and concluded that it was not the town’s duty any way to assist that ill method of raising money without a general assembly.” The next day they attended the town-meeting, and Mr. Wise made a speech, enforcing this opinion of his friends, and said, “We have a good God, and a good king, and should do well to stand on our privileges.” And by their privileges they concluded to stand. I cannot read the simple, manly, and noble vote of Ipswich on that day without a thrill of pride,—that then, when the hearts of the pious and brave children in Massachusetts seemed almost sunk within them, —our charter gone, James Stuart the Second on the throne, (I suspect it was irony or policy of Mr. Wise to call him a good king)—just when the long-cherished, long-dreaded design of the English Crown to reduce the colonies into immediate dependence on itself, and to give them, unconcealed, slavery for substantial freedom, seemed about to be consummated,—that we here and then, with full knowledge of the power and temper of Andros and his council, dared to assert and to spread out upon our humble record the great principle of English liberty and of the American Revolution. The record declares “that considering the said act” (referring to the order of the governor and council imposing the tax) “doth infringe their liberty as free-born English subjects of His Majesty, and by interfering with the statute laws of the land by which it was enacted that no taxes should be levied upon the subjects without the consent of an assembly chosen by the free men for assessing the same,—they do, therefore, vote that they are not willing to choose a commissioner for such an end without such a privilege;—and they, moreover, consent not that the selectmen do proceed to levy any such rate, until it be appointed by a general assembly, concurring with the Governor and Council.” For the share they had taken in the proceedings of that memorable day, Mr. Wise and five others, probably those who met with him, and Mr. Appleton himself, were arrested, by order of the Governor, as for a contempt and misdemeanor, and carried beyond the limits of the county, imprisoned in jail at Boston, denied the writ of habeas corpus, tried by a packed jury—principally strangers and foreigners, I rejoice to read—and a subservient court, and of course found guilty. They were all fined more or less heavily, from £15 to £50, 12
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