98 



<la,yg as " Kiiig TToopcv." The oOtli regiment,* nrulor Colonel 

 Hamilton, also arrived here in August, from Halifax, and 

 encamped upon Winter Island, near the fort. It "was the object 

 of Gage, by this manoeuvre, to suppress by force of arms any 

 further attempts for liberty on the part of the inhabitants. In 

 August a fruitless effort ^Yas made by the Governor to prevent 

 a town meeting in Salem, called to choose delegates to meet in 

 Convention at Ipswich, " to consider and determine on such 

 measures as the late acts of Parliament, and our other grievan- 

 ces render necessary and expedient." A proclamation was 

 issued, and troops ordered to be in readiness, who were prepared 

 as if for battle, and eighty of them marched to within one- 

 eighth of a mile of the Town House, but to no purpose. The 

 people of Salem could not be prevented exercising their just 

 rights either by threats or the exhibition of force. In fact, all 

 the powers of government were apparently annihilated. There 

 was not a judge, justice of the peace, or sheriff, who would 

 venture to withstand the inflamed and determined people ; and 

 British bayonets had also lost both their terrors and their influ- 

 ence. In March, 1775, the celebrated Edmund Burke remarked, 

 in the House of Commons, " a vast province has now subsisted, 



* This regiment was afterwards in the battle of Bunker Hill, and 

 suifGred severely in common with other British troops. Of the 

 subsequent history of Colonel Hamilton, we have the folio-wing from 

 Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, which, although there may be none 

 now among us who remember the Colonel, may still possess some histor- 

 ical interest : 



" Robert Hamilton, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and afterwards one of the 

 Clerks of Session, was a particular favorite with Scott — first, among 

 many other good reasons, because he had been a soldier in his youth, 

 had fought gallantly, and had been wounded severely in the American 

 war, and was a very Uncle Toby in military enthusiasm ; secondly, 

 because he was a brother antiquary of the genuine Monkbarns breed : 

 thirdly, (and last, not least,) because he was, in spite of the example of 

 the head of his name and race, a steady tory. Mr. Hamilton sent for 

 Scott when upon his death-bed in 1831, and desired him to choose and 

 carry off as a parting memorial, any article he liked in his collection of 

 arms. Sir Walter (by this time sorely shattered in his own health,) 

 selected the sword ivith which his good friend had been begirt at Bunker 

 Hill ! " 



Of Colonel Hamilton's imperturbable good nature, Sir Walter relates 

 the following : — 



" A laugh with Hamilton, whose gout keeps him stationary at Ler- 

 wick, but whose good humor defies gout and every other provocation, 

 concludes the evening." 



