ufacture, which,
were particularly specified; to adhere to former agreements respecting
funerals; and to purchase no new clothing for mourning. Committees were
appointed to obtain subscribers to this agreement, and the resolves were
sent in to all the towns of the province and abroad to other colonies.
The 20th of the ensuing month (20th of November, the time when the Acts
went into operation) passed without tumult. Placards were exhibited and
effigies were set up, but the people in general were quiet. Otis (the
most popular man in Boston), at a town meeting _held to discountenance
riot_, delivered a speech in which he recommended caution, and advised
that no opposition should be made to the new duties. 'The King has a
right,' said he, 'to appoint officers of the Customs in what manner he
pleases and by what denominations; and to resist his authority will but
provoke his displeasure.' Such counsel was displeasing to the zealous,
but it was followed." (Barry's History of Massachusetts, Vol. II.,
Chapter xi., pp. 340, 341.)]

CHAPTER XIV.

EVENTS OF 1768--PROTESTS AND LOYAL PETITIONS OF THE COLONISTS AGAINST
THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENTARY ACTS FOR RAISING REVENUE IN THE COLONIES.

The meetings and protests against the Revenue Acts and petitions for
their repeal, which began in the autumn of 1767, increased throughout
the colonies in 1768. In January, the General Assembly of Massachusetts
voted a temperate and loyal petition to the King,[301] and letters
urging the rights of the province, addressed to Lord Shelburne, General
Conway, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord Camden, and the Earl of Chatham.
The petition and these letters were all to the same effect. The petition
to the King was enclosed to Denis de Berdt, a London merchant (who was
appointed agent for the colony), with a long letter of instructions. All
these papers are pervaded with a spirit of loyalty, and ask for nothing
more than the enjoyment of the rights and privileges which they had ever
possessed and enjoyed down to the year after the peace of Paris in
1763.

In addition to these representations and letters sent to England, the
Massachusetts General Assembly adopted, on the 11th of February, and
sent a circular letter to the Speakers of the respective Houses of
Burgesses of the other American provinces. In this ably-written letter
there is no dictation or assumption of authority, but a statement of
their representations to England, and a desire for mu