George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

‘ [371] which will soon be followed by that of all America

CHAP XLV.} 1770. Sept.

from Europe. Then, and not till then, will the discovery of that part of the world become for us truly useful. Then it will multiply our enjoyments far more abundantly, than when we bought them by torrents of blood.’¹

Hillsborough, too, was possessed with the fear,

Oct.

hat the idea of independence would indeed be realized, unless he could persuade all but the abettors of ‘a few desperate men,² to see the necessity of restoring the authority of the Supreme Legislature by a reform of the Constitution of the Massachusetts Bay.’ ‘No more time,’ said he, ‘should be lost in deliberation,’ and he exerted all his power to establish the binding obligation of the decisions of the Privy Council and the decrees of Parliament.

The very day, on which Hillsborough commenced his fixed purpose of subverting the Constitution of Massachusetts, its two Houses, which had been called for the third time to Cambridge, having summoned all absent members,³ were keeping a day of fasting, solemn prayer and humiliation. ‘We have,’ said Hutchinson, ‘many people who are enthusiasts, and believe they are contending for the cause of God.’⁴ “Some days after their solemn communing with Heaven, the House, which heretofore had refused to proceed to business away from Boston, expressed alarm at the new, additional and insupportable grievances under which the Colony labored, and after a ”