and, on their departure, were handsomely complimented in both the Whig and Tory journals for the manner in which they had discharged their duties.  They were, however, no mere lookers-on, and their official representations and conclusions were no more far-reaching than those of their superiors.  Hood, from Halifax, wrote in harsh terms of Boston, although he put on record severe and true things of that chronic local infliction, the Commissioners of the Customs.  His official letters, printed this year, were open to sharp criticism, which they received in the journals.  Not, however, until the publication of the Cavendish Debates was it known that General Mackay, who was regarded as uncommonly liberal, received every personal attention, and was the most complimented by the press, stood up in the House of Commons, soon after his arrival in England, and maligned Boston in severe terms.  He charged the town with being without government; said it was tyrannized over by a set of men hardly respectable, in point of fortune; and even had the hardihood to say that some of the troops he commanded there had been sold for slaves!

Boston, now a subject of speculation in Continental courts, as well as of abuse in Parliament, was destined to undergo a still severer trial for the succeeding seven months, from August, 1769, to March, 1770, during the continuance of the two remaining regiments.  This was an eventful period, characterized by violent agitation in the Colonies to promote a repeal of the revenue acts and an abandonment of the intermeddling and aggressive policy of the Ministry; and it was marked by uncommon political activity in Boston.  The popular leaders, as though no British troops were lookers-on, and in spite, too, of the protests and commands of the crown officials, steadily guided the deliberations of the people in Faneuil Hall; and at times the disorderly also, in violations of law and personal liberty that can never be justified, intrepidly carried out their projects.  The events of this period tended powerfully to inflame the public mind.  The appeals of the Patriots, through the press, show their appreciation of the danger of an outbreak, and yet their determination to meet their whole duty.  They endeavored to restrain the rash among the Sons of Liberty within the safe precincts of the law; yet, repelling all thought of submission to arbitrary power, they strove to lift up the general mind to the high plane of action which a true patriotism demanded, and prepare it, if need were, for the majestic work of revolution.

The executive, during an interval thus exciting and important, was in a transition-state, from Francis Bernard to Thomas Hutchinson.  It was semi-officially announced in the journals, when the Governor sailed for England, that the Administration had no intention of superseding his commission; and it was intimated that the Lieutenant-Governor would administer the functions of the office until the return of the chief