USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > St. Botolph's town; an account of old Boston in colonial days > Part 17
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The kind of congratulatory letters received now by Sir Harry and his Agnes may be guessed from the following, for the use of which I am indebted to Mrs. S. H. Swan of Cambridge. The writer of this letter was Ed- mund Quincy, father of Hancock's Dorothy, who lived from 1740 - 1752 on the south side of Summer street, Boston, - in which house his famous daughter was born May 10, 1747.
" BRAINTREE, Nov. 30, 1756.
" To SIR H. FRANKLAND :
" As ye unhap. situation of my affairs [he had been unfortunate in business] has dep'd me of ye satisfaction of long since waiting upon yourself and lady & personally congrat- ulating your safe & happy return into this prov. after so remarkable a protection wh ye G't Author & preserver of all things was pleas'd to afford you at Lisbon, on ye never to be forgotten 10th of Nov. last, I hope yr good-
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ness will excuse an epistolary tender of my sin- cerest complements on ye pleasing occasion.
" I'm agreeably informed that you have pur- chased ye mansion of ye late Mr. Clarke, & I hope with a view to settlement for life in ye town of Boston, whose very declining state ren- ders ye favor you may have done that town in ye choice ye more distinguished. As testimony of my respect & gratitude I have taken ye free- dom to send you, a trifling collection of some of ye fruits of ye season produced on the place of my birth, on which (tho' mine no more !) I have yet a residence. It asks yr. candid ac- ceptance, if more & better I sh'd be ye more pleased. Tel qu'il est, permit me ye pleasure of assuring you that it is accompanied by the sincerest regard of, Sir, Yr. most obedient & very humble S't E. Q."
As Lady Frankland Agnes was cordially re- ceived by those who had formerly looked coldly upon hier, and the spacious parlours, with their fluted columns, elaborately carved, their richly gilded pilasters and cornices, their wainscoted walls and panels, embellished with beautiful landscape scenery, were the background for many an elegant tea-party and reception. The Inmans, the Rowes, the Greenoughs and the
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Sheafes were constantly entertained at supper and dinner here, and Dr. Timothy Cutler, first rector of Christ Church (built in 1723 when the Episcopalians of the town became too numer- ous to be accommodated in King's Chapel) was a frequent and an honoured guest. Very likely the good old man many a time talked over with Lady Frankland in a quiet corner of her own sitting-room the best ways of launching in life the children of her sister Mary, whose guar- dian she had become. All in all it was a good and gracious life that the humbly-born Marble- head girl led in her noble mansion-house on Garden Court street.
Warm weather, of course, found the family often at Hopkinton. Once they had a narrow escape from a tragic end while making the journey from their country to their town house. The account of this may be found in the New Hampshire Gazette of September 2, 1757: " Boston August 20, 1757. Thursday last as Sir Henry Frankland and his lady were coming into town in their chariot, a number of boys were gunning on Boston neck - notwithstand- ing there is an express law to the contrary, - when one of them discharging his piece at a bird missed the same, and almost the whole charge of shot came into the chariot where Sir
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Henry and his lady were, several of which en- tered his hat and clothes, and one grazed his face but did no other damage to him or lady."
Frankland's health, however, was not rugged and in July, 1757, he sought and obtained the post of consul-general to Lisbon, a place for which he was well fitted by reason of his knowl- edge of the language and customs of the coun- try. The entries in the Journal concerning the articles which he determined to purchase in London "for Lisbon " are interesting : " silver castors; wine glasses like Pownal's; two turreens; saucers for water glasses, des- sert knives and forks and spoons; common tea- kettle; jelly and syllabub glasses; fire-grate; long dishes ; tea cups etc., clothes etc., for Lady Frankland. Consul's seal; combs; mahogany tray, press for table-linen and sheets; stove for flatirons; glass for live flea for microscope; Hoyle's Treatise on Whist; Dr. Doddridge's Exposition on the New Testament, 16 hand- some chairs with two settees and 2 card tables, working table like Mrs. F. F. Gardner's."
Our hero, it will be observed, has now be- come a thorough-going family man. It is greatly to be regretted that his Journal no longer deals with Boston and its affairs, for he seems in a fair way to become as gossipy
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as the delicious Sewall. Once he puts down the weight of all the ladies taking part in a certain pleasure excursion, - we thus know that Lady Frankland weighed 135 pounds at the age of thirty-six, - and again he tells us that linseed oil is excellent to preserve knives from rust!
The year 1763 found the pair back once more for a brief visit in Boston and Hopkinton. But Frankland could not stand our east winds and so the following winter he returned again to the old country, settling down at Bath to the business of drinking the waters. In the Jour- nal he writes: " I endeavor to keep myself calm and sedate. I live modestly and avoid ostentation, decently and not above my condi- tion, and do not entertain a number of para- sites who forget favors the moment they de- part from my table. . . . I cannot suffer a man of low condition to exceed me in good man- ners." A little later we read that he is now bed-ridden. He died at Bath, January 2, 1768, at the age of fifty-two and was, at his own re- quest, buried in the parish churchyard there.
Agnes almost immediately came back to Bos- ton and, with her sister and sister's children, took up her residence at Hopkinton. There she remained, living a peaceful happy life
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among her flowers, her friends and her books until the outbreak of the Revolution, when it seemed to her wise to go in to her town house. The following entry relative to this is found in the records of the committee of safety : " May 15, 1775. Upon application of Lady Frankland, voted that she have liberty to pass into Boston with the following goods and ar- ticles for her voyage, viz. 6 trunks: 1 chest : 3 beds and bedding : 6 wethers : 2 pigs : 1 small keg of pickled tongues: some hay: 3 bags of corn: and such other goods as she thinks proper."
So, defended by a guard of six soldiers, the beautiful widow entered the besieged city about the first of June and thus was able to view from the windows of her mansion the imposing spectacle of Bunker Hill. With her own hands, too, she assuaged the sufferings of the British wounded on that occasion. For, of course, she was an ardent Tory. Then, too, General Bur- goyne had been among her intimates in the happy Lisbon days.
Rather oddly, neither of Lady Frankland's estates were confiscated, but she herself found it convenient soon to sail for England, where she lived on the estate of the Frankland fam- ily until, in 1782, she married Mr. John Drew,
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a rich banker of Chichester. And in Chiches- ter she died in one year's time. It is greatly to be regretted that no portrait of her is ob- tainable, for she must have been very lovely, - and she certainly stands without a rival as a heroine of Boston romance.
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XV
THE DAWN OF ACTIVE RESISTANCE
No institution in the life of early Boston played a more important part in promoting the break with the mother-country than the tav- ern.1 The attitude of a man towards England soon came to be known by the public house where he spent his evenings, and from the time of the establishment of the Royal Exchange (1711), which stood on the southwest corner of Exchange and State street, a line of cleav- age between kingsmen and others was faintly to be discerned. When Luke Vardy became landlord here the place took on the colour which has made it famous. It was then the resort of all the young bloods of the town, who, brave in velvet and ruffles, in powdered hair and periwigs, swore by the king and drank deep draughts of life and liquor. This tavern was distinctly the resort of the British officers and many an international romance is connected 1 For further data on this subject see " Old New England Inns."
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with the house, -notably that of Susanna Sheafe (eldest daughter of the Deputy), and the dashing Captain Ponsonby Molesworth, whom the maiden saw marching by with his soldiers as she stood in the balcony of the inn. Molesworth was immediately captivated by her beauty and pointing her out to a brother of- ficer exclaimed, " Jove! that girl seals my fate! " She did, very soon after, a clergyman assisting.
The Bunch of Grapes, too, though later as- sociated with many a Revolutionary feast, was, in the early part of the eighteenth century, a favourite resort of the royal representatives. It stood on what is now the west corner of Kilby street, on State street, and hither Gov- ernor William Burnet was enthusiastically es- corted by a large body of citizens upon his arrival in 1728. Governor Pownall, too, fre- quented the house, and there is a pleasant story of a kiss which he once delivered, stand- ing on a chair there. Pownall was a short, corpulent person but a great ladies' man, and it was his habit to salute every woman to whom he was introduced with a sounding smack upon the cheek. One day a tall dame was presented and he requested her to stoop to meet his prof- fered courtesy. " Nay, I'll stoop to no man,
GOVERNOR POWNALL
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- not even to your Excellency," exclaimed the lady, with a haughty toss of her head. " Then I'll stoop to you, madam," readily retorted the gallant governor, and springing to a chair be- side her he bent over to do his obeisance.
Ere long, however, there came a time when a scarlet coat was an inflammatory signal in the tap-room of this inn. Pownall was rather less to blame for this, though, than any of the governors who had preceded him. Our gallant hero had been in Boston twice before, in the em- ploy of Shirley, before he came to the town as governor (August 3, 1757), and he really had an intelligent idea of the underlying causes of the then smouldering American resentment. To be sure, he stood calmly and firmly for the pre- rogative of the king; but he appears to have divined tendencies, already at work, towards throwing off the yoke of royalty. At his own request, he was recalled, after a short term of service, and it so happened that from 1768- 1780 he was a member of Parliament. Thus he was able to use, in our behalf, the experi- ence he had gained while here. But his advice and protests were not regarded in England and he lived to see us take a place among the nations in fulfilment of his own prophecies.
After Pownall had sailed back to England
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(June 3, 1760) Thomas Hutchinson, the lieu- tenant-governor, had a chance to try his hand at the helm. To relieve him there soon came Sir Francis Bernard, who seems to have been, personally, a very delightful gentleman, but who, as the king's representative, had a most unhappy time of it while in Boston. Before his appointment to Massachusetts Bernard had been the successful administrator of affairs in New Jersey and he had high hopes, therefore, of getting on well with the Puritans. Writing to Lord Barrington of the matter he said, " As for the people, I am assured that I may depend upon a quiet and easy administration. I shall have no points of government to dispute about, no schemes of self-interest to pursue. The people are well disposed to live upon good terms with the Governor and with one another; and I hope I may not want to be directed by a junto or supported by a party; and that I shall find there, as I have done here, that plain- dealing, integrity and disinterestedness make the best system of policy."
This optimistic vision was destined speedily to be dispelled by the facts. Though he was met, near Dedham, on his journey from New Jersey, by a number of gentlemen in " coaches and chariots," the new governor had hardly
SIR FRANCIS BERNARD
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reached the seat of his province when things began to look blue for him. In his first speech to the Assembly (which came immediately after the fall of Montreal), he maladroitly put his hearers in mind of the blessings they, de- rived from their " subjection to Great Britain, without which they could not now have been a free people; for no other power on earth could have delivered them from the power they had to contend with." Hutchinson, in his nar- rative of this and succeeding events relates that " the Council, in their address, acknowl- edge that to their relation to Great Britain they owe their present freedom. ... The House, without scrupling to make in express words the acknowledgement of their subjec- tion, nevertheless explain the nature of it. They are ' sensible of the blessings derived to the British Colonies from their subjection to Great Britain; and the whole world must be sensible of the blessings derived to Great Brit- ain from the loyalty of the Colonies in gen- eral, and for the efforts of this province in particular; which, for more than a century past, has been wading in blood and laden with the expenses of repelling the common enemy ; without which effort Great Britain, at this day, might have had no Colonies to defend.' "
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The truth was that gratitude to Great Brit- ain was an emotion very remote, just then, from the mind of Boston. For two enactments of long standing, - but which, from disuse, had not hitherto been oppressive, - were now being very unpleasantly brought home to the people. The Navigation Act of Charles II and the Sugar Act of 1733 had been far from ac- ceptable to the New Englanders, but so long as there seemed slight disposition to enforce these statutes nobody minded them much. Then Pitt fell, and there came into power new men who were only creatures of the young king (George III), - and an era of experimen- tation, so far as the colonies was concerned, was immediately inaugurated.
Governor Bernard was especially instructed to see that the decrees of the English Board of Trade in regard to the collection of duties and the restriction of commerce were enforced. He therefore ranged himself with Hutchinson and Charles Paxton when there came a question of assisting customs officers in the execution of their duty. Hutchinson, as it happened, was Chief-justice of the superior court as well as lieutenant-governor, and it was, therefore, within his power to issue what came to be known as the Writs of Assistance, permits by
JAMES OTIS
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means of which officers could forcibly enter dwelling-houses, stores and warehouses in search of goods which they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be smuggled. Charles Paxton, head of the Boston Custom House, who insti- gated the granting of these writs, was hung in effigy from the Boston Liberty Tree as a sign of the hatred his act inspired in the people. James Otis, on the other hand, a part of whose duty as advocate-general it would have been to support the cause of the customs officers, resigned his position under the Crown and en- gaged himself to argue, for the suffering mer- chants of Boston, against the legality of the writs!
Thus there stepped upon the stage of the world's history, for the first time, one of the most brilliant men America has ever produced. The scene of the now-famous trial, in which Otis played so important a part, was the coun- cil-chamber of the Old Boston Town House, an imposing and elegant apartment at the east end of the building, ornamented with fine full- length portraits of Charles II and James II. Hutchinson presided and there were also in attendance four associate judges, wearing great wigs on their heads and rich scarlet robes upon their backs. Thronging the court-
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room were the chief citizens and officers of the Crown, all of whom well understood that a mat- ter of enormous importance was to be debated.
Among the young lawyers who were present on that important day was John Adams, a fresh-faced youth who had come up from his home in Braintree to hear what should be said. In his old age he wrote to William Tudor a description of the scene, which brings vividly before us the actors and the parts they took: " Round a great fire were seated five judges, with Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson at their head as Chief-Justice, all arrayed in their new fresh rich robes of scarlet English broadcloth ; in their large cambric bands and immense judi- cial wigs. At a long table were all the barris- ters-at-law of Boston and of the neighboring county of Middlesex, in gowns, bands and tie- wigs. They were not seated on ivory chairs, but their dress was more solemn and more pompous than that of the Roman senate, when the Gauls broke in upon them. Two portraits of more than full length of King Charles the Second and of King James the Second, in splendid golden frames were hung up on the most conspicuous sides of the apartment. If my young eyes or old memory have not de- ceived me, these were as fine pictures as I ever
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saw; ... they had been sent over without frames in Governor Pownall's time, but he was no admirer of Charles or James. The pictures were stowed away in a garret among rubbish until Governor Bernard came, who had them cleaned, superbly framed and placed in council for the admiration and imitation of all men, no doubt with the advice and concurrence of Hutchinson and all his nebula of stars and sat- ellites."
The case was opened by Jeremiah Gridley, the king's attorney, who defended the validity of the writs on statute law and English prac- tice. To which Oxenbridge Thacher replied in a strong legal argument which showed that the rule in English courts did not apply to Amer- ica. Then the Advocate of Freedom began to speak, confounding all his opponents by the splendour of his eloquence.
" Otis," says John Adams, " was a flame of fire. With a plenitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of his- torical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eye into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away everything before him! ... Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms
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against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born! "
For Otis had made a passionate appeal on the ground of human rights. He had said that the writs of assistance were instruments of slavery and villainy, and that he was standing there on behalf of English liberties. He de- clared that a man's house was his castle and that this writ destroyed the sacred privilege of domestic privacy. Thus for four hours he poured out a stream of eloquence which, if it did not avail to convince the Court (who ulti- mately sustained the legality of the writs), served admirably to bring home to the Boston people the rank iniquity of taxation without representation. The fight was on !
Governor Bernard did not appreciate this fact, though, and when he opened the legisla- ture, the following autumn, was once more sin- gularly unhappy in his choice of speech-making material. For he now recommended the mem- bers to "give no attention to declamations tending to promote a suspicion that the civil rights of the people were in danger." Otis had just been elected a member of the body, and it was, of course, recognized that these words
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were aimed at him. The representatives re- plied to them with scarcely concealed resent- ment. Speedily, too, Governor Bernard found out that he would have to be very circumspect in order to avoid the adverse criticism of this clever lawyer to whom he had thrown down the gauntlet.
In the summer of 1762, during a recess in the sessions of the legislature, Governor Ber- nard, with the approval of the Council, ex- pended a comparatively trifling sum in fitting out a vessel with which to quiet the fears of Boston merchants who wished protection from the French for their fishing-boats off New- foundland. Instantly opponents of the admin- istration remonstrated against his " unwar- ranted outlay." The protest came through a committee of the legislature of which Otis was chairman! In the remonstrance it was said that " no necessity can be sufficient to justify the House of Representatives in giving up such a privilege; for it would be of little con- sequence to the people whether they were sub- ject to George or Lewis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbi- trary, as both would be if both could levy taxes without a parliament." When this passage was read out, a member cried " Treason!
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treason! " in much the same way that it was cried against Patrick Henry, three years later. Yet it was only with considerable difficulty that the governor prevailed upon the House to ex- punge the passage in which the king's name had been so disloyally introduced. Poor Fran- cis Bernard! Well must he have understood, by this time, that Massachusetts was to give him anything but " a quiet and easy admin- istration ! "
Yet if his official path was not always smooth, Governor Bernard was made very happy in his home life and in his social intercourse. He had three residences, one in Jamaica Plain, one at " Castle .William " and one, of course, in the Province House. His youngest daugh- ter, Julia, who was a baby when the family moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts, afterwards wrote down, for the information of her descendants, her recollections of Boston in her girlhood and the resulting manuscript is freely quoted in " The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon " by Mrs. Napier Higgins. From that delightful work I repro- duce by permission : " During the hot months we resided at the beautiful spot, Castle Will- iam [Castle Island], a high hill rising out of the sea in the harbor of Boston, where a
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residence was always ready for the Governor, a twelve-oared barge always at call to convey him backwards and forwards.
" My first recollections were of the large Government House, with a great number of servants, some black slaves and some white free servants; a peculiar state of intercourse with the inhabitants, everybody coming to us and we going to nobody, a public day once a week, a dinner for gentlemen, and a drawing- room in the afternoon when all persons of either sex who wished to pay their respects were introduced, various refreshments handed about, and some cards, I can remember. We had a man cook, a black, who afterwards came to England with us. My Father had a country house also a few miles from Boston. . . .
" The cold in winter was intense, but calm and certain; it set in early in November, and continued - a hard frost, the ground covered with snow - till perhaps the end of March, when a rapid spring brought in a very hot sum- mer. During the winter all carriages were taken off the wheels and put upon runners, that is - sledges; and this is the time they choose of all others for long journeys and ex- cursions of pleasure. It was a common thing to say to a friend : 'Yours are bad roads; I'll
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come and see you as soon as the snow and frost set in.' The travelling is then done with a rapidity and stillness which makes it necessary for the horses to have bells on their heads; and the music, cheerfulness and bustle of a bright winter's day were truly amusing and interesting. Open sledges, with perhaps twenty persons, all gay and merry, going about the country on parties of pleasure, rendered the winter a more animated scene than the hot summers present."
Concerning the house at Jamaica Plain Miss Bernard wrote that it was built chiefly by her father himself and that " there was a consid- erable range of ground, and a small lake [of] about one hundred acres attached to it with a boat on it. . .. This was called Jamaica Pond. To this residence we generally moved in May, I think, and here we enjoyed ourselves ex- tremely. My Father was always on the wing on account of his situation. He had his own carriage and servants, my mother hers; there was a town coach and a whiskey for the young men to drive about."
Governor Bernard's personal appearance is thus described by his daughter: " My Father, though not tall, had something dignified and distinguished in his manner; he dressed su-
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perbly on all public occasions." Of her mother she adds that she was tall and that "her dresses were ornamented with gold and silver, ermine and fine American sable." Miss Ber- nard tells us also that her father was musical and sometimes wrote both tune and words for a song he and his friends would after enjoy together. His was the age of toasts and it is interesting to know that the bitterly-hated royal governor originated the following amia- ble sentiment :
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