Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/340

 session till their business was completed.

On the first of June, the day designated for the closing the port of Boston and erecting Salem into the metropolis, all business was finished at twelve o'clock, at noon, and the harbor was shut up against all vessels. As that seaport was entirely dependent upon commerce, the ministerial measure cut off at once the means of subsistence of a great part of its citizens. The Bostonians, however, endured their sufferings with the most inflexible fortitude. The non-importation agreement was revived and extended, and the significant title was adopted, "A Solemn League and Covenant." Gage issued a proclamation against this compact as illegal and even treasonable. But he was not able to prevent the spread of the "league." Addresses and congratulations poured in upon them from all sides, and they received more substantial proofs of the sympathy of their fellow colonists, in contributions raised for their relief, which, only very partially mitigated the severity of their distress. If the English government, whose policy was always to foment a collision of interests between the different colonists, flattered themselves that the inhabitants of Salem would secretly rejoice at a measure that promised to enrich them on the ruin of Boston, they were speedily disabused. The inhabitants of that port concluded an address to General Gage in terms most honorable to their patriotic sympathy:—"By shutting up the port of Boston, some imagine that he course of trade might be turned hither, and for our benefit, but nature, in the formation of our harbor, forbids our becoming rivals in commerce to that convenient mart; and were it otherwise, we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to every feeling of humanity, could we indulge one thought to seize on wealth, and raise ourselves on the ruins of our suffering neighbors." The inhabitants of Marblehead also generously offered to the Boston merchants the free use of their wharves and warehouses, and their personal attendance upon the lading and unlading of their goods. In Virginia, the first of; June was observed with all due solemnity, and Washington notes in his diary, that he fasted rigidly, and attended the services appointed in the church, Similar manifestations of public grief took place in most of the cities. A stillness reigned over Philadelphia, and the whole city exhibited signs of deep distress.

Late in the summer, the second and third of the coercive enactments of Parliament reached Boston. In accordance with the terms of the former, a list of the civil officers appointed by the governor, was soon made known, and gave great dissatisfaction, as they were among the most unpopular characters in the province. To add to the anxiety which now pervaded every breast, a large military force was ordered into the province, an act of Parliament having been passed, which directed the governor to provide quarters for them in any town he might choose. "Thus the charter, as Bradford forcibly remarks, "the palladium of their rights and privileges