THE HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS. THE COMMONWEALTH PERIOD. BY JOHN STETSON BARRY, MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND OF THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC-GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. BOSTON: PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR, AND FOR SALE BY HIS GENERAL AGENT, HENRY BARRY, AT No. 20 WASHINGTON STREET. 1857. ANDOVER HAVAD JUN 6 1912 ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY A63,268 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by JOHN S. BARRY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. то THE PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS, PROMPT TO ASSERT AND DEFEND THEIR RIGHTS, AND JEALOUS OF ENCROACHMENTS UPON THEIR REPUBLICAN LIBERTIES, This Volume, RECORDING THE DEEDS OF THE FATHERS OF THE REVOLUTION, AND THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. THE present volume closes the series originally proposed on the History of Massachusetts-bringing that history down to a period within the memory of thousands now living. To many, without doubt, the incidents narrated in the following pages will prove more interesting, and possibly more attractive, than those which have been previously described; while to others, the more distant the scene, or the more remote the period, the greater the charm the historian's page has for their minds. That the difficulties attending the elucidation of our annals for the forty years which followed the opening of the revolution are much more perplexing than those which the forty years preceding the revolution present, will be evident to every one who has attempted the task of writing concerning a period about which conflicting and even opposite opinions may honestly prevail, which are too intimately connected with early recollections to be disturbed without awakening the slumbering memory, and exciting afresh feelings and passions which have long been dormant. If, in discharging his delicate duty, the author shall be found to have dealt impartially with the characters who figure in his pages, he will certainly have reached the height of his wishes. Yet, considering how differently his readers are constituted, and that, in every community, and in relation to |