Just at that critical period, in May, 1774, advices were received from Europe, 2 of the Government's proposal to close the Port of Boston, with a possibility that that of New York would shortly share the same fate ; and it was also said that the Home Government also intended to remove the principal offenders against the Laws, within the Colonies, that they might be tried and punished in England. 3 With great tact and plausibility and a greater pretension to patriotism, the confederated "Merchants and Traders" and those who possessed their confidence promptly seized that much desired opportunity, for the accomplishment of their sinister purposes ; and, with that end in view, they boldly and promptly occupied the place of leaders of the entire City and Colony, in protesting against those measures of the Home Government, and in providing for a systematic opposition to those measures, under their own particular direction, without, however, having recognized the existence or invited the co-operation of the respectable popular element, within the City, nor those of the very few who really represented and controlled that more unruly element of which mobs were composed, both of which omissions, the meaning of which was very evident, subsequently produced serious, if not unexpected and unwelcome, consequences.

For the purposes of the promoters of the proposed change in the leadership of the politicians of the City, to which reference has been made, " an Advertisement" was posted at the Coffee-house, in Wall-street, a noted place of resort for Shipmasters and Merchants, reciting "the late extraordinary and very alarming advices " from England ; " and " inviting the Merchants to *' meet at the house of Mr. Samuel Francis, on Mon- " day evening, May 16, in order to consult on meaajfbrded a much larger profit; and a disturbance of that line of trade was not, therefore, desirable.