import them, contrary to the late agreement; and another committee to inspect the manifests of the cargoes of all vessels arriving from Great Britain, and to publish the names of all importers, unless they immediately delivered their goods into the hands of a committee appointed to receive them.
The vacillating course of the English ministry deserves to be specially noted. Weakness and folly seemed to characterize most of their plans with regard to America. Steadily bent upon obtaining revenue from the colonies, Parliament, at one moment, were for enforcing their laws; at the next, they gave way for their repeal. Doing and undoing, threatening and retracting, straining and relaxing, followed one after the other as occasion required. Anxious to establish the supremacy of Parliament, but afraid to stem the vigorous opposition of the colonies, they endeavored to pass such laws as would meet the wishes of the government, without rousing the resistance of the colonists. Had the British ministry been magnanimous enough to frankly and fully yield the point in dispute, as to the right of taxation without representation, the colonies, we doubt not, would have met them in the same spirit with which they proposed to settle the matter. On the other hand, if England seriously contemplated the use of force, nothing could have been more unwise and inexpedient than to make partial concessions, to hesitate, and to employ only a show of force which irritated, without compelling obedience or even respect.
Possibly the differences between the parties might now have been amicably settled; but it was only a bare possibility; neither side was disposed to yield, and the Americans were every day becoming less and less inclined to be in subjection to, and dependent upon, a government three thousand miles removed from them and their interests. The natural and inalienable rights of men began more and more to be inquired into. Reflections and discussions on this subject produced a high sense of the value of liberty, and a general conviction that there could be no security for their property, if they were to be taxed at the discretion of a British Parliament, in which they were unrepresented, and over which they had no control. A determination not only to oppose the claim of taxation, but to keep a strict watch, lest it might be established in some disguised form, took possession of the public mind.
The presence of the military in Boston was a perpetual source of irritation and excitement, and it was hardly possible but that collision must soon take place. The soldiers looked on the people as turbulent, factious, and needing discipline; the people regarded the soldiers as instruments of tyranny and outrage. Mutual insults and provocations were the result. At last a serious collision took place on the evening of March 5th. An excited mob, smarting under a sense of defeat in a street fight a few days before, armed themselves with clubs and began to abuse the soldiers in the grossest manner; these, on their part, were with difficulty restrained from marching out and foiling on the mob. The
