An affair happened at the close of the year 1773, which drove Adams and all his factions into madness. It was a grant from the King of a salary to the judges of the Supreme Court. The Assembly had endeavoured to keep the judges in absolute dependence upon their humor and because they found them rather too firm to coincide with their views in the subversion of government, they made them the object of their resentment. The judges of the Court had the shortest allowance from the General Assembly of any publick officers, even their Doorkeeper had a large stipend. The judges' travel on their circuits were from 1100 to 1500 miles in a year. Their circuit business engrossed seven months of the year during the extremes of heat and cold in a severe climate. For all their service, the highest grant made to them was £120 sterling per year, and it had been much less; the Chief Justice had £30 sterling more. His Majesty taking the cases of the judges into consideration, and from his known justice and benevolence, ordered their salaries to be paid out of his revenues in America, such salaries as would keep them above want, and below envy. The judges upon hearing of His Majesty's intention of such a grant had agreed to accept it, but four of them who lived at and near the focus of tarring and feathering, the town of Boston flinched in the day of battle, they were so pelted with soothings one day, and with curses and threatenings the next, that they prudentially gave the point up. The Chief Justice was now left alone in the combat, his brethren had but lately been seated on the Bench. He had been 17 years in the service, and had sunk more than £2000 sterling in it. He had offered not to accept of the grant (if His Majesty would permit him to do so), provided the Assembly would reimburse him one-half of his loss in their service, and for this he would resign his seat on the Bench. The Chief Justice very luckily lived at Middleborough, about 30 miles from Boston, or perhaps he would have followed suit of his brethren in giving up the King's grant. A message was sent to him by the Lower House signed "Samuel Adams, Clerk," requiring him to make explicit answer whether he would accept of the King's grant, or of their grant. He replied that he should accept the King's grant. Nothing less than destruction now awaited him. Col. Gardner, who was afterwards killed at Bunker Hill, declared in the General Assembly, that he himself would drag the Chief Justice from the Bench, if he should sit upon it.