mocratic
government created by a royal charter, and to remove royal officers
from the scope of colonial juries, it was clear that the end of all the
powers and privileges wrung from royal or proprietary governors by
generations of struggle was at hand. Yet the striking feature in this
punitive legislation was that the North Ministry expected it to meet no
resistance, although its execution, so far as the government of
Massachusetts was concerned, rested on the consent of the colonists.
There was, under the British {56} system, no administrative body
capable of carrying out these laws, no military force except the few
regiments in Boston, and no naval force beyond a few frigates and
cruisers. The mere passage of the laws, according to North and to Lord
Mansfield, was sufficient to bring submission.

Nothing more clearly shows the profound ignorance of the Tory Ministry
than this expectation, for it was instantly disappointed. At the news
of the Acts, the response from America was unanimous. Already the
colonial Whigs were well organized in committees of correspondence, and
now they acted not merely in Massachusetts but in every colony. The
town of Boston refused to vote compensation, and was immediately closed
under the terms of the Port Act. Expressions of sympathy and gifts of
provisions came pouring into the doomed community; while public
meetings, legislatures, political leaders and clergymen, in chorus
denounced the Acts as unconstitutional, cruel, and tyrannous. The
Quebec Act, extending the Catholic religion and French law into the
interior valley under despotic government, was regarded as scarcely
less sinister than the Regulating Act itself.

Under the efficient organization of the leaders a Continental Congress
met in Philadelphia in October, 1774, to make united {57} protest.
This body, comprising without exception the most influential men in the
colonies, presented a clear contrast to Parliament in that every man
was the representative of a community of freemen, self-governing and
equal before the law. The leaders did not regard themselves in any
sense as revolutionaries. They were simply delegates from the separate
colonies, met to confer on their common dangers. Their action
consisted in the preparation of a petition to the King, addresses to
the people of England, the people of Quebec, and the people of the
colonies, but not to Parliament, since they denied its right to pass
any such laws as th