US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0013/00132.txt

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$Unique_ID{USH00132}
$Pretitle{11}
$Title{Our Country:  Volume 3
Chapter LII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{troops
assembly
governor
king
liberty
parliament
act
colonies
new
house}
$Volume{Vol. 3}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book:        Our Country:  Volume 3
Author:      Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume:      Vol. 3
Date:        1905

Chapter LII

     Governor Bernard's Interference - Doings of a Popular Assembly in Boston
- Landing of Troops There - Firmness of the Council and Selectmen - Public
Feeling Outraged - Triumph of the Citizens - Action of the British Parliament
- Advent of Lord North - Non-Importation Agreements and the Young Women -
Action of the Massachusetts Assembly - Departure of Governor Bernard -
Hesitation in Parliament - A Circular to the Colonies - Excitement in England
- Fruits of Taxation - Political Excitement in New York.

     GOVERNOR BERNARD had assured the Massachusetts Convention of his
displeasure, and his intention to enforce the laws.  He said to them, in a
proclamation, when they assembled It is my duty to interpose this instant,
before it is too late (for he declared the gathering unlawful).  I do,
therefore, earnestly admonish you that instantly, and before you do any
business, you break up this assembly, and separate yourselves.  I speak to you
now as a friend to the province and a well-wisher to the individuals of it.
But if you should pay no regard to this admonition, I must, as governor,
assert the prerogative of the crown in a more public manner; for, assure
yourselves (I speak from instruction), the kind is determined to maintain his
entire sovereignty over this province, and whoever shall persist in usurping
any of the rights of it will repent of his rashness."  So spoke the governor
bravely, when he knew that a fleet and army were near to support him.  But the
Convention, as we have observed, did not heed the admonition.  They stayed in
session six days until they had accomplished their intended business, and they
had just adjourned, when the white sails of eight vessels-of-war appeared at
the entrance to Boston Harbor, bearing two regiments of British soldiers,
which General Gage had ordered from Halifax, commanded by Colonels Dalrymple
and Carr.  Gage had sent his engineer, Montressor, to assist the troops, if
necessary.  That officer bore an order, in accordance with the wishes of
Governor Bernard, to land the troops in the settled parts of Boston.
Accordingly, on Saturday morning, the 1st day of October (1768), the ships
moved up to the city, anchored with springs on their cables, and in spite of
the solemn remonstrances of the people, the troops were landed on the Long
Wharf under cover of the guns of the war-vessels.  The cowardly governor had
gone into the country to avoid the expected storm of popular indignation,
leaving the military to bear the brunt of the odium and its effects.

     Bernard had tried to induce his council to sanction an order for
quartering the troops in the town.  They refused, and he took upon himself the
whole responsibility of the act.  The selectmen, regarding the order as
illegal, refused to provide quarters for the soldiers.  Dalrymple blustered
and threatened, but they were firm.  He had prepared for wicked work by
providing each of his soldiers with sixteen rounds of ammunition.  This fact
he made known, and hoping to overawe the inhabitants, he marched his whole
force through the town, with fixed bayonets, colors flying, drum' beating, and
a train of artillery following, with all the parade of a triumphant army
entering a conquered city.  The unarmed inhabitants looked on with sorrow but
not with fear.  They knew that a single act of violence on the part of the
troops would cause twenty thousand men, from the hundred towns of
Massachusetts, to spring up for their defence like the harvest of dragons'
teeth; and that war once begun, a vast host would come from the other
provinces like trailing clouds full of wrath and potency.

     Dalrymple appeared before the selectmen, with one or two other officers,
and haughtily demanded both food and shelter for his troops.  You will find
both at the castle," said the guardians of the town, with the assurance that
the law was upholding them.  "And you will not furnish quarters for my
soldiers asked the colonel.  We will not responded the selectmen.  Then
Dalrymple turned away in wrath, and encamped one regiment in tents on the
Common, while the other was compelled to bivouac as best they might in the
chilly air of an October night.  The compassion of the inhabitants was excited
for the poor soldiers, whom they could not blame, and at nine o'clock the Sons
of Liberty generously opened Faneuil Hall, and allowed the warriors to slumber
there. The next day was the Sabbath.  The unwise Dalrymple again paraded his
troops through the streets when the people were engaged in public worship,
disturbing them with the noise of the fife and drum.  His soldiers challenged
the citizens in the streets and in various ways he tried to impress them with
a sense of utter subjugation.  These things only deepened their convictions of
duty, and inflamed their resentment.  Every strong feeling of the New
Englander was violated.  His Sabbath was desecrated, his worship was
disturbed, and his liberty was infringed.  Natural hatred of the troops, deep
and abiding, was soon engendered, and the terms rebel and tyrant were freely
bandied between them.  The governor and the colonel used every means in their
power to induce the council and the selectmen to provide for the troops.
Planting themselves firmly on the law, these citizens were unmoved by
entreaties or threats.  Then the governor and sheriff tried to get possession
of a dilapidated building belonging to the province in which to shelter the
troops, but the occupants, supported by the law, successfully resisted.  The
governor now summoned all the acting magistrates to meet him, when he renewed
the demand for quarters.  Not till the barracks are filled," was the response.
The military officers could not put the soldiers into quarters, for the act
might cause them to be cashiered on conviction before two justices of the
peace, the best of whom," wrote Gage, the keeper of a paltry tavern." When the
weather became so cold that tent-life could not be endured, the commanding
officer was compelled to hire houses at exorbitant rates for shelter, and to
furnish food for the troops at the expense of the crown.  So, in this
bloodless warfare with British regulars, the citizens of Boston, armed with
chartered rights and statute law, were completely victorious. There was
nothing for the troops to do, as the people were orderly and law-abiding. The
soldiers being housed, the main guard was stationed opposite the State House,
with cannon pointing toward the legislative hall.  The people smiled at this
covert threat, and Gage was convinced that more mischief had arisen from the
follies and greed of the crown officers than from anything else; but he
recommended the building of barracks and a fortification on Fort Hill, while
Bernard, satisfied that the troops could not overturn the authority of the
government, nor repress republicanism, again advised a forfeiture of the
charter of the province.  The commissioners of customs who had fled to Castle
William on the Ronney now returned, and were more haughty than ever under the
protection of armed men.  They caused the arrest of Hancock and Malcom on
false charges, claiming penalties for violations of acts of Parliament
amounting to, in Hancock's case, almost half a million dollars.  Hancock
employed John Adams as his counsel, and a painful drudgery I had of his case,"
said that advocate.  Not a charge was established.

     Soon after these events the British Parliament assembled, and the king,
in his speech which he read from the throne, spoke of Boston as being in a
state of disobedience to all law and government," proceeding to measures
subversive of the constitution, and attended by circumstances that might
manifest a disposition to throw off its dependence on Great Britain."  He
promised, with the support of Parliament, to defeat the mischievous designs of
those turbulent and seditious persons" who had, under false pretenses, too
successfully deluded numbers of his subjects in America.  In both Houses of
Parliament great indignation, because of the conduct of the Bostonians, was
expressed.  The Lords, in their' address to the king, said We shall be ever
ready to hear and redress any grievances of your majesty's American subjects;
but we should betray the trust reposed in us, if we did not withstand every
attempt to infringe or weaken our just rights, and we shall always consider it
as one of our most important duties to maintain - tire and inviolate the
supreme authority of the legislature of Great Britain over every part of the
British Empire."  In the Commons, Henry Stanley indulged in bitter
denunciations of the Americans.  He condemned, in unmeasured terms, the non-
importation leagues, as unwarrantable combinations among American tradesmen to
cut off the commerce between the colonies and the mother country."  I contend,
therefore," he said, that men so unsusceptible of all middle terms of
accommodation call loudly for our correction.  What, sir, will become of this
insolent town of Boston when we deprive the inhabitants of the power of
sending out their rum and molasses to the coast of Africa For they must be
treated like aliens, as they have treated us upon this occasion.  The
difficulties in governing Massachusetts are insurmountable, unless its charter
and laws shall be so changed as to give to the king the appointment of the
council, and the sheriffs the sole power of returning juries."

     In the Upper House, Lord Barrington called the Americans traitors, and
worse than traitors, against the crown - traitors against the legislation of
this country.  The use of troops," he said, was to bring rioters to justice."
Even Camden, who opposed Pitt's declaratory act, now acquiesced in the harsh
measures against Boston that were proposed, and was severely chastised by the
tongue of Edmund Burke for his inconsistency.  My astonishment at the folly of
his opinions is lost in indignation at the baseness of his conduct," said the
gifted Irishman.

     To gratify the prejudices of the king, Shelburne had been driven from the
ministry, and Chatham, offended because of this act, had resigned.  Lord North
now commenced that long leadership of the ministry which continued until near
the close of our struggle for independence.  He took the initiative as the
friend and champion of the king, by replying sharply to Alderman Beckford, who
said: "Let the nation return to its good old nature and its old good humor; it
were best to repeal the late acts and conciliate the colonies by moderation
and kindness." To these wise words, North replied in falsification of history,
"There has been no proof of any real return of friendship on the part of the
Americans they will give you no credit for affection no credit for an
attention to their commercial interests.  If America is to be the judge, you
must tax in no instance!  You may regulate in no instance. Punishment will not
be extended beyond the really guilty; and, if rewards shall be found
necessary, rewards will be given.  But what we do, we will do firmly.  We
shall go through our plan, now that we have brought it so near success.  I am
against repealing the last act of Parliament, securing to us a revenue out of
America I will never think of repealing it, until I see America prostrate at
my feet."

     The words of the King, Lords and Commons made a deep impression on the
minds of the patriots of Massachusetts, and throughout the other provinces.
Their liberties were more dangerously menaced than ever, and the instruments
for their enslavement were seated in the New England capital and intrenched
behind cannon.  But the Sons of Liberty were more determined than ever to
stand firmly by their rights, and at the same time to maintain a perfect
adherence to the law.  By this determination they conquered.  Their worst
enemies in Great Britain could not justly accuse them of treason for any act
they had committed.  They had a perfect right to cease trading with anybody.
They had violated no law; and all the threats of the madmen in the government,
and the presence of troops, could not alter their opinions. Their petitions,
though rejected by the king with scorn, lost none of their vitality and the
official assurance that the monarch would not listen to "wicked men" who
denied the supremacy of Parliament, did not move the patriots a single line
from the path which they had prescribed for themselves.  They felt that
Colonel Barry prophetically read their hearts, when, in opposition to a
resolution of Lord North, offered in March, 1769, to reject a respectful
petition from New York, he said: "I predicted all that would happen on the
passage of the Stamp Act and I now warn ministers that, if they persist in
their wretched course of oppression, the whole continent of North America will
rise in arms, and these colonies perhaps be lost to England forever."

     When the non-importation agreements were renewed, the young women
heartily seconded the action of their fathers and brothers, by engaging in
domestic manufactures.  The Irish flax-wheel performed an important part in
the feminine opposition to British oppression in the spinning of linen thread
for summer fabrics and the hum of the big Dutch wool-wheel was heard in many
families converting the fleecy rolls from the hand-cards into yarn.  In
Boston, a party of fifty young women, calling themselves "Daughters of
Liberty", met at the house of the venerated pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian
Church there, the Rev. John Moorehead, where they amused themselves with
spinning two hundred and thirty-two skeins of linen yarn, some very fine,
which were given to the worthy white-haired minister.  Several of the young
women were members of his congregation.  Many persons came in to see the novel
sight and admire the fair spinners.  They were regaled with refreshing fruit,
cakes, coffee and comfits, after which anthems and liberty-songs were sung by
many fine voices of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty.  There were, at that
time, more than one hundred spinners in Mr. Moorehead's society.  In other
colonies like zeal and industry were shown by the young women, and also by
whole families.  "Within eighteen months past," wrote a correspondent of the
New York Mercury, from Newport, Rhode Island, four hundred and eighty-seven
yards of cloth and thirty-six pairs of stockings have been spun and knit in
the family of James Nixon of this town.  Another family, within four years
past, hath manufactured nine hundred and eighty yards of woolen cloth, besides
two coverlids and two bed ticks and all the stocking yarn for the family.  We
are credibly informed that many families in this colony within the year past
have each manufactured upward of seven hundred yards of cloth of different
kinds."

     When the Massachusetts Assembly met at the close of May, 1769, they
simply organized, and then resolved that it was incompatible with their
dignity and freedom to deliberate while confronted by an armed force; and that
the presence of a military and naval armament was a breach of privilege.  They
refused to enter upon the business of furnishing supplies of any kind, or
discussing any topic excepting that of a redress of their grievances.  They
petitioned the governor to remove the troops from the town, but their
reasonable request was met by a haughty refusal.  Not only this, but the
governor adjourned the Assembly to Cambridge, and informed them that he was
going to England to lay a statement of the affairs of the colony before the
king.  The House instantly adopted a petition to his majesty, asking for the
withdrawal of Bernard from the colony forever; and they also adopted a
resolution declaring that the establishment of a standing army in the colony
in time of peace, was not only an invasion of natural rights, but a violation
of the British Constitution, highly dangerous to the people, and
unprecedented.  Perceiving the Assembly to be incorrigible, the governor
dissolved them and sailed for England, leaving the province in the care of the
Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Hutchinson.  Proofs of Bernard's duplicity, greed,
petty malice, mischievous exaggeration, falsehoods, and continual plottings
for the destruction of tie Massachusetts free government, so well known here,
had been sent to England by one of his political friends, and caused his
immediate recall.  He never recrossed the Atlantic, and died in 1779.

     Meanwhile the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis and other
places had renewed their non-importation leagues with vigor and Washington, at
Mount Vernon, assisted by his neighbor, George Mason, had matured the plan for
such an association which, as we have observed, he laid before the Virginia
House of Burgesses when they reassembled after they had been dissolved by
Governor Botetourt.  That patriot afterward wrote to his correspondent in
London, from whom he ordered goods: "You will perceive, in looking over the
several invoices, that some of the goods there required are upon condition
that the act of Parliament imposing a duty on tea, paper, &c., for the purpose
of raising a revenue in America, is totally repealed and I beg the favor of
you to be governed strictly thereby, as it will not be in my power to receive
any articles contrary to our nonimportation agreement, which I have
subscribed, and shall religiously adhere to, and should if it were, as I could
wish it to be, ten times as strict."  Mason wrote to Washington: Our all is at
stake; and the little conveniences and comforts of life, when set in
competition with our liberty, ought to be rejected, not with reluctance, but
with pleasure."

     In view of the movements in America, the British Parliament hesitated.
They perceived that the colonies were forming a more formidable combination
against British commerce and manufactures than any before and some of the more
sensible men in Parliament urged the repeal of the tea act, and so end the
controversy.  So favorable an opportunity," they said, may never recur."  But
Lord North replied We will not consent to discuss the question because of the
combinations in America.  To do so would furnish a fresh instance of haste,
impatience, levity, and fickleness.  I see nothing uncommercial in making the
Americans pay a duty on tea."

     North was only the echo of the monarch, who swayed this minister with
perfect control.  The king had made it an inflexible rule never to redress a
grievance unless such redress was prayed for in a spirit of obedience and
humility.  He was also determined to assert the right of Parliament to tax the
colonies, and insisted that one tax must always be laid to keep up that right.
So the king and his pliant minister clung to the duty on tea.  Hillsborough,
under the direction of North, sent a Circular to all the colonies, in which a
promise was given that no more taxes for revenue should be laid upon them, and
that the duties upon paper, painters' colors and glass should be taken off by
a repeal of the law levying them.  It was believed that this concession would
satisfy the Americans, forgetting that a principle broader and deeper and more
vital than any statute law was at the bottom of the discontent in the
colonies.  British statesmen and publicists of the aristocratic party demurred
at this concession.  Dr. Johnson, then a pensioner of the government and
afterward author of the tract entitled Taxation no Tyranny, growled out his
dissatisfaction in the coarse expression: "The Americans are a race of
convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of
hanging."  And the short-sighted Hillsborough, exaggerating the sentiments of
the monarch, said: We can grant nothing to the Americans except what they may
ask with halters around their necks."

     The Circular sent to the colonies was wrung from the reluctant ministry
by fear of a revolt at home.  The capital of the kingdom was then fearfully
shaken by a violent political excitement that filled thoughtful minds with
dread.  John Wilkes, the irrepressible political writer already mentioned, had
suddenly returned from exile, and was elected a representative in Parliament
by the voters of Middlesex.  The king desired to keep him out of Parliament,
and the pliant House of Commons refused to give him a seat.  The people were
aroused by great indignation because of this interference with their rights.
Wilkes was chosen to be a magistrate of London, by a large majority and again
the voters of Middlesex elected him to represent them in Parliament.  Again
the Commons kept him from his seat by voting the returns null and void,
without the shadow of a fact to warrant the action.  A third and fourth time
he was elected by overwhelming majorities, and each time, the Commons, under
the influence of the king, and in violation of the seminal principle of
representative government, denied him a seat in the House, and gave it to his
opponent at the hustings.  Their plea was that Wilkes was an outlaw.

     This deadly blow, as the people regarded it, at one of the dearest rights
of the British subject, moved the public mind of the kingdom most power fully,
and added thousands of intelligent men to the list of friends of the
Americans, the vital principle of whose resistance to the government was the
sacred right of representation as an equivalent for taxation.  Mobs appeared
in London and various parts of the kingdom, vehemently protesting by great
violence against the outrage upon popular liberty.  In these demonstrations
many lives were lost.  The houses of crown-officers were attacked, and even
the palace of Whitehall the residence of the king was seriously menaced by a
vast concourse of people, shouting, Wilke and Liberty."  The populace were
restrained from violence, and possible from the murder of the king, by the
interference of the Royal Guards.  To this political agitation was added that
which was caused by the distress, real and prospective, of the merchants and
manufacturers of England, created by the non-importation leagues in operation
in America.  These causes combined pressed the English people, at that time,
to the verge of revolution.  They were taught by current events to regard
their king as a foe to popular liberty, and a willing usurper of the rights of
the people and attachment to the crown was greatly weakened.

     Hillsborough's Circular had not the least effect upon the Americans
except to stimulate them to more determined resistance.  The repeal of some of
the obnoxious acts would be a partial relief from taxation but so long as the
duty on tea was retained, the principle involved remained the same.  While a
tax for revenue in the smallest degree was imposed upon the Americans, their
real grievance was not redressed, and they stood firm in their attitude of
resistance.  They worked the engine of non-importation with great vigor. The
exports from England to America which, in 1768, had amounted to almost
$12,000,000 (of which amount tea represented $660,000), in 1769 amounted to
only a little over $8,000,000, the tea being only $220,000.  Pownall, the
immediate predecessor of Bernard as governor of Massachusetts, showed, in a
speech in Parliament, that the total produce of the new taxes for the first
year had been less than $80,000, and that the expenses of the new custom-
house arrangements had reduced the net profits of the crown revenue in the
colonies to $1,475, while the extraordinary military expenses in America
amounted, for the same time, to $850,000.  Yet the stubborn king and his
pliant minister insisted upon retaining the duty on tea, to save the royal
prerogative, and keeping up an expensive military establishment to enforce its
collection Samuel Adams was doubtless right when he publicly declared, on the
arrival of the repeal of the Stamp Act: The conduct of England is permitted
and ordained by the unsearchable wisdom of the Almighty for hastening the
independence of these colonies."

     The die was now cast.  The Americans almost despaired of having their
grievances redressed by the oppressor.  Opposition to taxation without
representation was the prevailing rule in all the colonies.  In Boston the
people endured the presence of soldiers, with whom almost daily irritating
collisions took place.  In New York, late in 1769, there was much political
excitement growing out of an indirect method of cheating the people into a
compliance with the provisions of the mutiny act proposed by a desperate tory
coalition.  It was the issuing of bills of credit, on the security of the
province, to the amount of $700,000, to be loaned to the people, the interest
to be applied to defraying the expenses of the colonial government.  It was
none other than a proposition for a monster bank, without checks, for the
purpose of applying the profits to defraying the expenses of keeping troops in
the province.  It was also a game for political power which menaced the
liberties of the people.  When an act for this purpose was before the
Assembly, the leaders of the popular party raised a cry of alarm.  Early on
Sunday morning, the 16th of December, 1769, a hand-bill was found widely
distributed over the city of New York, addressed, in large letters, To the
Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York," and was signed, "A
Son of Liberty."  It denounced the money scheme as a deception covering
wickedness declared that evidently the proposition to grant supplies to tie
troops unqualifiedly was an acknowledgment of the right to exact such
subsidies, and a virtual approval of all the revenue acts and that the scheme
was intended to divide and distract the colonies.  It directed the attention
of the Assembly to the patriotic attitude of the other colonies, and exhorted
them to imitate their example.  It hinted at a corrupt coalition between the
acting-governor (Colden) and the head of a powerful family (De Lancey), and
called upon the Assembly to repudiate the act concocted by this combination.
It closed with a summons of the inhabitants to a meeting in The Fields the
next day, to express their views and to instruct their representatives in the
Assembly to oppose the measure and in case they should refuse, to send notice
thereof to every Assembly in America, and to publish their names to the world.

     Not less than fourteen hundred people assembled around the Liberty Pole,
on Monday, where they were harangued by John Lamb, an active Son of Liberty
and afterward an efficient artillery officer in the Continental Army.  He was
then thirty-four years of age; a prosperous merchant, a fluent speaker, and
vigorous writer.  He swayed the multitude on that occasion by his eloquence
and logic and by unanimous vote they condemned the action of the Assembly in
passing obnoxious bills.  Their sentiments were embodied in a communication to
that House, which was borne by a committee of seven leading Sons of Liberty,
namely: Isaac Sears, Caspar Wistar, Alexander McDougall, Jacob Van Zandt,
Samuel Broome, Erasmus Williams, and James Varick.

     The leaven of toryism then permeated the New York Assembly.  When the
obnoxious hand-bill was read by the Speaker, Mr. De Lancey moved that the
sense of the House should be taken whether the said paper was not an infamous
and scandalous libel."  When the vote was taken, twenty of the pliant Assembly
voted that it was so, and only one member voted No.  That member was Philip
Schuyler.  He boldly faced the rising storm, and by his solitary vote rebuked,
in a most emphatic manner, the cowardice of those of his compeers who had
stood shoulder to shoulder with him in former trials.  The Assembly then set
about ferreting out the author of the hand-bill.  They authorized the
lieutenant-governor to offer a reward of $50 for the discovery of the
offender.  Lamb was cited before the House, but was soon discharged.  The
printer of the hand-bill, when discovered, was brought to the bar, when the
frightened man gave the name of Alexander McDougall as the author.  He was the
son of a Scotchman from the Hebrides, a sailor, an ardent Son of Liberty, and
afterward a major-general in the Continental Army.  He was taken before the
House, where he would make no acknowledgment and refused to give bail. He was
indicted for libel and cast into prison, where he remained fourteen weeks
until arraigned for trial, when he pleaded not guilty, and gave bail. On that
occasion he spoke with vast propriety," William Smith wrote to Schuyler, "and
awed and astonished many who wish him ill, and added, I believe, to the number
of his friends."  Several months afterward he was again brought before the
House, when he was defended by George Clinton, an active member of that body,
who became the first governor of the State of New York. To the question
whether he was the author of the hand-bill signed "A Son of Liberty,"
McDougall replied, That as the Grand Jury and the Assembly had declared the
paper a libel, he could not answer; that as he was under prosecution in the
Supreme Court, he conceived it would be an infraction of justice to punish
twice for one offence but that he would not deny the authority of the House to
punish for a breach of privilege when no cognizance was taken of it, in
another court."  His answer was declared to be a contempt, and he was again
imprisoned.  In February, 1771, he was released and was never afterward
molested.  I rejoice," said McDougall, when ordered to prison, "that I am the
first to suffer for liberty since the commencement of our glorious struggle."

     McDougall was regarded as a martyr.  "The imprisoned sailor," says John
C. Hamilton, in his biography of his father, General Alexander Hamilton, "was
deemed the true type of imprisoned commerce.  To soften the rigors of his
confinement, to evince the detestation of its authors, and in his person to
plead the public wrongs, became a duty of patriotism.  On the anniversary of
the repeal of the Stamp Act, his health was drank with honors, and the
meeting, in procession, visited him in prison.  Ladies of distinction daily
thronged there.  Popular songs were written, and sung under his prison bars,
and emblematic swords were worn.  His name was upon every lip.  The character
of each individual conspicuous in the great controversy became a subject of
comment and the applause which followed the name of Schuyler, gave a new value
to the popularity his firmness had acquired."

     McDougall was emphatically a "man of the people."  He thoroughly
sympathized with those classes in society - the working men and women - who
are generally weak in social and political influence where, as then in New
York, an aristocratic class bears rule, because of their inability to make
their voices heard by those in authority.  Without any of the spirit of a
demagogue, he was a popular leader, because the people saw that his whole soul
was enlisted in his efforts in their behalf and like every really earnest man,
the utterances of his convictions carried with them great weight.  He was a
true type of what is generally known as the "common people" - the great mass
of citizens who carry on the chief industries of a country - its agriculture,
commerce, manufactures and arts.