Other methods were then recommended and followed, as infallible means of restoring peace and order. We looked upon them to be, what they have since proved to be, the cause of inflaming discontent into disobedience, and resistance into revolt. The subversion of solemn, fundamental charters, on a suggestion of abuse, without citation, evidence, or hearing,--the total suspension of the commerce of a great maritime city, the capital of a great maritime province, during the pleasure of the crown,--the establishment of a military force, not accountable to the ordinary tribunals of the country in which it was kept up,--these and other proceedings at that time, if no previous cause of dissension had subsisted, were sufficient to produce great troubles: unjust at all times, they were then irrational. We could not conceive, when disorders had arisen from the complaint of one violated right, that to violate every other was the proper means of quieting an exasperated people. It seemed to us absurd and preposterous to hold out, as the means of calming a people in a state of extreme inflammation, and ready to take up arms, the austere law which a rigid conqueror would impose as the sequel of the most decisive victories. Recourse, indeed, was at the same time had to force; and we saw a force sent out, enough to menace liberty, but not to awe opposition,--tending to bring odium on the civil power, and contempt on the military,--at once to provoke and encourage resistance. Force was sent out not sufficient to hold one town; laws were passed to inflame thirteen provinces. This mode of proceeding, by harsh laws and feeble armies, could not be defended on the principle of mercy and forbearance. For mercy, as we conceive, consists, not in the weakness of the means, but in the benignity of the ends. We apprehend that mild measures may be powerfully enforced, and that acts of extreme rigor and injustice may be attended with as much feebleness in the execution as severity in the formation. In consequence of these terrors, which, falling upon some, threatened all, the colonies made a common cause with the sufferers, and proceeded, on their part, to acts of resistance. In that alarming situation, we besought your Majesty's ministers to entertain some distrust of the operation of coercive measures, and to profit of their experience. Experience had no effect. The modes of legislative rigor were construed, not to have been erroneous in their policy, but too limited in their extent. New severities were adopted. The fisheries of your people in America followed their charters; and their mutual combination to defend what they thought their common rights brought on a total prohibition of their mutual commercial intercourse. No distinction of persons or merits was observed: the peaceable and the mutinous, friends and foes, were alike involved, as if the rigor of the laws had a certain tendency to recommend the authority of the legislator.