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Now that Grandfather had fought through the Old French War, in which our chair made no very distinguished figure, he thought it high time to tell the children some of the more private history of that praiseworthy old piece of furniture. "In 1757," said Grandfather, "after Shirley had been summoned to England, Thomas Pownall was appointed governor of Massachusetts.
Some of them, as Pownall of Massachusetts and Spotswood of Virginia, were men of marked ability. Some were honest gentlemen, who felt a real interest in the welfare of the people they came to help govern; some were unprincipled adventurers, who came to make money by fair means or foul. Their position was one of much dignity, and they behaved themselves like lesser kings.
From the first settlement of the country, the genius of our institutions and our national spirit have claimed it as a common possession, and exulted in it with a common pride. A century ago, Governor Pownall, one of the most eminent constitutional jurists of colonial times, said of the common law, "In all the colonies the common law is received as the foundation and main body of their law."
Governor Pownall makes proclamation for the enlisting of soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to the discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every town to replenish their stocks of ammunition. The magazine, by the way, was generally kept in the upper loft of the village meeting-house. The provincial captains are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper.
"There was a bill presented to the governor for the purpose of appointing you and another, one Dr. Lee I think he is called, to which the governor refused his assent. "I cannot understand this, my lord; I think there must be some mistake in it. Is your lordship quite sure that you have such a letter? "I will convince you of it directly; Mr. Pownall will come in and satisfy you." So Mr.
Ex-governor Pownall of Massachusetts, now in Parliament, did not fail to warn the House of the danger into which it was running; but his words were unheeded, and the Bills passed promptly. The result of these measures was inevitable.
The Governor, in a letter addressed to John Pownall, which is marked "Private and Confidential," explains the origin and intention of this paper, a paper which has not been referred to by historians: "Boston, Dec. 24, 1768.
Governor Pownall was haggling as usual with his assembly over a levy of two thousand men, when there arrived in Boston Pitt's order that henceforth colonial officers should take rank with regulars, according to the date of their commissions. The simple order was worth more than many plans of union.
Then came a rude soldier, mailed, begirt with arms: the tyrant Andros; a brown-faced man with a sailor's gait: Sir William Phipps; a courtier wigged and jewelled: Earl Bellomont; the crafty, well-mannered Dudley; the twinkling, red-nosed Shute; the ponderous Burnet; the gouty Belcher; Shirley, Pownall, Bernard, Hutchinson; then a soldier, whose cocked hat he held before his face.
Pownall, will show the usefulness and respectability of these liberated negroes.
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