I I 6 HISTORY OF COH ASSET. 



Hinghamites, led by Rev. Peter Hobart, presented a 

 petition. 



They asked to liave the deputy governor trieciiox binding- 

 over the Hobarts and others, and for causing the arrest of 

 the two men that had refused to give bonds for their 

 appearance in court. It seems incredible to us at this day 

 that nearly the whole town of Hingham should have so 

 underestimated the authority of the government in com- 

 pelling its disobedient citizens to appear for trial. With 

 a marvelous graciousness the deputy governor took his 

 place willingly at the prisoner's bar to be tried — for 

 what .'' — for enforcing the military law ! Nowadays the 

 man who places a hand upon military commands to resist 

 them gets court-martialed quite abruptly ; but there in 

 Boston was the chief executive being tried upon the peti- 

 tion of that little Hingham settlement which had defied 

 military authority. 



One of the angry militiamen of Hingham had said he 

 would die at the sword's point if he might not have the 

 choice of his own officers. How absurd such a demand is 

 may be easily seen ; for the militia of those days was the 

 government's standing army, and how can soldiers be 

 allowed to elect their own captains without official confirma- 

 tion } According to the enactment of the General Court in 

 1636, this very John Winthrop, deputy governor, was of 

 course made colonel, then equivalent to commander-in-chief. 



That Winthrop's authority should be so questioned, and 

 that he was willing to be tried at court for enforcing 

 a colonel's proper commands, is a startling commentary 

 upon the anxiety for individual liberty which both magis- 

 trates and people felt at this time, a century and a quarter 

 before the Revolutionary days. 



The principle of municipal independence, to say nothing 

 of individual independence, was enormously overworked 

 by these our ancestors of Hingham ; and that the other 

 towns were not much less at fault is obvious from the fact 



