They contain earnest protestations of a
determination to maintain His Most Sacred Majesty George the Third,
their rightful sovereign, his crown, dignity, and family; to maintain
their Charter immunities, with all their rights derived from God and
Nature, and to transmit them inviolable to their latest posterity; and
they charge the Representatives not to allow, by vote or resolution, a
right in any power on earth to tax the people to raise a revenue
except in the General Assembly of the Province. All urged action
relative to the troops, and several put this as the earliest duty of
the Assembly, as the presence of the troops tended to awe or control
freedom of debate. These utterances of the towns, which the journals
of May contain, make a glowing record of the spirit of the time.
The Selectmen of Boston, on issuing the usual warrants for an election
of Representatives, requested General Mackay to order the troops out
of town on the day (May 8, 1769) of the town-meeting; but though he
felt obliged to decline to do this, yet, in the spirit in which he
acted during his entire residence here, he kept the troops, on this
day, confined to their barracks. The town, after choosing Otis,
Cushing, Adams, and Hancock as Representatives, adopted a noble letter
of instructions, not only rehearsing the grievances, but asserting
ideas of freedom and equality, as to political rights, that had been
firmly grasped.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189