The Siege of Boston Part 5

Gage and his advisers, "greatly puzzled," also watched the crystallizing of opinion. Of the temper of the Bostonians, although oppressed by the Port Bill, there could presently be no doubt. Emboldened by the presence of troops in the town, the Tories called town meetings, first to resolve to pay for the tea, and then to dismiss the Committee of Correspondence.

These two actions, if taken, would have totally changed the situation.

The meetings were crowded, every courtesy was shown the Tories, and in the second meeting, since Adams was absent, the Whigs had to be content with the leaders.h.i.+p of Warren. But there was no hesitation in either case. The first meeting rejected the proposal to pay for the tea. In the second the discretion of Warren proved equal to his zeal, his management of the meeting was perfect, and the vote upheld the Committee of Correspondence by a large majority.

The next action explains the absence of Adams from Boston at such an important time. According to the new laws, the a.s.sembly met at Salem, under the eye of the governor and in the presence of his troops. Gage knew very well that a call had been sent throughout the colonies for an election of delegates to a general Congress which should deliberate on the present situation. He had no intention that delegates should be elected from Ma.s.sachusetts. He had partisans in the a.s.sembly, and an informant on the committee to introduce legislation. Every move was reported to him. Never did Sam Adams dissemble more cleverly. So dull and spiritless did public matters seem, that Gage's informant thought it safe to go home on private business. Then Adams acted. Quietly laying his plans, on the morning of the seventeenth of June, 1774, he locked the door of the chamber and proposed that the a.s.sembly elect delegates to the Continental Congress. A Tory pleaded sickness and hurried to Gage with the news; but the door was again locked, and the business proceeded. Though the governor sent his secretary with a message dissolving the a.s.sembly, the secretary knocked in vain. The doors were not opened until delegates had been elected to the Congress, a tax laid to pay their expenses, and resolutions pa.s.sed exhorting the province to stand firm.

One of the delegates-elect was John Adams. For years he had declined to hold public office, and had even avoided town meetings. There was now a natural Tory hope that he might refuse this office; there was even a last chance to wean him from the Whig cause, for he was presently to ride on circuit, and there would meet his friend Sewall. When the two met, the Tory reasoned earnestly, pointing out the irresistible power of Great Britain. But Adams was ready with his answer. "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country is my unalterable determination."[40] And so went another hope of the Tories.

The summer of 1774 wore along, with no improvement in the situation.

Rather it became worse. So much time had elapsed without definite news of the pa.s.sing of the Regulating Act, that there was hope that the measure had failed. But early in August came news of its pa.s.sage, and with it a list of appointments for the new Council. The appointees were all chosen from among the Tories, or from those inclined to the king's side. "It is apprehended," wrote Andrews, "that most of 'em will accept."

Now at last it was natural to suppose that the Whigs had come to the end of their resources. Their a.s.sembly was dissolved, a Tory held each appointive position, Boston was filled with soldiers, and the harbor was guarded by s.h.i.+ps of war. Active opposition to the troops would have been madness, and it seemed impossible to conduct even the ordinary business of the town, for now town meetings might legally be called only for the purpose of electing officers. Yet when Gage called the selectmen before him, and graciously indicated his willingness to allow meetings for certain harmless purposes, the reply surprised him. There was no need, said the selectmen, to ask his permission for a meeting: they had one in existence already. In fact they had two, the May meeting and the June meeting, each legally called before the enforcement of the Regulating Act, and each legally "adjourned" until such time as it was needed. The technical subterfuge was too much for Gage, and the adjournments continued in spite of the law.

As the Ma.s.sachusetts delegates prepared for their journey to Philadelphia, where the Congress was to be held, there occurred, if we can believe the story told by John Andrews--it was certainly believed in Boston at the time--a demonstration of affection for Samuel Adams. "For not long since some persons (their names unknown) sent and ask'd his permission to build him a new barn, the old one being decay'd, which was executed in a few days. A second sent to ask leave to repair his house, which was thoroughly effected soon. A third sent to beg the favor of him to call at a taylor's shop and be measur'd for a suit of cloaths and chuse his cloth, which were finish'd and sent home for his acceptance.

A fourth presented him with a new whig,[41] a fifth with a new Hatt, a sixth with a pair of the best silk hose, a seventh with six pair of fine thread ditto, a eighth with six pair shoes, and a ninth modestly inquired of him whether his finances want rather low than otherways. He reply'd it was true that was the case, but he was very indifferent about these matters, so that his _poor_ abilities was of any service to the Publick; upon which the Gentleman obliged him to accept of a purse containing about 15 or 20 Johannes." It is possible that these attentions to Adams grew out of the desire that he, so well known in Boston that his shabbiness meant nothing, should appear well at the Congress, where his dress might prejudice others against him. True or not, this little story has its significance, for, says Andrews to his correspondent, "I mention this to show you how much he is esteem'd here.

They value him for his _good_ sense, _great_ abilities, _amazing_ fort.i.tude, _n.o.ble_ resolution, and _undaunted_ courage: being firm and unmov'd at all the various reports that were propagated in regard to his being taken up and sent home,[42] notwithstanding he had repeated letters from his _friends_, both in England as well as here, to keep out of the way."

If the governor desired to arrest Adams, he had plenty of opportunity.

There was even a public occasion to take all the delegates together, when they left the town on their way to Philadelphia. "A very respectable parade," wrote Andrews, "in sight of five of the Regiments encamp'd on the Common, being in a coach and four, preceded by two white servants well mounted and arm'd, with four blacks behind in livery, two on horseback and two footmen." Perhaps Gage breathed a sigh of relief with the "brace of Adamses" away, but his real troubles were only beginning.

Ma.s.sachusetts would have nothing to do with the newly appointed officers. The thirty-six councillors, appointed under writ of mandamus, excited the most indignation. Of the Boston nominees thirteen accepted, two declined, and four took time to consider; throughout the province the proportion was about the same. But those who wavered and those who accepted presently heard from their neighbors. Leonard of Taunton, hearing of a surprise party mustering from the neighboring towns, departed hastily for Boston. His father, by promises that he would urge his son to resign, with difficulty prevailed on the disgusted neighbors to leave the councillor's property unharmed. In Worcester, Timothy Paine was taken to the common, and, in the presence of two thousand standing in military order, he read his declination of his appointment. Ruggles of Hardwick was warned not to return home; his neighbors swore that he should never pa.s.s the great bridge of the town alive. Murray of Rutland, like Leonard of Taunton, escaped the attentions of his townspeople, who scorned the threat of confiscation and death, and demanded his resignation. "This," wrote his brother to him, "is not the language of the common people only: those that have heretofore sustained the fairest character are the warmest in this matter; and, among the many friends you have heretofore had, I can scarcely mention any to you now."

The people did not always act with violence, but the compulsion which they put upon their fellow-townsmen was strong. Watson of Plymouth, long respected in the town, had been appointed by the king to the Council, and had intended to accept. But when he appeared in church on the following Sunday, his friends rose and left the meeting-house. In the face of their scorn he bowed his head over his cane, and resolved to resign.[43]

More than twenty of the thirty-six councillors either declined their appointment, or resigned. The rest could find no safety except in Boston, under the protection of the troops. Even the courts were prevented from sitting, in one case by the ingenious method of packing the court-room so solidly with spectators that judge and sheriff could not enter. Only among the garrison at Boston was there comfort for the Tory officials.

Boston itself was troublesome enough. When Gage, regarding himself as "personally affronted" by John Hanc.o.c.k,[44] removed him from command of the Cadets, the company sent a deputation to Salem and returned him their standard, declining longer to keep up their customary service as the governor's body-guard. The governor, vexed, replied that had he previously known of their intentions, he would have dismissed them himself.

The town meetings troubled him also. Salem held one under his nose, in spite of a feint to interrupt them by the soldiers. When he summoned the committee of correspondence of the town to answer for the meeting, they were stubborn and defiant, refused to give bail when arrested, and were consequently--released! Other towns held meetings to elect delegates to a county convention, and the governor was powerless to stop them.

Although he had many more troops than the four regiments with which he first declared that he could do so much, he felt his helplessness, and, cursing the town meetings, waited for more soldiers. He summoned the remnant of his council to meet in Salem; but the members were afraid to come, and, departing from his orders, he allowed them to sit in Boston.

And now, as the weeks pa.s.sed on, even Boston was rumbling with the thunder of the coming storm. Israel Putnam, having driven to Boston a flock of sheep, the gift to the poor of Boston from his Connecticut town, became the lion of the day. Meeting on the Common some of his old friends in the regular army, they chaffed him on the military situation.

Twenty s.h.i.+ps and twenty regiments, they told him, were to be expected if the country did not submit. "If they come," returned the stanch old Indian fighter, "I am ready to treat them as enemies."

At length the forms of law failed even in Boston. When the judges summoned a jury, it not only refused to take oath, but presented a written protest against the authority on which the court acted. The judges gave up the attempt in despair, and the governor and his advisers thought that matters were come to a pretty pa.s.s when a mere pet.i.t juror could declare "that his conscience would not let him take oath whiles Peter Oliver set upon the bench."[45] There was apparently no punishment to meet such obduracy.

But at last news came to Gage on which he felt compelled to act. Much powder had been stored in the magazine at Quarry Hill in Charlestown. He was informed that during August the towns had removed their stock, until there remained only that which belonged to the province. This stock Gage determined to secure against possible illegal seizure, by seizing it himself. On the morning of the first of September, by early daylight, detachments of troops in boats took the powder to the Castle, and also secured two cannon from Cambridge. Rumors of violence and bloodshed spread rapidly, and by nightfall half of New England was in motion, marching toward Boston.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Sabine's "Loyalists," 190.

[36] Andrews Letters.

[37] The Andrews Letters, as already noted, are in the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings for the volume of 1864-1865. I shall refer to them frequently without quoting pages.

[38] Wells, "Life of Adams," ii, 193.

[39] Wells, "Adams," ii, 193.

[40] Bancroft, edition of 1876, iv, 344. Subsequent references to Bancroft will be to this edition.

[41] Sic!

[42] Note the use of the word, as meaning England.

[43] I take these facts from Bancroft and the Andrews Letters.

[44] Hanc.o.c.k seems to have practised upon Gage the subterfuge which he afterwards used with Was.h.i.+ngton, pretending to be too ill to wait upon him.

[45] Andrews Letters.

CHAPTER VI

THE POWDER ALARM AND THE WINTER OF 1774-1775

Gage had by this time given up hope of winning to his side the leaders of the Whigs. If he still retained a doubt of the temper of the people, the events of the first and second of September would have made him certain. Marching in companies, they converged upon Cambridge, whence the Lieutenant-Governor, Andrew Oliver, hastily departed to Boston, to implore Gage to send out no troops, lest not a man of them should return alive. On his way in, Oliver pa.s.sed Warren hastening out. But his influence was not needed. The militia companies had already laid aside their weapons and were parading peacefully upon Cambridge common. There they were addressed by two of the Mandamus Council, who confirmed their resignations and promised in no way to be concerned in the acts of Gage's government. Then the high-sheriff came under the attention of the meeting, and likewise promised to do nothing under the new laws.

Hallowell, the Commissioner of Customs, escaped more serious handling.

Pa.s.sing by the common and its a.s.semblage of Whigs, he "spoke somewhat contemptuously of them." They promptly sent some mounted men after his chaise. On seeing them coming he stopped his chaise, unhitched his horse and mounted, and ran his pursuers a close race to Boston Neck, where he found safety with the guard.

Oliver, returning to Cambridge with the governor's promise to send out no troops, was waited upon by the great a.s.semblage. The Whigs demanded his resignation as a councillor. This, after demurring, Oliver gave, and offered to resign also from the lieutenant-governors.h.i.+p. But this the company allowed him to keep. Andrews records, "It is worthy remark that Judge Lee remarked to 'em, after he had made his resignation, that he never saw so large a number of people together and preserve so peaceable order before in his life."

This orderly meeting, proceeding with parliamentary forms, pa.s.sed a resolve that Gage was within his legal rights in removing the powder from the store-house. They then "voted unanimously their abhorrence of mobs and riots,"[46] and with these lessons given for any one to learn, they peaceably turned toward their homes. On their way they turned back those who, from further away, were eagerly coming to avenge the rumored death of their countrymen and the bombardment of the town. Putnam, after disbanding his Connecticut company, wrote to urge the men of Ma.s.sachusetts to take better care of the remainder of their powder.

The "Powder Alarm" stirred the country everywhere. At Philadelphia its exaggerated reports greatly disturbed the Congress, but the response was significant. "When the horrid news was brought here of the bombardment of Boston," wrote John Adams, "which made us completely miserable for two days, we saw proofs both of the sympathy and the resolution of the continent. War! war! war! was the cry, and it was p.r.o.nounced in a tone which would have done honor to the oratory of a Briton or a Roman. If it had proved true, you would have heard the thunder of an American Congress."[47]

Gage now, for the first time, seems to have had a glimmer of an idea of the formidable forces that were against him. He began to consider the military situation, and the defence of the town against another such rising. If on the next occasion the provincials should attempt to pursue a commissioner not merely to the Neck, but past it, there must be means of stopping them. Gage gave orders to fortify the Neck, which was in those days the single land approach to Boston.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INVESTMENT OF BOSTON]

The modern city in no way resembles the old town. Now, between South Boston and Cambridge, a score of highways lead into the city. Bridges and even tunnels give direct communication from South Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, Chelsea, and East Boston. But in 1774 South Boston was a mudflat; the Back Bay--at least at high water--was what its name implies; Chelsea was Winnisimit, with but half a dozen houses; and East Boston was an island, having but two houses on it. Now the flats have been filled up, the mainland brought closer, and the approaches bridged.

In Governor Gage's day Boston was still a peninsula, roughly pear-shaped, and connected with the mainland by a strip of land which was, at high tide, scarcely a hundred yards wide.

Batteries commanding the road which crossed this isthmus seemed, at the time, quite sufficient to defend the town. It was not till later that Gage began to consider the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown, which, to the south and north, threatened Boston. Now he set to work upon an earthwork at the Neck, brought cannon there, and began to build block-houses. It was reported that he was to cut a ditch across the Neck, and confine traffic to a narrow bridge; but at the objection of the selectmen such an idea, if he had considered it, was given up.

Protest against the new earthworks was also lodged. The selectmen of the town, and a committee from the convention for Suffolk County which then happened to sit, came to Gage with remonstrances. Warren, from the convention, twice urged his demands. "Good G.o.d, gentlemen," responded the harried governor, "make yourselves easy, and I will be so."[48]

There was no more ease of mind for Governor Gage. Within the limits of Boston and Charlestown were several cannon belonging to the militia organizations of the town. When the general tried to secure the Charlestown guns from secretion by the provincials, they disappeared.

"Ever since," wrote Andrews a fortnight later, "the General has ordered a double guard to y^e new and old gun houses, where y^e bra.s.s field pieces belonging to our militia are lodged: notwithstanding which ...

We'n'sday evening, or rather night, our people took these from the Old house (by opening the side of the house) and carried away through Frank Johonnot's Garden. Upon which he gave it in orders the next day to the officer on guard to remove those from the New house (which stands directly opposite the encampment of the 4th Regiment and in the middle of the street near the large Elm tree), sometime the next night into the camp; and to place a guard at each end, or rather at both doors, till then. At the fixed hour the Officer went with a number of Mattrosses to execute his orders, but behold, the guns were gone!" Lest the guns in the North Battery should similarly be spirited away, the bewildered general ordered them to be spiked.

His state of mind was not improved when he received, as he did early in September, the resolutions pa.s.sed by the Suffolk convention. The Suffolk Resolves, as they are called, covered the whole of the existing situation. Repudiating the king's claim to unconditional obedience, they declared the Regulating Act unconst.i.tutional, and called on all officers under it to resign their places. They advised that all taxes should be withheld from the king's treasury, and suggested a provincial congress to deal with the affairs of Ma.s.sachusetts. The resolves further declared that the Americans had no intention of aggression, advised peaceful measures, but threatened to seize all crown officers if any political arrest were made. Looking forward to the eventual rupture, the resolves advised the towns to choose their military officers with great care, and finally made provision to spread alarm or summon a.s.sistance at a moment's notice.

Affairs had now reached a new phase. The barrier which Gage had erected at the Neck had effectually cut him off from the province which he had been sent to govern. From that time on he had no authority beyond the range of his batteries.