two hundred miles. And now members of the
Council flocked to the Governor and demanded a meeting of this imposing
body; and a meeting was promptly held at a gentleman's residence
half-way between Boston and Jamaica Plain, where, after grave debate
about taking down the barrel, it was finally voted to make a formal
demand on the Board of Selectmen to order it to be done. On the next
day, (Sunday,) the Fathers of the Town held a special meeting to
consider the vote of the Council, which resulted in declining to act on
this matter of taking down the barrel as too trivial. About the hour of
dining, on this day, however, Sheriff Greenleaf gave some peace to the
frightened officials by repairing to Beacon Hill with half a dozen
others and removing the obnoxious barrel, which proved to be empty. The
public did not hear the last of this affair for months, as may be seen
in the affidavits about it, afterwards, in the journals.

There was really no ground for all this alarm. The popular leaders, from
the excited state of the public mind, might have been apprehensive of an
explosion from the rash, which they meant, if possible, to prevent, and
if it came, to repress; but the Loyalist leaders would have it that
there was a deep-laid plot even for a revolution. "It is now known," is
Governor Bernard's malicious misrepresentation, as he reviewed these
scenes and justified the introduction of the troops, "that the plan was
to seize the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and take possession of the
treasury, and then set up their standard." He said that five hundred men
had been enrolled to take the Castle, and it was likely that the names,
at least of the chief of them, would be discovered. There is no such
list in thirteen folio volumes of his correspondence. Hutchinson's
misrepresentation was as mischievous, but more cautious; for he assured
his British correspondents that at the time when the troops landed in
Boston the Province was on the brink of ruin, and that their arrival
prevented the most extravagant measures,--though, he said, he did not
certainly know what the dark designs of the heads of the opposition
were.

On the morning of the town-meeting, (September 12,) Governor Bernard
believed that the popular leaders were resolved not merely to capture
the crown officials, but to resume the first charter, which, he said,
had not a single ingredient of royalty in it. But while he was looking
for insurrection, a committee of the hig