were gratified in 1772 by the appointment of
the Earl of Dartmouth to succeed Hillsborough as secretary for the
colonies, for Dartmouth, a pious and amiable person of no political
ability, was known to be anxious for conciliation. Fresh cause of
offence, however, was found in a decision of the ministers that the
salaries of the Massachusetts judges should be paid by the crown instead
of by the colony. This change, which was designed to render the judges
independent of popular feeling, was resented as an attempt to make them
subservient to the crown, for they held office during the king's
pleasure.

[Sidenote: _HUTCHINSON'S LETTERS._]

Meanwhile the contempt with which the authority of the crown was
regarded, and the necessity for restraining the provincial judges from
political partisanship, were forcibly illustrated. Smuggling was carried
on freely, especially in Rhode Island. The duty of preventing it in
Narragansett Bay was discharged by Lieutenant Duddingston, in command of
the _Gaspee_ schooner. He was zealous, and, according to American
accounts, was guilty of illegal and oppressive acts. On June 9, while
engaged in a chase, the _Gaspee_ ran aground, and on the night of the
10th was boarded by eight boat-loads of men. Duddingston was
treacherously shot at and wounded; he and his men were set on shore, and
the schooner was burnt. This destruction of one of the king's ships, an
act alike of rebellion and piracy, and, as Thurlow said, "an event five
times the magnitude of the stamp act," was unpunished. A law, enacted in
the previous April, and evoked by a fire in an English dockyard,
provided that the setting on fire of a public dockyard or a king's ship
should be felony, and that those accused of such an offence should be
tried in England. Commissioners were appointed by the crown to inquire
into the destruction of the _Gaspee_, and send those concerned in it to
England for trial. On their applying for warrants to the chief justice
of the province, he declared that he would allow no one to be arrested
with a view to deportation, and the commission was fruitless. The
colonists were angered by this attempt to enforce the law; and in 1773
took an important step towards union and a future congress by
establishing committees of correspondence between the provinces.

Samuel Adams unexpectedly found an opportunity of rousing fresh
excitement in Massachusetts. A number of private letters written by
Hutchinson and Oliver