een long interrupted by the artifices of
interested and designing men."

The House of Representatives, after much private consultation among its
leading members, proceeded with closed doors to the consideration and
adoption, by a majority of 92 to 12, of resolutions declaring the
necessity of a general meeting of all the colonies in Congress, "in
order to consult together upon the present state of the colonies, and
the miseries to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of
certain Acts of Parliament respecting America; and to deliberate and
determine upon wise and proper measures to be by them recommended to all
the colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and
liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony
between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently to be desired by
all good men." They elected five gentlemen to represent Massachusetts
to the proposed Congress.

The House also proceeded with all expedition to draw up a declaration of
their sentiments, to be published as a rule for the conduct of the
people of Massachusetts. "This declaration," says Dr. Andrews,
"contained a repetition of grievances; the necessity they were now under
of struggling against lawless power; the disregard of their petitions,
though founded on the clearest and most equitable reasons; the evident
intention of Great Britain to destroy the Constitution transmitted to
them from their ancestors, and to erect upon its ruins a system of
absolute sway, incompatible with their disposition and subversive of the
rights they had uninterruptedly enjoyed during the space of more than a
century and a half. Impelled by these motives, they thought it their
duty to advise the inhabitants of Massachusetts to throw every
obstruction in their power in the way of such evil designs, and
recommended as one of the most effectual, a total disuse of all
importations from Great Britain until an entire redress had been
obtained of every grievance.

"Notwithstanding the secrecy with which this business was carried on,"
continues Dr. Andrews, "the Governor was apprized of it; and on the very
day it was completed, and the report of it made to the House (and
adopted), he dissolved the Assembly, which was the last that was held in
that colony agreeably to the tenor of the Charter."[338]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 325: "The discontents and disorders continue to prevail in a
greater or less degree through