This measure in a great degree tranquilized America; though considerable materials of irritation were left. The more zealous patriots contended, that as their objection had been to the principle, not the amount of the taxes, the retention of any one was equivalent to a continuance of the whole. The resolution, also, respecting the conveyance of offenders to England for trial, though never in fact intended to be acted upon, excited rumors and alarms. The Massachusetts assembly advanced new and bolder claims, altogether denying the power of parliament even to legislate; they complained also of the laws restraining their manufactures, which were doubtless impolitic, but had hitherto been quietly submitted to, and in their actual state were of very small practical injury. A new arrangement, making the salaries of the governor and judges independent of the assembly, gave rise to strong remonstrances. They declared that no arrangement would satisfy them except the restoration of everything to the same footing as at the close of the late war. The removal of their body to Cambridge, and its long prorogations, heightened the discontent; while the presence of the military was a continued source of complaint and irritation.

During these parliamentary transactions, an occurrence happened in Boston, the source and centre of opposition to British authority, which greatly exasperated the Americans and removed the hopes of reconciliation to a greater distance than ever. Frequent quarrels had arisen between the inhabitants and the soldiers, who had been stationed there in the autumn of 1768; but the public peace was preserved till the evening of the 5th of March, 1770, when a scuffle ensued, near the barracks, between a few soldiers and some young men of the town: the soldiers pursued the young men through the streets; the townsmen took the alarm; the bells of the churches were rung; the multitude assembled at the customhouse, and insulted and threatened the sentinel stationed there. Captain Preston, the officer on duty at the time, hastened with a party to support the sentinel : he endeavored to persuade the people to disperse; but his efforts were unavailing. The mob became more riotous than before, throwing stones and other missiles at the military. At length a soldier who had been struck fired on the multitude; some of his comrades soon followed his example: four persons were killed, and several wounded. The crowd fled, but soon collected in another street. The drums beat to arms; the troops were drawn out; and the utmost agitation and confusion prevailed in the town.

A meeting of the inhabitants was held, and a deputation sent to the governor, requesting him to remove the troops. He assembled the council, who were of opinion that the removal of the troops would be for the good of his majesty's service. The troops were accordingly removed to Castle William. Captain Preston surrendered himself for trial; and the soldiers who had been under his command at the customhouse were taken into custody.

Some days afterward, the bodies of those who had been killed in the riot, accompanied by a great concourse of people, displaying emblematical devices calculated to inflame the popular mind, were carried in funeral procession through the town to the place of sepulture. The colonial newspapers gave an inflammatory account of the transaction, representing it as an atrocious massacre of the peaceable inhabitants. The trial of Captain Preston and his party was delayed till the month of October, and Samuel Adams was assigned to him by the court as his defender. Before that time the irritation of the public mind had somewhat abated; and Captain Preston and six of his men, were acquitted by a Boston jury. Two of the party were found guilty of manslaughter.

The news of the discontinuance of the American duties reached Boston while the minds of the people were much irritated by the death of their townsmen; but in the inflamed state of the public mind the intelligence had little effect in soothing their angry passions, or cherishing a spirit of conciliation. The ex

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FIG. 52.-Portrait of Samuel Adams.

asperation and firm resolution to resist all parliamentary taxation, which prevailed in Massachusetts, did not exist, in the same degree, in the other colonies; and, therefore, in them the repeal of the duties had considerable influence on the public mind. In all the provinces much inconvenience had been felt in consequence of the non-importation associations, and many of the people were glad to be released from them. Accordingly, they now held those associations no longer binding, except in regard to tea: some, indeed, wished to interpret them more rigorously, and to consider them obligatory till the tax on every article was abrogated. But the general sense of the colonists was that they ceased in regard to every article from which the tax was removed, and that now they operated against tea only. Hence, during the remainder of this year and the whole of the next, the commerce of Britain with America was in a flourishing condition.

In the southern and middle colonies, although the people were not entirely satisfied with parliament, yet, for the sake of peace, they were generally inclined to acquiesce in what it had done. The same spirit did not prevail in the

north; for there the colonists were indignant at the restrictions laid on their commerce by the establishment of an American board of admiralty, and the powers granted to the officers of the navy, in order to enforce the revenue laws. The zeal of these petty officers was often much greater than their prudence; and they highly provoked the people by the vexatious activity and insolence with which they executed their commission.

Lieutenant Dudington, commander of the armed vessel Gasper, stationed off Rhode Island, was remarkably active in searching for contraband goods. By this conduct, and by compelling the packets to lower their colors in passing him, he had become the object of much ill will. On the evening of the 9th of June, 1772, the Providence packet, with passengers on board, came up with colors flying, and refusing to lower them, the lieutenant fired a shot at her; which being disregarded, he gave chase. It was near full tide, and the packet stood closely in to the land, for the purpose of drawing the Gasper into shallow water: the design succeeded, and the schooner got fast aground about seven miles below Providence. The packet proceeded to the town, where the resolution was soon formed of attacking and destroying the Gasper. Accordingly, about two in the morning, a body of armed men, in several whale-boats, boarded the Gasper, which was still aground, forced the lieutenant, who was wounded in the scuffle, with his crew, ashore, and burned the schooner and her stores.

The British ministry were incapable of deriving wisdom from experience; for, after all the mischief which had resulted from their American acts, they still indulged the passion for colonial legislation. Hitherto the assembly of Massachusetts Bay had voted a scanty allowance to the judges and to law officers of the crown; but about the beginning of 1772, in order to render the judges more independent, the crown granted them liberal salaries out of the American revenue. The measure was unseasonable; for every act of government was looked on with distrust and jealousy by the colonists; and in the irritable state of the public mind at that time, the grant of salaries to the judges, being viewed as the wages of subserviency, created much alarm and agitation.

The inhabitants of Boston met on the 25th of October. Mr. Hutchinson was then governor, having succeeded Sir Francis Bernard in 1770: to him they presented a petition, setting forth the evil tendency of the new regulation respecting the judges, and the alarm which it had occasioned, and praying him to call an assembly. He refused: the people, therefore, appointed a committee to consider what was to be done in that season of danger, and to report to a subsequent meeting. The committee prepared a report more extensive than any that had hitherto been framed, comprehending the rights of the colonists as men, as citizens, and as Christians.

The inhabitants of Boston met to receive the report, which was read and agreed to. It was ordered to be printed and circulated in the province, accompanied by an exhortation to the people no longer to doze or sit in supine indifference, while the hand of oppression was tearing the choicest fruits from the tree of liberty.

In

When the assembly met in January, 1773, the governor imprudently expatiated on the supreme legislative authority of the king and parliament. This fanned the dying embers; and the assembly, instead of qualifying the claims contained in the résolutions of the people of Boston, avowed them in all their extent. their address they openly denied the right of parliament to tax or to legislate for them in any respect whatsoever; and added that, if in any late instances there had been a submission to acts of parliament, it had arisen rather from want of consideration, and a reluctance to contend with the parent state, than from a conviction of the supreme legislative authority of parliament.