Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1901 — AFTER PASSAGE OF PORT BILL. [ARTICLE]

AFTER PASSAGE OF PORT BILL.

veillance over the passers in and out. The British ministry thought to starve Boston into submission, and, believing also that the “pocket nerve” was the particularly sensitive part of the Boston Yankee’s anatomy, hoped by cutting off his trading facilities to bring him to his kneee. The moment Boston’s needs were known, the neighboring towns and the most distant colonies hastened to her assistance. Their sympathy took the practical form of contributions of cattle, sheep, corn, vegetables, fish and other necessities. Then came implements of war from Virginia, where Washington and Patrick Henry were raising small companies of men to go to the aid of starving The functions of the town appear to have been attended to in spite of the presence of a hostile military force, and in no way more systematically than in the town meetings which were held in Faneuil Hall “pursuant to adjournment.” Gage had forbidden the calling of these meetings except as authorized by himself; but Boston would have given up every other privilege of citizenship before she would have yielded this transcendant one. Hence by a little parliamentary device the freeholders kept the town meeting perpetually alive by continuous adjournment. The spectacle of this town of 17,000 inhabitants in the face of a frowning military governor and his soldiers, calmly and openly gathering its citizens to pursue a prohibited civic function, and there in open assembly to concert measures designed to baffle and controvert the schemes of a powerful enemy, boldly too, yet under diplomatic forms, criticising his conduct and questioning his motives, is one that surely approaches the sublime in audacity.