No measure reported by Samuel Dexter was likely to satisfy the hot temper of a town-meeting. The regular Resolutions were duly adopted, with little vigorous opposition, and the meeting adjourned till the next day; but when the citizens reassembled, January 24, they passed another resolve, offered by Daniel Sargent, which startled the law-abiding public of Massachusetts by formally declaring that “we will not voluntarily aid or assist in the execution” of the Enforcement Act; and that “all those who shall so assist in enforcing upon others the arbitrary and unconstitutional provisions of this Act, ought to be considered as enemies to the Constitution of the United States and of this State, and hostile to the liberties of this people.” Alarming as was the tone of Boston, Samuel Dexter and his associates avoided taking open part with the British government against their own. Elsewhere no such reticence was shown. Not only in private, in all places, at every table, did the bitterness of New England temper and the intensity of local prejudice allow themselves the freest expression, but the numerous town-meetings also showed a spirit rather British than American. Among many examples a few are worth recalling, to show the absence of national feeling, and the difficulties and dangers which stood in the nation’s way. January 24 the town of Beverly, in Essex County, voted[357] that-- “They have witnessed with regret too strong a propensity to palliate and overlook the unjust aggressions of one foreign nation, and to exaggerate and misrepresent the conduct of another; that the measures pursued are calculated and designed to force us into a war with Great Britain,--a war which would be extremely detrimental to our agriculture, fatal to our commerce, and which would probably deprive us forever of the Bank fishery,--and to unite us in alliance with France, whose embrace is death.” January 26 the town of Plymouth voted[358]-- “That by the partial and insidious management of our external relations, by a servile compliance with the views of one belligerent whose restless ambition is grasping at the subjugation of the civilized world, and by the unnecessary provocations offered to another, magnanimously contending for its own existence and the emancipation of the oppressed, our national peace is endangered, and our national dignity and good faith sacrificed on the altar of duplicity.” January 23 the town of Wells, in the district of Maine, voted[359]-- “That we deprecate that cringing sycophancy which has marked the conduct of our national government toward the tyrant of Europe, while we view with indignation and alarm its hostility toward Great Britain.” On the same day Gloucester spoke in language still more insulting to the national government:[360]--