Page:Lamb - History of the city of New York - Volume 2.djvu/221

Rh executor of the law. There was one spontaneous outburst of sympathy from every town and hamlet in America. In Philadelphia the bells of the churches were muffled and tolled throughout the entire day when the cheerful industry of Boston came to an end. In Virginia the people fasted and prayed in the churches. Ships all along the seaboard hoisted their colors at half-mast.

May 12.

New York writhed under the wrong inflicted upon Boston. When the copy of the Port Act was first received, the city stood, like one man, astonished that all Parliament had assented to such cruelty. Then followed a whirlwind of indignation and dismay. The bill was cried through the streets as a "barbarous murder," and there was such an uprising of the people, with nightly processions and effigy burnings, that the more substantial part of the community feared serious riots, and resolved to guide the movement; hence a meeting was called at Fraunces' Tavern, which proved so large, comprising men from all ranks,—commerce, politics, and the professions,—that it was necessary to adjourn to the Exchange. Isaac Low occupied the chair. The proposition to choose a committee of control and correspondence was well received. But in the choice of the committee two parties battled for precedence. It was the old story, men striving for individual preferment. The radical leaders of the Sons of Liberty were determined to retain the direction of affairs, and when public sentiment decided in favor of the opposite ticket, comprising, as it did, a greater number of names and a wider

May 17.

range of interest, they were intensely bitter in their denunciation of every movement not in harmony with their preconceived notions of the methods by which oppression should be resisted.

The Committee of Fifty-One organized, on the 23d, with the appointment of Isaac Low chairman, and John Alsop deputy-chairman. One of the first propositions was a congress of the Colonies, which should

May 23.

regulate the subject of non-importation. Isaac Low, John Jay, James Duane, and Alexander McDougall were chosen to draft a letter to suffering Boston, and a clear, concise, straightforward document was prepared and signed the same evening. "The cause is general," it said, "and concerns a whole continent who are equally interested with you and with us; we foresee no remedy can be of any avail unless it proceeds from the joint act and approbation of all."

This letter, preserved in the New York Historical Society, settles the question as to the origin of the Continental Congress of 1774. It was not an "achievement of the Sons of Liberty,"—that organization having been invested with no power beyond the disposal of the tea ,—but a result of the calmer judgment of the much misrepresented Fifty-One,