The action of the people gave only too grave an emphasis to what their more self-restrained and thoughtful leaders said. Mr. Townshend’s acts were as openly resisted as Mr. Grenville’s had been; and every art of evasion, every trick of infringement, upon occasion even open and forcible violation, set at naught other restrictions of trade as well. It was startling to see how rapidly affairs approached a crisis. Resistance centred, as trade itself did, at Boston. When Mr. Townshend’s commissioners of customs seized the sloop _Liberty_ in Boston harbor for evasion of the duties, rioters drove them to the fort for shelter, and they sent hastily to England for more troops. The Massachusetts assembly, under the masterful leadership of Mr. Samuel Adams, protested that the measures of the new ministry were in violation of colonial rights, and protested in terms which, though dignified and respectful enough, were unmistakably imperative. The leadership of Samuel Adams was itself a sign of the times. He was a man of the people, passionate in his assertion of rights, and likely to stir and increase passion in those for whom he spoke. Subtle, a born politician; bold, a born leader of men, in assembly or in the street, he was the sort of man and orator whose ascendency may mean revolution almost when he chooses. The assembly, at his suggestion, went beyond the ordinary bounds of protest and sent a circular letter to the other colonies, as if to invite a comparison of views and a general acquiescence in the course of settled opposition it had itself adopted. When the ministers in London demanded a withdrawal of the letter, the assembly of course refused, and the other colonies were more than ever inclined to stand by the stout Bay Colony at whose capital port the fight centred. The ministers, in their desperate purpose to compel submission, declared their intention to remove to England for trial any one who should be charged with treason,—under an almost forgotten statute passed long before Jamestown was settled or English colonies dreamed of in America. That roused the Virginian House of Burgesses once more. They declared, with a sort of quiet passion, in their session of 1769, that no one but their own assemblies had a right to tax the colonies; that they had the inalienable right to petition the government at home upon any matter of grievance whatever, and to petition, if they pleased, jointly, as a body of colonies united in right and interest; and that any attempt to try a colonist for crime anywhere except in the courts of his own colony and by known course of law was “highly derogatory of the right of British subjects,” and not for a moment to be deemed within the lawful power of the crown. There was no need this time for Mr. Henry. All men were now of the same opinion in Virginia, and the action was unanimous.