unity in
the support of common rights. Without union they knew they were nothing;
with union they felt equal to all things. Thus here were working two of
the elements of our political system, local self-government and American
nationality.

The June mob, the public meetings, the vote of the House of
Representatives, and the union feeling supplied zealous Loyalists with
rich material to pervert into fresh argument for the necessity of
troops to keep the people in order. It was promptly seized upon. The
Commissioners set out the Boston tumults as the heralds of a rebellion
that had begun its course over the continent. They not only sent a batch
of falsehoods to England by Hallowell, but they also sent letters to
General Gage, the Commander-in-Chief, whose head-quarters were in New
York, with a request for troops, and to Commodore Hood at Halifax asking
for more ships. General Gage was surprised at not receiving letters
from the Governor, but with a soldier's promptness he at once (June 24)
tendered to Governor Bernard all the force he might need to preserve the
public peace; yet regarding it as improper to order the King's forces
into a Province to quell a riot without a requisition from the
Executive, he frankly advised the Governor to this effect. But the
Governor did not want troops to quell a riot, and said so; and in answer
to the tender, returned a long and heavy disquisition, showing why,
though he considered troops essential to the promotion of the good of
his country, he did not and would not make a formal requisition for any,
and thus, all unconsciously, betrayed and condemned himself at every
word,--for while he was talking of country, he was thinking of self.
Commodore Hood, believing that the good people of Boston were actually
on the eve of a revolt, and that the precious lives of the Commissioners
were hardly safe in Castle William, where they now were, "immediately
sent two more ships," which, he says, "secured the Castle from all
attempts at surprising it." But, according to Hutchinson, though the
people were mad, yet they were not Don Quixotes, and though a few might
have talked of attacking it, yet the Castle was in no danger, even
though no one of His Majesty's ships had been in the harbor.

The ships promptly arrived, and were moored about Castle William; but no
troops appeared, though early in July the Governor felt sure they were
ordered here from Halifax, from the fact that General Gage sent a ba