In this way Massachusetts, when called upon to stand by old customs and rights, acted not only in a spirit of fidelity to liberty, but also in a spirit of loyalty to law and order.  Her conduct in the Stamp Act crisis turned towards her the eyes and drew towards her the hearts of the other Colonies, and elevated her into what was then a perilous, but is now a proud, pre-eminence; and the call was made on her (1767) in the journals of other Colonies, and copied into the Boston papers, as “the liberties of a common country were again in danger,” “to kindle the sacred flame that should warm and illuminate the continent.”  So instinctively did the common peril suggest the thought and expression of a common country.

The Loyalists, for years, put Boston as in a pillory for punishment.  It was (they said) the head-quarters of sedition.  It was the fountain of opposition to the Government.  It was under the rule of a trained mob.  It was swayed to and fro by a few popular leaders.  It was the nest of a faction.  James Otis and Samuel Adams were the two consuls.  Joseph Warren was one of the chiefs.  John Hancock was possessed of great wealth and of large social and commercial influence.  Such leaders, bankrupts on the exchange or in character, controlled everything.  They controlled the clubs,—­and there was not a social company or political club that did not claim to have to do with the Government:  they controlled the town-meetings,—­and these were the instrumentalities of rebellion:  and the town-meetings controlled the legislature, and this controlled the Province.  Then the local press was filled with incendiary matter from the cabinet of the faction.  Thus the spirits who led in the clubs, the town-meetings, and the legislature supplied the seditious writing that was scattered broadcast over the Colonies, and poisoned as it spread.

There was some truth in this Loyalist strain.  Patriotic rays gathered and drew to a focus in Boston, and there became intensified with a steady power.  The town had jealousies to encounter and prejudices to overcome; but, as if to the manner born, it acted in a spirit of such comprehensive patriotism that it came to be regarded as an exponent of the feelings of the whole country.  Its key-note was Union.  In fitting words Philadelphia (1768) grandly said to Boston,—­“Let us never forget that our strength depends on our union, and our liberty on our strength; united we conquer, divided we die.”  Boston returned the pledge, “warmly to recommend and industriously to promote that union among the several Colonies which is so indispensably necessary for the security of the whole.”