called upon them to rescind the
resolution on which the circular was founded,--they refused to comply,
and the General Court was consequently dissolved. The governors of
other colonies required of their Legislatures an assurance that they
would not reply to the Massachusetts circular--these Legislatures
likewise refused compliance, and were dissolved. All this added to the
growing excitement.

Nothing, however, produced a more powerful effect upon the public
sensibilities throughout the country than certain military
demonstrations at Boston. [In consequence of repeated collisions
between the people of that place and the commissioners of customs, two
regiments of troops were sent from Halifax to overawe the disaffected
citizens. It was resolved in a town meeting that the king had no right
to send troops thither without the consent of the Assembly. The
selectmen accordingly refused to find quarters for the soldiers, and
while some encamped on the common, others were quartered, to the great
indignation of the public, in Faneuil Hall.]

Throughout these public agitations, Washington endeavored to preserve
his equanimity. Still he was too true a patriot not to sympathize in
the struggle for colonial rights which now agitated the whole country,
and we find him gradually carried more and more into the current of
political affairs. A letter written on the 5th of April, 1769, to his
friend, George Mason, shows the important stand he was disposed to
take. In the previous year the merchants and traders of Boston, Salem,
Connecticut and New York, had agreed to suspend for a time the
importation of all articles subject to taxation. Similar resolutions
had recently been adopted by the merchants of Philadelphia.
Washington's letter is emphatic in support of the measure. "At a
time," writes he, "when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be
satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom,
it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the
stroke, and maintain the liberty which we have derived from our
ancestors."

Mason, in his reply, concurred with him in opinion. "Our all is at
stake," said he, "and the little conveniences and comforts of life,
when set in competition with our liberty, ought to be rejected, not
with reluctance but with pleasure." The result of the correspondence
was the draft by the latter of a plan of association, the members of
which were to pledge themselves not to imp