Volume 3, Chapter 62. Resistance in Massachusetts. While the Congress prepared to meet, revolutionary
struggles were greatly intensifying in Massachusetts. General Gage had reoccupied Boston with four
regiments of British troops sent from Ireland. Additional regiments were also transferred
to Boston. The people of Boston did not attempt to meet the troops head on. Instead, they
They engaged in a thorough going campaign of mass non-cooperation, of non-violent resistance
to the British troops. First, the town refused to provide barracks for the soldiery, obliging
them to camp out on Boston Common for the remainder of 1774. A voluntary boycott was
instituted against the British. The Boston Committee of Correspondence ordered carpenters
not to help erect barracks, lumber was cut off, and merchants refused to sell the British
tools or supplies of any kind. Sabotage of materials also disrupted Gage's plans. Gage
was forced to bring construction workers from Nova Scotia to build the barracks. All in
all the British soldiers were surrounded with a wall of hostility, and the liberal press
Mass kept up a drumfire of propaganda about the rapes and robberies committed by the bloody
soldiery. Mass resistance in Massachusetts also extended to the body of the coercive acts.
In August, Gage published a list of 36 new royally appointed mandamus counselors who
succeeded the old counselors in accordance with the Massachusetts Government Act. A meeting
The decision of delegates from the towns declared them unconstitutional and suggested a new
revolutionary provincial congress to become the new government of Massachusetts.
The knot of notorious Tories chosen for the new council was subjected to intense mob pressure,
which forced the councillors either to resign or to take refuge in the arms of British troops
in Boston.
Abidja Williams, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver, Justice Peter Oliver, Foster Hutchinson and eleven others were forced to resign.
So extensive was the use of Boston as a place of refuge for Tory officials that the Whig leader Edmund Burke caustically taunted the British in Parliament saying
He had often heard of such places for thieves, rogues and female orphans, but it was the first time he ever heard of an asylum for magistrates.
General Gage contemplated sending troops into the countryside to protect counselors and judges from popular wrath,
but threw up his hands at the universality of opposition to these appointees.
The royal courts were also subject to harassment now that judges were removable at pleasure
rather than for ill behavior.
The Pittsfield town meeting urged the people to resist the coercive acts to the last extremity
and resolved that no courts should sit until the Massachusetts Government Act was repealed.
Indeed, all courts were stopped throughout Massachusetts by methods ranging from persuasion
to Outright Coercion. In Boston, the Chief Justice and sheriffs were unable to find a
juror who would be sworn so that the superior court could meet. To settle its special problems
as the center of conflict with Great Britain, Massachusetts, during the summer, was preparing
for an extra-legal provincial congress in the autumn. County conventions overwhelmingly
They protested the coercive acts and attacked the appointment of officials at royal pleasure,
the destruction of trial by jury, and the payment of government salaries apart from
any control by the representatives of the people.
All implied that even armed resistance would be justified to prevent enforcement of the
the Coercive Acts and called for a provincial congress to organize the opposition.
Town meetings did the same and ratified the county conventions and Brookline voted to
indemnify any town official for any penalty incurred from violating the Coercive Acts.
As Massachusetts resistance grew and deepened and a wall of resistance, nonviolent at least
General Gage became increasingly frightened and trigger-happy. He was under increasing pressure by his superiors to reflect the chauvinist contempt of the British for the Americans. The British leaders held that a mere show of force, a mere cleaving to a hard line, and eschewing the temptation to appeasement, would quickly drive the British government to a standstill.
From the numerous but craven Colonials into line, the military men were eager to crush
the Americans and believed, with the narrowness and vainglory of the military mind, that this
could be accomplished easily. Gage began to follow the classic and fateful path of a minority
in power that is faced with a determined and largely non-violent resistance of the majority.
Decourse to Aggressive Use of State Violence Against the People
Thus Gage tried to use troops to prevent a Salem town meeting called to select delegates
to a county convention of protest. His attempt failed.
Later, on September 1, Gage sent troops into Charlestown and Cambridge to seize cannon
and Ammunition Belonging to the Province of Massachusetts, 20,000 men of the western towns
of Massachusetts quickly gathered in Cambridge to march on Boston, but were persuaded to
turn back by cooler heads who realized that American unity had not yet been sufficiently
forged to back up such a direct attack on the armed forces of Great Britain.
But meanwhile, town meetings and county conventions in Massachusetts were calling for more military
training for its militia in preparation for possible armed resistance.
Despite General Gage's increasing reliance on aggressiveness and bluster, he recognized
that his concrete military situation was precarious.
He urged Britain to send reinforcements and decided in early September to fortify Boston
Neck.
Reacting to the latter plan, Boston workers boycotted the project and refused to help
build the fortifications.
Learning that gauge would apply at New York, Boston's Committee of Mechanics successfully
warned the New Yorkers not to export carpenters to Boston.