..
'If you are men, behave like men. Let us take up arms immediately, and be
free, and seize all the king's officers. We shall have thirty thousand men
to join us from the country.' ... And before the arrival of the troops ...
at the house of the informant ... the said Samuel Adams said: 'We will not
submit to any tax, nor become slaves.... The country was first settled by
our ancestors, therefore we are free and want no king.' ... The informant
further sayeth, that about a fortnight before the troops arrived, the
aforesaid Samuel Adams, being at the house of the informant, the informant
asked him what he thought of the times. The said Adams answered, with
great alertness, that, on lighting the beacon, we should be joined with
thirty thousand men from the country with their knapsacks and bayonets
fixed, and added, 'We will destroy every soldier that dare put his foot on
shore. His majesty has no right to send troops here to invade the country,
and I look upon them as foreign enemies!'" [Footnote: Wells's _Samuel
Adams_, i. 210, 211.]
Maturer reflection must have convinced him his design was impracticable,
for he certainly abandoned it, and the two regiments disembarked in peace;
but their position was unfortunate. Together they were barely a thousand
strong, and were completely at the mercy of the populous and hostile
province they had been sent to awe.
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