e tradesmen in London."

The population, which was almost stationary through much of the century,
was about 20,000 in the years immediately before the War of
Independence. At this time Boston was the most flourishing town of North
America. It built ships as cheaply as any place in the world, it carried
goods for other colonies, it traded--often evading British laws--with
Europe, Guinea, Madagascar and above all with the West Indies. The
merchant princes and social leaders of the time are painted with
elaborate show of luxury in the canvases of Copley. The great English
writers of Queen Anne's reign seem to have been but little known in the
colony, and the local literature, though changed somewhat in character,
showed but scant improvement. About the middle of the century
restrictions upon the press began to disappear. At the same time
questions of trade, of local politics, finally of colonial autonomy, of
imperial policy, had gradually, but already long since, replaced
theology in leading interest. In the years 1760-1776 Boston was the most
frequently recurring and most important name in British colonial
history. Sentiments of limited independence of the British government
had been developing since the very beginning of the settlement (see
MASSACHUSETTS), and their strength in 1689 had been strikingly exhibited
in the local revolution of that year, when the royal governor, Sir
Edmund Andros, and other high officials, were frightened into surrender
and were imprisoned. This movement, it should be noted, was a popular
rising, and not the work of a few leaders.

The incidents that marked the approach of the War of Independence need
barely be adverted to. Opposition to the measures of the British
government for taxing and oppressing the colonies began in Boston. The
argument of Otis on the writs of assistance was in 1760-1761. The Stamp
Act, passed in 1765, was repealed in 1766; it was opposed in Boston by a
surprising show of determined and unified public sentiment. Troops were
first quartered in the town in 1768. In 1770, on the 5th of March, in a
street brawl, a number of citizens were killed or wounded by the
soldiers, who fired into a crowd that were baiting a sentry. This
incident is known as the "Boston Massacre." The Tea Act of 1773 was
defied by the emptying into the harbour of three cargoes of tea on the
16th of December 1773, by a party of citizens disguised as Indians,
after the people in town-meeting had exhau