The Siege of Boston was the culmination of a series of events which will always be of importance in the history of America. From the beginning of the reign of George the Third, the people of the English colonies in the new world found themselves at variance with their monarch, and nowhere more so than in Massachusetts. Since the New England people were fitted by their temperament and history to take the lead in the struggle, at their chief town naturally took place the more important incidents. These, which were often dramatic, had nevertheless a political cause and significance which link them in a rising series that ended in a violent outbreak and the eleven months' leaguer.

As to the siege itself, it varies an old situation, for Boston was beset by its own neighbors in defence of the common rights. Previously the king's troops, though regarded as invaders, had been but half-hearted oppressors; it was the people themselves who persistently provoked difficulties. The siege proper is of striking military interest, for its hostilities begin by the repulse of an armed expedition into a community of farmers, continue with a pitched battle between regular troops and a militia, produce a general of commanding abilities, and end with a strategic move of great skill and daring. It is the first campaign of a great war, and precedes the birth of a nation. Politically, the cause of the struggle is of enduring consequence to mankind. Socially, the siege and its preliminaries bring to view people of all kinds, some weak, some base, some picturesque, some entirely admirable. The period shows the breaking up of an old society and the formation of a new. A study of the siege is therefore of value.

It will be observed that the siege cannot satisfactorily be considered as a distinct series of military or semi-military events, abruptly beginning and still more abruptly ending. Such a view would reduce the siege to a mere matter of local history, having little connection with the larger movements of the American Revolution, and appearing almost as an accident which might have happened at any other centre of sufficient population.[1] On the contrary, neither the siege nor the Revolution were accidents of history. That the Revolution was bound to come about, and that its beginnings were equally bound to be at Boston, these were conditioned in the nature, first of the colonists in general, and second of the New Englanders in particular. However striking were certain of the occurrences, they were of less importance than their causes and consequences.

Accordingly I shall consider as an organic series the more important of those events which happened in Boston during the reign of George the Third, and which ended when the last of his redcoats departed from the town. In fact, in order to be perfectly intelligible I must first devote a few pages to a consideration of previous conditions.

"Any one," wrote George E. Ellis in the "Memorial History of Boston,"[2] "who attempts to trace the springs, the occasions, and the directing forces of the revolt ... cannot find his clew a year short of the date when the former self-governed Colony of Massachusetts Bay became a Royal Province." He is right in pointing out that in 1692 the struggle took open form. Yet even then the controversy was not new. In other form it had been carried on for more than half a century previous. Its ultimate origin lay in the fact that the very charter under which the colony was planted differed from all other documents granted by any English king.

This difference lay in the omission of the condition, usual in such charters, that its governing board should meet in London practically for the purpose of supervision by the king. That the omission of this condition was the result of wisdom on the part of the founders, and stupidity on the part of the officers of the king, seems undeniable. The founders, unhappy and alarmed at the political and religious situation in England under Charles the First, were seeking to provide for themselves and their families a refuge from his oppressions. Secure in their charter, they presently left England for good. When they sailed for America they did all that could be done to cut themselves off from interference by the crown.

At intervals, extremely valuable for the future of America, the Massachusetts colony certainly was free of all restraint. Charles's benediction seems to have been "Good riddance!" From the crown the colonists received no assistance whatever, and it was long both their boast and their plea that they had planted the colony "at their own expense." They were left to work out their own salvation.[3] As a result, their passionate desire for freedom from interference by the king grew into the feeling that they had earned it as a right. Englishmen they were still, and subjects of the king; but to the privileges of Englishmen they had added the right to manage their own affairs. The English king and the English law were to help them in their difficulties and to settle cases of appeal. In return they would grant money and fight for the king when necessary; but in the meantime they would live by themselves.

Taking advantage of the clause in their charter which authorized them "to ordain and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes, and ordinances," they speedily took to themselves everything but the name of independence. They instituted courts for all purposes, set up their legislative government, raised their own taxes, whether general or local, and perfected that wonderful instrument of resistance to oppression, New England town government. They even coined money. And, different from most of the other colonies, they chose their governor from among their own number.

Distance and home difficulties—for the Stuart kings usually had their hands full of trouble with their subjects—favored the non-interference which the colonists craved. When, however, the Stuarts had any leisure at all, they at once devoted it to quarrelling with their subjects in New England. Even to the easy-going Charles II the cool aloofness of the colonists was a bit too strong; to his father and brother it was intolerable.

The invariable methods of the colonists, when facing a demand from the king, were evasion and delay. "Avoid or protract" were Winthrop's own words in 1635. In 1684 the General Court wrote advising their attorney, employed in England in defending the charter, "to spin out the case to the uttermost."[4] Once and once only until the Revolution—in the case of the seizing of Andros—did the men of Massachusetts proceed to action. Their habitual policy was safe, and, on the whole, successful. Slow communication (one voyage of commissioners from Boston to England took three months), and the existence in England of a strong party of friends, helped powerfully to obscure and obliterate the issues. Yet Charles I in 1640, and James II in 1689, made preparations to reduce the colony to proper subjection, by force if necessary.

It was doubtless well for Massachusetts that both Charles and James were presently dethroned, for against the power of England no successful resistance could then have been made. New England, indeed, might have been united against the king, but it is very unlikely that the other colonies would have given their help. Some generations more were needed before the aristocrats of Virginia could feel themselves at one with the Puritans of New England.

Yet it is interesting to notice the spirit of Massachusetts. On the news of Charles's intentions the colony prepared for resistance. In James's time it went a step further. When the news came of the expedition of William of Orange, Massachusetts cast in its lot with him. Without waiting to learn the result of the struggle, Boston rose against James's unpopular governor, and imprisoned him in the Castle. The act was heroic, for the Bloody Assizes had taught the world what punishment the cowardly king meted out to rebels.

It will be noticed that the political status of Massachusetts was already changed. After many delays Charles II had abrogated the charter. His death followed almost immediately, and Andros had been appointed at the head of a provisional government. Doubtless the resistance to him had been inspired by the hope that the old charter might be restored. Instead, William, when once secure on the throne, issued a new charter. Under its provisions the colony, now a province, lived until the Revolution. In order that the events leading up to the siege may be understood, it will be well to consider the provisions of the new governmental machinery.

At the head of the province were to be a governor and a lieutenant-governor, both appointed by the king. Their powers were executive, with the right of veto over legislation, and also over certain appointments by the legislature. Laws passed by this legislature and not vetoed by the governor or the king were to go in force three years after their enactment. The legislature had two houses, the lower a popular chamber, called the Assembly, elected by the towns. The upper branch was called the Council. The first Council was appointed by the king; later members were to be nominated by the Assembly for the approval of the governor. The Assembly and Council formed together the Great and General Court. Judges were to be chosen by the governor and Council, but all officers were to be paid by the General Court. As will be seen later, in the case of the Writs of Assistance, appeal could be taken to the English courts.

And now for the first time became evident the fact that three generations of practical independence had bred in America a race of men—or it may be better to say had fostered a school of thought—that never could agree in submitting to a distant and arbitrary authority. In the seventy years which followed, New England showed this spirit in many ways. The most prominent cause of disagreement was the question of the governor's prerogatives, resulting in constant bickerings with the crown.

The principle, of course, lay deeper still. On the one side were sovereigns whose powers were not yet definitely restricted, and who were likely to resent any apparent tendency to make them less. On the other side was a people who had progressed far in self-government, and who resisted any limitation of their rights. It is not the purpose of this book to trace the earlier unification of the colonies under pressure from without. By the year 1760 that process was approaching completion; there was, therefore, in America a stronger feeling than ever, while across the water was that new ruler into whose youthful ears his mother had continually dinned the words, "George, be king!"

It is well to understand the status of a colony in those days, and the difficulties with which its inhabitants struggled. Yet it is hard for the modern man to conceive the restrictions upon freedom. From earliest days there had been discontent with the king's claim to the finest trees in the public forests, the "mast trees" which, reserved for the king's navy, no man might lawfully cut.[5] Exportation of lumber, except to England and the British West Indies, was long illegal. Trade with the French and Spanish islands was prohibited entirely, and trade in many products of home manufacture (tobacco, sugar, wool, dye-stuffs, furs, are prominent examples) was forbidden "to any place but Great Britain—even to Ireland."[6] Certain merchandise might be imported at will, subject to duty; but most articles could be bought, and sold, only through Great Britain.

Further, internal commerce and manufacture were severely hampered. No wool or woollen product might be carried from one province to another. The Bible might not be printed. The making of hats was almost entirely suppressed. The manufacture of iron, on a scale sufficient to compete with English wares, was practically prohibited—as a "nuisance."[7]

Under all these restrictions the colonies were not as yet restive. To be sure there were smuggling and illicit trade, and grievances in plenty; yet the stress of colonial life, the continual danger from the north and west, had kept the provincials satisfied as a body. And now, at the opening of the reign of George III, with the French driven out of Canada and the Mississippi Valley, and the Indians subdued, there should have been concord between the colonists and the king.

The comparison between the two is very striking, while at the same time it is not easily brought home to the city dweller of to-day. City government gives the individual a chance to bury himself in the mass, and to avoid his duties; further, our cities are now many, and very large, while we are notoriously patient under misrule. In 1760, on the other hand, few towns had as yet adopted city government. Boston was the largest town, and its population was little more than fifteen thousand. So well did its enemies understand one reason for its truculence, that they even considered means to force upon the town a city charter. The question came, however, to no definite proposition. The town therefore proceeded with its open discussion of all public questions, with its right of free speech in town meetings extended even to strangers, and with its viva voce vote letting each man know where his neighbor stood. "The town" was an entity of which each man felt himself a part. As a whole, its self-consciousness was like that of an individual: it could feel a trespass on its privileges as quickly as could the haughtiest monarch of the old world. And all New England was filled with towns whose feelings, on all essential points, were one and the same.

Against the town-meetings of America stood George III, as determined to assert his prerogatives as was any member of the house of Stuart. Still comparatively young, he had not yet learned that there are limitations of power, even to a king. And it was to the misfortune of his empire that there were few in England to teach him.

For the old Puritan middle class of the Stuart days was gone. Its fibre had softened; the class itself had disappeared in the easier-going masses of a more prosperous day. For seventy-five years England had had no internal dissensions, and her foreign wars had added to her wealth and contentment. To her well-wishers it seemed as if the people had given itself to sloth and indulgence. "I am satisfied," wrote Burke, "that, within a few years, there has been a great change in the national character. We seem no longer that eager, inquisitive, jealous, fiery people which we have been formerly, and which we have been a very short time ago."[8] England was the country of Tom Jones, hearty and healthy, but animated by no high principles and keyed to no noble actions. It needed the danger of the Napoleonic wars to bring out once more the sturdy manliness of the nation. Through all the earlier reign of George III there was, to be sure, a remainder of the old high-minded spirit. Chatham and Rockingham, Burke, Barre, and others, spoke in public and private for the rights of the colonists, to whom their encouragement gave strength. But the greater part of the English people was so indifferent to the moral and political significance of the quarrel that the king was practically able to do as he pleased.

He proceeded on the assumption that every man had his price. The assumption was unhappily too correct, for he was able to gather round him, in Parliament or the civil service, his own party, the "King's Friends," who served him for the profit that they got. No tale of modern corruption can surpass the record of their plundering of a nation. With this goes a story of gambling, drinking, and general loose living which, while the attention is concentrated on it, rouses the belief that the nation was wholly degenerate, until the recollection of the remnant, Chatham and the party of the Earl of Rockingham, gives hope of the salvation of the country.

At any rate, for more than fifteen years of his reign the king was in the ascendant. There was no party to depose him, scarcely one strong enough to curb him, even at times of popular indignation. He was, therefore, as no other king had been before him, able to force the issue upon the colonies, in spite of the protests of the few friends of liberty. In complete ignorance of the strength of the colonists, both in resources and in purpose, he proceeded to insist upon his rights. When it is remembered that those rights, according to his interpretation of them, were to tax without representation, to limit trade and manufactures, and to interfere at will in the management of colonial affairs, it will be seen that he was playing with fire.

The danger will appear the greater if it is considered that the population of the colonies had not progressed, like that of England, to days of easy tolerance. The Americans, and especially the New Englanders, were of the same stuff as those who had beheaded Charles I, and driven James II from his kingdom. They had among their military officers plenty of such men as Pomeroy, who, destined to fight at Bunker Hill, wrote from the siege of Louisburg: "It looks as if our campaign would last long; but I am willing to stay till God's time comes to deliver the city into our hands."[9] Many besides himself wrote, and even spoke, in Biblical language. There were still heard, in New England, the echoes of the "Great Awakening"; the preaching of Whitefield and others had everywhere roused a keen religious feeling, and the people were as likely as ever to open town-meeting with prayer, and to go into battle with psalms.

Such, then, were the contestants in the struggle. On the one side was the king with his privileges, backed by his Parliamentary majority, and having at command an efficient army and navy, and a full treasury. There was at hand no one to resist him successfully at home, none to whose warnings he would listen. And on the other side were the colonists, quite capable of fighting for what they knew to be the "rights of Englishmen." Both hoped to proceed peaceably. In ignorance, each was hoping for the impossible, for the king would not retreat, and the colonists would not yield. As soon as each understood the other's full intention, there would be a rupture.