Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/315

] meeting advised, significantly enough, all persons to provide themselves with firearms at the earliest moment, and to observe a day of fasting and prayer. Delegates from more than a hundred towns met accordingly on the 22d of September, and petitioned the governor to summon a General Court. Bernard refused peremptorily, and besides, denounced their meeting as treasonable. Disclaiming all pretensions to political authority, the convention, after a four days' session, agreed upon a petition to the king, and sent a letter to the agent in England, to defend themselves against the charge of a rebellious spirit. "Such," says Mr. Hildreth, "was the first of those popular conventions, destined within a few years to assume the whole political authority of the colonies."

The day after the convention broke up, the troops from Halifax arrived. The Council refused to take any steps for providing quarters, and it was even feared that the landing of the soldiers might be opposed by the people. The guns of the ships .were accordingly pointed on the town, and under their cover the troops were set ashore, and with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, and a train of artillery, they marched into Boston. The overseers refused to appoint them quarters, but a temporary shelter was afforded to one regiment in Faneuil Hall, while the other pitched their tents on the Common. Next morning the governor ordered a portion to occupy the statehouse, with the exception of the council-chamber alone, the main guard with two field-pieces being stationed at the front. It was the Lord's Day, and such a one as had never before been known in Boston. The place looked like a town in a state of siege. All the public buildings were filled with soldiers; sentinels were stationed in the streets, and the people were challenged as they passed to and from church. What wonder that they felt such a proceeding to be a bitter and unprovoked insult? What wonder that they were roused to stern and nervous resistance?

At the opening of the new Parliament, the papers relating to the colonies, and particularly to the recent proceedings in Boston, were laid before the two Houses. Under strong excitement of feeling, as if the Americans were in some sort slaves, and had no rights to contend for, both Houses of Parliament, in a joint address to the king, recommended vigorous measures in order to enforce obedience; and even went so far as to beseech the king to direct the governor of Massachusetts to make strict inquiries as to all treasons committed in that province since the year 1767, in order that the persons most active in committing them might be sent to England for trial. This proposal, as a matter of course, gave great offence to the colonists.

The Legislature of Massachusetts was not in session when the news of this address reached America; but the House of Burgesses in Virginia, which met shortly afterwards, in May, were not tardy in expressing their sense of