make a formal requisition for any, and thus, all unconsciously, betrayed and condemned himself at every word,—­for while he was talking of country, he was thinking of self.  Commodore Hood, believing that the good people of Boston were actually on the eve of a revolt, and that the precious lives of the Commissioners were hardly safe in Castle William, where they now were, “immediately sent two more ships,” which, he says, “secured the Castle from all attempts at surprising it.”  But, according to Hutchinson, though the people were mad, yet they were not Don Quixotes, and though a few might have talked of attacking it, yet the Castle was in no danger, even though no one of His Majesty’s ships had been in the harbor.

The ships promptly arrived, and were moored about Castle William; but no troops appeared, though early in July the Governor felt sure they were ordered here from Halifax, from the fact that General Gage sent a batch of despatches, under cover to him, addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, the senior British officer in command at that station.  On forwarding these despatches, Bernard wrote to Dalrymple,—­“You know that my situation requires that I should appear to know as little in the proceedings of this kind as can well be.  I should, therefore, be obliged to you, if in conducting a business of this kind you would let me appear a stranger to it until it becomes necessary to communicate it to me officially.  In the mean time any private hints, conveyed to me by a safe hand, will be acceptable.”

A straightforward British officer must have conceived contempt for such an official, even before subsequent action on the part of this official elicited an expression of it.

The Governor was doomed to disappointment.  The orders which he transmitted merely placed troops in readiness to proceed to Boston on his requisition, which requisition he steadily refused to make, and he wrote,—­“The crisis awaits the arrival of the troops, and I now learn they are not coming.”  He next officially laid the tender of the Commanding General before the Council, when he found that its members were unanimously of the opinion that troops were not required.  Now this body contained decided Loyalists; and this unanimity of opinion appears to have amazed the Governor.  He advised Lord Barrington, that the fact convinced him that he could “no longer depend upon the Council for the support of the small remains of royal and parliamentary power now left, the whole of which had been gradually impeached, arraigned, and condemned under his eye”; which was arrant party-misrepresentation.  He further expressed the opinion that the sending of troops to Boston ought to be a business of quartering and cantonment.  “It is no secret,” he said, “that this ought to have been done two years and a half ago.  If it had, there would have been no opposition to Parliament now, and above all, no such combinations as threaten (but I hope vainly) the overthrow of the British Empire.  If provision was to have been made against faction and sedition, the head-quarters should have been secured.”  Instead of this, “Boston has been left under a trained mob from August 14, 1765, to this present July 23, 1768.”