George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[194] But in this case, as so often, evil designs created their

chap. X.} 1764. May.

own remedy. ‘If the colonist is taxed without his consent,’ said the press¹ of New-York, ‘he will, perhaps, seek a change.’ ‘The ways of Heaven are inscrutable,’ wrote Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, privately to a friend;² ‘this step of the mother country, though intended to secure our dependence, may produce a fatal resentment, and be subversive of that end.’ ‘If the colonies do not now unite,’ was the message received from Dyer of Connecticut, who was then in England; ‘if they do not unite, they may bid farewell to liberty, burn their charters, and make the best of thraldom.’³ Even while it was not yet known that the bill had passed, alarm pervaded New-England. In Boston, at the town meeting in May, there stood up Samuel Adams, a native citizen of the place, trained at Harvard College, a provincial statesman, of the most clear and logical mind, which, throughout a long life, imparted to his public conduct the most exact consistency. His vigorous and manly will resembled in its tenacity well-tempered steel, which may ply a little but will not break. In his religious faith he had from childhood been instituted a Calvinist of the straitest sect; and his riper judgment and acuteness in dialectics confirmed him in its creed. In his views on church government he adhered to the congregational forms, as most friendly to civil and religious liberty. He was a member of the Church, and in a rigid community was an example in severity of morals and the scrupulous observance of every ordinance. Evening and morning his house was a