e introduction of the troops; for to admit such a
function in the Council, he said, was to concede a power inconsistent
with the Constitution. "It is you," are the official words, "to whom the
Crown has delegated its authority, and you alone are responsible for the
best use of it."

This action was unknown to the popular leaders, and the month of August
passed in doubt as to whether the Ministers would be persuaded to
quarter troops in Boston. The town was remarkably quiet, when the
Governor issued (August 3, 1768) a proclamation against riots, and
calling all magistrates to suppress tumults and unlawful assemblies, and
to restore vigor and firmness to the Government. "It cannot be wondered
at," said "Determinatus," (August 8,) in the "Gazette," "if the
mother-country should think that we are in a state of confusion equal
to what we hear from the orderly and very polite cities of London and
Westminster. There, we are told, is the weavers' mob, the seamen's mob,
the tailors' mob, the coal-miners' mob, and some say the clergy's mob;
and, in short, it is to be feared the whole kingdom, always excepting
the * * * * and P----t, will unite in one general scene of tumult.
I sincerely pray for the peace and prosperity of the nation and her
colonies, whose interest, if she would open her eyes, she would clearly
discern to be undivided." The journals during this month have full
details of these mobs. The coal-heavers of Wapping destroyed property
and committed murders, and two thousand keel-men and sailors of
Sunderland fairly beat off the King's troops that were sent against them
from Newcastle. Happily such want of reverence for law was unknown in
Boston or the Province. Still the Governor kept on representing that he
was under the control of a mob; and another day of rejoicing gave
him another opportunity of misrepresenting the people. This was the
fourteenth of August, being the third celebration of the uprising
against the Stamp Act. In the procession on this occasion there was one
man who had had a hand in the attack on the Lieutenant-Governor's house
on the twenty-sixth of August, and had in consequence incurred the
penalty of death, and who was now celebrating his mob-exploits; and at
the head of the procession were two Boston merchants, who thus were
charged with countenancing mobs. The Governor well knew that the
Patriots abhorred the outrages of the twenty-sixth of August as much as
they gloried in the uprising against