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

‘ [453] represented there;’ declared Stoughtenham.¹ ‘Let

Chap. XLIX.} 1773. Feb.

the Colonies stand firm as one man,’ voted Winchendon.² ‘Divine Providence and the necessity of things may call upon us and all the Colonies to make our last Appeal;’³ wrote the farmers who dwelt on the bleak hills of New Salem.

Yet Hutchinson seemed compelled to renew his discussion with the Legislature, and in a long argument, which contained little that was new, endeavored to prove that the Colony of Massachusetts was holden as feudatory of the imperial Crown of England, and was therefore under the Government of the King's Laws and the King's Court. Again Bowdoin for the Council, with still greater clearness, affirms that Parliamentary taxation is unconstitutional, because imposed without consent; again Samuel Adams for the House, aided briefly, in Hawley's temporary absence, by the strong natural powers and good knowledge of the laws of John Adams, proves from the Governor's own premises, that Parliament has no supremacy over the Colony, because the feudal system admits no idea of the authority of Parliament.

At the same time both parties looked beyond the Province for aid. Hutchinson sought to intimidate his antagonists, by telling them ‘that the English Nation would be roused, and could not be withstood,’ that ‘Parliament would, by some means or other, maintain its supremacy.’⁴ To his correspondents in England he sent word what measures should be chosen; advising a change in the political organization of towns;⁵ a prohibition of the commerce of Boston,⁶