were sincere.  The turn of the words showed the honest bent of the mind.  No man respected the English Constitution more than Samuel Adams, and his strong language now (1768) was,—­“I pray God that harmony may be cultivated between Great Britain and the Colonies, and that they may long flourish in one undivided empire.”  His resolution was no less strong to stand for local self-government.  As the idea began to be entertained that the preservation of this right might require a new nationality, nothing legs worthy for country was thought of than a union of all the Colonies in an American commonwealth, with one constitution, which should be supreme over all in questions common to country, and have one flag.  The great idea was expressed by New Jersey, that the continent must protect the continent.

This idea of creating a new nationality was forced on the Colonies by wanton aggressions on the local self-government.  There was far from unanimity of opinion as to the acts, much less as to the ascribed purposes of the Ministry.  Setting aside a class of no-party men in peace and of non-combatants in war, the people of Boston, as of other places, were divided into the friends and the opponents of the Administration, Loyalists and Whigs.  The Whigs held that the new policy was flat aggression on the old republican way, hostile to their normal political life,—­in a word, unconstitutional:  the Loyalists maintained that the new policy was required to preserve the dependence on Great Britain, and therefore a necessity.  The Whigs, zealous as they were for the local government, claimed to be loyal to the King:  the Loyalists, however zealous for the independence of Parliament, claimed, in supporting the supremacy of law, to be friends of freedom.  As it was not the original purpose of the Loyalists to invoke for their country the curse of arbitrary power, so it was not the original purpose of the Whigs to sever relations with the British crown.  Men, however, are but instruments in the hands of Providence.  Both parties drifted into measures which neither party originally proposed or even desired; and thus the Loyalist, to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, grew into the defender of arbitrary power, and the Whig, to preserve the local government, grew into the asserter of national independence.

Nor was there unanimity among the Patriots themselves as to the way in which the Revenue Acts ought to be opposed; indeed, some were averse to making any opposition to them; but at length the policy of uniting the Colonies in the non-importation agreement, after being talked over at one of the political clubs in Boston, was agreed upon at a public meeting, and sent out to the country.  Hence this was the period fixed upon by the Ministry as the time when the popular leaders made themselves liable to the penalties of violated law.  When, in England, the idea was entertained and acted upon, that nothing would restore the authority of the Government but the arrest and transportation