it could
not have been popular; but it discharged an ungracious task in an
ungracious way; and so singularly ill-judged was its action, that, while
it excited odium here, it elicited censure in England.

The Commissioners were full believers in the theory that the popular
leaders designed insurrection. The Governor, in a letter to Lord
Barrington, (March 8, 1768,) relates that they would ask him what
support he could give them, "if there should be insurrection." "I
answer," Bernard says, "'None at all.' They then desire me to apply to
the General for troops. I tell them I cannot do it; for I am directed to
consult the Council about requiring troops, and they will never advise
it, let the case be ever so desperate. Indeed, I no more dare apply
for troops than the Council dare advise me to it. Ever since I have
perceived that the wickedness of some and the folly of others will in
the end bring troops here, I have conducted myself so as to be able to
say, and swear to it, if the Sons of Liberty shall require it, that
I have never applied for troops; and therefore, my Lord, I beg that
nothing I now write may be considered such an application." This is a
fair show for this royal official. He begins his letter by telling how,
within ten days just passed, nights have been twice fixed upon for a
mob; at the close, he returns to the matter of a mob, and tells how he
has promised the Commissioners an asylum at the Castle in case of a
mob; and he warns his superior that a mob, unchecked, "might put the
Commissioners and all their officers on board ship, and send them back
to England." This was the Governor's method of not asking for troops.
The Commissioners, at least, asked for troops in a manly way. "About a
fortnight ago," Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson writes, (March 23, 1768,)
"I was in consultation with the Commissioners. They were very desirous
the Governor should----for a R----. If he had done it, by some means
or other it would have transpired, and there is no saying to what
lengths the people would have gone in their resentment." The letter just
cited explains why the Governor did not send for a regiment.

A few days after this consultation the Patriots celebrated the
anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act by a day of general
rejoicing. There were things that could be perverted, and were
perverted, into signs of mob-rule and disloyalty. Daylight revealed
hanging on the Liberty Tree effigies of Commissioner Paxton an