41. British Troops Occupy Boston

Perhaps these events helped build the optimism of Sam Adams and Dr. Benjamin Church, of the Boston radicals, who called for resistance to any invasion by British troops on the ground that Britain was a “tottering empire.” The erratic James Otis also took heart. In late June, at a meeting of the Massachusetts Assembly, Otis extolled the memory of Oliver Cromwell and the execution of King Charles. Aroused from shock, Governor Bernard denounced Otis’s speech as “the most violent, insolent, abusive, treasonable declaration that perhaps was ever delivered.” A few weeks later Otis urged one and all to “defend our liberties and privileges... even unto blood” and to don the sword and musket in that cause.

Thus, by the latter half of 1768, Americans were pursuing two courses of resistance against the exactions of the Townshend-Hillsborough program. The first was general (though it concentrated necessarily on the port towns): expansion of nonconsumption and, especially, nonimportation agreements in boycott of British goods. The second was largely limited to Boston: resistance against a crackdown on illegal trade by the new Board of Commissioners of the Customs stationed there. This reign of rigid enforcement was primarily aimed at Boston; against such measures mere boycotting was not enough, and had to be supplemented by direct mass action. The decision to send troops to Boston made that port the acute center of conflict in the colonies.

Word of the decision to send an army of occupation to Boston galvanized the people of Massachusetts into action. Sparking the opposition to heights of revolutionary fervor was Samuel Adams. Rather than submit to military rule, Adams proclaimed, “We will take up arms and spend our last drop of blood.” He promised that thousands of Massachusetts farmers would sweep down to aid the embattled people of Boston. Rumors spread of two secret meetings of the Sons of Liberty, which plotted to incite the people of Massachusetts against the troops, and to seize the Boston harbor fortress of Castle William in behalf of the Sons of Liberty.

With the May Assembly dissolved by Governor Bernard for disobedience, the Boston Town Meeting took the lead in organizing the resistance. (Other assemblies that would eventually be dissolved by the royal governors for favoring pressure against the Townshend laws were those of New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.) The town meeting was now the only legal body that could serve as a focus of resistance against Great Britain.

Accordingly, the Boston Town Meeting met on September 12 in a session planned and organized by radical leaders Otis, Sam Adams, Joseph Warren, and other Sons of Liberty. The meeting again stressed that taxation without their representation violated the British constitution and natural law; and sending an occupying army to enforce such unconstitutional acts was all the more unconstitutional. The Boston Town Meeting also used the clever excuse of an “approaching war with France” (a cherished policy of Chatham and Shelburne) to order all citizens to bear arms so as to resist any “French invasion.” The Bostonians knew very well whose invasion they had in mind.

With a meeting of the Assembly denied to it, Boston summoned a newly created convention of delegates from all the towns to take proper action. In this way an extralegal, revolutionary institution was created by the people of Massachusetts to aid them in their struggle. Meanwhile, preparations continued for armed uprising against the British invasion. Before it was removed by the Council and sheriff, a beacon was set on top of Beacon Hill in Boston, which was to be burned as a signal to armed farmers to rally to Boston’s aid.

The Massachusetts Convention met on September 22, with most of the towns—ninety-six in all—sending delegates and instructions of support. Its composition was very similar to that of the regular lower house. It is not clear what the radicals desired the convention to accomplish. Having imitated the proscribed Assembly by selecting the conservatively inclined Thomas Cushing as chairman, the convention confined itself to issuing a protest against the British troops. The arrival of these troops on September 29 caused the convention to disband in haste, after doing little more than setting a useful revolutionary precedent by its very existence. Also, the Sons of Liberty talked of mounting an armed resistance, but it never materialized. It is doubtful that all-out armed resistance by Boston at that time would have drawn in other towns and colonies, and an isolated Boston uprising would have had very little chance of succeeding.

The Massachusetts Council, the town of Boston, and later the new Massachusetts Assembly refused to permit the British troops to quarter in the town, but General Gage quartered them there nevertheless. The Council was controlled by the House and by the popular forces, and the governor could not dismiss any magistrates without its approval. With the military refusing to enter civilian disputes, the popular liberal party still controlled the town of Boston. Furthermore, despite herculean efforts, smuggling was still far from being stamped out.

The settling of an armed occupation did not cow the town or the province. The liberals swept the Massachusetts spring elections of 1769, and Boston condemned the British and praised the American merchants for their boycott of British goods. A distinguished liberal Congregational minister, the Reverend Samuel Cooper of Boston, wrote that the entire province was united in its stand against the British troops and the Townshend Acts. The radical-dominated Assembly proceeded to purge four Tories from the Council. The conservatives were now routed from the Assembly and in the court of public opinion.

The popular liberals won another signal victory in the winter of 1768–69 in connection with the prosecution of their leading merchant, John Hancock. In his trial for smuggling, Hancock was defended by the brilliant young Boston lawyer John Adams, who moved from technical issues to the unconstitutionality of the statute, since the colonies had not been represented in Parliament, and the unconstitutionality of trial without jury. As months went by in the lengthy trial, Thomas Kirk became an increasingly flimsy and untenable witness, and John Hancock became a hero among the press and throughout the colonies. Finally, at the end of March 1769, the prosecution dropped the case. Hancock was free, and the popular forces had triumphed again.