 Good day to you, Mrs. Eads. Oh, hello, Mrs. Adams. What brings you here today? I'm used to seeing your husband coming for his gazette. Well, John has been away at court, and I am want to read the news. Well, more women should become familiar with what's going on in the community. Well, Mrs. Eads, you and I, I expect, are considered odd creatures. Your husbands help meet by printing the gazette, so you have to read about the goings on. And I am my husband's help meet by reading it all and conversing freely about it. So what is new in the paper this week? Another act meant to coerce the colonies into a state of subservience to our mother country. Intolerable. What is this one? A new version of the quartering act. Because the previous quartering acts were so very successful. They certainly could be held in part responsible for the bloody massacre of March 5, 1770. Oh, I hope, Governor. Gage doesn't see fit to receive 4,000 soldiers to Boston again. I mean, wherever are we to put them? Well, that seems to be the point of this act. Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that if it shall happen at any time that any officers or soldiers in His Majesty's service shall remain within any of the said colonies without quarters for the space of 24 hours after such quarters shall have been demanded, it shall and may be lawful for the governor of the province to order and direct such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings as he shall think necessary to be taken and making a reasonable allowance for the same and make fit for the reception of such soldiers and officers and to put in quarters such officers and soldiers therein for such time as he shall remain proper. Oh dear, what could possibly go wrong? Imagine you depart for a fortnight and return home to a pile of redcoats lodging in your summer kitchen. We are still reeling from their most recent Massachusetts Government Act. I fail to see how disbanding our locally elected legislatures in favor of a government made up solely of Crown appointees is going to coerce Massachusetts Bay into a happy reconciliation with the Crown. At first, there was the Port Act. I have that here. That from and after June 1st, 1774, it shall not be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever to laid, put, or cause to procure, to be laden, put off, or from any key wharf or any place within the said town of Boston. And if any such goods shall within the said town or in any of the places aforesaid, be laden or taken in from the shore into any barge, to be carried on board any ship or vessel outward bound to any other country or province, or to be laden into such barge, from or out of any ship or vessel coming in from any other country such barge shall be forfeited and lost. Mr. Adams will find himself defending the likes of John Hancock for accusations of smuggling again. Well, Mrs. Adams, I suppose that helps with the family economy. True. Hancock and company are a most excellent client. Yes. He always pays his bills on time. To patriots, anyway. I do remember when the Stamp Act went through, he used the fact that there were no stamped papers available in this colony, so he simply could not process payments to creditors overseas. So he was one of the first to effectively embrace non-importation agreements, and he is chiefly an importer and exporter of goods between Massachusetts and London. Well, he had such a stockpile of goods in his warehouses that he was simply able to work on the sale of older merchandise, a practice which has served him very well after the Townsend duties. I suppose he will have a similar opportunity again. Somehow everything that man touches turns to gold. Then there was the Administration of Justice Act. If the crown-appointed courts don't feel they can gain a favorable verdict in one municipality, they can simply move the case someplace else, preferably far away from those pesky rebels. Thus taking my husband farther afield, as he must go where the cases will be tried. Witnesses are to attend at the request of the royal governor and reimburse for their expenses, but not for lost wages. I mean, imagine the hardships on their families, and the accused must hire their own counsel and bear all of the expenses of a trial in a foreign land, not to mention their loss of work. Who has the money for such a defence? Only the likes of John Hancock. Is he still courting your cousin, Dorothy Quincy? Oh, yes. I don't know what is taking them so long to officially declare their intentions. If his aunt Lydia had anything to say about it, they would have married long ago. Well, Mrs. Eads, I must get back to the children. We have our edification cut out for us. A bolstered quartering act. Parliament in King George never failed to disappoint. Happy reading, Mrs. Adams. Good day, Mrs. Eads. Oh, hello. How may I help you? Well, I am the servant of the late Mary Stiles, and I am hoping you can print something for some gladiables I am here on their behalf. I think we printed an obituary for one Widow Stiles not too long ago. She sounded like a kind, good soul to all who remembered her. Oh, she showed me great kindness. Before I come to her house, my life was all on sudden, stolen as a child, beaten to near death by slavers. Sold again and again. I had some years of stability during the Indian wars when I served the ship's captain, Icy Mills. But that wasn't enough to get me my freedom. All this new talk of a bayonet is getting it into the heads of gladiables to rise up. Well, they's talking about a revolt, but don't have the strip or numbers. Then I hear some saying that if we bled showing his majesty's troops, we may get our freedom. But I'm not sure of any white man's promises. But I do know that my numerous masterpieces and Mr. Stiles, Two Sons of Benjamin and David Stiles are good men and are American patriots. I pray you may share the blessings of liberty that God promises all his children. So what do you have for printing? Well, I come bearing a petition that I hope can be printed into Gazette. A manumission petition? Yes, ma'am, I didn't write it, but I am practicing the letters and reading that Mrs. Stiles learned me with. When I come to her house, I could only speak my native tongue and had to communicate in signs with intentions as good and pure as virtue itself. She taught me to read and speak English. The petition of a great number of blacks of this province, who by divine permission are held in the state of slavery within the vows of a free country. I'll be showing that your petitioners have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without being deprived of them by our fellow men as we are a free people and have never forfeited this blessing by any compact or agreement whatever. But we are unjustly dragged by the cruel hand of power from our dearest friends and some of us stolen from the bosoms of our tender parents and from our populist pleasant and plentiful country and bought healer to be made slaves for life in our Christian land. Thus, we are deprived of everything that hath a tendency to make life even tolerable. The endearing ties of husband and wife we are strangers to, for we are no longer man and wife. Then our masters and mistresses, proper married or unmarried, our children are also taken from us by force and sent many miles from us where we seldom ever see them again. There to be made slaves for life, which sometimes is there short by being dragged from their mother's breath. Thus our lives are embedded to us on these accounts by our deplorable situation. We are rendered incapable of showing our obedience to Almighty God. How can a slave perform the duties of a husband to a wife or parent to his child? How can a husband leave master and work and leave to his wife? How can the wife submit themselves to their husbands in all things? How can the child obey their parents in all things? There is a great number of us, sincere members of the church of Christ. How can the master and the slave be said to fulfill that command, live in love, let brotherly love continue and abound? Be ye one another's burdens? How can the master be said to bear my burden when he bears me down with the heavy chains of slavery and oppression against my will? And how can we fulfill our part of duty to him while is in this condition? And as we cannot serve our God as we ought while is in this situation, neither can we reap an equal benefit from the laws of the land which do not condemn slavery or if there had been any law to hold us in bondage. We are humbly of the opinion that never was any to enslave our children for life. When born in a free country, we therefore beg your excellency and honors will give this its due weight and consideration and that you will accordingly cause an act of the legislative to be passed that we may obtain our natural right, our freedoms and our children be set at liberty at the year of 21 for who seeks more particularly your petitioners is in duty ever to pray. Well, thank you. I'll give this to my husband and see if he will put it in print in the next edition. Oh, thank you, ma'am. I pray we shall all join Mr. Stiles in heaven. You have a good day and my thanks to you and Mr. Eads and Mr. Gill. Tell Dr. Warren we will have this printed in the next edition. Now you have a safe ride to Philadelphia with this missive. I hope Congress will hear and adopt the resolves of Suffolk County and the colony of Massachusetts at a convention of the representative committees of several towns and districts of the County of Suffolk in the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England. First, after reading several late acts of the British Parliament and other papers relative to this convention and having agreed that in case of any difference in sentiment, the question be decided by the deputies voting by towns and districts. Second, that there are certain rights to which we are entitled in common with all mankind as men, that there are other rights to which we are entitled as Englishmen in common with other the King's subjects residing in England. Third, that all these several rights are arbitrarily and cruelly invaded by several late acts of the British Parliament and enforced by the ironed hand of power. Fifth, that until such a restoration takes place and in order to affect the same, we will, to our utmost of our power, withhold all commercial intercourse with Great Britain and the consumption of British merchandise and manufacturers and especially of the East India teas and peace goods with such additions, alterations and exceptions only as the Grand Congress of the colonies may agree to. Oh my, it is a formal declaration of a boycott on British imports and exports to England. Dr. Joseph Warren has a knack for putting into words the things most others may only say, but never write down. Seventh, that we will pay all due respect and submission to such measures as may be recommended to all colonies by their Grand Congress for the recovery and establishment of our just rights and liberties, civil and religious and the restoration of that union. These difficulties with Great Britain may very soon be so settled and adjusted that America may never again be harassed and troubled with custom house officers, revenue commissioners or other unconstitutional officers. Sounds like the colony demands the resignations from those appointed to positions under the Massachusetts Government Act. And if I'm not mistaken, we will withhold taxes till our charters are again upheld. Ninth, that the power assumed by the British Parliament to make laws to bind the colonies in all causes whatsoever is not only intended to affect our civil rights and liberties, but by the establishment of popery in Canada, we have everything to fear for our religious rights and privileges. The Quebec action has fomented such unpopular sentiment in New England, allowing the ancestrarily papized French to carry on as they were before the French and Indian War is but an attempt to increase their support as British loyalists subjects in Canada and the Western provinces, thereby surrounding us so-called rebels on our land borders. Eleventh, that as by virtue of a late act of British Parliament, we have councillors and other officers who are Americans unconstitutionally imposed upon us. We will consider them as enemies and traitors to their country and will not acknowledge their official authority. Thirteenth, that though we seriously readily acknowledge our allegiance to King George III in common with our fellow subjects in Britain, though yet we will use every lawful means which heaven has or may put into our power to prevent our becoming slaves and will never submit to it until the last reason of states has been fully tried, which severe trial may God of His great mercy prevent for both the sake of Great Britain and the colonies. I have heard talk that our militia are making all efforts to be ready in a minute if the call to arms is raised. Lord, preserve us. I wonder what will happen next?