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

[104] before the new council. ‘It is a point of law,’

Chap. VIII.} 1774. Aug.

said they, ‘and should be referred to the crown lawyers.’ He asked their concurrence in removing a sheriff. ‘The act of parliament,’ they replied, ‘confines the power of removal to the governor alone.’ Several members gave an account of the frenzy which was sweeping from Berkshire over the province, and might reach them collectively even in the presence of the governor. ‘If you value your life, I advise you not to return home at present,’ was the warning received by Ruggles from the town of Hardwick, whose freemen with those of New Braintree and of Greenwich so resented his accepting a place in the council, that they vowed he should never again pass the great bridge of the town alive.

By nine o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth, more than two thousand men marched in companies to the common in Worcester, where they forced Timothy Paine to walk through their ranks with his hat off as far as the centre of their hollow square, and read a written resignation of his seat at the council board. A large detachment then moved to Rutland to deal with Murray. The next day at noon Wilder of Templeton and Holden of Princeton brought up their companies, and by three in the afternoon, about fifteen hundred men had assembled, most of them armed with bludgeons. But Murray had escaped on the previous evening, just before the sentries were set round his house and along the roads; they therefore sent him a letter requiring him to resign. The temper of the people brooked no division; they held every person that would not join them an enemy to his country. ‘The consequences of your proceedings ’