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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.

While John Hancock was so fully occupied with public matters, he yet found time to see his Dolly frequently, and her sorrow was his when in 1769 Mrs. Quincy died, and Dorothy, after having had her protecting love and care for twenty-two years, was left motherless. The young girl was no coward, and her brave acceptance of the sorrow won her lover even more completely than before, while his Aunt Lydia, who had become deeply attached to pretty Dorothy, and was eager to have her adopted son’s romance end happily, lavished much care and affection on the girl and insisted that she visit her home on Beacon Hill frequently. Possibly, too, Aunt Lydia may have been uneasy lest Judge Quincy, left without the wise counsels of his wife, might insist that his daughter sever her connection with such a radical as Hancock had become. In any case, after her mother’s death, Dorothy spent much of her time with her lover’s Aunt Lydia, and Hancock was much envied for the charms of his vivacious bride-to-be. In fact, it has been said that “not to have been attracted to Dorothy Quincy would have argued a heart of steel,” of which there are but few. To her lover she was all and more than woman had ever been before, in charm and grace and beauty, and he who among men was noted for his stern resolve and unyielding demeanor was as wax in the hands of the young woman, who ruled him with gentle tyranny.

To Dorothy her lover was handsome and brilliant beyond even the Hero of her girlish dreams; her love was too sacred for expression, even to him who was its rightful possessor. He appealed to her in a hundred ways, she delighted in his “distinguished presence, his inborn courtesy, his scrupulous toilets;” she adored him for “his devotion to those he loved, his unusual generosity to friends and inferiors,” and she thrilled at the thought of his patriotism, his rapid advancement. And if, as has been said, crowds were swayed by his magnetism, what wonder that it touched and captivated Dorothy Quincy, the object of his heart’s deepest devotion?

On the fifth of March, 1770, British soldiers fired on a crowd in the streets of Boston, and the riot that ensued, in which the killing of six and the injury to a half-dozen more, was dignified by the name of a “Massacre.” Blood was now at boiling-point, and the struggle between the mother country and her colonists had commenced. Private meetings were beginning to be held for public action, and John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Josiah Quincy, a nephew of Dorothy’s father, and an ardent believer in American liberty, were among the leading spirits who took notice of every infringement of rights on the part of the government and its agents. In the House of Representatives they originated almost every measure for the public good, and the people believed them to be the loyal guardians of their rights and privileges.