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

[385] enough to weary the legislature into a spirited resist-

Chap XLVI.} 1770. Dec.

ance. Its members remained steadfast in their purpose to connect loyalty with their regard for American liberty. On a charge of contempt of their authority, they kept MacDougall¹ in prison during their session; at the same time, adopting the nomination made by Schuyler a year before,² they unanimously elected Edmund Burke, for whom his own country had no employment, their Agent in England, allowing ‘for his services at the rate of five hundred pounds per annum.’³

This moderation might have persuaded the Ministry to conciliatory measures; it only raised a hope of producing divisions in America, by setting one Province against another. ‘I can find bones to throw among them, to continue contention and prevent a renewal of their union,’⁴ promised Hutchinson, now happy in the assurance of receiving from the tax on tea a salary of fifteen hundred pounds for himself as Governor, while three hundred more were granted to the Lieutenant Governor Oliver, who had long been repining at the neglect of his sufferings in behalf of the Stamp Act. Yet Samuel Adams did not despair. ‘In every struggle,’ said he, ‘this country will approve herself glorious in maintaining and defending her freedom;’⁵ and he was sure that the unreasonableness of Great Britain would precipitate the epoch of American Independence. South Carolina received