"
The letters just referred to as having been received from England
were six in number, five written by Governor Bernard and one by
General Gage, which contained specimens of the characteristic
misrepresentations of political affairs by the crown officials; and,
having been transmitted to the Council, this body felt called upon to
act in the matter, which they did (April 15, 1769) in a spirited
letter addressed to Lord Hillsborough. This letter is occupied mainly
with the various questions touching the introduction and the
quartering of the troops. Again were the disorders of the eighteenth
of March and the tenth of June reviewed and explained; the charge made
by the Governor, that the Council refused to provide quarters for the
troops out of servility to the populace, was pronounced to be without
foundation or coloring of truth; and the Council boldly charged upon
Bernard, that his great aim was the destruction of the constitution to
which, as Englishmen and by the Charter, they were entitled,--"a
constitution," they remark, "dearly purchased by our ancestors and
dear to us, and which we persuade ourselves will be continued to us."
Then, also, they charged that no Council had borne what the present
Council had borne from Bernard; that his whole conduct with regard to
the troops was arbitrary and unbecoming the dignity of his station;
and that his common practice, in case the Council did not come into
his measures, of threatening to lay their conduct before His Majesty,
was absurd and insulting.
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