"
The political winds, however, do not seem to have been damaging any
body or thing but the Governor and his cause. During the month of
October the crown officials urged the local authorities to billet the
troops in the town; but this demand was quietly and admirably met by
setting against it the law of the land as interpreted by just men. The
press was now of signal service; and all through this period of
seventeen months, though it severely arraigned the advocates of
arbitrary power, yet it ever urged submission to the law. "It is
always safe to adhere to the law," are the grand words of the "Boston
Gazette," October 17, 1768, "and to keep every man of every
denomination and character within its bounds. Not to do this would be
in the highest degree imprudent. What will it be but to depart from
the straight line, to give up the law and the Constitution, which is
fixed and stable, and is the collected and long-digested sentiment of
the whole, and to substitute in its place the opinion of individuals,
than which nothing can be more uncertain?" These words were penned by
Samuel Adams, and freedom never had a more unselfish advocate; they
fell upon a community that was discussing in every home the gravest of
political questions; and they were responded to with a prudence and
order that were warmly eulogized both in America and England.
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