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[Page 3]
"confined the governor, seized his papers, and proclaimed martial law. This was the manner in which you waited upon His Excellency. You are pleased to call it an arrest, but I am very much mistaken, if the Attorney General does not make use of a different term. Where are your precedents for such proceedings. If you can shew none, the subject is novel; and I think you will pay dear for the fashion. As you went prepared for action, how would you have behaved if any resistance had been made, or if His Excellency himself had been determined to have shot the first man that attempted to approach him, and would have lost his life sooner than have submitted to the outrage. The answer to this question produces a gloomy and melancholy countenance. I have another important question to ask about this arrest: How came he who was committed to prison for contempt to be so soon at large, and accompany you in this hazardous enterprise. It must be by a gross violation of the law. But what must occur in the minds of a candid and disinterested public, when I say, the very man whom the Governor was prosecuting for a breach of orders, is appointed the Secretary to the Colony, and entrusted with His Excellency's papers. Common sense would have told you this was doing wrong & if you had but calmly consulted your own understanding.
Now the phrensy of party bigotry blazed forth in illuminations, bonfires, burning effigies, roasting sheep, and in all manner of riotous dissipation. The minds of the vulgar were now poisoned with prejudices artfully circulated; and the tongue under no restraint but that of its own faction. Some of this Majesty's subjects were exposed to the grossest insults with the danger of their lives. This scene of wild extravagance sancted sanctioned by such usurpation, is a sure fore-runner of oppression, decay of public credit, the unprotection of individuals and their property. It also betrays an imbecile mind, and leaves a remarkable and odious stigma upon your conduct.
I am inclined to think you expected to find scarce a man that would disapprove of your measures, however here you were mistaken, and some people begun to speak pretty freely upon the business; but this freedom of speech caused a report to be circulated, that if any efforts were made to prejudice the minds of the people against your administration, you would immediately put the country under martial law and hang the offenders (loyalists). Be this as it may as coming from you, it was credited, and undoubtedly put the people in fear that were known to be of opposite opinions to your party. Is not this an intrusion on the liberty of the subjects?
When the licentious and extravagant mirth began to abate, the mind of course was more at liberty to enquire into the cause, and it was soon whispered, that the Government bills given during your administration were not likely to be duly honoured. This was a blow upon public credit, and a scarcity of money was soon a general complaint. Instead of the times altering for the better according to expectation, a contrary effect was produced. Now many people begun to see their error, and that they had been supporting a different man than yourself."