the world. It stood opposite where now stands the Boy ston Market, with its immense branches overspreading the street. Governor Bernard, writing to Lord Hillsborough, in a letter dated Boston, June 16, 1763, gives the following description of the renowned spot:

"Your lordship must know that Liberty Tree is a large old elm in the High-street, upon which the effigies were hung in the time of the Stamp-Act, and from whence the mobs at that time made their parades. It has since been adorned with an inscription, and has obtained the name of Liberty Tree, as the ground under it has that of Liberty Hall. In August last, just before the commencement of the present troubles, they erected a flag-staff, which went through the tree and a good deal above the top of the tree. Upon this they hoist a flag as a signal for the 'Sons of Liberty,' as they are called. I gave my Lord Shelburne an account of this erection at the time it was made. This tree has often put me in mind of Jack Cade's 'Oak of Reformation."

The towering elm thus referred to was the grand rallying-point for the ancient Sons of Liberty. On its sturdy trunk notices of tyrannical movements and calls to resist the same were wont to appear in the night, nobody could tell from whence; from its lofty branches obnoxious functionaries were often suspended in ridiculous representations, nobody could tell by whom. For instance, on the fourteenth of August, 1765, an effigy of Mr. Oliver, recently appointed to distribute the stamps, and a boot (emblematical of Lord Bute) with the devil peeping out of it with the Stamp-Act in his

nand, and various other satirical emblems, here ap peared in the manner described. By this time, so strong had the popular indignation become, that the sheriffs, when ordered to the task by Chief Justice Hutchinson, declined the danger of removing the pageantry from the tree. It would seem that on this spot "libertypoles" originated, and one now marks the site of the tree so dear to our fathers; a locality thrilling indeed in its associations.

To the thoughtful American, as he perambulates Boston and its vicinity, there are many scenes calculated to arrest and strongly to absorb attention; but, all things considered, perhaps no place in New England is more interesting than Faneuil Hall. We have already alluded to several distinguished battle-fields of early American eloquence, each of which is remarkable for the conquest of some grand and specific principle of freedom. The old State-House, the head-quarters of colonial government in Boston, was the arena on which unrighteous taxation was combatted and the true ground won. The House of Burgesses, at Williamsburg, was the field on which open rebellion against Parliament was first declared, and Hanover court-house, in the same colony, was the blessed spot whereon priestly rule was effectually destroyed; but Faneuil Hall will be forever memorable for still more noble and enduring associations. Within those venerable walls transpired not so much the work of destruction as construction; patriots therein not only resisted wrong, but they elicited and moulded into practical use the elements of what is right and good; while they pulled down antique

forms of government, they at the same time built up a new order of political and moral architecture the most symmetrical and sublime.

Three prominent features characterize our republican institutions; universal representation, free discussion, and the decision of all questions by majorities. It is easy to demonstrate where these fundamental principles were first established.

The "town-meetings" of New England were entirely a new feature introduced to the world in connection with political reform. A noted one was held in Faneui Hall on the twelfth of September, 1768. Dr. Cooper opened the exercises with prayer. A letter written to the commissioners of the British government, by one of their spies, gives us some interesting details with respect to the customs and feelings that prevailed in the popular meetings of those times. The informer tells .hem that the people met in Faneuil Hall; that Mr. Otis was chosen moderator, and was received with an universal clapping of hands; that the hall not being large enough to contain them, they adjourned to Dr. Sewall's meeting-house; that after several motions, and the appointing a deputation to wait on his excellency, they agreed to adjourn to the next afternoon; "the moderator first making a speech to the inhabitants, strongly recommending peace and good order, and the grievances the people labored under might be in time removed; if not, and we were called on to defend our liberties and privileges, he hoped and believed we should one and all resist, even unto blood; but at the same time, prayed Anighty God it migh never so happen."

Thus was the right of free discussion in a popular as sembly asserted and exercised, and the still higher righ of universal suffrage connected therewith. The show of hands decided every question, and the hard hand of the laboring man counted as much as that which signed orders for tens of thousands. Such gatherings and dis cussions had the most salutary effects. The people be came acquainted with each other, and felt the need of mutual dependence as well as mutual restraint. The influence of every man was estimated according to his personal worth. In the popular strife for universal freedom, they struck upon the fundamental principle of republicanism, that the majority must rule; it was this that gave each member of an assembly a pride in maintaining its decisions, as he thereby fortified his own judg. ment and self-respect. No sooner had these meetings, actuated and controlled by such original and exalted principles, began to be held in the "Cradle of Liberty,” than the sagacious Burke recognized and proclaimed their superior dignity. Said he of the colonists: "Their governments are popular in a high degree; some are merely popular, in all the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments and with a strong aversion for whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance." But what this magnanimous statesman approved, others maligned. Governor Bernard vilified the character of the popular meetings, to which misrepresentations the "Vindication of the Town of Boston," written by Otis, replied as fol. lows: "The governor has often been observed to dis

cover an aversion to free assemblies; no wonder then that he should be so particularly disgusted at a legal meeting of the town of Boston, where a noble freedom of speech is ever expected and maintained; an assembly of which it may be justly said, to borrow the language of the ancient Roman, 'They think as they please, and speak as they think.' Such an assembly has ever been the dread and often the scourge of tyrants."

The struggle between the metropolis of New England and the British government was severe, and continued from the time of the Stamp-Act, in 1765, till the evacuation of the foreign troops in 1776. Every walk of industrious life and every profession, the bar, the pulpit and the press, combined to give intensity and efficiency to the civil war. As an indication of the plainness and power of the latter, the following anecdote will suffice. A negro, whose principles were like his master's, a tool of foreign despotism, one day met Mr. Edes, the printer of the Boston Gazette, which was the devoted organ of the patriots, and inquired of him what was the news. The printer replied that there was nothing new. "Well,” said the sable aristocrat, "if you've nothing new, Massa Edes, I s'pose you print the same old lie over again."

It is important to remember, that in all the excitements of those times; the vexations that arrested commerce; the irritations produced by the presence of mercenary troops; the menaces of arrogant officers, and even the massacre of several citizens in open day; despite all sorts of provocations and the most favorable opportunities for revenge, during the whole period of the Revolution not a single life was destroyed by the Bos