Note 57 — Chapter VI · causes of the revolution.

In 1743 the governor of New York wrote that he “could not meet the Assembly without subjecting the king’s authority and himself to contempt.” The governor of South Carolina wrote, “The frame of the civil government is unhinged; the people have got the whole administration in their hands; the Constitution must be remodeled.” Governor Sherlock wrote that “Virginia had nothing more at heart than to lessen the influence of the crown.” The governor of New Jersey wrote of the legislature that he “could not bring the delegates into passing measures for suppressing the wicked spirit of rebellion.” The governor of Massachusetts wrote deploring “the mobbish turn of the town,” and accounting for it by saying that “the management of it devolved upon the popular Assembly in their town meeting.”