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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED ^TAT*!^ OP AMEEIOA. 
 
MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 American Revolution 
 
 BY / 
 
 AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD 
 
 AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE 
 
 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 APRIL lO, 1895 
 
 CITY OF WASHINGTON 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 
 
 1895 
 
PRESS OF W. F. ROBERTS, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 
MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 HONORED by the invitation to address 
 you upon the part borne by Massachu- 
 setts in the War of Independence, I deem it 
 not inappropriate to preface my remarks by 
 a rapid sketch of some of the conditions 
 prevailing in all the colonies in the years 
 immediately preceding the epoch of the 
 American Revolution. 
 
 If we look through that most interesting 
 historical period — the last quarter of the 
 eighteenth century — we shall find in Amer- 
 ica an abundance of intellectual activity. 
 By a long series of events and experiences, 
 in the colonies and in the mother country, 
 
6 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 the minds of men had been prepared for 
 independence. Many of the emigrants to 
 America were exiles from political or eccle- 
 siastical tyranny, whose decendants in- 
 herited those principles of strong self- 
 reliance and hatred of arbitrary power 
 which bore fruit in the revolutionary epoch. 
 The isolation of the colonies, in an age 
 before steam navigation had brought Amer- 
 ica near to Europe, contributed to weaken 
 the influence of foreign ideas and associa- 
 tions, and to develop the power of domestic 
 ones. By its own inherent energies, no 
 less than by maternal unkindness, the child 
 America v/as being gradually weaned from 
 England. The democracy of the town- 
 meeting, the union of neighborhoods against 
 the Indians, the broad freedom of a virgin 
 land, with its illimitable forests, the or- 
 ganized colonial legislatures, the birth of the 
 newspaper, the wide diffusion of education, 
 the liberty of the press — all conspired with 
 their remoteness from the mother coun- 
 try to sow the seeds of independence. 
 It is a notable fact, in our estimate of the 
 complex influences which wrought out this 
 great result, that the growing intellectual 
 life of the colonies had gradually diminished 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 7 
 
 the once overshadowing prevalence of Brit- 
 ish books and British thought in America. 
 From the first printing press, in 1639, at 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the end of 
 the first year of the Revolution, in 177% 
 there were printed in the colonies more 
 than 8,000 books and pamphlets. Out of 
 this number, surprisingly few were of trans- 
 Atlantic origin. Allowing for cases of doubt- 
 ful authorship, and counting as American 
 only the works actually written by resi- 
 dents in the colonies, 1 have found that 
 about 7,350 of the total publications of the 
 American press before the Revolution were 
 of American origin, and only about 650 of 
 foreign origin, or less than one in thirteen. 
 This too, leaves out of account the writings 
 of Americans actually published in London 
 during that-long period of pre-revolutionary 
 activity. These would swell the lists of 
 purely American books to a very consider- 
 able extent. In view of so pregnant a fact of 
 literary history, the widely diffused notion 
 that American ideas and their expression 
 were all formed upon foreign standards, and 
 that the colonies had no native literature^ 
 must be relinquished. 
 , It would, indeed, be unreasonable to ex- 
 
8 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 pect from a people engrossed in the ques- 
 tions and agitated by the passions of a 
 revolution, literary works which could claim 
 admiration as literature. Works of fancy 
 and imagination are rarely born amid the 
 rude campaign, or the shock of battle, and 
 great political controversies afford no place 
 for the refinements of speech. The principal 
 writers of the period under review were 
 engaged, not in creating a literature, but in 
 founding a nation. The serious problems, 
 political and social, which confronted them, 
 not only controlled their choice of subjects, 
 but to a great degree influenced their style. 
 While the outbreak and progress of the 
 revolution incontestably led to a great ex- 
 pansion of the human mind, that movement 
 was felt rather in the field and the council, 
 than in the closet or the schools. The war 
 against England, which required for its 
 successful prosecution great powers and 
 distinguished talents, happily appeared to 
 create and to foster both. Whenever the 
 occasion arose, there were always found 
 men worthy of the occasion. Those who 
 had manifested no special commanding 
 faculties in the piping times of peace, were 
 found, under the rousing stimulus of war. 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 9 
 
 to possess a genius for action and for 
 utterance which did signal service to their 
 country's cause. Fired with the love of 
 freedom, and animated by a lofty patriot- 
 ism, men wrote with an energy and persua- 
 sive force hitherto unexampled in colonial 
 literature. A certain magnanimity took 
 the place of those narrow and sectional 
 feelings which had too much prevailed 
 before the Revolution. The people of the 
 different colonies had known but little of 
 each other, and unreasonable jealousies and 
 discords were the fruit of this want of inter- 
 course. The raising of the first Continental 
 army was a great step toward union. Men 
 organized to fight for a common cause, 
 with a common leader, and against a com- 
 mon foe, came to look upon one another as 
 brethren. But more powerful, doubtless, 
 than this sentiment born of military union, 
 was the feeling of the necessity of political 
 union, urged upon the people with consum- 
 mate power by writers and speakers who 
 represented the best intellects and the 
 ripest thought of the time. Indeed, in the 
 contests of the American Revolution, as of 
 so many other revolutions, there is little 
 room to doubt that the pen was mightier 
 than the sword. 
 
10 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 Great was the intellectual stimulus which 
 the agitation of these momentous events 
 contributed to the life of the people. They 
 were not the listless consumers of a foreign 
 literature, born in the dull age of the Han- 
 overian dynasty, but the Americans began 
 to be independent of British thought, as of 
 British institutions. The best writing of 
 the time, rude but strong, had in it the free 
 breath of the woods, and the flavor of the 
 soil. The pens which championed the 
 cause of the people against the monarchy 
 were at their best when they forgot to 
 quote. The energies of a hitherto divided 
 and scattered people, now fast becoming 
 nationalized, poured themselves forth in 
 vigorous protests and appeals. The news- 
 papers became energized with a new life, 
 and the conspicuous idea of that life was 
 the principle of self-government. The press 
 became prolific in pamphlets, and instead of 
 that great redundancy of sermons which 
 characterized the printed literature of the 
 century before the Revolution, there were 
 more and more of political essays and discus- 
 sions. The people read eagerly what was 
 written earnestly, and published cheaply. 
 More than 100,000 copies of Thomas Paine's 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION II 
 
 ''Common Sense" were sold, at eighteen 
 pence a copy, a prodigious circulation for 
 those days, and a most notable one for any 
 political pamphlet now. The addresses and 
 state papers of the Continental Congress 
 were scattered in broadsides and news- 
 paper "extras," and their signal ability in 
 stating with convincing power the cause of 
 colonial liberty amply justified the lofty 
 eulogium of Chatham and the encomiums- 
 of Burke. 
 
 That the effect of the Revolution was to 
 infuse new life and vigor into the national 
 literature we have the testimony of Dr. 
 Benjamin Rush, who wrote, soon after the 
 close of the Revolutionary War, — '' From a 
 strict attention to the state of mind in this 
 country, before the year 1774, and at the 
 present time, 1 am satisfied that the ratio of 
 intellect is twenty to one, and of knowledge 
 as one hundred to one in these States, com- 
 pared with what they were before the 
 American Revolution." 
 
 In the political history of every people, it 
 is of great interest to trace the origin of 
 those safeguards to the liberties of the citi- 
 zen which find expression in free nations in 
 their fundamental law. Massachusetts has 
 
12 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 the distinction of liaving been the first 
 American Colony to enact a Bill o( Rights, 
 or a fundaniental statute or constitution to 
 guarantee certain liberties, privileges, and 
 immunities to all the people. This remark- 
 able document, styled " the Body of Liber- 
 ties,'' was enacted by the General Court (as 
 the Massachusetts legislature was alwa>'s 
 called) in 1041. It ante-dated, by nearly 
 half a century, the famous " Bill of Rights/' 
 adopted b\' the Parliament of England in 
 ioSq, and went beyond that instrument in 
 its assertions of popular freedom. It was 
 not so much a supplement to English Law 
 as a substitute for it. Massachusetts, only 
 twenty years after its first settlement at 
 Plymouth, established a code distinguished 
 for its justice and liberality, and far beyond 
 what in that age had been attained in the 
 polity of any nation. It sets out by declar- 
 ing that no man's life, liberty, or property 
 should be endangered but by virtue of an 
 express law. It declares that no mono- 
 polies should be granted ; that every man 
 should have the right to take part in town 
 meetings ; that all men should have free 
 right of removal ; that no judicial proceed- 
 ing should be vitiated by technical errors or 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1 3 
 
 mistakes ; that in all actions at law, the 
 parties should have the right of jury trial, 
 and of challenge ; that all court records 
 should be open ; that representatives to the 
 legislature should be chosen by the votes 
 oi all free-men ; that every town should 
 make its own local laws and regulations; 
 and that the select men, or governing body 
 of every town, should be chosen by a vote 
 of the people. This free constitution, 
 carried as it was, into practical effect in 
 every town, planted seeds which bore 
 abundant fruit in the great after-struggle 
 for American liberty. 
 
 The patriotic devotion which inspired all 
 the American Colonies in the inception, the 
 progress, and the final triumph oi the War 
 of Independence was nowhere more con- 
 spicuous than in Massachusetts. To the 
 intellectual resources of her sons were con- 
 joined a spirit, a courage, and a zeal for 
 liberty, which made an indelible impression 
 upon the whole country, and still shine 
 upon the page of history. It was upon 
 Massachusetts soil that the first blood of 
 the Revolution was shed ; and it was from 
 her patriotic sons that the earliest protests 
 against arbitrary power were heard, although 
 
14 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 in other colonies the agitation for absolute 
 independence from Great Britain was quite 
 as early as in Massachusetts. The three 
 leading capital cities of the country were 
 successively captured and held by the British 
 army. Boston was the first of these; but 
 the stubborn resistance of the Massachu- 
 setts soldiery, and the splendid generalship 
 of Washington, forced the evacuation of 
 Boston after a much briefer occupation by 
 the British than befell her sister cities, New 
 York and Philadelphia. All the military 
 events which occurred on Massachusetts 
 soil — important and ever memorable as they 
 were — took place during the first year of 
 the Revolution. Other regions witnessed 
 more decisive battles, and continued for a 
 much longer tiipe, the immediate theatre 
 of war; but Massachusetts soldiers marched 
 or sailed to every colony, and bore their 
 part in every important battle, from Bunker 
 Hill down to Yorktown. Out of twenty- 
 one Major-Generals chosen to command 
 the American armies, during the eight 
 years struggle, six were of Massachusetts, 
 or nearly one-third of the whole number; 
 and ten out of the forty-nine Brigadier-Gen- 
 erals appointed belonged to the same gallant 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1 5 
 
 and patriotic State. And in the rank and 
 file of the Continental army, out of an 
 aggregate of 37,363 men enlisted in 1775, 
 16,449 (o'' nearly one-half) were Massachu- 
 setts men. This is not remarkable, in view 
 of the fact that the first military preparations 
 had to be made in the colony first occupied 
 and attacked by British soldiery. But at 
 later periods of the war, the soldiers of the 
 Old Bay State were found as vigorously 
 fighting for their compatriots in other col- 
 onies, as for their own homes and firesides. 
 Thus, in 1777, long after the evacuation of 
 Massachusetts by the enemy, we find that 
 12,591, out of 68,720 troops enlisted, were 
 from Massachusetts; being a larger number 
 than any other state contributed. The 
 same lead was maintained throughout the 
 war, except in 1779 and 1780, when Vir- 
 ginia's soldiers and military actually in the 
 field exceeded those of Massachusetts by a 
 few hundred, while in 1782 (which wit- 
 nessed the virtual close of the struggle), 
 Massachusetts put 4,423 men in the field, 
 out of a total of 18,006 in the Continental 
 Army, Virginia having only 2,204 ^t the 
 same period. 
 As the first military resistance to British 
 
1 6 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 power occurred in Massachusetts, so^ the 
 first moral and political revolt against Brit- 
 ish oppression had its birth in the same 
 colony. Some years before the odious 
 Stamp Act, with the enactment and repeal 
 of which the continent resounded, came 
 the earliest opposition to arbitrary power. 
 In 1 76 1, attempts were made to enforce 
 collection of a tax of six pence a gallon on 
 molasses, by a summary process styled 
 ** Writs of assistance." This writ invested 
 the revenue officers of the Crown with 
 plenary powers of search and seizure, and 
 became most odious to the people. At a 
 judicial hearing, James Otis argued against 
 this oppression with all the resources of his 
 great and powerful mind, 'i am deter- 
 mined, to my dying day," said he, ''to 
 oppose all such instruments of slavery on 
 the one hand, and villainy on the other, as 
 this Writ of assistance is. 1 argue in favor of 
 British liberties, against a power, the exer- 
 cise of which cost one King of England his 
 head, and another his throne. Reason and 
 the Constitution are both against this writ. 
 No act of Parliament can establish such a 
 writ; for every act against the Constitution 
 is void." 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 17 
 
 This great speech of James Otis, said John 
 Adams, ''breathed into this nation the 
 breath of life. With a depth of research, a 
 profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic 
 glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid 
 torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried 
 away all before him. American indepen- 
 dence was then and there born." 
 
 So far John Adams. But neither the 
 logic nor the eloquence of Otis availed to 
 turn aside the purpose of a government 
 bent upon levying taxes upon its colonies, 
 by whatever means. Writs of assistance 
 were issued whenever the King's revenue 
 officers asked, and no redress was found in 
 a subservient judiciary against the wrongs 
 perpetrated in the name of the law. The 
 obsequious Judge Hutchinson (afterward the 
 royal Governor of Massachusetts), though a 
 native of the province, took sides with 
 power against his countrymen. 
 
 Then followed the Stamp Act of 1765, 
 which laid a direct tax upon all the business 
 transactions of the people, and made all 
 violations of it subject to Admiralty juris- 
 diction, without the right of trial by a jury. 
 This odious measure was received with 
 consternation, mingled with indignant pro- 
 
1 8 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 tests, in every colony. It was denounced 
 as a tyrannous imposition, levying taxation 
 without representation, for the colonies were 
 not permitted either to tax themselves by 
 their own legislative bodies, which existed 
 in every province, nor to send representa- 
 tives to the parliament of England. It 
 deprived British subjects in the colonies of 
 rights heretofore always enjoyed, and struck 
 down at one blow all the muniments of 
 British liberty. 
 
 It was this act, followed the same year by 
 the mutiny act, which authorized the billet- 
 ing of soldiers in private houses, which 
 raised a storm in the colonies, re-echoed 
 by the liberals in Parliament, and led to the 
 repeal of the Stamp Act. It did more; it 
 produced the first movement ever made 
 looking to a union of all the colonies in 
 self defense. In June, 1765, James Otis pro- 
 posed, and the legislature of Massachusetts 
 voted, to invite a meeting of committees 
 from the legislatures of the several colonies, 
 ''to consult together on the difficulties to 
 which they were reduced by the operation 
 of the late acts of Parliament." This move- 
 ment, originated, to her immortal honor, by 
 Massachusetts, and earnestly seconded by 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1 9 
 
 all the southern colonies, brought about the 
 first American Congress, which assembled 
 at New York in October, 1765. 
 
 It is very noticeable, that during the ten 
 years ensuing, while the public mind of 
 the American colonies was slowly ripening 
 toward independence, all classes of opinion 
 still rested firm in the conviction that 
 they were British subjects. As British sub- 
 jects, the Tories declared their obligation 
 to submit to King and Parliament; and, as 
 British subjects, the patriots protested their 
 rights to all the liberties of Englishmen. 
 None were as yet found who held to a 
 separation from the mother country, even 
 in idea. Still, the persistent injustice of 
 England awakened more and keener resent- 
 ment as time rolled on. The repeal of the 
 Stamp Act soon gave place to new imposi- 
 tions. Heavy duties were laid upon glass, 
 paints, and paper, and a tax of three pence 
 a pound on all tea imported into the colo- 
 nies. Massachusetts soon met the crisis by 
 resolving to use none of the articles tainted 
 by an unconstitutional tax. '*We will form 
 one universal combination," said the men of 
 Boston, *'to eat nothing, drink nothing, and 
 wear nothing imported from Great Britain." 
 
20 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 To those who marvel at the excited re- 
 sistance made by these colonists to a trifling 
 tea tax of six cents a pound (a rate of duty 
 on that article often exceeded in both 
 countries since), it must be suggested that 
 the recusant people were not protesting 
 against the tax, but against the manner of 
 its imposition. The measure of Massachu- 
 setts patriotism was not the three-penny 
 standard of the tax — it was the absolute 
 unconstitutionality of any tax at all. They 
 acted after the principle laid down in that 
 immortal verse of Shakespeare: 
 
 "Rightly to be great, 
 Is not to stir without great argument; 
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
 When Honor's at the stake." 
 
 The honor of every British subject in 
 America was bound up in the right of their 
 duly constituted legislative assemblies to 
 levy all the taxes, whether for the Crown, 
 or for the colonists themselves. The wives 
 and daughters of Massachusetts resolved to 
 drink no more tea; and the papers of the 
 day declared that ''whoever shall purchase 
 and use that article will drink political 
 damnation to themselves." 
 
 The spirit of freedom was too rife in 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2 1 
 
 colonial assemblages to be long tolerated. 
 The legislatures of New York and Massachu- 
 setts were dissolved by the royal governors, 
 followed by the proroguing or dispersion 
 of those of other colonies. Massachusetts 
 quickly acted: the Boston committee called 
 on the towns to send delegates to a con- 
 vention in Faneuil Hall. Ninety-six towns, 
 nearly every one in the province, were 
 represented, and in September, 1768, re- 
 quested the governor to convene the 
 constitutional assembly of the colony. He 
 refused to receive their petition, declared 
 that they had committed treason, and 
 warned them to disperse, or they should be 
 made to repent of their rashness. The 
 convention disregarded the insulting mes- 
 sage, issued their protest against taxation 
 by Parliament, and against a standing army, 
 renewed their petition to the King for 
 redress of grievances, and adjourned after a 
 six days' session. It was a great moral 
 victory, felt throughout the colonies, and 
 even as far as the court of St. James. 
 
 It was not in the nature of things that 
 peace and quiet should long continue 
 between an oppressed and exasperated 
 people, and a hireling soldiery quartered 
 
22 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 among them. The Boston Massacre of 1770 
 soon followed, and the streets of an Ameri- 
 can city were for the first time stained with 
 blood, wantonly shed by the armed minions 
 of power. After the excitement of this 
 event, the forbearance of the citizens was 
 once more evinced when the acquittal of 
 the soldiers took place, on insufficient evi- 
 dence. 
 
 But the coming revolution grew. Gover- 
 nor Hutchinson had again refused to call the 
 assembly of the province together, and 
 haughtily denounced the town meetings 
 which assembled to discuss public matters. 
 By denying this right, he directly impeached 
 the institution of town governments, one of 
 the oldest and most sacred rights of New 
 England, firmly entrenched in the customs 
 and the democratic sympathies of the people. 
 
 At length, in November, 1772, Samuel 
 Adams proposed that great patriotic meas- 
 ure, a ''Committee of Correspondence," of 
 twenty-one members, to state the rights of 
 the Colonists, and to communicate regularly 
 with every town in Massachusetts by let- 
 ters of advice and mutual counsel. Thus 
 was founded that political co-operation 
 which led by steady growth, and extension 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2} 
 
 through other colonies, to the union of 
 scattered efforts and energies into a firm 
 confederacy of patriotic men, dedicated to 
 one common aim. 
 
 Immediately, the answers of the towns of 
 Massachusetts to the masterly statement of 
 grievances sent out from the central com- 
 mittee came pouring into Boston. The 
 original manuscripts of these unique and 
 stirring memorials of the heroic age in 
 American history formed one of the most 
 precious portions of the historian Bancroft's 
 library. Here are a few brief examples of 
 the free spirit that breathes through these 
 documents of a hundred and twenty years 
 ago. 
 
 The people of Fitchburg declared that 
 ''Liberty is a most precious gift of God our 
 Creator to all mankind, and is of such a 
 nature that no person or community can 
 justly part with it." The town of Leicester 
 thus spoke: ''We prize our liberty so highly, 
 that we think it our duty to risk our lives 
 and fortunes in defense thereof." Marl- 
 borough put on record its sentiment that 
 "death is more eligible than slavery." 
 Shirley's inhabitants declared — "we will not 
 sit down easy until our rights and liberties 
 
24 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 are restored. " Gloucester resolved— ' 'when 
 the civil rulers betray their trust, and abuse 
 the power the people have reposed in them, 
 they forfeit the submission of the subjects; 
 and to oppose and resist in that case is not 
 to resist an ordinance of Heaven." And 
 there came from Brooklyn, Connecticut, 
 town meeting, presided over by Colonel 
 Israel Putnam, these stirring words: "Those 
 rights and privileges which were obtained 
 by our worthy ancestors at a great sum, we 
 will maintain inviolate, even at the risk of 
 our lives and fortunes, in spite of the united 
 combination of earth and hell." 
 
 Samuel Adams, among whose papers these 
 relics of the times that tried men's souls 
 were preserved, wrote of them — ''By means 
 of a brisk correspondence among the several 
 towns in this province, they have wonder- 
 fully animated and enlightened each other. 
 * * * An empire is rising in America; and 
 Britain, by her multiplied oppressions, is 
 accelerating that independency which she 
 dreads." The high-minded and eloquent 
 Joseph Warren wrote, "The mistress we 
 serve is Liberty, and it is better to die than 
 not to obtain her." 
 
 Then came those days of stress and storm, 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 25 
 
 of sore trial and conflict, whose history is 
 familiar to you all; the days of the shutting 
 up of the harbors of Massachusetts, by the 
 Boston Port Bill; of the outlawry of Hancock 
 and Adams; of the threatened dragging of 
 Massachusetts patriots to England for trial; 
 of the sending out of regiment after regiment 
 of British troops to coerce obedience; of the 
 suffering and want of Boston in its belea- 
 guered state; of the sympathy and solid gifts 
 of the other colonies, — Connecticut sending 
 her a thousand sheep, all New England 
 wheat, corn, and cattle, and Fairfax County, 
 Va., a liberal gift of money, Geo. Washing- 
 ton heading the subscription with fifty 
 pounds; of the meeting of the first Conti- 
 nental Congress at Philadelphia, in 1774; of 
 the arming in the country districts through- 
 out Massachusetts, at the urgent instance of 
 the Committee of Safety; of the seizure by 
 British troops of colonial arms and powder; 
 of the first bloody skirmish of the Revolution 
 at Lexington and Concord; of the excitement 
 and exasperation which spread like wildfire 
 through the country ; of the resolve of 
 Massachusetts to raise immediately fourteen 
 thousand men; of the sanguinary Bunker 
 Hill battle, lost by the Americans after that 
 
26 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 brave and stubborn fight, inflicting upon the 
 British losses which more than doubled their 
 own; of the military measures of Congress, 
 and its election of General Washington as 
 Commander-in-Chief; of his long and pa- 
 tient struggle with obstacles of every kind, 
 want of discipline, want of money, want of 
 powder, want of tents, want of supplies, 
 military jealousy, envy, and insubordi- 
 nation; of the perilously short enlistments, 
 constantly exchanging veterans for raw 
 troops, a mischief felt all through the 
 war; of the discontent of Congress that 
 the enemy were not speedily driven from 
 Boston; of the dignified and temperate re- 
 plies of Washington, showing that he had 
 maintained his post in the face of the enemy 
 for six months without powder, holding the 
 twenty regiments of the British cooped up 
 in Boston ; of the anxiety of the whole 
 country for some decisive stroke; of the 
 greater anxiety of Washington, in the lonely 
 night vigils in his ill-provided camp; of his 
 invincible faith and courage, inspiring his 
 troops with his own resolute spirit; of the 
 exodus from Boston of almost all its inhabi- 
 tants except the Tories, till there were left 
 in the city but six thousand Americans, with 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 27 
 
 nearly 10,000 British troops; of the ceaseless 
 activity and vigilance of Washington, en- 
 forcing order and discipline in every part of 
 his camp; of his consummate skill and dis- 
 patch in fortifying the heights of Dorchester 
 in a single night, thus rendering the town of 
 Boston untenable by the enemy ; of the 
 speedy result of this strategic movement, in 
 the complete evacuation of the city by the 
 British army; and of Washington's transfer 
 of his command to New York, after expelling 
 the enemy from New England. 
 
 Read the history of America's first cam- 
 paign in the fascinating pages of Bancroft, 
 the idealist historian, who, if he sometimes 
 mingles an optimistic philosophy with his 
 facts, portrays the march of events in a 
 style at once classic, full, and picturesque. 
 
 The fixed purpose of the British govern- 
 ment to conquer America soon transferred 
 the theatre of war from Massachusetts soil 
 to the central and southern colonies. There 
 were repeated on a larger but not more de- 
 voted scale, the heroic struggles which had 
 marked the conflict in the old Bay State. 
 Let us borrow a few felicitous words from 
 the eloquent speech of Daniel Webster in 
 the Senate of the United States, in 1830. 
 
28 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 ''Mr. President, I shall enter on no en- 
 comium upon Massachusetts — she needs 
 none. There she is: — behold her, and 
 judge for yourselves. There is her history: 
 the world knows it by heart. The past, at 
 least, is secure. There is Boston, and Con- 
 cord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill — and 
 there they will remain forever. The bones 
 of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for 
 Independence, now lie mingled with the 
 soil of every State, from New England to 
 Georgia; and there they will lie forever." 
 
 And thus he paid the meed of honor to 
 Massachusetts and the southern colonies: 
 
 ''Shoulder to shoulder they went through 
 the revolution — hand in hand they stood 
 round the administration of Washington, 
 and felt his own great arm lean on them for 
 support." 
 
 Let me now recall, in the briefest manner, 
 the characteristics of some of the patriots 
 and writers of Massachusetts, whose intel- 
 lectual force made them conspicuous leaders 
 in the great contest of the American colonies 
 for self-government. 
 
 John Adams will ever stand out as one of 
 the most illustrious of the men who made 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 29 
 
 the Revolution, and whose character gave 
 it permanent success. His copious writings, 
 while not free from the faults which marked 
 his strong individuality — vehement, ardent, 
 and hasty — were nevertheless most influen- 
 tial factors in moulding the public opinion 
 of his time. The leading part taken by him 
 in the Continental Congress, where his elo- 
 quence was *'as a flame of fire," has been 
 well described by Webster, whose magnifi- 
 cent paraphrase of Adams's expressions in 
 favor of independence, expanded into the 
 speech in defense of the immediate declara- 
 tion, leaves little to be desired by the 
 student of oratory. 
 
 The lofty eloquence of Josiah Quincy, 
 whose '"Observations on the Boston Port 
 Bill" (published in 1774) did much to con- 
 centrate the opposition of New England to 
 Great Britain, was heard in 1773 in Faneuil 
 Hall: 'it is not, Mr. Moderator, the spirit 
 that vapors within these walls that must 
 stand us in stead. The exertions of this day 
 will call forth events which will make a very 
 different spirit necessary for our salvation. 
 Look to the end. Whoever supposes that 
 shouts and hosannas will terminate the 
 trials of the day entertains a childish fancy." 
 
30 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 Samuel Adams was a pillar of strength to 
 the popular cause, as well by the power of 
 his writings, as by the nobility of his char- 
 acter. His ''Statement of the Rights of the 
 Colonists" (1772), and his pamphlet, "The 
 True Sentiments of America" (1768), are 
 clear and forcible pleas for freedom. 
 
 Of the earliest champions of American 
 liberty, James Otis, of Massachusetts, was 
 one of the foremost. Endowed with a 
 powerful reason, and gifted with brilliant 
 eloquence, he spoke and wrote with a mas- 
 terly energy which drew forth the admira- 
 tion of strong men, like John Adams, while 
 his ''Rights of the British Colonies Asserted 
 and Proved" (1764), was the first great 
 literary effort in behalf of what afterwards 
 became independence. With logic the most 
 convincing, and eloquence the most fervid, 
 he set forth the constitutional rights of the 
 people of all the colonies to self-government. 
 
 General Joseph Warren, whose early death 
 at Bunker Hill filled Massachusetts with 
 mourning, was of the true race of patriots. 
 High-minded, chivalrous, modest, and brave, 
 his stirring eloquence added a charm to his 
 personality which drew to him the admira- 
 tion of the people. He early prophesied 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION }l 
 
 that the connection with the mother country 
 must sooner or later end, and he was 
 singled out by British hatred as 'Meader of 
 the rebellion." He wrote to Josiah Quincy, 
 in 1774, ''Great Britain may depopulate 
 North America; she never can conquer the 
 inhabitants." Volunteering as a private in 
 the ranks, his lofty spirit went instantly 
 from the scenes of earth, amid the roar of 
 the cannon at Bunker Hill, repeating almost 
 with his last breath the words of the 
 Roman poet — 'it is sweet and honorable 
 to die for one's country." 
 
 Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, was one 
 of the earliest, ablest, and most determined 
 champions of the rights of the American 
 colonies. In the assembly of Massachu- 
 setts, in 1766, Hawley declared, "the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain has no right to 
 legislate for us." This was the first denial 
 in a colonial legislature of the power of 
 Parliament. And in August, 1774, Hawley 
 wrote to John Adams— "After all, we must 
 fight!" This ante-dated Patrick Henry's 
 famous utterance of the same words in the 
 Virginia Convention of March, 1775, by six 
 months. Mr. Adams relates that he read 
 Hawley's letter to Patrick Henry in Con- 
 
32 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 gress: Henry listened with great attention, 
 till the climax was reached, "we must fight," 
 and then he broke out — ''By God, I am of 
 that man's mind!" ''I considered/' adds 
 Mr. Adams, "that this was a sacred oath, 
 upon a very great occasion." No thought 
 of profanity entered into it. I refer to this 
 incident here not so much to hint priority 
 of the utterance of the Massachusetts patriot 
 over the patriot of Virginia; Henry's lofty 
 soul had no need of the inspiration of other 
 men; but 1 cite it to show how heart leaped 
 to hearty when the supreme hour approached, 
 and the sword of the sons of liberty was 
 thrown in the balance, against the last argu- 
 ment of Kings. 
 
 1 should fail in discharging the duty of the 
 occasion, were I to omit mention of the part 
 borne by the noble and patriotic women of 
 Massachusetts during the Revolutionary 
 struggle. Only the briefest notice can here 
 be made, as time is wanting for any detail. 
 
 Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was 
 of the Ouincy stock, and was a close student 
 from early childhood. Married in 1764, the 
 outbreak of war brought to her home many 
 fears and privations, for her husband was a 
 proscribed man. Her keen sympathies were 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 33 
 
 continually drawn upon. When Adams 
 went to the Congress at Philadelphia, the 
 copious and intimate correspondence which 
 passed between the husband and wife forms 
 one of the most interesting and instructive 
 chapters in the history of the times. 
 
 Mrs. Adams's sister, Mrs. Peabody, was a 
 devoted patriot, who thus wrote to John 
 Adams during the height of the revolu- 
 tionary struggle: ''Lost to virtue, lost to 
 humanity must that person be, who can 
 view without emotion the complicated dis- 
 tress of this injured land. Oh! my brother, 
 oppression is enough to make wise people 
 mad." 
 
 Mrs. Lucia Knox, wife of a Massachusetts 
 Major General, who afterwards became 
 Washington's first Secretary of War, was of 
 an aristocratic lineage. She left her parents, 
 who were Loyalists, and who wished her 
 to marry a British officer, to wed the 
 Boston bookseller, whose fine person and 
 quick intelligence had captivated her, and 
 who soon after became General Knox. 
 She had a strong and well cultivated mind, 
 joined to much beauty, fascinating manners, 
 and a sanguine, cheerful temperament. 
 Gen. Knox, it is said, often deferred to his 
 
34 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 wife's judgment, regarding her as a superior 
 being; and even Washington was impressed 
 by her character and manners. She was 
 one of the few officers' wives who followed 
 the army in frequent camp visits. On the 
 British occupation of Boston, Mrs. Knox 
 escaped with her husband, and joined the 
 American army at Cambridge, having Gen. 
 Knox's sword concealed by quilting it in- 
 side the lining of her cloak. That, surely, 
 was a wife well worth having, to a soldier 
 and a patriot. The point of this incident 
 becomes obvious, when we recall the fact 
 that arms were most scarce and precious in 
 that year of grace, 1775. 
 
 Mrs. Dorothy Hancock, whose husband's 
 immortal name is writ large at the head of 
 the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, was the daughter of Edmund Quincy, 
 and a lady of taste, elegance and fashion. 
 She shared the many honors, as well as the 
 trials of her proscribed husband, and was a 
 fugitive from Concord when the fight of the 
 embattled farmers was going on — 
 
 "Who fired the shot heard round the world." 
 
 Hancock was himself that day a hunted 
 fugitive. 
 Mrs. Mercy Warren, in whose honorable 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 35 
 
 and cherished name Massachusetts takes 
 just pride, was the sister of James Otis, the 
 illustrious patriot of Boston. Her early ad- 
 diction to study gave her a phenomenal fame 
 in the province as a scholar. Her copious 
 writings are full of classical allusions, con- 
 tributing much to the quality of their learn- 
 ing, while not always adding to their attrac- 
 tiveness. She was a most ardent patriot 
 through all the Revolutionary struggle, and 
 among her correspondents were Jefferson, 
 both the Adamses Qohn and Samuel), 
 Elbridge Gerry, John Dickinson and Gen. 
 Knox. Her sympathies were keen, and she 
 sheltered and aided many of the sons of 
 liberty at her house. Her "History of the 
 American Revolution," published in 1805, 
 in three volumes, is her chief literary work. 
 But my discourse must end, with a word 
 of grateful recognition of the useful labors 
 of your association, in recalling the minds 
 of the men of to-day from their easy and 
 uneventful lives, to the commemoration of 
 the arduous struggles, privations, and suf- 
 ferings of those who wrought out the revo- 
 lution. It is to them that we owe the 
 assertion and the maintenance of American 
 Liberty. They laid broad and deep the 
 
36 MASSACHUSETTS IN THE 
 
 foundations of a government which trans- 
 ferred America from the sovereignty of 
 kings, to the sovereignty of the people. 
 They braved every danger, endured every 
 trial, sacrificed fortune, comfort, even life 
 itself, teaching to posterity the sublime 
 lessons of endurance and self-denial. They 
 illustrated the lines of the oriental poet:— . ^^^^^• 
 
 "Though love repine, and reason chafe, 
 There came a voice without reply — 
 "Tis man's perdition to be safe, 
 
 When for the truth he ought to die." 
 
 We are apt to boast of our advanced civili- 
 zation, our intellectual enlightenment, our 
 superior accomplishment in all the arts of 
 life. But are there no shadows in the 
 bright picture of modern progress ? Is there 
 no danger in the march of luxury, and the 
 worship of wealth ? If our republic is to 
 outlast those of Greece and Rome, once so 
 splendidly endowed with arts, refinement 
 and genius, but now, alas! numbered among 
 the things that were, we must avoid their 
 errors. We need to cultivate less of the . 
 lower aims of life, and more of that spirit of 
 high resolve, of devotion to duty, that iron 
 in the blood, which made our forefathers 
 what they were. If it were given to us to 
 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 37 
 
 open the seals of the undiscovered country, 
 if we could now hear the voices of Otis, 
 and Adams, and Warren, and Quincy, and 
 Washington, and Jefferson, and Henry, 
 what would be the counsel of those illustri- 
 ous Americans of the past, to us Americans 
 of to-day ? Would they not admonish us — 
 "Be true to your great inheritance; have 
 faith in your country; build your institutions 
 on the firm foundation of public justice and 
 private virtue : Stand up to the stature of 
 God's image that is in you: then shall 
 your republic succeed; then shall you stand, 
 a fulfillment of the prophecy of all noble 
 hearts, — a revelation to the ages of the 
 greatness and the brotherhood of man." 
 
MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 IN THE 
 
 American Revolution 
 
 BY 
 
 AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD 
 
 AN ESSAY READ BEFORE THE 
 
 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN KbVOLUTION 
 
 APRIL ID, 1895 
 
 CITY OF WASHINGTON 
 PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY