n may get
drunk for a Copper or two." The officers, we have seen, did not set
their men a very good example; but even in their sober senses they were
scarcely conciliatory. They formed burlesque congresses, and marched in
mock procession in the streets, absurdly dressed to represent the
leaders of the Whigs. On the queen's birthday a banquet was held, and
from the balcony of the tavern the toasts were announced, while in the
street a squad of soldiers fired salutes. Toasts to Lord North were not
relished in Boston, and reminders of Culloden were too significant for
those whom the army already called rebels. It is an interesting proof of
the weakness of Gage's hold upon his own army that such childishness
should have been permitted, or that such threats should have been made
to a town that still was within its legal rights.

Beneath these petty quarrels we perceive the fundamental differences.
Over these the more learned of both sides carried on a war of words.
The newspapers teemed with letters, poems, essays, and dissertations;
and Novanglus, Massachusettensis, Vindex, and other pseudo-Romans
endeavored to convert each other, or else to point solemn warnings.
"Remember," writes a yeoman of Suffolk County, "the fate of Wat Tyler,
and think how vain it is for Jack, Sam, or Will to war against Great
Britain, now she is in earnest!... Our leaders are desperate bankrupts!
Our country is without money, stores, or necessaries of war,--without
one place of refuge or defence! If we were called together, we should be
a confused herd, without any disposition to obedience, without a general
of ability to direct and guide us; and our numbers would be our
destruction! Never did a people rebel with so little reason; therefore
our conduct cannot be justified before God!... Rouse, rouse ye,
Massachusetians, while it be yet time! Ask pardon of God, submit to our
king and parliament, whom we have wickedly and grievously offended."[51]

This exclamatory appeal plainly shows a type of mind which often has
saved the British Empire, yet which at periods in history has come near
to ruining it. English conservatism has at most times been invaluable to
the country; but when, as repeatedly under the Stuart kings and again
under George III, it has forsaken its true task in order to support
absolutism, it has brought the ship of state very near to wreck. In
reminding of the fate of Wat Tyler our Suffolk yeoman forgot, if indeed
he ever knew, the