George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[31] dinated to loyalty.¹ ‘A few individuals’² at Boston,

Chap. XXVII.} 1766. Oct.

having celebrated the anniversary of the outbreak against the Stamp Act, care was taken to report, how healths had been drunk to Otis, ‘the American Hampden, who first proposed the Congress;’³ ‘to the Virginians,’ who sounded the alarm to the country; to Paoli and the struggling Corsicans; to the spark of Liberty that was thought to have been kindled in Spain. From Bernard, who made the restraints on commerce intolerable by claiming the legal penalty of treble forfeits from merchants whom his own long collusion had tempted to the infraction of a revenue law, came unintermitted complaints of illicit trade. At Falmouth, now Portland, an attempt to seize goods under the disputed authority of Writs of Assistance, had been defeated by a mob;⁴ and the disturbance was made to support a general accusation against the Province. At Boston, Charles Paxton, the Marshal of the Court of Admiralty, came with the Sheriff and a similar warrant, to search the house of Daniel Malcom⁵ for a second time; but the stubborn patriot refused to open his doors, which they dared not break down, so doubtful were they of their right; and when the altercation attracted a crowd, they withdrew, pretending to have been obstructed by a riotous and tumultuous assemblage, These incidents, by themselves of little moment, were secretly