“A solemn League and Covenant of a most dangerous Nature”

At the start of the month, I described the 28 June 1774 Boston town meeting that endorsed the committee of correspondence and the Solemn League and Covenant boycott it had promulgated.

Boston’s merchants, including men who usually supported the Whigs as well as those who leaned Loyalist, were far outvoted at that meeting. But they nonetheless lodged a protest.

Or actually two.

Those documents were dated 29 June. They appeared in the 4 July Boston Post-Boy, and three days later in the Boston News-Letter. Those newspapers had become the voice of the town’s Loyalists.

The 4 July Boston Evening-Post also published the protests, though trying to remain neutral. The Whig newspapers didn’t touch them.

The longer of those protests said:

WHEREAS at a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of this Town, held at Faneuil-Hall, the 27th Instant [i.e., of this month], and from thence adjourned to the South Meeting-House, Copies of certain Circular Letters, wrote by the Committee of Correspondence, so called, for this Town, to the other Towns of this Province, and other Places on the Continent, and Answers thereto from the several Towns and Colonies were read, likewise a certain Circular Letter, accompanied with a solemn League and Covenant of a most dangerous Nature and Tendency, which hath been drawn up by the said Committee of Correspondence, Copies whereof have been by them clandestinely dispersed through the Province, without the Consent or Knowledge of the Town; and recommended to the People of the Country, to execute without Loss of Time, “least their Enemies should defeat its Purpose.”

These Points being fully spoke to, with Candour and Moderation, by Gentlemen of different Sentiments, it was at length motioned and seconded, That the Committee of Correspondence be censured by the Town, and dismissed from any further Service in that Capacity: after some Discussion on the Subject, and other Letters produced and read, the Question was put, and passed in the negative.

Wherefore we, the Dissentients, do now make this public and solemn Protest against the Doings of the said Committee, as such, against the solemn League and Covenant aforementioned, and against the Proceedings of the Town, so far as they have adopted the illegal Proceedings of the said Committee of Correspondence, for the following Reasons, viz.

I. Because with regard to the solemn League and Covenant aforementioned, we look on it to be a base, wicked, and illegal Measure, calculated to distress and ruin many Merchants, Shopkeepers, and others, in this Metropolis, and effect the whole commercial Interest of this Province; to put a Check at once to our Industry by stopping the Exportation of all the staple Articles of our Trade, such as Oil, Pot and Pearl-Ashes, Flax-Seed, Naval-Stores, Lumber of all Sorts, and likewise Cod Fish by way of Spain and Portugal, the proceeds of which go to Great-Britain as Remittance for Goods; also will put an End to a very valuable Branch of Trade to the Province, the Ship-Building; to create unhappy Divisions in Towns and in Families; to open a Door for the most wicked Perjuries, and to introduce almost every Species of Evil, that we have not yet felt, and cannot serve any good Purpose.

II. Because the Committee of Correspondence, in many of their Letters held forth Principles, which instead of extricating us from our Difficulties, serve in our Opinions still further to involve us, to which Principles we cannot accede.

III. Because the Committee of Correspondence, in some Letters that were read from them to New-York, Philadelphia, and other Places, particularly two to New-York, of the 28th and 30th of May, have falsely, maliciously and scandalously, vilified and abused the Characters of many of us, only for dissenting from them in Opinion, a Right which we shall claim, so long as we hold any Claim to Freedom or Liberty.

Both newspapers then printed three long columns of signatories—129 in all. They didn’t arrange those names in the same order, but provincial treasurer Harrison Gray (shown above) appeared in the top row in both papers, and he had also led the debate in the town meeting, so he’s taken to be this protest’s principal author.

It’s extremely rare to see so many men’s names attached to a document in the newspapers. Devoting that amount of space shows how much weight these men and their message carried for these printers. At the same time, 129 men was a decided minority in the town meeting. That test had already been run.

TOMORROW: The second protest.