nd as such, the troops now in the capital are subject to
your orders. If you, or Colonel Dalrymple under you, have the power to
remove one regiment, you have the power to remove both; and nothing
short of their total removal will satisfy the people or preserve the
peace of the Province. A Multitude highly incensed now wait the result
of this application. The voice of ten thousand freemen demands that
both regiments be forthwith removed. Their voice must be respected,
their demand obeyed. Fail not then at your peril to comply with this
requisition! On you alone rests the responsibility of this decision;
and if the just expectations of the people are disappointed, you must
be answerable to God and your country for the fatal consequences that
must ensue. The committee have discharged their duty, and it is for
you to discharge yours. They wait your final determination."
Hutchinson for a long time stood firm, but yielded at last and the
troops were removed.
It is not the purpose of this paper to follow Samuel Adams through his
active career in the years of the Revolution and the succeeding period.
It is always Samuel Adams, the unswerving patriot, the adroit leader,
the man of the people. It had long been felt in England that his was the
most active spirit in the cause of the patriots, and there was much talk
of effecting his arrest and bringing him to trial on the charge of
treason, but the move was never made. Adams' courage never failed. He
had long given up the idea of any compromise between the colonies and
the Crown, and there is nothing conciliatory in his words or acts. When
the tea was emptied into Boston Harbor it was easily understood that
Adams was the real leader in the action. No one familiar with the life
of the great town meeting man, as Prof. Hosmer likes to call him, can
doubt that he had the essential qualities of an adroit strategist.
Cromwell once locked Parliament out, Adams once locked the Assembly in.
He had secured a majority of the members to vote for a Continental
Congress, but could the resolve be presented and brought to a final vote
before Governor Gage could prorogue the Assembly, as he would use all
speed to do, the instant the first knowledge of the scheme reached his
ears? On the 17th of June, just one year before the Battle of Bunker
Hill, that question was answered. The resolve was offered that day
providing for the appointment of delegates to such a congress. T
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