cabinet was carried into effect, a circumstance occurred in America fitted to counteract the efficacy even of a much greater stretch of conciliation. The British senate had been assured by Franklin that a military force despatched to America, though it would not find, would easily create a rebellion; but more credit was given by the present ministers to the representations of Bernard, Hutchinson, Oliver, Paxton, and other partisans of prerogative, that an impending rebellion could be averted only by the exhibition of military power. Ever since the arrival of the troops at Boston, the inhabitants of the city regarded the presence of these instruments of despotic authority with an increasing sense of indignity; and reciprocal insults and injuries paved the way for a tragical event which made a deep and lasting impression of resentment in America. An affray, which commenced between an inhabitant of the town and a private soldier, having been gradually extended by the participation of the fellow-citizens of the one and the comrades of the other, terminated to the advantage of the soldiers, and inflamed the populace with a passionate desire of vengeance, which, it has been justly or unjustly surmised, was fomented by some persons of consideration, who hoped that the removal of the troops would be promoted by a conflict between them and the towns-people. [March 2, 1770.] A corresponding animosity was cherished by the soldiers, some of whom were severely hurt in the affray. They began to carry clubs in their hands when they walked in the streets, gave other symptoms of willingness to renew the conflict, and evinced the most insulting contempt for the citizens, to whom their presence was already sufficiently offensive. After the lapse of three days from the first affray, [March 5,] and after various symptoms had betrayed that some dangerous design was harboured on both sides, a party of soldiers, while under arms in the evening, were assaulted by a congregation of the populace, who pressed upon them, struck some of them, loaded them with insults, terming them bloody-backs (in allusion to the barbarous practice of flogging in the British army) and cowards, and tauntingly dared them to fire. The conduct of the soldiers was far from blameless. They had previously by studied insult provoked the rage of the people, and now exasperated it by retorting the verbal outrages, which they possessed the most fatal means of avenging. One of them at last, on receiving a blow, fired at his assailant; and a single discharge from six others succeeded. Three of the citizens were killed, and five dangerously wounded. The town became instantly a scene of the most violent commotion; the drums beat to arms; thousands of the inhabitants flocked together, and beheld the bloody spectacle of their slaughtered fellow-citizens with a rage that would have prolonged and aggravated the calamities of the night, if Hutchinson, the deputy-governor, and the other civil authorities, had not promptly interfered, and, arresting the soldiers who had fired, together with their commanding officer, and loudly blaming

them for firing without the order of a magistrate, held forth to the people the hope of more deliberate vengeance, and prevailed with them to disperse. The next morning, [March 6,] Hutchinson convoked the council, which was engaged in discussing the unhappy event, when a message was received from a general assemblage of the citizens, declaring it to be their unanimous opinion, that nothing could restore the peace of the town and prevent further conflict and carnage, but the immediate removal of the troops. Samuel Adams, who communicated the desire of his fellow-citizens, expressed it in the tone of command and menace. After some hesi-. tation, Hutchinson and the commander of the forces, who each desired to throw the responsibility of the measure upon the other, perceiving that it was inevitable, consented to embrace it; the troops were withdrawn, and the commotion subsided. One of the wounded men died; and the four bodies of the slain were conducted to the grave with every ceremonial expressive of public honour and affection by an immense concourse of people, followed by a long train of carriages belonging to the principal inhabitants of the town.

APTAIN Preston, who commanded the party of troops engaged in the fatal affair, and all the soldiers who had fired, were committed to jail, and arraigned on an indictment of murder. Their trial was awaited with earnest expectation, and for some time with passionate hope or stern satisfactory conviction in the public mind that it would terminate fatally for the accused. Considering the mighty cloud of passion, prejudice, and exaggeration, through which their conduct was viewed, such an event would have merited more regret than reprobation. Captain Preston, though entirely innocent, was exposed to peculiar danger from the generosity with which, in vindicating his men when first reproached by the civil authorities, he neglected to exculpate himself from the charge implied in their questions, of having authorized and ordered the firing; and the odium under which he laboured was not a little increased by the publication, at London, of a partial and irritating representation of the unhappy transaction, derived from statements furnished by himself, but distorted by the intemperate zeal of injudicious friends. But the defence of the pri soners was undertaken by two of the most eminent lawyers and determined patriots in Massachusetts,-Josiah Quincy, jun., whom we have already noticed, and John Adams, a kinsman and intimate friend of Samuel Adams, and who afterwards held the high office-the highest that a friend and champion of human liberty and happiness has ever filled-of President of the United States of America. These men were not less eager to guard the justice and honour of their country from reproach, than to defend her .iberty from invasion; and they exerted themselves in defence of their

clients with a manly eloquence and reasoning worthy of their cause, and worthily appreciated by the integrity, justice, and good sense of the jury. Robert Treat Paine, to whom the public voice assigned the office of prose cutor, discharged this arduous duty with an uprightness and ability becoming a sound lawyer and wise patriot. Preston was acquitted; as were likewise all the soldiers except two, who were found guilty of manslaughter. This event was truly honourable to Massachusetts. Some British politicians, indeed, are said to have regarded it merely as an act of timidity, or a mechanical adherence to legal rules. But, (as an ingenious American writer has finely observed,) in this forbearance of the people, on an occasion where truth and reason, combating violent passion, pronounced the bias of their feelings unjust and wrong, there was exhibited a force and firmness of character which promised to render them unyielding and invincible when supported by a sense of justice and right. The vigour with which extreme injustice is resisted corresponds not unfrequently in direct proportion with the patient fortitude exerted in the endurance of its initial manifestations. Though the issue of the trial was generally approved in Massachusetts, the anniversary of the massacre, as it was termed, was observed with much solemnity; and the ablest of the provincial orators were successively employed to deliver annual harangues calculated to preserve the irritating remembrance fresh in the popular mind.

Various affrays, though of a less serious description, occurred between the British troops at New York and the populace of this city, where much discontent was excited by the conduct of the Assembly, in consenting at length to make provision, though only occasionally and reluctantly, for the accommodation of the soldiers. Some violent writings having been published on this subject, addressed to the betrayed inhabitants of New York, McDougall, a Scotchman, the publisher, was committed to jail on a charge of sedition; but his imprisonment was alleviated and dignified by visits and demonstrations of regard which he received from great numbers of people, including some of the principal gentlemen and ladies of the province; and the government finally liberated him without having ventured to bring him to trial.

An act of violence committed by the colonists of Rhode Island, though less memorable in respect of its intrinsic importance than the insurrection of the Regulators in North Carolina, excited more general attention from its significance as an indication of the height to which the general current of American sentiment was rising. [1772.] The commander of the Gaspee, an armed British schooner stationed at Providence, had exerted much activity in supporting the trade laws and punishing the increasing contraband traffic of the Americans; and had provoked additional resentment by firing at the Providence packets in order to compel them to salute his flag, by lowering theirs as they passed his vessel, and by chasing them

even into the docks in case of refusal. The master of a packet conveying passengers to Providence, [June 9,] which was fired at and chased by the Gaspee for neglecting to pay the requisite tribute of respect, took advantage of the state of the tide (it being almost high water) to stand in so closely to the shore that the Gaspee in the pursuit might be exposed to run aground. The artifice succeeded; the Gaspee presently stuck fast, and the packet proceeded in triumph to Providence, where a strong sensation was excited by the tidings of the occurrence, and a project was hastily formed to improve the blow and destroy the obnoxious vessel. Brown, an eminent merchant, and Whipple, a ship-master, took the lead in this bold adventure, and easily collected a sufficient band of armed and resolute men with whom they embarked in whale-boats to attack the British ship of war. At two o'clock the next morning, [June 10,] they boarded the Gaspee so suddenly and in such numbers, that her crew were instantly overpowered, without hurt to any one except her commanding officer, who was wounded. The captors, having despatched a part of their number to convey him together with his private effects and his crew ashore, set fire to the Gaspee and destroyed her with all her stores. The issue of this daring act of war against the naval force of the king was as remarkable as the enterprise itself. The British government offered a reward of five hundred pounds, together with a pardon if claimed by an accomplice, for the discovery and apprehension of any person concerned in the treasonable attack on the Gaspee; and a commission under the great seal of England appointed Wanton, the Governor of Rhode Island, Peter Oliver, the new Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Auchmuty, the Judge-Admiral of America, and certain other persons, to preside upon the trial of the offenders. But no trial took place. Nobody came forward to claim the proffered reward; some persons, who were apprehended in the hope that they might be induced by threats and terror to become witnesses, were enabled by popular assistance to escape before any information could be extracted from them; and in the commencement of the following year, the commissioners reported to the British ministry their inability, notwithstanding the most diligent inquisition, to procure evidence or information against a single individual.

T

HE British government having rashly determined to enforce the Tea-duty Act,-of which the most considerable effect hitherto was a vast importation of smuggled tea into America by the French, the Dutch, the Danes, and the Swedes, -attempted to compass by policy what constraint and authority had proved insufficient to accomplish. The measures of the Americans had already occasioned such diminution of exports from Britain, that the warehouses of the English East India Company contained above seventeen millions of pounds of tea, for which it was difficult to procure a market. The unwillingness of the company to lose their commercial profits, and of the ministry to forego the expected revenue from the sale of tea in America, induced a compromise for their mutual advantage. A high duty was imposed hitherto on the exportation of tea from England; but the East India Company were now authorized by act of parliament to export their tea free of duty to all places whatever. [May, 1773.] By this contrivance it was expected that tea, though loaded with an exceptionable tax on its importation into America, would yet readily obtain purchasers among the Americans; as the vendors, relieved of the British export duty, could afford to sell it to them even cheaper than before it was made a source of American revenue.

VOL. I.-92

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