In order to make these measures
effective, General Gage, commander of the American forces, was
made Governor of Massachussetts. To what extent he would find it
necessary to use the military depended upon the Bostonians. "The
die is now cast," the King wrote to Lord North; "the colonies
must either submit or triumph." The King's judgment was not
always good; but it must be conceded that in this instance he had
penetrated to the very center of the situation.
Massachusetts, very naturally, wished not to submit, but whether
she could triumph without the support of the other colonies was
more than doubtful; and it was to obtain this support, to devise
if possible a method of resistance agreeable to all, that the
Congress was now assembling at Philadelphia. The spirit in which
the colonies received the news of the Boston Port Bill augured
well for union, for in every colony it was felt that this was a
challenge which could not be evaded without giving the lie to ten
years of high talk about the inalienable rights of Englishmen. As
Charles James Fox said, "all were taught to consider the town of
Boston as suffering in the common cause." This sentiment John
Adams found everywhere expressed--found everywhere, as he took
his leisurely journey southward, that people were "very firm" in
their determination to support Massachusetts against the
oppression of the British Government.
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