This
respect for Law, when Liberty was as a live coal from a divine altar,
adhered to so faithfully for years, in spite, too, of goadings by
those who wielded British power, but forgot American right, must be
regarded as remarkable. Until the close of Bernard's administration,
the town, to use contemporary words, was surprisingly quiet; but
during the remainder of the period of the seventeen months, when
selfish importers broke their agreement and set themselves against
what was considered to be the public safety, they provoked
disturbances and even mobs. Still, in an age when, to use Hutchinson's
words, "mobs of a certain sort were constitutional," the wonder is,
not that there were any, but that there were not more of them in
Boston. Besides, the concern of the popular leaders to preserve order
was so deep and their action so prompt, that disturbances were checked
and suppressed without the use of the military on a single occasion;
and hence the injury done both to persons and property was so small,
when compared with the bloodshed and destruction by contemporary
British mobs, that what Colonel Barre said of the June riots in Boston
was true of the outbreaks at the close of this period, namely, that
they but mimicked the mobs of the mother-country.
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