d shows itself upon every trifling occasion." The general
dissatisfaction had produced some time before, that is, on the 29th of
May, several strong public resolves against the Stamp Act; and those
resolves are assigned by Governor Bernard as the cause of the
_insurrections_ in Massachusetts Bay, in his letter of the 15th of
August, still addressed to the Earl of Halifax; and he continued to
address such accounts to that minister quite to the 7th of September of
the same year. Similar accounts, and of as late a date, were sent from
other governors, and all directed to Lord Halifax. Not one of these
letters indicates the slightest idea of a change, either known or even
apprehended.

Thus are blown away the insect race of courtly falsehoods! Thus perish
the miserable inventions of the wretched runners for a wretched cause,
which they have fly-blown into every weak and rotten part of the
country, in vain hopes, that, when their maggots had taken wing, their
importunate buzzing might sound something like the public voice!

Sir, I have troubled you sufficiently with the state of America before
the repeal. Now I turn to the honorable gentleman who so stoutly
challenges us to tell whether, after the repeal, the provinces were
quiet. This is coming home to the point. Here I meet him directly, and
answer most readily, _They were quiet_. And I, in my turn, challenge him
to prove when, and where, and by whom, and in what numbers, and with
what violence, the other laws of trade, as gentlemen assert, were
violated in consequence of your concession, or that even your other
revenue laws were attacked. But I quit the vantage-ground on which I
stand, and where I might leave the burden of the proof upon him: I walk
down upon the open plain, and undertake to show that they were not only
quiet, but showed many unequivocal marks of acknowledgment and
gratitude. And to give him every advantage, I select the obnoxious
colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without hearing
her) is so heavily a culprit before Parliament: I will select their
proceedings even under circumstances of no small irritation. For, a
little imprudently, I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the
administration of the lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising
from matters of a separate nature. Yet see, Sir, the effect of that
lenitive, though mixed with these bitter ingredients,--and how this
rugged people can express themselves on a measure of conces