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It was certainly love at first sight for John Hancock, and to the young girl his love soon became the one worth-while thing in life.

Not many months after that first visit of John Hancock’s to Dorothy’s home, he paid Judge Quincy a formal visit in Boston and asked for the hand of his youngest daughter in marriage. As a matter of course, the Judge was flattered, for who was a more eligible match than this rich and handsome young Bostonian? On the other hand, he was sorry to include one of England’s rebellious subjects in his family, and he declared so plainly. John Hancock was polite but positive, as he was about everything, and let it be clearly understood that no objection to his suit would make any difference in its final outcome. He and Dorothy loved each other–that was all that really mattered. He sincerely hoped that her father would come to approve of the match, for he would ever consider, he said, Dorothy’s happiness before his own. But he clearly stated that he should stand by those words and deeds of the radical party which he believed best for the colonies, despite any effort which might be made to change any of his opinions; also he was going to marry Dorothy. Evidently his determination won the Judge’s consent, and in giving it he smothered his objections, for there was no further opposition to the match, and no courtship ever gave clearer evidence of an intense devotion on both sides than that of Hancock and Dorothy, who, being ten years younger than her Hero, looked up to him as to some great and superior being worthy of her heart’s supreme devotion.

Political events of vital importance to the colonies happened in swift succession, and Dorothy’s Hancock quickly took his place in the front rank of those who were to be the backbone in the colonies’ struggle for liberty, although at that time his activity against English injustice was largely due to his wish to protect his own business interests. In 1765 the Stamp Act was passed, and John Hancock openly denounced it and declared he would not use the stamps.

“I will not be made a slave without my consent,” he said. “Not a man in England, in proportion to estate, pays the tax that I do.”

And he stood by that declaration, becoming generally recognized as a man of ability and of great power, on whom public duties and responsibilities could be placed with assurance that they would be successfully carried out. While he was deeply occupied with colonial affairs Dorothy Quincy was busy in her home with those duties and diversions which formed the greater part of a young woman’s daily life in those days, but always in spirit she was with her lover, and she thrilled with pride at each new proof of his fearlessness and growing patriotism.

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.