measures," and to act in every constitutional way for
the preservation of invaluable rights. The Governor, as usual, acting
on his theory of insurrection, held that the Convention was designed to
mature plans for it; and he wrote (September l6) to Lord Hillsborough as
to his own plans,--"For my own part, if I had any place of protection
to resort to, I would publish a proclamation against the assembling of
the Convention, but I dare not take so spirited a step without first
securing my retreat"; and, with unusual good sense, he expressed "much
doubt whether the force already ordered by General Gage, namely, two
regiments, would be sufficient" to fight off the original charter, and
to keep the crown officers in their places. There was a small party who
were in favor of resuming the old charter; but the union of the towns of
Massachusetts, and then the union of all the Colonies, for the sake of
continued union with Great Britain, was the key of the action of the
leaders who were the exponents of the Patriots. They did not contemplate
going into acts of government; and neither now nor in the future did
they ever contemplate "sudden and unconnected measures."

Three days later (September 19) Governor Bernard threw off all disguise.
He formally announced to the Council that troops were coming, and asked
this body to provide them quarters. And now began a long, irritating,
and arrogant endeavor on the part of the Executive to browbeat the local
authorities in the matter of providing quarters for the troops. The
official record is voluminous. The Patriots kept strictly to the law,
and won a moral victory: the royal officials persisted in virtually
urging burly British will as law, and suffered the shame of an
ignominious defeat. The Governor thought the Government had received
a blow that made it reel; and, in a garrulous, complaining letter,
supplies not only a vivid idea of the whole of this struggle, but an
idea of his well-deserved individual mortification. "The account up
to this time," (October 30, 1768,) he wrote, "will end in my having
employed myself from September nineteenth to October twenty-sixth, that
is, thirty-eight days, in endeavoring to procure quarters for the two
regiments here to no purpose. For having during this time been bandied
about from one to another, I at length got positive refusals from every
one that I could apply to, that is, the Council, the Selectmen, and the
Justices of the Peace; upon which