freeborn sons of the North will
yield a general and united submission to any tyrannic power on earth,
fire and sword, desolation and ruin, will ravage the land." The intrepid
Samuel Adams would say,--"Before the King and Parliament shall dragoon
us, and we become slaves, we will take up arms and our last drop of
blood." The calm Andrew Eliot would say,--"You cannot conceive of our
distress: to have a standing army! What can be worse to a people who
have tasted the sweets of liberty?" Hutchinson wrote,--"Many of the
common people were in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their
liberties," while "too many above the vulgar countenanced and encouraged
them." Such was the intensity of the public feeling; such the
earnestness with which liberty was ranked above material prosperity. It
was now to be seen whether the American cause was to suffer shipwreck on
the rock of premature insurrection, or whether it was to be led on by
such cautious and wise steps as develop into the majesty of revolution.

The present public alarm was occasioned by vague statements from abroad
or rumors started at home as to the coming of a military force. Troops
were ordered in from the outposts of Canada to Halifax; an unusual naval
force was gathering at that station; it was said that the destination of
both was Boston: but the Governor persisted in denying that he had
done anything that would bring troops here, and kept on playing the
know-nothing. This created a painful suspense, and, to cool observers,
the policy of the Government appeared inexplicable. But however deep
may have been the indignation of the people at the prospect of military
rule, it was no part of the plan of the popular leaders, if troops came
here, to resist the landing, or to allow the rash spirits, who are ever
ready for any imprudence, to do so; but their object was to fix in the
public mind a just sense of the rights thus violated, to guide the
general indignation into a safe channel of action, and thus turn the
insult to the benefit of the general cause.

Two days after the Governor received the letter of General Gage, a
communication appeared in the "Boston Gazette," under the head of
"READER! ATTEND!" which arraigned, with uncommon spirit and boldness,
the course of the officials who were urging the policy of arbitrary
power, as having a direct tendency "to dissolve the union between Great
Britain and her colonies." It proposed to remonstrate against this
pol