schief by
delaying needed legislation. During the few years preceding the
Revolution, the assemblies were so often dissolved that it became
necessary for the people to devise some new way of getting their
representatives together to act for the colony. In Massachusetts this
end was attained by the famous "Committees of Correspondence." No one
could deny that town-meetings were legal, or that the people of
one township had a right to ask advice from the people of another
township. Accordingly each township appointed a committee to
correspond or confer with committees from other townships. This system
was put into operation by Samuel Adams in 1772, and for the next two
years the popular resistance to the crown was organized by these
committees. For example, before the tea was thrown into Boston
harbour, the Boston committee sought and received advice from every
township in Massachusetts, and the treatment of the tea-ships was from
first to last directed by the committees of Boston and five neighbour
towns.

[Footnote: 9: The kings of France contrived to get along without a
representative assembly from 1614 to 1789, and during this long period
abuses so multiplied that the meeting of the States-General in 1789
precipitated the great revolution which overthrew the monarchy.]

[Sidenote: Provincial Congress]
In 1774 a further step was taken. As parliament had overthrown the old
government, and sent over General Gage as military governor, to put
its new system into operation, the people defied and ignored Gage, and
the townships elected delegates to meet together in what was called a
"Provincial Congress." The president of this congress was the chief
provincial executive officer of the commonwealth, and there was a
small executive council, known as the "Committee of Safety."

[Sidenote: Provisional governments; "governors" and "presidents."]
This provisional government lasted about a year. In the summer of
1775 the people went further. They fell back upon their charter and
proceeded to carry on their government as it had been carried on
before 1774, except that the governor was left out altogether. The
people in town-meeting elected their representatives to a general
assembly, as of old, and this assembly chose a council of twenty-eight
members to sit as an upper house. The president of the council was the
foremost executive officer of the commonwealth, but he had not the
powers of a governor. He was no more the governor