
officer and became very popular with the citizens.

The town, meanwhile, continued remarkably quiet. There was no call for
popular demonstrations during the winter; and the Patriots confined
their labors to severe animadversions on public measures, and efforts
to tone the people up to a rigid observance of the non-importation
scheme. The crown officials endeavored to enliven the season with
balls and concerts, and at first were mortified that few of the ladles
would attend them; but they persevered, and were more successful.
"Now," Richard Carey writes, (February 7, 1769,) "it is mortifying
to many of the inhabitants that they have obtained their wishes,
and that such numbers of ladies attend. It is a bad thing for
Boston to have so many gay, idle people in it." There is much comment,
in the letters and journals, upon these balls and concerts, and some
of it not very flattering to the ladies who countenanced them.

Meantime there appeared (January 10, 1769) an extra "Boston Post-Boy
and Advertiser," a broadside or half-sheet, printed in pica type, but
only on one side, which, under the heading of "Important Advices,"
spread before the community the King's speech to Parliament. This
state-paper, which was read the world over, represented the people of
Boston as being "in a state of disobedience to all law and government,
and to have proceeded to measures subversive of the Constitution, and
attended with circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw
off their dependence upon Great Britain"; and it contained a pledge
"to defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious
persons who, under false pretences, had but too successfully deluded
numbers," and whose designs, if not defeated, could not fail to
produce the most serious consequences, not only to the Colonies
immediately, but, in the end, to all the dominions of the Crown.

The Patriots remarked, (January 14, 1769,) that the countenances of a
few, who seemed to enjoy a triumph, were now very jocund; but that His
Majesty's loyal subjects were distressed that he had conceived such an
unfavorable sentiment of the temper of the people, who, far from the
remotest disposition to faction or rebellion, were struggling, as they
apprehended, for a constitution which supported the Crown, and for the
rights devised to them by their Charter and confirmed to them by the
declaration of His Majesty's glorious ancestors, William and Mary, at
that important era, the Revolution. These words are from an article
entitled "Journal of the Times," of which notice will be taken
presently; and they came out of what Bernard used to term the cabinet
of the faction. Other words, from Thomas Cushing, who was not an ultra
Whig, run, as to His Majesty,--"He must have been egregiously
misinformed. Nothing could have been farther from the truth than such
advices. I hope time, which scatters and dispels the mists of error
and falsehood, will place us in our true light, and convince the
Administration how much they have been abused by false and malicious
misrepresentations." Official falsehood and malice did their
appointed work, doubtless, in inflaming the British mind; but the root
of the difficulty was the feeling, so general at that time in England,
that every man there had a right to govern every man in America. The
King represented this imperialism.

The King's speech, threatening resolves adopted in Parliament,
startling avowals in the direction of arbitrary power uttered in the
debates, gave fresh significance to the quartering of troops in
Boston, and forced upon the Patriots the conviction that these troops
were not here merely to aid in maintaining a public peace that was not
disturbed, or in collecting revenue that was regularly paid, but were
indicative of a purpose in the Ministry to change their local
government, and subjugate them, as to their domestic affairs, to
foreign-imposed law. "My daily reflections for two years," says John
Adams, who lived near Murray's Barracks, "at the sight of those
soldiers before my door, were serious enough. Their very appearance in
Boston was a strong proof to me that the determination in Great
Britain to subjugate us was too deep and inveterate ever to be altered
by us; for everything we could do was misrepresented, and nothing we
could say was credited." This statement is abundantly confirmed by
contemporary facts. Nothing that the Patriots could say availed to
diminish the alarm which was felt by the British aristocracy at the
obvious tendency of the democratic principle. The progress of events
but revealed new grandeur in the ideas of freedom and equality that
had been here so intelligently grasped, and new capacities in the
republican forms in which they had found expression. This was
growth. The mode prescribed to check this growth was a change in the
local Constitution, and this would be "the introduction of absolute
rule" in Massachusetts.

The voluminous correspondence, at this period, between the members of
the British Cabinet and Governor Bernard shows that this purpose of
changing the Constitution was entertained by the Ministers and was
warmly urged by the local crown officials. Thus, John Pownall, the
Under-Secretary, avowed in a letter addressed to the Governor, that
such a measure was necessary, and that such "had been long his firm
and unalterable opinion upon the fullest consideration of what had
passed in America"; and in the same letter be says that the Government
had under consideration "the forfeiture of the Charter and measures of
local regulation and reform."

The Governor, for years, had urged this in general, and of late had
named the specific measure of so altering the constitution of the
Council, that, instead of being chosen by the Representatives, it
should be appointed by the Crown; and he was vexed because his
superiors did not consider the Charter as at their mercy. "I have
just now heard," he wrote, October 22, 1768, to Lord Barrington, "that
the Charter of this government is still considered as sacred. For,
most assuredly, if the Charter is not so far altered as to put the
appointment of the Council in the King, this government will never
recover itself. When order is restored, it will be at best but a
republic, of which the Governor will be no more than President." A
month later (November 22, 1768) he wrote to John Pownall,--"If the
Convention and the proceedings of the Council about the same time
shall give the Crown a legal right or induce the Parliament to
exercise a legislative power over the Charter, it will be most
indulgently exercised, if it is extended no farther than to make an
alteration in the form of the government, which has always been found
wanting, is now become quite necessary, and will really, by making it
more constitutional, render it more permanent. With this alteration,
I do believe that all the disorders of this government will be
remedied, and the authority of it fully restored. Without it, there
will be a perpetual occasion to resort to expedients, the continual
inefficiency of which will speak in the words of Scripture,--'You are
careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.'"

As week after week passed and no orders came from the Secretary of
State to make arrests of certain individuals who had been conspicuous
in the late town-meetings, and no legislation was entered upon as to
the Charter, the crown officials were greatly agitated; and Bernard
says (December, 1768) that they were "under the apprehension that the
Government of Great Britain might not take the full advantage of what
the late mad and wicked proceedings of The Sons of Liberty [faction]
had put in their hands. They say that the late wild attempt to create
a revolt and take the government of the Province out of the King's
into their own hands affords so fair an opportunity for the supreme
power to reform the constitution of this subordinate government, to
dispel the faction which has harassed this Province for three years
past, and to inflict a proper and not a severe censure upon some of
the heads of it, that, if it is now neglected, they say, it is not
like soon, perhaps ever, to happen again." And the Governor said that
he heard much of this from all the sensible men with whom he
conversed. What a testimonial is this record in favor of republican
Boston and Massachusetts! So complete was the quiet of the town, so
forbearing were the people under the severest provocations, that this
set of politicians were out of all patience, and feared they never
would see another riot out of which to make a case for abolishing the
cherished local government. The Patriots, Bernard says in this letter,
did not experience this agitation. "Those persons," he writes, "who
have reason to expect a severe censure from Great Britain do not
appear to be so anxious for the event as the friends and well-wishers
to the authority of the Government." The Patriots intended no
rebellion, and they experienced no apprehension. They put forth no
absurd claims to meddle with things that were common and national, and
they asked simply to be let alone as to things peculiar and local.

Meantime Governor Bernard was fairly importuned by Government
officials for advice; and again and again he was assured that his
judgment was regarded as valuable. "Mr. Pownall and I," Lord
Hillsborough says, in a private letter, (November 15, 1768,) "have
spent some days in considering with the utmost attention your
correspondence." John Pownall, the Under-Secretary here referred to,
wrote (December 24, 1768,) to Bernard,--"I want to know very much your
real sentiments on the present very critical situation of American
affairs, and the more fully the greater will be the obligations
conferred." There are curious coincidences in history, and one
occurred on the day on which this letter was dated; for Governor
Bernard, with a letter of this same date addressed to Pownall, sent
him a remarkable communication developing the measures which the
Boston crown officials considered to be necessary to maintain the
King's authority.

At this time (December, 1768) there appears to have been but little
difference of opinion among the prominent Loyalists as to the
necessity of an extraordinary exercise of authority in some way, both
as a point of honor and as a measure of precaution for the future. On
this point Hutchinson was as decided as Bernard, though he was
reticent as to the precise shape it ought to take. It would not do, he
said, to leave the Colonies to the loose principle, espoused by so
many, that they were subject to laws that appeared to them equitable,
and no other; nor would it do to drive the Colonies to despair; but if
nothing were done but to pass declaratory acts and resolves, it would
soon be all over with the friends of Government; and so he wrote,
"This is most certainly a crisis."

The remarkable paper just referred to is recorded in Governor
Bernard's Letter-Books, without either address or signature, but in
the form of a letter, dated December 23, 1768, and marked,
"Confidential." It is elaborate and able, but too long for citation
here in full. In it the Governor professes to speak for others as well
as for himself, and to present the reasonings used in Boston on an
important and critical occasion.

The second paragraph embodies the propositions which were recommended
by the Loyalists, and is as follows:--"It is said that the
Town-Meeting, the Convention, and the refusal of the Justices to
billet the soldiers, severally, point out and justify the means
whereby, First, the disturbers of the peace of the government may be
properly censured, Second, the magistracy of the town reformed, and,
Third, the constitution of the government amended: all of them most
desirable ends, and some of them quite necessary to the restoration of
the King's authority. I will consider these separately."

The Governor represented the town-meeting which called the September
Convention as undoubtedly intending to bring about a rebellion,--and
the precise way designed is said to have been, to seize the two
highest officials and the treasury, and then to set up a standard; and
after remarking on the circumstances that defeated this scheme, he
inquires why so notorious an attempt should go unpunished because it
was unsuccessful. He recommends the passage of an Act of Parliament
disqualifying the principal persons engaged in this from holding any
office or sitting in the Assembly; and this was urged as being much
talked of, and as likely in its tendency to have a good influence in
other governments. He presented, as proper to be censured, the
Moderator of the town-meeting, Otis,--the Selectmen, Jackson, Ruddock,
Hancock, Rowe, and Pemberton,--the Town-Clerk, Cooper,--the Speaker of
the Convention, Gushing,--and its Clerk, Adams. "The giving these men
a check," he said, "would make them less capable of doing more
mischief,--would really be salutary to themselves, as well as
advantageous to the Government."

The Governor represented that to reform the magistracy of the town
would be of great service, for there were among the Justices several
of the supporters of the Sons of Liberty; and their refusal, under
their own hands, to quarter the soldiers in town would justify a
removal. He recommended that this reform should be by Act of
Parliament, and that by beginning in the County of Suffolk a precedent
might be established for a like exercise of authority as to other
places. Such an act, with a royal instruction to the Governor as to
appointments, was looked upon as of such value for the restoration of
authority, that "some were for carrying this remedial measure to all
the commissions of all kinds in the Government"

The Governor represented the fundamental change proposed as to the
Council to be a most desirable object,--"If one was to say," his words
were, "quite necessary to the restoration and firm establishment of
the authority of the Crown, it would not be saying too much." The
justification for this was alleged to be, the sitting of the
Convention and certain proceedings of the Council, which, it was
argued at some length, broke the condition on which the Charter was
granted, and thereby made it liable to forfeiture. It was alleged
that the Council had met separately as a Council without being
assembled by the Governor, that the people had chosen Representatives
also without being summoned by the Governor, and that these
Representatives had met and transacted business, as in an Assembly,
even after they had been required in the King's name to break up their
meeting. Thus both the Council and the people had committed
usurpations on the King's rights; and it would surely be great grace
and favor in the King, if he took no other advantage than to correct
the errors in the original formation of the government and make it
more congenial to the Constitution of the mother-country.

The concluding portion of the paper urges general considerations why
the local government ought to be changed. "It requires no arguments to
show," are its words, "that the inferior governments of a free State
should be as similar to that of the supreme State as can well be. And
it is self-evident that the excellency of the British Constitution
consists in the equal balance of the regal and popular powers. If so,
where the royal scale kicks the beam and the people know their own
superior strength, the authority of Government can never be steady and
durable: it must either be perpetually distracted by disputes with the
Crown, or be quieted by giving up all real power to the demagogues of
the people." And, after other considerations, the paper closes as
follows:--"It is therefore not to be wondered at that the most
sensible men of this Province see how necessary it is for the peace
and good order of this government that the royal scale should have its
own constitutional weights restored to it, and thereby be made much
more equilibrial with the popular one. How this is to be done, whether
by the Parliament or the King's Bench, or by both, is a question for
the Administration to determine; the expedience of the measure is out
of doubt; and if the late proceedings of the Convention, etc., amount
to a forfeiture, a reformation of the constitution of the government,
if it is insisted upon, must and will be assented to."

The Governor, in a letter addressed to John Pownall, which is marked
"Private and Confidential," explains the origin and intention of this
paper,--a paper which has not been referred to by historians:--

FRANCIS BERNARD TO JOHN POWNALL.

"_Boston, Dec. 24, 1768._

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