In September, 1768, when it was rumored that troops had been ordered from Halifax, in an attempt of England to quell the spirit of independence rife among her colonists, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, John Adams, and James Otis waited upon the Governor to ask if the report were true, and to request him to call a special meeting of the Assembly. He declined to do it, and a meeting of protest was held in Faneuil Hall, with representatives from ninety-six towns present, at which meeting it was resolved that "they would peril their lives and their fortunes to defend their rights:" "That money cannot be granted nor a standing army kept up in the province but by their own free consent."
The storm was gathering, and ominous clouds hung low over the town of Boston on a day soon after the meeting in Faneuil Hall, when seven armed vessels from Halifax brought troops up the harbor to a wharf at which they landed, and tramped by the sullen crowd of spectators with colors flying, drums beating--as if entering a conquered city. Naturally the inhabitants of Boston would give them no aid in securing quarters, so they were obliged to camp on the Common, near enough to Dorothy Quincy's home on Summer Street to annoy her by the noise of their morning drills, and to make her realize in what peril her lover's life would be if he became more active in public affairs at this critical period.
If any stimulus to John Hancock's growing patriotism was needed it was given on the tenth of June, when one of his vessels, a new sloop, the _Liberty_, arrived in port with a cargo of Madeira wine, the duty on which was much larger than on other wines. "The collector of the port was so inquisitive about the cargo, that the crew locked him below while it was swung ashore and a false bill of entry made out, after an evasive manner into which importers had fallen of late. Naturally enough, when the collector was released from the hold, he reported the outrage to the commander of one of the ships which had brought troops from Halifax, and he promptly seized the _Liberty_ and moved it under his ship's guns to prevent its recapture by Bostonians." This was one of the first acts of violence in the days preceding the struggle for Independence in Massachusetts.