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Rh tween the General Court and the Governor as to the right of the latter to require a sitting in Cambridge or anywhere outside of Boston. Sessions were being held temporarily in the Harvard College chapel. The Assembly adopted an address and sent it to the Governor, pointing out, among other things, the inconvenience of sitting in Cambridge, and the Governor replied: "If you think the benefit which the students receive by attending your debates is not equal to what they may gain in their studies, they may easily be restrained, and then your sitting in the College will be little or no inconvenience."

On June 9, 1774, in answer to the speech of General Gage, the Governor, the Council sent this rather pungent reply: "We wish your Excellency every felicity. The greatest of a political nature, both to yourself and the province, is that your administration in the principles and general conduct of it, may be a happy contrast to that of your immediate predecessors." When the chairman of the committee had proceeded thus far with the reading of the reply the Governor stopped him and later sent a message to the Council that he could not receive such an address.

In the same year, by authority of an Act of Parliament and without any action on the part of the General Court, the King appointed Councillors by writ of mandamus. Public indignation was aroused to such a point by this action that most of those appointed declined to serve. The new appointees never sat with the General Court. In Worcester one of these mandamus Councillors had to walk through the ranks of some two thousand patriots, reading his resignation. This Act of Parliament also provided that jurors should be selected by the sheriff instead of by the selectmen. It prohibited town meetings, except for the election of officers, without express permission from the Governor.