n to measure swords with Great Britain."

Though Governor Bernard had long thought a military force necessary to
sustain the new measures, yet he refused to make a requisition for it.
He expected the Government, of its own motion, would order troops to
Boston in the time of the Stamp Act, and looked for trouble on their
arrival. "The crisis," he wrote, (September 1, 1766,) "which I apprehend
most danger from, is the introduction of King's troops into this town,
which, having become necessary to the support of the Government, will be
placed to the account of the Governor." But no troops were ordered then.
He never was able to get his Council, even when he supposed a majority
agreed with him in politics, to recommend their introduction; for no
policy or measure which even such a Council indorsed required troops to
enforce it. The Governor, however, was a zealous advocate of the new
policy of the Ministry, which he judged could not be carried out
without military force; but his point was, that, along with the stiff
instructions to carry that policy out, the Ministry ought to supply
force enough to do it.

The new Revenue Acts provided for a Board called the Commissioners of
Customs, who were empowered to collect duties along a truly imperial
line of coast, extending from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico. They were
appointed to reside in Boston. They were five in number,--Charles
Paxton, Henry Hulton, William Burch, John Robinson, and John Temple. Not
much is said of Hulton and Burch, who appear to have been simply zealous
partisans; Robinson's violent temper is seen in his savage assault on
Otis; Temple was not in favor of the creation of the Board, and won its
enmity by taking exceptions to its doings; Paxton was charged with being
the father of the Board and its chief. He was a zealous official, with a
clean Tory record, of bland, courtlike ways, and certificated to England
as Bernard's confidential friend. There he is said to have "whined,
cried, professed, swore, and made his will in favor of that great man,"
Charles Townshend, whom, when in Boston, he had supplied with funds, and
thus gained his objects. This Board soon became a severe and chronic
local irritant. The foreign ways of its members, for most of them were
strangers, supplied the wits of the town with material for satire, while
its main acts were as iron to the soul of a high-spirited community. As
it was created to collect taxes held to be unconstitutional,