The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol 2, page 179 by Samuel Adams
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to the pernicious designs of the enemies of the colonies, which generally consisted of full three quarters of the members and sometimes more, as the feeble efforts of an expiring faction.
This direct and peremptory requisition, of a new and strange constructure, and so strenuously urg'd by the governor, was taken into consideration by the house, on the next day after it was laid before them; and as is usual in all matters of importance, was then referred to a large committee further to consider it, and report their opinion of what was expedient to be done: As the governor had assured the house in his message, that "their resolution thereon would have the most important consequences to the province," the committee were the more deliberate in their consultations; very reasonably expecting, that after such an assurance given to the house, the governor would indulge them with sufficient time thoroughly to digest it.However sanguine the expectation of lord Hills-borough might be, through the artful insinuation of governor Bernard that, the "attempts of a desperate faction (as his lordship expressed it) would be discountenanced, and that the execution of the measure recommended would not meet with any difficulty;" the governor himself, who was fully acquainted with the sentiments of the house, as well as of the generality of the people without doors, had no "grounds to hope" that the requisition would be comply'd with; and therefore as a dissolution was to be the immediate consequence of a refusal, and as his lordship had directed the governor to "transmit to him an account of their proceedings to be laid before his Majesty, to the end that his Majesty might, if he tho't proper, lay the whole matter before his parliament," it might have been well supposed that a longer time was necessary for them to state the reasons of their own conduct, and to set the transactions of the former house, which had been grossly misrepresented, in a true point of light, in order to vindicate themselves, when their whole proceedings