For the aspects of political leadership in Parliament during 1775-76, and the struggles in debates, see the _Parliamentary History_ and the _Amer. Archives_,[319] and we may offset among the general histories the Tory sympathies of Adolphus (_England_, ii. ch. 24) with the liberal tendencies of Massey (_Hist. of England_), but the lives of the principal leaders bring us a little nearer to the spirits of the hour.[320]
During 1775 Franklin in London was maintaining his correspondence with his American friends,[321] and conferring with Chatham upon plans of conciliation,[322] and discussing the ways of compromise with Lord and Lady Howe.[323]
"YOU must be firm, resolute, and cautious; but discover no marks of timidity", wrote one from London to James Bowdoin, February 20, 1774.[324] Firm, resolute, cautious, but bold! This was the impelling spirit of the hour. Hutchinson was at the same time writing to Dartmouth that anarchy was likely to increase, till point after point was carried, and every tie of allegiance was severed.[325] Indications were increasing that the conflict of argument and the burst of political passion were before long to give way to the trial of force, and to the inevitable severing of friends which a resort to arms would entail. All this was prefigured on the first of June, 1774, when Hutchinson, bearing with him the addresses of his admirers,[326] left his house on Milton Hill forever, and walked along the road, bidding his neighbors good-bye at their gates; when, as he approached Dorchester Neck, he got into his carriage, which had followed him, and was driven to the point, where he took boat, was conveyed to a frigate, and in a short time was passing out by Boston light, leaving behind the line of ships at their moorings, which, with shotted guns, marked the beginning of the Boston blockade. That severing of friends and that threat of war was at that moment, away off in Virginia, accompanied by the tolling of bells out of sympathy for Boston. The Massachusetts yeomanry had not yet openly seized the musket, but their tribune, Sam. Adams, a few days later, turned the key upon the governor's secretary in Salem, when that officer was sent to dissolve the assembly. It was then that Adams and his associates proceeded to pass votes, with no intention of submitting them to the executive approval,—the beginning of the end, which we have seen Hutchinson but a few months before had anticipated. Between the upper and the nether mill-stone, between the patriots of Massachusetts and the Tories of Parliament, the charter of William and Mary was rapidly crushed. Parliament determined that all power should come from them, and the province leaders determined otherwise. So the distribution of authority provided under the charter ceased. The rival powers in and around Boston could not long abstain from force. Each watched the other, in the hopes of a pretext to be beforehand, without being the aggressor.