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

[379] testimonies given by the people of the continent of

chap. XX.} 1766. Jan.

their loyalty, and the equal testimony which they had given of their love of liberty, by a glorious stand even against an act of parliament. They proudly called to mind, that the union of all the colonies was upon a motion made in their house. And insisting that ‘the courts of justice must be open,—open immediately,’ they voted, sixty-six against four, that the shutting of them was not only ‘a very great grievance, requiring immediate redress,’ but ‘dangerous to his majesty's crown.’

Bernard, who consulted in secret a ‘select council,’ unknown to the law, in which the principal advisers were Hutchinson and Oliver, wished that the system of Grenville, which brought money into the British exchequer without advantage to the officers of the crown, might be abandoned for his favorite plan of the establishment of a colonial civil list by parliament; but he opposed all concession. Tranquillity, he assured the Secretary of State, could not be restored by ‘lenient methods.’ ‘There will be no submission,’ said he, ‘until there is a subjection. The persons who originated the mischief, and preside over and direct the opposition to Great Britain, are wicked and desperate; and the common people, whom they have poisoned, are mad and infatuated. The people here occasionally talk very high of their power to resist Great Britain; but it is all talk. They talk of revolting from Great Britain in the most familiar wanner, and declare that though the British forces should possess themselves of the coast and maritime towns, they never will subdue the inland. But nothing,’ Bernard continued, ‘can be more idle. New-York and Boston would both be defenceless to ’