George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

[109] direction with Warren, whose impetuous fearlessness

Chap. IX.} 1774. Aug.

was tempered by self-possession, gentleness, and good sense, and who had reluctantly become convinced that all connection with the British parliament must be thrown off. On the sixteenth of August a county congress of the towns of Suffolk, which then embraced Norfolk, met at a tavern in the village of Stoughton. As the aged Samuel Dunbar, the rigid Calvinist minister of its first parish, breathed forth among them his prayer for liberty, the venerable man seemed inspired with ‘the most divine and prophetical enthusiasm.’ ‘We must stand undisguised upon one side or the other,’ said Thayer, of Braintree. The members were unanimous and firm; but they postponed their decision, till it could be promulgated with greater formality. To this end, and in contempt of Gage and the act of parliament, they directed special meetings in every town and precinct in the county, to elect delegates with full powers to appear at Dedham on the first Monday in September. From such a county congress Warren predicted ‘very important consequences.’

Meantime Boston was not left to deliberate alone. On Friday, the twenty-sixth, its committee were joined at Faneuil Hall by delegates from the several towns of the counties of Worcester, Middlesex, and Essex; and on the next day, after calm consultation, they collectively denied the power of parliament to change the minutest tittle of their laws. As a consequence, they found that all appointments to the newly-instituted council, and all authority exercised by the courts of justice, were unconstitutional; and therefore that the officers, should they attempt to act,