meeting of the General Court, always a season of peculiar interest, and
more so now than ever, for it was certain that the debates in this body
would turn on the foremost local subject, the removal of the troops. But
the subject was no longer merely local, for it had become a general
issue, one affecting not only Boston and Massachusetts, but other towns
and Colonies, and the interest felt in the controversy was wide and
deep. "In this day of constitutional light," a New-York essay copied
into a Boston newspaper runs, "it is monstrous that troops should be
kept, not to protect the right, but to enslave the continent." While it
was thus put by the journals, the policy was meant to be of this
significance by the Ministry; and the letters printed for the first time
in this monograph attest the accuracy of the Patriot judgment. On purely
local grounds, also, the presence of the troops continued to be
deplored. "The troops," Dr. Cooper wrote, January 1, 1770, "greatly
corrupt our morals, and are in every sense an oppression. May Heaven
soon deliver us from this great evil!" Samuel Adams said, "The troops
must move to the Castle; it must be the first business of the General
Court to move them out of town"; and James Otis said. "The Governor has
the power to move them under the Constitution." Hutchinson endeavored to
conciliate the people by making arrangements with General Gage for a
removal of the main guard from its location near the Town-House, being
informed that this might satisfy the greater part of the members.

Having taken this precaution, Hutchinson was really anxious for a
meeting of the General Court. He was in great uncertainty both as to
public and private affairs. He knew now that Bernard was not to return,
but he did not know who was to be the successor; he conjectured that it
might be "that the government was to be put on a new establishment, and
a person of rank appointed Governor"; and he confessed that he was
"ignorant of the Ministerial plan" as to the Colonies. The Legislature
was appointed to convene on the tenth of January. But the November
packet from England, happening to make an uncommonly short passage,
brought him a peremptory order, which he received on the evening of the
third of January, to prorogue the time of the sitting of the General
Court; and the journals of the next morning contain his Proclamation,
setting forth that "by His Majesty's command" the Legislature was
prorogued to the second