Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 56, June, 1862», страница 8

In a few days after, on a Saturday night, William Sheriff, aide-de-camp to General Gage, arrived in town from New York, which he left on Wednesday morning, bearing the following letter to Governor Bernard, the original of which is indorsed, "Received Sept. 3."

* * * * *

THOMAS GAGE TO FRANCIS BERNARD

"New York, Aug. 31,1768.

"Sir,—It is not necessary to trouble you with any answers to your letters, and I only acknowledge the receipt of them.

"I am now to acquaint you that I have received orders to send forces to Boston, and would regulate the number to be sent agreeable to your opinion of the number that will be necessary. Captain Sheriff, my aide-de-camp, goes to Boston under pretence of private business, and will deliver you this letter. He is directed to settle this matter with you; and you may rely on his discretion, prudence, and secrecy. I have intrusted him with a letter of orders to the commander of his Majesty's forces at Halifax to embark with the 14th Regiment, and left a blank in the letter for Captain Sheriff to fill up with the like order for the 29th Regiment, in case you shall judge it proper to have the whole or any part of the 29th Regiment, as well as the 14th, and not think one regiment a sufficient force. When you shall have fixed the matter with Captain Sheriff, you will be so good as to send me immediate notice, that I may without delay write you a public letter to demand quarters for the numbers that will be ordered into your Province. The contents of this, as well as your answer, and everything I now transact with you, will be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic.

"It is submitted in my letters, whether it would not be advisable, as troops will probably continue at Boston, to take possession of Castle William, which, being a place of some strength, may in case of emergency be of great service, and it is said to belong to the Crown.

"You will be so good as to fix with Captain Sheriff, whether you would have the whole, or any part of the troops ordered to Boston, quartered in Castle William. If you should be of opinion that troops stationed there will not answer the intention of sending them to Boston, for the purposes of enforcing a due obedience to the laws, and protecting and supporting the civil magistrates and the officers of the Crown in the execution of their duty, part may be stationed there, and part in the town. Should you require both the regiments from Halifax, one of them, or three or four companies of one of them, might be quartered in the Castle, and you would then have an entire regiment and five companies of another in the city. I mention this, but leave it to your determination; and you will regulate this matter with Captain Sheriff according to the number of troops you think necessary to be sent to Boston. You will be pleased to give me notice of your resolves on this head.

"I don't know if you can supply bedding for such of the troops as you would choose to be lodged in the Castle; if not, Captain Sheriff will write to Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple to bring bedding with him from Halifax, sufficient for the number of men you shall fix upon for the garrison of Castle William.

"I have the honor to be with great regard,

"Sir,

"Your most obedient,

"Humble servant,

"TH'S. GAGE."

Such was the mode in which the Sam Adams Regiments were ushered into Boston According to this letter, the Governor himself, substantially, gave the order that brought all but the Fourteenth Regiment,—an order which was to "be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic."

At this time the mass of the citizens Boston were very bitter and suspicious towards all who were in any way supposed to be concerned in urging the introduction of troops among them; because troops had come to be looked upon as means of subjugating them to laws to which they never would give their consent through their representatives. The fiery Josiah Quincy, Jr., would say,—"Before the freeborn sons of the North will yield a general and united submission to any tyrannic power on earth, fire and sword, desolation and ruin, will ravage the land." The intrepid Samuel Adams would say,—"Before the King and Parliament shall dragoon us, and we become slaves, we will take up arms and our last drop of blood." The calm Andrew Eliot would say,—"You cannot conceive of our distress: to have a standing army! What can be worse to a people who have tasted the sweets of liberty?" Hutchinson wrote,—"Many of the common people were in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their liberties," while "too many above the vulgar countenanced and encouraged them." Such was the intensity of the public feeling; such the earnestness with which liberty was ranked above material prosperity. It was now to be seen whether the American cause was to suffer shipwreck on the rock of premature insurrection, or whether it was to be led on by such cautious and wise steps as develop into the majesty of revolution.

The present public alarm was occasioned by vague statements from abroad or rumors started at home as to the coming of a military force. Troops were ordered in from the outposts of Canada to Halifax; an unusual naval force was gathering at that station; it was said that the destination of both was Boston: but the Governor persisted in denying that he had done anything that would bring troops here, and kept on playing the know-nothing. This created a painful suspense, and, to cool observers, the policy of the Government appeared inexplicable. But however deep may have been the indignation of the people at the prospect of military rule, it was no part of the plan of the popular leaders, if troops came here, to resist the landing, or to allow the rash spirits, who are ever ready for any imprudence, to do so; but their object was to fix in the public mind a just sense of the rights thus violated, to guide the general indignation into a safe channel of action, and thus turn the insult to the benefit of the general cause.

Two days after the Governor received the letter of General Gage, a communication appeared in the "Boston Gazette," under the head of "READER! ATTEND!" which arraigned, with uncommon spirit and boldness, the course of the officials who were urging the policy of arbitrary power, as having a direct tendency "to dissolve the union between Great Britain and her colonies." It proposed to remonstrate against this policy to the King, and at the same time to declare that "there was nothing this side eternity they dreaded more than being broken off from his government." In urging resistance to this course the author said,—"We will put our lives in our hands, and cry to the Judge of all the Earth, who will do right."

This paper, like many similar appeals in that well-stored Liberty arsenal, the "Boston Gazette," had the genuine Liberty ring, yet there was in it nothing very unusual; but the royal circle at the Province House lived in an unusual atmosphere, and this article came sounding in among them like a great moral Dahlgren. "In the Boston Gazette of the fifth instant," the Governor, with his usual acuteness, wrote to the Secretary of State, "appeared a paper containing a system of politics exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of an occasional enthusiast. But I persuaded myself that it came out of the cabinet of the faction, and was preparatory to some actual operations against the Government. In this persuasion, I considered, that, if the troops from Halifax were to come here on a sudden, there would be no avoiding an insurrection, which would at least fall upon the crown officers, if it did not amount to an opposition to the troops. I therefore thought it would be best that the expectation of the troops should be gradually communicated, that the heads of the faction might have time to consider well what they were about, and prudent men opportunity to interpose their advice." Accordingly (September 8) he "took an occasion to mention to one of the Council, in the way of discourse, that he had private advice that troops were ordered to Boston, but had no public orders about it"; and before night, the Governor adds, the intelligence was all over the town.

Before night, too, a petition, addressed to the Selectmen, was circulating all over the town, and large numbers were affixing their names to it. It prayed that the town might be legally convened to require of the Governor the reasons for his declaration that three regiments might be daily expected, and "to consider of the most wise, consistent, and salutary measure suitable to meet the occasion." The Selectmen acted promptly, (John Hancock was on the Board,) and summoned the citizens to meet on the Monday following. In this way, openly before men, not covertly like a body of conspirators, did the solid men and prudent men of Boston prepare for council.

Though the Governor averred that his object, in his verbal communication, was to give a chance for an interposition of such sound advice, yet to Lord Hillsborough he actually represented the call and the movement of these men as proofs that the long-contemplated insurrection was now at hand. He informed the Secretary, that on the next evening (Friday) there was a large private meeting, where "it was the general opinion that they should raise the country and oppose the troops"; and that on the succeeding evening (Saturday) there was a very small private meeting at the house of one of the chiefs, where it was resolved "to surprise and take the Castle the Monday night following." The Governor evidently had misgivings about its being the fact that such an object was planned. "I don't," he said, "relate these as facts, but only as reported and believed." I have found no account of the Friday-evening meeting, which undoubtedly was a meeting of one of the political clubs of the time; but on Saturday evening James Otis and Samuel Adams met at Warren's residence in Hanover Street (on the site of the American House) for conference as to Monday's meeting,—for instance, to draw up the resolves and decide upon the action that might be expedient: whatever may have been the warmth of expression of popular leaders, or the wishes of extremists among the people, the whole object of this conference was to concentrate and use only the moral force of public opinion; and there is not a trace of a design of insurrection in all the known private correspondence of these patriots.

However, the belief in insurrection, at this time, appears to have been as strongly rooted in the minds of prominent Loyalists as it was in the mind of the again perturbed Governor. Signs of what is thought to be near at hand are apt to be seen or fancied; and it was so in this case. Somebody had put a turpentine barrel in the skillet that hung at the top of the beacon-pole on Beacon Hill. Now it had been designed, for a long time, by such a mode of bonfire, to alarm the country, in case of invasion. This fact was put with another fact, namely, that the beacon had been newly repaired; and from the two facts was drawn the startling inference, that matters were ready for a rising in the town, and for giving the concerted signal to summon in the country to aid this rising,—and this, too, when the Governor had not a sergeant's guard of real soldiers nearer than two hundred miles. And now members of the Council flocked to the Governor and demanded a meeting of this imposing body; and a meeting was promptly held at a gentleman's residence half-way between Boston and Jamaica Plain, where, after grave debate about taking down the barrel, it was finally voted to make a formal demand on the Board of Selectmen to order it to be done. On the next day, (Sunday,) the Fathers of the Town held a special meeting to consider the vote of the Council, which resulted in declining to act on this matter of taking down the barrel as too trivial. About the hour of dining, on this day, however, Sheriff Greenleaf gave some peace to the frightened officials by repairing to Beacon Hill with half a dozen others and removing the obnoxious barrel, which proved to be empty. The public did not hear the last of this affair for months, as may be seen in the affidavits about it, afterwards, in the journals.

There was really no ground for all this alarm. The popular leaders, from the excited state of the public mind, might have been apprehensive of an explosion from the rash, which they meant, if possible, to prevent, and if it came, to repress; but the Loyalist leaders would have it that there was a deep-laid plot even for a revolution. "It is now known," is Governor Bernard's malicious misrepresentation, as he reviewed these scenes and justified the introduction of the troops, "that the plan was to seize the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and take possession of the treasury, and then set up their standard." He said that five hundred men had been enrolled to take the Castle, and it was likely that the names, at least of the chief of them, would be discovered. There is no such list in thirteen folio volumes of his correspondence. Hutchinson's misrepresentation was as mischievous, but more cautious; for he assured his British correspondents that at the time when the troops landed in Boston the Province was on the brink of ruin, and that their arrival prevented the most extravagant measures,—though, he said, he did not certainly know what the dark designs of the heads of the opposition were.

On the morning of the town-meeting, (September 12,) Governor Bernard believed that the popular leaders were resolved not merely to capture the crown officials, but to resume the first charter, which, he said, had not a single ingredient of royalty in it. But while he was looking for insurrection, a committee of the highest respectability waited on him, and asked him to be pleased to communicate to the town the grounds and assurances on which he had intimated his apprehensions that one or more regiments might he daily expected. On the next day the Governor replied in writing,—"My apprehensions that some of his Majesty's troops are to be expected in Boston arise from information of a private nature; I have received no public letters notifying to me the coming of such troops." The information came by letter from the only official in the country who could order troops into Boston, and yet he said it was private; according to this letter, he must have decided on the number of troops that were to come, and yet he prattled about apprehensions. Such was the way in which a royal Governor of the Stuart school dealt with a people filled with patriotic concern for their country. It is the dealing of a small man. If he can escape the charge of deliberate falsehood, it is only, on demurrer, by the plea of a contemptible quibble.

It is not necessary here to follow the noble popular demonstrations that rounded off by a delegate convention, which, at the simple request of Boston, assembled in Faneuil Hall. The officials, who had long played falsely with a liberty-loving, yet loyal people, now fairly quailed before the whirlwind of their righteous indignation. Two days after Bernard had "intimated his apprehensions," as though steps had been taken to countermand the order for the troops, the following semi-official doubt appeared in the "News-Letter":—"It is conjectured that there are troops to come here; but at present we can find no authentic accounts of it, nor that any person has declared that they actually are, though there is great probability that they will soon be here, if ever." This, from a Loyalist source, is a singularly worded paragraph, and is richly Delphic.

The circular letter which Boston addressed (September 14) to the towns, calling a Convention, accurately states the object of the military force that was now expected:—"The design of these troops is, in every one's apprehension, nothing short of enforcing by military power the execution of Acts of Parliament, in the forming of which the Colonies have not, and cannot have, any constitutional influence. This is one of the greatest distresses to which a free people can be reduced." The object of the Convention is as accurately stated to be, "to prevent any sudden and unconnected measures," and to act in every constitutional way for the preservation of invaluable rights. The Governor, as usual, acting on his theory of insurrection, held that the Convention was designed to mature plans for it; and he wrote (September l6) to Lord Hillsborough as to his own plans,—"For my own part, if I had any place of protection to resort to, I would publish a proclamation against the assembling of the Convention, but I dare not take so spirited a step without first securing my retreat"; and, with unusual good sense, he expressed "much doubt whether the force already ordered by General Gage, namely, two regiments, would be sufficient" to fight off the original charter, and to keep the crown officers in their places. There was a small party who were in favor of resuming the old charter; but the union of the towns of Massachusetts, and then the union of all the Colonies, for the sake of continued union with Great Britain, was the key of the action of the leaders who were the exponents of the Patriots. They did not contemplate going into acts of government; and neither now nor in the future did they ever contemplate "sudden and unconnected measures."

Three days later (September 19) Governor Bernard threw off all disguise. He formally announced to the Council that troops were coming, and asked this body to provide them quarters. And now began a long, irritating, and arrogant endeavor on the part of the Executive to browbeat the local authorities in the matter of providing quarters for the troops. The official record is voluminous. The Patriots kept strictly to the law, and won a moral victory: the royal officials persisted in virtually urging burly British will as law, and suffered the shame of an ignominious defeat. The Governor thought the Government had received a blow that made it reel; and, in a garrulous, complaining letter, supplies not only a vivid idea of the whole of this struggle, but an idea of his well-deserved individual mortification. "The account up to this time," (October 30, 1768,) he wrote, "will end in my having employed myself from September nineteenth to October twenty-sixth, that is, thirty-eight days, in endeavoring to procure quarters for the two regiments here to no purpose. For having during this time been bandied about from one to another, I at length got positive refusals from every one that I could apply to, that is, the Council, the Selectmen, and the Justices of the Peace; upon which the General, [Gage,] who came here on purpose, has found himself obliged to hire and fit up buildings at the expense of the Crown, by which means the two regiments are at length got into good occasional barracks."

The new scene of an American States-General in Faneuil Hall,—so the royal Governor and Parliamentary orators termed the Convention,—a manifestation of the rising power of the people, was followed by the spectacle of an imposing naval force in the harbor. The Sam Adams Regiments, sent on the mission of warring against the republican idea, were proudly borne to Boston by fifteen British men-of-war, which were moored (September 29) in well-chosen fighting positions around the north end of the quiet, but glorious town. In the evening the curious Bostonians put out in their boats from the wharves to get a near view of the ships. There were great rejoicings on board. The sky was brilliant with the rockets that were shot off from the decks, and the air resounded with the music of the bands. It was noticed that the favorite piece seemed to be "the Yankee tune": it was played by the regimental bands when Earl Percy led a British force out of Boston on Lexington morning, but no mention is made of its being performed when this force returned in the evening of that famous day, or when the Sam Adams Regiments left the town.

The King's troops landed on the first day of October. Though it had been printed in England that ten thousand men were enrolled to oppose them,—though the local officials had predicted that the event would occasion a crisis in affairs,—though John Bull had been so abominably imposed upon that he as much expected to see a mob resist the landing as he lately expected the mob would resist the delivery of the Confederate Commissioners,—and though not merely ministerial circles, but all England, were looking forward with serious apprehensions to the result,—yet the day was so tame that little history was made worth relating. As the spectators on board the ships, about noon, were looking for a battle-scene, they saw only a naval and military show. The ships of war were prepared for action by loading the guns and putting springs on the cables. The troops, after sixteen rounds of powder and ball had been served out to them, entered the boats. Rude artists were looking on, and sketching the peaceful display, setting down each boat and ship and island, with view undisturbed by the smoke of battle or even of salute. They did not notice, however, that the commander of the land force, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, went ashore privately, at about eleven o'clock, and sauntered over the town. He met no local militia; he saw nor horns nor hoofs of insurrection; he saw not even the royal Governor, for he had retired to Jamaica Plain; and instead of a cordial Executive greeting and proper directions as to what to do, he found that everything was left to himself. He knew that neither the Council nor the Governor had provided quarters for his command; but from the doings or non-doings of this day he conceived feelings towards the runaway official which he expressed by words, at the time, "full as plain as pleasant," and afterwards officially in writing to his superiors. Bernard met Dalrymple's intimations of cowardice by the truthful allegation that there was not the least danger of insurrection, and of want of attention by the mean allegation that the Colonel was chagrined because he was not complimented with a dinner.

An hour after the Commander made his reconnoissance, about noon, the boats moved in fine order towards the Long Wharf, so termed as being a noble commercial pier running far out into the Bay. Here the Fourteenth Regiment, under Colonel Dalrymple, landed, and, having formed, marched, in the words of the time, with drums beating, fifes playing, and colors flying, up King Street (now State Street) to the Town-House, where it halted. It is not said that the troops were complimented by the presence of the people, who, on holidays then as on holidays now, usually appeared, having an air of self-respect, well-dressed, well-behaved, with nothing moving among them more threatening than the baton of the police as the sign of law and authority, but respecting that as the symbol of their own law. What Tory writers and officials say warrants the inference that the Patriots kept away. Dalrymple said that the Convention was planet-stricken; "Sagittarius," a Tory scribbler, says the Convention ran, and tells how they ran:—"The courage of the faithful only consisted in blustering, for the morning that the troops landed they broke up, and rushed out of town like a herd of scalded hogs." If the Patriots generally were absent, it was from design. The Fourteenth Regiment remained near the Town-House until the Twenty-Ninth joined it, when the column marched to the Common. About four o'clock these troops were joined by the Fifty-Ninth Regiment, and a train of artillery with two field-pieces. This made a force of a thousand fine-appearing and well-disciplined regulars.

Colonel Dalrymple ordered the Twenty-Ninth Regiment to encamp immediately, which, as it had field-equipage, it was enabled to do, and pitched its tents on the Common; but he had no cover for the Fourteenth Regiment, and he now endeavored to obtain quarters for it. He was directed to the Manufactory House, a large building owned by the Province, in what is now Hamilton Place, near the Common, which was hired by a zealous Patriot, who declined to let the troops occupy it; whereupon he applied to the Selectmen for Faneuil Hall, promising that the utmost care should be taken not to injure the property. "About twilight," in the words of the "Gazette," "the Fourteenth Regiment marched down to the Hall, where they stood under arms till near nine o'clock, when the door, by some means or other, being opened, they took up their lodgings there that night." The Colonel exultingly wrote,—"By tolerable management I got possession of Faneuil Hall, the School of Liberty, from the Sons thereof, without force, and thereby secured all their arms": about four hundred had been recently placed there to be cleaned.

Such was the day, so long looked forward to, of the landing of the King's troops. The people were indignant, but were silent and preserved their self-respect; but the object of the popular leaders had been accomplished, so far as the reception of the military force was concerned. A candid British observer, who was in Boston, saw the truth and printed it in England:—"The Patriot leaders of the Opposition were much more concerned at any mobs that happened than the Government people. These last seem pleased with them, as countenancing their representations,—the necessity of sending soldiers to keep them in order." On this occasion, in the words of the "Gazette," "Not the least attempt was made or contemplated to oppose the landing of the King's troops or their encampment on the Common." There is no mention made of even hisses or groans, as the colors that symbolized arbitrary power were proudly borne up King Street. The peace and good order that marked the day much chagrined the Loyalists, and fairly astonished "the gentlemen of the military."

These gentlemen might have read in the next issues of the journals the temper of the public mind, in the comments freely made on their mission and on the events that were said to have occasioned their presence. The pretext, the obnoxious proceedings of the eighteenth of March, was characterized as the trifling hallooing of a harmless procession; the mob of the tenth of June was more serious, but was soon over; but on the all-important and vital point of allegiance, they might have seen expressed, in the weighty words of the Council, infinite regret at the reflection which that show of force implied on the loyalty of the people to their sovereign, who had not in his wide-extended dominions any more faithful subjects than in the town of Boston. And what really was the offence of the Patriots? They had resolved, they had petitioned, they had agreed not to import or to buy British goods. But they were not law-breakers, for they could triumphantly challenge their opponents to produce a single instance since the tenth of June of an interruption of the public peace or of resistance to law; and they were not political heretics, for the principles of colonial administration which they stood on were such as their countrymen unanimously now indorse, and British statesmanship is now pleased to accept. Yet they were threatened in the streets with the whipping-post and the pillory, with the loss of their ears or their heads,—and in official instructions, printed in the journals, with transportation to England for trial. This last threat was serious. The Government proposed to make arrests under a statute of the reign of Henry VIII.: actually designed (Lord Mahon's words) "to draw forth the mouldering edict of a tyrant from the dust where it had long lain, and where it ever deserved to lie, and to fling it" against a band of popular leaders who were wisely and well supporting a most sacred cause. But these leaders were not actuated by the fanaticism that is always blind and often cruel, nor by the ambition that is unworthy and is then reckless and criminal; but, with a clear apprehension of their ground and definite notions of policy, they went forward with no faltering step. Their calm and true statement through the press was,—"It is the part this town has taken on the side of Liberty, and its noble exertions in favor of the rights of America, that have rendered it so obnoxious to the tools of arbitrary power." "We are now [October 3, 1768] become a spectacle to all North America. May our conduct be such as not to disgrace ourselves or injure the common cause!"

Thus wove the solid men of Boston their mantle of enduring glory.