n the events that were said to have occasioned their presence.
The pretext, the obnoxious proceedings of the eighteenth of March, was
characterized as the trifling hallooing of a harmless procession; the
mob of the tenth of June was more serious, but was soon over; but on
the all-important and vital point of allegiance, they might have seen
expressed, in the weighty words of the Council, infinite regret at the
reflection which that show of force implied on the loyalty of the people
to their sovereign, who had not in his wide-extended dominions any more
faithful subjects than in the town of Boston. And what really was the
offence of the Patriots? They had resolved, they had petitioned, they
had agreed not to import or to buy British goods. But they were not
law-breakers, for they could triumphantly challenge their opponents to
produce a single instance since the tenth of June of an interruption of
the public peace or of resistance to law; and they were not political
heretics, for the principles of colonial administration which they stood
on were such as their countrymen unanimously now indorse, and British
statesmanship is now pleased to accept. Yet they were threatened in the
streets with the whipping-post and the pillory, with the loss of their
ears or their heads,--and in official instructions, printed in the
journals, with transportation to England for trial. This last threat was
serious. The Government proposed to make arrests under a statute of the
reign of Henry VIII.: actually designed (Lord Mahon's words) "to draw
forth the mouldering edict of a tyrant from the dust where it had long
lain, and where it ever deserved to lie, and to fling it" against a band
of popular leaders who were wisely and well supporting a most sacred
cause. But these leaders were not actuated by the fanaticism that is
always blind and often cruel, nor by the ambition that is unworthy and
is then reckless and criminal; but, with a clear apprehension of their
ground and definite notions of policy, they went forward with no
faltering step. Their calm and true statement through the press
was,--"It is the part this town has taken on the side of Liberty,
and its noble exertions in favor of the rights of America, that have
rendered it so obnoxious to the tools of arbitrary power." "We are now
[October 3, 1768] become a spectacle to all North America. May our
conduct be such as not to disgrace ourselves or injure the common
cause!"

Thus wove the