The day before the town meeting of June the fourteenth, a committee of both houses was appointed to inquire into the state of the province. When they made their report, [30.] in speaking of the affair on Friday the tenth, they said, “The seizure occasioned a number of people to be collected, who, from the violence and unprecedentedness of the procedure in carrying off the vessel, _&c._ took occasion to insult and abuse the officers, and to commit other disorders, _&c._—Resolved, that though the extraordinary circumstances of said seizure may extenuate the criminality, yet being of a very criminal nature, and of dangerous consequence, the two houses delare their utter abhorrence and detestation of them and resolve that the governor be desired to direct the attorney-general to prosecute all persons concerned in the said riot, and that a proclamation be issued, offering a reward for making discovery, so as the rioters or abettors may be brought to condign punishment.” Neither rioters not abettors had any thing to fear from either proclamation or prosecution; and knew themselves to be perfectly safe, notwithstanding the report; but the politicians saw it was expedient to say something to save appearances, and well-meaning persons might join them, in the simplicity of their hearts, believing that the others intended their words should be productive of the events to which they seemingly pointed. At the sitting of the superior court in August, the grand jury was found to have among them several of the abettors of the Boston rioters, and particularly the famous captain Malcolm, a circumstance that necessarily quashed all informations and prosecutions, as it strongly foreboded their issue. The council in a letter to Lord _Hillsborough_ insinuated, that the commissioners had concerted a plan, with the design of raising a disturbance by the seizure of the sloop Liberty. The insinuation must be placed to the ill will they bore to the commissioners, more than to any thing beside. On the twenty-ninth of July, they said, “The commissioners were not obliged to quit the town; there never had been any insult offered to them; their quitting the town was a voluntary act of their own; we do not apprehend there was any sufficient ground for their quitting it.” But it appears from a manuscript in Mr. _Hutchinson_’s hand writing, that the commissioners applied, December the nineteenth, to each of the four judges of the superior court separately for their opinions upon four questions; and that after having conferred together, they were unanimously of opinion, “That from the spirit which had been excited in the populace against all the commissioners of the customs, Mr. _Temple_ excepted, they could not have remained long in safety at Boston after the seizure of the sloop Liberty, but would have been in great danger of violence to their persons and properties from a mob, which, at that time, it was generally expected would be raised for that purpose: