The months went by; I read my fragments and powdered Mr. Sharpe’s hair. I played dance-tunes at the convocations and entertainments of wealth. My mother sewed in the kitchen with the other slaves.
We heard the countryside was full of insurrection. In every town, Loyalists and rebels rose against each other. Men were beaten; some were shot at in jest. The spirit of Anarchy spread everywhere his light and agitated wings.
Merchants began to stock-pile for war, for siege. The Harbor was plied with barges and packets from all up and down the coast, delivering fuel and grain. There was, in all of the denizens of the town, an expectation of riot, famine, and sickness. In the countryside, rumors of smallpox spread like sedition. There was word that the pestilence crawled towards the city from the north shore, and that soon, in the alleys, we should be dying of it.
On June 1st of that year, the fatal blow fell: the Port of Boston was closed; the Assembly dismissed; the Governor rescinded to England; General Gage, newly come from London and an audience with the King, appointed in the Governor’s place; the courts were in ruin; and it seemed all civil government was at an end.
Many families began to flee the town; while others fled into that last hive of the government for protection: being rural justices who cleaved to the Tory cause, and met with hard words and had their horses maimed or painted; journeymen who had spake too loudly of their loyalty to the King at taverns; men who had been belabored about the head with the butts of muskets; farmers who had been hoisted up Liberty poles and forced to recant; shopkeepers who had persisted in selling their English wares, despite the injunctions of the rebel Committees. Such made their way into the city, where transport ships seemed daily to arrive, disgorging regiments of soldiers who paraded through the streets and encamped upon the Common.
Fasts were declared, and public prayer. We knelt in the Negro aisles of the Meeting House asking for deliverance from what was to come. Other cities, too, called for fasts to offer up their corporate orisons; and, sensible of our distress, they sent flour and rice. Carts came all day across Boston Neck.
We were among those who fled into the countryside.
At the Gitney house, we packed our things in trunks. We closed up the windows with shutters and laid sheets upon the furniture, the house being prepared for dormancy. We rushed through the uncarpeted chambers, candlesticks clutched to our breasts. On the streets, we heard the marching of soldiers.
Mr. Gitney hired wagons, and we were all employed in carrying out experimental apparati and stacking them behind the horses. Caged animals squabbled with us through the bars. We sent out wagon-load after wagon-load into the countryside.
We were retreating to the house of one of Mr. Gitney’s brothers, one of the Young Men.
The house was a spacious one, new built, in the town of Canaan, Massachusetts. We set up experimental chambers there, and fed the raccoons and serpents. We constructed our curious machines.
We heard news — which word could not but quicken the blood — of common men rising in the thousands to empty the rural law courts of corruption and expel the un-elected favorites of government. We heard of troop movements in the countryside to seize powder and shot. We heard of free elections cancelled for fear of who would win.
And in the midst of it, Bono was given away as a Christmas gift to a trustee of the College.