“Any Kind of Eagerness in us upon this Question would do Hurt”

As described yesterday, on 9 May 1776 the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court passed a resolve urging upcoming town meetings to instruct the legislators they would elect on whether to support independence from Britain.

And on 10 May the upper house, the Council, refused to approve that measure.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper (shown here) reported these events to Samuel Adams in a letter dated 13 May 1776. The New York Public Library has digitized that letter here.

Cooper wrote:

…the House pass’d a Vote to consult their Constituents, whether they would instruct their future Representatives to move the Continental Congress for Independence. I can only assure you of the Substance of the Vote; the Form of it was not clearly related to me.

The House sent up this Vote to the Council for their Concurrence—the Propriety of this was doubted by some, who did not think the Council could properly act on such an Affair. It was however done, and the Council negatived the Vote.

Mr. [Thomas] Cushing among others was against it. He said that it would embarrass the Congress—that we ought to wait till they mov’d the Question to us—that it would prejudice the other colonies against us—and that you had wrote to some Body here, that Things with you were going on slowly & surely, and any Kind of Eagerness in us upon this Question would do Hurt.

Others said that the Congress might not choose to move such a Point to their constituents tho they might be very glad to know their Minds upon it—that it was beginning at the right End of the Constituents to instruct their Delegates at Congress, & not wait for their asking Instructions from their Constituents—that the Question had been long thought of, & agitated thro the Colonies, & it was now high Time to come to some Determination upon it; otherwise our artful Enemies might sow the Seeds of Dissension among us to the great Prejudice if not Ruin of the common Cause.

Cooper was well connected with politicians, and his description is certainly consistent with Cushing’s behavior for the past several months. While speaking in favor of resisting Parliament and giving the Continental Congress the power to choose independence, Cushing stood in the way of all the concrete steps toward that end.

TOMORROW: The house’s end run.