“Mr. Molineux at their head”

I’ve traced the Massachusetts General Court’s slow march toward impeaching Chief Justice Peter Oliver in February 1774 for accepting a salary from the Townshend Act duty on tea.

I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t note how the legislature was pushed along by the Boston Whigs, and particularly by the radical merchant William Molineux.

Massachusetts politicians started to ask whether the Superior Court justices would accept Crown salaries way back in February 1773. At first those jurists put off their questioners by saying they hadn’t seen any pay warrants yet, so they weren’t in a position to answer.

In his History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, Gov. Thomas Hutchinson wrote:

This seemed to be a check to the progress of this business for a time; but several persons, members of the committee of correspondence for the town of Boston, thought fit to interest themselves, and presented a petition to the house, complaining of their delay, and urging further and more effectual measures.

Twenty-nine members of the house, eighty being present, had fortitude enough to vote for rejecting the petition. The other members voted for receiving and committing it. This was disapproved of by the inhabitants of the town of Boston in general, and caused a great clamour among them the next day. A few persons, it is said, with Mr. Molineux at their head, had taken upon them to direct the great council of the province.

The members for the town were alarmed, and, sensible that they had gone too far, moved, as soon as the house met, for a reconsideration of the vote for committing the petition, that the petitioners might have leave to withdraw it, and that the proceedings of yesterday should be erased. These motions were all approved of, and demonstrated the influence of three or four members over the body of the house.

Later in the summer of 1773, Molineux’s name came up on the list of petit jurors for Suffolk County. That gave him another way to protest.

On 1 September, Molineux appeared in court but refused jury duty. According to a supporter writing later in the Boston Evening-Post, he announced “that honor, justice and good conscience forbade his sitting upon the lives and properties of his fellow subjects” until the judges all denied they were accepting salaries from the Crown. He started to read from the legislature’s resolve on the issue.

Chief Justice Oliver interrupted: “Do you then refuse to serve?”

Molineux began his speech again.

“You refuse, and the law must take its course,” said Oliver.

Molineux again demanded an answer to his question about salaries.

“The court will consider of it,” said Oliver.

That consideration took the form of a £6 fine.

TOMORROW: More courtroom wrangling.