Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

twenty of the rioters for high treason. The jury, however, "would hardly
indict them for a riot."
Within the midst of this revolutionary atmosphere, Jonathan Belcher
assumed the post of governor. Belcher, a professional royal bureaucrat who
had been governor of Massachusetts for a dozen years, could be expected, as a
native of Massachusetts, to be unsympathetic to quitrents and feudal proprietorships.
While sympathetic to the liberal position, Belcher denounced the
rioters, who effected another dramatic jail rescue in Essex County soon after
the governor assumed office. But Belcher's momentary annoyance did not push
him into a reactionary program; instead, he spoke in kindly fashion to a delegation
of the rebels.
The Assembly was under firm control of the liberals, while the Council had
been packed with proprietary appointees. The Council repeatedly urged harsh
suppression of the rioters, and the proprietors called for making rioting a
crime of high treason. The Assembly, while refusing to take such measures,
was in an uncomfortable position; while liberal on the land question, it was
too moderate and cautious to be radical or principled on the issue. When the
radical rebels, after effecting a jail rescue in Hunterdon County in the autumn
of 1747, proposed a great open march on the government in Burlington to
demand defense against the depredations of the proprietors, the frightened
Assembly joined the Council in denouncing such a march as an insult and
contempt of the laws. Chagrined at this desertion by the supposedly sympathetic
Assembly, the rebel settlers canceled the march. Indeed, the middle-ofthe-road
Assembly agreed to pass a very mild bill to suppress the riots—but
without funds to enforce it—in exchange for a government pardon for all
recanting rioters.
The rebels were now faced with a situation all too common to revolutionary
movements throughout history: they could easily defend themselves from
their enemies, but not from their friends. Once again, a revolution confronted
a betrayal by its supposed leaders. If the rebels were to submit to the amnesty,
they would lose their essential revolutionary momentum. Two hundred rebels
prepared to ask forgiveness before the Essex County court, but their leader,
Amos Roberts, managed to persuade them by his eloquence to stand fast. As a
result, only twenty-three rebels took advantage of the proffered pardon. The
stunned leader of the proprietors, James Alexander, proposed that the Council
alone, if necessary, pass a law declaring that all nonrepentant rebels be summarily
convicted of all crimes for which they stood indicted. A fantastic breach
indeed of Anglo-Saxon legal procedures!
Belcher blandly refrained from suppressing the rebels, who continued to
chop down timber allegedly belonging to his proprietary. Finally, however, in
the fall of 1748, the weak and uncertain Belcher allowed himself to be pressured
into arresting the great rebel leader Amos Roberts for high treason.
Here, indeed, was a direct challenge to the power of the revolution. The same
evening a mob gathered at the Newark jail, shunted the deputy sheriff aside,
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