XVI. on the measures to be pursued in the present BOOK crisis; upon which that assembly also was dissolved. Orders also were transmitted by lord 1768. Hillsborough to governor Penn, to dissolve the assembly of Pennsylvania; his lordship, by a pleasant mistake, not recollecting it to be the established and chartered privilege of that house to sit on their own adjournments, and that the governor had no power to dissolve them. In the midst of the ferment occasioned by these proceedings, a sloop, called the Liberty, laden with wine from Madeira, was seized under authority of the commissioners of the customs for a false entry; and being cut by force from her moorings, was by their order removed under the guns of the Romney, a ship of war lying in the harbour of Boston. The minds of the populace being greatly inflamed, a violent riot ensued, in which the houses of the commissioners were assailed, their persons grossly insulted, and they were compelled to take refuge at first on board the Romney, and afterwards at the fortress adjacent to the town, called Castle William. It being now thought necessary by government, which disdained every idea of concession or retractation, to station a considerable military and naval force at the town of Boston, orders were issued for that purpose, and also for repairing the fortress of Castle William. On receiving this BOOK intelligence, a meeting of the principal inhabiXVI. tants of Boston was called, and an address pre1768. sented by them to the governor, praying him in the most urgent terms to issue precepts forthwith for convening a general assembly; but this his excellency declared he could not do without receiving his majesty's commands. The legality of the meeting also was peremptorily denied by the governor, who declared the conveners of it to be guilty of an high offence, admonishing them to consider the penalties they were incurring by continuing their session; and he protested that, if they did not attend to this warning, he must assert the prerogative of the crown in a more public manner; adding, in a tone of menace, "that they may assure themselves, for he spoke from INSTRUCTION, that the KING was determined to maintain his ENTIRE SOVEREIGNTY over that province; and whoever should persist in ufurping any of the rights of it would REPENT his RASHNESS." But the governor seemed not to recollect, that those who ufurp the RIGHTS of the PEOPLE may be made to repent their RASHNESS, as well as those who invade the PREROGATIVE of the SOVEREIGN. A number of votes expressive of the agitation of the public mind were unanimously passed, and amongst them is a resolve, that those inhabitants who are not provided with arms be requested to furnish themselves forth XVI. 1768. with. On the first of October, 1768, the troops BOOK landed under cover of a considerable fleet, consisting of fourteen ships of war of different descriptions, lying in the harbour of Boston, with their broadsides to the town; and marching into this metropolis with bayonets fixed, drums beating, and colours flying, with a train of artillery accompanying them, the imagination of the inhabitants was impressed with all the ideas associated with the insolence of conquest and the horrors of military despotism. In the ensuing month of February, 1769, a joint address was moved and presented by both houses of parliament to the king, expressing their satisfaction in the measures already pursued, and giving him the strongest assurances "that they would support him in such farther measures as might be found necessary to maintain the civil magistrates in a due execution of the laws within the Massachusetts' Bay; and beseeching him to direct the governor to take the most effectual methods for procuring the fullest information touching all TREASONS Committed within that government since the 30th December 1767, and to transmit the same, with the names of the persons most active in the commission of such offences, in order that his majesty might issue a special commission for hearing and determining the said offences within the realm, pursuant to the BOOK statute of the 35th year of Henry VIII." In reXVI. ply his majesty assured them, "that he would not 1768. fail, in the mode they had recommended, to give the most effectual orders for bringing the authors It is just to acknowledge that the act in question had originally no tyrannical, but on the contrary a very useful and beneficial tendency. By the 1st of Henry IV. c. 14. all treasons committed by persons abroad were to be tried before the constable and marshal. The act itself was passed in the parliament convened immediately previous to the king's expedi tion to Boulogne, twenty-three years subsequent to the death of the duke of Buckingham, last high-constable of England. So that had any treason been committed abroad by persons accompanying the king on that expedition, an absolute failure. of justice must have ensued. To include, by a forced and preposterous construction, the colonies of North America in the scope of this statute was certainly a most unparalleled perversion of law and justice. XVI. 1768. doing. Why will you deceive yourselves and BOOK us? You know that it is not this or that place only that disputes your right, but every part. They tell you with one voice, from one end of the continent to the other, that you have no right to tax America." Also upon this occasion, a most respectable member of the house (governor Pownall), who had formerly presided with high reputation over the province of Massachusetts, delivered his sentiments upon the present measure as a branch of the general system of American politics, in a speech replete with information and good sense; but which conveying by implication strong reflections upon the past conduct, not only of ministers but of the legislative body itself, was heard by the house with manifest indications of impatience. The governor, declared "that things were now evidently hastening to a crisis. The people of America and the king's troops were set in array against each other. The sword indeed was not yet drawn, but the hand was upon it. The slightest incident would suffice to involve the empire in confusion and bloodshed. With regard to the right or claim of taxation, where the whole spirit and bent of a people, who have the powers of government within themselves, is fixed and determined against the admission of such a claim, experience and common sense will evince that no civil power, no civil co |