xr^' ^ .^^ 1^ ^ ^^--^ -> ^ .0^ ^■2^ A /\. • .-J^^ ^^y % '" fO^ V ■^ A ^> •fi\ c-^vn. .-^'^ r^o^ ^oV" .>^ v^. "^^ aV ♦js AN APPEAL FROM THE I JUDGMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN r RESPECTING THE /f .. PART FIRST, CONTAINING AN HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THEIR •• ! MERITS AND WRONGS AS COLONIES; '' \ AND '' [' STRICTURES UPON THE CALUMNIES OF THE BRITISH WRITER BY ROBERT WALSH, Jr. 1 Quod quisque fecit, patitur : autorem scelus Repetit, sDoque piemitur exemplo nocens. SENEC, SECOND EDITION. PHILADELPHIA : ?UBLISHED BY MITCHELL, AMES, AND WHITE. 'William Brown, Printer. C ' '"' '' 'Mem Distnct of Pennsylvania, to wit : BE IT REMEMBERED, That, on the twenty-third day of September, in ; forty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, D. 1819, Mtchell, Ames, and White, of the said District, have deposited in s office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in e words following, to wit : \n Appeal from the Judgments of Great Bi'Itain respecting the United States " of America. Part First, containing An Historical Outline of tlieir Merits and " Wrongs as Colonies ; and Strictures upon the Calumnies of the British " Writers. By Robert Walsh, Jr. Quod quisque fecit, patitur : autorem " scelus repetit, suoque premitur exemplo nocens. S nec." In conforraity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled *' An t for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, d books, to the auvhors and proprietors of such copies, during the times erein mentioned." — And also to the act, entitled, " An act supplementaiy to act, entitled ' An act for the encouragement of learning by securing the co- es of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, tring the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to this ts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvanfei^ /HH To ROBERT OLIVER, Esq, OF BALTIMORE. -ti Dear Sir, l This is a hasty volume, and its tenor may notn exactly in maison with your opinions and predilectioK I could, therefore, have wished to attach your name ratbi to its intended adjunct, which may have higher claims?! regard; but I am anxious to improve the first opporturr of bearing public testimony to a character, which an a quaintance of many years, has taught me to view as of fe] common worth and elevation. It is only a few mon j ago that your merits were commemorated in your nati land, in a strain which those inhabitants of your adope country, who know you well, cannot deem too lofty, \y hesitate to re-eclio. In proclaiming you public-spirits, open-hearted, and munificently hospitable, the distinguic ed assemblage in Dublin spoke as our experience wop have led us to speak. A remarkable strength of nat^i; abilities, maintained in full exertion by an active, vea; ment spirit, and the favour of fortune seconding a soid| judgment and steadfast faith in commercial dealings, hic put you in possession of an ample estate, to which you d; vindicate your title by a noble use of it in the oflScesu beneficence and friendship. u DEDICATION. [ have another object in addressing you thus in my )acity of author. It is, to witness — in opposition to false relations of British travellers — that the native lerican is not backward in recognizing and honouring estimable qualities and just pretensions of a fellow citi- 1 of foreign birth. We make no distinctions and have reserved feelings, where respect and confidence are tractly due: if, blended and compoimded as we are, the e could be otherwise, it would not certainly be so in srence to Irishmen. With them, the process of as- lilation in all respects, is more easy and natural than h any other people. America owes them much. She mot but sympathize deeply in the wrongs they have fered at home. In the same nation in which tJiey have ays found a tyrannical mistress, she, throughout her 3nial existence, found a jealous step-dame, and now Is a malevolent scold. I am, dear sir, truly and affectionately, your obedient servant, Robert Walsh, jk iULADELPHIA, Sept. 1819 PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. 1. About the end of the month of January last, 1 undertook to prepare for the press, a Survey of the insti tutions and resources of the American repubhc; and of thj real character and condition of the American people. }• work of this kind, wrought from authentic information appeared to me to constitute the best refutation of th^ slanders, which are incessantly heaped upon us bj British writers. In assuming the task, I expected to b( able to complete it in the course of the present sunnner artd accordingly set on foot such enquiries in the severa divisions of the Union, as the design prescribed. Aftei pursuing my first arrangements for a couple of months, ] discovered that I had not duly measured the delays inci dent to the collection of facts, over so extensive a surface and through the agency of gentlemen engrossed, for th{ most part, by professional affairs. Finding that I mus allow a longer term than was at first proposed, for the ac cumulation of materials, I fell upon the plan of making up in the interval, a preliminary volume, which should em brace a review of the dispositions and conduct of Grea Britain towards this country, from the earliest period and a collateral retaliation for her continued injustice anc mvective. What I now submit to the pubhc, is the fruit of the plai just mentioned. It is not offered as a digested book; bu VI PREFACE. as a series of Notes and Illustrations; and it could not be 3ther, from the shortness of the time within which it has 3een composed. The immediate object required, indeed, lothing more. I have to apologize rather for the bulk of the /olume, which exceeds my own expectation; and is owing .0 the impression under which I proceeded, that the quota- ions, instructive in themselves, and useful towards eluci- iation and proof, should not be curtailed for the sake of 3conomizing a certain number of pages. As respects die- ion, I have aimed at clearness and signilicancy alone, tVhat has been instantly transferred from the desk to the )ress, must be liable to the reproach of diffusion and •oughness. It is not a model of style or of epitome that is vanting on such an occasion as the British writers have created, for the exertion of our faculties of literary de- ence; but an aggregation of facts pointedly told, and thet iroduction in detail of whatever tends to rectify perverse/i »r propagate just opinions. it My purpose in this undertaking generally, is not merely assert the merits of this calumniated country; I wish to epel actively, and, if possible, to arrest, the war which is vaged without stint or intermission, upon our national re- lUtation. This, it now appears to me, cannot be done i^ithout combating on the offensive; without making in- oads into the quaiters of the restless enemy. I had long indulged the hope, in common with those* imericans who were best affected to Great Britain, that he false and .contumelious language of the higher clas3«, t least, of her literary censors, would be corrected by he strong relief, in which our real condition and charac- er were daily placing themselves before the world. We xpected that another tone more conformable to truth and OLind policy would be adopted, when we had on our side.- he degree of notoriety as to those points, which usually verawes and represses any degree of assurance in the pirit of envy and arrogance. But the disappointment is complete for every American ilio has paid attention to the tenor of the late British writings and speeches, in which reference is made to these t RE FACE. Vlj United States. The Edinburgh and Q,uarterly Reviews have, vpithin the twelvemonth past, by the excesses oL obloquy into which they have given from the most unwor.i thy ajDprehensions, put beyond question the insufficiency of any amount of evidence, and of all the admitted laws o?. probability and reasoning, to work the reformation toi which I have alluded. i| It was, too, believed by many, that the British writers would assign some bounds to their attacks, as long as wt forbore to recriminate; and it was thought harsh and unt charitable to touch the sores and blotches of the Britisl nation, on account of the malevolence and folly of a fevi individuals, or of a party, within her bosom. The wholtl is proved to be mere illusion. There is no intemper ance of provocation, which could have excited more rancour, and led to fiercer and wider defamation, that we find in the two articles of the forty-first number o the (Quarterly Review, which treat of -American affairs The whig journals have begun to rail in the same strain the Opposition have joined, with the ministerial party, evei on the floor of parliament, in a hue and cry agains " American ambition and cruelty;" and in affecting to ere dit the coarse inventions of Englishmen who have eithe visited us for the express purpose of manufacturing libels or betaken themselves to this expedient on their returi home, as a profitable speculation. It is enough, that th* desire of emigrating to the United States should sprea« among the population of England, in an extent deemec invidious, or hurtful: that the territorial security of th Americans on one side should appear about being ren dered complete, with some possible danger to the stabilit of the British empire in the West Indies, to throw th British politicians of every rank and denomination, int paroxysms of despite and jealousy, and to enlist them in common scheme of misrepresentation which may inspir the British farmer and artisan with a horror of republi can America, and the nations of the world with a distrus of the spirit of her government. ^We cannot defeat their purpose as far^s their countrj 7mi PKEFACE- inen are concerned; but we may guard the better against )i:he effects of the hatred and contempt which they labour )to inculcate, by acquainting ourselves thoroughly with the true nature and scope of their designs. If we have, as I Verily believe, a band of implacable and indefatigable foes, en those who direct the public affairs, and mould the pub- iic mind, of Great Britain, we should be fully alive to liie fact, and alert in using the means in our power, of restraining the effusions of their malice. National an- i.ipathies are to be deprecated in themselves; to excite \hem wantonly, is an offence against humanity and re- igion; but we are not censurable, if they are produced (ncidentally, by the course which self-defence may require ')f us to pursue. It is the English writer who becomes iloubly culpable, if his pertinacity in defaming the United States, be such as to leave to the American, whose right It is to check this as well a^ every other form of hostility, iio resource for the purpose, but the exhibition of what is )dious and despicable in the character, conduct, and com- ))osition of the British nation. : There is much truth in the old maxim of the schools — •etorquere non est respondere: to retort is not to reply, •rhe present case forms an exception, however; for, the 3ritish writers and orators never throw out their re- proaches against the United States, without putting Great Britain in glorious contrast; it is the excellence, the )urity, and the liberty, and the comfort, which they see kt home, that, they would fain have us believe, quicken heir sensibility, and embitter the expression of their hate, '0 the evils and abuses abounding on this side of the water. Phus, to expose their real spirit and aims, and to fortify he confidence in our relative merit, necessary to us in his struggle with systematic detraction, we are compelled investigate and set forth the misery and turpitude by vhich they are surrounded, and the wrongs and insults '>f which we have had constantly to complain. This is lot mere recrimination; it is resistance to degrading com- ')arisons and injurious pretensions; we tear off one of the hany disguises which our enemies assume to facilitate PREFACE. n their project of bringing us into disrepute with manl kind. It is, certaijily, wretclied sophistry to argue, as they do from single instances of disorder and vice; and neither faiJ nor charitable to display only what is bad in a mixed system in which the good may greatly predominate. We wouh not be entitled to follow this example, but for the purpos< of repressing it, by shewing how severely Great Britaii may suffer in her turn from its adoption elsewhere. Upoi the principles of the logic which she has used against th( United States, she might be proved to be the most misera ble and wicked nation that has ever existed. The pub licity which she gives to all her domestic transactions an( circumstances; the discussion which her foreign policy and administration undergo, in and out of parhament, laj bare all her vulnerable points. Never before was such s mass of matei'ials prepared for the satirist of national vicei and distempers, as is to be found in the debates and re ports of her legislature, and in the innumerable chronicle; of her internal history, which, as we there have it, is bu a tissue of the grossest enormities and the most cruel dis tresses. In endeavouring to establish her invariable unkindnesi and injustice to this country, and her liability to reproacl in an indefinite degree beyond ourselves, on the ground: of disparagement which slie is never weary of repeating it is not to American writers and travellers, to obscure anc vulgar witnesses, labouring under the suspicion of nationa prejudice, personal pique, or habitual venality, that 1 shal have recourse; but to British authorities of the highesi standard; to British historians and legislators, and ever to the very journals, which serve as the spiracles throiigl" which the torrents of venom are incessantly spouted againsi the American people. Our accusers in Great Britair have built their charges u\-)on English testimony, and thai the least respectable of its kind. I shall be found, in im- peaching her in return, to use not suspicious foreign, but. in almost every instance, unquestionable British state- ments; not the allegations of General Fillet — quite as Vol. I.~B* % PREFACE, 4'ustworthy as those of the Jansons and Fearons — but 'he records of ParHament and the oracles of the British ^mpire. Here, it cannot escape the reader, how much ^ore dignified and warrantable the retaliation, than the 'ttack ; and that, in repelling aggression with evidence ierived from these sources, we do not descend to the level f those who bespatter us with ordure amassed by natural r hired scavengers of their own blood and temper. " The libels of the present day," said Mr. Burke, in •\\s retort upon the Duke of Bedford, " are just of the ame stuff as the libels of the past. But they derive an hiportance from the rank of the persons from whom (ley come, and the gravity of the place where they are \ttered. In some way or other they ought to be noticed.^' We think and reason thus, in respect to the calumnies Vith which we have been lately assailed in Great Britain, ill that is accumulated, for instance, in the Edinburgh '.nd (Quarterly Reviews, in the articles which form the immediate provocation upon which I now write, is an old >;ompost of vile ingredients and impure leven, in itself mfit to be handled, and much more unfit to be imitated. Those journals, however, exert an unrivalled influence !»ver the British pubhc; they are not without considerable Authority on the continent of Europe, where they are Videly circulated; they have credit and sway with nuni- -)ers of readers, even in the United States: in the cata- logue of their authors and special patrons we find men ot ;minence, both in letters and politics; some who have a Inaterial share in the public councils of their country, and tvhose writings, on other subjects than the aff^airs of Ame- Kca, possess a degree of excellen€e, which invests the Ijamphlets in question with a general character of great W^eight and value. I 2. I will pass from the instance of these Reviews to mother, worthy of particular observation, on many ac- counts; in which, alo, the merest, most hacknied ribaldry irespecting America, is rendered miportant and memora- PREFACE. X ble by *' the rank of the persons from whom it came, anj the gravity of the place where it was uttered." i j Westminster school is one of the principal semina' ries of classical education for the sons of the Britisl nobility and gentry; for those who are destined, eithe^ by birthright or custom, to become legislators and ri^i lers; to wield the national power, and give the tone t; national sentiment. It has been long the practice, in thai institution, to exhibit annually a Latin play, of which th(| characters are filled by the senior students, about to hi translated to one of the great universities. The performl ance is attended by a crowd of great personages — by mi nisters of state, dignitaries of the church, and patriciaii' families; and all the eclat is given to the occasion o; which we can suppose it susceptible A Latin prologut' and epilogue, serving as specimens of scholarship, usualb accompany the play. In an exhibition of the kind, whici took place about the conclusion of our late war with Grea' Britain, tlie subject chosen for the epilogue was emipa tion to the United States. It was treated in the form of colloquy between a person preparing to embark, and patriotic Englishman attempting to dissuade him from th adventure. Nothing can exceed the terseness of the lati nity, but the virulence of the abuse lavished upon America in this piece. Whatever the writings of the British tra vellers could furnish, that was most injurious and insula ing to the American people, is here elaborately condensed: and imbued with a new and more active venom. Th following is a translation of part of this classical lampoor "DAVUS TO GETA. "Whither do you propose to fly? Get. To Hesperia (America^ — Da. What! to that country which is beyond the ocean; a cour cry barbarous in itself and inhabited by Barbarians! In that cour try Geta, Astr-cca is not a virgin, but a virago : sometimes, as repoi goes, she is a drunkard, often a pugilist; sometimes even a thie Nor is it easy to say whether the tenor of their manners is more t be admired for simplicity or elegance : a negro wench, as we ar told, waits on her master at table in native nudity ; and a beau wi strip himself to the waist, that he may dance unincumbered, an with more agility. Do you love your glass, every hour brings wit! I 11 PREFACE. : a fresh bumper. There you have the gum-tickler^ the fihlegm- utter, the gait-breaker.^ the antifogmatic. No man is a slave there, )r negroes are not considered as of the human species in America, ivery man thinks what he pleases, and does what he pleases. The oung men spurn the restraint of laws and of manners : his own iclination is there every man's suflPicient diploma. Brideivell and he stews supfily them wi'h senators, and their respectable chief jua- Ice is a ivorthless scouiidrel. Does a senatorial orator dexterously im to convince his antagonist? he spits plentifully in his face; nd that this species of rhetoric may be more efficacious, tobacco jrnishes an abundance of saliva for the purpose. The highest raise of a merchant is his skill in lying. Then their amusements I ) gouge out an eye with the thumb, to skin the forehead, to bite ff" the nose! and to kill a man, is an admirable joke. Believe me, ieta, even if the black vessel of transportation you embark in, hould bear you safely to this elysium of yours, the very passage '^ould exhaust all your funds, and your whole life would be held in ledge, never to be redeemed : your destiny at last would be to ied the rats of a prison. But come, think better of this scheme 'hile you have it in your power. Let the ruined inan, the impious >retch, the outlaw, praise America; if you are yet in your senses, Jeta, stay at home." The whole of the dialogue may be found in the Port ^olio, into which it was copied in the year 1816, from iie English Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1815; to /hich magazine it was committed thus for circulation, iiree months after the signature of the treaty of peace and mity between Great Britain and the United States. The ble writer who introduced it into the American journal, ttached to it a commentary which equally deserves to be ead entire, and of which I adopt the following passages, s speaking what is due from me to the occasion. " Thus it is, that at an age when impressions are apt to take the trongest hold of the mind, — with the associations most calculated ) give vividness and effect to the sentiments uttered — at the direc- on and under the superintendence of the reverend preceptors in le first school of classical education that Great Britain can boast — I the presence, and with the sanction of persons deemed highly jspectable for rank, learning, character, and station — the young )ns of the nobility and gentry of England arc taught to pronounce, iplaud, and give effect to, the most glaring and disgusting false- oods, and the most virulent and vulgar abuse against this country id its inhabitants universally. PREFACE. XU, "There is nothing- in the invectives of the Quarterly Reviev, more abusive and flagitious than this epilogue. I am no advocat* for keeping up national animosity, but I do not approve of the doc^' trine of non-resistance; nor do I feel the obligation upon Ameri cans of submitting lamely to the insult, when the persons vi'ho hayr descended to these aspersions are themselves liable to the retort Had this attack been the hasty effusion of a political partizan, oj the witty scurrility of a writer whose sarcastic talent furnishes hi^t daily bread, or had we been subjected even to the mistaken correc| tion of a well-meaning observer, it might have been passed over.| but this, the studied, deliberate composition of deep-rooted enmit); deserves no quarter. One style of reply to impartial and friendl;. reprehension; another to the sarcastic rancour of a 'proud and in; suiting foe.' | " It may be, as it seems to be, the intention in Great Britain, tji educate their youth in sentiments of the most sarcastic and rancoy ©us hostility towards i\merica ; and I dare say, the attempt wif succeed; and I dare aver also, that it will be met, as it naturall must, by correspondent feelings on this side the water." 3. We were not altogether ignorant^, in the Unite States, that much of the favour shown to us, since th commencement of the present century, by the whig parti, in parliament, and their connexions out of doors, arosf from the relation of a minority or opposition, in whic| thoy stood in the British government. Yet we believec that there was enough of real cordiality in their feeling; and of elevation in their sentiments, to prevent them, 2 all times, from countenancing gross misrepresentations c our condition and character, and raising groundless ck mours against our political transactions and views; froi setting us in a false or invidious light, merely to embai rass and discredit the ministry, or to promote dome^ti ends, such as those of checking emigration, and countei acting extravagant plans of parliamentary reform. A attentive observation of the language concerning our a; fairs, held of late by the whig journals and the pai liamentary opposition, has convinced me that we wer' deceived in supposing they had not always acted, in reU; tion to this country, altogether from party feelings an aims, and would not readily sacrifice justice and trutl where it was concerned, to selfish considerations. There is but one interpretation to be put upon tb iv PREFACE. )iirse they have taken, in regard to the execution of mbrister and Arbuthnot, and the agreement between pain and the United States for the transfer of the Flo- das. It has been a system of exaggeration, not to say ander, designed to bring the ministry under the suspi- on of pusillanimity and supineness, and to recommend e assailants to the nation as the tiuer Britons; the more (irited assertors and anxious guardians of her honour id interests. This accomplished, it was immaterial what uds and ruinous strife, and what injustice to the United tates, might follow, if their clamoui's raised a ferment nong the British people, and thus forced the ministry to u'sue to extremity an unattainable redress, and frustrate fair and equitable arrangement. Rejuark the artificial ne and hyperbolical representation, so well, though not 'imarily calculated to produce discord and aversion be- leen the two nations, — of leading members of the mi- )rity in both houses of parliament. Mr. Tierney (House of Commons, May 19th, 1819). " There was one foreign power to which he must direct the atten- )n of the house, with the same view as he had mentioned France ■he meant America; — she was out of the pale of confederation; ith her we had a separate treaty of peace ; towards her ive had ng cast an eye of jealousy^ and it well became us to be prepared r the worst. Let the house consider only what had happened ia e last three months. Two British subjects had been executed by I American commander. There might be circumstances warrant- g his conduct, and justifying, according to the law of nations, e approbation which his government had expressed; but he (Mr, ierney) was old enough to remember the time when, had two Bri- sh subjects been executed by a foreign state in time of peace, this )untry would not have put up with it quite so tamely. He knew le subject was a sore one, and he did not wish to press it farther. " While the noble lord opposite was at congress, two German 'inces could not have exchanged a few meadows without important {presses being despatched to him. But America owned no con- fess: because she was a long way off, ministers seemed to think lat danger could not be near, and she was accordingly allowed to ,ke up a position on a vast continent, as injurious as possible to the )lonial returns of this country, putting them in imminent and un- sniable jeopardy. " l^t the house and the country reflect then, if it was not the PREFACE. X) duty of the government to do something to prepare the empire fo; possible mischiefs that might arise even from France and America.' Sir Robert Wilson (June 4th, 1819) — "America aspired toi much after her own aggrandizement. She had sent cominissionei-* to South America to inspire hope and energy there. She had esta- blished a strong force in Texas, the province next to Mexico. Ame rica would next demand Cuba." i Mr. M' Donald (4th June, 1819) — " Such an aggrandizemen't o, a powerful rival, as the acquisition of Florida, ought not to h\ passed over without a strict enquu'y into the cause of this most ex' traordinary and unprecedented proceeding," &c. And the Marquis of Lansdov/ne (in the House of Lords, Mai 11th, 1819)— " Of all the events that could happen at this time, there was nc one which so deeply affected the commercial interests of Great Bri tain as the cession of the Floridas to the United States. The po^ session of those provinces would enable the Americans to annihilat the British trade in the West India seas; and give them an oppoi tunity of connecting themselves with the black governments thei in a manner that might prove essentially injurious to our interesit The cession should have been guarded against at the congress t Vienna. No one at Vienna conceived it necessary to make an provision that should have the effect of preventing the aggrandize ment of the United States. Hitherto there was a balance on vvhic this country used to rely for her security, and it was an essenti: part of this balance to prevent the Floridas from being ceded to th United States. The conduct of General Jackson in the exe cutio ofAmbrister and Arbuthnot was unjiaralleUd in the hintory o civilized nations. If at the time when Copenhagen was taken b the British troops, Lord Cathcart, who then commanded tht;n' found that several persons belonging to neutral countries had bet engaged in the defence of the place, and ordered thc;m to be exc cuted, on pretence that they had no right to take up arras agcin; Great Britain, would not that act have been a gross violation of th laws of nations."* It may be doubted whether any measures which coul have been taken at the Congress ot" Vienna to guar against the severance of Florida from Spain, would hav pi'oved effectual: but the idea of a concurrence of th members of that Congress in precautions against th aggrandizement of the United States, for the securiiy c * The language of the ministerial journals, concerning" General J:ickso bordered n the infuriate. Thus we read in the London Conner of M.u-c-h 2 1819 " General Jackson has tlie most villainous (( worthy of the people, and the people of the hero" :V1 PREFAt^E. Jreat Britain! has something of the marvellous, besides nplying an extraordinary sort of equity. We had not een called on to explain how oitr security might be ffected by her aggrandizement in the West Indies; or ow the balance on which we might have relied, was de- troyed by " the positions" she had " taken up," all over le world; positions commanding every sea of commer- ial importance; — Heliogoland; Malta, in addition to Gib- iltar; the Isle of France; the Island of Ceylon; the Prince f Wales' Island; New South Whales; the Cape of Good [ope. " Our noble station at the Cape of Good Hope," lys a late London paper, " commands the commerce of le globe; it is the natural key to India; the bridle of Imerica; the surface which we might people with hardy Inglishmen is upwards of 100,000 square miles. Make le Cape a free port for the nations of Europe, and ice inish JVorth America from the Indian seas.'"' The Dwers of the Continent may smile when they find Great ritain, while herself adding constantly new kingdoms to er dominions in the East, and grasping at every mari- me station of consequence in the four quarters of the lobe, exclaiming against American ambition and aggran- izement, because the United States had acquired a con- ^uous province, from which, if in foreign hands, they lUSt be subject to the severest annoyance, — by fair nego- ation, and the relinquishment of large pecuniary claims^ id well-founded pretensions to territory of much greater itent and intrinsic value. The American government and people are as little iely "to demand the Island of Cuba," as they are "to )nnect themselves with the black governments of the lest Indies." They want no slave islands; and to insti- ite the blacks of Hayti to foment and protect insurrec- 3n in the British islands (for this must be meant by the [arquis of Lansdowne,) is an atrocity of which they must ^er be incapable, though Great Britain, in her next war ith us, should repeat the example which she has k'ice given, of exciting the negroes of the southern ates to supplant and butcher their masters. The case PREFACE. KVH which the British Peer selected to illustrate the justness of his sentence upon general Jackson, is every way ao unfortunate one for the purpose. His lordship and all his colleagues of the Opposition had denounced the attack upon Copenhagen as a heinous aggression; to be pai ralleled in treachery and outrage, only by Bonaparte's invasion of Spain. What parity of reason, then, in th^ supposed case of lord Cathcart putting to death the strangers whom he might have found assisting in the de^ fence of the capital of a civilized power, a member of the European Christian commonwealth, so unexpectedly and iniquitously attacked; and that of the American general pursuing a savage horde into an adjacent territory, from* which it had issued to desolate the American frontier,^ and there executing two European adventurers, proved' to be its instigators and accomplices? As the Danes did not follow the practice of massacreing their pri- soners, the strangers who might have identified them- selves with them, would not, when seized, have been subject to the punishment of death by retaliation, as were the alhes of the Seminoles, even under the Euro- pean law of nations. If the custom of Europe be deter- minative of that law in any particular, it may be confi- dently invoked in favour of the execution of Arbuthnol and Ambristier, on the supposition that they were actually leagued with the Indians, as the British ministry have ad- mitted; for, during the great wars of the Germans and; Poles against the Turks, death was the immediate loi of the European christian found acting on the side ol the infidels. So, there has never been the least hesita-i tion in the Mediterranean waters and territories, about despatching at once the renegade, no matter of what christian country, taken in arms on board a Barbary cor- sair, or in a predatory descent upon the coast. I find it difficult to reconcile the full knowledge which the Marquis of Lansdowne must possess of the history ol the British empire in India, and in Ireland, with his de- claration, that " the conduct of the American general wae unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. "^ This de- Vol. I.— C* SVlll PREFACE. claratiou, I deem the more remarkable, as it was only two months before (March 3, 1819,) that, on the occasion of the vote of thanks moved to Lord Hastings and the British generals in India, the Marquis of Lansdowne made, in ilie House of Lords, the following statement, in- cluding, as will be seen, a case of at least as criminal an aspect as that of the American general. The Marquis of Lansdowne said : " He felt it his duty to observe',' that there appeared on the face of the papers before their lord^^ ships, a transaction which could not be passed over in silence — a transaction which must be made the subject of some expression of censure, if thanks were to be generally voted to the whole army of tndia. — The transaction to which he alluded, was the execution of the Killedar of the fort of Talneir. It appeared, that after a vigor- ous resistance made by the fort, this commander had come out and surrendered. The garrison left in the fort, however, resisted. The Fort was then attacked by the British army, and taken ; and the tvhole of the garrison was put to the sword. However much he might regret such a proceeding, he did not make it the subject of complaint. Perhaps, under the circumstances of the case, it was unavoidable ; but what must be their lordship's opinion of the transaction that followed. The Killedar, who had remained in the possession of the British commander, was deliberately put to death. [t was impossible to leave this horrible circumstance out of view in any vote of thanks which their lordships should give. The des- patch of Sir Thomas Hislop states, that whether the Killedar was accessory to the treachery of the garrison or not, he was justly punished with death on account of his rebellion in the first instance. There was no ground for concluding that this unfortunate com- mander had any concert with the garrison in their treachery ; but, according to every rule of European war, some proof of that con- cert ought to have been exhibited, before the right of punishing him was assumed. As to the assertion, that he was guilty of re- bellion in holding out after his master had submitted and conclud- ed a treaty of peace, that was an offence over which a British autho- rity could have no legal cognizance. He was accountable for his rebellion to Holkar only. But how was he to know that he was in rebellion ? How was he apprised of the conclusion of the treaty ? He had no information of it but through the report of the British army. Would their lordships say that upon information received From an enemy the commander of a fortress was bound to surren- der, or even to discontinue hostilities, and that he was liable to the punishment of death if he refused ? If, indeed, he had been a party to the treachery of the garrison, he might have been, for that act, liable to punishment, after an inquiry before a regular military tri- PREFACE. acht bvmal ; but with the other charge of rebellion the British com- mander could have nothing to do." I am particularly struck with another example of disingenuousness and exaggeration on the part of our friends of the opposition, which I have now before me ill) a speech of Earl Grey, at the New Castle Fox dinner of the 31st. of December, 1818. This nobleman stands, with Lord Grenvilie, at the head of the old whigs; he was trained by the side of Fox, and deserved to be called ' the Diomed of the band who waged so powerful a war in the House of Commons under that leader. His zeal.j for parliamentary reform even surpassed that of his coK ^ leagues; but, on his ascension to the House of Lords, his feelings and views on this subject underwent a material change; although he still continued inseparable in others questions from his first associations, and, in his American politics, ranked with the most strenuous antagonists of^ the ministerial system. As the imagination of a large proportion of the British politicians has been particularly affected with the extensive emigrations, that of his lord- ship is disturbed in an especial manner, with the cry for universal suffrage and annual parliaments; and he proba- bly feels the more anxious to discredit these innovations, from having himself taken the lead in the House of Com- mons in arraigning the constitution of the British legisla- ture. The example of America, as to the point of re- presentation, seemed naturally to interfere with his object, and was therefore to be invalidated, not merely by being i shown to have no application to the circumstances of'' Great Britain, but by being exhibited as of a most malig- nant and revolting character in itself To this design I ascribe the use which he made, on the occasion above mentioned, of Fearon's " Sketches of America,^^ and the character which he gave of the book and its author. I shall make the case better understood by transcribing that portion of the speech to which I allude, before I give, as I intend, some glimpses of the true light in which the Sketches are to be viewed, and must l>ave been viewed. XX FREFACE- in fad, by the noble Earl. After drawing a frightful pic- ture of the state of England, he proceeded thus: " But there is even a ynore dreadful instance than ours to be found in the history of a country whose popular constitution must furnish matter of much interesting observation to every lover of freedom. The constitution of America is free and popular in the largest sense. Now, what is the case in America? A gentlemati was deputed by thirty-nine families, who had been driven by the necessities of the times to think of emigration — a melancholy proof of our present condition. On his report they were to depend, for the spirit of the country, and on the inducements it might hold out to them. The gentleman's name is Fearon. He has published the report which he made to these persons, and his hook is full of the most valuable information^ and is distinguished by the marks not only of an inquiring^ observing^ and intelligent inind^ but of the greatest fairness and impartiality . What does Mr. Fearon say of the operation of their laws and of this boasted constitution?^' His lordship then adduced, as decisive revelation, what Fearon has written concerning the process of election and the distribution of offices in America; and concluded in these words — " This is Mr Fearon's statement, and I should observe to you, that he is by no means a willing wit- ness on the subject. Why do I repeat these things.^ Is it that I may depreciate the value of popular rights in your estimation? Far from it; I wish merely to show you that, under a system which may appear more perfect, similar, or even greater abuses^ may still exist than in England." We must conclude that the orator had actually read the work on which and its author, he pronounced so lofty a panegyric; which he thus held out to the world as tlie source of the most authentic information concerning Ame- rican affairs. He has, in fact, by the latitude and em- phasis of his recommendation, become the sponsor of the whole. It is a serious accountability; and I must confess that I am surprised at the boldness of the proceeding. In the first place, as to the point of our elections and the distribution of public trusts, Fearon's allegations are confined to the affairs of two states only, New York and Pennsylvania, and the choice of one federal officer, the PREFACE. XS &hief magistrate. It happens that those are precisel; and notoriously the parts of the Union, in which th game of state pohtics, a comparatively insignificant one bears the worst character and appearance. In them there is more perhaps, of what, as long as human natur is not perfect with us, must exist in a certain measure, ii the rest, — I mean paltry intrigue for petty offices, and in terested effort to influence votes. Cases of some enoi mity may occur in the first line of abuse, and suffrages b sometimes given from mere party subserviency; but it 1 as absurd to compare what happens here in these respects with what prevails in England,' as it would be to compar the amount and description of the mendicit) in our streets or of the criminal delinquency on our calendars, with thos of which we read in Oolquhoun's Treatises and the lat Parliamentary Reports. Whoever talks of a degree of bribery and corruptio and undue influence in America, like that of the neighboui hood of the treasury in London, and the theatres of Englis suffrage, whether the shires or boroughs, ueals in the mos extravagant hyperbole. Fearon only repeats on this sut ject, what he pretends to have heard from two persons ( his own country, Mr. Cobbett and Mr. Hulme, both c whom, be it remarked, peremptorily disclaim the languag which he imputes to them, and accuse him of an impudei imposture. lie juight, perhaps, have read it in some of th wild declamations, which are published among us durin the heat of a contested election, and from the exaggera ing spirit of party recrimination. But, nothing that hi ever happened in this country, furnishes the least four dation for asserting broadly, that votes and places ar bought and sold. Throughout the states, the ri^lit of su frage is exercised, in general, with independen<.e an integrity, by freeholders jealous of their prerogative strangers to the want and very idea of a lar&;ess and to proud to submit to any dictatioii. The elec;tions m Nei England, for instance, are marked by a strictness of d( corum, probity of spirit, and universal intelligence ( action, such, as an European, accustomed to view th atU PREFACE. leople every wliere as jiopulace, would not be capable df iiiagiuing.* On this subject, moreover, it is not what may be done Y said in some of the large cities on the Atlantic coast, liat furnishes a test of the practice among the mass of this lation. With respect to disorder and corruption in the system f voting and appointing to office, under the general go- ernment, the oracle of Lord Grey says no more, from imself, than that "he became acquainted with facts in Vashington which no man could have induced him to elieve without personal observation." With more than ommon discretion, he abstains from telling what those lets are, but proceeds to give an account of what he [lere heard respecting the *' appointment" of the presi- ent by the caucus of congress, which he represents, in- eed, as a mandate issued to the electors in the different tates, and never disobeyed. But Lord Grey could not ave been so ignorant of the letter and whole analogy of ur institutions, as to have understood this to be more, in )rm or fact, than a recommendation from a certain num- er of members of congress assembled extra-officially, to le people at large, to vote for a particular individual as leir chief magistrate. The proceeding is, certainly, an •regularity, and unsafe as a precedent; yet, so far, it can- ot be said, to have been of practical injury, or of any real * "I have lived long in New England," said Dr. Dwight, the late distin- jished president of Yale College, "and have never yet known a single shilling ven to purchase a vote." This is the testimony of one than whom no person )iild have had better opportunities of knowledge. He describes thus the aniier of a New England election. •' In New England, on the morning of an election day, the electors assemble thcr in a church or a town house, in the centre of the township, of whicli ley are inhabitants. , j "The business of the day is sometimes introduced by a sermon, and very r^ 'ten by public prayer. A moderator is chosen : the votes are given in with riot decency ; without a single debate ; without noise, or disorder, or drink ; id with not a little of the sobriety, seen in religious assemblies. The meeting , . i, ■ then dissolved ; the inhabitants return quietly to their homes, and have .,j jiither battles nor disputes. I do not believe that a aingle -woman, bond or free, ,-, \J' now fills it, would have succeeded equally with the people, without the forward counsel of such an assembly; arid. it seems to me, no less certain, that it is not in the power of any cabal of whatever composition, to impose any man upon the people as their chief magistrate; to effect thes adoption of one to whom the preference would not b^ given spontaneously.* On the whole, all that is found in Fearon's book, touch- ing these matters, does not, when candidly examined, im- plicate in general, " the laws and boasted constitution" of America; for, there is nothing that calls in question the conformity of the representation in congress, with the theory of those laws and that constitution. The " case inj America" admitted of application to the project of par- liamentary reform in England, only so far as it could be shewn, that the right of suffrage was not exercised honest- ly and independently in the election of congress; that this body was not free from corrupt deahngs towards the peo- ple and within itself; and did not fully and fairly represent the nation. No accusations of the kind are hazarded by Fearon, and I am sure that whosoever might utter, would find it impossible to sustain them, in the opinion of im- partial minds. It may be worth while to obtain an idea of the ge*- neral doctrines, concerning this country, of the book to which Earl Grey has so formally put his authoritative seal. I take at random, by way of specimen of that * "We kno-w," say the Edinburcfh Reviewers, in tlieir number for Decem- ber, 1818, (article on Universal Suftrage,) *' that the leaders of the dennocratid party who now predominate in their caucus or committee at Washington, do,' in effect, nominate to all the important offices inJVorih Jlmerica." It is inconceiv- able how such an assertion as this, could have been risqued in a publication hkely to find its way into the United States. I scarcely need add that no one in this country ever before heard of a standing committee of the kind; and that no such nomination tukes place, beyond the occasional recommendation to the president, by members of congress, or others, in their individual capaci- ty, of persons who are soliciting ofticcs, or on whom it is tlipught desirable that they should be conferred. Xxiv PREFACE. jf^most valuable information of which it is h\]\" the foi- ,(owiug passages. ) " No species of correction is allowed in the American schools; children even at home are perfectly independent, (p. 39.) A cold, lUniform bigotry seems to pervade all religious sects, (p. 48,) Clean- liness is scarcely knovi^n on this side of the Atlantic, (p. 80.) The tradesmen here (Philadelphia) are less intelligent than men follow- ling the like occupations in England, (p. 161.) The Americans are most remarkable for complete and general coldness of character and disposition — a cold-blooded callousness of disposition, (p. 166.) 'Whatever degree of religious intelligence exists is confined to the clergy, (p. 167.) The colour of the young females of Philadel- (phia is produced by art: the junior branches of the Soci-ty of Friends there, are not at all deficient in the practice of rougeing. (p. 168.) The dirk is the inseparable companion of all classes in the state of Illinois, (p 262.) — The United States are cursed with a fiofiulution undeserving of their exuberant soil and free government. (p. 273.) The American lawyers are at least thirty-ihree and a third per cent, lower than their brethren in England, (p. 317.) The Americans, neglecting to encourage any pursuits, either indivi- dually or collectively, which may be called mental., they appear, as a nation, to have sunk into habits of indolence and indifference: they are neither lively in their tempers nor generous in their dispo- sitions, &c.* (p. 362.) We do not meet in America with even an approach to simplicity and honesty of mind. (p. 363.) The nation at large dislike England, and yet, both individually and collectively, would be offended, should a hint be expressed that they were of Irish or of Dutch, and not of English descent, (p. 368.) No peo- ple are so vain as the Americans ; their self-estimation and cool- headed bombast, when speaking of themselves or of their country, are quite ludicrous, (p. 368.) Every man in America thinks he has arrived at perfection, (p. 368.) Every American considers that it is impossible for a foreigner to teach him any thing, and that his head contains a perfect encyclopaedia, (p. 369.) A non-intercourse act seems to have passed against the sciences, morals^ and literature, in America, (p. 371.) The sexes seem ranked as distinct races of beings, between whom social converse is rarely to be held. A uni- versal neglect of either mental or domestic knowledge appears to exist among the females here, as compared with those of England, (p. 377.) Such is the habitual indolence of the American people^ and their indifference with regard to public affairs, that occurrences * So Lieutenant Hall, in his book of Travels in America, says, " The Ame- ricans are habitually serious and silent; tlieir spirits are seldom elevated!!" Apathy, taciturnity, are traits which we did not suspect to exist in our cha racter. PREFACE. Xxjl fjl . ! first, rale importance arc known but by few individuals, (p. 385f 'j There would appear to be placed in the very stamina of the peopI|'| a coldness, a selfishness, and a spirit of conceit, which form stronjjj barriers against improvement." (p. 391.) li Every particular assertion in this medley is in tllj nature of antiphrasis: and the general allegations aij; slanderous. The extravasance of several of them b|' Irays not only a libellous disposition, but an utter wa]| of JLidgtuent, in the writer. I will illustrate further " tha fairness and impartiality/^ which Earl Grey ascribes t< him in the superlative degree. He states (p. 46,) that u New Yoi'k all the churches (forty-five in number,) ar< xvell filled on the Sunday. The fact being rather credita ble to that community, it was necessary to give it another direction; and this is done by the following arbitary ridiculous, and malevolent interpretation. " The grea proportion of attendants at any particular church appea: to select it, cither because they are acquainted with th( preacher, or that it is frequented by fashionable compa ny, or their great-grandmoiher ivent there before the revo liiiion, or because their interests will be promoted b) so doing." We are not told the particular indication oi circumstance by which this appeared. Wherever the re- ligious worship and spirit of this country are brough into view, it is in the same strain that they are celebrated and ignorance of the scriptures is perpetualy charged upon the whole body of a people by whom the bible is doubtless, more generally possessed and read, in family than by any other on earth.* Our traveller, when he cannot venture to affirm ar opprobious fact, "as of his own knowledge, has recours( this form of speech, "[have reason to believe" — z convenient mode of columniating, when, as uniforml} happens with him, the reason, is not assigned. Thus he says (p. 171,) in relation to Philadelphia, — acity ai remarkable for domestic neatness, order, morality, an( * It is used in all the schools in tlie interior, ar.d these receive nearly ever :-,ative white. Vol. I.— D^ :XXV11I PHEFACJS. ■ qlothes, if rags deserve that denomination, actually perfumed tjae I ir. Some were without shirts, others had this article of dress, bji.t f a quality as coarse as the worst packing cloth. I enquired of 'Peveral if they could speak English. They smiled, and gabbled, [i'No Engly, no Engly,— one Engly talk ship.' The deck was filthy. ^♦.""he cooking, washing, and necessary department, were close toge- lier. Such is the viercenarij barbarity of the Aviericaiis toho are ^'^ ngaged in this trade, that they crammed into one of those vessels O'OO passengers, 80 of whom died on the passage." 0' j£ This account is quoted with evident satisfaction, in the c Quarterly Review, for May, 1819, and the reviewer adds rem himself — "The infamous traffic is confined, ex- pplusively, to American vessels." ^ I have thought it worth while to ascertain the facts oi ^r;he case, and they are as follows: — The brig Bubona in ^luestion was a British vessel, from Sunderland^ in Eng- , r^and; she was British property, and navigated on Britisli !jiccount; her crew was British, and her captain an Eng- Jishman, by the name of William Garterell. On arriving l^n the port of Philadelphia, he selected as his factors, the jjiVIessrs. Odlin and Co. merchants of that city, whom r(Fearon falsely represents as thp oimers of the vessel. '^The captain was not " tall," but about the middle size. ^,or rather below it, and his countenance had an open, 3jagreeable expression. What is more: of the vessels j.that entered the port of Philadelphia in the years 1816, r,and 1817, laden with redemptioners from the continent ^,of Europe, the greater number was foreign; these 3. amounted to ten, of which five were Btitish in British j,employment; namely, th^brig Bubona, above mentioned: the ship Zenophon, captain Goodwin; the brig Constantia, J captain Janson; the brig Wilham, captain Arrowsmitb, ^and brig William, captain Danton.* The condition of jj the redemptioners on board the British vessels was no bet- yter than in the others of whatever nation, engaged in the fl " infamous traffic." I derive these particulars from unquestionable sources: nf ' ■ "^ ii * The othev foreign vessels (Prussian and Hanseatic) were, ship Vrow Ca- thrina, captain Jolin Van i!yle; brig Bonifacias, captain Leilman ; brig'Go'-'i- U cordia, captain Diedricksen; ship Vrow Elizabeth, captain Blankman, ^c 4 PREFACE. XXI — the Mr, Woodbridge Odlin, who transacted the bus ness of the Bubona; and Mr. Andrew Leinau, a respect: ble inhabitant of Philadelphia, who served as gener agent for the foreign redemptioner ships, as they wei styled, and who has in his hands official vouchers, whic I have examined, of theii* respective national characte the number of their passengers, &c. It is known, mor over, that as soon as the abuses practised in the trat became notorious, the American Congress passed a la designed to prevent the recurrence of them, and remai'j able for the humanity and efficaciousness of its precai lions. If Fearon really visited the Bubona, which may \ doubted, he, an Englishman, could not have mistake her national character, nor that of the captain. Th •' tall American, with an eye flashing Algerine cruelt is a phantasm manifestly intended to heighten the inju ous effect of the whole malignant fiction. So the use the present tense by the (Quarterly Reviewers, in the unwarrantable assertion, argues the design of giving to be understood, that the trade is still carried on I American vessels, with the same abuses as existed befo: the passage of the preventive law. Whether Earl Grey has found " the greatest fairne, and impartijility'^ in the article of the Quarterly Review on Fearon's Sketches, as well as in the btter, I know no but it is certain that the noble lord and the reviewer di fer much in their views of the character of the travelle -'We find , Mr. Fearon," says the reviewer, "whenev* England is concerned, venting his ignorant sneers, or ii dulging his spiteiul calumnies, at the expense of decent and tnith: lie crouches with base servility before Cobbc he grossly libels his fair countrywomen; he is solicitous entice the poor ofEui'ope from their country, by fallaci* and fe; he has greedily seized upon every opportunity < traducing the best and bravest officers of England; h prejudices are rooted in the profoundest ignorance; I deals in flippant and frequent abuse of scripture; he is ev ciently a man of verv limited faculties: he is in a state < :X PREFACE. Tpetual childhood; his total want of knowledge is suili- ently apparent, &c." It is a witness thus blackened, ighted, and stultified by themselves, and whom in fact, ey convict, in their examination of his book, of gross in- nsistency and prevarication, that the master critics of Dadon bring forward to explode the pretensions of the nited States to any degree of moral worth, intellectual ^nity, or physical comfort. It is upon his testimony, ivho violates truth and decency, ivhenever England is ncerned,'^ they affect to believe, and would have the )rld believe, besides what I have quoted from him, id a multitude of other general imputations and parti- ilar calumnies, that — "the churches in America are led by fanatics, hypocrites, and buffoons;" that '"gain the education, the morals, the politics, the theology, d stands instead of the domestic comfort of all ages and isses of Americans ;" that " the worst degree of corrup- in which the inventive malice of the worst Jacobin ever larged upon the government of England, is more thaii alized at the American capital;" that "every election America,, from the president downwards, is carried on bribery, corruption, and intrigue."* I cannot refrain, in dismissing Mr. Fearon and his mpurgators, from offering to my American reader, me random testimony concerning the nature of those uses in the system of British suffrage and representa- )n, greater than which Lord Grey is pleased to believe, ly, or do exist under that of the United States. In the year 1793, the honourable Mr. Grey, then a ember of the House of Commons, — now Earl Grey, d a member of the House of Peers — made a motion in e Commons, for a reform in parliament, grounded upon 5etition which he presented, and vehemently supported, d was understood to have himself composed. The (lowing quotations are parts of that petition, and the ' The Edinburgh Reviewers have also so far forgotten their station, as to itow on Fearon, the epithets " enVis:htened and intelligent," and to recom- nd his book, with the simple reservation that he is " a /itile given to exaggc- ion in his views of vices and prejudices." See their 61st number. PREFACE. XX: facts stated in them, which did not admit of denial ai equally true of the subject of the present day. I " Your petitioners complain, that the elective franchise is *$ partially and unequally distributed, and is in so many instanci committed to bodies of men of such very limited numbei's; that tl majority of your honourable House, is elected by less than fiftee thousand electors, which even if the male adults in the kingdo be estimated at so low a number as three millions, is hot more the the two hundredth part of the people to be represented. ',' The second, complaint of your petitioners, is founded on unequal proportions in which the elective franchise is distribute and in support of it, " They affirm, that seventy of your honourable members are r turned by thirty-five places, where the right of voting is vested : burghage and other tenures of a similar description, and in which would be to trifle with the patience of your honourable House, mention any number of voters whatever, the elections at the plact alluded to being notoriously a mere matter of form. And this yo\ petitioners are ready to prove. " They affirm, that in addition to the seventy honourable men bers so chosen, ninety more of your honourable members are elec ed by forty-six places, in none of which the number of vote exceeds fifty. And this your petitioners are ready to prove. " They affirm, that in addition to the hundred and sixty so eiflc ed, thirty-seven more of your honourable members are elected nineteen places, in none of which the number of voters exceeds hundred. And this your petitioners are ready to prove. " They affirm, that in addition to the hundred and ninety-sevei honourable members so chosen, fifty-two more are returned i serve in Parliament by twenty-six places, in none of which tf number of voters exceeds two hundred. And this your petitionei are ready to prove. " They affirm, that in addition to tv/o hundred and forty-nine s elected, twenty more are returned to serve in Parliament for coui ties in Scotland, by less than one hundred electors each, and te for counties in Scotland by less than two hundred and fifty eac) And this your petitioners are rcaxly to prove, even admitting th validity of fictitious votes. .*' They affirm, that in addition to the two hundred and seventj nine so elected, thirteen districts of burghs of Scotland, not coi taining one hundred voters each, and two districts of burghs, nc containing one hundred and twenty-five each, return fifteen mor honourable members. And this your petitioners are ready t pi'ove. And in this manner, according to the present state of you representation, two hundred and ninety-four of your honourabl raemb("rs are chosen, and being a majority of the entire House < 1; SXii I'REFACE, ommons, are enabled to decide ail questions i. hole people of England and Scotland. "Religious opinions create an incapacity to vote. All Papists" e excluded generally, and, by the operation of the test laws, Pro- stant dissenters are deprived of a voice in the election of repi'c- mtativcs in about thirty boroughs, where the right of voting is' mfined to corporate officers alone ; a deprivation the more unjus- iable, because, though considered as unwovlhy to vote, they are ;emed capable of being elected, and may be the representatives of e very places from which they are disqualified from being the ectors. . " A man paying taxes to any amount, how great soever, for his jmestic establishment, docs not thereby obtain a right to vote, un- ss his residence be in some borough where that right is vested in e inhabitants. This exception operates in sixty places, of which /enty-eight do not contain three hundred voters each, and the amber of liouseholders in England and Wales (exclusive of Scot- nd,) who pay all taxes, is 714,911, and of householders who pat 1 taxes but the house and v/indow taxes, is 284.,459, as appears by , return iiiade to your honourable House in 1785. " In Scotland, the grievance arising from the nature of the rights 'voting, has a different and still more intolerant operation. In that reat raid populous division of the kingdom, not only the great mass "th'j householders, but of the landholders also, arc excluded from 1 participation in the choice of representatives. " Yottr honourable House knows, that the complicated rights of )ting, and the shameful practices which disgrace election pro- ledings, have so loaded your table with petitions for judgment and •dress, that one half of the usual duration of a parliament has arcely been sufficient to settle who is entitled to sit for the other ilf. " From the peculiar rights of voting, by which certain places re- rn members to serve in parliaments, eighty-four individuals do, ,' their own immediate authority, send one hvmdred and fifty-seven :' your honourable members to Parliament, and your petitioners •e ready to name the members and the patrons. " Your petitioners are convinced that in addition to the one hun- •ed and fifty-seven honourable members above mentioned, one hun- ted and fifty more, making in the whole three hundred and seven, I'e returned to your honourable House, not by the collected voice of tose whom they appear to represent, but by the recommendation ■ seventy powerful individuals, added to tlie eighty-four before jentioned, and making the total number of patrons altogether only ke hundred and fifty-four, v/ho return a decided majority of your lonourable House. j. " Your petitioners inform your honourable House, and are ready ,;» prove it at your bar, that they have the most reasonable grounds 't suspect, that no less than one hundred and fifty of your honourable PREFACE. XXXlllj 7.weml)ers owe their elections entirely to the interference of peers; and your petitioners are prepared to show by legal evidence, that \ forty peers, in defiance of your resolutions, have possessed them-! selves of so many burghage tenures, and obtained such an absolute! and uncontrolled command in very many small boroughs in thsj} kingdom, as to be enabled by their own positive authority to return) eighty-one of your honourable members. j " The means taken by candidates to obtain, and by electors to be-' stow a seat in your honourable house, appear to have been increas- ing in a progressive degree of fraud and corruption. In the 31st year of the reign of his present majesty, the number of statutes found necessary to prevent bribery, had increased to sixty-five." In confirming the allegations and pressing the object ot the petition, the honourable Mr. Grey said, that " the evils| of the American war were, in his mind, entirely owing to the unequal and corrupt representation in Parliament." And Mr. Sheridan made the following observations in the course of the debate, to which Mr. Grey's motion gave{ rise. . i " As to the general challenge of proving the abuse which subsists in our government, he (Mr. Sheridan) had no delight in it; but as he must answer, he should say, that some of the abuses of which he complained, and of which a reform of Parliament was the only remedy, were, that Peers of the other house sent members to the House of Commons by nomination ; that the Crown sent members into that house by nomination too; that some members of that house sent in members by their own nomination also — all these things made a farce of an election for the places for which these were re- turned; that men were" created peers without having been of the least service to the public in any action of their lives, but merely on account of their Parliamentary influence — the present minister had been the means of creating a hundred of them. He did not blame him, but the fault was in the system of government; corruption was the pivot on which the whole of our public government af- fairs turned; the collection of taxes was under the management of wealthy men in Parliamentary interest, the consequence of which was, that the collection of them was neglected ; that to make up the deficiency, excisemen must be added to the excise— this soured, the temper of the people ; that neither in the church, the army, the navy, or any public office, was any appointment given, but through Parliamentary influence ; that, in consequence, corrupt majorities at the will of the minister.* * See the Debate in tJie 39th vol. of the Parliamentary History. Vol. I.— E* tXXiv PREPACfi. The following parts of the debate of the House of Corn- nous respecting the new taxes, which I extract from the London Courier of Jane 19, 1819, will show what degree )f reformation that body has undergone since Mr. Sheii- ian's exposition of its character. " The Marquis of Tavistock said, (June 18, 1819.) — Was it not grievous to reflect, that, when the minister had proposed an income ;ax, the house defeated his purpose — or, as the noble lord had ex- pressed it, relieved themselves, and not the country ? Was it not grievous to reflect, that the house had rejected with indignation the income tax; and that when other taxes were proposed, which fell upon the poor and distressed, they were passed with acclamations, and nothing was talked of but the triumphant majorities of minis- ters ? (cheering). If any difficulty was felt in believing this to be a correct view of the case, let it be recollected, that when the income tax was refused in 1816, ministers gave up the malt tax, and the noble lord (Castlereagh) said, " Since Parliament has relieved itself from the income tax, I and my colleagues relieve the country by giving up the malt tax." Why did not ministers, entertaining this view of the different taxes, propose a renewal of the income tax, which they believed to be a burden upon the members of the house, and not upon the country, instead of the taxes which they had admitted to be felt by the country, and especially by the poorer classes ? They acted so, obviously because they were afraid of a defeat in that house upon the income tax. But would they have last year proposed the taxes now required? If they had made the proposal, would it have been endured in the last year of the last Parliament? Was it surprizing that the people of this country should be discontented, when they saw their representatives shelter- ing themselves from an income tax? (Hear.) — When they saw those representatives at the same time laying further taxes on malt>- on tea; and on wool ? " How happened it, that when the people called loudly and earn- estly for retrenchment and economy, the ministers, backed by over- whelming majorities, answered them by imposing fresh taxes, and increasing their overpowering burdens ? The clear and indisfiuta- ble raime ivas, that the majority of that house were returned by borough-mong-ering, and corrufition.^ and that the Parliaments con- tinued for seven years." " Mr. Coke (of Norfolk) said — It was the duty of every man to oppose the attempt to arm ministers with nev/ powers of collecting money. He was an old member of Parliament, and he had often seen and well knew the profligate mode in which the public money was squandered: he would not trust them with a single farthing. He wooild go the full length of asserting that this ivas a corrufi: housCy from ivhich no good could be expected. Ministers had no- PREFACE. XXX^j tiling' to do but to summon their troops, and they had a majority) instantly at their command ; it is in fact a joke upon the country and the people felt it to be so from one end of the kingdom to thf other." " Mr. Ricardo maintained, at some length, that the idea of thert being a sinking fund was nothing but a delusion. " Before he sat down, he could not help observing, that he con curred in every thing which had been said by the noble marquis regarding the necessity of a reform in the representation of tha house." As Earl Grey has rendered this subject of British re presentation and election of importance to us, I will set i in a broader light by addrtional extracts from the debatesj of the House of Commons, as I find them reported in the ministerial newspaper, the London Courier. The speak ers, with the exception of Lord Cochrane, are all mem bers of considerable distinction. " Mr. Tierney asked (Feb. fth, 1817,) if the house recollected thi number of holders of offices now sitting there. There were not les; than sixty of these gentlemen, all of whom were liable to be dis' missed at pleasure. If they deducted their number from some O' the ministerial majorities, the result would appear, that the fair an«;. free sense of the house was against the measures of minister^; Many members, too, were certainly connected by the ties of rela' tionship to those who were in power." "Mr. Brougham said (June 8th, 1819,) that the whole of tha^ which gave the patronage of a borough in the county he had men tioned, Avhich returned two members, and which had never bee: disputed, luas the gross and wilful abuse of a great charitable estatt intended strictly for the education of the fioor^ " Mr. Brougham said (Feb. irth, 1818,) that in the last year c every Parliament, more benefit accrued to the public than ilurin; all the preceding years of its existence." " Mr. Calvert said (Feb. 7th, 1817,) that he was one of six person who had sent two members to Parliament, and for which, each menn ber paid 4,500/." *' Lord Cochrane said (June 20th, 1817,) he remembered ver well the first time he was returned as a member to the house, whic was for the borough of Hornton, and on which occasion the tow bellman was sent through the town to order the voters to come t Mr. Townshend's the head man in that place, and a banker, to r€ ceive the sum of 10/. 10s. This was the truth, and he would asl how could he, in that situation be called a representative of the pec pie in the legitimate constitutional sense of that word ? " He had no doubt but there were very many in that house, wh XXXVl PREFACE, had been returned by similar means. His motive, he was now fully |Convinced, was wrong, decidedly wrong; but as he came home pretty well flushed with Spanish money, he had found this borough open and he had bargained for it ; and he was sure he would have been returned, had he been Lord Camelford's black servant, or his ^reat dog." " Sir Robert Heron said (May 19th, 1818,) that the necessity of reform had often been acknowledged by the house itself. Distin- guished members had offered to prove at the bar its corrupt consti- tution, but no strong desire to proceed to those proofs had ever been manifested on the part of the house. The corruption was manifested by the Grenville act, which declared the house no longer fit to be trusted with the decision of its own elections — by the oaths and precautions which it declared to be absolutely necessary to pre- vent partial decisions." "Mr. Lockart said (March 2d, 1818,) that he approved of the general principle of the (election laws amendment) bill, especially that part forbidding the distribution of cockades. He had known 30,000 cockades given away at an election, and this signal of party was thus made an engine of bribery, not to the multitude at large, but towards persons of particular trades." " Mr. Wynne said that, at one election he knew that 8,000/. had been given to special constables. At another election 1,500 special [constables had been engaged at half a guinea a day each." ' Camelford election. — '' Mr. D. W. Harvey observed (July 2d^ 1819,) — the counsel who conducted the case before the committee, andertook to prove the existence of a conspiracy for procuring a ;orrupt return for the borough ; and the report of the committee ihowed that that charge had been in a great measure substantiated. Fhe facts were — .hat there were twenty-nine electors for Camelford — th .tthat borough had been frequently the subject of sale or bar- er' — and that it was now the property of a noble lord, whom he vould not name, as those who had read the report of the committee nust know that his lordship's name was no secret. Not long before he last election, a meeting of five of the electors was held at an inn lear the borough, called the Alhvorthy, which meeting was joined )y a certam Reverend Divine, who expressed to the individuals as- lembled a desire to return two members to serve in Parliament for he borough of Camelford. To this estimation the electors did not )bject. They annexed only one condition to their compliance with t, namely, that a large sum of money should be deposited for cey* ain purposes which were mentioned in a whisper. It appeared hat with that condition the Reverend Divine would not, or could lot, comply. The five electors, however, did not abandon their de- iign. Accordingly they met again at another inn near Camelford, ;alled the Five Lanes, where a letter signed James Harvey, was •ead, offering 6,000/. for the power of returning two members for he borough of Camelford, to be distributed among any fifteen (be- ng a majority) of the electors. — This proposal was agreed to. The ■eply of the letter, containing the acquiescence in the proposal, was PREFACE. XXXVU addressed to Mr. Sibley, the partner of Mr. Hallett. It was proved before the committee that Mr. Hallett had held up 6,000/. before his partner, Mr. Sibley, and had said — "■ Sibley, do you think the Camelford electors will bite at this ?" As a security for the money, it appeared that the half notes of the 6,000/. were deposited atji Camelford. Ultimately, however, the conspiracy failed, and the; election was lost. It did not appear, however, that the half notes! had been returned ; for it was proved that Hallet or Sibley had said — ^" What damned rogues those Camelford electors are ! do youj know I could not get back the half notes from them without making' some compromise 1" Mr. Southey had informed us, in Espriella's Letters,} that Englishmen regard all kinds of deceit as lawful i in electioneering, — that they stop not at asserting the' grossest and most impudent falsehoods; — that at a JVb/-; fingham election the aiob ducked some, and killed others;' that on such occasions no frauds, pious or impious, are' scrupled; that any thing like an election, in the plaini sense of the word, is unknown in England; that a majo-| rity of the members of the House of Commons are re-i turned by the most corrupt influence; that seats in that' house are not uncommonly advertised in the newspapers; that, although oaths are required of the voters, they are, evaded by the grossest means; that votes are publicly^ bought and sold.* i ■ All this is abundantly illustrated in the history of th^, EngHsh elections of the summer of 1818. Much of the' time of the courts of justice and the House of Com- mons, since, has been occupied in the investigation ol cases of bribery and corruption, involving the most auda- cious fraud and perjiny. Besides that of Camelford, al- ready mentioned, those of Grampound and Barnstaple may be cited as edifying specimens. The tactics of the boroughs are thus instructively explained, in the number ol Bell's Weekly Messenger, of the 29th June, 1818. " Among the various scenes now exhibiting in the progress ol the business of the general election, there are one or two to be seen in some of the boroughs which deserve not only to be generally See Letter xlviii. SXXVIU PREFACE. known, but which we should hope will not be soon forgotten. We deem it a duty to call particular attention to one of these elective 3odies. Upon the arrival of their late member to repeat his canvass, :ie was met by the electors in a body, and the first question put to lim was, whether he was Avilling to pay the usual gratuity of 40/; aer man ? — that is to say, to invite them all to a breakfast, where ;ach should find a 40/. bank of England note under his saucer, riie gentleman replied that he was really not rich enough to give his expensive breakfast to three hundred voters ; but that he had 'end:;red the borough such important services in their trade, roads, md harbour, that he trusted their gratitude would not seize the )resent occasion of turning him out ; but if they insisted on the to/, per man, they must seek for some one who was better able to 3uy them at that price." "In another borough, the practice of the election we understand :o be as follows: — The price of the worthy and independent dec- ors is 50/. per head, and one of the principal men in the town being \ banker, the money is to be paid in his notes, and at his bank. Upon the day preceding the nomination and return, the town crier ;ives public notice for all the electors to appear personally at the )anking house of Mr. , to consult upon a suitable member or their independent borough. Each appears accordingly, and re- vives his fifty pounds. On the following day, the banker appears it the hustings or town hall, recommends very warmly Mr, such a )ne, and the electors immediately elect him. No questions are Lsked as to the fifty pounds, or from whom it came, and no one of course takes any blame to himself for having received a bribe from he worthy Mr. such a one. Each is willing lo swear that he never ;aw his money. The vote is given only from good will to the banker, md it seemsthat the oath does not apply to gratuities from third persons." " In a third borough, the money is given by the * man in the noon,' who deputes an attorney for his agent. In a few days the lame attorney produces a notice from the same man in the moon, hat he could wish their respected and most independent borough to )e represented by Mr. A. and Mr. B. two gentlemen with whose vorth he is acquainted. The recommendation is adopted as a mat- er of course, and two persons as fitted for corruption as themselves U'e sent into Parliament. In a word, there is scarcely a slang term w a slang practice, which may not be found in the abominable prac- ices of some of these boroughs, in which perjury is made a comedy^ md the most atrocious roguery converted into a jolly pleasantry. ^11 these things are going on before our eyes." Iq scenes of disorder and violence, the late election N3iS as rich as any former occasion of the kind. The treatment of Sir Murray Maxwell is not unknown to us on this side of the Atlantic. Such horrible outrage as PREFACE. XXXIX | was practised in Westminster by the tnob, and such ri- )] baldry as was exchanged on the hustings by the rival ( candidates, " men of rank and fashion/' might procure from those who write within the Westminster uproar,; some toleration for the occasional animation of our voters, j and the rough declamation of our stump orators in thei election contests of the southern states. The condition of things, in Ireland, with regard to the choice of legislators, is truly melancholy, as it is described in a late book of travels, possessing the highest autho- rity.* "So far," says the author, "are the wretched | tenants of the cabins from receiving benefit for their in-' apposite distinction of freeholders, that it operates a con- trary way, and puts them to expense and loss of time,! without the privilege of having any choice. Ruin would' inevitably overtake him who should dare to presume to have any opinion but that dictated to him by his landlord;; and the candidate who should solicit, or accept without!; solicitation, the vote of a tenant, against the will of his landlord, must answer the irregularity with his life, and incur the general odium of his own class of society. Po-\ pular opinion has little or no influence in the election oj: tlw one hundred Irish members. Election contests with usi procure, for a time, some consideration for the lower ranks — what dignifies the English character debases the Irish. The magnitude of the evil is greater than can be conceived by those who have not had an opportunity of witnessing its effects. In the most venal places in Eng- land, besides the bribe, some condescension is expected: here the poor voter is only degraded by an additional link to the chain of his dependency. The representation of the town rests mostly in each body corporate, which sel- dom exceeds twelve members. The selecting for repre- sentation by the extent of the population was a farce, in which the people had no assigned part to act. The de- mocratic part of the British constitution, quoad the Irish, had better not exist." • Observations on the state of Ireland, written in a tour through that coun- try, by J. C. Curwen, Esq. M. P. London. 1818. Vol. 11. Letter It. Xl PREFACE. " In some instances, the very favours granted the Ca- tholics are considered as sources of aggravation, if not of Insult — emblazoned badges of slavery! In conferring the elective franchise, they have been denied the exercise of 1 free choice, the proudest prerogative of Englishmen; and compelled to feel, in the discharge of the granted privilege, their own inferiority/' 4. It is not in newspapers, reviews, and parliamentary speeches alone, that the United States are traduced in England. Her writers of formal treatises on' subjects 'onaected with general literature, and even with natural icience, fall into preposterous digressions about the un- vorthiness of their " American kinsmen," and are not al- vays inordinately scrupulous as to the accuracy of their lisparaging statements. I have an instance at hand in he following passage of a late work, entitled "The history and Practice of Vaccination, by James Moore, Director of the National Vaccine Establishment at Lon- lon, Member of the Royal College of Surgery, &c." "The freedom that reii^ns in the United States of America, is ncompatible with unanimity; consequently, the vaccine had to itruggle there with a long and violent opposition, which was not tiuch allayed by the exenions of the President, Mr. Jefferson, who tatronized the new practice; yet by degrees it spread and was in- roduced even among the Indian tribes. It was in the year 1799, hat this important benefit was conveyed to th 3 United States from jrreat Britain. Indeed, except the produce of the soil, what that is 'aluable has not that nation received from us? Certainly their arts, iterature, laws, and religion, the model of their political establish- nents, and even their love of liberty. — Yet when Great Britain was lard pressed by Napoleon, the United States submitted to the ;hreats and depredations of the tyrant, &c. But let England forget his, and rejoice in being able to add the vaccine to the other bene- its conferred on the Americans. And may our physicians continue o instruct them to cure and prevent the diseases oi their country;- nay our poets soften and delight them; and above all, may our jhilosophers improve their dispositions, and perhaps, in a future ige, their animosity will cease, and there will spring up in that :ountry some filial gratitude!"* * Q, 12. PREFACE. Xli All this objurgation in a history of the vaccine! The absurdity and malice of deviating into such topics on such an occasioji, would be manifest, though the princi- pal accusation should be acknowledged to be sustainable. But what ai'e we to think of the member of the Royal College of Surgeons, when we reflect that it is unjust; that he must have known it to be so; and that it may be retorted upon England with tenfold force? There, had the vaccine to struggle with a longer and more violent op- position, than in any other of the countries into which it has been introduced. No heavier disgrace was ever brought upon the medical faculty, or the human mind in civihzed life, than by the prejudices with which it was encountered among a pait of the British population, and the pamphlets sent forth against it from the British press, in the names of London physicians eminent in their pro-^i fession. The opposition to it amounted to phrenzy, even' in such quarters; and in the protracted controversy, the! foulest scurrility was mixed with the wildest raving. I' need but mention Dr. Moseley's Essay on the Lues Bo- villa, and the publications of Doctors Rowley, Squirril, Birch, Lipscomb, &c. In the very book of the director, we have all the evi- dence we could desire against Great Britain on this head; and in the voluminous publication of Dr. Ring,* still more. I refer to this work particularly, because it was well known to our faitiiful liistorian, who read in it the reverse of what he has alleged against Ame- j-ica. Dr. Waterhouse of Boston, acknowledges, in- deed, in one of his essays, which Dr. Ring has quoted, that some incredulity was displayed, and some ridi- cule indulged, in New England, at the first annunciation of the discovery; but Dr. Ring furnishes the testimony of the same physician, and others of the faculty in the Uni- ted States, to show with what rapidity it conciliated even * Treatise on tlie Cow-Pox, containing the histoi-y of Vaccine Inoculation, by John Ring, Member of the llovul Collci^e, of Sura^eons in London. Part 2d, 1803. YoL. I.— F* xFli PREFACE. the wannest zeal in its favour, and was carried into* general operation. One of Dr. Waterhouse's statements to him, of 1801, says — "The arguments thrown out in England against this noble discovery and its application, are detailed here (in Boston,) but a great majority believe and will be saved." Ring writes thus himself — " Some unlucky cases, it seems, have damped the ardour of a people (the Americans,) who received the new inocula- tion with a candour, a liberality, and even generosity much to their credit." He recites the cases and adds, " This was enough to damp the ardour of any nation." A few pages onward, he mentions its signal progress throughout the United States; compliments the American government for communicating it so promptly to the In- dian tribes; and subjoins the following remarks: "Ift [England the public opinion is, at the time of my writing jthis (1803, five years after Jenner's promulgation of the discovery!) rather wavering. Falsehoods propagated by ithe most base and despicable characters, have been too successsful."* It occurred to me to place the extract from surgeon Moore's work, under the eye of Dr. Redman Coxe, the I present learned professor of Materia Medica in the Uni- iversity of Pennsylvania; so honourably and deservedly mear itioned in Dr. Ring's Treatise as the physician to whoni (Pennsylvania is primarily indebted for the benefit of vac- cination. Dr. Coxe has had the goodness to put into my 'hands a small paper of notes, which I copy as decisive testimony on the subject, since his knowledge of the pro- gress and estabhshment of the discovery in the United States, is more direct and minute, than that of any other person. , "I am confident I am correct in asserting, that no novelty'ftt' equal importance to mankind, was ever received in any countrj'*^ with more rapidity — more unanimity, or more extensively. It is true, the same cautious spirit which ought invariably to govern «s in concerns of this nature, led many medical men (not to oppose , . ^ ,, . ?s .%- * P. 760. The controversy raged with unabated violence as late as 1806 — ~ PIIEFACE. xliS it^ progress, but) merely to await the result of experiments, in or-j aer to determine their judgments. What opposition has this Jen- nerian blessing ever met with in this country, that equals even a I tenth part of that which it received in Great Britain? Let Mr. Ring's' elaborate production on the subject of vaccination clear us from the; reproach thrown on us. — In that work, his pen has unfolded the; opposition it encountered from almost every quarter of the Unitedj Kingdoms of Great Britain; an opposition, the effects of which have' scarcely yet subsided there; v/hilst here, for many years, even aj whisper against it has not been raised. — Were it necessary, I coul4 give you perhaps one hundred letters from medical men in all parts, of America, received within twelve months after I had introduced it here, earnestly applying for the infection, and requesting infor-! mation respecting the disease. I saw, in fact, nothing like opposi-i tion; — I read of none in our medical journals. An uniform desiref was every where evinced to spread the benefit as speedily as possi- ble. A few miserable quacks alone, who depended on the smalU, pox for their daily bread, protested against it> — and even of those, the greater part soon were obliged to yield to the popular opinion' if^ its favour. .; ( "" "Such are the facts which stifle the inconsiderate assertion oft Mr. Moore — I need scarcely add to the number; which if neces-; sary, I could easily do. The disease had fully established its repu* tation in A.merica within two years from its first introduction herej' and long beFore its claims were admitted freely in Great Britain." There are some points at least, as to which "the free- flom that reigns in the United States of America/' would not seem to be incompatible with unanimity. If the whole population of those states were canvassed, perhaps not one individual would be found disaffected to the form and constitution of their government. The number malecon- tent with the system of administration, or distrustful of the ability and integrity of the present executive councils, is certainly so small as to disappear on a glance at the mass of citizens in the opposite temper of mind. Firmis*- SIMUM IMPERIUM QUO OBEDIENTES GAUDENT. How far has the freedom which reigns in Great Bri- tain proved eifectual to create unanimity as to her political institutions, and the composition and course of her national councils.^ Is not the monarchy itself odious to a multi- tude of her subjects.'* The mechanism of her legislature and cabinet, and the system of administration are matters of disgust and outcry through every rank and class of her Xliv PREFACE. inhabitants. From the highest quarters we are informed, and, indeed, the fact cannot fail to be perceived, even at a distance, that the great majority of the British people have not the least confidence in the patriotism and disin- terestedness of any of the parties in Parliament, or of the men in place; all are believed to aim only at the possession of power and patronage. Among the lower orders, sedi- tion is declared to have a permanent abode, and to prowl without intermission. " There prevails," said Mr. Lamb, in the House of Commons (March 11, 1818,) "though to what extent I will not pretend accurately to define, in all the manufacturing districts, a spirit always active, inve- terate, and implacable: not exasperated by suffering; not soothed by prosperity; not allayed by time; a spirit ever laying in wait, and in ambush, to take advantage of the disasters of the country." We see fully verified at this moment, the creed of this member of Parliament, a whig leader: the habitual leven of insurrection only becomes the more active and expan- sive, as the rate of wages or the supply of food declines. It places the British government, in the season of ferment, as at present, under the horrible necessity of shedding, with the apparatus of war, the blood of the guiltless, per- haps loyal peasant, whom the want of occupation draws to the convention of starving manufacturers, and hairbrain- ed, or counterfeit demagogues.* It leads — I will not say obliges — that government, to resort to one of the most hateful of the devices of timorous despotism — the employ- ment of spies and informers, who cannot execute their office, without, to a certain degree, studiously exasperating the discontents^ and encouraging the delusions, against which it is the alleged object of their mission to guard. It does more: it throws the constitution off its poise; it creates a potential dictatorship in the ministry, who either do feel, or profess to feel themselves bound to consult the * See the history of the Mancliester meeting-, of Aiigust 16th, at which women and girls were cut and trampled down by corps of ilragoons, and left mangled and weltering, to be conveyed in carts to the hospitals. PREFACE. Xlj tranquillity of the state, or of particular parts of the kin^ dom, at the expense of the established forms and rules ^ law; counting upon what they are always sure to procure indemnity by vote of Parliament. — What is there in th| American republic comparable to this state of things.'^ | This want o[ imanmiity, this propensity to rebellioui violence, among the lower orders, has placed the Brilis; rulers under another embarrassment, the most awful thj can be imagined, and far outweighing any evil in our s tiiatiou, realized or threatened by our negro slavery. [ According to the best authorities, the system of thj poor rates in England, is proceeding to take the whol produce of the land from tlie owner, with very little bene fit to the poor. It already " amounts, with the land ta! and tythes, in many parishes, to a disherison of the pr(i perty of the landholder,"* It "falls exclusively on lano^ and houses, the dividends (exceeding twenty-seven millioC sterling) upon the unredeemed national debt, of eigll hundred millions sterling, being wholly exempt. "f If operation is most oppressively partial, independently ( lliis last circumstance, so unjust and invidious. It fornr a tax thus characterized, which, according to some, mui amount for the year 1818, to ten millions sterling,! pei haps to twelve; and this product is chiefly consumed i -i rearing the offspring of improvidence and vice. It is fa; t?f multiplying the already immense number of paupers, an widening the acknowledged degeneracy of the labourin classes.§ It exhibits, in short, to use the language c Colquhoun, one-ninth part of a numerous nation eocistin as paupers, vagabonds, idlers, and criminal offenders, c Uihe expense of one-third of the remaining population.'^ Mn the year 1812, the number of paupers who receive parish relief, besides vagrants, was 1,208,125, out of a p( * lleport on the Poor Laws, from the Committee of the House of Commor 1817. Appendix, f Observations on the Poor Laws. By J. Lord Sheffield. London, 1818. i Lord Sheffield § See Note X. at the end of this volume. I Treatise on Indigence. P. 2C2. Ivi PREFACE. ulation of 10,653,000.* The proportion of really ini- otent paupers in the number just stated, was but one- jventh, according to the ratio officially returned for 1804. It will be found, on investigation,'^ says Colquhoun, lat, of a million and ahalf of paupers with their famihes, ow living chiefly on the labour of others, considerahhj wre than half a million are in the vigour of life, and hose labour, if well directed, ought to produce at least !n millions sterling beyond their present earnings; which jm is totally lost to the community, in addition to what expended in affording them a feeble and scanty subsist- nce.^'t Since the termination of the last war, this retched and noxious class of persons has been progres- vely increasing in number, and deteriorating in charac- The only true remedy for this mnnifold, portentous t'il, is the abolition or great reduction of the poor rates. ut the government, though it has before it the alterna- ve of ultimate ruin to the country, dares not go beyond alliatives.J Near a milUon of sturdy beggars could not * Clarkson's Enquiry on Pauperism. London, 1816. •j- Treatise on the Wealth, Power, and liesources of the British Empire. Dndon, 1814. i The late.act of Parliament, (59 G. 111. 1819,) " to amend the laws for the lief of the poor," aims only at mitigating-, not eradicatinj^, the evil. Very lie confidence seemed to he entertained by Parliament, in its efficacy for any irpose. Mr. S. Bourne, the member most active on tiiis question, hud unsuc- !ssfully proposed a bill, respecting the failure of which 1 find the following imarkable observations in Bell's Weekly Messt-nj^er of 17tli May, 1819. "The two great interests of the conntr)', the agricultural and the manufac- ring interests, are here in direct conflict. The complaint of the landed in- rest is, that they have to pay the poor-rates for the m:'nufacturing labourers r hat the manufacturers not only employ and wear out tiie men, but, as it were, •oduce and call into existence a mendicant population ; and, after they have id the best days of the labourer, and encouraged him to marry and rear a rge family, they return him unto the parish from whence they first took liini. "The object of this bill was, that all v/ho resided three years in any parish, .ould be settled in such parish, or, in other words, (for such was its purpose as ell as its effect,) that the manufacturing towns and districts should support eir own old and sick poor. Accordingly, all the manufacturing districts have, a man, united in opposition against it, and, by a private address to every ember of parliament singly, have actually succeeded in throwing it out, and is in a House of Commons, the majority of which is necessarily of the landed terest. We must confess that this issue of the bill has very much surprised , and, we believe, neither Mr. Bourne himself, nor any of the committee, :pected this event. The bill, however, is lost for the present session." FREFACE. Xlvi he starved with impunity; they would be provoked by ai,; solute deprivation to persevering violence; such a nucleu for riot and rebellion, is not to be set in motion, to gathe actively what no array of the military might be sufficier to crush, without extensive desolation. Colonization i now attempted as a means of relief; and the Cape c Good Hope is chosen as the theatre, in order that a dou ble purpose may be answered: but this expedient, if an number of the vampyres can be drawn off, will be lik tapping for a radical dropsy. The poor rates will conti nue, with the taxes* and the tythes, generating paupei^ * " It was acknowledged," said Lord Ebiington, in the House of Common! (April 2Slii, 1819,) " tliut a labourer, whose income did not exceed 18/. a yea; paid 27s. a year liuly on the salt he consumed." Dr. Phillimorc, in the cours of his speech of the same dale, respecting the salt duties, made this statemen "The bushel of salt is ta.xed at /or^?/ times its value, and the tax falls upon a the necessaries of the poor. No ta.\ operates more on their morals ; and it ha been found, that wiierever it prevailed, it was tlie sure forerunner of crimi It was distinctly stated in an address of the grand jury for the county of Chej ter, that tiie profit derived from selling untaxed salt was so great, and operate ijo powerfully, as to taint the morals of that parti of the community. The ev dence before the committee, derived from various sources, all tended to est. bllsh the same conclusion. The temptation to steal, and conceal what W8 stolen, was such as to cause the practice too generally to prevail." The following quotations from the debates of I'arliament will illustrate th operation of another single tax, upon the lower orders. "Mr. Gratian saiil, as to the dangerous prevalence of the fever in Irelan being in part attributable to the confined air of the abodes of the poor, ther rould be no stronger proof tiian tlie relaxation granted by government, cnablin the parties deprived of adequiae ventillation, to open their windows wilhot being liable to the window ta.x." "if a single individual," said the Marquis of Downshire (House of Lord: March, 1S19,) "lived in a house, it became liable to the window tax ; and ownei therefore, in Ireland, crowded great numbers into one, and shut up others, t avoid paying the ta.\es." " Sir John Newport said, (May 13th, 1818,) he wished to inform the housj that in comparing the accounts of 1S14 and 1818, it was found tiiat no less tha one-tenth of the windows of the kingdom of Ireland, within that period, ha been closed up to avoid the tax, and he should appeal to the house whether sue a. circumstance was not calculated to have a most injurious etiect, particulArl Oh the poorer classes, by depriving them of air antl light. Ta.xation in Irelan Jjad, within a short period, increaseti wi'.li a rapiility which was grievousl) felt "Mr. liobert Shaw asked, (April 21si, 1818,) are genilemen aware, tliatur dcr the present act (for taxing windows,) the collectors can demand an entranc into every room in every house in Ireland, from eight in the morning until sui riet, and insist upon admission, under a penalty of 20/..' _ " .Mr. Shaw stated, (May Gth, 1819.) tiiai in th.- part of Dublin called th liberties, the houses were large enough to be subject lo the window tax, ai. were inhabited by the poor and miserable. Tlie government had felt that s u.-ep]v, that it had announced, that wherever windows had been opened to fac Mviii PREFACE. Hm; and, above all, the exorbitant system of manufactures^ ^;hich perpetually throws back upon the agricultural dis- ^/icts, as mendicants and desperadoes, those labourers ^hon; it received from them originally, in that happier ^f>ndit'oo of body and mind, which is the regular effect ^f :^ncultural life. It is this operation, resulting from ^le English law of settlement as to paupers, along with ■ther adventitious causes,* which makes the returns of 'lendicity and criminality from some of the agricultural bounties of England, larger than those from the manufac- uring districts, and thus libels, as it w^ere, that state and 'Ccupation most favourable to the moral and physical velfare of our species. To revert to Surgeon Moore. His suggestion about ilial gratitude will be found fully answered in the body »f this volume, as well as the chiding remark of the Quarterly Review, in the article on Fearon's Travels — hat " the American colonists grew up in prosperity, aaintained and fostered by a liberal parent, who saw, with leartfelt satisfaction, her offspring increase in strength nd stature, and advance with firm and rapid steps to- i^ards matiu'ity." I rely upon the facts and statements i^hich I adduce in my first sections, as sufficient to dis- lel this hallucination of the reviewers. The other topic upon which the surgeon has touched, —the animosity of the Americans against Great Biitain, I'hich her philosophers are to correct, in lapse of time, by inproving our dispositions, is a favourite one with the ravellers and reviewers, and is treated by them with the lore emphasis, because it serves to promote their main ;ate the circulation of air and prevent infection, the tax would be remitted. It oiild no doubt be iirged that but few liad availed themselves of this offer ; but lat was because they ha To lessen the danger, or obviate new hazards, for her sovereignty and monopoly, England embraced the policy, of confining the settlements in North America as much as possible to the sea coast. The great points of preventing the French power from being immoveably established at their back, and over the whole vast interior ; of securing the Atlantic provinces not only from this evil, but from their cruel scourge — the Indians ; of opening the fruitful and beautiful countries beyond the Apalachian mountains to English cultivation and empire, were all postponed to riews, of which it is difficult to say whether they were more selfish or short-sighted. The plan of a colony on the Ohio, for the salutary and noble purposes just enumerated, was conceived in America in the middle of the last century, submitted fruitlessly to the British government in 1 768, and offered anew by Dr. Franklin, in 1770, with the engagement on the part of the projectors, to be at the whole expense of establishing and maintaining the civil administration of the country to be settled. A few extracts from the two Reports* of the Board of Trade and Plantations, on the subject, to the Lords of the privy council, will explain the favourite system in relation to the plantations. " The proposition of forming inland colonies in America is, we humbly conceive, entirely new : it adopts principles in respect to American settle- ments, different from what have hitherto been the policy of this kingdom, and leads to a system which, if pursued through all its consequences, is, in the present state of that country, of the greatest importance." " And first with regard to the policy, we take leave to remind your lord- ships of that principle which was adopted by this Board, and approved and confirmed by his majesty, immediately after the treaty of Paris, viz. the confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance from tlie sea coast, as that those settlements should lie tuithin the reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, upon which the strength and riches of it depend; and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction, which was con- ceived to be necessary for the preservation of the colonies, in a due subor- dination to, and dependence upon, the mother country ; and these we appre- hend to have been ttoo capital objects if his majesty' b proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763, by which his majesty declares it to be his royal will and pleasure, to reserve, under his sovereignty, jirotection, and dominion, for the use of the Indians, all the lands not included within the three new go- vernments, the limits of which are described therein, as also all the lands and territories lying to the westvvard of the sources of the rivers whicli shall fall into the sea from the west and north-west, and by which all persons are forbid to make any purchases or settlements whatever, or to take possession of any of the lands above reserved, witliout special license for that purpose." * Fourtlji vol. Franklin's Works, article Ohio Settlement, POLITICAL A!^D *' Tlie same principles of policy, in reference to settlements at so great a I distance from the sea coast as to be out of the reach of all advantageous intercourse with this kingdom, continue to exist in their full force and spirit ; and though various propositions for erecting n'^' ruined fortunes, resorted to Virginia. Lord Clarendon bears testimony to this fact in his History of the Rebellion. " Out of confidence in Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Vir- ginia, who had industriously invited many gentlemen and others thither, as to a place of security, which he could de- fend against any attempt, and where they might live plenti- fully, many persons of condition, and good officers in the war, had transported themselves with all the estate they had been able to preserve."* Chalmers may be quoted to a si- milar purport, and to the general character of the early Vir- ginians. " The instructions of Charles I, gave large tracts "■ of land to individuals, men of consideration and wealth, " who roused by religion, or ambition, or caprice, removed " to Virginia, and the population of that colony had increas- " ed to about twenty thousand souls at the commencement " of the civil wars." — p. 125. " The Virginians being animated by timely supplies from *' England, displayed a vigor in design and action, which *' men, when left to themselves amid dangers, never fail to " exert. They rejected the timid counsels of those, who ad- " vised them to abandon their settlements, and retire to the " eastern shore of the Chesapeake. They not only resisted *' the attacks of their implacable enemies, but with the ac- " customed bravery of Englishmen, pursued them into their " fastnesses. And now, for the first time, the aborigines re- " ceded from the rivers, and from the plantations around ; " leaving their opponents ii^ possession of the territories that *' their swords had won." — p. 63. If we turn to Maryland, we may appeal to the same author with equal confidence. "The first emigration to Marylaiid, consisting of about two hundred gen- tlemen of cmisiilerable fortune and rank, with their adlierents, who were com- posed chiefly of Roman CathoHcs, sailed from England in November, 1632." " Tlie Roman Catholics, unhappy in their native land, and desirous of a peaceful asylum in Maryland, emigrated in considcraljle numbers. Lord Bal- timore laid the foundation of his province upon the broad basis of security to property, and of freedom in religion; granting" in absolute fee lifty acres of land to every emigrant ; establishing Christianity agreeably to the old com- mon law, of which it is a part, without allowing pre-emiiicncc to any particu- lar sect." — p. 208. " In order chiefly to procure the assent of the freemen cf Maryland to a body of laws which the proprietary had transmitted, Calvert, the governor. * A^ol. iii. p. 706. CHARACTER AND MERltS I. called a new assembly in 1637-8. But, rejecting these with a becoming spirit^ ^- they prepared a collection of regulations, which demonstrate equally their good sense and the stale of their affairs" — p. 211. "The assembly of Maryland endeavoured, with a laudable anxiety, to preserve the peace of the church; and though composed chiefly of Roman Catholics, it adopted that measure, which could alone prove absolutely suc- cessful. The act v.iiich it passed, ' concerning religion,' recited, ' that the en- forcement of the conscience had been of dangerous consequence in those counti'ies wherein it had been practised.' And it enacted, that no persons be- lieving in Jesns Ch'ist shall be molested in respect of their religion, or in the free exercise thereof , or be compelled to the belief or exercise of any other reli- gion, against their consent ; so that they be not unfaithful to the proprietary, or conspire not against the ci\al government : that persons molesting any other in respect of his religious tenets, shall pay treble damages to the party aggrieved, and twenty shillings to the proprietary. That those reproaching any -uiith opprobrious names of religious distijiction, shall forfeit ten shillings to the persons injured." — p. 218. Maryland derived a part of her population from the other provinces. The Puritans persecuted by the established church in Virginia, the Quakers oppressed by the synod of Massachusetts, and the Dutch expelled from Delaware, sought and found a generous protection, and entire freedom of religious worship, in the Roman Catholic colony. New York was first settled by the Dutch, at the time when they had jiist shaken off the yoke of Spain ; when they display- ed national energies and virtues of the highest order, and pursued a more liberal and enlightened policy, with respect to civil liberty, religion, and trade, than any other people of Europe. The emigrants from Holland to North America, brought with them, the characteristic industry and sobriet)^, the tolerant spirit and sound economics, of the commercial republic. The original population of New Jersey was com- posed of Swedes and Hollanders, and of emigrants from the northern colonies : That of Pennsylvania needs not be cele- brated by a reference to the parent state. The common- wealth which the wise and humane associates of Penn, the laborious, frugal, and orderly Germans, and the intelligent, active, and generous Irish, formed and brought to beauty and solidity, in so short a time, is a monument, eloquent enough in itself; a creation, upon which no European writer has looked steadily, without bursting into expressions of ad- miration. Even the austere loyalty of Chalmers, is relaxed by it, and the following emphatic testimony extorted from, his convictions. " As a supplement Xo t\\e frame of government for Pennsyh'ania, there was published a body of 'laws agreed upon in England by the Adven- turers,' which was intended as a greaf charter. And it does great honour to their wisdom as statesmen, to their morals as men, to tlieir spirit as colonists. A plantation reared on such a seed-plot, coidd not fail to g^rew up with OF THE COLONISTS. rapiclitv, to advance fast to maturity, to attract tlie notice of tlie world." — Si,\^' p. 643.' Si"''.,< " The numerous laws, which were enacted at thefirstsettlcment of Penn- sylvania, wliich do so much honour to its good sense, display the principles of the people; these legislative regulations kept them alive long after the original spirit begun to droop and expire. Had Pennsylvania been less blessed by nature, siie must have become flourishing and great, because it was a principle of her great charter, ' that children should be taught some usel'ul trade, to theend that none may be idle, but the poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not want.' I'liat country must become commercial, which compels factors, wronging their employers, t(t make satisfaction, and one-third over; which subjects not only the good's, but the lands of the debtor, to the payment of debts; because it is the credit given by ail to all, that forms the essence of traffic. We ought natu- rally to expect great internal order when a fundamental law declares, that every thing ' which excites the people to rudeness, cruelty, and irreligion, shall be discouraged and severely punished.' And religious conlroversj- coi-.id not disturb her repose, when none, acknowledging one God, and living peaceably in society, could be molested for his opinions or his prac-. tice, or compelled to frequent and maintain any ministry whatsoever. To the regulations which were thus established as fundamentals, must chiefly be attributed the rapid improvement of this colony, the spirit of diligence, order and economy, for which the Pemisylvanians have been at all times so celebrated." — p. 643. Swedes and Fins, a simple and virttious race of men, opened the soil of Delaware, and were joined by the Dutch, and by emigrants of different nations, from the neighbouring provinces. New England, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, gave the first inhabitants to the Carolinas. In consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, a multitude of French Protestants of the most respectable families, es- tablished themselves in South Carolina. These were fol- lowed, at different intervals, bv numbers of their own coun- trymen, and of Germans and Swiss professing the same re- ligious tenets. The character of the French settlers has been recently pourtrayed by a young American, in a lan- guage which I am proud to quote, as a specimen of what is produced in those literary societies, whose existence even, the European critics would not, in all likelihood, condescend to notice. " History derives more than half its value from the moral parallels and contrasts, which it suggests. It is a singular coincidence of this sort, that between the years 1682 and 1688, at the very time that William Penn, the gentlest and purest of all rulers, was rendering his name for ever illustrious, by establishing, in America, a refuge for the wretched and oppressed of the whole earth ; Louis XIV, one of the most gorgeous and heartless of sovereigns, was delivering up three hundred thousand families of his Pro- testant subjects to the atrocious tyranny of the fanatical Le Tellier, and the sanguinary Louvois; and by bis ambition of universal empire abroad, and his bigotry and ostentation at home, was preparing for France those calami- ties which have since fallen upon her. The Huguenots were the most moral, industrious, and intelligent part of the French population, and when Vol I.— E CHARACTER AND MERITS they were expelled from their native country, they enriched all Europe with the commerce and arts of" France. Many of the more enterprising of them, finding tliemselves shut out, by the narrow policy of the French court from Louisiana, where they had proposed to found a colony, turned their course to New Yoi'k and to South Carolina, where they soon melted into the mass of the population. " Certainly, we cannot wish to see perpetuated among us the old Asiatic and European notions of indelible hereditary excellence ; and equally wild are those theories of a fantastical philosophy, which would resolve all the intellectual and moral qualities of man into accidental physical causes. But surely there is a point at which good feeling and sound philosophy can meet, and agree in ascribing the best parts of our character to the moral in- fluence of a virtuous and intelligent ancestry. " Considering the subject in this light, we may well look back, with pride, to our Huguenot forefathers. The modern historians of France have rarely done them full justice. The decline which the loss of their industry and arts caused in the commerce of their own cou)itry, and the sudden increase of wealth and power which England and Holland derived from them, are sufficient proofs that their general character was such as I have described. Nor are they to be regarded solely as prosperous merchants, and laborious and frugal artisans. " The French character never appeared with more true lustre than it did in the elder protestanis. "Without stopping to expatiate in the praise of their divines and scholars, Calvin, Beza, Salmasius, and the younger Scaliger; Claude, Jurieu, Amylraut, and Saurin, nor on those. of Sully, the brave, the wise, the incorruptible, the patriotic; I shall only observe, that though his own countrymen have been negligent of his glory, and chose to rest the fame of French chivalry on their Dunois, their Bayard, their Du Guescelin and their Crillon, we may search their history in vain for a ])arallel to that beautiful union of the intrepid soldier with the profound scholar, of the adroit politician with the man of unbending* principle, of the rigid moralist and the accomplished gentleman, which is to be found in the life of the Huguenot chief, Mornai du Plcssis. " Many of those who emigrated to this coimtry, after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, were the companions, the sons, or the disciples of these men, and they brought hither a most valuable accession of intelligence, knowledge, and enterprise."* A considerable number of Palatines rivalling the Dutch in habits of industry and order, settled in North Carolina, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The memorable ravages of war committed at that period in the countries of the Rhine, drove into England seven thousand of the ruined inha- bitants, Palatines and Suabians. Three thousand of them were transported to New York, and a part of these found their way into the other provinces. It seems incredible, yet is mat- ter of parliamentary record, that the expense incurred for their transportation, — not more beneficial to them, than to the co- lonies which received them — drew complaints from the Bri- tish House of Commons. A body styling itself the citadel of • An Anniversary Discourse delivered before the New York Historical So- ciety, December 7, 1818, by GuJian C. Verplank, Esq., OF THE COLONISTS. Protestantism, and the refuge of the victims of Catholic SE( bigotry, could, nevertheless, in a formal representation to ^.^ Queen Anne, discourse querimoniously of" the squandering " away great sums upon the Palatines, a useless people, a mix- *' ture of all religions, and dangerous to the constitution," — with the declaration besides, that " it held those who advised the bringing them over to England, as enemies to the queen and kingdom." How different the conduct of the unpretend* ing Quakers of Pennsylvania, by whom the portion of the wretched exiles that took shelter there, was — not defamed or stinted, but, according to an English writer, most kindly entertained and assisted !* The poverty and humble condition of a part of the emi- grants to the middle and southern provinces, constitute the heaviest reproach to which they are liable, if we accept, indeed, the circumstance, — notable in the case of Georgia, particular- ly — of so many of them being Scotchmen ; which forms, no doubt, a just subject of ridicule for the wits of Edinburgh. The general estimation in which our emigrant ancestors should be held, is proclaimed in the rapid growth, strength^ order, and felicity of the communities which they added to the British empire. The mighty difficulties which they vanquished — the conquests which they made over nature, and over a sa- vage enemy greatly exceeding them in numbers and the means of annoyancef — the freedom and liberality of their institutions, and the integrity in which those institutions were preserved — the solicitude and success with which they laboured to ren- der universal among them an acquaintance with the rudi- ments of learning — all these points which I propose to enlarge upon in the subsequent pages — demonstrate the noblest qua- lities ; enterprize, industry, perseverance, valour, sagacity, humane, and broad views, setting them plainly above the mass of their cotemporaries in Europe. The white population of Georgia consisted of only fifty thousand souls in the year 1775, and but forty-five years had then elapsed since the foundation of the colony ; yet though so weak, and though vulnerable and sure of^ being assailed on every side, she joined, in that year, the confederacy against the mother country. The character of her founder, general Ogle- thorpe, — who lived to see her independence and sovereignty- acknowledged — was such as to have hallowed that of the exiles who seconded his plans of civil government, and fought • Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. p. 6. t See Note A. CHARACTER AND MERItS f T. under his banners against the Indians and Spaniards. The ■^i^ Oglethorpes, the Robinsons, the Penns, the Roger Williams*, the Smiths, the Calverts, may be placed at the head of the ■worthies to whom Adam Smith alludes, in the following pas- sage of the fourth book of his Wealth of Nations. " It was *' not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice " of the European governments, which peopled and cultivat- " ed Ainerica. In what way, then, has the policy of Europe " contributed either to the first establishment, or to the pre- *' sent grandeur of the colonies of America? In one way, ^' and in one way only, it has contributed a good deal. Magna *' virum ynater !' It bred and formed the men who were capa- *' ble of achieving such great actions, and of laying the foun- " dation of so great an empire ; and there is no other quarter *' of the world, of which the policy is capable of forming, or *' ever has actually and in fact, formed, such men The colo- *' nies owe to Europe the education and great views of their " active and enterprising founders, and some of the greatest " and most important of them, so far as concerns their inter- " nal government, owe to it scarce any thing else." . 3. The occasional exportation to the plantations, of those whom the government of England chose to denominate con- victs, vagrants, and " dissolute persons," is the most plausi- ble ground for the language of contempt and derision, which has been so commonly indulged with respect to the original stock of these States. The fact taken in the broad and un- qualified manner in which it is usually announced, would ex- alt but little the generosity and justice of the mother country, it the character of the first and voluntary settlers be admitted to have been such as it appears in the foregoing pages, upon the testimony of the British writers. An impartial investiga- tion of this subject gives it, however, a different complexion from that which it commonly wears. Franklin calculated in 1751,* that there were then one mil- lion or upwards of English souls in North America, and that scarce eighty thousand had been brought over sea. Among this number of emigrants, not one-eighth was of the description mentioned above; and it is certain, from the uniform acknow- ledgment of history, that those who were, did not adulterate, but imbibed, themselves, in a great degree, the character of their predecessors. Numbers became, in process of time, laborious and orderly citizens; anxious and exemplary fathers of families. * Essay on Population. OP THE COLONISTS. I have quoted in p. 27, some remarks made by Mr. Brougham SEC in his " Colonial Policy," which bear upon the ti-ue theory of ^"^' this point; and I may add here from the same work, " that if " the convicts in the colony of New Holland, though sur- *' rounded on the voyage, and in the settlement, by the com- *' panions of their iniquities, have, in a great degree, been re- *' claimed, by the mere change of scene, what might not be / " expected from such a change as that which the transported "persons experienced on arriving in America?"* It is to be noted, that the real convicts were received by / the colonists not as companions, but as servants ; and if the' circumstance of their comparative paucity did not render absurd a general reproach upon our descent, it is difficult to conceive whv any generation in Great Britain should not be stigmatized in its origin, on account of the much more consi- derable proportion of " dangerous rogues," who remained at home. Chalmers tells us, that " it is to James I, that the " British nation and the colonists owe the policy whether sa- "■ lutary or baneful, of sending convicts to the plantations."— The excuse which this writer oifers for the British nation, would seem fitted to operate as efficaciously in favour of the colonies : — "• The good sense of those days justly considered " that their labour would be more beneficial in an infant set- *' tlement, which had an immense wilderness to cultivate, *' than their vices could possibly be pernicious."! But there are other considerations, of a nature, to render a Briton cautious, how he attempts to handle this topic olfen- sively. When we find the term, convicts used, in reference to the persons transported during three-foiu'ths of the seven- teenth century, we are not to understand it jn the opprobi- ous sense in which it is generally received, and was tyranni- cally meant to be employed. The several parties who alter- nately gained the ascendency in the furious struggles of that era, in England, oppressed and exiled, under this appella- tion, the objects of their political resentment, or their religi- ous intolerance. Chalmers even, confesses, that the only law which, in the time of James I, justified the infliction of expulsion, unknown to the common law, was the statute of Elizabeth, which enacted that " dangerous rogues might be " banished out of the realms ;" and he adds that it is probft- ble obnoxious men were transported agreeabl}' to the genius of the administration of the time — by prerogative. The extent of the guilty abuse and cruel hardship to which * Book I. Sect. P. f Chap. iii. Political Annals. CHARACTER AND IMERITS f- this assumption of power led, can be readily imagined^ from *^ the facility of sweeping off the obnoxious and distressed, un- der the denomination of vagrants, or " dangerous rogues." It may be worth while, in order to illustrate the point further, to refer to Sir Josiah Child's account of the peopling of the plantations, which, from its early date, carries with it a par- ticular authority, and which, at the same time, furnishes a curious picture of the miserable state of things in England at the epoch in question. He relates, in the first instance,* that Virginia and Barbadoes were partly settled by a loose, vagrant people, who must, if there had been no English plantations, have starved at home, or "else have sold them- *' selves for soldiers, to be knocked on the head, or starved *' in the quarrels of England's neighbours, as many thousands *''' of brave Eng-lh/uuen were, in the Low Countries, as also *' in the wars of Germany, France, and Sweden ; or else, if " they could by begging or otherwise arrive to the stock of *' two shillings and six pence, to waft them over to Holland, *' become servants, where none are refused." Then come the following passages : — " But the principal growth and increase of the aforesaid plantations of Virginia and Barbadoes happened in, or immediately after, our late civil wars, wlien the worsted party, by the fate of war, being deprived of their es- tates, and having some of tliem never been bred to labour, and others made unfit for it, by the lazy habit of a soldier's life ; there wanting means to main- lain them all abroad with his majesty, many of them betook themselves to the aforesaid plantations, and great numbers of Scots soldiers, of his majes- ty's arniy after Worcester fight, were, by the then prevailing powers, volun- tarily sent thither." " Another great swarm, or accession of new inhabitants, to the aforesaid plantations, as also to New England, Jamaica, and all others his majesty's plantations in the West Indies, ensued upon his majesty's restoration, when the former prevailing party being, by a divine hand of Providence, brought under, the army disbanded, many officers displaced, and all the new purcha- sers of public titles, dispossessed of tlieir pretended lands, estates, &c. many became impoverished, and destitute of employment ; and, therefore, such as could find no way of living at home, and some who feared the re-establish- ment of the ecclesiastical laws, under which they could not live, were forced to transport themselves, or sell themselves for a fevj years, to be transported by others to the foreign English plantations.** And some were of those people called Quakers, banished for meeting on pretence of religious worship." In noticing the prevalence of the practice of transportation, after the Restoration, Chalmers remarks, that it was probably upon the authority of the statute which empowered the king to send Quakers to the colonies.f This is the statute 13, 14, ch. ii. c. 1, " for preventing the dangers that may arise by *' certain persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take * Discourse on Ti^ide, chap, x, f Chap. xv. Awials. OP THE COLONISTS, *^ the lawful oaths.''* It enacted, that it should be lawful for SE his majesty, to cause such refractory persons to be transported ^-^ beyond the seas. We are informed by Hume,* that Cromwell caused the royalists who engaged in conspiracies against his government, to be sold for slaves and transported. On the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion against James II, those of his followers who escaped judicial massacre, were treated in the same way. Chalmers furnishes from the records of the plantation office in London, a letter from James to the governor of Virginia, which states, that the crown " had been " graciously pleased to extend its mercy to luany rebellious *' subjects who had taken up arms against it ; by ordering their *' transportation to the plantations ;" and which directs the go- vernor to propose a bill to the assembly for preventing the convicts, those rebellious subjects, from redeeming them- selvs by money, or otherwise, until the expiration often years at least. The assembly refused to co-operate in this scheme of royal vengeance, and the inhabitants of Virginia received the victims with a sympathy due to their situation. Either from a sense of the futility of expostulation, or from the advantage which the labour of the convicts pro- mised, or from a knowledge of the fact which must now be clear to all, that most of the persons transported were but the victims of misfortune, and of the tvranny or bigotry of their countrymen, the colonistsdidnotatfirstcondemn, nor remon- strate against the system of transportation. But it had not been pursued long after the Restoration, before open opposition was made. Maryland ventured even to legislate adversely, and drew upon herself, in consequence, the reprobation of the. crown lawyers, who contended that every law of the colonial legislature, passed to restrain a measure that was allowed and encouraged by acts of parliament, was void ab initio. " Whe- *' ther," says Chalmers, "^from the two great numbers brought *' into Maryland, or from an apprehension that their vices *' might contaminate the morals of the colonists, the introduce *' tion of criminals was then deemed an inconvenience: and a *' law was passed ' against the importation of convicted per- *' sons into the province,' which was continued at different " times, till towards the beginning of the reign, of Ai)ne."f The persistence of the British government in the practice of transporting real malefactors, after the colonies had grown into considerable commonwealths, and signalized themselves by the noblest qualities and most valuable services, was an • History, chap. Lsi. f Book I. chap. xr. CHARACTER AND MERITS indignity, of which the impolicy must be as obvious, as the arrogance and ingratitude. If it could not extinguish their glowing loyalty, it was, however, deeply felt and resented- In Franklin's piece on the causes of the American discontents before 1768, he includes it in the listoftheir grievances, and employs this strong language. " Added to the evils which I *' have envmierated, the Americans remembered the act au- *' thorising the most cruel insult perhaps ever offered by one " people to another, that of emptying the English gaols into *' their settlements. Scotland, too, has within these two years " (in 1766) obtained the privilege it had not before, of send- *' ing its rogues and villains to the plantations." When the illustrious patriot expostulated, by the direction of his consti- tuents, with the British minister on this head, he was told that England mitsthe relieved of her moral putrefaction — and his laconic reply adumbrates the nature of the case. " What *' would you say, if, upon the same principle, we sent you our *' rattle-snakes." Fortunately, there was a virtue in the cha- racter and condition of the despised and outraged colonists, which secured them from the infection, and even converted the virus into wholesome nutriment for the state. 4. The love of liberty and independence is the trait which, if any, would seem to assure to a people, the admiration and applause of an Englishman, pursuant to his own boasted principles and perpetual claims. It is impossible to deny this merit to the North Ameri'can colonists, even in the superla- tive degree : whatever doubts may be affected in relation to the other high titles asserted for them by their descendants. Hume, in noticing the commencement of their establishments, remarks that " the spirit of Independency which was then '*■ reviving in England, shone forth in America in its full lustre, " and received new accession of force from the aspiring *' character of those who, being discontented with the estab- *' llshed church ajid monarchy ^ had sought for freedom amidst " those savage deserts."* To the early settlers, as well as to their posterity of 1775, the well known language of Mr. Burke, was stricdy applicable. " In the character of the " Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature " which marks and distinguishes the whole. This fierce " spirit of liberty, is stronger in the English colonies than in " any other people of the earth."f * Appendix to the reign of James I. f Speech on ConcLliatioa with the colonies. OP THE COLONISTS. The first planters in Virginia called for arrangements of R^^C the most liberal character, and within fourteen years from the '^^^ settlement, that constitution by which they became freemen and citizens, was fixed in its genius and permanent forms.*' Freedom Avas the errand of the colonists of Plymouth and Massachusetts ; and these so properly styled, republican dis- senters^ framed accordingly, their body politic and social, upon principles of perfect equality. The complete organiza- tion of a republic in the representative form, within the same term after the landing at Plymouth, as that just mentioned in the case of Virginia, under circumstances so new and criti- cal, — in defiance of the adverse habits, spirit, and scheme of rule, which predominated in the mother country, — has drawn forth expressions of wonder and homage from some of the more liberal of the British historians. As the Puritans spread themselves over New England, they gave to the distinct communities which they established, con- stitutions still more democratical ; and that, although bold and elevated in their plans, they were not visionary or rash, is proved by the duration and happy eflfects of those constitu- tions. After relating, that on the 14th January, 1639, all the free planters upon Connecticut river, convened at Hartford, formed a system of government, and after giving the sub- stance of that system, the faithful historian of Connecticut, Trumbull, makes the following remarks, which all who read his work must feel to be just. " With such wisdom did our venerable ancestors provide for the freedom and liberties of themselves and their posterity. Thus happily did they guard against every encroachment on the rights of the subject. This, probably, is one of the most free and happy constitutions of civil government which has ever been formed. The forma- tion of it at so early a period, when the light of liberty was wholly darkened in most parts of the earth, and the rights of Inen were so little understood in others, does great honour to their ability, integrity, and love of mankind. To posterity, indeed, it exhibited a most benevolent regard. It has con- tinued with little alteration, to the present time, (1814.) The happy consequences of it, which, for more than a century and an half, the people of Connecticut have experienced, are beyond description."! * "Thus early," says Stith, "was the assembly of the colony studious and careful to establish our liberties ; and we had here, in t.ie eighth and ninth articles of its laws, a Petition of Right passed, above four years before tiiat njatter was indubitably settled and explained in England." — History of Vir- ginia, book 5. ^ t Vol. i. c. 6. Vol. I.—F CHARACTER AND MERITS Chalmers, who wrote to prove the uniform " self-suffi- ciency, and rebellious dispositions of New England," repre- sents with much chiding and lamenting, how " the first set- tlers of New Haven erected a system suitable indeed to their own view^s, but altogether independent on the sove- reign state ;"" and how " there was established, in Rhode Island and Connecticut, a mere democracy or rule of the peo- ple; every power, as Avell deliberative as active, being invested in the freemen of the corporation, or their delegates, and the supreme executive of the empire by an inattention little ho- nourable to the English statesman of those days, being wholly excluded."* Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, traces, in a summary and striking manner, the operations of the spirit which gives so much umbrage to Chalmers. " It is " observable, all the colonies, before the reign of king Charles " the Second, Maryland excepted, settled a model of govern- " ment for themselves. Virginia had been distracted under the " government of presidents and governors, with councils, in *' whose nomination or removal the people had no voice, un- " til in the year 1620, a house of burgesses broke out in the " colony, neither the king nor the grand council at home, " having given any powers or directions for it. The governor *' and assistants of Massachusetts, at first intended to rule the " people, and, as I have observed, obtained their consent for " it; butthislasted two or three years only; and, although there " is no colour for it in the charter, yet a House of Deputies ''^ appeared suddenhj^ in 16o4, tothe surprise of their magis- *' trates, and the disappointment of their schemes for power. *' Connecticut soon after followed the plan of Massachusetts. '^' New Haven, although the people had the highest rever- " ence for their leaders, and for near thirty years, in judicial "■proceeding, submitted to their magistracy (it must, how- " ever, be remembered, that it was annually elected,) without *' a jury, yet in matters of legislation, the people, from the *' beginning TfOi//^/ Aai;e their share by their representatives. " New Hampshire combined together under the same form as " Massachusetts. Lord Say tempted the principal men of " Massachusetts to make themselves and their heirs nobles " and absolute governors of a new colony, but under this " plan they could find no people to follow them."f In Maryland and Pennsylvania, the first assemblies esta- blished a popular representation, and, in all their political • Page 290, 294, Annals. \ Vol. ii, p. 298. OP THE COLONTSTS. Regulations, proceeded upon broad views of civil freedom. SE( The same remark may be extended to the Carolinas,* and to ""-^ New York. The inhabitants of this province wrested from the patentee, the Duke of York, in 1681, privileges of self government similar to those assumed in the other plantations. No one of the proprietaries was able to establish, without modification, the constitution which he framed for his grant ; all were compelled, in the end, to acquiesce in the more liberal order of things required by the assemblies of the peo- ple. In some of the provinces, no time was lost in abolishing primogeniture and entail, which Adam Smith so justly styles, *' the tAvo most unjust and unwise regulations that exist." The first emigrants to Virginia, New England, Maryland, -^ and Pennsylvania, would seem to have been universally in their respective eras, much in advance of those whom they left at home, as regards not onlv private morals, but the love and intelligence of freedom. Whoever has studied the history of England, with the due attention to particular facts, must be convinced, that until the revolution of 1688, the theory of liberty was, except in the case of a few illustrious individuals, as little understood as practised ; and in fact, we may descend much lower, without being greatly edified on this head. In the time of James I, the epoch of Virginia and New England — a slavish reverence of monarchy was nearly universal, and the sj'^stem of administration altogether absolute and arbitrary. Of the social state, we may judge from the representations of Hume, who tells us, "that high pride of family then prevailed; that it was by dignity and stateliness of behaviour, that the gentry and nobility distinguished themselves from the com- mon people ;" and that, " much ceremony took place in the common intercourse of life, and little familiarity was in- dulged by the great." The concurrence of the colonists in the same political maxims and arrangements, the reverse of what prevailed in England, and thoughout Europe, — the contentment and tranquillity Avhich reigned among them, as to political doctrines, and forms of government, particularly in New England, are strikingly contrasted with the sanguinary and unprincipled struggles in the mother country ; with that " continued fever in the domestic administration," and those " furious convulsions and disorders" which are so eloquently painted by Hume. The political distractions extant in the colonial history, were occasioned, almost universally, by the ambition and avarice of the proprietaries, or the violence * See Note B, CH VRACTER AND MERITS T I. attempted upon the charters by the English government and "^^^ its representatives in America. 5. The preceding survey makes it sufficiently plain that no credit can, in strictness, be allowed to England for the insti- tutions which the colonists framed, themselves, in the wil- derness. Nor is anv fairly due to her, for the liberal purport of the charters which they received. All the original char- ters, except that of Georgia, were granted between the years 1603 and 1688. It would be setting at defiance both history and reason, to ascribe to the house of Stuart, or to the Pro-. tectorate, any fond or liberal dispositions in favour of the cause of freedom in America, stripped of all gothic encum- brances. An English historian has remarked, on the subject of the patents accorded by the first James and Charles, that these monarchs were glad to get rid of the turbulent, repub- lican religionists, at any rate ; and freely invested them with any privileges, to be exercised on a desolate continent, at the distance of three thousand miles, where, as they sup- posed, it could never be of account to extend the arm of pre- rogative. The English Universal History makes the fol- lowing statement, of the manner in which the congregation of Brownists, succeeded in their application : — " Sir Robert Naunton was then one of the secretaries of *' state, and the exiled Puritans, as they were then called, knew *' him to be their friend." " They applied to Naunton for leave to settle in those in- " hospitable wilds, where the Indians, savage as they were, *' were more desirable neighbours than the tyrants from *' whom they fled. Naunton had the address to persuade *' James I, that it was bad policy to unpeople his own king- *' doms for the benefit of his neighbours ; and that whatever *' exception he might have, he could have none in granting *' them liberty of conscience, where they would still continue *' to be his subjects, and where they might extend his domi- *' nion. His majesty's answer was, that it was a good and *' honest proposal, and liberty was accordingly granted."* " At our first planting America," says the author of the Eu- ropean Settlements, " it was not difficult for a person who had " interest at court, to obtain large tracts of land, not inferior in *' extent to kingdoms ; and to be invested with a power very *' little less than regal over them ; to govern by what laws, and " to form what sort of constitution he pleased."! The same • Vol. xl. p. 272. t Vol. ii. p. 298. OF THE COLONISTS. autl^or remarlcs,* " that nothing of an enlightened and legis- ^'^^ lative spirit appears in the planning of the English colonies, ^*^ and that the charter governments were evidently copied from some of the corporations at home." The patent of the council of Plymouth comprehended the continent of Ame- rica, from New Scotland to Carolina. In less than eighty years, fifteen hundred miles of the sea coast were granted away ; some of the grants, — that especially to lord Claren- don and others, of the whole tract of country lying between the thirty-first and thirty-sixth degrees of north latitude — extended to the Pacific Ocean : in several instances the same surface was embraced in different grants. The acquisition of territory in America was the ruling ^ passion of the times ; and Charles II, found the gratification of this passion an easy mode of compensating his adherents, and feeding the rapacitv of his courtiers. It is an observa- tion of Macpherson, in his Annals, that " the charters of Rhode Island and Con lecticut were carelessly given by a very careless monarch." The agent of Connecticut won the per- sonal favour of the monarch, by presenting him with a ring of an extraordinary mechanism, the gift of Charles I, to the agent's grandfather. He found means, also, to secure the support of the chamberlain of his majesty's household, and of the lord priv)^ seal, for the colony's petition. f Penn obtained his patent from the restored monarch, as Sir George Calvert had procured that of Maryland from James I, — by virtue of court patronage. It had been promised to his father, admiral Penn, a great favourite ; and Clarkson relates, in his Life of the son, that it was allowed as payment of a debt of sixteen thousand pounds sterling, due from the royal government to the admiral. Calvert is said by Chalmers to have indited his own grant : Penn caused to be given to his the com- plexion required by his aims. Both of these illustrious men were actuated in the adoption of liberal provisions, by their love of freedom, as well as by a knowledge of their true interests. But the historians are unanimous in declaring that the other lord proprietors gave the pledge of civil and re- ligious liberty from no other motive than that of alluring set- tlers ; and the acknowledged necessity of this expedient be- speaks the high character of those, who, in that age, could be gained upon no other terms. Much stress is to be laid on the * Vol. ii. p. 301. \ TnimbuU's History of Connecticut, b. i. c. CHARACTEli AND MERITS coincidence of Chalmers, with these views, and it may be asserted from the following passages of his Annals.* "It was rather tlie example of tlie Spaniards, than the practice of tlie renowned nations of antiqult}', wliicli was copied by England in colonizing", because similar success and wealth was ex|;ectcd. Prompted by his ambi- tion, perhaps more by his vanity, the primary designs of James I, were, to share in the g"old and silver which were expected from mines, to rnle tlie colonies in the same manner as he had proposed to govern Ireland, as terri- tories belonging to his person, and therefore subject to his will, though his ultimate views are not so easily discerned. The great corporations -wMch have acqvired tlie honmir of planting the first permanent settlements, had no other object, probabbf, than the e.r/)ectation of sudden gain from the ivorking of mines, a pro- jec*^, of all others the most delusive, the most to be discountenanced by na- tions which regard their own good." — p. 675. " The country which had been denominated Florida by the French and Spaniards, by the English Virginia, at len.,th owed its final settlement as much to the rapacity of the courtiers of t harles 11, as to t!ie facility of a prince, who wished to reward those to whom he was so much indebted, with a liberality that cost him little. The pretence, which had been used on former occasions, of a pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel among a barbarous people, who inhabited an uncultivated country, was succcsst'uily employed to procure a grant of that immense region, lying on the Atlantic OceaU; between the thirty-sixth degree of nortli latitude and the river Saint Matheo. On the 24th vi' March, 1663, this territory was erected into a province, by the name of Carolina. They, the lord pi-oprietors, were in- vested with as ample rights and jurisdictions within their American palati- nate, as any bishop of Durham enjoyed vi'ithin his diocese. And the present charter seems to have been copied from that of Maryland. "Thus was that colony established upon tlie broad foundation of a regular system of freedom of every kind ; vviiich it was now deemed necessary to offer to Englishmen, to induce them to encounter all the difficulties of planting a distant country, covered with forests, and inhabited by numerous tribes, to endure tht dangers of famine, imd the damps of the climate." When the nature and tendency of the colonial charters be- gan to be understood at the British court, it was quicklj' re- solved to attempt their destruction. As early as 1635, Charles I, assailed that of Massachtisetts ; and Charles II, repenting ofhis prodigal and heedless distribution of freedom, continued the warfare upon colonial liberties in general. All the char- ters of New England were vacated by James II, whose plan it was to reduce the colonies under one arbitrary government. By her new, and forced compact with king William, Massa- chusetts lost a valuable part of her original privileges; and in the reign of this monarch, Pennsylvania, — although, indeed, soon regained, by the indefatigable zeal and consummate ad- dress of Penn, — was, without any respect to her charter, annexed to New York, the province which had perpetually to wrestle with the royal government for the common rights Page 51 r. OF THE COLONISTS. of Englishmen. Early in the reign of queen Anne, a bill was SEC'a brought into parliament, which proposed the abrogation of ' "~ the charters of New England, of East and West New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Carolina, upon the ground of their being prejudicial and repugnant to the trade of the king- dom, to her majesty's revenue, &c.*= The bill failed from the weight of reasonings looking to the interests of the mother country. In the year 1748, the ministry offered another biH, by which the king's instructions were to have the force of laW in the colonics ; but the plan involved an usurpation which, when displayed in full light, and traced in its consequences both to England and America, appeared to the majority of the Commons too gross and dangerous for immediate adop- tion. It svv^ept away all the charters without trial or legal judgment. f Upon the occasion of the extension of the muti- ny act to America, in 1755, the agent of New England, near the British government, Bollan, a man of sagacity and im- partial mind, apprised his constituents of his possessing the best evidence, that it was meditated at the British court "to govern America like Ireland, by keeping up a body of stand- ing forces with a military chest, under some act similar to the famous Poyning's law." If more direct and determined efforts to effect the object were not subsequently made by the government, until the year 1764, it was because the enterprise had become too ha- zardous. The colonies had attained to considerable strength, and grown inflexibly tenacious of their liberties ; their aid was indispensable for the destruction of the French power on this continent; and this circumstance made it of course eligible to preserve, or at least, not wholly to destroy, their good will and national sympathy. It was apprehended, moreover, in queen Anne's time, as may be seen by one of the quotations which I have made from Gee, — that they might, if chafed and disgusted, throw themselves into the arms of France, and turn the scales in favour of that hated rival. To considerations of this nature are we to ascribe the forbearance so fortunate for all parties ; not to any ten- derness for ti-ans-atlantic freedom, or to a generous admira- tion of the noble spirit and carriage of the trans-atlantic kin- dred. Until the period when their enslavement was sys- tematically and perseveringly attempted, circumstances had uniformly been such, as to render that course of proceed- * For a particular account of this bill and the proceedings of the House of Commons thereupon, see Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. ili. 4to. pAT. ■ff See Minot's (Jontmuatiou of the History oiMassacliusetts, p. 146. vol. i. QIIARACTEII AND MERITS ing, incompatible with the prosecution of objects deemed of immediate necessity or higher importance. Had not this been the case, whig and tory would have alike assailed the constitutional privileges of British America. " JVhe>i the xvar is closed^'' said the elder Pitt to Dr. Franklin, during the struggle of 1756, between France and England, "if I should be in the ministry, I will take measures to prevent the colonies, from having a power, to refuse or delay the supplies, which maybe wanted for national purposes." 6. The system of religious freedom, coeval with the esta- blishment of some of the colonies, constitutes a proud dis- tinction for the founders. There is a glory to be envied by the world, in the first, and continued recognition and en- forcement of the rights of conscience, by constitutional law. Compared with it, the sublimest discoveries in science, the most useful inventions in the arts, the most majestic physical monuments, must appear as secondary, in the opinion of those who consider what would be the effect, for the dignity and happiness of our species, were the example universally fol- lowed; and what the evils that have flowed and continue to flow from religious intolerance. This glory cannot be denied to the provinces of Maryland, Rhode Island,* and Penn- sylvania ; and it brightens with the reflection, how com- pletely the human mind was elsewhere shut to the voice of reason and humanity. Religious equality was unknown to the codes of Europe ; and persecution, adopting, wherever it prevailed, the injustice as well as terrors of the inquisi- tion, raged in the countries claiming to be the most refined and enlightened. Even in the United Provinces, so often — to use the language of Hume, cited as models of toleration, though all sects were admitted, yet civil offices were only en- joyed by the professors of the established religion. I need not remind those who have read the woi-k of the incomparable historian, of the state of things in England — of the mean and ignoble arts, as well as the sanguinary atrocities practised in the wars of the leading sects, which, as he remarks, throw an indelible stain on the British annals. f A single extract from his history will illustrate the progress of reason and hu- manity in the Scottish parliament, but a little before Penn organized his commonwealth, and nearly two generations after Maryland had taken the principles which I have quoted,:|: as the foundations of her polity. " In a session " f • See Note G. f Cliap. 68 \ Pag'e 32, OP THE COLONISTS. (June, 1673,) of the Scottish parliament, a severe law was en- SEC acted against conventicles. Ruinous fines were imposed both on the preachers and hearers, even if the meetings had been in houses ; but field conventicles were subjected to the pe- nalty of death, and confiscation of goods. Four hundred marks (Scots,) were offered as a reward to those who should seize the criminals ; and they were indemnified for any slaiigh' ter which they should commit in the execution of such an undertaking. And as it was found diflicult to get evidence against these conventicles, however numerous, it was enact- ed by another law, that, whoever, being required by the council, refused to give information upon oath, should be pun- ished by arbitrary fines, by imprisonment, or by baniahment to the plantations.''''^ The Catholics of Maryland, who had hoped to escape the fell spirit of triumphant bigotry, by renouncing their country, were not long suffered to remain undisturbed in their remote and hard-earned retreat. Their scheme of i-eligious charity, was as incomprehensible, as hateful, to their old persecutors. Some of the most desperate and fanatical of the sectaries, who had repaired to the Catholic asvlum, were instigated to disturb its tranquillity, and to set themselves in array against their magnanimous hosts. During the Commonwealth in. England, the proprietary government of Maryland was sub- verted, and the affairs of the province put into the hands of commissioners, creatures of the Protector. The spurious as- sembly which they convened after recognizing Cromwell's *' just title and authority," enacted, that " none who professed the Popish religion could be protected in the province by the laws of England!" The Catholic missionaries in Maryland, who from the year 1640, had begun to carry the light of the gospel among the Indians, were compelled to desist, on the ground that they aimed at forming a party against the Eng- lish government, to enable themselves to become independent. Things took nearly the same course after the reinstating of the proprietary by Charles II. " The troubles in Mary- *' land," says Chalmers, " were made a foundation, whereon *' were raised fresh complaints against the proprietary in Eng- *' land for partiality to Papists. Lord Baltimore, in justifica- " tion of himself and the province, showed the act of 1649, *' concerning religion, which had been confirmed in the year *' 1676, as a perpetual lav/, and which tolerated and protected. *' every sect of Christians, but gave special privileges to none. * Chapter 6». Vol. I.— G CHAtlACTER AND MERtTS " It was in vain for him to represent, that he had endeavour- " ed to divide the offices of his government as nearly equal. " among Protestants and Roman Catholics, as their abilities *' would permit: that he had given almost the whole com- *' mand of the militia to the former, who were entrusted with " the care of the arms and military stores. The ministers of *' Charles II, to throw the imputation of popery from their *' own shoulders, commanded that all offices should be put " into Protestant hands."* The Church of England was at length established by law in Maryland; and the Catholics were rewarded for the *' mildest of laws," for " a moderation unparalleled in the annals of the world,"f by being disfranchised, and subjected anew to the restrictions and penalties from which their char- ter had seemed to assure them a perpetual protection. The condition to which they were reduced by the government of William, was not only a horrible injustice in itself, but a scandalous breach of national faith. The Protestant religion had been already established by law in Virginia, in 1661, and that colony converted, likewise, into a theatre of perse- cution. An attempt was made, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, to give the same ascendency to the Church of England, in Carolina ; but it encountered a spi- rited and successful resistance from the inhabitants. 7 . The excesses of bigotry, which were committed by the Puritans of New England, during the seventeenth century, can neither be disguised nor defended. They admit, however, of some extenuation, which is to be found in such considerations as the following, offered by one of their descendants 4 — " To vindicate the errors of our ancestors, were to make them " our own. It is allowed, that they wei-e culpable ; but, we do *' not concede that, in the present instance, they stood alone, " or that they merited all the censure bestowed on them. " Laws similar to those of Massachusetts, were passed else- " where against the Quakers, and particularly in Virginia, If " no execution took place here, as it did in New England, *' it was not owing to the moderation of the church, (Jeffer- " son, Virg. Query xviii.) The prevalent opinion among *' most sects of Christians, at that day, that toleration is sinful, *' ought to be remembered ; nor should it be forgotten, that the " first Quakers in New England, beside speaking and writing *' Avhat was deemed blasphemous, reviled magistrates and * Chapter 15. j Chalmers. \ IlolmeSj in his An^erican Annals. OF THE COLONISTS. *' ministers, and disturbed religious assemblies ; and that the SEC^ " tendency of their tenets and practices was to the subversion *' of the commonwealth, in that period of its infancy. (See " Hubbard, MS. N. Eng. Hazard Coll. i. 630 ; ii.5,"96 ; and *' the early historians of New England.) In reviewing the " conduct of our revered ancestors, it is but just to make ** allowance for the times in which they lived, and the occa- *' sions of their measures." Any accusation or sarcasm on this head, comes with a wretched air from Great Britain, Her cotemporary history is a tissue of all that can be conceived most atrocious, or malig- nant, or preposterous, in the hostilities and extravagances of fanaticism ; it cannot be surpassed in the annals of those enor- mities and follies, which provoke alternately laughter and tears, scorn and horror. On comparing the condition and pretensions of the English and Scotch natiotis^ (for the re- proach attaches to the whole,) with those of the zealots of New England, everyone will perceive at once on which side lies the greater load of guilt and shame. Massachusetts had no assembly or synod, rivalling the Rump Parliament, or the presbytery of Argyle ; — there is no transaction in the history of that province, upon the same scale of mischief and absur- dity, as the affair of the Popish plot — there is nothing like the conviction and execution of Stafford, upon the evidence of Oates and Tuberville ; no judicial career vying with the cir- cuits of Kirk and Jefferies. The religious ferment subsided in New England before the expiration of the seventeenth century. Not an instance is to be found, in her subsequent history, of sanguinary or vexa- tious persecution for variations in opinion or worship.* The rigor exercised against particular sects, in the other colonies, is to be traced in all cases, to the instigation, or general influence, of the mother country. At the separation, advan- tage was immediately taken of the entire freedom of legisla- tion, to put all denominations of Christians upon a footing of equality ; and this proceeding shows how prevalent the spirit of toleration had become among the colonists. That the rea- son and humanity of England lagged far behind, is sufficient- ly attested by the Draconian Code concerning the Catholics, which survived ourrevolution, and the disabilities from which the Protestant dissenters are not yet relieved. If I did not find it stated in the fourth number of the Quarterly Review, that " the northern states have hardly outgrown their fanaticism," and that there is, in America, " scarcely any medium between * See Note. D. CHARACTER AND MERITS r I. " over-godliness and a brutal irreligion," I would confident- "^^ii^ ly appeal for what we now are, as respects our religious spirit, to the following statement, of the 31st number of that authoritative journal. " The old settlers of America carried *' Avith them habits of strict morality and austere religion. *' The descendants of these old settlers have outgrown the " intolerance and bigotry of their ancestors, but have retained *' their virtues, and embellished them by humane manners. *' They are republicans as much by principle and duty as by *' prejudice and inheritance." I would not hesitate to concede to the author of" The Bri- tish empire in America," that " the great foible of the New England history is the story of the witches,"* — But this story has aspects widely different from that under which it is ex- hibited abroad. Belief in witchcraft was epidemic in the seventeenth century, and could not fail to extend to New England. The insulated situation of her inhabitants, — one which presents them, to use their own graphic language, as " conflicting with many grievous difficulties and sufferings in the vast howling wilderness, among wild men and wild beasts"! — the austerity of their domestic habits — the solem- nity of their religious feelings — the terrific dangers to which they were hourly exposed — their daily intercourse with the Indians, whose conversation was perpetually of demons and necromancers — the new maladies of body, resulting from a new and crude climate — the heart-sickening recollections of *' the pleasant land of their nativity," of which the ravening brood of tyrants would almost be forgotten, as memory recall- ed its better features, v/ith the enjoyments and ties of their youth — all these influences combined against the force of their reason, and contributed to render irresistible the contagion of the European superstition. The simple example of the mo- ther country might account for their infatuation ; and the ex- tent to which it is chargeable upon that example, may be understood from the followingpassage of Hutchinson's His- tory of Massachusetts. " Not many years before the delusion " seized New England, Glanville published his witch stories " in England ; Perkins and other Nonconformists were earlier; *' but the great authority was that of Sir Matthew Hale, re- *' vered in New England not only for his knowledge in the " law, but for his gravity and piety. The trial of the witches *' in Suffolk was published in 1684. All these books were * Preface. t Petition of the General Court of Massachusetts to tlie king. (1680.) OF THE COLONISTS. *' in New England, and the conformity between the behaviour SEC **■ of Goodwin's children, and most of the supposed bewitched v^" *•• at Salem, and the behaviour of those in Eng'land^ is so exact *' as to leave no room to doubt the stories had been read by the " New England persons themselves^ or had been told to them by *' others who had read them. Indeed, this conformitv, instead *' of giving suspicion, was urged in confirmation of the truth *' of both ; the Old England demons and the NeAV being so " much alike. The court justified themselves from books of " law, and the authorities of Keble, Dalton, and other law- *' vers, then of the first character, who laid down rules of *' conviction as absurd and dangerous as any which were " practised in New England."* The authors of the Univer- sal History have also stated some palliative facts, which de- serve to be reported upon such airthority. — "In justice to " the ministry and people of New England, Ave are to ob- *' serve, that the persecutions for witchcraft were carried on " by wretches, partly to gratify their private resentments " and interests, and partly from a spirit of enthusiasm and *' credulity ; nor could they have happened had it not been " for the xveakness of the governor and Dr. Mather, who were *■' rendered the tools of more designing men. The people in " general, and some ministers, particularly Mr. Caleb of *■' Boston, detested them, and remonstrated against them " from the beginning, but all to no purpose."! All ranks in Scotland and England concurred in raising a '^ complete demonocracy for those countries, throughout the se- venteenth century. Lord Kaimes asserts, in his Sketches of tJie History of Man, that during the civil wars every one be- lieved in magic, charms, spells, sorcery and witchcraft. An incident related by Evelvn, for which no parallel is to be found in American history, shows the temper of the times, in England. "29th March, 1652 — was that celebrated eclipse of the sun, so much threatened by the astrologers, and which had so exceedingly alarmed the xvhole nation., that hardly any one would work or stir out of their houses, so ridiculously were they abused by knavish and ignorant star-gazers." The Long parliament, alias, " the great reformation parliament," issued ■several commissions, " to discover and prosecute witches," and upon those commissions were inany unfortunate persons, of both sexes, tried and executed. We should not forget the testimony of Hume, with respect to the state of Scotland, at the period in question. " The fanaticism which prevailed, ' * Vol. ii. chap. i. \ Vol. xxxix. CHARACTER AND MERITS ^ I- " acquired, besides the malignants and engagers^ a new object "^^ " of abhorrence. These were the sorcerers. So prevalent was " the opinion of witchcraft, that great numbers^ accused of *' that crime, were burnt by sentence of the magistrates, *' through all parts of Scotland. In a village near Berwick, *' which contained only fourteen houses, fourteen persons *' were punished by fire, and it became a science every -where " much studied and cultivated,, to distinguish a true witch by ''^proper trials and symptoms T^ I have now before me a quarto volume, published in Lon- don, in the present year (1819), and entitled, "The memo- rable things that fell out within the Island of Britain, from 1638 to 1683, by the Rev. Mr. Robert Law, of that time." This work is little more than a chronicle of the witchcraft of Britain, during the interval to which it is confined; and, truly, the details of credulity and judicial murder which it fur- nishes, might entitle New England to expect very gentle usage in that quarter on the subject of witchcraft. Among the papers prefixed to the " Memorable things," is a " True relation of an apparition, expressions, and actings, of a spirit, which infested the house of Andrew Mackie, in Scotland, in 1695 ;" which relation is signed on oath by at least twelve regular clergymen of especial sanctity and authority. The worthy minister, Law, has left, in his journal, a notice of New England, which may reasonably be taken as the epitome of the popular notions of the day, concerning that colony. It is sufficiently remarkable to be copied. " August, 1676.) Tliese of New England that had planted that part of Americ:i, are grievously troubled by the natives, who make inroads upon the plantations, and kill many of the English, having by their slaves, (that were witji the English and fled to them again,) learned the art of shooting guns, purchasing out of France and Holland guns, swords, and pycks, make them much adoe and great trouble, so that they were necessitate to shift for them- selves in other parts of the world. The truth is, the Protestants in all parts of the world suffer in these sad tymcs. The origin of these in New England, went from England in the days of queen Mary of England, when the persecution against the Protestants was raised there, and in the days of queen Elizabeth, her successor, a Protestant, was well supplyed with money and otlier necessaries to make good that plantation. They were all fur- nished with able ministers, and grew up to a famous and glorious church. Their church government was and is yet independent, and of thdr state it is aristocvaci(^. Tht'ii rt-fvsed to o-iun the king of Britain as their king, only in commtvnoration of their coming out of England, they noxu and then send him a free gift." For thirty years after the settlement of Massachusetts,— • Chapter 59. OF TlTR COLONISTS. while victims were daily sacrificed by fire and the rope, in SliCT Gr It Britain, — none suffered for witchcraft in that colony. "^^^ H: r. hinson asserts truly, that " more were put to death in a single county of England for that cause, than suffered in New England from the planting until his time, in 1760."* The phrenzy endured in America but seven months ; whereas it may be said to have continued, with little or no abate- ment, in the mother country, in Scotland particularly, — > for a long series of years. If Cotton Mather partook of the wretched delusion, he was at least as excusable as Sir Mat- thew Hale ; and we may doubt whether there was any learn- ed judge of New England, cotemporary with chief justice Blackstone, who would have gravely summed up the evi- dence respecting the reality of witchcraft, and as gravely decided it to be, " most eligible to conclude, that, in general, such a thing as witchcraft had been."f North America, of the eighteenth century, can furnish no counterpart for the story of the Cocklane ghost. Hutchinson has, on this subject, some observations in addition to those I have quoted from him, which ought not to be withheld. " The trial of Richard *' Hatheway, the impostor, before lord chief justice Holt, was " ten or twelve years after the trials in New England. This *' was a great discouragement to prosecutions in England for *' witchcraft, but an effectual stop was not put to them until " the act of parliament in the reign of his late majesty, George *' II. Even this did not wholly cure the common people, and " we hear of old women ducked and cruelly murdered within *' these last twenty years. Reproach, then, for hanging " witches, although it has been often cast up07i the people of " Nexv England by those of Old^ yet it must have been done " xvith an ill grace.'''' 8. As respects political intrepidity.^ we may challenge a comparison between our ancestors, and the communities the most renowned for that potent virtue. The instances of it with which our colonial annals abound, are inestimably pre- cious, as lessons and incentives for the American people at all times, and under all circumstances. We cannot too often remind each other how heroically the first settlers, and the * Hist, of Mass. vol. ii. chap. i. •j" Commentaries, b. iv. c. iv. " Witchcraft or sorcery, is a truth to which every nation in the world, hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either examples se'emingly well attested, or prohibitory laws, which at least suppo.sc the pos- sibility of a conamgrce with evil spirits." CHARACTER AND MERITS generations immediately succeeding, overloofeed their Owti physical weakness and domestic dangers, and braved the power and pride of the mother country, in asserting the rights of man and the privileges recognized or implied in their charters. The complaints which the British historians and orators have uttered concerning their haughty and re- fractory spirit, and their early aspirations after positive sovereignty, are to be cherished as testimonies borne to the elevation of their character. I repeat with exultation, and think there should be no anxiety on the part of any Ameri- can to avoid, the reproaches intended to be made by such allegations as the following : — " The persons whom the Plymouth company sent over to America, as soon as they landed there, considered themselves as individuals united by volun- tary associations, possessing the natural rights of men who form a society, to adopt wliat mode of government, and to enact what laws they deemed most conducive to general felicity. Suitably to these ideas, they framed all their future plans of court and ecclesiastical policy.* " Massachusetts, in conformity to its accustomed principles, acted during the civil wars, almost altogether as an independent state. It formed leagues not only with the neighbouring colonies, but with foreign nations, without the consent or knowledge of the government of England. It permitted n» appeals from its courts to the judicatories of the sovereign state; and it re- fused to exercise its jurisdiction in the name of the commonwealth of Eng- land. It erected a mint at Boston, impressing the year 1652 on the coin, as the era of independence.** Thus evincing to all what hud been foretold by the wise, that a people of such principles, religious and political, settling at so great a distance from control, would necessarily form an independent state-i " During the greater part of the reign of Charles II, the colony of Connec- ticut acted rather as an independent state, than as the inconsiderable terri- tory of a great nation. The general orders of that prince were cojitemricd. be- cause the I'oyal interposition was deemed inconsistent with the charter. The acts of navigation were despised and disobeyed, because they were consider- ed equally inconsistent with tl^e freedom of trade as with the security of an- cient privileges : and the courts of justice refused to allow appeals to Eng- land, because the powers of ultimate jurisdiction were claimed from the patent.i: "On receiving authentic news of the revolution of 1688, and the accession of William and Mary, though the people of Massachusetts spoke with de- ference of the higher powers in England, and of their relationship tO'it, they resolved with their peculiar spirit, that the settlement of their government on that extraordinary eccasion, belonged wholly to themselves. "t " The Americans have had all along a reluctance to order and good go- vernment, since their first establishment in their countrj-. They have been obstinate, undutiful, and ungovernable from the very beginning : from their first infant settlements in that country. They began to manifest this spirit as early as the reign of Charles the First. 'Ihey disputed * Robertson's History of Ameiica, vol. iVi f Chalmers, chap.viii. Annab. i Ibid. OF THE COLONISTS. our right of fishing on their coasts, in the times of the commonwciltii and SEi protectorate, &c.* ^^ " The bad consequences of planting northern colonies were early pre- dicted. Sir Josiah Child foretold, before the revolution, that they would, in the end, prove our rivals in power, commerce, and manufactures. Dave- nant adopted the same ideas, and foresaw what has since happened : he foresaw that whenever America found herself of sufficient strength to con- tend with the mother country, she would endeavour to form herself into a separate and independent state. This has been the constant object of New England, almost from her earliest infancy," &c.f We find the colony of Virginia, when only in its seven- teenth year, (1624,) and just recovered from the heaviest dis- asters, answering, through its general assembly, an angry and insidious inquiry into its condition and dispositions, ordered by the king and privy council, and resisting the artifices and threats of the commissioners deputed from England for the purpose of extorting a surrender of its charter, with the ut- most sagacity and boldness, or, to use the phrase of its histo- rian, Stith, " with sharpness and vigour;"' — 'with an array of the loftiest principles, and in a style of composition very little inferior to the best of that age4 The sjime colony, only twelve years after, seized the royal governor, Harvey, become odious to them by his exactions and insolence, and sent him a prisoner to London. And it is further illustrative of her in- trepidity, that Charles I. considered the proceeding as an act of rebellion, and reinstated the obnoxious ofiicer, — >to super- sede him, however, immediately, by one of a character dissi- milar in all respects. Virginia, prepossessed in fav^our of the royal cause, resisted the government of the Protectorate, by arms, in 1651, and submitted at length to the powerful squa- dron sent to enforce her obedience, only upon terms which do infinite honour to her courage, and remain a striking me- morial of her resolute and enlightened attachment to liber- ty. The following abstract of some of the articles of capi- tulation will be read with interest. 1. " The plantation of " Virginia^ and all the inhabitants thereof, shall remain in " due subjection to the Commonwealth oi E7igland^ not as a * Earl Talbot, in the House of Lords. Debate of Feb. 29, 1776. f Lord Mansfield, in the House of Lords. Debate Nov. 15, 1775. i See the account of this controversy, in the 5th book of Stith's History of Virginia. " Every titheable or taxable inhabitant," says Burk, " voted for members of assembly. And what honour does not the choice of such an assembly as that of 1624, reflect on the colonists ; what sagacity and public spirit does it not suppose in them, at a juncture so delicate and try- ing, to have selected a body which immediately saw their true interest, and pursued it with ardour and unanimity, in the face of the royal commission- ers, and in defiance of the authority and resentment of the king," Vol, I.— H CHARACTER AND MERITS " conquered country, but as a country submitting by their " own voluntary act, and shall enjoy such freedoms and privi- " leges as belong to the free people of England. 2. The gene- " ral assembly, as formerly, shall convene, and transact the af- *' fairs of the colony. 3. The people of Virginia shall have a " free trade, as the people of England^ to all places, and with " all nations. 4. Virginia shall be free from all taxes, cus- " toms, and impositions whatsoever; and none shall be im- *' posed on them, without consent of the general assembly ; " and neither forts nor castles be erected, or garrisons main- " tained without their own consent."* Her subsequent conduct has been the theme of lofty pane- gyric with all the historians. She took advantage of the sud- den death of a governor named by Cromwell, to restore the royal officers, and proclaimed Charles II. even before intelli- gence was received of the demise of the Protector. The spirit which produced these exploits, descended without interruption or enervation, and proved its identity and divinity in the reso- lutions offered by Patrick Henry, in 1765; in the propositions for a general congress, and in the Declaration of Independence. The career pursued by Massachusetts from her birth, is pre-eminent for daring, as well as dexterity, and may be considered in these respects as unique in the annals of the world. To the charter, as containing a confirmation of some portion of her natural liberty, she clung with a pertinacious- ness, under every vicissitude and pressure, which must awaken in all generous breasts, a thrilling sympathy, and a lively admi- ration. Diminutive as she was in 1635, yet, when a rumour reached the colonies, that the measure of a general govern- ment for New England had been decided upon at the British Court, her magistrates and clergy agreed unanimously that, *■'' if such a governor were sent, the colony ought not to accept him, but to defend its lawful possessions." When her patent was demanded in 1638, by order of the king in council, it was answered, that if the charter should be taken away, the people would remove to another place, and confederate under some new form of government; and " such was their resolution," says the historian Hutchinson, " that they would have sought a vacuum domiciliwn^ (a favourite expression with them,) in some part of the globe, where they would, according to their apprehensions, have been free from the control of any Euro- pean pov.'er."! We have the evidence of one of the spies of * See vol. ii. chap. ii. of Burk's History of Virginia : — for the entire con- vention, and a just commentary upon the magnanimous depoilment of tlii: colony. t Vol. i. p. sr, OF THE COLONISTS. Archbishop Laud, in the colony, that it was, at this period of si her history, accounted perjury and treason in her General ^ Court, to speak of appeals to the king. In 1641, the General Court established the one hundred laws, called the Body of Liberties. The strain of them, so abhorrent and advantageously distinguished from the genius of the cotem- porary legislation in England, shows with what fearless deter- mination these pilgrims marched up to their invariable object, of civil and religious freedom. The memorable league of the New England Plantations, in 1643,* is another proof of the independent and confident spirit with which they provided for their own protection, " It originated," says Chalmers, '' with Massachusetts, always fruitful in projects of indepen- dence. No patent legalized the confederacy, which continued until the dissolution of the charters, in 1686. Neither the con- sent nor approbation of the governing powers in England was ever applied for or given. The principles upon which this famous association was formed were altogether those of self- government, of absolute sovereignty."! Massachusetts saw from the beginning, the true bearing of the acts of navigation of 1651 and 1660, and of the custom house duties prescribed in 1672, upon her interests and natural rights, and she evad- ed or resisted them, until the whole weight of the mother country was turned to their enforcement. The officer sent from England, to collect the customs at Boston, was recalled, upon his representation, " that he was in danger of being pu- nished with death, by virtue of an ancient law, as a subverter of the constitution." When taxed with disobedience, the Ge- neral Court did not hesitate to allege, that " the acts of navi- gation were an invasion of the rights and privileges of the sub- jects of his majesty in that colony, they being not represented in Parliament; and that, according to the usual sayings of the learned in the law, the laws of England were bounded within the four seas, and did not reach America^'' Some of the other provinces joined in this language, and were equally hardy in their practice. Massachusetts, from the outset, openly con- tended against the doctrine, that Parliament had a right to make laws binding the colonies in all cases whatsoever; she denied the competency of that body to impose any tax upon ^em, without the consent of their legislatures. Her theory, on this head, was solemnly proclaimed in 1692, and embo- died in one of the laws which she then framed under the new * See vol. i. of Trumbull's History of Connecticut, for a detailed account of this confederation, f Chap. viii. Annals. CHARACTER AND MERITS I- charter received from William. In 1663, Rhode Island for- ^^ mally enacted it, as one of her privileges, that no tax should be imposed on, or required of the colonists, but by the Gene- ral Assembly. The Assembly of New York nobly passed reso- lutions to the same purport, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. As early as 1624, the Assembly of Virginia had set the example of asserting this principle as fundamental. Massachusetts manifested a strong predilection for the cause of the independents in England, during the civil wars ; but she resisted the attempts of the Long Parliament upon the sacred charter. Being strongly advised, in 1641, when suf- fering much domestic distress and embarrassment, to solicit parliamentary aid or patronage, she steadily refused, with a train of reasoning, which well deserves to be noted.' — " If we place ourselves under the protection of Parliament, we must be subject to all such laws as they should make, or at least, such as they might impose upon us, in which course, though Parliament might intend our good, yet it might prove very prejudicial."* The carriage of the northern colonies, on the restoration, when all England fell prostrate before the monarchical page- ant, may be best told in the angry language of the loyal Chal- mers. " The people of New England received the tidings of that interesting event with a caution bordering on incredulity; announced the king in a manner almost insulting; and submit- ted not to the resolutions of the supreme power, till they had, by their orvn resolves^ declared their oxvn privileges.** The affectionate reception which Connecticut gave to the regicides, even after their attainder by Parliament, who here enjoyed a long life of miserable security, and died in peace, sufficiently demonstrates her principles and attachments. f She received the royal commissioners with studied indifference, and with a fixed resolution to deride their authority and disobey their commands.":}: * Hutchinson, chapter i. f The regicides, to whom our author refers, were "Whalley and Goffe, men of great abilities and accompHsh ments, of a noble spirit, and winning demeanour. The conduct of the people of New England towards them, does not, methinks, suffer in the comparison with the procedure related in the following passage of Evelyn's Memoirs : "This day the 30th of Jany. 1660, were the carcases of those ai'ch rebells Cromwell, Bradshaw, the judge who condemned his majesty, and Ireton, sonn-in-law to ye usurper, dragg\l out of their superb tombs in Westmr* among the kings, to Tyburn, and hang'd on the gallows there from 9 in ye morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deepe pit, thousands who had seen them in all their pride, being spectators." (Vol. i. p. 3ir.) \ Chapter xii. Annals. OP THE COLONISTS. New England generally, prohibited all appeals to the par- SEi Hament or the king in council; and Massachusetts in particu- ''■^ lar, fined and imprisoned certain persons, for designing to so^ licit parliament to revise a sentence of the General Court. This body, on the arrival of the commissioners sent by Charles II. in 1665, to investigate and regulate the affairs of New England, put them under close supervision; refused to recog-. nize their authority, or to impose the oath of allegiance required from the people, unless with nice restrictions and limitations; counteracted all their proceedings, and resolved " to adhere to the patent so dearly olitained and so long enjoyed by undoubted right in the sight of God and man." The commissioners would seem to have been imbued with something of the spirit which actuates the modern English critics. One of their letters, to the general court, dated in 1668, begins thus: " We have re- ceived a letter from your marshal, subscribed by the secreta- ry, so full of untruth, and in some places wanting grammar construction^ that we are unwilling," &c. The account which Chalmers gives of the conclusion of their transactions in Massachusetts, is an amusing picture of the temper of both parties. " The commissioners at length peremptorily asked the general court, ♦ Do you acknowledge the royal commission to be of fall force to all the purposes contained in it ?' But, to a question at once so decisive and embarrassing, the general court excused itself from giving a direct answer, and chose rather to ' plead his majesty's charter.' The commissioners, however, at- tempting to hear a complaint against the governor and company, the gene- ral court, with a cliaracteristic vigour, published by sound of trumpet, its disapprobation of this proceeding, and prohibited every one from abetting a conduct so inconsistent with their duty to God and their allegiance to the king. And, in Mav, 1665, the commissioners determined * to lose no more labour upon men, who misconstrued all their endeavours, and opposed the .ro3'al authority.' They soon after departed, threatening their opponents ' * with the punishment which so many concerned in the late rebellion had %net with in England.' "* All the agents of New England with the British govern- ment, had it in especial charge " to consent to nothing that should infringe the liberties granted by charter." The manner in which Connecticut frustrated the attempt of Andros, in 1675, to acquire for the Duke of York the country lying westward of the Connecticut river — the discom- fiture of the same tyrannical viceroy of the Stuarts, when he endeavoured, in 1687, to possess himself of her charter — his deposition and imprisonment by the people of Boston, in 1689, Chap. xvi. Annals. CHARACTER AND MERITS J- and the resumption, by all the New England provinces, of '^ their abrogated charters and forms of government, even be- fore they received any certain intelligence of the success of William in England — the re-establishment, in 1668, of the authority of Massachusetts over New Hampshire, by the ge- neral court, in defiance of the royal authority* — the violent subversion, in 1672, of the proprietary government in New Jersey — the insurrectionary movements of Albemarle in 1677 — the revolution of 1719 in South Carolina — the successful struggles of the general court of Massachusetts, between the years 1721 and 1730, v/ith the j-oyal governors of that inter- val, backed as they were by the countenance of the crown — are all so many additional incidents, which may be singled out of a multitude, to exemplify the passionate zeal, the fearlessness, and activity of the first generations of Ameri- cans, in the cause of civil liberty; as their institutions may be cited to prove their clear discernment of its true prin- ciples and appropriate forms. England possessed, in the seventeenth century, some votaries to the same cause, of the largest views and boldest determination : but the true model of freedom was, as I have already intimated, neither sought nor comprehended by the nation in general. This is palpable from the despotic genius of the Commonwealth, and the kindred spirit of the Restoration The main spring and principle of the civil wars^ and even of the revolution of 1688, was religious rancour; not the desire or intelligence of political liberty — an object always subordinate to the gratification of fanatical hate, and the acquisition of inordinate power. It is said by Hume, that the British were, in the time of Charles I., and till long after, of all the European nations, the most under the influence of that religious spirit, which tends to in- flame bigotry and beget desperate factions. " The Scotch nation," he adds, " plainly discovered, after the restoration, that their past resistance had proceeded more from the turbu- lency of their aristocracy, and the bigotry of their ecclesiastics, than fiom any fixed passion towards civil liberty." The NcAV England plantations could not feel, and did not find themselves, secure in their distance from the British court. Whatever influence the circumstance of this distance might be supposed to exert in bracing their spirit, it must have been more than counteracted by the immense disparity of strength, and the belief, that, if pressed, a new emigration was their only * Chalmera, chap. xix. OP THE COLONISTS. resource. Their situation altogether, — apparently so forlorn and SEC critical,— had a stronger tendency to inspire docility and sub- ^"■^ mission to the house of Stuart, than the relative position of the British people. But let the language and countenance of the government of New England, in the year 1685, be com- pared with those of the British parliament, towards James II. at the same period. " The parliament," says Hume,* " pro- ceeded to examine the dispensing power, and voted an address against it. The address was expressed in the most respectful and submissive manner, yet it was very ill received by the king, and his answer contained a flat denial. The Commons were so daunted with this reply, that they kept silence a long time; and when Coke, a member from Derby, rose and said, * I hope we are all Englishmen, and not to be frightened by a few hard words,' so little spirit appeared in that assembly, often so refractory and mutinous, that they sent him to the tower for bluntly expressing a free and generous sentiment. " On their next meeting, they very submissively proceeded to the consideration of the supply demanded by the court, and even went so far as to establish funds for paying the sum voted in nine years and a half. The king, therefore, had, in effect, almost without a struggle, obtained a total victory over the Commons ; and instead of contesting an additional revenue to the crown; and rendering the king in some degree independent, contributed to increase those imminent dangers, with which they had so good reason to be alarmed." I shall have occasion, as I proceed with the main subject, to notice so many brilliant traits of civil courage, in the ca- reer of the colonists, that I ought to be satisfied with what I have adduced; and it is not, moreover, a part of my plan, to particularize here, their heroic proceedings after the passage of the stamp act; these are sufficiently emblazoned in the admiration expressed by the most respectable voices and pens of England herself. But I must be indulged with culling from the history of Massachusetts a couple of incidents more, as contrasts to the anecdote just quoted from Hume. When Andros, as governor general of New England, by the appoint- ment of James 11. imposed, in the beginning of 1688, a tax of a penny in the pound on all the towns under his government, the selectmen (municipal officers) of those of Massachusetts, particularly of Ipswich, voted, "that inasmucli as it was against the common privileges of English subjects, to have money raised without their own consent given in an assembly or par- liament; therefore they would petition the king for liberty of an assembly before they made any rates" — nor did they yield * Chapter Ixx, CHARACTER AND MERITS " I' the point, although put to the test by imprisonment and heavy ■^^ fines.* The other case is of the year 1761. In that year, the governor of the colony, Bernard, took upon himself to equip the province sloop Massachusetts, upon a more expensive scale than that prescribed by the House of Assembly, or than what was called, " the old establishment." On receiving from him a message relating to it, the house immediately prepared, and voted by a large majority, an answer which contained the following passages: "Justice to ourselves and our constituents oblige us to remonstrate against the method of making or in- creasing establishments, by the governor and council. It is, in effect, taking from the House their most darling privilege, the right of originating all taxes." " No necessity can be sufficient to justify a House of Repre- sentatives in giving up such a privilege ;yb>- it xvould be of little consequence to the people^ xvhether they xvcre subject to George or Loui.-i, the king of Great Britain or the French king^ if both ■were arbitrary, as both xvotdd be, if both could levy taxes with' out parliament.'''' 9. The most prejudiced of the English writers have scarcely ventured to decry the domestic morals and habits of the early colonists. Industry, order, temperance, and the social affec- tions were demonstrated by the rapid increase of their means, comforts, and numbers, and by the stability of their institu- tions. The rarity of political changes, or intestine dissen- tions, of domestic origin, after the several communities were formed, is in itself, adequate proof of the general subordina- tion to the authority of law and reason. Hutchinson men- tions that " in the Massachusetts colony, for the first thirty years, although the govei'nor and assistants were annually chosen by the body of the people, yet they confined themselves to the principal gentlemen of family, estate, understanding, and integrity;" and that "there were instances in the char- ter governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island, where the representatives had virtue enough to withstand popular prejudices, when the governor's council had not."f The question of restoring to New England, the charter suppressed by James II., was submitted, after the accession of William III. to Hook, an eminent lawyer of the British capital. This enlightened individual, in pronouncing in the affirmative, did * See "A Narrative of the Miseries of New England, by reason of an arbi- trary government erected there by James II." This curious pamphlet, which arraigns with the utmost severity the administration of Andros, was printed in Boston dnring- what it calls " his tyrannic reign," and re -printed in the same place in the year 1775. f Vol. ii. chap. i. OF THE COLONISTS. not hesitate to describe the colonists as " a people who had SEC rriaintained civility beyond any other on earth.'''* The authors ^-^ of the modern part of the Universal History, referring to the same era, remark, that " the police of the inhabitants of New England, with regard to their morals, surpassed that of any in the world." Such was their reputation for discipline and virtue, that the pious of the mother country sent over their children for education. The legislators of New England were, indeed, exorbitantly austere with respect to the elegant recreations of civilized life : They prohibited, moreover, horse racing, cock fighting, bull and bear baiting. In exclud- ing these vulgar and vicious sports, they certainly did not suf- fer in the contrast with those who, in Britain, tolerated such pastime as the following of which we read in Evelyn's Me- moirs: "There was now (April, 1667,) a very gallant horse to be baited to death with dogs.— ^They run him through with their swords, when the dogs did not succeed," &c. Religion was the fundamental order of society, and univer- sally cultivated, in all the colonies north of the Potomac, ex- cept New York. Even in this province, into whose political being it had not entered as an element, as in the case of Penn- sylvania and New England, it flourished in considerable vi- gour and diffusion. Throughout New England, the first measure in the organization of the commonwealths, was to establish a system by which all should partake of religious worship and instruction. The representation which was made officially in 1680, to the Committee of Plantations, concerning the condition of Connecticut in this respect, ad- mits of being applied to the whole of New England. " Great care is taken of the instruction of the people of Connecti- cut in the Christian religion, by ministers catechising and preaching twice every Sabbath, and sometimes on lecture days ; and also by masters of families instructing and teach- ing their children and servants, which the law commands them to do. We have twenty-six to^vns and there are twenty-one churches in them, and in every one there is a settled minister." A mild, steady, sedulous piety, very little polemical or fanatical, distinguished the founders of Pennsylvania ; spread its purifying and quickening influence over the new settlers of every nation and sect, and gave a permanent complexion of efficacious faith to that province. New Jersey had risen under the same fortunate auspices, and wore a similar aspect. To the excellent religious character of Maryland, during the seventeenth century, even Chalmers bears tes- VOL. I.— I CHARACTER AND MERITS r I. timonyy in opposition to those who, out of a charitable abo- "^ mination ot the bare existence of Popery, and in order to persuade the Archbishop of Canterbury of the necessity of an estabhshed Protestant religion in the province, scrupled not to paint it as a " Sodom of uncleanness, and a pest house of iniquity."* Virginia was devoted to the Church of England ; supported a numerous clergy, upon a most liberal establish- ment; and in all her ecclesiastical arrangements, as they are detailed by the historian, Beverley,f manifested a lively and honest solicitude for the diffusion and decency of divine wor- ship. In her feelings on this head, Burk finds a satisfactory solution for her tenacious adherence to the royal cause. His observations are sufficiently remarkable to be copied. " The measures of the patriots in England, manifestly tended to a complete alteration, or rather abolition, of the forms and dis- cipline of that church, which the Virginians had been accus- tomed to revere ; and the Puritans, whom they held in abhor- rence, appeared as the principal agents in this scheme for the destruction of religion." " Tliis^ I apprehend, was the prin- cipal, if not the only motive for their new bom ardour, in fa- vour of royalty. Their political attachments were obviously on the other side ; and in the career of liberty and resistance, they had even anticipated and outstripped the Parliament. They had the same marked regard for their rights and privi- leges, as this illustrious body ; they resisted with equal ardour, and for a long time, with greater success, the encroachments and the insolence of the crown.":]: For the practical religion of Great Britain, during the se- venteenth century, I refer my readers to any the most national of her historians. In marking the furious, desolating fanati- cism of the Roundheads, Hume admits, that riot, disorder, and infidelity prevailed very much among the partisans of the church and monarchy. The mutual hatred and excitement of sects gave, he remarks, just reason to dread, at every moment, *' all the horrors of the ancient massacres and proscriptions."^ A state of faction and rebellion, of political and religious dis- sention, inflamed into sanguinary wars, was but little favour- able to morals, and necessarily produced a general taint, which would not soon, if ever, be completely expelled. Its effects are visible to us in the literary works which are in our hands, and which justify the observation of Hume, that, of all the * See Chalmers' Political Annals, chap. xv. f History of Virg-inia, from 1585 to 1780, b. iv. c. vii. k History of Virginia, vol. ii. c. ii. § History of England, chap. Ixii. OF THE COLONISTS. -considerable writers of the age of the two last Stuarts, *' Sir SE( William Temple is almost the only one who kept himself alto- ^•^' gather unpolluted by that inundation of vice and licentiousness which overwhelmed the nation.''''* The fidelity of the general picture drawn by the same master hand, has never been ques- tioned. " The people, during the reign of Charles II. and James II. were, in a great measure, cured of that wild fana- ticism, by which they had formerly been so much agitated. Whatever new vices they might acquire, it may be doubted, whether, by this change, they were, in the main, much losers in point of morals. By the example of the king and the cava- liers, licentiousness and debauchery became very prevalent in the nation. The pleasures of the table were much pursued. Love was treated rather as an appetite than a passion. The one sex began to abate of the national character of chastity, without being able to inspire the other with sentiment or deli- cacy. The abuses in the former age, arising from overstrain- fed pretensions of piety, had much propagated the spirit of ir- religion ; and many of the ingenious men of this period, lie under the imputation of Deism. The same factions which for- merly distraQted the nation were revived, and exerted them- selves in the most ungenerous and unmanly enterprises against each other."^ 10. The parliamentary party in England ostentatiously con- temned all human learning, and were wholly indifferent to the object of general education. The American colonists had scarcely opened the forests, and constructed habitations, when they bent their attention to that object. As early as 1637, only a few years after the landing at Plymouth, — the legislature of Massachusetts founded and endowed, for the ancient languages, and higher branches of learning, a college which began to con- fer degrees in 1642, and has since ripened into an university of the first class both in extent and usefulness. To this insti- tution, the plantations of Connecticut and New Haven, as long as they remained unable to support a similar one at home, contributed funds from their public purse, and sent such of their youth as they wished to be thoroughly educated.:}: * Ibid. chap. Ixxi. t Ibid. k " The Rev. W. Sheppard wrote, in 1644, to the commissioners of the .united colonies of New England, representing the necessity of further as- sistance for the support of scholars at Cambridge, wliose parents were needy, and desired them to encourage a general contribution through the colonies. The commissioners approved the motion ; andj for the encouragement of CHARACTER AND MERITS r !• It seems almost incredible, how much was accomplished in "**^ this way, in the very formation of the settlements. On the death of the first literary emigrants, natives of Massachusetts, taught in the province, were qualified to fill the void ; and not a few of the first alumni of Harvard College attained to consi- derable literary and political distinction in the mother countrj'. But what is chiefly remarkable, is the provision made for the education of the body of the people, then and in all future time. As a specimen of the arrangements common to the New England colonies, I will state those of Connecticut. By her first code of 1639, every town, consisting of fifty families, was obliged by the laws, to maintain a good school, in which reading and writing should be well taught ; and in every coun- try town a good grammar school was instituted. Large tracts of land were given and appropriated by the legislature, to af- ford them a permanent support. The selectmen of every town were obliged by law to take care that all the heads of families should instruct their children and servants to read the English tongue well. We have read a very eloquent speech of Mr. Brougham, on the education of the Poor, pronounced in the British House of Commons (May, 1818,) in which he lavishes compliments and congratulations upon Scotland, for her system of parish schools. He declares, that the attention which she had be- stowed, in early times, upon the subject of national education, refliected immortal honour upon her inhabitants, and that it had given them the most enviable characteristics, as well as the happiest fortunes. It was only, however, as he correctly states, in 1696, that the scheme of extending the means of instruc- tion to the poorer classes, was rendered effectual, by what he styles " one of the last and best acts of the Scottish Parlia- ment," — " a law justly named among the most precious lega- cies which it bequeathed to its countr5.%" If the merit and the felicity of Scotland on this score, be so great, how is not New England exalted and blessed! — where, in the midst of dangers and labours the most arduous in which a community of men could be involved, the system so justly commended by the Bri- tish orator, was earlier, and has been, I can venture to assert, more uniformly and completely carried into effect. literature, recommended it to the general courts in the respective colonies, to take it into their consideration, and to give it general encouragement. The general courts adopted the recommendation, and contributions of grain and provisions were annually made, throughout the united colonies, for the charitable end proposed."— Trumbull's History of Con. vol. i. ch. viii. OF THE COLONISTS. The outcasts of England, in the first part of the seventeenth SEC century, brought hither with them, that sense of the importance '-^^ and beauty of national education, which their descendants have constantly cherished, and to which England herself, with all her boasted illumination, is now only and reluctantly come. It is but lately, that her government and her politicians re- garded and treated the universal diffusion of knowledge, — ^the instruction of the lower classes, particularly — as a critical, not to say pernicious theory. " About eleven years ago," said Mr. Brougham, in the speech to which I have referred, " Mr» Whitbread broached the subject of the education of the poor. His benevolent views met with great opposition. He had strong prejudices to encounter even in men of high character and ta- lents. It is melancholy and even humiliating to reflect that Mr. Wyndham, himself the model of a finely educated man, should have stood forward as the active opponent of national education. He was followed by persons who, with the servile zeal of imitators, outstripped their master, and maintained, that if you taught ploughmen and mechanics to read, they would thenceforward disdain to work."* 11. In partitioning the vast region of North America among i mercantile companies and rapacious courtiers, the monarchs of England were wholly unmindful of the interests of the abo- rigines. The soil was granted, as though the Indians had no claim or want, distinct from those of the wild beast ; and if the settlers had placed them on the same footing, expelled them alike from their lairs, and hunted them together to destruc- tion, they might have pleaded the tacit warrant of the mother country. But they acted in a very different spirit from that in which the royal patents were framed; — they purchased with their own estates, the supposed title of the natives. Almost every foot of territory occupied by the whites in New Eng- land, at the distance of many years from the formation of their communities, and until wars of extermination were commenced against them by the Indians, was thus acquired. Abundant and well merited honour has been paid to Penn, for his conscientious dealings in this respect. As much is due, * " Nobody can have forgotten the murmurs and dissonant clamours, with which the first proposal for communicating- the blessings of education to the great body of the people was lately received." — Edinburgh Review, 1814. " We well remember, when all attempts to educate the lower classes, were at once clamoured down by the real or pretended apprehensions, that such education would disturb the order of society, and would only render the poor discontented and impatient." — Bell's Weekly Messenger, Decem- ber, 1818. CHARACTER AND MERITS pr I. however, to the founders of the New England colonies ; to ■-^^ those of Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina. The Plymouth colony in 1621, and that of Massachusetts in 1629; in 1633, Calvert and his band of Roman Catholics; and Ro- ger Williams and his associates, in 1634, set the example of that Christian course, which is so properly admired and ex- tolled in Penn. " To lay a foundation for a firm and lasting friendship," says Dummer, after the historians, " they called assemblies of the Indians, to inquire who had a right to dis- pose of their lands, and being told that it was their sachems or princes, they thereupon agreed with them for what districts they bought, publicly, and in open market." It became, finally, in all the settlements undertaken by the great proprietors, a fundamental principle, that territory was to be purchased from the aborigines ; and this principle did not spring from the plantation office at Whitehall, but was rendered necessary to the interests of the proprietors by the example just mentioned, and the dispositions of the settlers. The civilization and conversion of the Indians early shared the attention and the resources of the middle and northern co- lonists, and of the southern planters also, though in a less de- gree.* In 1646, the general court of Massachusetts passed an act to encourage the propagation of the gospel among the natives, and associations of clergymen were formed for the purpose, under its auspices. The work was then prosecuted with apostolical ardour and devotion, — upon the true maxim in the case — that ** the Indians must be civilized, in order to being christianized." The attention of the English nation was not excited to the subject, until accounts were published in England, of the remarkable progress of the New England missionaries. In 1649, Winslow, the agent of the united co- lonies, at the British court, extorted from the parliament, by pressing instances and glowing exhortations, an act, which in- corporated a society for the benefit of the " poor heathens," and which recommended to the good people of England and Wales to contribute to its pious objects by a general collection, inasmuch as the " New England people had exhausted their estates in laying the foundations of many hopeful towns and colonies in a desolate wilderness." * See Dummer's Defence of the Charters : and Burk's History of Vir^^i- nia, vol. ii, chap. ii. The regulations of the assembly of Virginia, in 1654, were replete with humanity as well as good sense. Here, as well as in New England, to preserve the Indians from being overreached, all persons were forbidden to purchase land from them, without the approbation of the as- sembly. OF THE COLONISTS. Although letters were published besides, at the solicitation SEC of the American agents, from the two universities of Oxford ^^^' and Cambridge, calling upon the ministers of Britain to stir up their congregations to the promotion of so glorious an under- taking, yet, according to Hutchinson, great opposition was expressed to the collection in England; and it went on so slowly that an attempt was made to raise a sum out of the army."* This, too, yielded but a poor harvest. The evangeli- cal charity of England and Wales kindled, however, as the fame of the New England missions increased, and at length, on the accession of Charles II., the society, incorporated in 1649, found itself in possession of six or seven hundred pounds a year. But as this income arose out of an act of the Com7non- xvealth-parlmment^ it was in danger of being confiscated by the crown, and was saved at last, only through the interest which some of the patrons of the institution happened to possess at court. This fund was committed to some of the old magistrates and ministers of New England, and the historians concur in the allegation, that never was one of the nature more faithfully ap- plied. Notwithstanding, it was near being wrested from them, in the time of James II., and transferred to much less scrupu- lous custody, by authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. Meantime the assemblies of New England allotted tracts of land to such Indians as were likely to become Christians; supplied them with building materials and household utensils; and assisted in ever}'^ way, the unremitting efforts of the mis- sionary societies. The bible was translated into the language of the natives, and published in 1661. Schools were opened in the Indian settlements; the children taught to read; and such of these as displayed capacity^ placed in the grammar schools of the colonists, and even of the university at Cambridge. To furnish some idea of what was accomplished, I will extract one or two short passages on the subject, from Hutchinson. " In 1660, there were ten Indian towns of such as were called " Praying Indians, in Massachusetts. — In 1687, as appears by " a letter of Dr. Increase Mather, there were four Indian as- " semblies in that province, besides the principal church at " Natick. In Plymouth, besides the principal church at " Mashpee, there were five assemblies in that vicinity, and a " large congregation at Saconet. There were also six different *' societies, probably but small, with an Indian teacher to each, " between the last mentioned and Cape Cod; one church at " Nantucket, and three at Martha's Vineyai*d. There were '' in all six assemblies formed into a church state, having offi- * Vol. i. ciiap, i. CHARACTER AND MERITS T I. " cers, and the ordinances duly administered, and sixteen as- -""*^ " semblies which met together for the worship of God."* On these heads, of the occupation of the soil and the treat- ment of the Indians — our forefathers have the good fortune to be defended in the two works, to which the defamation of the American character may be said to have been specially allot- ted : I mean the Annals of Chalmers and the Quarterly Review. There is so much solidity, and, what is still more rare, so much liberality, in their observations, that I may be excused for ti-anscribing them at length. ♦' Man," says Chalmers, "having a right to the world from the gift of the beneficent Creator, must possess and use the general estate according to the erant, which commanded him to multiply and to subsist by labour: and lit- tle would the earth have been peopled or cultivated, had men continued to live by hunting or fishing, or the mere productions of nature. The roving of the erratic tribes over wide extended deserts, does not form a possession which excludes the subsequent occupancy of emigrants from countries over- stocked with inhabitants. The paucity of their numbers, and their mode of life, render them unable to fulfil the great purposes of the grant. Consist- ent, therefore, with the great charter to mankind, they may be confined within certain hmits. Their rights to the privileges of men, nevertheless, continue the same. And the colonists, who conciliated the affections of the aborigines, and gave a consideration for their territory, have acquired the praise due to humanity and justice."! " As for the usurpation of territory from the natives, by the American states, he must be," says the Quarterly Review,i: " a feeble moralist, who regards that as an evil : the same principle upon which that usurpation is condemned, would lead to the nonsensical opinion of the Bramins, that agri- culture is an unrighteous employment, because worms must sometimes be cut by the ploughshare and the spade. It is the order of nature, that beasts should give place to man, and among men the savage to the civilized; and no where has this order been carried into effect with so little violence as in North America. Sir Thomas Moore admits it to be a justifiable cause of war, even in Utopia, if a people, who have territory to spare, will not cede It to those who are in want of room. The Quakers of Pennsylvania have proved the practicability of a more perfect system than he had imagined, and the treaty which the excellent founder of the province made with the Indians, has never been broken. If the conduct of the other states towards the natives be fairly examined, there will be found a great aggregate of in- dividual wickedness on the part of the traders and back-settlers, but little which can be considered as national guilt. They have never been divided among the colonists like cerfs; they have never been consumed in mines nor in indigo works; they have never been hunted down for slaves, nor has war ever been made upon them for the purpose of conquest, though the in- fernal cruelties which they exercise upon their prisoners might excuse and almost justify a war of extermination." * For the evangelical labours generally of the Anglo-Americans among the Indians, see the first volume oi' a late English work, entitled, " History of the Propagation of Christianity among the Heathen, since the Reforma- tion, by the Rev. William Brown." — 2 vols. London. See, also, 1st vol. Mass. Hist. Collections, for an ample account, by Daniel Gookin, general superin • tendant of all the Indians, &c. (1664.) t Book I. i No. 4. OF THE COLONISTS. 12. — The physical economy of the. settlements kept pace SE' with the moral, and is not less the subject of admiration with ^^^ a few of the more liberal among the English writers. Of this description are the authors of the Modern Universal History, whose account of the North American Colonies is among the best parts of their useful work. In tracing the early progress of Pennsylvania, they dwell with complacency upon " the stu- pendous prosperity of a commonwealth so lately planted, and so flourishing by pacific measures." When they have brought the history of New England down to the treaty of Utrecht, (1713,) they speak thus of her condition. " The inhabitants of New England, at the peace of Utrecht, to their native love of liberty, added now the polite arts of life; industry was embellished by elegance; and what would be hardly credible in ancient Greece and Rome, in less than fourscore years, a colony almost unassisted by its mother coun^ • try^ arose in the wilds of America, that if transplanted to Eu- rope, and rendered an independent government, would have made no mean figure amidst her sovereign states."* If we ascend with the same accurate reporters to an earlier period in the career of the people of New England, we shall be no less edified. . " In 1642, the number of English capable to bear arms 4n New England, were computed to be between 7 or 8000. At this time 50 towns and villages were planted, above 40 ministers had houses, and public works of all kinds were erected at public expense. All this could not have been done but through the almost incredible industry of the inhabitants, which had by this time rendered their country a near resem- blance of England. Fields were hedged in; gardens, orchards, meadows, and pasture grounds were laid out, and all the im- provements of husbandry took place, particularly the sowing of corn and feeding of cattle. As to the commercial part of the inhabitants, they shipped off vast quantities of fish for Portugal, and the Straits; besides supplying other places; England particularly, Scotland and Ireland. They exported bread and beef to the sugar islands, with oil and lumber of all kinds, some of which they sent to the mother country; and what is still more surprising, they carried on a great trade in ship building."! Some of the features in the physical condition of the Colo- nies, noted in the Ofiicial Reports which were made on the subject to Charles II. must have excited either incredulity or * Vol. xxxix. t ^•'i'i- Vol. I.— K CHARACTER AND MERITS, &.C. iT I. envy in his disquiet council. " We leave every man," said the *-^ Governor of Rhode Island, " to walk in religion as God shall persuade his heart; and as for beggars and vagabonds, we have none among us." " The worst cottages of New Eng- land," said another inspector, " are lofted: there are no beg- gars, and not three persons are put to death annually for civil offences." This representation would have been equally true of the middle colonies. I will not place by the side of it the cotemporary condition of Ireland, under the immediate domi- nion of Britain, when the spectacle of what exists there at the present day is too hideous to be endured by the imagina- tion. But it may be well to furnish a trifling specimen of the state of some of the agricultural districts of England ; and this shall be drawn from the journal of the faithful Evelyn. " August 2, 1664. — Went to Uppingham, the shire toAvn of Rutland; pretty, and well built of stone, which is a rarity in that part of England, where most of the rural villages are built of mud, and the people living as wretchedly as the most impoverished parts of France, which they much resemble, being idle and sluttish. The country (especially Leicester- shire) much in common; the gentry free drinkers." " August 14, 1664. — Lay at Nottingham. Here I ob- served divers to live in the rocks and caves," &c.* Memoirs, vol. i. la SECTION IIL OF THE DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED BY THE COLONISTS. 1. The cheering scene which the provinces thus exhi- SEC bited in the beginning of the eighteenth century; the maturity ^"^ and stability of their institutions ; the sedateness, humanity^ and piety of their character, are rendered the more creditable and remarkable, by the disadvantages and difficulties of vari- ous kinds with which they had to contend. It may be said of them, without exaggeration, that they were the associations of men, — of all that have existed of civilized origin, — in whom a backwardness in the arrangements and improvements which constitute the dignity and comfort of social life ; a total neglect of the higher arts of civilization, and the pursuits of philan- thropy ; a fierce, relentless, and even ruthless character, would have been most natural and excusable. It was their peculiar lot, at one and the same time, to clear and cultivate a wilder- ness; to erect habitations and procure sustenance; to struggle with a new and rigorous climate ; to bear up against all the bitter recollections inseparable from distant and lonely exile; to defend their liberties from the jealous tyranny and bigotry of the mother country ; to be perpetually assailed by a savage foe, " the most subtle and the most formidable of any people on the face of the earth"* — a foe that made war the main business of life, and waged it with forms and barbarities un- known to the experience, and superlatively terrible to the ima- gination, of a European. The general situation of the first emigrants in the midst of a wilderness, and surrounded by an enemy of this description, can be imaged without difficulty, and does not require to be described for those to whom our common histories are familiar. The pictures drawn therein have been realized in part before our eyes, in the settlement of our western wilds. I say in part, because, although the immediate labours and dangers may have been, in some of the modern instances, as great, yet, the distressing, paralyzing influences for the mind, the duration of * Colonel Ban-e, in the House of Commons. DIFFICULTIES SURMOU.NTED r I. the principal ills, and the obstacles in the way of ultimate ■^^ success, appear much less in the comparison. The Annals of Chalmers, Stith's History of Virginia, and Trumbull's Con- necticut, furnish a pai'ticularly striking and full detail of those circumstances of original adversity common to most of the colonies, which justify any warmth of encomium on their fortitude, or of admiration at their progress. Well might Lord Chatham exclaim, in 1774, " viewing our fellow sub- jects in America, in their original forlorn, and now flour- ishing state, they may be cited as illustrious instances to in- struct the world — what great exertions mankind will make, when left to the free exercise of their own powers." Hav- ing before me the accounts of the historians just mentioned, and present to my mind the various obstacles upon which I am about to touch, I am filled with new wonder at the re- sults sketched in my last section. I feel with additional force, the justice of the beautiful commemoration, which the contemplation of them drew from Mr. Burke, in 1764, and which that bright intelligence uttered, not merely as an orator ambitious of the meed of eloquence, but as a philoso- pher attentive to the ordinary march of human affairs, and the ordinary efficacy of human powers. " Nothing in the history of mankind," said he, " is like the progress of the American Colonies. For my part, I never cast an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their cultivated and commo- dious life, but they seem to me rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate events, and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday; than a set of miser- able outcasts, a few years ago, not so much sent as thrown out, on the bleak and barren shore of a desolate wilderness, three thousand miles from all civilized intercourse."* 2. It is conceded by the historians of every party, that as far as the mother country was able, in the confusion of her domestic affairs, or condescended, in the plenitude of her greatness, to bend her attention to the colonies, she pursued j towards them until the revolution of 1688 at least, a course of direct oppression. The administration of the chartered companies, of the proprietary governors in general, and of the councils and executive representatives of the Stuarts, is ac- knowledged on all hands, to have been burdensome and mis- chievous. f So far from promoting, it tended to impede the * Speech on American Taxation. f See particularly Chalmers — passim. BY THE COLONISTS. growth, and break the spirit of the plantations. It was not, SE( therefore, by favour, but in spite of their political connexion ^'^^ with Great Britain, that they preserved their liberties, and became what they were at the end of the seventeenth century. The condition of the Carolinas, of New York, and New Jer- sey, under the proprietary rule, — of Virginia in the hands of the London company, and of the Stuart governors, — of this province and Maryland, when in the gripe of the Common- wealth, — of New Hampshire in that of Mason's agents, and of New England at large during the vice-royalty of Andros, — are sufficiently known to all who have read our annals. As soon as the long parliament was settled, it manifested a determination to assert and exercise an unlimited authority in the colonies; and by its act of navigation, and other regu- lations conceived in the same spirit, threw over them a set of fetters which did not cripple them entirely, only because they were loosely worn, and sometimes laid aside altogether, in defiance of the peering jealousy of the metropolitan govern- ment. The community of religious opinion, — the great bond of union in those days — and a marked predilection for the cause of the Parliament, obtained for New England, no real concession or substantial favour — no legal exemption from the navigation act. She escaped its full pressure, not by the par- tiality of Cromwell, as has been asserted, but by her own sturdy resolution to be free. Chalmers relates, in an angry tone, that she foiled the Parliament, and outwitted the Pro- tector, whom, in fact, while she addressed him in terms of obeisance, she always cautiously avoided to acknowledge in form. Virginia refused to receive the navigation act of 1661, and was liable by her devotion to the royal side, to the particular displeasure of the Commonwealth: But we may cite, as a sample of the prevailing temper of mind in Eng- land, with regard to all the colonies, the instruction given to the fleet which the Parliament despatched, for the reduction of that province, " to employ every act of hostility" in case of refractoriness — " to set free such servants and slaves of masters who should oppose the parliamentary government, as would serve as soldiers to subdue them"* — a parental expe- dient, shewing the antiquity of the feeling, which prompted the observation of Governor Littleton in the debate of the British Parliament of the 26th of October, 1775 — " that if a few regiments were sent to the southern colonies of America, the negroes would rise and embrue their hands in the blood of their masters." ■ r ■ • * Chalmers, c. v. Annals. DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED T I. The courageous loyalty of Virginia, although acknowledged i"^ and applauded on the restoration, turned still less to her ad- vantage than the republicanism of New England. A scheme of restriction and a train of measures, more prejudicial and galling than those of Cromwell, were pursued by Charles II. and his successor, towards those who boasted with truth " that they were the last of the King's subjects who renounced, and the first who resumed their allegiance." " With the restoration," says Chalmers, " began a series of evils which long afflicted, and well nigh i-uined the plantation of Virginia." One of these evils was, the distribution among certain favourite ad- herents of Charles II. in England, of a large portion of the soil, including cultivated estates, held by every right which could vest indefeasible property. " Virginia," says the writer whom I have just quoted, "beheld the Northern Neck^ con- taining one half of the whole, given away to strangers, who had shared neither the danger nor expenses of the original settlement."* A spoliation no less iniquitous was attempted, and partly accomplished by Andros, in 1688, in New England. There, on the lawless abolition of all the charters, a declaration followed, that the titles of the colonists to their lands had become void in consequence. By this monstrous fiction of tyranny, the oldest proprietors were summoned to take out, at a heavy cost, new patents for estates acquired by pur- chase from the Indians; possessed for near sixty years; de- fended against the inroads of a barbarous enemy, at the hazard of life, and improved with incessant toil and immense expense. Hutchinson remarks,! that according to the com- putation then made, all the personal estate of Massachusetts would not have paid the charge of the new patents required in that colony. A scheme of despotism and rapine so exorbitant, could not be long prosecuted with a people that had made such sacrifices for freedom, and had lost nothing of their pristine fervor. It was quickly terminated by the popular insurrec- tion at Boston, already noticed, which deposed all its abettors, and extinguished the government of James in New England. — What is called the rebellion of Bacon, in the annals of Virginia, sprung from grievances of equal injustice, and wanted, I am inclined to think, nothing but ultimate success, to make it, in the estimation of all, equally noble with the bold and charac- teristic movement of Massachusetts.:}: * Annals, ch. iv. f Vol. i. c. iii. # This opinion is fully sustained by Burk's narrative of Bacon's rebel- lion. — See vol. ii, ch. iv. History of Virginia. BY THE COLONISTS. o. All the thirteen colonies, with the exception of Georgia, SEC were established and had attained to considerable strength, ^-^^ without the slightest aid from the treasury of the mother coun- j try. Whatever was expended in the acquisition of territory from the Indians, proceeded from the private resources of the Eui'opean adventurers. Neither the crown, nor the parlia- ment of England, made any compensation to the original mas- ters of the soil, or could lay claim to a share in the creation of the rich stock and fair landscape, which so soon bore testimo- ny to the industry and intelligence of the planters. The set- tlement of the province of Massachusetts Bay alone, cost ^200,000 — an enormous sum at the era in which it was effect- ed. Lord Baltimore expended ^40,000 for his contingent in the establishment of his colony in Maryland : on that of Vir- ginia immense wealth was lavished; and we are told by Trum- bull, that the first planters of Connecticut consumed great es- states in purchasing lands from the Indians, and making settle- ments, in that province, besides large sums in the purchase of their patents, and the right of pre-emption. Within a few years after their debarkation, the settlers of Virginia, of New England, and of the Carolinas, were as- sailed by warlike tribes, decuple their number, and furious- ly bent on their destruction. But the mother country extended no succour to them in these contests ;* she furnished neither troops nor money ; built no fortifications ; entered into no ne- gociations for them; she manifested little sympathy or inter- est in the fate of her offspring. The sense of extreme danger, and the despair of aid from abroad, gave birth, in 1643, in New England, to the confederacy which I have already no- ticed, and without which, in all probability, the colonies of that region would have been either extirpated, or miserably crippled. Some of the most considerable of the Indian wars were immediately brought upon them by the rashness and cupidity of the royal governors. That, for instance, which is styled king William's war, — memorable in the annals of New Hampshire particularly — was owing to a wanton, pre- * This, and the facts stated in the preceding paragraph, were acknow- ledged in acts of parliament, and repeatedly asserted to the British govern- ment by the colonists, in their petitions, before as well as during the eigh- teenth century. Franklin told the House of Commons, in 1766, on his ex- amination — " The Americans defended themselves when they were but a handful, and the Indians much more numerous. They continually gained ground, and drove the Indians over the mountains, without any troops sent to their assistance from Great Britain." The number of Indian warriors in New England on the arrival of the first settlers, has been computed at eigh' teen thousand. DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED tTl. datory expedition of Andros, in 1688, against the possessions ""^^ of a French individual, situate between Penobscot and Nova Scotia. vl It is a remarkable trait in the history of the New England settlers, that they did not seek, and appear to have been even unwilling to receive assistance from the mother country. The magnanimity of these jealous exiles is placed in full contrast with the selfishness of the British Court, by the letter of re- proof for their backwardness in solicitation, of the date of 1676, from the earl of Anglesey, which Hutchinson has co- pied into his history.* " I received your letter," said the royal privy-councillor to the governor of Massachusetts, " in- timating the troubles unexpectedly brought upon you by the Indians. I must chide you, and that whole people of New England, that (as if you were independent of my master's crown, needed not his protection, or had deserved ill of him, as some have not been wanting to suggest, and use testimony thereof,) from the first hour of God's stretching his hand against you to this time, you have not as yet, as certainly be- came you, made your addresses to the king's majesty, or some of his ministers, &c. I can write but by guess ; yet it is not altogether groundlessly reported, that you are too tenacious of what is necessary for your preservation ; — that you are poor^ and yet proud. I know his majesty hath power sufficient as well as will, to help his colonies in distress, as others have experienced, and you niay in good time. He can send ships to help you, &c. and there are many who will not only be inter- cessors to the throne of grace, but to God^s vicegerent also, if you are not wanting to yourselves, and failing in that dutiful application which subjects ought to make to their sovereigns in such cases." Another striking illustration of the comparative dispositions of the parties, is afforded in the fact, which we have upon the authority of Hutchinson, f — 'that the collections made in the co- lony of Massachusetts for the relief of the sufferers by the great fire in London, and on other occasions of foreign cala- mity, at least equalled the whole sum bestowed upon her from abroad, from the first settlement to the abrogation of her char- ter by James II. While the people of New England were providing for their own safety, with consummate judgment, and performing pro- digies of valour in innumerable rencounters with the enemy, they had not even the consolation of escaping the reproach * Vol. i. chap. ii. f IbidLt BY THE COLONISTS. of pusillanimity, from the mother country. The court of James SEC JI. besides withholding assistance, on the pretext that it was ^-^^ not implored, taxed them with xuantmg- hearts to make use of their means of defence. A part of the nation concurred in this injustice ; which, even at this distance of time, causes the breast to swell with indignation, when the bold expeditions of these colonists, the prodigal effusion of their blood, and the hardships of their warfare, are passed in review. This emo- tion is not allayed, as we read, in descending through their history, that on the occasion of the bill, introduced into the British Parliament, in 1715, for the destruction of all the char- ter governments, the first of the charges brought against them was, "the having neglected the defence of the inhabitants!" To convey an idea of the severity and destructiveness of the hostilities to which they were constantly exposed, I will tran- scribe from the Annals of Holmes, the summary which he makes, of the evils of the war waged by the New England Confederacy, in 1675, with Philip, sachem of the Wampa- noags. " In this short, but tremendous war, about six hun- dred of the inhabitants of New England, composing its princi- pal strength, were either killed in battle, or murdered by the enemy ; twelve or thirteen towns were entirely destroyed ; and about six hundred buildings, chiefly dwelling houses, were burnt. In addition to these calamities, the colonies contracted an enormous debt." Hutchinson states, that " the accounts which were transmitted to England, of the distresses of the province of Massachusetts Bay during this contest, although they might excite compas- sion in the breasts of some^ yet were improved by others, to render the colonies more obnoxious."* In fact, in the very height of the calamity — at the moment when New England was putting forth all her strength for the retention of the soil, — the merchants and manufacturers of the mother country were clamorous, and the committee of plantations tasked, for measures of rigour against her, on the ground that her " inha- bitants had encouraged foreigners to traffic with them, and supplied the other plantations with those foreign productions which ought only to have been sent to England." While the earth was yet reeking with the carnage of the six hun- dred brave yeomen, and the smoke still issued from the ruins of the six hundred dwellings, a general scheme of oppression and disfranchisement was projected at the British Court. It .prescribed, without delay, that no Mediterranean passes * Vol. i. c. Vol. I.— L DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED E^T I. should be granted to New England, to protect her vessels "•"^ agahist the Turks^ till it was seen what dependence she would acknowledge on his Britannic majesty, and whether his cus- tom houses would be received." Most of the colonies had to subdue, and nearly to extermi- nate, in the outset, fierce and populous nations, aiming, within their bosom, at their utter destruction. Almost every indivi- dual of the settlers became a soldier, and was kept perpetually on the alert : the musket accompanied the plough, and the em- ployment of these may be said to have been unremittingly al- ternate. It is not too much to affirm, that there was more of military effort and suffering on the part of New England, for the first half century of her history, than among any equal number of the civilized inhabitants of Europe within the same period. The colonists did not merely await, and repel with great slaughter, the assaults of their indefatigable enemy; they marched to their head quarters; attacked them in their fortifications, and pursued them through all their recesses. To campaigns of wasting hardship and sanguinary, strife, were added general massacres, prepared by the Indians, with the ut- most refinement of dissimulation, during the intervals of their professed submission. We are told by Dummer, that, in his time, (1715,) many in England, who were unable to deny that the colonists had defended themselves, without being burdensome to the crown, " endeavoured to depreciate their conquests, as gained over a rude and barbarous people, un- exercised to arms." The general reply of the eloquent ad- vocate, on this head, contains a true representation of the case, and teaches us a solemn duty. " If it be considered, '' that the New England forces contended with enemies " bloody in their nature and superior in number, that they " followed them in deep morasses; that the assailants were " not provided with cannon, nor could approach by trenches, " but advanced on level ground : and if to this be added, the " vast fatigues of their campaigns, where officers and soldiers '' lay on the snow, without any shelter over their heads, in " the most rigorous winters; I say, if a just consideration be " had of these things, envy itself must acknowledge that their " enterprises were hardy and their successes glorious. And *' though the brave commanders who led on these troops — and " most of them died in the bed of honour, must not shine in *' the British annals^ yet their memory ought to be sacred " in their own country^ and there at least be transmitted to the -" latest posterity."* * Defence of the Charters. BY THE COLONISTS. 3. At the period of the accession of William to the British SEC throne, this scourge of a savage foe no longer existed in the '^^^ heart of the settlements; but obstacles to civil labour, and i causes of inordinate mortality, of the same kind, were even multiplied. From the year 1690, to the peace of Paris, in 1763, the colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia, were engaged in almost unremitting hostilities with the aborigines on their borders. Their whole western frontier was a scene of havoc and desolation. After the establishment of the French at Fort Du Quesne, in 1754, the tribes of the Ohio assailed and laid waste the western settlements of the middle provinces ; and it is calculated that the colonies lost altogether by war, not less than twenty thousand adults, in the interval from that period to the peace of 1763. About the year 1690, the French in the north, and the Spaniards in the south, began to act as the instigators and auxiliaries of the savages, and continued for seventy-three years to be the springs of infinite distress and mischief to the Anglo-Americans. Their enmity was occasioned by the connexion of the latter with Great Britain; and their hostilities arose directly, and date exactly, from her quarrels with France. It is doubtful whether, if that connexion had not existed, they would have molested their neighbours. In 1644, the season of the total dereliction of the British pro- vinces by the mother country, a formal treaty of amity was concluded between the French of Acadie, and the commis- sioners of the united colonies of New England. The French of Canada sent an agent, in 1647, to solicit aid from Massa- chusetts against the Mohawks ; which was refused from an un- willingness to assist in removing, what might serve as a barrier between the English and French colonies, in case of a rupture between the mother countries. A year after, when it was proposed by New England, to the governor and council of Canada, that the parties should contract an engagement to maintain perpetual peace, whatever might be the relations of the parent states, the French entered with alacrity into a ne- gotiation for the purpose. It failed only because they required the English colonists to aid them against the Iroquois ; and they renewed it themselves by plenipotentiaries, at a short interval of time, without success.* These facts warrant the supposi- tion, that, but for their allegiance to the British crown, the provinces would have been able to avert the animosities which proved their severest affliction, and even, perhaps, to make auxiliaries of the French and Spanish dependencies. It seems, * Universal History, vol. xxxix. p. 448. DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED f I- moreover, upon an attentive review of the history of France, "^ during the seventeenth century, almost certain, that she would not herself have attempted, in that period, to arrest their pro- gress : Afterwards, they might have defied her power. They could, at all events, hold the mother country re- sponsible for the long train of ills, which they suffered from the neighbourhood of the French, by referring to the treaty of 1632, between Charles I. and Louis XIII. On this occasion, Charles restored to France, absolutely and without demarca- tion of limits, " all the places possessed by the English in New France, Lacadie, and Canada, particularly Port Royal, Quebec, and Cape Breton." An officer, in the British service. Sir David Kirk, had, under a commission from the crown, made himself master of Quebec, in 1628, during the war between England and France. " To this fatal treaty," says a British writer,"* " may be truly ascribed all the disputes we have had " ever since with France, concerning North America; our " king and his ministers being sadly outwitted by Richlieu's *' superior dexterity. The three places delivered up to France " were not, it is true, thought of the same importance then, as " they are since found to be ; yet it was very obvious, even then, '■'■ to any considerate observer, that as those French colonies " should increase in people and commerce, those places would " be of the utmost importance to France, and very dangerous " to England; but more especially, our parting with Port " Royal and Cape Breton is never to be excused, as the pos- " session of them by the French gave them a fair pretext for " settling on the south side of the river St. Lawrence, and " thereby claiming the rest of Nova Scotia bordering on New " England; whereas, had the French been strictly confined to " their original settlements on the north side of that river, the *' country is so bad and the trade thereof so indifferent, that " before now they would probably have quite abandoned them." 4. At a very early period, the mother country cast the re- \ proach which she has constantly repeated, against the colo- ^ nists, of provoking the Indian wars, and acquiring the domi- nion of the Indian territory by fraud as well as force. Bum- mer's Defence of the Charters, written at the commencement of the last century, treats of this " unworthy aspersion," as the honest author styles it, and as he proves it to be by unanswer- able suggestions. With respect to New England particularly, * Macpherson's Annals, vol. ii. p. 372. Chalmers holds nearly the same language. BY THE COLONISTS. what he asserts is susceptible of abundant evidence — that " she SEC sought to gain the natives by strict justice in her dealings with **.^ them, as well as by all the endearments of kindness and huma- nity;" that " she did not commence hostilities, nor even take up arms of defence, until she found by experience that no other means would prevail" — and, " that nothing could oblige the Indians to peace and friendship, after they conceived a jealousy of the growing powers of the English." The congress of the New England league was particularly authorized, to prescribe rules for the conduct of the colonists towards the natives ; and its legislation on this head, was tempered with as much for- bearance and mercy, as a due regard for self-preservation would possibly admit. So rigid were its enactments against private violence, and so strict was the execution of them, that we have an instance of three settlers being put to death at the same time, for the murder of a single Indian. The New England colonies, far from being exasperated, as was natural, by the desperate and harassing nature of their struggle with the aborigines, into an obdurate resentment and mortal hate against the whole race, exerted, as I have already had occasion to state, unbounded zeal and generosity in improving the condition, and refining the character, of that portion of them whom they were able to propitiate. I believe the other provinces, to whom the British charge was extended, and who have been more particularly the object of it in recent times, to be capable of vindication ; and I am convinced, that the American writers who have maintained the contrary doctrine, have either suffered themselves to be hoodwinked by prejudice, or have not traced our Indian rela- tions in the detail requisite for the formation of a sound opi- nion. But if the point were not determinable by history, we . might at once infer from the general aims and obvious interests, the weakness and the wants, of the early colonists, that they were not the aggressors in the Indian wars. Be this, for the pre- sent, as it may, it cannot be denied, that after hostilities had be- gun to rage ; after the savage had been roused to distrust and vengeance — the case of the settlers was one of the most absolute self defence — of extreme necessity. In the contest which I have noticed, between Philip and New England, and in the similar struggles in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, the very existence of these provinces, respectively, was at stake, and often in suspense. Those English writers who so loudly inveigh against the North American colonies for their treat- ment of the Indians, may be defied to detect in their annals, an expedient for the destruction of their inveterate enemy, like DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED I- that of the employment of the Spanish bloodhounds in Jamaica, ^^ to subdue the Maroon negroes, in the year 1730, and again to- wards the close of the eighteenth century. Certainly, there is no argument urged by Dallas* or Bryan Edwards, to justify the recourse, on the part of the government of that island, to such fell auxiliaries, which would not have been available for the people of New England; which might not, indeed, receive additional force from their situation. f The pride of manhood,:{: the innate sympathies of kind, and the influence of religion, with the hardy and virtuous Puritans, must have rendered it impossible for them to imitate, while they professed to abhor, the worst of the atrocities practised by the Spaniards on the aborigines of the West Indies.^ But, in order to convict" the accusers, of a guilt of inhuma- nity far deeper than any with which they have ventured to charge their " kinsmen of America," it is not necessary tO' refer to their alliance, in Jamaica, with the Spanish chasseurs, or to their military administration in Hindostan. I would challenge the closest scrutiny into our history, for a parallel to the measure which the British commanders adopted, after the reduction of Nova Scotia, in 1755, of transplanting, and dis- persing through the British colonies, the French inhabitants of that province. This is a transaction in which the point at issue was, not existence, but the more easy retention of a con- quest; in which the victims were, not blood-thirsty and un- tameable savages, or ferocious banditti, who had aimed at the extermination, and whose presence seemed incompatible with the safety, of the conquerors ;— but " a mild, frugal, industrious, pious people," of whom only a few had committed any oifence, and who, generally, could be taxed with no more, than having indirectly favoured the cause, and preferred the dominion, of their own nation. It has always appeared to me, that the reason of state was never more cheaply urged, or more odiously * History of the Maroons, by R. C. Dallas, vol. ii. letters ix.and x. History of the West Indies, by Bryan Edwards, Appendix to Book H. f The Edinburgh Review, (No. 4,) in condemning the proceedings of the Jamaica government, remarks, " If, by our o-wn policy, -we have filled our colo- lonies ivith barbarians, let us not aggravate the original crime," &c. The American colonists did not originally fill the country which they acquired, with the barbarians whom they expelled ; they did not even, for the most part, intrude upon them voluntarily ; but were driven by the lash of domestic tyrants. i " Some gentlemen," says Bryan Edwards, " even thought that the co- operation of dogs with British troops, would give not only a cruel, but also a very dastardly complexion to the proceedings of government." § See Note E. BY THE COLONISTS. triumphant, than on this occasion ; that no proceeding, in re- SEC lation to the Indians, for which we have been rebuked by the '■•^^ British, either before or since our independence, could, by any ingenuity or eloquence, be made to wear an aspect of so much wantonness and barbarity, as the case of the French neutrals presents in the simplest form of recital. Although I may seem to fall into a wide digression, or an awkward anticipation, I will venture to exhibit it here in some detail, as matter of his- tory worthy of being more generally and accurately known. Retribution is due to all the parties ; to those who perpetrated the crime, and to the memory of the sufferers, who, with the Americans that received them, have been aspersed, in order to weaken the impression of its enormity. The most particular account which I have found of this transaction, is given in Minot's Continuation of the History of Massachusetts.* The historian drew his narrative from the manuscript journal of the American commander of the Massachusetts' troops, to whom the merit of the conquest of Nova Scotia was due. This officer, General Winslow, of an unexceptionable and elevated character, left upon record, the expression of his disgust and horror in submitting to act the part which was imposed upon him by the British authority, I transcribe some of the shocking details from Minot. " The French force in Nova Scotia being subdued, it only remained to determine the measures which ought to be taken with respect to the inhabi- tints, who were about seven thousand in number, and whose character and situation were so peculiar, as to distinguish them from almost every other community that has suffered under the scourge of war." •' They were the descendants of those French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, who after the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, by which the province was ceded to England, were permitted to hold their lands, on condition of making a declaration of allegiance to their new sovereign, which acknowledgment of fidelity was given under an express stipulation that they and their posterity should not be required to bear arms, either against their Indian neighbours, or transatlantic countrymen. This contract was at several subsequent pe- riods revived, and renewed to their children ; and such was the notoriety of the compact, that for half a century, they bore the name, and with some few exceptions, maintained the character of neutrals." " The character of this people was mild, frugal, industrious, and pious ; and a scrupulous sense of the indissoluble nature of their ancient obligation to their king, was a great cause of their misfortunes. To this we may add an unalterable attachment to their religion, a distrust of the rlglit of the English to the territory which they inhabited, and the indemnity promised them at the surrender of fort Beau-sejour, where it was stipulated that they should be left in the same situation as they were in when the army an-ived, and not be punished for what they had done afterwards." " Such being the circumstances of the French neutrals, as they were Chap. X. DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED T [. called, the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, and his council, aided by -^_ ■ the admirals Boscawen and Mostyn, assembled to consider of the necessary measures to be adopted towards them. If the whole were to suffer for the conduct of a part, the natural punishment would have been to have forced them from their country, and left them to go wherever they pleased ; but from the situation of the province of Canada, it was obvious that this would have been to recruit it with soldiers, who would immediately have returned in arms upon the British frontiers. It was, therefore, determined to remove and disperse this whole people among the British colonies, where they could not unite in any offensive measures, and where they might be naturalized to the government and country." " The execution of this unusual and general sentence was allotted chiefly to the New England forces ; the commander of which, from the humanity and firmness of his character, was the best qualified to carry it into effect. It was without doubt, as he himself declared, disagreeable to his natural make and temper ; and his principles of implicit obedience as a soldier were put to a severe test by this ungrateful kind of duty, which required an un- generous cunning, and subtle kind of severity, calculated to render the Aca- 'dians subservient to the English interests to the latest hour. They were kept entirely ignorant of their destiny until the moment of their captivity, and were overawed or allured to labour at the gathering in of their harvest, which was secretly allotted to the use of their conquerors." " The orders from lieutenant governor Lawrence to captain Murray, who was first on the station, with a plagiarism of the language, without the spirit of scripture, directed that if these people behaved amiss, they should be pu- nished at his discretion ; and if any attempts were made to destroy or mo- lest the troops, he should take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and in short, life for life, from the nearest neighbour where the mischief should be performed." " The convenient moment having arrived, the inhabitants were called into the different ports to hear tbe King's orders, as they were termed. At Grand Pre, where colonel Winslow had the immediate command, four hun- dred and eighteen of their best men assembled. These being shut into the church, (for that too had become an arsenal,) he placed himself with his of- ficers in the centre, and addressed them tlius: '* Gentlemen, " I have received from his excellency governor Lawrence, the king'(i commission, which I have in my hand ; and by his orders you are convened together, to manifest to you his Majesty's final resolution to the French in- habitants of this his Province of Nova Scotia." " The part of duty I am noiv upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you -who are of the same species." " Biit it is not my business to animadvert, but to obey such orders as I re- ceive, and therefore, without hesitation, I shall deliver you his Majesty's or- ders and instructions, namely. That your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, with all other your effects, saving your money and household goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this his province." " Thus it is peremptorily his Majesty's orders, that the whole French in- habitants of these districts be removed, and I am, through his Majesty's goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry off your money and house- hold goods, as many as you can without discommoding the vessels you go in. I shall do every thing in my power, that all those goods be secured to you, and that you are not molested in carrying them off: also that whole families shall go in the same vessel ; and make this remove, which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, as easy as his Majesty's service will BY THE COLONISTS. admit ; and hope, tliat in whatever part of the world you may fall, you may SEC l?e faithful subjects, a peaceable and happy people." s^r- •« I must also inform you, that it is his Majesty's pleasure that you remaiti ijliSecurity, under the inspection and direction of the troops that I have the )(onour to command." " And he then declared them the King's prisoners. . " As some of these wretched inhabitants escaped to the woods, all possi- ble measures were adopted to force them back to captivity. The country was laid waste to prevent their subsistence. In the district of Minas alone, there were destroyed 255 houses, 276 barns, 155 out-houses, 11 mills, and 1 church ; and the friends of those who refused to come in, wefe threatened as the victims of their obstinacy. In short, so operative were the terrors that surrounded them, that of twenty -four young men who deserted from a transport, twenty -two were glad to return of tliemselves, the others being shot by sentinels ; and one of their friends tvho was supposed to have been ac- cessary to their escape, having been carried on shore, to behold the destruction of his house and effects, -which were burned in his presence, as a pu7ushme7it for his temerity, and perfidious aid to his comrades. Being embarked by force of the tnusquetry, they were dispersed, according to the original plan, among the several British Colonies." Most of the English historians have slurred over this har- rowing drama. It is even asserted in Smollett's Continuation of Hume, and in the modern Universal History, that the Acadians were merely disarmed, and then suffered to remain in tranquillity ! Entick, in his " General History of the Seven Years War," is somewhat more candid ; and for the further edification of my readers, I will proceed to quote the language in which this reverend author — of no mean authority — relates and glosses so portentous an iniquity. As, moreover, his ac- count is the only one through which the affair is circumstan- tially known to the readers of English history, I am disposed to improve the opportunity, of placing by the side of it, the vindication of those whom he calumniates. ; •• In Nova Scotia, matters did not favour the French at all in the year 1755. General Lawrence pursued his success, and was obliged to use much seve- rity, to extirpate the French neutrals and Indians, who refused to conform to the laws of Great Britain, or to swear allegiance to our sovereign, and had engaged to join the French troops in the spring, expected to arrive from old France, as early as possible, on that coast or at Louisbourg ; some of whom with .ammunition, stores, &c. fell into the hands of our cruizers off Cape Breton. General Lawrence did not only pursue those darigerons inhabi- tants -with fire and sword, laying the country waste, burning their dwellings, and carrying off their stock ; but he thought it expedient for his Majesty's service to transport the French neutrals, so as to entirely extirpate a people, that only waited an opportunity to join the enemy." " This measure was very commendable. But the execution of it was not quite so prudent. The method taken by the general to secure the province from this pest, was to distribute them, in number about seven thousand, among the British Colonies, in that rigorous season of winter, almost naked, and without money or effects to help tliemselves. In which disti'ibution, too many were transported to those colonies, where they might with great Vol. I.—M t)rFFICULTiES SURMOUiNTED IT I. ease get to the French forts, or might facilitate any enterprize from those ^^»^ , forts, on the back of our provinces on the south of the bay of St. Lawrence. Besides, it was exercising a power he had no right unto. For his command reached not beyond the limits of Nova Scotia ; and this was loading each government, into which those neutrals were transported, with an arbitrary and great expense." " This may be exemplified in the case of Pennsylvania. The quota im- posed on that province was foiu' hundred and fifteen, men, women and chil- dren. They landed in a most deplorable condition at Philadelphia, to be maintained by the province, or turned loose to beg their bread : and this city not being above two hundred miles distant from fort Du Quesne, it was very probable the men might get unto, and join their counti-ymen at that fort; or strengthen the parties, which hovered about the frontiers, and were continually laying waste the back settlements. The government in order to get clear of the charge, such a company of miserable wretches would require to maintain them, proposed to sell them with their own con- sent : but when this expedient for their support was ofl^ered to their consi- deration, the transports rejected it with indignation, alleging. That they were prisoners, and expected to be maintained as such, and not forced to labour. They farther said, that they had not violated their oath of fidelity ; which, by the treaty of Utrecht, they were obliged to take ; and that they were ready to renew that oath, but that a new oath of obedience having been prescribed to them, by which, they apprehended the neutrals would be obliged to bear arms against the French, they could not take it, and thought they could not be compelled to do it. Thus general Lawrence 'cleared the country of the French neutrals; and the Indians in their interest, who had been very troublesome, being most of them Roman Catholics, re- tired to Canada for protection."* The first remark I would make on this narrative of Entick, is, that the plan which he ascribes to the government of Penn- sylvania, of selling the exiles, had no existence, and was im- possible, consistently with its principles and powers. That government, and the inhabitants of Philadelphia, when near five hundred of them were landed in a plight of misery which beggars all description, received them with the liveliest com- passion, and provided for their wants with the readiest libe- rality.j Tljey were immediately committed to the charge of * Vol. i. p. 385. t I have before me an exemplification of the original subscription paper for their relief; and a list of the names of some of them, which runs thus: the Widow Landry, blind and sickly ; her daughter. Bonny Landry, blind ; "Widow Coprit, has a cancer in her breast; Widow Seville, always sickly; Ann Leblanc, old and sickly ; Widow Leblanc, foolish and sickly; the tw captain Bul- let, in vol. iii. p. 3, of Burk's History of Virginia, f Life of Washington, vol. ii. ch, i. OF THE COLONISTS. |(|ill The conduct of our leaders is tempered with something I do SECl/nl^,j| not care to give a name to. Nothing but a miracle can bring "^^^I'M the campaign to a happy issue," &c. I When we consider what is the present face of the country between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, it is doubly interesting to contemplate the picture drawn of it by the English historians, in their commemoration of this affair. " In the beginning of July, 1758, Brigadier Forbes set out on his expedition from Philadelphia for Fort Du ^esne. He was to march through countries that never had been impressed by human footsteps, and he had difficulties to surmount, greater, perhaps, than those of Alexander, in his expedition to India ; by establishing magazines, forming and securing camps, procuring carriages, and encountering a thousand unforeseen obstacles in penetrating- through regions, that presented nothing but scalping parties of French and savages, mountains, woods, and morasses," &c.* It is sufficient to repeat the fact, that the colonies had on foot, in active co-operation with the British forces, in 1759, twenty-five thousand troops, — to establish their title to a large share of the glorious results of that year. The number of the provincials was considerable before Quebec, and still greater in Amherst's arduous expedition, by way of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Lake Champlain. That ablest of the Bri- tish commanders in America, bore, in the general orders which he issued, after the complete reduction of Canada, in 1 760, the strongest testimony to " the indefatigable efforts of his majesty's faithful subjects in America, and the zeal and bravery of the officers and soldiers of the provincial troops." The troops of this description composed altogether the third grand division of the British force, with which general Pri- deaux, " assisted by the interest and abilities of the provincial leader, general William Johnson," marched to reduce Fort Niagara, a post of the utmost consequence in itself, andinre-^ lation to the success of the main enterprise of the campaign of 1759. The manner in which this service was performed will sustain a comparison at least, with that of Abercrombie's at- tempt upon Ticonderoga. I will adopt the narrative of the Univei-sal History. " While Amherst was reducing Crown Point, and making himself master of Lake Champlain, Prideaux and Sir Wil- liam Johnson were proceeding against Fort Niagara. On the 20th of July, Prideaux, to the inexpressible grief of the army, was killed in the trenches, by the bursting of a • Vol. xl. p. 221, Universal Historv, Vol. I.— R MILITARY EFFORTS cannon. The command then fell upon Sir William Johnson, ' xvlio rvas superseded by brigadier general Gage^ by the appoint- ment of Amherst. Before Gage could arrive at Niagara, John- son had performed wonders. He had carried his approaches within one hundred yards of the covert-way of the fort ; and the French were so apprehensive of losing that palladium of their interest in North America, that they exerted their ut- most to maintain it, by collecting seventeen hundred men from all the neighbouring posts, particularly from Detroit, Venan- go, and Presque Isle, under the command of Mons. D'Aubry. Had this reinforcement reached the fort, it must have been impregnable ; but Johnson made dispositions towards the left, on the road leading fi'om Niagara Falls to the fortress, for in- tercepting it." " About 8 o'clock, on the 24th of July, the enemy appeared, and the English Indians attempted in vain to have some talk .| with their countrymen, who served under the French. The battle began with a horrible war-whoop, which was now mat- ter of ridicule, rather than terror, to the English, uttered by the French Indians. The French, as usual, charged with vast impetuosity, but being received with equal firmness, and the English Indians on the flanks doing considerable execu- tion, all the French army were put to the rout, and for five miles the pursuit continued, in which seventeen officers, among whom were the first and second in command, were made prisoners. Next morning Sir William Johnson sent a trumpet to the French commandant, with a list of the seven- teen officers that had been taken, to convince him of the inuti- lity of further resistance. The commandant found all Sir William Johnson's intelligence to be perfectly true, and in a few hours a capitulation was signed, by which six hundred and seven men, of which the garrison consisted, were to march out with the honours of war, to be embarked on the lake, and carried to New York, but protected from the bar- barity of the Indians. The women and children were carried to Montreal, and the conqueror treated the sick and wounded in a manner so humane, as to prove himself worthy of victory. Thus, for a second time, this self-taught general obtained an entire triumph over the boasted discipline of the French arms. But that was his least praise. Though eleven hundred In- dians followed him to the field, he restrained them within re- gular bounds."* While affecting at home to consider the colonists as of little efficienc}' in the field, and even to deride their humblest pre- * Vol. xl. p. 23r. \ OF THE COLONISTS. i tensions to the military character,* the mother country inces- SECl, santly called upon their assemblies for more levies, with pro- '*"^^, testations of the indispensableness of their fullest co-opera- tion. They were required, in 1760, to raise and equip, if practicable, at least as large a body of men as they had sent forth the preceding year; and they cJbeyed with an alacrity equal to that which they had manifested, when it seemed ne- cessary for them to make extreme efforts, to avoid being overrun b}' the common enemy, let in through the incapacity of the British commanders. Massachusetts supplied besides, troops to guard Lotiisbourg, Halifax, and Lunenburg, and entirely garrisoned Annapolis, Fort Cumberland at Chignecto, and Fort Frederick at St. John's. It was not merely land forces that were furnished by New England. Her seamen served in such numbers on board the British ships of war, that her merchants were compelled to navigate their trading ves- sels with Indians and negroes.f More than four hundred privateers, as I have already had occasion to remark, issued, during the war, from the North American ports, ravaged the French West India islands, and distressed to the utmost the commerce of France in all parts of the world. During the years 1760 and 1761, the southern colonies were involved in hostilities with the Cherokee Indians. These, in- stigated by the French, made the most destructive inroads, and required some arduous campaigns to be reduced to inac- tion. In 1763, a general Indian war unexpectedly broke out, of a most disastrous and alarming character. It threatened the loss of some of the important posts which had been wrested from the French, and depopulated a great part of the western frontiers. Franklin, being asked, on his examination before the House of Commons, whether this was not a war for Ame- rica only ; answered, that it was rather a consequence or re- mains of the former one, the Indians not having been tho- roughly pacified ; that the Americans bore much the greater share of the expense ; and that it was put an end to by the army under general Bouquet, consisting of about three hundred re- gulars, and above one thousand Pennsylvanians. The pecuniary charges incurred by the colonists in the seven years war, greatly exceeded the amount of the sums which were allotted to them by the British parliament, as an indemnity. * See Note I. f It was asserted, without contradiction, in the House of Commons, in the debate of March 11, 1778, on the state of the British navy, that ten thou- sand of the seamen employed in it during tlie war of 1756, were natives of North America. MILITARY EFFORTS IT I. The excess was two millions five hundred thousand pounds., ^-^ not taking into the account the extraordinary supplies granted by the colonial assemblies. Their whole disbursement did not fall short of three millions and a half j a sum far more onerous for them, in the proportion of their ability and habits, than that which was expended by the crown, great as it was, could have been for the British people. On the termination of the struggle in Canada, in 1760, and the extinction of danger from the French in North America, the provinces were fairly entitled to an exemption from all contribution to the exterior military enterprises of the mother country ; at least until the deep wounds they had received in their finances, and the most valuable part of their population, j should be healed. A considerable body of native troops was, i however, drawn from them, to assist in the reduction of the French and Spanish West India islands ; and Massachusetts raised, in 1762, three thousand two hundred and twenty, as her quota, for the object of " securing the British dominions, j and particularly the conquests in her neighbourhood." "Many ^ of the common soldiers," says the historian Gordon, " who gained such laurels, by their singular bravery on the plains of Abraham, when Wolfe died in the arms of victory, were na^ J tives of the Massachusetts Bay. When Martinico was attack- » ed in 1761, and the British force was greatly weakened by death and sickness, the timely arrival of the New England troops enabled the former to prosecute the reduction of the island to an happy issue. A part of the British force being . now about to sail from thence for the Havanna, the New Eng- landers, whose health had been much impaired by service and the climate, were sent off in three ships, to their native coun- try for recovery. Before they had completed their voyage, they found themselves restored, ordered the ships about, steer- ed immediately for the Havanna, arrived when the British were too much reduced to expect success, and by their junc- tion, served to immortalize afresh, the glorious first of Au- gust, old style, in the surrender of the place on that memora- ble day ; they exhibited, at the same time, the most signal evi- dence of devotedness to the parent state. Their fidelity, acti- vity, and courage, were such as to gain the approbation and confidence of the British officers."* There are some general considerations which place in strong * History of the American Revolution, vol. i, page 103. The writer re- ceived his information not only from public, but from private, sources ; he cites particularly Brooke Woodcock, Esq. of Saffron Walden, wlio served at the taking of Belleisle, Martinico, and the Havanna. OF THE COLOMSTS- .||i| relief, the merit of the multitude of Americans who served as SKCT,'|(i|, volunteers in these campaigns. They cannot be supposed to ^-^^.c.,! have been tempted by the slender pay which they received; for, their domestic affairs were, in all cases, of a nature to suffer greatly by their absence : They could not be incited by hopes of preferment, since the provincial forces, were uniform- ly disbanded on a peace; the provincial officers no further rewarded by commissions than the enlisting of men made it neccessary; and the vacancies which occurred among the re- gulars, filled w^ith Europeans: They were liable to perpetual mortification by invidious distinctions in favour of the British troops ; they were penuriously praised when their prowess was unquestionable, and outrageously censured when their conduct gave the least opening to detraction. Under such circum- stances, there are no motives to be assigned for their self- devotion, except public spirit, — a sense of duty — a native man- liness of character. In truth, the colonists were unsparing of their resources and their blood, not merely from a belief that the cause was their own, and from a resolution to protect themselves to the utmost of their ability; but as members of the British empire, eager for its prosperity, and deeply interested in all its concerns ; proud of their kindred and connexion with the British nation, and sympathetic in its prejudices and pas- sions. Whoever gives attention to the public papers of the era of the seven years war, will be convinced, that they enter- ed into the rivalry between England and France, with the keenness of the school of Pitt, and rejoiced in the success of the British arms, not more as ministerial to their security, than to the ascendency of the British power and the glory of the British name. 10. At the peace of Paris, of 1763, England found herself the acknowledged mistress of the whole continent of America north of the Gulf of Mexico, and assured of a permanent r^val supremacy over the nations of Europe. It is a proposition now hardly disputed, even as an exercise of ingenuity, that for this vast extension of her power, and the triumph of her for- tunes over those of France, she was largely indebted to the exiles who adhered to her dominion. Originally, they had preserved the Atlantic territory from the occupation of her enemies. No great sagacity is required to perceive, that had the French settled and retained it, she must have fallen into the secondary rank as a naval and commercial power.* * " It appears," says Hutchinson, (vol i. chap, i.) " tliat the Massachusetts people took, possession of the country at a very critical time. Richheu, in MILITARY EFFORTS What she became, she never could have become, without the thirteen colonies ; and not unless they had become what their industry, spirit, and intelligence, made them. Whatever obli- gations, then, she can pretend, with any colour of plausibility, to have conferred, must fall far short of those which she re- ceived. Their instrumentality in her elevation and the de- pression of her rival, manifestly overbalances even the degree of protection which she herself claims to have extended. And the duty of gratitude appears the more exigent, from the con- sideration of that British feeling, to which I have referred in the preceding page, as the main spring of their prodigious efforts in seconding all her aims. It will seem scarcely credible, that the politicians of Eng- land earnestly debated, during the negotiations for the peace of 1763, and while parliament was yet complimenting the colonies for their loyal sacrifices, whether Canada should not be restored to the French, and the Island of Gaudaloupe re- tained in preference. The odium of this controversy, which, in its general purport, put out of question every claim and se- curity of their American brethren, and admitted of no calcula- tion but one of mere commercial profit and loss, was greatly aggravated by the principal grounds of argument with some of the most eminent writers of the day, who embraced the affirmative — " that the colonies were already large and nu- merous enough, and that the French ought to be left in North America to prevent their increase, lest they should become not only useless, but dangerous to Great Britain." " It was in- sinuated," says Russel,* " by some of our keen-sighted politi- jill probabilily, would have planted his colony nearer the sun, if he could have found any place vacant. De Monts and company had acquired a tho- roug-h knowledge of all the coast, from Cape Sables, beyond Cape Cod, in 1604; indeed it does not appear that the}' then went round or to the bot- tom of Massachusetts Bay. Had they once gained footing there, they would have prevented the English. The Frenchified court of king Charles I. would, at the treaty of St. Germain's, have given up any claim to Massachu- setts Bay as readily as they did to Acadie; for the French could make out no better title to Penobscot and the other parts of Acadie, than they could to Massachusetts. The little plantation at New Plymouth would have been no greater bar to the French in one place than in the other. The Dutch, the next year, would liave quietly possessed themselves of Connecticut river, unless the French, instead of the Enghsh, had prevented them. Whether the people of either nation would have persevered. Is uncertain. If they had done it, the late contest for the /iominion of North America would have been between France and Holland, and the commerce of England would have borne a very different proportion to that of the rest of Europe, from what it does at present." * Modern Europe, part ii. letter xxxv. OF THE COLONISTS. f»'f ■ cians, that the security provided by the retention of Canada, SECt'*/, for the English settlements in North America, as xuell as Jor ^^.^^'-y their extension in the cession of Florida by Spain^ would prove a source of new evils. It would embolden our old colonies to shake off the control of the mother country, since they no longer stood in need of her protection, and erect themselves into independent states." Franklin, who, at this period, as agent of some of the provinces at the court of London, watch- ed paternally over the interests of the whole, found himself under the necessity of combating these doctrines in an elaborate tract, which I have already noticed. The very existence of the " Canada-Pamphlet" is an eternal reproach to Great Bri- tain ; and there is an increase of shame, from its being an ap- peal, not to her generosity or her justice, but to her separate interests. Upon these, the sagacious author, deeming every higher consideration idle and misplaced, laid all stress; and the same thing may be said of the British cabinet, on a refe- rence to the tenour of the discussions respecting the peace both in and out of parliament. Amid the violent discontents which the improvident treaty of Paris excited, consolation was found, not, as some of her writers have gratuitously alleged, in the exemption of the colonies from the annoyance of a European enemy, and their increased ability to overawe the savages, — but in " the wide scope for projects of political ambition, and the boundless field for speculations of commercial avidity, which the undivided sovereignty of the vast continent of Ame- rica, with the exclusive enjoyment of its trade, seemed to open to the British nation."* We may judge how the colonies would have fared with the " tory councils," to whose influence ' the demerits of the peace were attributed, had not the retention of Canada fallen within their selfish and corrupt views, when we advert to the fact, that the execrable suggestion above mentioned came from the ivhigs. To display it in its true light, as well as to illustrate the temper of mind, with which the great champion of the colonies had to contend, I cannot do better than quote his bold language on the point. " But what is the prudent policy inculcated to obtain this end — security of dominion over our colonies ? It is, to leave the French in Canada, to ' check their growth ; for otherwise, our people may increase infinitely from all causes,' We have al- ready seen in what manner the French and their Indians check the growth of our colonies. It is a modest word, this cheeky for massacreing men, women, and children." • Bu3sel, ibid. MILITARY EFFORTS T I. ^' But il Canada is restored on this principle, will not Britain "^^ be guilty of all the blood to be shed, all the murders to be committed, in order to check this dreaded growth of our own people ? Will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarities they perpetrated with Indians, on our colonists, are agreeable to us; and that they need not ap- prehend the resentment of a government with whose views they so happily concur ? Will not the colonies view it in this light? Will they have reason to consider themselves any longer as subjects and children, when they find their cruel enemies hallooed upon them by the country from whence they sprung; the government that owes them protection, as it re- quires their obedience ? Is not this the most likely means of driving them into the arms of the French, who can invite them by an offer of security, their own government chooses not to offer them ?" " If it be, after all, thought necessary to check the growth of our colonies, give me leave to propose a method less cruel. The method I mean, is that which was dictated by the Egyp- tian policy, when the ' infinite increase,' of the children of Israel, was apprehended as dangerous to the state. Let an act of parliament then be made, enjoining the colony midwives to stifle in the birth every third or fourth child. By this means you may keep the colonies to their present size." 11. I have made no assertion in treating the topics upon which I have enlarged so much, of the military merits of Ame- rica, and the nature of the protection extended to her by the mother country, which it would not be in my power to vindi- cate by British authority of the highest class. And I cannot xefrain, though it is done at the risk of fatiguing my readers by what may have the air of repetition, from seeking in the records of the British Parliament for a general confirmation of what I have advanced. I find this, with every recommendation of un- questionable validity and sententious eloquence, in a speech of David Hartley, on the American question, delivered in the House of Commons, in the year 1775. That gentleman long held a conspicuous rank in Parliament; lived in the closest in- timacy with the most eminent British statesmen of the time; concluded, as the minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain, the definitive treaty of 1783, with the United States ; and though a zealous friend of justice and the injured colonies, establish- ed, with all parties at home, the character of a devoted patriot. What follows from him will protect me from the charge of OF THE COLONISTS. ^ W national partiality in my representations, and serve me as a SECTi* useful recapitulation of facts. Mr. Hartley said, — " I would wish to state to the House, the merits of this question of requisitions to the colonies, and to see upon what principles it is founded ; to revise the accounts between Great Britain and them. We hear of nothing now but the protec- tion we have given to them ; of the immense expense incur- red on their account. We are told that they have done nothing for themselves ; that they pay no taxes ; in short, every thing is asserted about America to serve the present turn, without the least regard to truth. I would have these matters fairly sifted out," ''To begin with the late war, — of '56. The Americans turn- ed the success of the war at both ends of the line. General Monckton took Beausejour in Nova Scotia, with fifteen hun- dred provincial troops, and about two hundred regulars. Sir William Johnson, in the other part of America, changed the face of the war to success, with a provincial army, which took Baron Dieskau prisoner. But, Sir, the glories of the war un- der the united British and American arms, are recent in every one's memory. Suffice it to decide this question ; that the Americans bore, even in our judgment, more than their full proportion ; that this House did annually vote them an ac- knowledgment of their zeal and strenuous efforts, and com- pensation for the excess of their zeal and expenses, above their due proportion. They kept, one year with another, twenty- five thousand men on foot, and lost in the war the flower of their youth. How strange it must appear to them, to hear of nothing down to the year 1763, but encomiums upon their ac- tive zeal and strenuous efforts ; and then, no longer after than the year 1764, in such a trice of time, to see the tide turn, and from that hour to this, to hear it asserted that they were a burden upon the common cause ; asserted even in that same parliament which had voted them compensations for the liberality and excess of their service." " Nor did they stint their services to North America. They followed the British arms out of their continent to the Havan- na, and Martinique, after the complete conquest of America. And so they had done in the preceding war. They were not grudging of their exertions — they were at the siege of Cartha- gena : — yet, what was Carthagena to them, but as members Vol. I.— S MILITARY EFFORTS ^T '• of the common cause, friends of the glory of this country ! In ^"'^^ that war too, Sir, they took Louisbourg from the French, sin- gle handed, without any European assistance ; as mettled an enterprise as any in our history ! an everlasting memorial to the zeal, courage, and perseverance of the troops of New England. The men themselves dragged the cannon over morasses, which had always been thought impassable, where neither horses nor oxen could go, and they carried the shot upon their backs. And what was their reward for this for- M'Sird and spirited enterprise ; for the reduction of this Ame- rican Dunkirk ? Their reward. Sir, you know very well — it was given up for a barrier to the Dutch. The only conquest in that war, which you had to give up, and which would have been an effectual barrier to them against the French power in America, though gained by themselves, was surrendered for a foreign barrier. As a substitute for this, you settled Hali- fax for a place (Tarmes^ leaving the limits of the province of Nova Scotia as a matter of contest with the French, which could not fail to prove, as it did, the cause of another war. Had you kept Louisbourg instead of settling Halifax, the Americans could say, at least, that there would not have been that pretext for imputing the late war to their account. It has been their forwardness in your cause, that made them the objects of the French resentment. In the war of 1744, at jour requisition, they were the aggressors on the French in America. We know the orders given to Mons. D'Anville, to destroy and lay all their seaport towns in ashes, and we know the cause of that resentment ; it was to revenge their conquest of Louisbourg." " Whenever Great Britain has declared war, they have taken their part. They were engaged in king William's wars, and queen Anne's, even in their infancy. They conquered Acadia in the last century, for us ; and we then gave it up. Again, in queen Anne's war, they conquered Nova Scotia, ■which, from that time, has always belonged to Great Britain. They have been engaged in more than one expedition to Ca- nada, ever foremost to partake of honour and danger with the mother country." " Well, Sir, what have we done for them ? Have we con- quered the country for them from the Indians ? Have we cleared it ? Have we drained it ? Have we made it habitable ? What have we done for them ? I believe, precisely nothing at all, but just keeping watch and ward over their trade, that they should receive nothing but from ourselves, at our own l)rice. I will not positively say that we have spent nothing; OF THE COLONISTS. i|| though I don't recollect any such article upon our journals : SECT|^ but I mean any material expense in setting them out as colo- nists. The royal military government of Nova Scotia cost, indeed, not a little sum ; above ^500,000 for its plantation, and its first years. Had your other colonies cost any thing si- milar either in their outset or support, there would have been something to say on that side ; but, instead of that, they have been left to themselves for one hundred or one hundred and fifty years, upon the fortune and capital of private adven- turers, to encounter every difficulty and danger. What towns have we built for them? What desert have we cleared? What country have we conquered for them from the Indians ? Name the officers — name the troops — the expeditions — their dates. Where are they to be found? Not in the journals of this king- dom. They are no where to be found." " In all the wars which have been common to us and them, they have taken their full share. But in all their own dan- gers, in the difficulties belonging separately to their situation, in all the Indian wars which did not immediately concern us, we left them to themselves to struggle their way throvxgh. — For the whim of a minister, you can bestow half a million to build a town, and to plant a royal colony of Nova Scotia; a greater sum than you have bestowed upon every other colony together." " And notwithstanding all these, which are the real facts, now that they have struggled through their difficulties, and begin to hold up their heads, and to show that empire which promises to be the foremost in the world, we claim them and theirs, as implicitly belonging to us, without any considera- tion of their own rights. We charge them with ingratitude, without the least regard to truth, just as if this kingdom had for a century and a half, attended to no other object ; as if all our revenue, all our power, all our thought had been bestowed upon them, and all our national debt had been contracted in the Indian wars of America ; totally forgetting the subordina- tion in commerce and manufactures, in which we have bound them, and for which, at least, we owe them help towards their protection." " Look at the preamble of the act of navigation, and every American act, and see if the interest of this country is not the avowed object. If they make a hat or a piece of steel, an act of parliament calls it a nuisance ; a tilting hammer, a steel furnace, must be abated in America as a nuisance. Sir, I speak from facts. I call your books of statutes and journals MILITARY EFFORTS to witness. With the least recollection, every one must ac- knowledge the truth of these facts." " But it is said, the peace establishment of North America has been, and is, very expensive to this country. Sir, for what it has been, let us take the peace establishment before 1739, and after 1748. All that I can find in your journals is, four companies kept up at New York, and three compa* nies in Carolina. As to the four companies at New York, this country should knoAv best why they put themselves to that expense, or whether really they were at any expense at all ; for these were companies of fictitious men. Unless the money was repaid into the treasury, it was applied to some other purpose ; these companies were not a quarter full. In the year 1754, two of them were sent up to Albany, to at- tend commissioners to treat with the Six Nations, to impress them with a high idea of our military power ; to display all the pomp and circumstance of war before them, in hopes to scare them ; when in truth, we made a very ridiculous figure. The whole complement of two companies did not exceed thirty tattered, tottering invalids, fitter to scare the crows. This information I have had from eye witnesses." " It has not fallen in my way to hear any account of the three Carolina companies : These are trifles. The substantial question is, — What material expense have you been at in the periods alluded to, for the peace establishment of North Ame- rica ? Ransack your journals, search your public offices for army or ordnance expenses. Make out your bill, and let us see what it is. No one yet knows it. Had there been any such, I believe the administration would have produced it be- fore now, with aggravation." : " But is not the peace establishment of North America now very high, and very expensive ? I would answer that by ano- ther question : Why should the peace establishment since the late war, and the total expulsion of the French interest, be higher than it was before the late war, and when the French possessed above half the American continent ? If it be so, there must be some singular reason." " I cannot suppose that you mean under the general term of i North America, to saddle all the expenses of Canada, Nova i Scotia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Florida, and the West t Indies, upon the old colonies of North America. You cannot i mean to keep the sovereignty, the property, the possession (these are the terms of the cession in the treaty of 1763) to yourselves, and lay the expense of the military establishment, which you think proper to keep up, upon the old colonies*" OF THE COLONISTS. - ||i *' Sir, the colonies never thought of interfering in the pre- SECl|;li rogative of war or peace ; but if this nation can be so unjust ^•^'^•,.; as to meditate the saddling the expense of your new conquests separately upon them, they ought to have had a voice in set- tling the terms of peace. It is } ou, on this side of the water, who have fu*st brought out the idea of separate interests, by planning separate and distinct charges. It was their men and their money, which had conquered North America and the West Indies, as well as yours, though you seized all the spoils; but they never thought of dictating to you, what you should keep, or what you should give up, little dreaming that you reserved the expense of your military governments for them. Who gave up the Havanna ? Who gave up Martinique ? Who gave up Guadaloupe, with Marigalante ? Who gave up Santa Lucia ? Who gave up the Newfoundland fishery ? Who gave up all these without their consent, without their participation, without their consultation, and, after all, without equivalents ? Sir, if your colonies had but been permitted to have gathered up the crumbs which have fallen from j'our table, they would gladly have supported the whole military establishment of North America." ?: *' Your colonies have now shoM'n you the value of lands in , •North America ; and therefore you have vested in the crown the sovereignty, property, and possession of infinite tracts of land, perhaps as extensive as all Europe, which the crown may dispose of at its own price, as the land rises in America, and grants become invaluable; and to enable the crown to support an arbitrary, military government, till these lands rise to their future immense value, you are casting about to saddle the ex- pense either upon the American or the British supplies." V " This country is very liberal in its boasting of its protection and parental kindness to America. It is for that purpose that we have converted the province of Canada into an absolute and military government, and have established there the Romish church, so obnoxious to our ancient, and Protestant colonies. What security, what protection do they derive ? In what sort are they the better for the conquest of the French dominions, •if we take that opportunity to establish a government, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, in the utmost degree hostile to the government of our own provinces, and with the intent to set a thorn in their sides ? Is this affection and parental kindness ? Surely you do not expect that they should be taxed and tal- liaged to pav fnr this rod of iron, which you aie preparing for them !" MILITARY EFFORTS, &C. " Now, Sir, I come to a point, in which I think you may be ' said to have given some protection ; I mean the protection of your fleet to the American commerce. And even here I am at a loss by what terms to call it; whether you are protecting yourselves or them. Theirs are your cargoes, your manufac- tures, your commerce, your navigation. Every ship from America is bound to Britain. None enter an American port but British ships and men. While you are defending the American commerce, you are defending Leeds and Halifax, Sheffield and Birmingham, Manchester and Hull, Bristol and Liverpool, London, Dublin, Glasgow. However, as our fleet does protect whatever commerce belongs to them, let that be set to the account. It is an argument to them as well as to us. As it has been the sole policy of this kingdom, for ages, by the operation of every commercial act of parliament, to make the American commerce totally subservient to our own convenience, the least that we owe to them in return is pro- tection." 143 Si 4 H SECTION V. OF THE BENEFITS REAPED BY GREAT BRITAIN FROM THE AMERICAN TRADE. 1. If so immense a gain, of which she retains a mighty SECT part in her actual North American possessions, accrued to ^«^'~>'* Great Britain from the military efforts of the thirteen colonies, the advantages which she found in her commercial connexion with them, were not less considerable. Before any thing had been expended upon them, they began to enrich the treasury, and feed the strength of the mother country, by augmenting her shipping, giving double activity to her trade and manufac- tures, and even accelerating the increase of her population. These effects were quickly perceived and announced by those of her earliest writers in political economy, to whom she has assigned the first rank among their cotemporaries. To begin with the testimony of Sir Josiah Child. " England has con- stantly improved in people, since our settlement upon the plan- tations in America. We are very great gainers by the direct trade of New with Old England. Our yearly exportations of English manufactures, malt and other goods from hence thither, amounting, in my opinion, to ten times the value of what is imported from thence, which calculation I do not make at random, but upon mature consideration, and peradventure, upon as much experience in this trade, as any other person will pretend to."* " The plantations," says Davenant, " are a spring of wealth to this nation; they work for us, and their treasure centres all here. It is better our islands should be supplied from the northern colonies than from England — the provisions to be sent to them would be the unimproved pro- duct of the earth, whereas the goods which we send to the northern colonies, are such whose improvement may be justly said, one with another, to be near four-fourths of the value of the whole commodity."! • Discourse on Trade, chap. x. t Discourse on Plantation Trade. COMMERCIAL OBLIGTATIONS, &,C. fll i. " An immense wealth," says Gee,* " has accrued to us by """^ the labour and industry of those people that have settled in our colonies. Of all the methods of enlarging our trade, the best was the finding out of our plantations — the tobacco and sugar plantations were indeed the cause of increasing our shipping and navigation. If we examine into the circumstances of the inhabitants of our plantations, it will appear that not one-fourtl\ part of their product redounds to their own profit. There are very few trading or manufacturing towns in the kingdom, but have some dependence on the plantation trade." " New England and the northern colonies have not com- modities and products enough to send us in return for purchasing their necessary clothing, but are under very great difficulties, and therefore any ordinary sort sells with them; and when they are grown out of fashion with us, they are new fashioned enough there ; and therefore those places are the great markets we have to dispose of such goods, which are generally sent at the risk of the shop-keepers and traders of England, who are the great exporters, and not the inhabitants of the colonies, as some have imagined. As the colonies are a market for those sort of goods, so they are a receptacle for young mer- chants who have not stocks of their own; and therefore all our plantations are filled with such who receive the consign- ments of their friends from hence; and when they have got a sufficient stock to trade with, they generally return home, and other young men take their places ; so that the continual mo- tion and intercourse our people have in the colonies, may be compared to bees of a hive, which go out empty, but come back again loaded, by which means the foundation of many families is laid. The numbers of sailors and other tradesmen, who have all their dependence upon this traffic, are prodigiously great. Our factors, who frequent the northern colonies, being under difficulties to make returns for such goods as they dis- pose of, what gold, silver, logwood, and other commodities . they trade for upon the Spanish coast, is sent home to England; ; as also oyl, whale-fins, and many other goods. Likewise another great part in returns is made by ships, built there, and I disposed of in the Streights, and other parts of Europe, and I; the money remitted to us." " There is another advantage we receive from our planta'-. tions, which is hardly so much as thought on; I mean the prodigious increase of our shipping, by the timber trade be- tween Portugal, &c. and our plantations, which ought to have • * On the Trade and Navigation of Great Britain, chap. xxxi. OF GREAT BRITAIN. l||li all possible encouragement; for by it we have crept into all SLCli'i ' the comers of Europe, and become the common carriers in ■^-^'-v^vii'il the Mediterranean, as well as between the Mediterranean, Holland, Hambr'o, and the Baltic, and this is the cause of so great an addition to our shipping, and the reason why the Dutch, &c. are so exceedingly sunk." " We have a great many young men who are bred to the sea, and have friends to support them ; if they cannot get em- ployment at home, they go to New England, and the northern colonies, with a cargo of goods, which they there sell at a very great profit, and with the produce build a ship, and purchase a loading of lumber, and sail for Portugal or the Streights, &c. and after disposing of their cargoes there, fre- quently ply from port to port in the Mediterranean, till they have cleared so much money as will in a good part pay for the first cost of the cargo carried out by them, and then perhaps sell their ships, come home, take up another cargo from their employers, and so go back and build another ship; by this means multitudes of seamen are brought up, and upon a war the nation better provided with a greater number of sailors than hath been heretofore known. Here the master becomes merchant also, and many of them gain by this lumber trade great estates, and a vast treasure is thereby yearly brought into the kingdom, in a way new and unknown to our forefathers, for indeed it is gaining the timber trade, (heretofore carried on by the Danes and Swedes,) our plantations being nearer the markets of Portugal and Spain than they are." ^ The great pi'oductiveness of the colonies to the mother country, thus recognized before the expiration, and at the be- ginning, of the eighteenth century, increased in a geometrical progression from that period, and drew equally pointed ac- knowledgments from later writers. In the year 1728, Sir William Keith, a man of superior sagacity, who had occupied the station of governor of Pennsylvania, and investigated per- sonally and in complete detail, the commercial relations of North America with the other parts of the British empire, submitted to the British government a very able discourse on the subject,^ in which he presented the following summary of what he styled " the principal benefits then arising to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies." " 1. The colonies take off and consume above one-sixth part of the woollen manufactures exported from Great Britain ; * See the whole of this curious and interesting paper, in Bark's History of Virginia, vol. ii. chap. ii. Vol. I.— T j COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS RT I. which is the chief staple of England, and the main support of ■v-^b^ the landed interest. " 2. They take off and consume more than double that value in linen and calicoes, v/hich are partly the product of Britain and Ireland, and partly the profitable returns made for that product when carried to foreign countries. " 3. The luxury of the colonies, which increases daily, con- sumes great quantities of English manufactured silks, haber- dashery, household furniture, and trinkets of all sorts, as also a very considerable value in East India goods. " 4. A great revenue is raised to the crown of Britain hj returns made in the produce of the plantations, especially to- bacco; which at the same time helps England to bring nearer to a balance her unprofitable trade with France. " 5. These colonies promote the interest and trade of Bri- tain, by a vast increase of shipping and seamen, which enables them to carry great quantities of fish to Spain, Portugal, Leg- horn, &c. ; furs, logwood, and rice, to Holland, where they keep Great Britain considerably in the balance of trade with those countries. " 6. If reasonably encouraged, the colonies are now in a condition to furnish Britain with as much of the following commodities as it can demand, viz : masting for the navy and all sorts of timber, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, oil, rosin, copper ore, with pig and bar iron; by means whereof the balance of trade to Russia and the Baltic, may be very much reduced in favour of Great Britain. " 7. The profits arising to all those colonies by trade, are returned in bullion, or rather useful effects, to Great Britain ; where the supei-fluous cash, and other riches, acquired in America, must centre ; which is not one of the least securities that Britain has, to keep the colonies always in due subjection. " 8. The colonies upon the main are the granary of Ameri- ca, and a necessary support to the sugar plantations, in the West Indies, which could not subsist without them." To exemplify further the nature of this commercial inter- course, for Great Britain, I will quote the case of Virginia and Maryland, as Macpherson represents it for the year 1731, from the best authorities of that day.* " Virginia and Maryland are most valuable acquisitions to: Britain, as well for their great staple commodity, tobacco, as; for pitch, tar, furs, deer skins, walnut tree planks, iron in pigs,i and medicinal drugs. Both together send annually to Great * Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. OF GREAT BRITAIN. ||| Britain, 60,000 hogsheads of toljacco, weighing, one with SEC1;J| another, 600 pounds weight, which at 2^d. per pound, comes to ^375,000. And the shipping employed to bring home their tobacco, must be at least 24,000 tons ; which at ^10 per ton, is =g240,000, the value of the shipping ; the greatest part thereof by far being English-built, continually and constantly fitted and repaired in England. The freight at 1/. 10s. per hogshead, (the lowest,) is ^90,000 ; and the petty charges and commission, on each hogshead, not less than ^1 or ^60,000; which, making together ^150,000, we undoubtedly receive from those two provinces upon tobacco only. The net pro- ceeds of the tobacco may be ^225,000, on which there may be about five per cent, commission and petty charges, being ^11,250. There is also imported in the tobacco ships from those two provinces, lumber, to the value of ^15,000, two- thirds whereof is clear gain, it not costing ^4,000, in that country, first cost in goods ; and as it is the master's privilege, there is no freight paid for it. Skins and furs, about ^6,000 value; ^4,000 of which is actual gain to England. So the whole gain to England amounts to about ^180,000, annually: and moreover the whole produce of these two provinces is paid for in goods." Postlethwayt, who published his Universal Dictionary of Trade in the middle of the last century, bears a most emphatic general testimony. " Our trade and navigation," says this erudite merchant, " are greatly increased by our colonies ; they are a source of treasure and naval power to this kingdom. Before their settlements — our manufactures were fev/, and those but indifferent — the number of English merchants very small, and the whole shipping of the nation much inferior to what now belongs to the northern colonies only. These are certain facts. But since their establishment, our situation has altered for the better almost to a degree beyond credibility. Our manufactures are prodigiously increased, — chiefly by the demand for them in the plantations, where they at least take off one-half, and supply us with many valuable commo- dities for exportation, which is as great an emolument to the mother kingdom as to the plantations themselves," &c. The North American export trade of Great Britain amount- ed, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, to something less than four hundred thousand pounds sterling ; then no in- considerable portion of her whole exports. It had attained before the separation — to three millions and an half sterling, nearly one-fourth of her whole cotemporaneous export trade, the product of centuries of intercourse with all the world. COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS The particular instance of the Pennsylvania trade furnished an illustration of the general increase, which struck the British statesmen with admiration. In the year 1704, that province consumed only ^11,459 in value of foreign commodities : in 1772, fifty times as much; in this last year the export to it from Great Britain was upwards of half a million sterling. The exports to the North American colonies alone — ex- cluding the portion of the African trade to be set down to their account, — was one million on an average, from 1739 to 1756— two million three hundred thousand from 1756 to 1773 — three millions and an half on a medium of the years 1771, 1772, 1773. The proportion of British goods to foreign goods exported to North America, was of three-fourths British and one-fourth foreign ; whereas to the West Indies, it was of two-thirds British and one-third foreign. The foreign and circuitous trade of the northern colonies, which was prosecuted only by a necessary relaxation, or by an evasion, of the navigation act, redounded equally to the profit of the mother country. It enabled the colonies to pay, and consequently led them to call, for a greater quantity of her manufactures. It is thus fully and accurately described in the third volume of Macpherson's Annals. " The old northern colonies in America, it is well known, had very few articles fit for the British market; and yet they every year took ofFlarge quantities of merchandise from Great Britain, for which they made payments with tolerable regularity. Though they could not, like the Spanish colonists, dig the money out of their own soil, they found means to make a great part of their remittances in gold and silver dug out of the Spanish mines. This they effected by being great carriers, and by a circuitous commerce, carried on in small vessels, chiefly with the foreign West India settlements, to which they took lum- ber of all sorts, fish of an inferior quality, beef, pork, butter, horses, poultry, and other live stock ; an inferior kind of to- bacco, corn, flour, bread, cyder, and even apples, cabbages, and onions, &c. ; and also vessels, built at a small expense, the materials being almost all within themselves; for which they received in return mostly silver and gold, some of which re- mained as current coin among themselves ; but the greatest t part was remitted home to Britain, and together with bills of ; exchange, generally remitted to London for the proceeds of I their best fish, sold in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe, , served to pay for the goods they received from the mother country. This trade united all the advantages, which the wisest and most philanthropic philosopher, or the most en- OF GREAT BRITAIN. J|| lightened legislator, could wish to derive from commerce. It SECT<,| grave bread to the industrious in North America, by carrying off their lumber, which must otherwise rot on their hands, and their fish, great part of which, without it would be absolutely unsaleable, together with their spare produce and stock of every kind; it furnished the West India planters with those articles, without which the operations of their plantations must be at a stand ; and it produced a fund for employing a great number of industrious manufacturers in Great Britain; thus taking off the superfluities, providing for the necessities, and promoting the happiness of all concerned." Lord Sheffield even, makes the acknowledgment, that, by this circuitous commerce, they must, in the interval between the years 1700 and 1773, have obtained from other countries, and remitted to Great Britain, upwards oi thirty millions sterling^'m payment of goods taken from her, over and above the amount of all their produce and fisheries remitted directly.* Mr. Glover, in the beautiful speech which he delivei^ed at the bar of the House of Commons, in 1 775^ respecting the American trade, presented, ainong many striking views of its productiveness to Great Britain, the following: " Though I am convinced, that the same number of hands at least is devoted to agriculture here, and that the earth at a medium of years hath yielded the same increase ; as we have been disposed to consume it all among ourselves, or as our presumption may impute the scarcity to Providence, restraining the fertility of our soil for ten years past, in either case we could not spare, as heretofore, our grain to the foreigner; a reduction in our exports, one year with another, of more than ^600,000. The American subjects took place of the British in markets we could no longer supply; extend- ed their vent from season to season, and from port to port, and by a circuition of fresh money, thus acquired by themselves, added fresh numbers to your manufactures ; the rents of land increasing at the same time, till the amount of exports to North America, for the last three years ending at Christmas, 1773, stands upon your papers at ten millions and a half, or three millions and a half at the annual medium." " One part of our export to foreigners is supplied by colony produce, tobacco, rice, sugar, 6cc. through Great Britain, for a million sterling at a low estimation. There is a known export of linen, exceeding ^200,000, supplied by North Britain to England for American use. The North British colony-export in addition, is about ^400,000, by far the greater part to • Observations on the Commerce of the American States, 1784. J COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIO.NS IRT I. the tobacco provinces. The whole may be a little short of "v-^^ ^700,000. The kingdom of Ireland takes from England little short of ^2,400,000 annually in goods. How doth she pay for them i A large part in linen and yarn ; the remainder in cash, acquired by her foreign traffic. In the printed report to this House, from their linen committee, it appears, that, in 1771, the linen made, and brought to market for sale in that kingdom, for its own use and ours, amounted to ^2,150,000, and the yarn exported to about ^200,000. This immense va- lue, the employment of such numbers, hath its source in North America. The flax seed from thence, not worth ^40,000, a trifle to that continent, forms the basis of Ireland, and reverts largely in manufacture from her to the original seat of growth. In reply, what is the cry of my magnanimous countrymen without doors ? Dignity ! Supremacy ! &c. Upon the North American imports I shall only remark, that the most considera- ble part of their bulky productions is bought by the foreigner; and of the amount consumed in Great Britain, the exchequer hath a capital share." 3. In the calculation which Mr. Burke presented to the House of Commons, in his speech on the Conciliation with America, he included the export trade of Great Britain to the West Indies, upon the ground that this trade and the North American were so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole, and if not entirely destroy, very much depreciate the value of all the parts. The observation was eminently just, as nothing can be more certain, than that the prosperity of the West Indies would have been infinitely less, without their trade with the North American colonies. It was by this means that they were enabled to yield those ample benefits which Great Britain derived from them, in the great consumption and increase of her manufactures; in the employment and increase of her shipping and sailors; in the enrichment of individuals ; and in the abundance of the valuable produce poured into her lap. Great as these benefits were, they fell, however, far short of those of the same kind, which accrued to her directly from the North American colonies. For five years, from 1754, to 1758, inclusive, her exports to the latter, wei^e, in the total, near eight millions sterling; to the West Indies, not four millions; . and in the course of the term just mentioned, the increase of export to the northern colonies, was almost four mil- lions ; whereas that to the West Indies, did not amount to half a million. OF GREAT BRITAIN. l|| The value of the provisions sent from Great Britain to her SECT^Jj West India islands was trifling. They were furnished with the *^^"^,v; necessaries of life by the North American colonies, and gene- rally at about half the price at which they could have been supplied from Great Britain. We are told by Dr. Davenant, in his Discourse on the Plantation Trade, that, " before the period at which he wrote, (1698,) so little cai^e was taken for the con- voys which were to protect the supplies of provisions for the West India islands, they must, many times, have perished for want, if they had not been supplied by the northern colonies." The mother country, was, indeed, for the most part, unable to supply them at all, and occasionally indebted to the same source as her islands, for her vital sustenance. " Our harvests," says an able English writer,* "■ in a series of years were not suffi- ciently productive to afford support to the people; whilst Ame- rica was blessed with abundance, and like another Egypt to another Canaan, relieved us from the apprehension of a want of food, and from the danger of popular commotions, to obtain by force what the poor were not able to procure by purchase. Such was the scarcity of corn in this country, at the period preceding the American war, that even the immense importations from thence proved no more than a bare supply." To this state of things, Mr. Bui'ke thus eloquently alludes, ^ in the speech mentioned above. " For some time past the old world has been fed from the new. The scarcity which you have felt, would have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted parent." * Richard Champion, Esq. deputy pay master general of his Britannic majesty's forces, (1784,) in his reply to Lord Sheffield's pamphlet. On the head of the provision for the West Indies, the same enlightened economist makes the following remarks. " It has been asked by the noble lord, how- did the West India colonies subsist, during the war, when even Canada and Nova Scotia, any more than England, were not open to them, without great expense and risque ? To this question, it is to be answered, that the greater part of the Windward and Leeward Islands were in possession of the French ; and the three which remained in our hands, were frequently re- duced to great distress. The planters in some of them compromised the labour of their slaves for a slender daily food. The situation of Bermuda wa& so deplorable, that some of the poorest inhabitants were actually famished; and it was owing to the hummiitij of the Americans who suffered them, tipon their application, to sxtpply themselves ivith provisions from their states, (from Delaware and Connecticut in particular,) that the whole people did not pei-ish for want." COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS Besides provisions, supplies of other kinds, which might be also said to have been indispensable, and unattainable from any- other quarter, were carried to the West Indies by the North American colonies. We are told by the English writers, that not less than one hundred thousand casks and puncheons were, in a year, made in Jamaica, from American staves and head- ing; that the different towns and the buildings in most of the settlements upon the sea coast of that island, were constructed with timber imported from America, and that the same use of those articles, — many of them in a greater proportion,— prevailed in the other sugar islands. Bryan Edwards* esti- mated the whole value of the American commodities im- ported into them annually, at seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. The Americans received West India pro- duce in barter, to the amount of about two-thirds, and the excess of one-third found its way to England for the purchase or payment of goods. Sugar to a great amount, and a vast quantity of rum, saleable at no other than the American mar- ket, were among the chief articles taken in return. Some short extracts from the testimony which the West India mer- chants gave at the bar of the House of Commons in 1775, will exhibit this intercourse with more minuteness and au- thority. " North America is truly the granary of the West Indies : from thence they draw the great quantities of flour and bis- cuit, for the use of one class of people, and of Indian corn, for the support of all the others; for the support not of man only, but of every animal ; for the use of man, horses, swine, sheep, poultry. North America also furnishes the West In- dies with rice. Rice, a more expensive diet, and less capa- ble of sustaining the body under hard labour, is of a more limited consumption, but it is a necessary indulgence for the young, the sick, the weakly, amongst the common people, and the negroes. North America not only furnishes the West Indies with bread, but with meat, with sheep, poultry, and*, some live cattle; but the demand for these is infinitely short ofi the demand for the salted beef, pork and fish. Salted fish- (if the expression may be permitted in contrast with bread,) is the meat of all the lower ranks of people in Barbadoes, and- the Leeward Islands. It is the meat of all the slaves in the^ West Indies. Nor is it disdained by persons of better con- • dition. The North American navigation also furnishes the; Thoughts on the connexion between America and the West Indies OF GREAT BRITAIN. m ,J '■ r sugar colonies with salt from Turk's Island, Sal Tortuga, and SECT,| i Anguilla, although these islands are themselves a part of the n^^v',"* West Indies. The testimony which some experience has en- abled me to bear, you will find confirmed by official accounts." " For almost every purpose of the carpenter and the cooper, it is the lumber of North America that is used. The part which is furnished by the middle colonies of North America, is out of all proportion to the others. Without lumber to re- pair the buildings they run immediately to decay. And with- out lumber for the proper packages for sugar, and to contain rum, they cannot be sold at market ; they cannot even be kept at home." " As to rum, the dependence of all the islands, except Ja- maica, is as great upon the middle colonies of North Ame- rica, for the consumption of their rum, as it is for subsistence and for lumber. The rum of Barbadoes, the Leeward Islands, and the government of Granada, does not come into England, except in small portions. It goes in part to Ireland ; and all the rest, the great quantity, is distributed chiefly among the middle colonies of North America, agreeable to the law of re- ciprocal exchange." 4. The mother country was benefitted in her eastern em- pire, by the great consumption of tea in North America. Our advocates in England, during the disputes which imme- diately preceded the rupture, alleged that her usual annual de- mand had amounted to ^600,000 sterling, besides great sums for piece-goods and china ware. It is suggested in Macpher- son's Annals of Commerce,* that there was probably, some exaggeration in this statement ; but admitting the amount to have been less, it must still have formed an important contri- bution to the funds of the East India Company. Of the vast quantities of lumber imported by Great Bri- tain and Ireland, no inconsiderable part was drawn from the middle colonies of North America. The trade arising out of the cod fishery, furnished near one half of the remittances, from the New England provinces to the mother country. The produce of their cod fishery was divided into two- fifths of salted fish for the European market, and three- fifths for the West India market, and the amounts of sales in the European continental markets, went to Great Britain in payment of goods purchased there. The spermaceti, whale oil, and whale bone, proceeding from the whale fishery. * Vol. iii. p. 545, Vol. I.— U COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS as well as the greater part of the cod oil, were sent to Great Britain, and ministered essentially to her manufactures. Ac- cording to the statements made in 1775, by the merchants en- gaged in the American trade, to the House of Commons, the fishery generally, and carrying the fish to market from New England, employed at that period about fourteen hundred and fifty vessels, of one hundred thousand tons burthen, and eleven thousand fishermen and seamen. The growth and extent of the American fisheries are thus exhibited by Seybert in his Statistics. " In 1670, the cod fishery was commenced by the people in New England ; such was their application, that in 1675, they had in this employ- ment six hundred and sixty-five vessels, which measured 25,650 tons, and navigated by 4,405 seamen; at that early period, they caught at the rate of from 350,000 to 400,000 quintals of fish per annum. In 1715, our fishermen first pur- sued the whale. The fish then known as the Greenland whale, frequented our northern coasts ; in a very short time, the ac- tivity and success of the colonists in taking them, forced them into more southern latitudes, where the intruders were follow- ed by the harpoons of their former enemies ; they were chased off the Azores, along the coast of Africa and Brazil, to the remote regions of Falkland's Island. The discovery of a new species of whale was the consequence of this extensive and pe- rilous circumnavigation; the new fish was found to be more valuable than that on our northern coasts ; to it they gave the name of the spermaceti whale." " In 1771, the Americans employed one hundred and eighty- three vessels, measuring 1 3,820 tons, in the northern ; and one hundred and twenty-one vessels, measuring 14,020 tons, in the southern whale fishery ; these vessels gave employment to 4,059 seamen. From 1771 to 1775, Massachusetts em- ployed annually one hundred and eighty-three vessels, of! 13,120 tons, in the northern whale fishery, and one hundred I and twenty one vessels, of 14,026 tons, in the southern; na- vigated by 4,059 seamen." " Before the revolutionary war, the small island of Nan- tucket had sixty-five ships, of 4,875 tons, annually employedl in the northern; and eighty-five ships, of 10,200 tons, in thfc; southern fishery."* * Feb. 9, 1778, on the examination of witnesses at the bar of Parliament, respecting the commercial losses by the war with America — " Mr. George i Davis averred that he had been twenty-six years concerned in the whale and' cod fishery; in respect to the former, he tried to take •m-liales -with men from' England, but though they could strike them, and had struck several of late he had not as vet taken one," &c OF GREAT BRITAIN. | The fact is not a little significative, that for the encourage- SEGr ment of the British fisheries separately, oil and whale fins, '^i^^. taken in ships belonging to Great Britain, were allowed to be I imported in her vessels, duty free ; while a duty was imposed i on the importation of the same articles, taken or imported in vessels belonging to the plantations. Few of my readers can be strangers to the splendid panegyric of Burke upon the un- paralleled industry and hardihood displa3'ed by New England in the pursuit of the whale. It may not be unseasonable to re- xall the rebuke addressed to the British Parliament, with which he prefaced it, as well as the merit which he coiiimemorated. " As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, since they seemed even to excite your envy ; and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your admiration. What in the world is equal to it," &c. 5. So considerable a trade as that between the colonies -^ ■' and the rest of the British empire produced a correspondent increase of shipping. The one hundred thousand hogsheads of tobacco, and the sixty thousand barrels of rice,* annually imported into Great Britain, — employed in the transporta- tion, seventy thousand tons of shipping, almost wholly be- longing to her ports. Altogether, one thousand and seventy- eight ships, and twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and ten seamen, were engaged in the American trade. The building of ships for sale formed a material branch of the industry of the northern and middle colonies, and was brought to great perfection, particularly at Philadelphia. They supplied the mother countrv with considerable numbers, at prices much inferior to the standard rate of her cheapest ' ports. She found an important advantage in this supply, in- *asmuch as it was necessary to the support of her carrying * By the act of 3 Geo. II. c. 28. all rice was, for the second time, declared to be among the enumerated commodities, which were to pay a tax on be- ing' transported from colony to colony, and wliich could not be carried di- rectly to any foreign market. This act established, however, an exception to the general rule ; and allowed that "any of his majesty's subjects, in any ship or vessel btiilt in Great Britain, or belonging to any of his majesty's subjects residing in Great Britain, navigated according to law, and having cleared outward in any port of Great Britain for the province of Carolina, may ship rice in the same province, and carry the same directly to any part of Europe, to the southward of Cape Finisterre." COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIOiNS r I- trade, which, to use the language of her writers, " attained "^ to an amazing height by the aid of her colonies." She was unable to provide enough of ships of her own construction to answer her purposes ; and this is attested by the fact, that in the course of the revolutionary war, when America ceased to be the provider, the foreign shipping employed in her com- merce, which before had borne the proportion of twelve to forty, rose to that of twenty -nine to thirty-five. Of the ship- ping employed in the commerce of Great Britain, 398,000 tons were of the built of America. According to Dr. Sey- bert's Statistics, the proportion of the tonnage employed in the commerce of the colonies and Great Britain, owned by the inhabitants of Great Britain, amount to about three and two-third eighths ; the proportion which belonged to British merchants, occasionally resident in those colonies, was about two-eighths, making together nearly six-eighths of the whole, and the proportion of the tonnage so employed, which belong- ed to merchants, who were natives and permanent inhabitants of those colonies, was rather more than two and one-third eighths of the whole. Of the tonnage employed in the trade of the colonies with the British West Indies, five-eighths belonged to merchants, who were permanent inhabitants of those colonies, and three- eighths to British merchants, who resided occasionally in the colonies. None of the colonies to the north of Maryland ever had a balance in their favour in the trade with the mother country j but always, on the contrary, a large balance against them. The exports of all the colonies, for the year 1 770, amounted at least to three millions sterling ;* the whole of which may be said to have turned to her account. What she did not con- sume herself of their productions, she received as the entre- pot for Europe, to the great inconvenience and loss of the American owner ; and the proceeds of that proportion of them — one-sixth only — which went directly from America to con- tinental Europe, were invested in her manufactures. I do not think it necessary to mark the particular utility of the several articles which she consumed, and will content myself on this head, with repeating after Mr. Burke, " If I were to detail the imports of England from North America, I could * " An estimate was made this year," (1769) says Macpherson, (Annals, vol. iii. p. 493,) " of the trade of the North American Provinces, including Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland ; and the exports from Great Britain, are made to amount to 3,370,900/. and the exports from tlie colonies to 3,924,626;." &c. OF GREAT BRITAIN. if% show how many enjoyments they procured, which deceive the SECli i burden of life; how many materials which invigorated the v.^v.m'^i springs of national industry, and extended and animated every part of British foreign and domestic commerce." With respect I to the trade with the Indians in America, that was wholly on | account of Great Britain. Dr. Franklin stated, in his exami- nation before the House of Commons, what could not be de- nied, — that this trade " though carried on in America was not an American interest; that the people of America were chiefly farmers and planters, and scarce any thing which they raised or produced was an article of commerce with the Indians; that the Indian trade was a British interest; was carried on with British manufactures for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers." Connected with this head of the trade between the colonies and the mother country, there is one accusation often repeated agamst the former, on which I would say a few words : I allude ^'' to their pretended backwardness in paying their debts to the British merchants. This accusation was abundantly refuted by the British merchants and manufacturers themselves ; who bore emphatic testimony at the bar of the House of Commons, in 1775, of the fair dealing and good faith of their Ameri; an customers. It is, moreover, rendered highly improbable, by the fact, that, although six millions sterling were owing the latter, in December, 1774, yet, in December, 1775, two mil- lions only remained to be paid ; four millions having been re- mitted, even when a separation seemed inevitable.* It is true, that at an earlier period, some few British traders had complained of the laws in force in the plantations, for the re- covery of debts, and that parliament had, in consequence, passed a tyrannical bill,f which altered the nature of evidence in their courts of common law, and the nature of their estates, by treating real estates as chattels. To facilitate the proof and recovery of debts, it enacted, that an affidavit taken be- fore the mayor, or other chief magistrate of any town in Eng- land, and properly authenticated, should be received as legal evidence in all the courts of the plantations, and have the same force and effect as the personal oath of the plaintiff made there in open court ; and that lands, houses, negroes, and all real estate whatsoever, should be liable to, and chargeable with all debts due either to the king, or any of his subjects, and be as- sets for the satisfaction thereof, &:c. Champion, p. 269. f 5 Geo. II. c. 7. COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS 6. On this subject of the trade of America with the mother country, it would have been almost enough to have cited the testimony borne by Mr. Burke and Lord Chatham. The fol- lowing passage of the speech of the former, on the Concilia- tion with America, arose immediately out of his consideration of the custom house returns, and of the evidence of notorious facts. " The trade with America alone is now within less than ^500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! If I had taken the largest year of those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The're- verse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented; and augmented more or less, in almost every part : to which it ever extended; but with this material difference j- that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century, , constituted the whole mass of our export commerce, the colony ' trade was about one-twelfth part; it is now (as a part of sixteen : millions) considerably more than a third of the whole." There is something still more direct and conclusive in the language of Chatham. He spoke with all the authority which official station could possibly give in any matter. " When II had the honour of serving his majesty, I availed myself," said this illustrious statesmen, in one of his speeches against Grertr^ ville's scheme of taxation, " of the means of information, which I derived from my office ; I speak therefore from know- ledge. My materials were good. I was at pains to collect,! to digest, to consider them; and I will be bold to affirm, that.; the profit to Great Britain, from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is trvo yyiiU'ions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rented at two thousand pounds a year, three- score years ago, are three thousand pounds at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years purchase ; the same may now be sold for thirty. Ton oxve this to Americtu This is thi', price America pays you for her protection.'''* The quotations which I have made from Adam Smith, fni the first section, develop the nature of the commercial r6H straint under which the colonies existed. It was, in the theory, a condition of rigorous servitude. They could import no commodity, — with the exception of a few articles,— of the growth or manufacture of Europe, but through Great Britain ; they were allowed a direct foreign trade, only so iaij OF GREAT BRITALN. Jyil] as was required by her interests. " The policy of Great Bri- SECTj|; tain," said Mr. Burke, addressing the House of Commons, ""-^"^V,^ " was, from the beginning, the system of a monopoly. No trade was let loose from that constraint, but merely to enable the colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your trade, you could not take; or to enable them to dispose of such arti- cles as we forced upon them, and, for which, without some degree of liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your specific and detailed enumerations; hence the innumerable checks and counterchecks ; hence that infinite variety of paper chains by which you bind together this complicated system of the colo- nies. I'his principle of commercial monopoly runs through no less than twenty-nine acts of parliament, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate period of 1764."* The celebrated navigation act of 12 Car. II. not only pre- scribed in what vessels, and to what places, the goods of the i:olonies might be exported, but it limited one of their internal rights ; it prescribed what persons might act as merchants or factors, in the colonies. Three years afterwards, the Parlia- iment passed another bill, " to maintain," as they expressed themselves, " a greater correspondence and kindness between ^e colonies and England; to keep them in a firmer depend- ence on it; to make the kingdom a staple, not only of the <:ommodities of the plantations, but also of the commodities of other countries for supplying them." This act (15 Car. ii. c. 7.) directed accordingly, that no European goods should be imported into the plantations, but such as should be shipped in England, and proceed directly on board English or planta- tion ships,, &c. The penalty was forfeiture of the goods and vessel; one-third to the king, one to the governor of the plan- tation, if the seizure were made there, and one^third to the in- former. And to facilitate the recovery of the penalties, the informer had his option of suing either in the king's courts, where the offence was committed, or in any court of record in England. Many of the articles which the colonies were compelled to buy of the mother country, could have been procured at a much cheaper rate elsewhere. She could charge her manu- factures with what imposts she pleased, and the burden fell ultimately upon the American consumer. It was stated to her ministers, by the agents of the colonies, that from the extra- ordinary demand in America, for her fabrics, she reaped an advantage of at least twenty per cent, in the price, beyond * Speech on American taxation. I COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS ar I. what the articles could be purchased for at foreign markets. The forced accumulation of American produce in her ports, reduced its price, by which she gained, on what she consumed, exactly in proportion to the loss of the colonists. The profit accruing to her from the portion re-exported, was obviously considerable. Taking off, as the colonies did in the latter years of their dependence, two millions annually of her manu- factures, and depositing with her, compulsorily, produce nearly to the same amount, it must be sufficiently clear, when the other circumstances just stated, are kept in view, that they paid an enormous indirect tax, independently of the charges to which they were liable, as a consequence of her European quarrels. Happily their domestic governments, cast in the simplest mould, and unincumbered with pageantry or surplus- age of any kind, subjected them to no heavy expense. **■ All the different civil establishments in North America," said Adam Smith, " exclusive of those of Maryland and North Ca- rolina, did not, before their revolt, cost the inhabitants above ^64,700 a year; an ever memorable example at how small an expense three millions of people may not only be governed, but well governed."* What has been said conveys an adequate idea of the situa- tion in which the North American colonies were placed as to trade, but I wish to offer something more in illustration of the precipitation and levity, with which their interests, and the true interests of the mother country at the same time, were sacrificed, under the influence of an undistinguishing selfish- ness. I may quote as of perfect accuracy, — since no British Writer ventured to contradict them, — the following statements which Franklin published in London, in 1768. " They (the colonies,) reflected how lightly the interest of all America had been estimated here, when the interests of a few of the inhabitants of Great Britain happened to have the smallest competition with it. That the whole American people was forbidden tlie advantage of a direct importation of wine, oil, and fruit, from Portugal; but must take them loaded with all the expense of a voyage, one thousand leagues round about, being to be landed first in England, to be re-shipped for America; expenses, amounting in war time at least to thirty pounds per cent, more than otherwise they would have • W. of N. c. vii. b. Ir. It bespeaks an extraordinary share of political virtue in the colonists, to have resisted, as they did, during so long and- close a connexion, the example of the mother country, on the score of pub- lic expenditure and aristocratical distinctions. OF GREAT BRITAIN. been charged with; and all this merely, that a few Portugal SECXfl'i merchants in London may gain a commission on, those goods passing through their hands. " On a slight complaint of a few merchants trading with Virginia, nine colonies were restrained from making paper money, become absolutely necessary to their internal com- merce, from the constant remittance of their gold and silver to Britain. But not only the interest of a particular body of merchants^ but the interest of any small body of British trades- men or artificers, has been found to outweigh that of all the king's subjects in the colonies. " Iron is to be found every where in America, and beaver are the natural produce of that country : hats and nails and steel are wanted there as well as here. It is of no importance to the common welfare of the empire, whether a subject of the king gets his living by making hats on this or on that side of the water. Yet the hatters of England have prevailed to obtain an act in their own favour, restraining that manufacture in Ame- rica, in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured; and purchase back the hats, loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner have a few nail-makers, and still a smaller body of steel-makers, (perhaps there are not half a dozen of these in England,) prevailed totally to forbid, by an act of parliament, the erecting of slitting mills, or steel furnaces in America; that the Americans may be obliged to take all their nails for their buildings, and steel for their tools, from these artificers, under the same disadvantages," &c. 7. I may be permitted, before I leave this topic of com- mercial obligation, to advance to a more recent period. If a British statesman could not, after the American war, say abso- lutely, as Chatham had done before its occurrence — "Ame- rica is the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the basis of our power," he might, however, safely ascribe no inconsiderable share of the continued prosperity of the British isles, to the commercial intercourse which was re-established with her, and to her increase in wealth and population. Her vast consumption of British manufactures, her abundant pro- duction of the raw materials, cotton particularly,* her imports • In 1791, the first parcel of cotton of American growth, was exported from the United States. Calculated on the average of the six yeai*s, from 1806 to 1811, there was annually imported into Great Britain, from the United States, 34,568,487 pounds, and in 1811, 46,872,452 pounds. In 1755, Vol. I.— X I ; COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS f viT L from the East Indies, her traffic with the West, the difFusion. v-^*-' through her means, of the British commodities of every de- scription over the continent of Europe, gave her, in her inde- pendent state, an aspect nearly approaching to that imder which Chatham saw her in the colonial. A distinguished member of the British parliament, Mr. Alexander Baring, ex- amined fully in 1808, with the advantages of practical know- ledge and much general commercial learning, the question of her increased utility, and pronounced that, upon the whole, she had, in her independent situation, to a greater degree than could have been expected from any other, been the means of augmenting the British resources^ in the zt>ar with the conti- nental powers — that she contributed in the highest degree pos'- iible^ all the henejits xvhich one nation could derive from the ex-' istence of another^ or that a mother country could receive from that of the best regulated colony.* The same enquirer as- certained, that three-fourths of the money proceeding from the consumption of the produce of the soil of America, in all parts of the world, were paid to Great Britain for her manu- factures. He developed other benefits, the reality of which did -not admit of dispute, and found it unpardonable " that his countrymen should entertain a jealousy of the prosperity and wealth American independence had produced, which not only served to circulate the produce of their industry, where :l they could not carry it themselves, but by increasing the means i of America, augmented in the same proportion her consump- 1 tion of that produce, at a time when the loss of their former i customers, by the persecutions of France, rendered it mostlj| valuable." It will be enough, for the present, in addition to these re-i marks, to sL*',e the leading facts in the history of our indepen- dent trade with the British empire, as they are exhibited in the: valuable works of Pitkin and Seybert. The amount of goods imported into the United States fromi England in the year 1784, must have been about eighteen." millions of dollars, and in 1 785, about twelve millions ; mak-< ing, in those two years, thirty millions of dollars; while the; the cotton manufacture, in England, was ranked " among the humblest ofi the domestic arts ;" the products of this branch were then almost entirely; for home consumption ; in 1797, it took the lead of all the other manufac-^| tures in Great Britain, and in 1809, gave employment to 800,000 persons,! and its annual value was estimated at 30,000,000^ or 132,000,000 of doUara.i — Seybert. * Examination of the Orders in Council, &c. ( OF GREAT BRITAIJS. ijl exports of the United States to England, were only between SEC1|; eight and nine millions. On the average of the six years, posterior to the war of our revolution, ending with 1789, the merchandise annually im- ported into Great Britain, from the United States, amounted to 908,636/. sterling ; and the importations into the United States, from Great Britain, on the same average, amounted annually to 2,119,837/. sterling; leaving an annual balance of 1,211,201/. s.jrling, or 5,329,284 dollars, in favour of Great Britain. In 1792, according to the estimate of the American Secretary of the Treasury, our exports to Great Britain and her dominions amounted to 9,363,416 dollars, and our imports to 15,285,428 dollars. Much the greater part of the imports was from Great Britain, exclusive of her depen- dencies. From sundry British documents it appears, that the United States, from 1793 to 1800, imported from Great Britain a greater amount of manufactures than were exported from Great Britain during the same period to all foreign Europe. In 1800, the United States received from Great Britain more ]than one-fourth of the amount of the manufactured articles .exported by her to all parts of the world. , During the seven years from 1795 to 1801, both inclusive, the balance of trade with Great Britain and Ireland, and the dominions thereof, was uniformly against the United Sates, and in the aggregate amounted to 106,118,104 dollars, or 15,159,748/. per annum. The balance in favour of Great Britain was only 70,116 dollars less than the apparent unfa- vourable balance produced by our trade with all parts of the world collectively taken. In 1800, the merchandise exported from Great Britain was worth 16/. 145. sterling, or 74.23 dollars per ton ; and that imported from Great Britain into the United States was worth 54/. 4*. sterling, or 240.89 dollars per ton. In 1802, 1803, and 1804, there was annually imported into the United States from the British possessions in Europe, of merchandise paying duties ad valorem, and of other manufac- tured articles subject to specific duties, the aggregate of 27,400,000 dollars: if we admit that one-fourth of this amount was re-exported, 20,550,000 dollars of the value thereof remained for the annual consumption of our popula- tion ; the profits on which were gained by Great Britain. It is generally calculated that raw materials gain seven fold by being manufactured. Such were our contributions in those COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIOISS years, for the advancement of the skill and industr}' of the British nation. On the average of the three years, 1802, 1803, and 1804^ the annual value of the merchandise exported from the United States to the dominions of Great Britain, amounted to 18,665,777 dollars; and on the average of the same three years, the annual value of the merchandise imported into the United States from Great Britain amounted to 35,737,030 dollars, leaving an annual balance of 17,071,253 dollars against the United States. The real value of British produce and manufacture export- ed to the United States, on an average of the years 1806 and 1807, was 11,417,834/. sterling, or about 50,500,000 dollars ; making one quarter and one-third of all the exports of British produce and manufacture during those two years. By the Eng- lish accounts, the real value of cotton and woollen goods ex- ported to the United States from England, on an average of the same two years, was 8,984,886/. or about 39,500,000 dol- lars, as valued in England. In 1807, the amount of goods, paying duties ad valorem^ was nearly 39,000,000 of dollars; when we add the goods imported, in the same year, duty free, and those subject to specific duties, the whole amount imported from Great Britain in 1807, would not, it is believed, fall much short of 50,000,000 of dollars. The aggregate value of the exports of every description to the United States from Great Britain, during the seven years^ from 1805 to 1811, amounted to 62,266,668/. sterling, or • annually to 36,470,471 dollars; their aggregate value to all parts of the world during the seven years amounted ta j 376,977,160/. sterling, or annually to 220,800,498 dollars;: or, the United States received annually, of the merchandisfe of every description, exported to all parts of the world froni i! Great Britain, 16.51 per centum, or one-sixth of the aggregate value thereof. On the average of the seven years, from 1805 to 1811, the aggregate value of the British produce and manufactures an- nually exported from Great Britain to the United States, amounted to 35,441,367 dollars; and the annual value of the domestic produce of the United States exported to Great Britain, calculated on the same average, amounted to 9,124,941 dollars; leaving an annual balance of 26,316,426 dollars in favour of Great Britain. Or the annual value of the exports of every description from Great Britain to the Uni- ted States, on the average aforesaid, amounted to 36,470,471 OP GREAT BRITAIN. f I (loUars; and the aggregate annual value of the exports oi SECT)' every description from the United States to Great Britain "^^^i'-i and her dependencies, her East India possessions excepted, amounted to 16,438,362 dollars ; leaving an annual balance of £ 20,032,109 dollars in favour of Great Britain. On the return of peace between the two countries, in 1815, the importation of British goods was great beyond example. From the 1st of January to the 31st of December, 1815, the amount of goods paying duties ad valorem, imported from Great Britain and her dominions, was 71,400,599 dollars. Nearly the whole of this sum was made up from goods com- ing directly from Great Britain, consisting principally of woollens and cotton. The value of articles paying specific duties, from Great Britain and her dependencies, during the same period, (calcvdating their value at the place of importa- tion) was 11,470,586.80 dollars, making the whole amount no less than 82,871,185.80 dollars from Great Britain and the countries in her possession. During the six years from 1802-3 to 1807-8 inclusive, the United States exported in bulhon to India, only ^1,742,682 sterling, less than had been exported during the same term, by the British East India Company, the officers of the Company's ships, and by the British private trade ; the amount which we exported, was more than two-thirds of that exported from Great Britain. It appears that the United States, during the six years from ISO^ to 1808, exported to the British East Indies, in mer- chandise, an aggregate of 2,589,589 dollars ; or annually, 431,598 dollars. The treasure (specie) exported in the same term, in the aggregate, amounted to 17,626,275 dollars, or 2,937,712 dollars per annum. The importations into those settlements, consisting of money and merchandise, from the United States, amounted to 3,369,310 dollars per annum. During the six years aforesaid, there was exported, from the British East Indies, to the United States, merchandise, amounting to 18,63'3,426 dollars, or annually to 3,105,571 dollars. The treasure exported as aforesaid, amounted in the aggregate to 69,500 dollars, or annuallj^to 11,583 dollars; leaving an annual balance in favour of India, of 2,662,390 dollars. During the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, the United States supplied the British West India islands with more than nine- tenths of their flour, meal and bread, about two-thirds of their Indian com, oats, peas and beans, about one half of their beef ) COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS RT I. and pork, more than one half of their dried fish, and nearly •^-"^ the whole of their live stock and lumber. The average quantity of staves and heading, sent to the British West Indies, in the years 1805, 1806, 1807, was 17,614,000, being nearly one half of the quantity exported during these years. The quantity of boards and plank, for the same years, on an average was 40,000,000. In 1803, 260,555, and in 1807, 251,706 barrels of flour were exported to these islands. Tiie value of flour, bread, and biscuit exported to the Bri- tish West Indies, on an average of the years 1802, 180J, 1 804, was about 2,000,000 dollars ; of lumber of all kinds about 1,000,000; of beef, pork, bacon, and lard, about 800,000 dollars ; and of Indian com, rye, and Indian meal, about 600,000. The quantity of rum imported, during the same period, was about 4,000,000 gallons annually, and was valued at about 2,500,000 dollars. The quantity imported, in the years 1805, 1806, and 1807, was about 4,614,000 gal- lons annually. The average amount of duties upon merchandise, annually imported into the United States from the British West India islands and North American colonial possessions, from 1802 to 1816, excluding the period from the commencement of the restrictive system to the termination of the late war, exceeds 2,000,000 dollars. The value of the merchandise upon which these duties accrued is supposed to be equal to 7,000,000 dol- lars per annum. The average annual amount of exports to the same places, principally of domestic production, up to 1817, excluding the time of the operation of the restrictive system, and the continuance of the war, have exceeded 6,500,000 dol- lars. In 1815, the amount of the duties on merchandise im- ported in American vessels from the British West India islands and North American colonial possessions, was, to the amount of duties imported in British vessels, as one to four i in 1816, as one to five and a half, or two to eleven. Taking the ratio of 1816, as the basis of calculation, and it is believed to afford the safest and most solid,' — as past experience shows a constant diminution of the amount of duties on goods im- ported in vessels of the United States — it is estimated, supposing the same proportion exists in the exports, that ( American vessels are used on the transportation annually of 2,177,924 dollars worth of merchandise, and British vessels, of 1 1 ,322,076 dollars worth of the most bulky articles of com- merce, one half of which are of the growth, production or OF GREAT BRITAIN. ^| manufacture of the United States. This inequality in the ad- SECT)' vantages of this commerce, to the navigating interest of this '^^'^^i country, arises from the rigorous enforcement of the colonial system of Great Britain, as to the United States, while it is relaxed to all nations who arc friendly to the British empire .and her colonial possessions. \m SECTION Yl OF THE RELATIVE DISPOSITIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA, FROM THE PEACE OF 1763. 1. The oppression and losses which the colonies had en- dured ; the shackles imposed upon them ; the destitution to which they had been so long consigned ; the parsimony and unskilfulness with which aid was finally administered by the mother country ; the faint praise or the bitter sarcasm which attended their noblest exertions ; the despicable character and habitual malversation of their governors;* the immeasurable evils which they could trace to the indifference, incapacity, or corruption of British ministers ; the general complexion of the domestic government of Great Britain, so livid in the? contrast with their own, and so ghastly in the pictures of hef party writers ; all, were insufficient to stifle their affections} or shake their allegiance. In the season of their severest dis^ ■ tress from the incursions of the Indian and Canadian; at thel; height of their dissatisfaction with the restraining and dis**- franchising system of the mother country ; they did not turtf-i their eyes to France, who could have arrested the steps of I their savage invaders, and who would gladly have made any^ compromise, or concession of privileges, to attach them to her' empire. Franklin boasted with truth in 1768, " Scotland! i has had its rebellion; Ireland has had its rebellion; England its plots against the reigning family; but America is free fronv' this reproach." What is related of the Greek colonies, coul the encroachments of their arrogant will or oppressive laws,; they at once fancied and proclaimed, that their whole autho- rity was denied, and that the litigant provinces either medi- tated, or had committed rebellion. They could not perceive that the very assertion of a privilege implied an acknowi ledgment of their supremacy; that the eagerness of the co- lonists to obtain charters from the crown, and their anxietyt to preserve unimpaired those which they obtained, — their * Debate on Disturbances in America, 1770. ■ PEACE OF 17G3. claims to the liberties of Englishmen as defined and pledged SECO't'r by the British constitution; their perpetual appeals to the authority of Parliament ; amounted to a constant renovation of fealty, and indicated any other drift than that of separation. When, after the peace of 1763, the scheme of American tax- ation and servitude was matured, and the determination fixed to persist in it at all hazards, its immediate authors and abet- tors, in order to render it more acceptable to the nation, exerted themselves particularly to spread the impression, that New England had constantly aimed at independence ; that " the Americans had been obstinate, undutiful and ungovern- able from the very beginning." This was the text taken by the orators in Parliament, and the writers out of doors, on the ministerial side, with a view to the conclusion, that all con- cession or gentleness to the intractable provincials would be futile ; that, "■ they never could be brought to their duty and the true subordinate relation, till reduced to an unconditional, effectual submission.""* To convict New England of treasonable dispositions in all stages of her existence, is, palpably, the main object of Chal- mers, in his Annals; and it would seem, that he, or those in whose service he writes, did not deem it advisable to relin- quish the argument, as late as the year 1814. In the preface to a work published under his name in that year, and entitled " Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, &c." I find the following passage : " None of the statesmen of 1 766 or 1768, nor those of the preceding nor subsequent times, had any suspicion that there lay among the documents, in the Board of Trade and Patent Office, the most satisfactory proofs from the epoch of the Revolution in 1668, throughout every reign, and during every administration, of the settled I purpose of the revolted colonies, to acquire direct indepen- 1 ^dence: the design had long been entertained of acquiring po- sitive sovereignty." We have seen what these proofs are, in the extracts which K ^I have made from his Annals. They amount to no more than I i-what was extant in the public history of the colonies ; and may be resolved into* a determined assertion, on their part, of . -fundamental liberties, and into acts of sheer necessity. In \ '.illustrating their political intrepidit)', I have cited many in- stances of an inflexible tenacity as to natural and chartered rights, but none of a rebellious or seditious temper. Evidence Earl Talbot, House of Lords, 1776, ! DISPOSITIONS FROM THE BT I. is not wanting that they would never have submitted to the ■v-^ deprivation ot their privileges ; but none exists even of a wish for independence, while those privileges could be preserved. If we fix our attention, for a moment, on the situation of the first settlers, particularly the northern, we shall perceive that, to exist at ail in order and safety ; to constitute a regular and stable commonwealth J it was indispensable for them to trans- cend the letter of the royal patents. They had no alternative in the first instance, but to erect judicatories, and establish re- presentative assemblies, in reference to their domestic weal ; and, when no hope of protection from abroad could be in- dulged, to confederate for external defence. We may wonder that Dr. Robertson, acknowledging the dereliction of the New England colonies during the civil com- motions in the mother country, and the extremity of their peril from the plots of the Indians, should yet censoriously re- present their league of 1643, — the only means of their preser- vation, — as " a transaction in which they seem to have con- sidered themselves as independent societies, possessing all the rights of sovereignty, and free from the control of any supe- rior power."* Thrown as they were into a wilderness, rather as reprobates to be sacrificed, than as subjects to be defended; committed to the exigencies and chances of a distant settle- ment, and pressed with the highest degree of danger at the season when all was confusion and dissention in the mother country; they must have fallen into anarchy themselves, had they waited to consult her rulers respecting their domestic arrangements; or have perished by the tomahawk of the savage, had they looked to her for a system of defence, and delayed to combine their strength and sagacity, so as to assure a common exertion, whenever it might be wanted, whether for military or civil objects. The institutions and prosperity that arose out of this compulsory exercise of discretion, under such untoward circumstances, excite in me anew, the surprise and admiration which I have more than once expressed. The measure of coining money, taken by Massachusetts during the civil wars, gave a handle to her enemies in England, which was used eagerly, from the period of the Restoration, to the apparition militant of Chalmers and his numerous associates in the same crusade. That writer lays, as we have seen, the greatest stress upon its sufficiency, as evidence of the early disloyalty of New England ; and Dr. Robertson found it *' a usurpation ;" an unambiguous indication of " the aspiring Vol. iv. History of America. PEACE Of 1763. 1 spirit prevalent among the people of Massachusetts."* I SECT cannot refrain from otfering, in answer to these invidious sug- ^^^v-' gestions, a quotation from a paper on the subject published in the English Monthly Magazine for January, 1799, It com- prises an anecdote which gives the proper air to the orthodox historian's umbrage " at the tree stampt upon the Boston coin as an apt symbol of its progressive vigour." " It seems to be the opinion of Dr. Robertson, that the people of Massachusetts assumed this ' peculiar prerogative of sovereignty' in defiance of, or at least, in opposition to, the royal authority. But it ought to be particularly noticed, th^t the first coinage was made in the year 1652. Instead, there- fore, of ascribing this measure to the ' aspiring spirit of the people of Massachusetts,' the Doctor might just as well have said, that the colonists being nearly deserted, at this time, by the rulers at home, on account of the civil wars, and the varir- ous forms of government which afterwards followed, were obliged to coin money from absolute necessity. The follow- ing extract from the Memoirs of the late truly patriotic Tho- mas Hollis, will prove this to have been the principal, if not the only cause, and consequently point out the mistake which Dr. Robertson has inadvertently fallen into." " Sir Thomas Temple, brother to Sir William Temple, re- sided several years in New England during the interregnum. After the Restoration, when he returned to England, the king sent for him, and discoursed with him on the statfe of affairs in the Massachusetts, and discovered great warmth against that colony. Among other things, he said they had invaded his prerogative by coining- money. Sir Thomas, who was a real friend to the colony, told his majesty, that the colonists had but little acquaintance with law, and that they thought it no •crime to make money for their own use. In the course of the conversation, Sir Thomas took some of the money out of his pocket, and presented it to the king. On one side of the coin was a pine tree, of that kind which is thick and bushy at the top. Charles asked what tree that was ? Sir Thomas inform- ed him it was the royal oak, which preserved his majesty's life. This account of the matter brought the king into good humour, and disposed him to hear what Sir Thomas had to say in their favour, calling them a '•parcel of honest dogs,"* " *' The jocular turn which Sir Thomas gave to the story, ■ was evidently calculated to amuse the monarch in his own * Vol. iv. History of America. DISPOSITIONS FROM THE wa5% and had the desired effect, in disposing him to hear with ' good humour, that just defence of the colonies which Sir Tho- mas was so well qualified to make. We find he pleaded, that the colonists thought it no crime to make money for their own use ; at a time too, when the confusions in the mother coun- try prevented them from receiving those occasional supplies of coin, which were absolutely necessary for common circula- tion. Such an uncommon exigency required an uncommon expedient ; and this will account for the proceedings of the people of Massachusetts in a more rational manner, than Dr. Robertson has done." By the act of 14 Geo. II. c. 37, the Americans were re- strained from creating banks ; by that of 24 Geo. II. c. 53, the governors and assemblies of the respective American pro- vinces were prohibited from making " any act, order, resolu- tion, or vote, whereby paper bills or bills of credit, shall be created or issued, under any pretence whatever ; or from pro- tracting or postponing the times limited, or the provisions made, for calling in such as were then actually issued and sub- sisting." After the peace of 1763, most of the colonies were reduced, in consequence of the enforcement of these and other regulations of a like purport, to a situation worse than that of Massachusetts in 1672. It is thus stated by Macpherson in his Annals. " Their foreign trade was almost entirely ruined by the rigorous execution of the new orders against smuggling, , and the collection of the duties in hai'd silver, which soon ( drained the country of any little real money circulating in it. 1 And, as if government had intended to prevent the colonists j from having even the shadow of money, another act was passed, | in a few days after that for the new duties, declaring that no paper bills, to be thenceforth issued, should be made a legal tender in payment, and enjoining those in circulation to bei sunk (that is, paid off in hard money) at the limited time." Had the colonies — some of which were driven to the expe- dient of barter, — possessed bullion, and proceeded to coin it on this emergencj- , it would not have been difficult for any li- beral enquirer to decide whether the proceeding was to be in-, terpreted into " an indication of an aspiring spirit," or into a mere and natural effort for temporary relief from an oppressive privation. I find it the more unpardonable in Dr. Robert- son to have mistaken or misrepresented the views of the colo- nists, since he has himself furnished an explanation of much of their apparent indocility in the following paragraph : "In writing the history of the English settlements in America, it is PEACE OF 1763. 1 necessary to trace the progress of the restraining laws with SECT accuracy, as in every subsequent transaction, we may observe ^-^^v, a perpetual exertion on the part of the mother country, to en-' force and extend them ; and on the part of the colonies, en- deavours no less unremitting to elude or to obstruct their operation." i The inveterate design of the colonies to become indepen- I jdent, continued to be a leading topic in the British parliament, notwithstanding the evidence furnished in their conduct on the repeal of the stamp act in 1 766.* We have a specimen of the manner in which the charge was supported, in the argument of Sir Richard Sutton, who said in the House of Commons, on the 22d April, 1774, " If you ask an American — who is his master, he will tell you he has none ; nor any governor but Jesus Christ!" Lord Mansfield was quite sure that the Ame- ricans had meditated a state of independency, particularly since the peace of Paris, and upon this ground chiefly, he rested his celebrated declaration in the House of Lords, " if Ave do not kill the Americans, the Americans will kill us." In the quotation which I have made from one of his speeches on the same point, Davenant is brought forward as having I ♦* foreseen that America would endeavour to form herself into ! a separate and independent state, whenever she found herself 1 of sufficient strength to contend with the mother country." ' The learned judge did not, however, deal fairly with Dave- : .nant. This great political teacher — ^by far the ablest of his j time, and whose treatises, according to his editor, Sir Charles 'i Whitworth, " may be properly called the foundation of the : political establishment of England" — had delivered, in his , Discourse on the Plantation Trade, opinions respecting the 1 colonies, which Lord Mansfield would have been very unwil- I ling to produce in their real shape. The following, written in ; 1698, are of this number, and will compensate for the space i they may occupy in these pages, by their historical value. if " Generally speaking, our colonies while they have English I blood in their veins, and have relations in England, and while * " When the news of the repeal of the stamp act reached America," says Macpherson, " it was, notwithstanding' the disagreeable nature of the concomitant act, received with universal demonstrations of joy. Sub- scriptions were made for erecting statues to Mr. Pitt, who had exerted himself for the repeal ; and resolutions were made to prepare new dresses made of British manufactures for celebrating- the 4th of June, the birth day of their most gracinut sovereign, and to give their homespun clothes to the poor," &c. : DISPOSITIONS FROM THE IT I. they can get by trading with us, the stronger and greater they '"^ grow, the more this crown and kingdom will get by them ; and nothing but such an arbitrary power as shall make them despe- rate^ can bring them to rebeW " Whil^ we keep a strict eye upon their conduct, and chiefly watch their growth in shipping of strength and for war, whatever other increase they make, either in wealth or in number of inhabitants, cannot be turned against us, and can never be detrimental to this nation. While we are strong and they weak at sea, they may be compelled to obey the laws of England, and not to trade directly and upon their own ac- count with other countries. I do not think the greatness these colonies may arrive at in a natural course, and in the progress of time can be dangerous to England. To build ships in the- way of trade or for their own defence, can administer no true cause of jealousy." *' It is true, if in New England, or in other parts there, they should pretend to set up manufactures, and to clothe as well as feed their neighbours, their nearness and low price would give them such advantages over this nation, as might prove of pernicious consequence ; but this fear seems very remote, be- cause new inhabitants, especially in a large extent of country, find their account better in rearing cattle, tilling the earth, clearing it of woods, making fences, and by erecting necessary buildings, than in setting up of manufactures, which is the last work of a people settled three or four hundred years, growing numerous and wanting territory." " When we contemplate the great increase and improve- ments which have been made in New England, Carolina, and Pennsylvania, we cannot but think it injustice not to say, that a large share of this general good to those parts is owing to the education of the planters^ which, if not entirely virtuous, has, at least, a show^ of virtue." *' And to the sobriety and temperate way of living, prac- tised by the dissenters retired to America, we may justly at- tribute the increase they have made there of inhabitants, which is beyond the usual proportion to be any where else ob- served." " Had it not been for provinces begun and carried on by people of sobriety, the English empire abroad would be much weaker than it is at present." " If ever any thing great or good be done for our English colonies, industry must have its due recompense, and that cannot be, without encouragement to it, which, perhaps, is only to be brought about by confirming their liber ties. '''' PEACE OF 17G3. I •' And as great care should be taken in this respect, so, SEOJ livithout doubt, it is advisable, that no little emulations, or pri- vate interests of neighbour governors, nor that the petitions of hungry courtiers at home, should prevail to discourage those particular colonies, who in a few years have raised themselves by their own charge, prudence, and industry, to the wealth and greatness they are now arrived at, without expense to the crown : Upon which account, any innovations or breach of their original charters (besides that it seems a breach of the public faith) may, peradventure, not tend to the king's profit." " We shall not pretend to determixre whether the people in the Plantations have a right to all the privileges of English subjects; but the contrary notion is, perhaps, too much en- tertained and practised in places which happen not to be dis- tant from St. Stepheti^s Chapel. Upon which account it will, peradventure, be a great security and encouragement to these industrious people, if a declaratory law wei'e made, that Englishmen have right to all the laws of England, while they remain in countries subject to the dominion of this king- dom." ^ 2. On the side of the British government, the bias and im- pressions taken after the epoch of 1 763, were altogether, and by an almost incredible perversion of heart and of judgment, the reverse of those which I have ascribed to the colonies. It >vas to be expected that the exertions and sufferings of the latter during the war, and the value of the results tb Great Britain, would have warmed the feelings, and relaxed the gripe, of any ministry or parliament, however greedy of reve- nue, or tenacious of dominion. The British nation had ac- quired, by the war, lands more than equal in value to the amount of all the expense she had incurred in America from its first settlement ; and she saw opened to her new avenues of a most beneficial commerce. No share was sought or reaped by the colonies, in the millions of acres which they had helped to conquer; they seemed to desire no more than the loosening of their fetters so far, as to enable them to recover from their wounds. But, to allow them an interval of ease entered not into the imagination or heart of their task-masters. The Lords of tKe Admiralty issued forthwith, instructions to the commanders on the American station, to enforce all those acts of trade to which I have adverted, in the most rigid manner. " The ministry," says Gordon, " obliged all sea-ofRcers stationed on Vol. I.— Z I DISPOSITIONS FliOM THE r I- the American coasts, to act in the capacity of the meanest re- ■""^^ venue officers, making them submit to the usual custom-house oaths and regulations for that purpose. This proved a great grievance to the American merchants and traders. Many il- legal seizures were made; no redress could be had but from Britain. Besides, the American trade with the Spaniards, by Avhich the British manufactures were vended in return, for gold and silver in coin or bullion, cochineal, &c, as occasion served, was almost instantly destroyed by the armed ships un- der the new regulations."* Immediately after the ratification of the definitive treaty, the intentions of the government to quarter ten thousand troops in America, and to support them at the expense of the colonies, were authentically announced. Mr. Grenville avowed it, in the House of Commons, to be his purpose, to raise the money for the support of those troops, by a duty on the foreign sugar and molasses imported into America, and by stamps on all papers legal and mercantile. In 1764, Parliament passed an act imposing duties on the two first articles; and to secure its execution, the penalties for the breach of it, or of any other act relating to the trade and revenues of the British colonies, were made recoverable in any court of admiralty in the colony where the offence should be committed, or — at the election of the informer or prosecu- tor — in any court of vice-admiralty, which might be appointed by the crown in any part of America. Thus the trial by jury might be withheld, and the defendant called to support his claim to property seized, at distances which would make the expense of the pursuit more than the value of the prize. Moreover, the act provided that he could recover neither cost nor damages, if the judge certified that there was probable cause of seizure. I do not know of any moral phenomenon which history offers, more hateful — than that those who were entrusted in Great Britain with the supreme administration, should not only have proved utterly insensible to the services and distresses of the colonies, but have at once resolved to take adv^antagc of the expulsion of her rival from the American continent, effect- ed, in great part, through their vigorous assistance — and of the mighty increase and complete disengagement of the national strength, produced by the same generous co-operation — t© enforce in all its rigour the whole digest of commercial sub- jection; to plunge them into what Mr. Burke so justly describ- ed as " a perfect uncompensated slavery, by joining together * Vol. i. p. 207. PEACE OF 176S. ' the reslruints ot an universal internal and external monopoly, SECT: with an universal internal and external taxation." There seems to be now but one voice throughout the world, respecting the expedients employed to establish this cumulative despotism — the revenue-acts, stamp-acts, restraining and starving acts, Boston port acts, acts for disfranchising legisla- tures, for quartering soldiers in private houses, dragging men to England for trial, &c. English writers of every party- denomination, finding that the verdict of Europe was given unanimously and irreversibly, against this headlong career of in- justice and folly, have concurred in passing upon it, themselves, the severest sentence of reprobation. They tell us without hesitation that a scheme of new modelling the colonial govern- ment, so as to increase the power and patronage of the crown, and enable ministers to enrich their relations and dependents, was the cause of the war, and of the loss of America. They adduce these as the prominent features of the hopeful scheme :— - First, to raise a revenue in America by act of parliament, to be applied to support an army there ; to pay a large salary to the governors, another to the lieutenant governors, salaries to the judges of the law and admiralty ; and thus to render the whole government, executive and judicial, entirely indepen- dent of the people, and wholly dependent on the minister. Second, to make a new division of the colonies, to reduce the number of them by making the small ones more extensive, to make them all royal governments, with a peerage in each, &c. Mr. Burke gave to parliament, in his unanswerable speech on American taxation, a full account of the dawn and progress of the new plan of colonial administration. His relation stands as a monument of the genius of that rule, under which the co- lonies, by their own admirable energies, and a train of provi- dential dispensations, had grown to a strength, and preserved a spirit, too firm to be broken by its utmost pressure, when all other barriers to its natural action were removed. The fol- lowing is a part of the testimony of Burke : " At the period immediately on the close of the war of 1 756, a scheme of government new in many things seemed to have been adopted. I saw, or thought I saw, several symptoms of a great change, whilst I sat in your gallery, a good while be- fore I had the honour of a seat in this house. At that period the necessity was established of keeping up no less than twenty new regiments, with twenty colonels capable of seats in this house. This scheme was adopted with very general applause from all sides, at the very time that, by your conquests in DISPOSITIONS FROM THE America, yovu- danger from foreign attempts in that part of the world was much lessened, or indeed rather quite over. When this huge increase of military establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to be found to support so great a burthen. Country gentlemen, the great patrons of economy, and the great resisters of a standing armed force, would not have en- tered with much alacrity into the vote for so large and so ex- pensive an army, if they had been very sure that they were to continue to pay for it. But hopes of another kind were held out to them; and, in particular, I well remember, that Mr. Townshend, in a brilliant harangue on this subject, did dazzle them, by playing before their eyes the image of a revenue to be raised in America." The conduct of the colonies in resisting this scheme did not want for advocates in the parliament ; and we may claim for it particularly, the unqualified sanction of Camden and Chat- ham, the most enlightened and conscientious among the British statesmen of that day. " We have been," said the first, " the original aggressors in this business ; if we obstinately persist, we are fairly answerable for all the consequences. When we contend that we aim only to defend and enforce our own rights, , I positively deny it. I contend that America has been driven, . by cruel necessity, to defend her rights from the united attacks of violence, oppression, and injustice. I contend that America i has been indisputably aggrieved. Perhaps, as a domineering' ■ Englishnan^ wishing to enjoy the ideal benefit of such a claim' of taxation, I might urge it with earnestness, and endeavour to : carry my point; but if, on the other hand, I resided in America, that I felt, or was to feel, the effects of such manifest injustice, I certainly should resist the attempt with that degree of ardour which so daring a violation of what should be held dearer than life itself, ought to enkindle in the breast of every freeman." " Pursuing the ideas of a native American, or a person re- siding in that country, what must be the sense they feel of the repeated injuries that have for a succession of years past been heaped on them ? To have their propert}% under the idea oi asserting a right to tax them, voted away by one act of parlia- ment, and their charters, under an idea of the supreme autho- rity of the British legislature, swept away by another vote of parliament. Thus depriving them, or rather claiming a right to dispose of every shilling they are worth, without one of them being represented by the persons pretending to exercise this right; and thus stripping them of their natural rights, growing out of the constitution, confirmed by charter, and! PEACE OF 17t)S. ill recognized by every branch of the legislature, without exami- SECT ,,', nation, or even without hearing."* " The Americans," said Chatham, " are a wise, industrious, and prudent people. I'hey possess too much good sense, and too much spirit, ever to submit to hold their properties on so precarious and disgraceful a tenure. They see us, besides, immersed in luxury, dissipation, venality, and corruption ; they perceive, that, even if they were willing to contribute, to what purposes their contributions would be applied ; to nothing but the extinction of public and private virtue there, as has already been the case here."f An American finds not only instruction, but a gratification such as is commonly enjoyed, in looking back upon a hideous evil from which you have lastingly escaped, when he retraces the portraits drawn by near observers, whose title to credit is bevond dispute, of the cabinets and men to whom the English monarch and nation committed the liberties and fortunes of the colonies. Let us see how they are described by three states- men of different political views and connexions, and of the -.fullest and most intimate experience in the ministerial govern- ,.ment of the kingdom. In the debate of the House of Lords ,(; and mean purposes to Avhich that popularity has been after- /..wards employed. I have been in cabinets where the great ntstruggle has not been to advance the public interest; not by ^i coalition and mutual assistance to strengthen the hands of \-. government; but by cabals, jealously and mutual distrust, to thwart each others designs, and to circum\ent each other, in ord^r to obtain power and pre-eminence." Lord Chatham, in concluding the defence of his plan of Conciliation at the sitting of the Lords of the 1st February, 1775, aposti-ophized the ministers of the day thus : " Yet when I consider the whole case as it lies before me, rr«l am not much astonished; I am not surprised that men who f- hate liberty should detest those that prize it; or that those who I want virtue themselves, should endeavour to persecute those who possess it. Were I disposed to carry tills theme to the extent that truth would fully bear me out in, I could demon- strate that the whole of your political conduct has been one continued series of weakness, temerity, despotism, ignorance. * Debate in the I/oiisc of Lords, Nov. 15, 1775. i Ibid. DISPOSITIONS FROM THE 'T I. futility, negligence, blundering, and the most notorious servili- ^"^ ty, incapacity and corruption. On reconsideration, I must allow you one merit, a strict attention to your own interests ; in that view, you appear sound statesmen and able politicians. You well know if the present measure (of reconciliation with the colonies) should prevail, that you must instantly lose your places. I doubt much whether you will be able to keep them on any terms : but sure I am, that such are your well known characters and abilities, any plan of reconciliation, however moderate, wise, and feasible, must fail in your hands. Such, then, being your precarious situation, who can wonder that you should put a negative on any measure which must annihi- late your power, deprive you of your emoluments, and at once reduce you to that state of insignificance, for which God and nature designed you." Earlier — in the debate respecting the disorders in America, 1770, — Lord Shelburne held this language in the same house : " My lords, — I scarcely remember a period in history, an- cient or modern, where the ministers of a state, however dead to the feelings of justice, were so lost to the sentiments of shame, that they gloried to be detested by every honest indivi- dual of their country. This pinnacle of profligacy was reserved for the present ministers of Great Britain, who have adopted the principle of the Roman tyrant as far as they were able ; and if our head? were beyond their power, have at least cut off all our liberties with a blow." 3. As the fellowship of enterprise, suffering, and object, during the war of 1756, between the colonies and the mother country, the copious effusion of their blood in the same mili- tary operations, and their joint triumph, failed to inspire her even with the sympathies natural to the most common alliance, the more intimate relations with them into which that war brought her; the opportunities which it afforded for a thorough observation of their character and situation ; had no effect in curing her profound ignorance on these points. It appears, indeed, the less extraordinary, that the metropolitan councils should have remained in this state, when it is noted, that most of the royal governors in America seemed, with all the advan- tages of their situation, to have no clearer insight. Indig- nation might relax into mirth, when we read the language which the governor of Massachusetts addressed to his princi- pals in 1 774. " The colonists talk of fixing a plan of govern- ment of their own ; and it is someivhat surprising^ that so many ■n the other provinces interest themselves so much in the behalf PEACE OF 1763. r wf this of Massachusetts. I find they have some warm friends SEC r. in New York and Philadelphia; and I learn by an officer who ^-•''v-* left Carolina, the latter end of August, that the /Jfiz/^/t' of Charles- ton are as mad as they are hercJ'^^ If any British statesman could be expected to vmderstand thoroughly the nature and condition of the Americans, it was Chatham ; j^et, he is reported to have spoken in parliament in 1776, in this strain: ** There were not wanting some, when I had the honour to serve his majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers with an American stamp-act. With the enemy at their back, with our ba3^onets at their breasts, in the day of their disti-ess, per- haps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition ; but it would have been taking an ungenerous and unjust ad- vantage. A gi'eat deal has been said without doors, of the power, of the strength of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops. I know the skill of your officers. There is not a coynpany of foot that has served in America^ out ofxvhich you may not pick a 7nan oj sufficient knoxvledge and experience^ to make a governor of a colony there T In their first projects for subverting the liberties of Anie- * " rica ; in every step which they took as they prosecuted their aim ; in all that they uttered, the ministry betrayed that they |were entire strangers to her spirit and resources. Indeed, the almost universal ignorance of the British on these points, ren- idered them altogether unfit to hold dominion over the colonies, and constituted, in itself, a sufficient reason why the connexion should be dissolved. We may judge of the delusions, com- mon to rulers and people, by the following specimens drawn from the parliamentary' debates. " M}' Lords," said the Lord Chancellor Northington to the Upper House, in 1 766,f " the colonies are become too big to be governed by the laws they at first set out with. They have therefore run into confusion, and it will be the policy of thi§ :ountry to form a plan of laws for them. If they withdraw I lUegiance, you must withdraw protection; and then the little ytate of Genoa^ or the kingkdom^ or rather republic of Sweden^ ;nay soon overrun them." " I have the best reasons for thinking," said the prime mi- • Letter from the Hon. Gov. Gage to the Earl of D-irtmoiuh, daterl .l5o.^ on, 20th Sept. 1774. t Debute on disttirbances in America. piSPUSinOiNa FROM THE nister, Lord North, in 1770,* " that the American associations, not to buy British goods, must be speedily self-destroyed ; be- cause the Americans, to distress us, xvill not injure themselves ; because they are already weary of giving an advanced price for commodities they are obliged to purchase; and because, after all the hardships which they say their commerce groans under, it is still obviously their interest not to commence ma- nufactures." The eloquent Glover, in the speech at the bar of the Com- mons, M'hich I have already cited, taught that body a more ac- curate lesson, while he took an instructive review of the suc- cessive delusions of the nation. " I would have accompanied others more speculative through their several gradations of hope, still disappointed, and still reviving, but for one observation, which I have generally kept concealed, but will soon reveal to you. But for this observa- tion I might have concurred with the public belief, that the capital of a province, now declared in rebellion, would ha\e submitted on the landing of a few regiments; this failing, that other provinces from ancient jealously and disgust would not have interfered, and would have rather sought their own ad- vantage out of that town's disti"ess ; this failing, that they never would have proceeded to the length of constituting a certain inauspicious assembly among themselves ; this failing, that the members of such assembly would have disagreed, and not framed a single resolution. This last hope having proved abor- tive, a new one is popularly adopted, that the first intelligence of enforcing measures, at least the bare commencement of I] their execution will tame the most refractory spirits. I will here state the grounds of this, and all the preceding hopes; afterwards with your indulgence the ground of my original and continued doubts. .i " Our trading nation naturally assumed, that the present i contention would be with traders in America. The stock oi \ a trader, whether his own, or in part, and often the greatest part, a property of others confiding in him, is personal, lodged in a magazine, and exposed in seasons of commotion to in- stantaneous devastation. The circumstance of such property, the considerations suggested by common prudence, by the sense of common justice to those who have given a generous credit, rarely make room for that intrepidity, which meets force with force. Hence I admit, that the mere traffickers would have submitted at first, and will now, Avhenever they Debate on American tea dutv. PEACE OF 1763. I' dare. The reason, why they have not dared, is the founda- SECT.: tion of my doubts. v«^-v^'^ " I am speaking to an enlightened assembly, conversant with their own annals. In those ages, the reverse of com- mercial, when your ancestors filled the ranks of men at arms, and composed the cavalry of England, of whom did the in- fantry consist ? A race unknown to other kingdoms, and in the present opulence of traffic, almost extinct in this, the yeo- manry of England; an order of men, possessing paternal in- heritance, cultivated under their own care, enough to pre- serve independence, and cherish the generous sentiments at- tendant on that condition ; without superfluity for idleness, or effeminate indulgence. " Of such doth North America consist. The race is re- vived there in greater numbers, and in a greater proportion to the rest of the inhabitants ; and in such the power of that con- tinent resides. These keep the traffickers in awe. These, many hundred thousands in irultitude, with enthusiasm in their hearts, with the petition, the bill of rights, and the acts of settlement, silent and obsolete in some places, but vocifer- ous and fresh, as newly born, among them ; these, hot with the blood of their progenitors, the enthusiastic scourges at one period, and the revolutional expellers, of tyranny, at another ; these, unpractised in frivolous dissipation and ruinous profu- sion^ standing armed on the spot ; possessing, delivered down from their fathers, a property not moveable, nor exposed to total destruction, therefore maintainable, and exciting all the spirit and vigour of defence ; these, under such circumstances of number, animation and manners, their lawyers and clergy blowing the trumpet, are we to encounter with a handful of ftien sent three thousand miles over the ocean to seek such ad- versaries on their own paternal ground. — But these will not ^ght^ says the general voice of Great Britain^'' &c, . It was long before the British government and the majority" of the British people, could be persuaded that America would ,have the resolution to look the mother country in the face, and ■steadily resist its immense power. They supposed a success- |ful resistance impossible, arguing from considerations natural ; enough in the frame of mind, and habits of action, almost I universal thi-oughout Europe. America consisted, to their eye, ' I only of parts of a nation, and those the meanest in quality, because the least artificial in the modification, and tinselled I in the drapery ; she had neither standing armies, disciplined forces, fleets nor fortresses ; she wanted great and sitiall arms, flints, ammunition ; she laboured under a scarcitv of coin ; she Vol. I.— A a » DISPOSITIONS FROM THE RT. I. would have teri'ible difficulty in procuring clothing, salt, medr- v-^ cinesj jealousies rankled between the several provinces, and must quickly break their precipitate league, &c. When the revolution took a consistent character, and generated resources, its impetus was ascribed, by these sagacious reasoners, to any other cause, than the heroic spirit which informed it, and which easily surmounted all common obstacles. They were never touched by Avhat they could not discern, and their infa- tuation continued therefore nearly the same in all points. In 1776y their commissioner on the coast of America, Lord Howe, was instructed to offer pardon upon submission ; and the letters which passed between this herald of clemency and Dr. Franklin, as one of the committee of conference deputed by Congress, were published the same year, in London, to show the insolence of the insurgents in refusing- the offer of pardon upon submission. The following extract from a speech of Lord George Ger- main, of May, iTT"?, in the House of Commons, will furnish still more striking evidence of the manner in which the minis- try indulged their own spleen, and fed the delusion of their followers. His Lordship said — " As to the campaign, he thought he had the greatest reason to expect success from the army of General Howe being in good order, and more numer- ous from recruits than in the last campaign ; while that of the rebels was in much worse order, and less numerous : that the fleet was also reinforced with some ships of the line, which were wanting last year; that he thought himself farther found- ed in his expectation from the minds of the people turning ; from their experiencing the misery of anarchy, confusion, and despotism, instead of the happiness and security they enjoyed under the legal government of this country ; that these emo- tions had operated so strongly in their minds, that very many deserters had left the rebel army, and come into General Howe with their arms; many hundreds were coming in every day: that he had formed his opinion from the circumstances of'^ the Congress having given up the government^ confessing them- selves unequal to it^ and created Mr. Washington dictator of America; these circumstances, he thought, promised divisions among them. That another circumstance, which every day proved of yet greater importance, was, their beiyig disappoint- ed i}i their expectations of assistance from. France. They had been buoyed up with that hope, and made to believe, that a superior French fleet would be seen riding on their coasts ; in all which they now felt themselves deceived, and resented it accordingly. That they had met with the same disappoint- PEACE OF 1763. I ment from Spain ; not that he asserted they had not received SECT, underhand assistance from both, in officers, &c. but what they ^^'>^, were promised was open avowed assistance. Yet, Sir, added his lordship, for the protection of France they would pay largely; they have offered largely; they have, by their pre- tended ambassadors, actually offered to the French court all our West India islands J There is liberality, Sir ! There is love of freedom, to consign so readily to French dominion and des- potism, the whole West Indies !"* It was about the date of this happy effusion, — only a few months before the sui'render of Burgoyne, — that Lord Stor- mont, tile British ambassador at the court of Versailles, being addressed by Messrs. Franklin and Deane, commissioners of the American Congress at the same court, on the subject of an exchange of prisoners, answered in these words — " The King's ambassador receives no applications from rebels unless they come to implore his Majesty^s clemency /" 4. Besides the consideration of the colossal power of the mother country, and the many acknowledged obstacles to suc- cessful resistance inherent in the condition and habits of the colonies, other encouragements were wanted by the ministe- rial majority in parliament, and still more by the body of the people, for perseverance in the system of tyrannical coercion. In defiance of the fresh experience of the war of '56 ; of the whole current of the colonial history ; of positive evidence of every description ; the moral and intellectual character of the colonists was made to furnish those encouragements. They were at once cowards, knaves, and dolts, rebellious and inso- lent, whom it would be easy to subdue, and just to bring un- der a rigorous discipline. The most was made on every oc- casion, of these pretended traits and dispositions, for the sup- port of the ministerial policy, the gi'atification of spleen, or the [display of wit, both in and out of parliament. What passed in that body ought not to be forgotten ; for, it affords a portent- ous and instructive example of national arrogance trampling on all public decorum, all experience and verisimilitude ; all self-interest and self-respect ; all j ustice and gratitude ; all the nost sacred regards, and endearing affinities. With respect to the House of Commons, a single extract Torn the Reports of its debates, may suffice. The tenor of this extract will strike every reader who is familiar with the tone, iHid favourite topics, of the late English publications concern- * See Note L, » DISPOSITIONS FROM THE EiT I. ing America. Colonel Grant said — " he had served in Ame- v-*^ rica ; knew the Americans very well ; was certain they would not fight; they would never dare to face an English army ; and that they did not possess any of the qualifications necessary to make a good soldier; he repeated viany of their common-place expressions; ridiculed their enthusiasm in religion^ and dreri) a disagreeable picture of their vianners and xvays of living.''''^ The picture sketched by the gallant colonel is said to have produced much mirth in the House, and obtained implicit cre- dit from the majority. The chronicles of the time relate that a suspicion of its accuracy did not arise, until some months after, when news was received in England of the battle of Breed's Hill ; and of the expedition to Canada, which, as it is related by Brougham in his Colonial Policy, furnishes an ex- cellent comment on the speech of Grant. " While the most sanguine friends of American indepen- dence scarcely ventured to hope that the colonists would be able to maintain their ground against the forces of the mother country, they astonished the world, by commencing offensive operations. The very first campaign of that unhappy war, was signalized by a successful expedition of the revolters against the stations of the British forces on the frontiers of Canada ; and the gates of that province were thus thrown open to the most formidable invasion, which threatened the total conquest of the country before the end of the same year. The gallant leaders to whom those operations were entrusted, actually re- duced the whole of Upper Canada, and were only foiled in their attempts on Quebec, by the ill choice of the season, owing chiefly to the divisions of opinion that constantly attend the offensive measures of governments newly formed upon a popu- , lar model ; the union of the besieged in defence of their large property, which they were taught to believe would be exposed to the pkmder of the rebels ; and the extensive powers wisely confided by the British government to General Carleton — powers formerly unknown in any of the colonies, and utterly iiTConsistent with a government bearing the faintest resem- blance to a popular form. Thus had the infant republic of America, immediately at the commencement of separate ope- rations, and above half a year previous to the formal declara- tion of independence, almost succeeded in the conquest of a * Debate of Feb. 2d, 1775. This Colonel Gi-ant was the same that com- manded the detachment whose defeat near Fort Du Quesne I have noticed in my 4th Section, and which was preserved from utter destruction by the bravery of the Virginia militia. PEACE OF 1763. It British colony, strong by its natural position, by the vigour of SECT ' its internal administi-ation, by the experience of the veteran troops who defended it, and by the skill of the gallant officer who commanded these forces ; while the only advantages of the assailants consisted in the romantic valour of their leaders, the enthusiasm of men fighting in their own cause, and the vigorous councils of an independent community."* In the House of Lords, the empyrean of British legislation and senatorial dignity, " that great body of his majesty's brave and faithful subjects with which his American provinces hap- pily abounded,"! was still more roughly handled tlian in St. Stephen's Chapel. " A little before I left London, in 1775," says Franklin,! " being at the House of Lords when a debate in which Lord Camden was to speak, and who, indeed, spoke admirably on American affairs, I was much disgusted from the ministerial side, by many base reflections on American courage, religion, understanding, &c. in \vhich we were treat- ed with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain ; but particularly the American honesty was abused by some of the lords, who asserted that we were all knaves, and wanted only by this dispute to avoid paying our debts : that if we had any sense of equity or justice, we should offer payment of the tea," &c. The parliamentary history furnishes copious proof of this statement of Franklm. Such specimens abound as the follow- ing: " Earl Talbot said, the noble Earl who spoke last has certainly hit off one leading feature of the Americans. His lordship tells you that even in the midst of their zeal for free- dom and independence, they were not able to conquer their natural propensity tojraudandconcealmfnt^^'' &c. &c. " The duke of Chandos rose, and moved an address of thanks. His grace began Avith stating the many public and private, virtues of the sovereign, and the obstinacy^ baseness^ tmd ingratitude^ of his rebellious subjects in America,''^ &c. &c. -. The extent to which this obloquy was carried, on one point, is evidenced, even by a protest of the minority, who adduced it as one of their motives to dissent, in the following remark- ■^le language : " We do not apprehend that the topic so much insisted upon by a lord high in office, namely, the coivardice oj his Majesty''s American subjects^ to have any weight in itself, or be at all agreeable to the dignity of sentiment which ought * BookIL Sect. i. f Videpag-e 121. i;. Memoirs, vol. i. J DISPOSITIONS FROM THE RT I. to characterize this House. This is to call for resistance, 'v^'^ and to provoke rebellion by the most powerful of all motives which can act upon men of any degree of spirit and sensi- bility." The lord high in office alluded to in the protest, was the Earl of Sandwich, who presided over the admiralty, and pos- sessed a considerable share of influence in the cabinet. His speech is a precious sample, of the general strain of the mother country at this period, respecting her transatlantic offspring. It is a model which has hardly been surpassed in the multitude of similar effusions at our expense, to which almost every year since its date has given birth. Its pleasantry is inimitable; and the truth of the details, as well as the delicacy of the tone, will be more strongly felt, on a reference to what I have nar- rated, in regard to the conduct of the provincials at Louisbourg, and the efficacy of their conquest. " The Earl of Sandwich said — suppose the colonies do abound in men, what does that signify? They are raw, undis- ciplined, cowardly men. I wish, instead of 40, or 50,000 of these brave fellows, they would produce in the field at least 200,000. The more the better: the easier would be the con- quest; if they did not run away they would starve themselves into compliance with our measures. I will tell your lordships . an anecdote that happened at the siege of Louisbourg. Sir Peter Wai-ren told me, that in order to try the courage of the Americans, he ordered that a great number of them should be placed in the front of the army; the Americans pretended at first to be very much elated at this mark of distinction, and boasted what mighty feats they would do upon the scene of action ; however, when the moment came to put in execution this boasted courage, behold, every one of them ran from the front to the rear of the army, with as much expedition as their feet could carry them, and threatened to go off entirely, if the commander offered to make them a shield to protect the Bri- tish soldiers at the expenseof their blood; they did not under- stand such usage. Sir Peter finding what egregious coxvarda they were, and knowing of what importance such numbers would be to intimidate the French by their appearance, told these American heroes^ that his orders had been misunderstood, that he always intended to keep them in the rear of the army to make the great push; that it was the custom of generals to preserve the best troops to the last; that this was also the Roman custom, and as the Americans resembled the Romans in every thing, particularly in courage and a love to their country, he should make no scruple of following the Roman PEACE OF 1763. 1 custom, and he made no doubt but the modei*n Romans would SECT. show acts of bravery equal to any in ancient Rome. By such ^»^^>^ discourses as these, said Sir Peter Warren, I made shift to keep them with us, though I took care they should be pushed forward in no dangerous conflict. Now, I can tell the noble Lord, that this is exactly the situation of all the heroes in North America; they are all Romans. And are those men to fright us from the post of honour? Believe me, my Lords, the very sound of a cannon would carry them off, in Sir Peter's words, as fast as their feet could carry them."* Although a majority of the noble lords chuckled at the wag- gery of the British commodore, and the vis comica of the head of the Admiralty, there was, as the above-mentioned protest teaches, a small minority of the assembly, who neither relished the joke, nor comprehended the manliness of this course of argument in favour of the proscription of a whole people. A generous indignation at the language held in the House of Commons, roused several of the members of that body, to stem the torrent of opprobrium, and I should commit an injustice, if I did not repeat something of what was uttered on the American side. " Col. Barre said — ^the Americans had been called cowards, but the very regiment of foot which behaved so gallantly at Bunkers-hill, (an engagement that smacked more of defeat than victory) the very corps that broke the whole French co- lumn and threw them in such disorder at the siege of Quebec, was three parts composed of these cowards. "f Governor Johnstone paid the following tribute : " To a mind that loves to contemplate the glorious spirit of freedom, no spectacle can be more affecting than the action at Bunkers-hill. To see an ir- regular peasantry commanded by a physician ; inferior in num- bers; opposed by every circumstance of cannon and bombs that could terrify timid minds, calmly waiting the attack of the gallant Howe, leading on the best troops in the world, with an excellent train of artillery, and twice repulsing those very troops who had often chased the battalions of France, and at last retiring for want of ammunition, but in so respectable a manner that they were not even pursued — Who can reflect on such scenes and not adore the constitution of government which could breed such men!"^ The pusillanimity of the provincials served as an enliven- ing topic for the circles of fashion, and the clubs of the coffee * Debate, March 15th, 1775. t Ibid.—See Note M. t Debate, October 26th, 1775. I DISPOSITIONS FROM THE RT 1. houses, as well as for the august body of parliament. Accord- -v-"^-' mg to Franklin,* " every man in England, in the year 1767, ' seemed to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign over America; seemed to jostle himself into the throne with the king, and talked of our subjects in the colonies.^'' In 1775, almost every man in England thought himself able to conquer America, and talked, in the words of the ministry, of the pali- node which the dastardh' Americans would sing, at the very appearance of a single British regiment. The English news- papers of the day bear me out in this representation ; and Franklin has left on record, in one of his lettersf to an Eng- lish correspondent, a piece of concurrent testimony sufficiently pointed. It is to be inserted here, not merely for the sake of the historical fact, but for the concluding observations, which I wish to be taken as a commentary, upon all that I have quoted on this head from the British orators. *' The word general puts me in mind of a general, your general Clarke, who had the folly to say, in my hearing-, at i Sir John Pringle's, that with a thousand iiritish grenadiers, he would undertake to go from one end of America to the otheT^, and geld all the males, partly by force and partly by a little coaxing. It is plain he took us for a species of animals very little superior to brutes. The parliament too believed thie stories of another foolish general, I forget his name, that the Yankees never felt bold. " Yankey was understood to be a sort of Yahoo, and th^ parliament did not think that the petitions of such creatures were fit to be received and read in so wise an assembly. What was the consequence of this monstrous pride and insolence? You first sent small armies to subdue us, believing them more than sufficient, but soon found yourselves obliged to seiid greater ; these, whenever they ventured to penetrate our couif try beyond the protection of their ships, Mere either repulsed and obliged to scamper out, or were surrounded, beaten, and taken prisoners. An American planter, Avho had never sedt i Europe, was chosen by us to command our troops, and con* tinued during the whole war. This man sent home to yoti^ i one after another, five of your best generals bafRed, their headS bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their em^ ployers. Your contempt of our understandings, in compari- son with your own, appeared to be not much better founded' than that of our courage, if we may judge by this circunt-; * Letter to Lord Karnes, London, April llUi, 1767. t August 19th, 1784. PEACE OF 1763. 1' stance, that in whatever court of Europe a Yankey negociator SECT, appeared, the wise British minister was routed, put in a pas- sion, picked a quarrel with your friends, and was sent home with a flee in his ear." 5. The extreme of acrimony, nay ferociousness, into which the temper of the ministerial party towards the colonies had run in England, before their declaration of independence, and even within three or four years after the peace of Paris, is scarcely conceivable on a review of the many circumstances which tended, with such weight of reason and force of pa- thos, to produce the opposite state of mind. We have seen that, from a mere calculation of interest, or from party-aims, the restoration of Canada was proposed, at the very moment of the consummation of the common efforts of the mother coun- try and the colonies in the struggle with France. When the co- lonies had barely ventured to denounce the stamp-act, the idea of a more direct cheeky of vindictive visitation by similar means, was admitted and inculcated. Franklin, writing from London in 1768, tells his correspondent, " I can assure you, that here are not wanting people, not now in the ministry, but that soon may be, who, if they were ministers, would take no step to prevent an Indian Avar in the colonies ; being of opinion, which they express openly, that it would be a very good thing, in the first place, to chastise the colonists for their undutifulness, and then to make them sensible of the necessity of protection by ; the troops of this country." We read in the history of Gordon, where he treats of the ■discussions in parliament respecting the repeal of the stamp- , act, that " the Dukes of York and Cumberland, the Lords of {the Bed Chamber, and the officers of the royal household, were for carrying fire and sword to America, rather than re- ical the obnoxious act; and that the bench of bishops joined jthem."* The unnatural i-ancour which dictated this fell policy, could readily tolerate that of starving the provinces of New England, by cutting them off from the fishery on their own coast. In extenuation of this measure, and in answer to the objections of the Opposition in parliament, who, with the mi- nistry, believed it might produce famine, the Solicitor General of Scotland, a ministerial oracle, said, " that though prevent- ed from fishing in the sea, the New Englanders had fish in their rivers, to which this act did not prevent them from re- sorting; and that, though he understood their country was not * Vol. H. p. 139. Vol. I.~B b DISPOSITIONS FROM THE fit for grain, yet they had a grain of their own, Indian corn, 071 xvhich they might subsist full as rvell as they deserved.^''* When such language was held on a question of this nature, it is not matter of surprise that, in the same year, the majority in parliament listened, not merely without shuddering, but with coraplacency, to the significative intimation already no- ticed, of one of its members. Governor Lyttleton, respecting the seduction of the American negroes. The consoling image of a servile war in the southern colo- nies, had even become familiar to the meditations of the politi- cians, and was industriously presented to the nation. " If the obstinacy of the Americans continues without actual hostili- ties," said Dr. Johnson, in his Taxation no Tyranny, " it may perhaps be mollijiedhy turning out the soldiers to free quarters, forbidding any personal cruelty or hurt. It has been proposed, , that the slaves should be set free, an act which surely the lovers of liberty cannot but commend. If they are furnished with fire- arms, for defence^ and utensils for husbandry, and settled in some simple form of government within the country, they may be more grateful and honest than their masters."! The Governors of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida, in carrying this plan into effect, forgot the utensils of husbandry, but not the fire-arms ; and offered these to the negroes, to be used not strictly for personal defence, but in defence of theirs sovereign ! The ministry upheld, in the House of Commons, Lord Dunmore's celebrated proclamation of the 7th Nov. 1 775^ of which the following passage is hardly yet eff"aced from the memory of the Virginians. " I do declare all indent- ed servants, negroes or others appertaining to rebels, free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining his majesty's troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty to his majesty'^ s crowHi and dignity.^'' Mr. Burke, referring to this subject in his speech on the Conciliation with America, made some I'emarks, the last of which may be particularly recommended to the attention of * Debate of the Commons, March 6th, 1775. f " That tliis pamphlet (Taxation no Tyranny) was written at the desire of those who were then in power, I have no doubt ; and, indeed, Johnson owned to me, that it had been revised and curtailed by some of them. He told me, that they had struck out one passag-e, which w.is to this effect " That the colonists could with no solidity arg-ue from their not having beei taxed while in their infancy, that they should not now be taxed. We do not put a calf into the plough ; we wait till he is an ox " He said, " They struck it out either critically as too ludicrous, or politically as too exasperating.' {Boswell.) PEACE OF 176^. 1 those British critics, who so often discharge upon us, on account SECT, of our slave-holding, " the splendid bile of their virtuous indig- ^"^'-v- nation." " With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to reduce it, by declaring a general enfranchisement of their slaves. This project has had its advocates and panegyrists. But I could never argue myself into an opinion of it. Slaves as these un- fortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation^ -which has sold them to their present 7nasters ?' From that nation^ one of xvhose causes of quarrel rvith those masters^ is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic .?" The manifesto and proclamation which the British commis- sionersybr restoring peace ^ addressed to the Americans in Oc- tober 1778, denounced a war of havoc, in terms that occasion- ed a motion in parliament for solemn reprobation. In the course of the animated debate on this motion,* the American Congress of that era, — now classed by universal assent, with the wisest and most virtuous assemblies of the kind which are mentioned in history, — was the particular object of proscrip- tion and opprobrium, with members of both parties. Mr. Porvys said, " if the Congress could be picked up, man by man, and put to the most exemplary punishment, they should all fall unpitied by him, because they really deserved every severity that could be inflicted on them." Governor Johnstone] " approved of the proclamation throughout, and condemned the American Congress in the strongest terms. He thought no quarter ought to be shown to them ; and if the infernals could be let loose against them, he should approve of the measure. He said, the proclamation cer- tainly did mean a zvar of desolation ; it meant nothing else : it could mean nothing else; and if he had been on the spot when it was issued, he would have signed it." Mr. Attorney General Wedderburn said, " that the procla- mation was as sober, conscientious, and humane a piece of good writing as he ever saw: he explained away the phrase of the ' extremes of war,' and asserted that nothing could be done but what was necessary to self preservation, which he avowed was a sufficient plea for all the horrors of war." • Dec. 4th, 1778. f His appointment by the ministry as one of the commissioners to America, explains the contrariety between his tone at this period, and that which he adopted at the beginning' of the war. t DISPOSITIONS FROM THE Mr. Macdonald " understood the part of the proclamation ' which gave such an alarm, to be nothing more than a warning to the rebels not to expect that lenity in future, which we had shown to them during the course of the war, when we looked upon them as our fellow subjects, and whom we wished to reclaim by the viost singular mildness and indulgence. By their alliance with France, the natural enemy of our country, they had forfeited all right to clemency ; they were therefore in future to be treated no longer as subjects of Great Britain, but as appendages to the French monarchy, whose interests they had preferred to the British : parental fondness should no lon- ger sway the breasts of our rulers; war should assume a dif- ferent form from that in which it had been conducted from the beginning of the rebellion; and the Americans might prepare to be treated, not, indeed, like beasts, or savages, but like common enemies, for whom we no longer retained any trace of affection, which their unnatural alliance had absolutely effaced, but which had subsisted longer than it could have prudently been expected, after the many unprecedented pro* vocations they had given Great Britain to take off the ties of affection at a much more early period. War now they should have in its full vigour; not such an one as they had been all along accustomed to, and which had been so tempered luith peace^ that it scarcely deserved the name of war. This he conceived to be the meaning of the words in the proclamation; he hoped it would have the desired effect on the rebels ; he flattered himself that it was a happy omen to see the friends of America so alarmed at it; and their terrors he would deem the forerunners of that general consternation in America, which would make the deluded colonists open their eyes before it should be too late, and return to their allegiance to the mother country." 6. There is still a sort of incredulity of the imagination when we reflect, how soon the parent state resorted to the expedient of annoyance — the last which, in the order of penal visitation, would present itself to the fiercest hate against the most de- testable object, or to the most just revenge for the deepest and bitterest injury. It will be at once understood that I mean the employment of the savages as auxiliaries; an enormity of rancour and desperate ambition, which drew down those blasting thunders from the genius of Chatham, that seem to be still heard, when we look at the faint image of them conveyed in the parliamentary history. Two years after the commence- ment of the revolution, had this prophetic and generous spirit PEACE OF 1763. I \(i tell his countrymen, in an agony of shame and gnef, " It is SECTl not a wild and lawless banditti whom we oppose :— the resist- ^^^~>^ «nce of America is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots." The cruelty and degeneracy of associating to the British arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife — of " trafficking at the shambles of every German despot," for the purpose of crush- ing that resistance; of butchering a people chiefly descended from British loins, and from whose labours Britain had reap- ed so rich a harvest of power and glory, might well produce the " sanctified phrenzy" to which he was wrought. But he recollected, besides, how long that people had struggled with " the merciless Indian" for the possession of the soil, on which they had reared English communities and institutions ; and he felt, in seeing the same inveterate enemy led back upon them, by the country for whose benefit nearly as much as their own, they had fought so bi'avely, and bled so pro- fusely, the peculiar hardship and bitterness of their lot, and the unpiralleled barbarity and callousness of England. There was enough to rouse all the energies of his humanity and his patriotism, in the item which the treasury accounts presented, of ^160,000 sterling, for the purchase of warlike accoutre- ments for the savages; — in that phrase, as ridiculous as it war? ferocious, of Bourgoyne's speech to the congress of Indians n^ the river Bouquet (June 21st, 1777) — " Go forth in the might of your valour and your cause ; strike at the common enemies of Great Britain and America, disturbers of public order, peace, and happiness; destroyers of commerce; parricides of the state;" — and in the proclamation of governor Tonyn of East Florida, oifering a reward for every American scalp delivered to persons appointed to receive them. It is an aggravation of guilt that the utmost efforts of the highest degree of human eloquence, seconded by the most ma- ture wisdom and approved patriotism, were wholly without effect. Throughout the war, the mother country displayed as haughty and ruthless a spirit, as if she were in fact engaged in crushing " a wild and lawless banditti," or resisting an here- ditary enemy and rival, alien and odious to her by everv prin- ciple of estrangement and aversion.* The Americans whom she made prisoners in the contest, persisting, as they did, in rejecting all temptations to enter into her service against their country, so far from conciliating kindness by their magnani- mity, experienced a more rigorous treatment than the French and Spaniards in the same situation. After many hundreds * See Note M. DISPOSITIONS FROM THE of them had languished for several years m a cruel captivity, they petitioned the goverment in vain for an equal allowance of provision. The earl of Shelburne affirmed in the House of Lords, in the debate of December 5th, 1777, that " the French officers taken prisoners going to America, had been inhumanly treated ; but that the American prisoners in England were treat- ed with unprecedented barbarity." The American Board of War had a conference with Mr. Boudinot, the commissary general of prisoners, at York town, on the 21st of December, 1777, and after having carefully ex- amined the evidence produced by hiAi, agreed upon the fol- lowing report : " That there are about 900 privates, and 300 officers prisoners in the city of New York, and about 500 privates and 50 officers in Philadelphia: — That the privates in New York have been crowded all summer in sugar-houses, and the officers boarded on Long Island, except about 30, who have been confined in the provost guard, and in the most loath- some jails : — That since the beginning of October all these prisoners, both officers and privates, have been confined in prison ships, or the provost : — That the privates in Philadel- phia have been kept in two public jails, and the officers in the state house : — That, from the best evidence which the nature of the subject will admit of, the general allowance of prison- ers, at most does not exceed four ounces of meat and as much bread (often so damaged as not to be eatable) per day, and often much less, though the professed allowance is from eight to ten ounces : — That it has been a common practice with the enemify on a prisoner'' s being Jirst captured., to keep him three.^ foi(r.,jij' even Jive days ivithoiit a morsel of provisions of any Mnd^ and then to tempt him to enlist to save his life: — That there are numerous instances of prisoners of war perishing in all the agonies of hunger from their severe treatment : — That being generally stript of what clothes they have when taken, they have suffered greatly for the want thereof, during their confinement." Mr. Burke, in one of his publications of the year 1776, sar- castically remarks, " it is undoubtedly some comfort for our disappointments and burdens, to insult the few provincial offi- cers we take, by throwing them with common men into a gaol, and some triumph to hold the bold adventurer Ethan Allen, in irons in a dungeon in Cornwall." This gallant American was taken prisoner, fighting with the utmost bravery in Canada under the banners of Mont- gomery. He was immediately loaded with irons, and trans- ported to England, in that condition, on board of a man-of- PEACE OF 17G3. war. On some observations being made in the House of SECT Lords, by the duke of Richmond, concerning his treatment, v^"^ the earl of Suffolk, one of the ministry, made this reply— *' The noble duke says, we brought over Ethan Allen in irons to this country, but were afraid to try him, lest he should be acquitted by an English jury, or that we should not be able legally to convict him. I do assure his Grace, that he is equally mistaken in both his conjectures; we neither had a doubt but we should be able to legally convict him, nor were we afraid that an English jury would have acquitted him; nor further was it out of any tenderness to the man, who, I maintain, had justly forfeited his life to the offended laws of his country. But I will tell his Grace the true motives which induced administration to act as they did. We were aware that the rebels had lately made a considerable number of pri- soners, and we accordingly avoided bringing him to his trial from considerations of prudence; from a dread of the conse- quences of retaliation; not fi-om a doubt of his legal guilt, or a fear of his acquittal by an English jury."* The conduct and temper of the ministry in the case of Ethan Allen, — which would have been the same in that of Montgo- mery, had he fallen into their hands, — deserves to be visited with the contrast, which is aflbrdea in such a trait as the fol- lowing, related by general Bourgoyne in the House of Com- mons, on the 26th of May, 1778. " The district of Saratoga is the property of major general Scuyler of the American troops ; there W( re large barracks built by him which took fire, the day after the British army arrived on the ground. General Scuyler had likewise a very good dwell- ing-house, exceeding large store-houses, great saw-mills, and other out buildings, to the value altogether, perhaps, of 10,000/. A few days before the negotiation with general Gates, the enemy had formed a plan to attack me ; a large column of troops were approaching to pass the small river, preparatory to a general action, and were entirely covered from the fire of my artil- lery by those buildings. Sir, I avow that I gave the order to set them on fire; and in a very short time that whole property, I have described, was consumed. But, to show that the per- son most deeply concerned in that calamity, did not put the construction upon it, Avhich it has pleased the honourable gen- tleman to do, I must inform the House, that one of the first persons I saw, after the convention was signed, v/as general Scuyler. I expressed to him my regret at the event which 1776, 'i DISPOSITIONS FROM THE IRT r. had happened, and the reasons which had occasioned it. He desired me to think no more of it; said the occasion justified it, according to the principles and rules of war, and that he should have done the same upon the same occasion, or words to that effect. He did more — he sent an aid-de-camp to con- duct me to Albany, in order, as he expressed, to procure me better quarters than a stranger might be able to find. This gentleman conducted me to a very elegant house, and to my: great surprise, presented me to Mrs. Scuyler and her family?* and in this general's house I remained during my whole stav*^ at Albany, with a table of more than twenty covers for me and my friends, and every other possible demonstration of hospi- tality." r. I do not wish to depreciate the value, or detract from the glory, of the exertions made by the great champions of the American cause in the British Parliament. The Chalhams, the Camdens, the Shipleys, and the Barres, were animated by a love of justice, and a hatred of oppression; and these noble sentiments predominated equally, in the breasts of many of our less conspicuous friends throughout the British nation. But nothing is more certain, than that the opposition, gene- rally, to the plans of ministers, had no immediate or princi- pal reference to the rights and interests of America. It arose out of pre-existing domestic divisions; and the parties mar- shalled themselves accordingly in the new dispute — the tories and high churchmen on the side of government; the religious dissenters and the assertors of the principles of 1688, in the train of the whig-leaders in parliament, candidates for place, and invariable antagonists of those in possession. The old combat was renewed with fresh fury; the oppression of Ame- rica served as a battery for the minority; while the treasury- bench and the dispensers of crown patronage, made use of the prospect of her subjection — which would open a new exche- quer, and a new chapter in the red book, — to multiply adhe- rents and fortify themselves in power. Doubtless, had they accomplished their object in America, — had their arms and their arts been successful in that quarter, with whatever ha- voc of free institutions, and noble lives, and fair creations of manly toil — they would have attained all their ends at home, and now flourish in British history, as do the Clives and the Hastings in the annals of the India-House. The point is no longer open to controversy, that the ministry' had a majority of the British people with them in the begin- PEACE OF 1763. '2 ning of the war.* The Bi-itish nation sanctioned the harshest SECT, measures of coercion through ignorance of the true state of the case, and a blind pride of opinion. By degrees, as her agriculture, trade, and manufactures, began to be seriously affected by the expenses and embarrassments of the contest, the classes dependent upon the prosperity of those branches of inddltry, saw it in a less favourable light; and passing from private disagreements and expostulations with the ministry, to an open approval of the policy urged by an indefatigable par- liamentary opposition, determined the peace and the recogni- tion of our independence. Circumstances brought the affair to public opinion in the last resort ; and that opinion yielded to a calculation of profit and loss. No generous sentiment or broad political reasoning, mingled itself in fact, or had any sensible influence, with the business-like deliberation of its arbiters and immediate instruments. There were none at this crisis, as there were none at any antecedent period, who " hailed it as an extension of British honour and happiness, that great, and happy, and independent communities of British descent, should exist in America, with the best characteristics of British manners and institutions." In parliament, all voices proclaimed the emancipation of the colonies as an evil of the first magnitude.! The question of our independence had, at the outset, to do with the spirit of corruption and tyranny in • The testimony of the ministerial party is emphatically positive on this point. Lord North said (May 14th, 1777) " he might justly affirm, that there was a very great majority of the nation at large, who were for prosecuting the war against their rebellious subjects in America, till they should acknow- ledge tlie legislative supremacy of parhament." So, Mr. Jenkinson — (March 17th, 1778) — " All degrees of people arose in one unanimous resentment, and the war became a popular war. I say this war with America has been a popular war," &.c. t In the debate of July 10th, 1782, on American Independence, the Earl of Shelburne said, — " With respect to America, he had always considered her independence as a great evil which Britain had to dread, and to guard against. He had spoken of it in this manner for years past, and when he believed he ■was joined in sentiment by every man in the country. He had always believed and declared, that the independence of America was an evil as much to be apprehended and dreaded by America as by Britain ! This had always been his opinion ; and he had constantly laboured, by every means in his power, to persuade men, that this was the case, in his applications to private men and to public men, to individuals and to bodies of men. He wished to God, that he had been appointed to urge that proposition, and to maintain it be- fore congress ! He was one of the last men in the country who had been brought over to agree that Britain ought to acknowledge the independence of America ; but circuftistances, he confessed, were changed, and he was now of opinion that it was become a necessary evil which the country must fTidure to avoid a greatei"," &c. Vol. I.—C'c DISPOSITIONS FROM THE the cabinet, and of arrogance and commercial monopoly in the people. In the end, it appeared not merely less dangerous to the monopoly than was thought, but even likely to prove the reverse. This consideration abated the fierceness and ac- celerated the submission, of pride, which had finally, a severer struggle, in yielding to France and Spain. The opposition leaders who succeeded the authors of the war in the cabinet^ were carried onward, irresistibly, to the last concession, by the principles upon which they mounted to power, and by the course of events. As regards the dispositions and personal views of the Shelburne administration, the history, now fully, disclosed, of the negotiations for peace, has left few grounds of admiration or gratitude. ' 8. It Has been said, and it may be true, that, notwithstand- ing the addition of one hundred millions sterling made to the British national debt, the effusion of so much blood, the humi- liation correlative to the triumph of France and Spain, the_ indelible stains left in the national character, not a few of the English politicians Jinding the trade -with America retained^ and even likely to be indefimteli) enlarged^ were glad, and openly rejoiced, that the struggle wnth such potent colonies, foreseen to be inevitable in progress of time, had ended on such easy terms. But it is much more certain that with multitudes of all classes, the dismemberment of the empire left an ulceration, " a galling wakefulness," which found relief only in the most extravagant or malignant hopes; and that the experience of the war was lost upon the majority of the nation, in regard to the character and destinies of the colonies. On the conclusion of peace, it was confidently announced and believed, that the confederacy of the States would quickly be dissolved; that the forces of Great Britain remaining among them, might be called in to quell the disor- ders, which the separation from the mother countiy must pro-^ duce; that a second revolution would happen, and restore them, penitent and submissive, to her dominion. Indeed, to induce them to lay their independence at her feet, nothing more would soon be necessary, than to hold out the threat of considering and treating them, as a foreign nation in matters* of trade. The Americans were still cowards, for the Irish, had... fought their battles, as well by sea as by land ;* and, at all * The modesty of this assertion was the more remarkable from the noto- rious fact, that the Irish and Scotch troops, and the German mercenaries, formed the major part of the force which England employed against the PEACE OF 1 763. ^ events, if they were not driven by intestine confusion and dis- SECT tress, to return to their allegiance, Spain would involve them '^^'^^ in awful difficulties, by the claims she was likely to prefer on that part of Louisiana given up by the treaty. Such were the topics of consolation administered by writers of authority, and greedily swallowed by men in office. Lord Sheffield embodied them in a pamphlet soon after the ratifica- tion of the definitive treaty, and took, by general consent, the station of oracle, which he ought never to lose, so marvel- ously have events confirmed all his opinions. I cannot resist the temptation of quoting some of the most striking of these, as they show the spirit of the times in England. — " It will not be an easy matter to bring the American states to act as a na- tion; they are not to be feared as such by us." " We might as reasonably dread the effects of combinations among the Ger- man, as among the American states, and deprecate the resolves of the Diet as those of Congress." " Every circumstance proves that it will be extreme folly to enter into any engage- ments with them, bt/ xvhich we may not wish to be hound here- after^''* " There is not a possibility that America will main- tain a navy." " That country concerning which writers of a lively imagination have lately said so much, is weakness itself.''''] " It is not probable the American states will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean; it will not be the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary states. They cannot protect themselves from the latter; they cannot pretend to a navy.":}: " The authority of the Congress can never be maintained over those distant and boundless western regions, and her nominal subjects will spieedily imitate and multiply the examples of independence."^ " The population of America is not likely to increase as it has done, at least on her coast."|| " There is no country in Europe which pays such heavy taxes as the American states,"^ lVc. Looking back to the exasperation and commotions which were raised in America by the stamp act, and to the total change of the scene on its repeal, Mr. Burke made the just remark that " so sudden a calm recovered after so violent a colonies. The ministry conceived the plan of hiring twenty thousand Rus- sians besides, to assist in "fighting their battles" on this continent. * Observations on the Commerce of the United States, 2d edition, p. 198. t Ibid. p. 206. § Ibid. p. 190. U Ibid. p. 193. i Ibid. p. 204. II Ibid. p. 201; DISPOSITIONS FROM THE storm was without parallel in history." The colonists almost universally vied in demonstrations of gratitude, and glowing expressions of loyalty, as if the repeal had been a spontaneous and inestimable boon, and not a retraction, produced by party interests, of an impolitic usurpation. There was something not less remarkable, and admirable, in the transition at the conclusion of the revolutionary war. Notwithstanding the enormity of the provocations on which the Americans had taken up the sword, the severity of their sufferings during the struggle, and the vindictive and ruthless character of the hos- tilities waged against them, the tide of their affections turned rapidly towards the mother country,* and the policy of re- newing with her, the closest and most liberal relations com- patible with independence, received the sanction of a large majority throughout the confederation. Taking the representations of the British writers themselves concerning the merits of the dispute so solemnly terminated, , it is impossible to imagine a case, in which natural duty, re- tributive justice, and the common good, more plainly exacted . from the other side, more even than a mere correspondence of sentiments and views. And yet what a contrast ! as proved by the vogue of Sheffield's writings and doctrines, and from such i statements as the following, made in 1 784, by his ablest an- - tagonist.f " It is sufficient, at this time, to support; an opinion of the ■ propriety of endeavouring to restore our broken connexion with i America, by those conciliatory means, which best tend to re- gain the affections of a people, from whom we have derived, and from whom we may yet derive, the most solid benefits, to be deemed the sacrifices of the interests of Great Britain to those of America. However laudable, however necessary the pursuit, there is a prejudice among us arising from intemperate passion, and the vexation of disappointment, that precludes, obstructs, or, in some shape or other, ultimately destroys it," It would lead me too far to detail the facts which have rendered unquestionable and notorious, the continued pre^ valence of those unworthy dispositions, and the steady pro- secution of a scheme of action in itself demonstrative of their inveteracy. I could produce British authority on this; * This Is not, indeed, the opinion of Judge Marshall (Life of Washington, vol. V. p. 355) ; but it is proved, by the victory gained for the politics most favourable to Great Britain in all respects. j- Champion — "Considerations on the present situation of Great Britain," London, &c. PEACE OF 17G3. ^ head, in the shape of direct confessions and self-reproof, con- SECT veyed in books and parhamentary debates, for every consecu- tive year from the peace of 1782 to the present time. From the abundance of this kind of testimony, I will take, at random, some feAv morsels which no third party at least, will reject as invalid, and which shall have relation to periods so recent as 1808, and 1812. "■ In England," says Mr. Baring, " our insensible mono- poly of the American trade does not appear ever to have been properly appreciated : the events of a civil war left naturally deeper impressions on the unsuccessful than the successful party, and while every little state of Europe was courted, that afforded limited markets for our manufactures, we seemed to regret that we owed any thing to our former subjects; and an increasing commercial intercourse has been carried on under feelings of unsubdued enmity^ of which the government, instead of checking sentiments as void of common sense as of magna- nimity, has rather set the fashion. To this error, in my opi- nion, the present state of the public mind towards America is in a great measure owing. Her success and prosperity, though we dare not fairly avow it, have displeased us, and sentiments have been imperceptibly encouraged towards her as ungenerous as they are impolitic."''^ " I know," said Mr. Brougham, in parliament, in 1812, '' the real or affected contempt with which some persons in this country treat our kinsmen of the West. I fear some angry and jealous feelings have survived our more intimate connexion with them, — feelings engendered by the event of its termination, but which, it would be wiser, as well as more manly to forget." " No small part of the English nation," says the Edinburgh Review, " look with feelings of peculiar hostility towards the people to which they bear the nearest resemblance, and wil- lingly- abet their rulers in treating them with less respect and less cordiality than any other nation. Neither the government nor the populace of this country have forgiven America for having made herself independent; and the lowest calumnies and grossest abuse are daily employed by a court-faction to keep alive the most vulgar prejudices." — (No. 23. 1809.) "The Americans asserted their independence upon principles which they derived from us. — Their rebellion was the surest proof of their genuine descent. They are descended from our loins * Inquiry into the Causes and Consequences of the Orders in Council, 1808. p. 19. 5 DISPOSITIONS FROM THE RT I. — ^they retain our usages and manners — ^they read our books- ■"^^^ they have copied our freedom — they rival our courage — an'i yet they are less popular and less esteemed among us than thl base and bigoted Portuguese, and the ferocious and ignorahi Russians." " There is not an individual who has attended at all to the progress of the present dispute with America, (1812) who does not see that it was embittered from the first, and wantonly urged to its present fatal issue, by the insolent, petulant, and preposterous tone of those very individuals who insisted upon that miserable experiment — and plunged their own country in wretchedness, only to bring down upon it the reluctant hosti- lity of its best customers and allies," &c. 9. The reign of Lord Sheffield's sapient opinions, was natu- rally prolonged in Great Britain, by the comparative insignifi- cance of the military and naval establishments of the United States under the federal administration ; their total disarray after its overthrow ; the simplicity of their institutions, and the vehement altercations of the parties into which they were thrown. It became anew a common belief and fond hope with the ministerial politicians, that America might yet be re- gained by arms or by arts ; and even those of the Opposition settled down in a contemptuous commiseration of her weak- ness and sinister destinies. The rencontre of the Chesapeake and Leopard made it quite certain, for all parties, that the Americans were cowards; that the Irish had fought their battles in the revolution; and that there was only food for merriment or pity in the idea of their meeting, at sea, British skill and valour. The Edinburgh Review told confidently of " the feeble and shadowy texture of the federal govern- ment;"* — it had '"■ little hopes of a system of polity which, in an advancing society, offered no prizes to talents, and no dis- tinctions to wealth;"! and foresaw that " the slender tie which held the LTnited States together would burst at once in the tumult of war."! In 1809, the same journal, professing always superior liberality and closeness of observation, as to our affairs, discoursed of us in the following strain: " As it is quite impossible to have too much jealousy of France, so, to- wards America we can scarcely have too little. When such reasoners as Mr. Leckie, gravely talk of our being insulted by the Porte, we plainly perceive the errors of a man who has lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the Turks, until * No. 28. t Ibid. + No. 24. PEACE OF 1763. 2 he has forgotten their insignificance. But when France is SECT, stretching her iron coasts on all sides of us,— when her fleets and her camps are within sight — and we alone, of all Europe, have not been conquered by her arms; — it is almost as ridicu- lous to be jealous of America as of Turkey — of a nation three- thousand miles off — scarcely kept together by the weakest government in the world, — with no army, and half a dozen frigates — and knowing no other means of intercourse with other countries than by peaceful commerce."* In 1812, Mr. Brougham struck the same key in parliament, and displayed an equal mastery of his subject. " Jealousy of America ! whose armies are yet at the plough, or making, since your policy has willed it so, awkward (though improving) attempts at the loom — whose assembled navies could not lay siege to an English sloop of war : — Jea- lousy, of a power which is necessarily peaceful as well as weak, but which, if it had all the ambition of France and her armies to back it, and all the navy of England to boot, nay, had it the lust of conquest which marks your enemy, and your armies as well as navy to gratify it — is placed at so vast a distance as to be perfectly harmless ! and this is the nation, of which, for our honour's sake, we are desired to cherish a perpetual jealously, for the ruin of our best interests."! The Quarterly Review scarcely deigned even to pass a jest upon the impotency of the States, and would not " stoop to de- g^rade the Bi-itish navy by condescending to enter into any comparison between the high order, the discipline, and com- fort, of an English man-of-war, and an American frig-ate ;''^ it " disdained any such comparison."^ This high disdain of all the belligerent capacities of America pervaded, not only the royal councils, but the whole British naval and military service. In the first rencontre at sea, the Alert, with 20 guns mounted, bore down triumphantly upon the American frigate Essex, and fired a broadside, expecting to prove that " the as- sembled navies of America could not lay siege to an English sloop of war :" and though the issue gave an air of paralogy to the business, yet it was soon followed by an instance of the same happy confidence in the case of the frigate Guerriere. I must do the two oracular journals which I have quoted on this head, the justice to remark, that, at the end of the con- test, although they omitted to remind their readers of their • No. 24. t Speech on the present state of Commerce and Manufactures, i No. 15. Article on Madison's War. fS DISPOSITIONS FROM THE ^.RT I. first opinions, they did not pass by the perplexing facts in ab- solute silence. The Quarterly Review could condescend to say, " The Americans have fought on the element of England with British spirit. On that element, let it be fairly acknow- ledged, we have much to commend in them, and we have still something- to redeem,^''* Even before the termination of hos- tilities, the Edinburgh Review told of " the discomfiture of the English naval resources by the American marine, of which, by a whimsical coincidence, we have learnt the exist- ence in the same documents that detail its successes." And speedily came out the round, unvarnished tale : *' We have been worsted in most of our naval encounters with the Americans, and baffled in most of our enterprises by land — with a naval force on their coast, exceeding that of the enemy in the proportion of ten to one, we have lost two out of three, of all the sea-fights in which we have been engaged—* and at least three times as many men as our opponent; while their privateers swarm unchecked round all our settlements, and even on the coast of Europe, and have already made prize of more than seventeen hundred of our merchant vessels."! It is true, and detracts a little from the force of these ac knowledgments, that we read in the same number of the Jour nal — ^" the national vanity of the Americans has scarcely any other field of triumph than the discomfiture of Britain in the war of the Revolution." We might produce, by way of re joinder, perhaps, from the same hand, out of a number of passages implying the existence of other fields of triumph, the following : " History has no other example of so happy an issue to a revolution consummated by a long civil war, as that of the Americans. Indeed, it seems to be very near a maxim in political philosophy, that a free government cannot be obtain- ed, where a long employment of military force rs necessary to establish it. In the case of America, however, the military, power was disarmed by that very influence which makes » revolutionary army so formidable to liberty ; for the images of grandeur and power — those meteor lights, which are exhaled in the stormy atmosphere of a revolution, to allure the ambi- tious and dazzle the weak — made no impression upon the firm and virtuous soul of the American commander."^ " In the LTnited States, M. Talleyrand was surprised to observe, that a long and violent civil war had left scarcely any trace of its existence in the character of the intercourse of * No. 30. t No. 48. t No. 25. PEACE OP 1763. 2 ihe various factions which divided the people. No hatred or SECT. animosity was perceivable among individuals ; no turbulence '".^•v-" or agitation of character had been permanently engrafted on the sober, solid habits of the colonists. The profound remark of Machiavel appeared for once to fail, that every revolution contains the seeds of another, and scatters them behind it."* " The spectacle presented by America during the last thirty or forty years, ever since her emancipation began to produce its full effect, and since she fairly entered the lists as an inde- pendent nation — has been, beyond every thing formerly known in the history of mankind, imposing and instructive."! Dr. Seybert has introduced into his Statistics a compendi- ous statement of the nuval events of the war, which furnishes an edifying commentary upon the first speculations of the Bri- tish politicians. " The American navy triumphed in fourteen engagements, in some of which, the contending forces were nearly equal, and in many of them that of the enemy was decidedly supe- rior. The cases of the Chesapeake and the Argus are the only instances in which it can be pretended that the enemy had any fair claims to success, upon the ground of the equality of the respective forces. " The superiority of our gunnery is confirmed by the num- ber of killed and wounded on board the enemy's vessels, and the condition of their ships after the actions ; in several instan- :es the British vessels were sunk whilst the fight lasted : in most instances they Avere so materially injured as to make their destruction absolutely necessary; whereas our vessels were ommonly, with scarcely any loss of time, ready to commence mother combat." The number of British merchant vessels captured by the A.mericans, and which arrived in port or were destroyed, is letermined, by an irrefragable estimate,:): to amount to ^!iyg :hoir slfffd _fx v e^feuhdr ed/; more, in all probability, than Britain ost in all the wars which grew out of the French revolution. Much clamour, it may be recollected, was raised in Eng- and, concerning the real amount of force of the American hips, compared with the nominal. But we may judge with vhat grace this charge was so indignantUj made, by the fol- owing statement which I copy from the Regulations relative i^the Royal Navy, officially promulgated in 1817. •• No. 11. t No. 59. t See that very useful work — Niles' Weekly Register, for January 1815. Vol. I,— -D d DISPOSITIONS FROM THE, &C. " All ships of the second rate^ though rated at 98, carry up wards of 100 guns. " In the third rate, some of the ships rated at 80 guns, car- ry near 90, and others rated at 74, carry 80 guns. " In the fourth rate, of the ships rated at 50 guns, one class (that on two decks) carries 58 guns; another (that on one deck) carries 60 and upwards. " The frigates rated at 40 guns, carry 50 ; and those rated at 38, carry 46 and upwards. " The majority of those rated at 36, carry 44 ; and some of those rated at 32, carry 46 and 48 ; being more than others that are rated at 38 and 36. " Similar differences between the real and the nominal amount of force exists in the fifth rate, but it is unnecessary to specify the details." In the article on Michaud's Travels in America, our friend) of the Edinburgh Review remarked of the Avestern Americana with a mixture of contempt and compassion^ — " their general distil brandy, their colonels keep tavern, and their statesmei feed pigs." But it was discovered, by the progress of events that these generals and colonels could, notwithstanding, pu|i sue the occupation implied by their titles ; and the affairs c Plattsburg and New Orleans confounded the critics. " ^ have actually had to witness the incredible spectacle of a rega lar well appointed army of British veterans, retiring bcfot little more than an equal force of American militia !" -'l The whole result of the war on the land, to which the ge nerals that distil brandy, and the colonels that feed p'igs largely contributed, must have astonished them still mor« An aggregate loss of nearly twelve thousand of his majest troops, and the inefficiency of a force of fifty thousand regifli lars operating at one time ! And, with respect to the statesmen tvho feed pigs^ there must have been a lively surprise, and some alteration of sentiment, when the Marquis Wellesley was found declaring in the House of Lords, that, " in his opi- nion, the American Commissioners at Ghent had shown the most astonishing superiority over the British during the whole of the correspondence ; and that he had little doubt the British papers were communicated from the common fund of the mi nisters in England."* 1815. Speech respecting the Negotiation for Peace with America, April IS ! 2U SECTION yn. OF THE HOSTILITIES OF THE BRITISH REVIEWS. 1. After the Revolution of 1688, and still more after the SEC establishment of the House of Hanover, the North American colonies preferred titles of a peculiar force, to the highest es- teem and favour of every Briton who respected and loved the principles, with which those events were connected. They had been obnoxious to the despotic plans of the Stuarts, and suffered from their tyranily ; they had asserted the rights pro- ^ claimed in Magna Charta, with more boldness, and maintain- i^ed them with more success, than the mother country ; they 1" had limited the ravages, and disappointed the voracity, of des- potism and corruption, by furnishing a secure asylum for the . persecuted, as well as the distressed from whatever cause.* 'On these grounds, and the many others developed in the fore- 1 going pages, their merits might be supposed to be almost in- finite with every English whig of the last fifty years ; so great, at least, as to make it, for one of the present day, not only a perversion of natural feeling, but a political apostacy, to treat of their character and concerns, except upon a system of the , utmost liberality and indulgence. Chatham and Charles Fox had given them an irresistible claim to gratitude and respect, 'in ascribing to their revolt the salvation of the British consti- ■tution. " The resistance of the Americans to the oppressions ^ of the mother country," said the last of those canonized states- men, in the House of Commons, " has undoubtedly preserved the liberties of mankind." Our revolution, in its motive, conduct, and conclusion, united in its favour the suffrages of the most enlightened por- tion of cpntinental Europe ; and there has been of late years ^ hardly an individual in England, holding a certain rank in the : literary or political world, who has ventured, directly to deny it, the most exalted characteristics. The writers of the Quar- terly Review have, indeed, seemed to refuse it all the felicity with which it had been invested by others, in asserting that, " when America became independent, she had no race of edu- * See note N HOSTILITIES OF THE cated men to fill the situations which used to be respected,"* but even they, the official guardians of tory principles, preju- dices, and interests, have yielded to it a trioute of no trifling- import. " The anglo- Americans, an active and enlightened people, animated by the spirit and information derived from their mother country, contended, as they had done in the pre- ceding century, with pertinacious zeal, for a civil right, the grant of which, in the early part of the contest, might have restored their tranquillity and preserved their allegiance. Happily for them, their patriots were not atheists, nor their leaders robbers; their men of pvopez'ty, education^ and morals, took the lead, and the physical power of the poor and the prof- ligate was not set up to plunder, to expatriate,"! &c. T here is here enough of positive and negative praise, to induce us to impute the declaration first quoted, to an Ai'/zei'^ belief that all our educated men had perished in the course of the revolution ! The North American settlements presented, from their commencement, what was pre-eminently calculated to engage the affections, and kindle the benevolence, of the Christian and the philanthropist, in the rapid and extensive conquests made on the wilderness, for religion and civilization. Clothing the desert with beauty and reclaiming it to fruitfulness ; enlarg- ing indefinitely the boundaries of polished nature, and open- ing the way for the existence of millions of freemen of the English race over one of the most favoured portions of the earth, were achievements which, with all their dignity and va- lue, did not more powerfully recommend our American fore- fathers to the favour and protection of the good and the wise, than the motives from which they were undertaken, and the manner in which they were performed. " There was no cor- ner of the globe," exclaimed Chatham, " to which the ances- tors of our fellow subjects in America, would not have fled, rather than submit to the slavish and tyrannical spirit which prevailed in their native country." Of such men, no Eng- lishman boasting of his attachment to the present theory of the British constitution, should, to be consistent, think or speak without a glow of admiration. And we, their successors, whose spirit, as far at least as liberty is concerned, cannot be said to have degenerated from theirs ; who have preserv- ed their institutions, and continued their labours, so as,, with similar dangers and toils, to bring under the dominion of Christianity and civilized art, regions immense beyond the * No. 4. Article on Holmes' American Annals. f Artide on Spain and her colonies. BRITISH REVIEWS. grasp of their imagination— we, constituting now a republic SEC. of " ten millions of British freemen, who may be numbered ^-^^ among the most intelligent, the most moral, the bravest, and the most happy, of the human race"* — might well expect, as we deserve, to find in the philosophers and whigs of the mother country, even though of the class of critics by profession, not scoffers and detracters, but earnest friends and panegyrists. The Scottish tribunal that sits in constant judgment over us, by virtue of a mysterious authority, seems to have been aware of our claims in some of the respects upon which I have touched. Such language as the following, from the thirteenth number of the Edinburgh Review, is in unison with reason and true sentiment, and will make the reproach double, if we should find those who uttered it, acting in contradiction to its spii'it. " This immense sphere of activity in America, is the crea- tion of yesterday. Even Mr. Ashe, disposed as he is to decry every thing American, is obliged to admit, that she displays, in the wonders of her growing industry, a picture at once striking and exhilarating. It is impossible to contemplate such a scene without exulting in the triumphs of industry. This peaceful power is here subduing regions of growing forests, which conquering armies would fear to enter; and extending, with silent rapidity, the limits of civilized existence. We cannot help wishing that our countrymen, in general, were a little more alive to the feelings which we conceive such a spec- tacle is calculated to excite ; and that they could be brought to sympathize a little more in the progress of a kindred people, destined to carry our language, our arts, and our interests too,, over regions more vast than ever acknowledged the sway of the Caesars of Rome." Notwithstanding this just and obvious view of the case; the commercial obligations of which I have treated; and all the ingratiating points of our history, with which the better in- formed among the British writers cannot be supposed to be unacquainted, the United States have invariably experienced from them more obloquy and ridicule, than the nations of the European continent, the farthest removed from Great Britain in their origin, institutions, policy, knowledge, and moral qualities. There has been no period since our revolution, at which a liberal Briton, looking to the comparative treatment «f the Americans, in the British books and parliamentary dis- • Sir James Mackintosh. Speech on the Treaty with America, April llth, 1815. HOSTILITIES OF THE IT I. cussions, might not have repeated what Mr. Burke indignantly y^^^ uttered in 1775 — " The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom, appear much more shocking to us, than the base vices which are generated in the rankness of servitude." The periodical publications have served, as constant emunctories tor those humours, respecting the diffusiveness and virulence^ of which, I have already produced adequate testimon}'. It is to the language and temper, of some of the most important of those publications, that I mean to direct my attention at pre- sent. I propose to fill up this section with quotations of their invidious suggestions, and with cursory observations upon such of these as seem to call for immediate notice. 2. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, — confessedly at the head of all publications of the kind in the world, and works of great authority wherever letters are cultivated, — have- taken the lead in the war of defamation and derision, against the American people and institutions. They have, indeed, carried opposite ensigns, and made their attacks in modes somew^hat dissimilar. The hostilities of the English critics have been more direct and coarse, and accompanied with fewer professions of moderation and good will; those of the Scottish, have been waged, almost always with protesta- tions of friendship, and at times with the affectation of a for- mal defence of the object. When the one has said,* — " pro- fessing ourselves among the number of persons who experience no very particular degree of affection for our transatlantic brethren;''^ and the other-^— " the Americans are not liked in this country, and we are not now going to recotnmend them as ob- jects of our love ; we are no admirers of the Americans j"| * Quarterly. No. 24. \ The pliant Boswell set the example to his countrymen, of this form of speech, adding, however, a maxim which- they seem to have overlooked. " AVell do you know that I have no kindness for the Bostonians. But nations or bodies of men should, as well as individuals, have a fair trial, and not he condemned on character alone." (Letter to Dr. Johnson, Jan. 27, 1775.) The Quarterly Review lias preferred tlie more energ'etic spirit and sousing manner of the Dr. himself; of which a sample is afforded in the following passage of his Biography. "From a pleasing subject," says Boswell, "he (Dr. Johnson) I know not how or ^'hy, made a sudden transition to one upon which he was a violent aggressor ; for he said, " I am willing to love all man- kind, except an Jtriierican :" and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he " breathed out threatenings and slaughter ;" calling them " Rascals — Robbers — Pirates ;" and exclaiming, he'd " burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, " Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those whom we have injured." — lie was irritated still more by this delicate and keen BRITISH REVIEWS. i they approached near enough in language to betray the iden- SEC. tjty of their spirit. Both have canted about the tender for- ^-^^ bearance due on the two sides of the Atlantic — " the sacred bond of blood and language ;" " the endearing community of religion and laws;" "-the inheritance of the same principles of government and morals;" " the beauty of the example of natural friends among nations, in contradistinction to the too readily admitted division of natural enemies," &c. — and they have harped upon these topics, in the sequel of a tissue of the bitterest contumelies and sarcasms. But the Edinburgh Re- view particularly, has gone farther, with a modesty which is truly unrivalled. Whilst uttering the most disparaging opi- nions, and discharging vo.Uies of sneers, it has inveighed fiercely against " the bitter sneering at every thing in America," by the ministerial writers ; reproached them for their insolent, petulant and preposterous tone; wondered profoundly at the little cordiality and respect for America among the British nation ; and seemed to take to itself vast credit for the contraiy dispositions. Recently, it has furnished an instance of this manoeuvre, which outstrips all competition, and has the air of a wanton mockery of the understandings of its readers, as much as of a device of party-strategy. In the body of that article of the 61st number, which contains the heaviest denunciations, and some of the most flippant undersaying, ever directed against this country, we read the following phrases, the first of which is, by the way, a fine specimen of purism in style. " Among other faults with which the present English government is chargeable, the vice of impertinence has lately crept into our Cabinet; and the Americans have been treated with ridicule and contempt." " We wish well to America; we rejoice in her prosperity, and are delhghted to resist the absurd imperti- nence Tvith xvhich the character of her people is often treated in this countrij^ but," &c, I have already given, in the quotations which I have made, some evidence of the validity of these pretensions, and of the temper and consistency of the Quarterly Review. But we have not, perhaps, had enough exactly to determine, the degree of authority to which the two bands of critics are respectively entitled, in their judgments concerning America; whether on the score of liberality in their feelings, gravity in their deli- ^berations, or steadiness in their opinions. I will, therefore,, ;,^ reproach ; and roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy tould be heard across the Atlantic." (Vol. ii. p. 12.') HOSTILITIES OF THE look back upon the complexion of the articles which they havt ' devoted to us, pursuing the design which I have mentioned above. To begin with the Edinburgh critics, those friends and patrons by pre-eminence, who have always been " delighted toi resist the absurd impertinence with which the character ofj America has been treated in Great Britain." They condescended to notice this republic directly, for the > first time, in their fourth number, in the article on Davis' Travels ; and certainly we had some reason to draw encourag- ing presages from their general tone in this outset. There were but two passages in the article, which had a sinister aspect — one which asserted roundly that habitual drunkenness was in no country so prevalent as in the United States — another concerning Franklin^ as follows : " It is certahi that the en- lightened part of the American community begin now to con- sider this boasted character in a very ambiguous point of view, and to attach much less consequence and veneration to his memory than formerly. To him they are certainly indebted for the most important public services, and for his strenuous endeavours to introduce among them a taste for science and literature; but, on the other hand, his canting exhortations to extreme frugality have had their effect in preventing the ex- pansion of the noblest principles of the mind ; and his example^ VI the dereliction of religion, has certainly lent un w fortunate support to the cause of scepticism and infidelity^ I should be unjust not to acknowledge that full amends were made, at the same tribunal, to the memory of this " boasted character," in two copious articles, devoted entirely to his^ panegyric, and producing one of those remarkable antinomies in its decisions, which fall within the scope of the present ex-- position. A few extracts will be sufficient for the intelligence of the case. " Dr. Franklin, the self-taught American, is the most ra- tional, perhaps, of all philosophers. No individual ever possessec a juster understanding. In much of what relates to the practi- cal wisdom and happiness of life, his views will be found to bel admirable, and the reasoning by which they are supportec most masterly and convincing. Upon the mechanics an( tradesmen of Boston and Philadelphia, he endeavoured, wit! aippropriate eloquence, to impress the importance of industryJ sobriety and economy, and to direct their wise and humbk ambition to the attainment of useful knowledge and honour-4 able independence. Nothing can be more perfectly and beau- tifully adapted to its objects than Dr. Franklin's compositions'! of this sort. The strong sense, clear information, and obvioi BRITISH REVIEWS. 21 conviction of the author himself, make most of his moral ex- SEC. Vl hortations perfect models of popular eloquence, &c.^*We v^^v-^ should think his account of his own life a very useful reading for all young persons of unsteady principle, who have their fortunes to make or mend in this world."* " In one point of view, the name of Franklin must be con- sidered as standing higher than any of the others which illus- trated the last century. Distinguished as a statesman, he was equally great as a philosopher; thus uniting in himself a rare degree of excellence in both those pursuits, to excel in either of which is deemed the highest praise. Each successive pub- lication of this great man's works increases our esteem for his virtues, and our admiration of his understanding. We can offer the Americans no better advice than to recommend to them a constant study of Franklin, of his principles, as well as his compositions. The example of this eminent per- son teaches that veneration for religion is quite compatible with a sound, practical understanding. Franklin was a man of a truly pious turn of mind. He appears to have been a Christian of the unitarian school. If his own faith had not gone so far, he at least would greatly have respected the reli- gion of his country, and done every thing to encourage its propagation. His moral writings are superior to almost any others, in any language ; whether we regard the sound, and striking, and useful truths with which they abound, or the graceful and entertaining shape in which they are conveyed. I His piety was sincere and habitual. Feelings of a devotional cast every where break forth in his writings. He is habitually a warm advocate for religion."! The article on Davis' Travels suggested some kind apolo- Igies for us, on the important heads j?f intellect and literature, which augured favourably for the justness, as well as libera- lity, of the views, which would be always taken in relation to those subjects. " We do not mean to deny the charges against the litera- ture and learning of America: literature is one oi those Jiner viamifactures which a new country will always find it easier to import than to raise. There must be a great accumulation of stock in a nation, and a great subdivision of labour, before the arts of composition are brought to any great degree of perfection. The great avenues to wealth must be all filled, and many left in hereditary opulence or mediocrity, before * No. 16. i No. 57. Vol. I.— E e HOSTILITIES OP THE there can be leisure enough, among such a people, to relish the beauties of poetry, or to create an effectual demand for the productions of genius. These causes may for some time retain the genius of America in a state of subordination to that of Europe." " The truth is, that American genius has displayed itself, wherever inducements have been held out for its exertion. Their party pamphlets, though disgraced with much intempe- rance and scurrility, are Avritten with a keenness and spirit, that is not often to be found in the old world; and their ora- tors, though occasionally declamatory and turgid, frequently possess a vehemence, correctness, and animation, that would command the admiration of any European audience, and excite the astonishment of those philosophers who have been taught to consider the western hemisphere as a grand receptacle for i the degeneracies of nature." Afterwards, from time to time, we found general opinion* i uttered in the same quarter, which bespoke a correct appre- hension of our case, and some of which I think it well to intro- duce here. " Among men, the few who write bear no comparison toi the many who read. We hear most of the former, indeed, because they are, in general, the most ostentatious part of I literary men; but there are innumerable men who, without I ever laying themselves before the public, have made use of I literature to add to the strength of their understandings, and ! to improve the happiness of their lives." " We must say, that the Americans are not fairly judged of i by their newspapers ; which are written for the most part by expatriated Irishmen, or Scotchmen, and other adventurers of I a similar description, who take advantage of the unbounded . license of the press, to indulge their own fiery passions, and : aim at exciting that attention by the violence of their abuse, which they are conscious they could never command by thei force of their reasonings. The greater part of the polished, and intelligent Aynericans appear little on the front of public ■ life^ and make no figure in her external history.^'' (1814). " It is pleasing to learn, that the isolated inhabitants of the i western forests of America are cheered and enlightened with I the distant literature of Europe; that there are here men capa?i ble of communicating the benefits of its discoveries; and emu-i lous in their turn, to extend the boundaries of knowledge by new discoveries of their o\vn." (1805). " Whenever a taste for literature is created in America, we Irave no doubt that her authors will improve and multiply to a BRITISH REVIEWS. 2] degree that will make oui* exertions necessary to keep the start SEC. V we now have of them." (No. 29). \.^^v-^ " The great body of the American people is better educated and more comfortably situated than the bulk of any European community, and possess all the accomplishments that are any where to be found in persons of the same occupation and con- dition." (No. 25). Having represented, or being capable of seeing, the ques- tion of our literature and intellectual condition in these lights, — discerning the general causes which either retarded our advancement, or prevented it from being visible abroad, — liberal critics, " well wishers to America," delighted to pro- tect her character from the insults of malice and the judgments of ignorance, might have been expected to abstain, as much as possible, from reciting our unavoidable deficiencies or unsuc- cessful attempts; and especially from making them, on everv practicable occasion, the subject of burlesque or opprobrium. They might have been expected to treat our literary perform- ances with the utmost lenity, and to hold out to us whatever degree of .positive encouragement was consistent with the true interests of literature; the more as, whatever we may have arrogated to ourselves in other respects, we have rarely set up exorbitant pretensions on the score of our books. Let us see how far such expectations have been fulfilled by the liberals of the Edinburgh Review. The first production of our press brought within their high cognizance, was the fifth volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. A society of this description, sprung from the most generous aspirations and benevolent aims ; formed under the auspices of Franklin and Rittenhouse ; iarrested in its promising career by the war of the revolution, [which required all the exertions of its members in other fields ,Df public service ; struggling anew, when the unnatural ag- igressor had consented to sheathe the sword, in a community 'universally engaged in business, and under all the disadvan- tages inseparable from a new country, to maintain the ap- pearance of vital action, in order to present a rallying point, and nucleus of science, for an infant nation — such a societ}' was in itself, independently of the general considerations inti- mated above, fitted to conciliate forbearance, and even ten- derness and support, from the votaries of knowledge in the bid world.* Its first offerings might be composed of no very ♦ See Note O. V HOSTILITIES OF THE ART I. excellent materials; they might be deficient in interest and ^■v-^^^ instruction for an European savant; yet, liberal minds, alive to the excellence of its object, and the remote influences of its rude essays, would not fail to receive them with respect, and to rejoice in its very existence, as an auspicious omen, and a certain source of future good. Whether actuated by refiec-" tions of this kind, or a confidence in its positive merit, many of the most illustrious of the scientific world of Europe have sought to be ranked among its members ; and displayed the title, when obtained, in the front of their works, with evident satisfaction. Of this number, I may cite Dugald Stewart, the most accomplished and enlightened of the countrymen of the Edinburgh critics. These, our well-wishers, proceeded, however, with a spirit diametrically opposite. They heaped indignities upon the volume of the American Transactions, and made their account of it, the occasion of innuendos and sallies against the taste and learning of America in general. The following extracts will speak for themselves. " The want of refinement in arts and in Belles Lettres, is, by no means, the only circumstance, that distinguishes otir kinsmenm North America, from the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere. They appear to be proportionably deficient in scientific attainments. The volume now before us, one of the very fexv that ever issue from the A7tierican press^ contains the whole accumulation of American discovery and observation, during a course of peaceful years. It extends to 328 pages, and the most interesting communication it has to boast of is the valuable paper of our countryman^ Mr. Strickland. Of all the academical trifles which have ever been given to the world, eighty -nine of the pages, the work of Americans, are the most trivial and dull. Our readers will judge with what difliculty this mite has been collected, when we mention the subject," Sec. * " Some of the American philosophers themselves seem to have adopted the language of the ludicrously sentimental class to which M. Dupont de Nemours (the author of one (rfi the papers) belongs, and to have thought it a good substitute for the eloquence and power of fine Avriting rvhich Providence has denied to their race.''''—'-'- By the manner in which one of the American contributors cites, and more especially by hisi remai"ks upon classical learning, we are inclined to suspect that a man Avho reads the easier Latin poets is not to be met with every day in North America." — " We cannot resist the temptation of quoting a passage from his paper; the moralizingi BRITISH REVIEWS. T. part of it is truly American. It is only necessary to add, for SEC. \ the information of the American Academies^ that the Latin quo- ^.i^-v-^ tation is nothing at all to the purpose," &c. " Meanly as our readers may be disposed to think of the American scientific circles, they appear to be highly prized by their own mem- bers. The society, whose labours we have been describing, at- taches to itself the naine of * Philosophical' xvith peculiar ea- p-erness ; and the meeting-house^ where the transactions of its members are scraped together^ and prepared for being inaccu- rately printed, is, in the genuine dialect of tradesraen^ deno- minated ' Philosophical Hall.' " " We have dwelt longer upon this article than its merits jus- tify, for the purpose of stating and exemplifying a most curi-' ous and unaccountable fact — the scarcity of all but mercantile and agricultural talents in the 7iew xvorld^'^ 3, The American work that next attracted the attention of our patrons, happened to be from the pen of a minister pleni- potentiarj' of the United States on the continent of Europe, the son of the American President. These qualities of the author, although they did not entitle him to deference as such, yet gave him claims to some particular personal favour and respect, from critics of the whig school, and of the bon-tou of European society. And he would have every right to ex- pect the most indulgent dispositions for his work, if, compos- ed of sketches which were reluctantly permitted to go before the American public in the pages of an American periodical paper, without ulterior destination, it had taken the shape of I a distinct \olume, through the cupidity of a London booksel- ler ; — if at the same time it was altogether free from preten- sions, and professedly limited to certain heads of observation, upon which accurate information might be of particular utility to his countrymen. The *' Letters from Silesia" of Mr. John Quincy Adams, to which it will be understood that I have been referring, were attended with these circumstances appa- rent upon the face of the volume into which they were col- lected. I will venture to affirm, moreover, that they possess If much absolute, intrinsic merit; that they are greatly above , the common standard of applauded English tours, and would \ have been declared creditable in all respects, had they been the production of an Englishman in a similar station. But the Edinburgh Review was as ungracious and wayward in this ; instance, as in that of the American Philosophical Society. It * Compare this with the quotations in p. 218, UUSTILIXrES OF THE not only launched into broad generalities, and drew lar-fetched ' analogies, to decry the work of Mr. Adams, but was at much pains to disparage his understanding and feelings ; and turned aside from the only proper subject of animadversion, to carp and sneer at the studies and mind of his country. These as- sertions might be the more strikingly illustrated here, did not the same tone and design pervade nearly the whole of the arti- cle in question ; at the same time that the critics cannot effec- tually conceal the sense, which they really entertain, of the merits of the Letters. A few excerpts from the article will be enough for the occasion. " It may appear somewhat hard to subject a work which does not offend by any pretensions to a comparison with the excellent standards of its kind ; but when we held this work in our hands, we could not help thinking of the American Presi- dency, and of the state of learning in that powerful and pros- perous commonwealth." " Although this author is neither lively nor very instructive, he shows some qualities which makes him a tolerable companion for a very short tour.''''^*'-^ The feelings of Mr. Adams about his native country more resemble the loyal acquiescence of a subject, than the personal interest and ardour of a republi- can."**" His style is, in general, very tolerable English, which, for American composition^ is no moderate praise."**" A spu- rious dialect, it is probable, will prevail even at the court and in the Senate of the United States, until that great common- wealth shall become opulent enough to break more distinctly into classes," &c. At the appearance of another American work of the highest possible interest and elevation as to the sul)ject, and proceeding from the firstlaw-dignitary of the American republic, not more respectable by his exalted station, thf.n by his general talents and private virtues — I mean the Life of Washington by Chief Justice Marshall — a fair opportunit)^ was afforded the Edin- burgh illuminati, to resist " the impertinence and vulgar inso- lence," and the " bitter sneering" of the ministerial party with respect to American concerns, by the force of example, in a generous exposition of the merits which they might discover ' in the performance ; a scrupulous abstinence from harsh and I supererogatory reflections on the author or his country, and' I a commemoration of those traits in the American revolu-~ tion, which distinguish it as the purest and noblest among the most important and celebrated in the history of the world. Nothing would have seemed more remote from probability, than that the disciples of Fox could, on the occasion of re- BRITISH REVIEWS. iil viewing an authentic biography of Washington, labour nuilnly Si-C. \ to appear smart and knowing, at the expense of the nation v-^^^-^ which had produced this model of heroes, and even insult the faithfiJ and unassuming biographer, who had been his com- panion in arms, had enjoyed his intimate friendship, and shared with him the labours and honours of his civil adminis- tration. Whether they pursued so unworthy a course, and how far they improved the opportunity above mentioned, to the very reverse of the proper ends, may be ascertained by the fol- lowing short extracts from the article under consideration. " Mr. Marshall must not promise himself a reputation com- mensurate with the dimensions of his work." " Mr. Chief Justice Marshall preserves a most dignified and mortifying silence regarding every particular of Washing- ton's private life, &c. Mr. Marshall may be assured, that what passes with him for dignity, will, by his reader, be pro- nounced dullness and frigidity." " The Speeches in this w^ork display great commercial knowledge, and a keen st}'le of argument — but oratory is not to be looked for in a country which has none of the kindred arts. All the specimens of American eloquence grievously sin against the canons of taste." " A more diffuse and undiscriminating narrative we haye seldom perused. It is deficient in almost every thing that con- stitutes historical excellence^'' &c. &c. This last stricture upon the narrative is followed immedi- ately by the observation — " It displays industry, good sense, and, so far as we can judge, laudable impartiality ; and the style, though neither elegant nor impressive, is yet, upon the whole, clear and manly." No ingenuity but that of the Edin- burgh critics, would be adequate to explain, how^ a narrative acknowledged to possess these qualities — which Blair indicates " as the primary qualities required in a good historian" — eould yet be justly proclaimed "deficient in almost everv thing that constitutes historical excellence." They are careful, in the abundance of their tenderness for America, to note, as they proceed with Judge Marshall, " the ludicrous proposition of her Congress to declare herself the most enlightened nation on the globe." This taunt had been so often in the mouth of the party stigmatized for an " odious, miserable, vulgar spirit of abuse against America," that the repetition of it by her friends, can be accounted for, only by its egregious pleasantry. I propose to enquire into its justice hereafter, and hope to render this point at least doubtful. To- wards the conclusion of the article on the Life of Washington, HOSTILITIES OF THE there is this invidious remark : " We think it a pretty strong proof of the poverty of the literary attainments of America, that she has not been able to tell the story of her own revolu- tion, and to pourtray the character of her hero and sage, in language worthy such subjects." I do not mean to affirm that the story of our revolution has [ been told absolutely well by Marshall, or by Ramsay, whose Life of Washington is so unceremoniously consigned by the Scottish reviewers to the circulating libraries. Ramsay's His- tory of the American Revolution, which, it is probable, they liad never deigned to open, is, however, a respectable pro- duction in all points of view ; quite equal, as regards literary execution, to any historical essay respecting the aft'airs of England for the last century, and superior, as regards the au- thenticity of materials, and opportunities of knowledge. The Somervilles, the Enticks, the Belshams, the Russels, the Adolphus', the Giffords, the Biglands, are certainly below the level of Ramsay. To no people whatever can we apply more exactly, than to the American, the observation which I have quoted from the Edinburgh Review, that " among them the few who write bear no comparison to the many who read." According to the drift of the Review in making this observation, it would be unjust to declare the poverty of the literary attainments of 1 America, on the ground that she has not yet produced a first : rate history of her revolution ; as, in point of fact, nothing can i be more unfounded than the allegation. We are told by a t Scottish authority, Blair, that the island of Britain, was not eminent for its historical productions, till within a few )'ears prior to the time at which he wrote ; that, during a long pe- riod, English historical authors were little more than dull com- pilers^ when at length the distinguished names of Hume, Ro- bertson, and Gibbon, raised the British character in that spe- cies of writing.* Now, if the logic of the Edinburgh Review, in reference to America, be adopted — if the circumstance of our not having told well the story of our revolution be " a pretty strong proof of the poverty of our literary attain- ments," we have, in the statement of Blair, " pretty strong proof" that Great Britain laboured under the same reproach until the middle of the eighteenth century. And the ignomi- ny would be tenfold, considering the superior advantages of her situation for centuries before that period. The absence of historians of the highest order is, certainly, the last defect * Lectures on Rhetoric. — Lecture 36. BRITISH REVIEWS. m our literature to be censured by a nation whose historical SEC authors were but dull compilers^ so long after she had the full *>-^' enjoyment of all those facilities to perfection in the arts of composition, which the Edinburgh Review has justly stated to be necessarily wanting to a new countr}^* There is no part of the matter introduced into the life of Washington ; there are none of the " provincial documents" with which it is peevishly said to be loaded, that are not in- teresting and important to the American public ; and for this public the work was chiefly intended. It became, inevitably, a History of the American Revolution, not only on account of the connexion, more or less immediate, of the hero, Avith all the great occurrences of the drama, but from the tenor of his manuscripts upon which it was composed, and which the biographer was bound to turn to the fullest account. Its bulk is not, thei'efore, a well-grounded objection; or might, at least, have found indulgence with those, who could not have been ignorant of the more inordinate size of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion; Roscoe's Life of Leo X; Gilford's Life of Pitt; Fra-Paolo's History of the Council of Trent; Guicciar- dini's History, and many other similar works of great ce- lebrity, of which the subjects are of less real importance and. [dignity, and extend through no greater portion of time. But, Ithe true, and principally, exceptionable feature in Marshall's [volumes, is one which has never, as far as I know, been lobserved at home, and which the foreign critics, had they Ibeen able to perceive it, would have been careful not to sig- Inalize. He has given, as historical evidence, determining a [general phasis of the revolution, the desponding representa- Itions made by Washington in his private letters to Congress ; [representations which took their hue as well from the design [of the writer to stimulate that body, to the utmost pitch of a Particular kind of effort, as from the engrossing disquietudes latural and common with the firmest minds, under the imme- jiiate pressure, or apprehension, of heavy embarrassments. Irhe biographer has so exhibited the difficulties inherent in our [defence, and the momentary impressions which their emergence [iiade upon the Commander in chief, as to lend much colour m. reason at least, to the derogatory suggestion of the Edin- irgh Review — " He must be blind who does not see iii this Istory^ that all the array of American patriotism would have Ben uiteny unac )ie, DU t lor me mc apacn y oi ner enemy, f |Vol. I.— Ff * Note P,. HOSTILITIES OF THE secure her independence." The main idea is certainly coun ' tenanced by some of the letters of Washington; but it is not therefore, the less unsound, or easy of refutation upon a comprehensive and critical survey of the whole history of the revolution. No British writer will assert, or admit, thir the success of the British forces under Wolfe, in the memor able siege of Quebec, was owing to the " incapacity of the enemy:" But the tone of the first despatches of that intrepic' leader to the British secretary of state, is quite as despondinj:^ as the private communications of Washington to the Americr. congress, and would equally, upon the principles of the Ediii burgh Review, warrant such a conclusion. The British pol' tician of an enlarged and sagacious mind, who will look int^. the parliamentary history for the three first years of our strug- gle, will find there, in the facts and views presented by th»i whig orators, enough to convince him of the error of any hy- pothesis, implying, that we could not have worked out our poli- tical salvation, but for the mismanagement of the British minis- try, and the aid of the French court. 4. The life of Washington having failed to draw the Edin- burgh wits from the course, to appearance so little in unison with their professions, which was pursued with tl^c letters of i Mr. Adams, we cannot be surprised if the Columbiad of Bar- low wrought no better effect. It seems to have been committed : to the Momus of the fraternity for special diversion. Ac- cordingly, the American Epic is introduced, with refined: humour, as " the goodly firstling of the infant muse of Ame- rica;" and, by way, no doubt, of manfully resisting ministe- rial impertinence, and generously soothing the feelings of thq poet's countrymen for the sentence which it might be necessa to pass upon his work — the reviewer immediately salutes the as follows : — " These federal republicans are very much sue; people, we suppose, as the modem traders of Liverpool, Ma; Chester, or Glasgow. They have a little Latin whipped in them in their youth, and read Shakspeare, Pope and Miltoi^ as well as bad English novels, in their days of courtship am leisure." .;l I cannot undertake to repeat the exquisite jokes of this article on the Columbiad — such, for instance, as the oi^ about " those fiuent and venerable personages, the rivers Vo^ tomak and Delaware," nor the many quips respecting th« American diction ; but it is proper to quote one or two mor< phrases, to illustrate the obstinacy of that unlucky mood whicl BliiTlSIl KEVIKVVb. « would be ever at variance with the most magnanimous de- signs of patronage. " We have often heard it reported that our ti-ansatlantic brethren were beginning to take it amiss that their language should still be called English. As this is the first specimen which has come into our hands of any considerable work i7i the American tongue, it may be gratifying to our philological readers," &c. " These republican literati seem to make it a point of con- science to have no aristocratical distinctions — even in their vocabulary : they think one word just as good as another, pro- iided the meaning be clear," &c. Aspersions upon the capacity and literature of the Ame- rican people at large, might have been spared by " well-wish- ers," even in a criticism upon an American work. But it would seem still more incongruous and wanton, to hold them up to contempt, in reviewing a mere book of travels in Ame- rica, declared, at the same time, to be in the last degree incre- dible and despicable. This, however, is done in the account of Ashe's Travels, in the 30th number of the Edinburgh Jour- nal; where, while the reviewer affects to reprobate and de- ride the tales of the wretched imposter and swindler,* he lends himself to his malignant purpose. It is from them that the magnates of Scottish literature take occasion to flout and de- cry a nation of kinsmen in the following language : " We could just as readily believe that the orations of Sheridan are written by a Philadelphia-vian, as that the • * Dr. Drake relates, in his "Picture of Cincinnati," the following anec- dote of Ashe. " In the years 1802-3, Dr. William Goforth, with an ardour of curiosity that deserved a better reward than awaited his exertions, dug- up in Ken- tucky, and transported to Cincinnati, several wagg-on loads of Mammoth bones. They were, by the Doctor and George Turner, one of the members of the American Philosophical Society, examined attentively, and supposed to be the remains of no less than six non-descript quadrupeds, most of them gigantic. Among the rest, some of the bones of the rhinoceros were thought to be ascertained. Judge Turner made accurate drawings of the most curious of those fossils, but has been so unfortunate as to lose them. " In the spring of the year 1803, the Doctor formed the design of trans- porting these bones to the Atlantic states. They reached Pittsburgh, and were there stored. Early in 1806, Professor Barton made an application to purchase them; but at that time they had attracted the attention of a foreign swindler, named Thomas Arville, alias Jlshe, who obtained permission of the owner to ship them to Europe, for exhibition ; since which they have not been heard of. To this personal injury of a worthy individual, the miscreant has since added a libel on the American people." HOSTILITIES OF TFfE speech of an American orator is the work of a Scotch re-. porter." " It is no doubt true, that Amei'ica can produce nothing to bring her intellectual efforts into any sort of co)npariso7i with that of Europe. These republican states have never passed the limits of humble mediocrity^ either in thought or expression. Noah Webster, we are afraid, still occupies the first place in criticism, Timothy Dwight and Joel Barlow in poetry, and j Mr. Justice Marshall in history : and, as to the physical sci- 11 ences, we shall merely observe, that a little elementary trea- tise of botany, appeared in 1803; and that this paltry contri- bution to natural history is chronicled, by the latest American "historian, among the remarkable occurrences since the revo- lution. In short, federal America has done nothing, either to extend, diversify, or embellish the sphere of human know- ledge. Though all she has written were obliterated, from the records of learning, there would, if we except the works of Franklin, be no positive diminution, either of the useful or the agreeable. The destruction of her whole literature would not occasion so much regret as we feel for the loss of a few leaves from an ancient classic." " But, notwithstanding all this, we really cannot agree with Mr. Ashe, in thinking the Americans absolutely incapable^ or degenerate ; and are rather inclined to think, that when their neighboui"hood thickens, and their opulence ceases to depend on exertion, they will show something of the same talents to which it is a part of our duty to do justice among ourselves. And we are the more inclined to adopt this yauoz^ra^/e opinion J from considering, that her history has already furnished occa sions for the display of talents of a high order; and that, ini the ordinary business of government, she displays no mea: share of ability and eloquence." " That the Americans have great and peculiar faults, both in their manners and in their morality, we take to be undeni-j able. Their manners, for the most part, are those of a scat« tered, migratory, but speculating people; and there will be ni great amendment until their population becomes more dense and more settled in its habits. As the population becomes conl centered, and the spirit of adventure is deprived of its objects' the sense of honour will improve with the importa7ice of cha- racter.'^ (No. 30.)* The relish for the topic of the insignificance of American literature, and for the waggish citation of the names of some See Note Q. BRITISH REVIEWS. of the American literati, proved so keen and lasting, that we SE(. have been recently treated with them again. What archness, '^^^ sagacity, knowledge, and despatch in the following passage of the article on the travels of Fearon — that rightful successor of Ashe, worthy of exciting the same strain in the reviewer! "Literature the Americans have none — ^no native literature, I mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed ; and may afford to live for half a century on his fame. There is, or was, a Mr. Dwight, who wrote some poems ; and his baptismal name was Timothy.* There is also a small accoicnt of Virginia by Jefferson, and an epic by Joel Barlow — and some pieces of pleasantry by Mr. Irving. But why should the Americans write books, when a six weeks passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense^ science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads. Prairies, steam-boats, grist-mills, are their natural objects ybr centuries to come. Then, when they have got to the Pacific ocean — epic poems, plays, pleasures of memory, and all the elegant gratifications of an ancient peo- ple who have tamed the wild earth, and set down to amuse themselves /" 5. The Edinburgh Review, preluded, as we have seen, w ith apologising for our supposed deficiencies in literature, but quickly fell into the habit of emblazoning them to the ut- most, whenever America happened to be in question, even as to matters entirely distinct. A similar course has been * Dr. Dwight seems to have obtained a permanent niche in the memory of the critic. Thus we have, on another occasion. " The poetry of Dr. . Dwight is evidently the growth of a country whei-e only the coarser sorts of industry yet flourish." (No. 29.) Now, considering this utter unworthi- ness of the Connecticut poet, it is rather extraordinary that Darwin should have ascribed to his Conquest of Canaan " much fine versification." (Bota- nic Garden, note, line 364, part I.) ; and that Campbell, whom the review- ers have placed above all the bards of the age, should have borrowed pas- sages from his religious epic to adorn a compilation of the beauties of Eng- lish poetry. In introducing these passages, Campbell remarks, indeed, — " Of this American poet I am sorry to be able to give the British reader no account. I believe his personal history is as little known as his poetry, on this side of the Atlantic." But, truly, the British reader might justly com- plain ; for. Dr. Dwight made so conspicuous a figure in the affairs of New England, and was so diffusively and advantageously famous throughout this country, that it would not have been very difficult to come at his personal history, even in London. The President of Yale College, the second in the Union in extent and consideration ; an eminent divine, a politician of great influence, a voluminous, popular and able writer, could remain unknown only to those who were entirely ignorant of American affaifs, HOSTILITIES OF THE T I. pursued by the critics in relation to our moral condition, man- "^►^ ners, and general dispositions. Their excuses for their " kins- men of the west," on these heads, have almost always had, more or less, the air of mockery, and carried a sharper sting than their open defamation. The following passages are won- derfully kind and encouraging, and furnish a specimen of the sapient, fond discussions about us in the mother country. " Why the Americans are disliked in this country we have never been able to understand ; for most certainly they resem- ble us far more than any other nation in the world. They are brave and boastful, and national and factious, like ourselves ; — about as polished as 99 in 100 of our own countrymen in the upper ranks — and at least as vioral and -well educated in the loiver. Their virtues are such as we ought to admire — for they are those on which we value ourselves most highly : and their very faults seem to have some claim to our indulgence, since they are those with which we also are reproached by third parties." (1814). *' The complaint respecting America is, that there are no people of fashion — that their column still wants its Corinthian capital — or, in other words, that those who are rich and idle, have not yet existed so long, or in such numbers, as to have brought to full perfection that system of ingenious trifling, and elegant dissipation, by means of which it has been discovered that wealth and leisure may be most agreeably disposed of. Admitting the fact to be so, and in a country where there is no. court, no nobility, and no monument or tradition of chivalrous usages — and where, moreover, the greatest number of thosei who are rich and powerful have raised themselves to that, eminence by mercantile industry, we really do not see how it could well be otherwise — we could still submit, that this i no lawful cause either for national contempt, or for national, hostility. It is a peculiarity in the structure of society among! that people, which, we take it, can only give offence to thei: visiting acquaintance; and, while it does us no sort of hannj while it subsists, promises, we think, very soon to disappeai altogether, and no longer to afflict even our imaginations, The number of individuals born to the enjoyment of herediij tary wealth is, or at least was, daily increasing in that couil*'| try ; and it is impossible that their multiplication, — with all the models of European refinement before them, and all the advantages resulting from a free government, and a general system of good education— should fail, within a very short period, to give birth to a better tone of conversation and society^ and to mariners more dignijied and refined. Unless we are very BRITISH REVIEWS. much misinformed indeed, the symptoms of such a change may SEC already be traced in their. cities. Their youths of fortune ui- '^-^ ready travel overall the countries of Europe for their im- provement ; and specimens are occasionally met with even in these islands, which, with all our prejudices, we must admit, would do no discredit to the best blood of the land from which ihey originally sprung."* There would have been too much of consistency in preserv- ing, on all occasions, the condescension exerted in these pas- sages. The tone of greeting is not so mincing or comfortable in the following extracts : " The public functionaries in America are so poorly provided, that no prosperous counsellor, for instance, will accept of the office of judge, and few men of abilities will dedicate them to so unprofitable a task as the management of public affairs. — Their legislature is therefore deficient both in talent and au- thority'', and she has already experienced more than one shock ft-om the in-egular impulse of that ambition and talent for which no adequate recompense has been provided within the pale of her constitution." (No. 28). " The Americans are all jealous republicans, and all out- rageously proud of their constitution, and vain of their coun- try. This passion exists, in America, in a degree that is both offensive and ridiculous to strangers !" (No. 40). " They, of the western country, are hospitable to strangers, because they are seldom troubled with them; and because theij have always plenty of mai'ze and smoked hams. \ Their hospi- tality, too, is always accompanied with impertinent questions ; and a disgusting display of national vanity." (No. 13). " There are no very prominent men at present in America ; at least, none ■whose fame is strojig enough for exportation, Monroe is a man of plain, unaffected good sense. Jefferson, » No. 40. f The poor Irish, at least, are placed out of the reach of so chai'itable an explanation; and if the people of England are hospitable, it is not cer- tainly from this cause. I take the following' from Bell's Weekly Messenger for Feb. 7th, 1819. " On Friday a donation of the Regent gave cheerfulness to the lowlv habitations of the indigent of Brighton. A large quantity of prime beef, to the value of one hundred pounds, by royal command, was distributed bo the industrious poor with families, in proportions according to their number and necessities, by the parochial officers. The zvido-ws' and the 'orphans' tears bore testimony of the gratitude felt, and expressions of thank- ^ness, directed toivards their beloved and gcnersvs benefactor, wer- ^r • ■ fj^sat." HOSTILITIES OF THE rve believe^ is stiil alive; and has always been more rcmaika ble, perhaps^ for the early share he took in the formation ot the republic, than from any very predominant superiority oi understanding." (No. 61). It is well to be undecei\^ed, let the nature of the error be what it may. But the Americans had credulously imagined, that the fame of the military and naval commanders by whom the British were, during the last American war, " worsted in most of their naval encounters, and baffled in most of their enterprises by land,"* was " strong enough for exportation." They thought the same, with respect to those " statesmen, most of whom survive, by whom the affairs of the United States have been administered in times of great difficulty, with a forbearance, circumspection, and constancy, not surpassed in those commoiwealths who have been most justly renowned for the wisdom of their councils."! As regards Mr. Jeffer- son, it will not be deemed an unaccountable illusion in the Americans to have ascribed to him " a predominant superi- ority of understanding," Avhen it is recollected that they had read the following remarks in the article of the Edinburgh Review on Janson's Travels: " Mr. Janson drags individuals into ?iotice without ceremony. As for his endless invectives against Mr. Jefferson, they belong to another class of wrongs, and only obtain their share of the dignified contempt by which that eminently xvise ruler has consigned to oblivion all the spoken and written scurrility of his enemies.":j: While them- selves engaged in " dragging individuals into notice," the Scottish critics should not have forgotten the names of John f Adams, Ji^mes Madison, John Jay, Rufus King, Thomas j Pinckney, De Witt Clinton, John Quincy Adams, and even Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, all of whom, by a diligent per quisition, they could have ascertained to be still on the stage o life. Two of these at least, might be considered as prominent since they wrote the principal portion of the work called th Federalist, which the Scottish dispensers of renown hav^ themselves described as " a publication that exhibits an exten and precision of information, a profundity of research, and a: acuteness of understanding, which would Jiave done honour t] the most illustrious statesman of ancient or modern times."^,] * Edinburgh Review. — 1814. f Ibid. No. 61. Article on Universal Suffratje. T No. 29. § No. 24. Article on Illllhouse's proposed amendment to the AmericaH Constitution, BRITISH REVIEWS. In the number of this journal, the 61st, which tells us that SI we have no prominent men, it is obligingly said, " the Ameri- "^ cans are a very sensible, reflecting people, and have conducted their affairs extremely well:'''' but at the same moment the com- pliment is retracted, in a burst of spleen more violent and acrid, than any of the effusions of the Quarterly Review, which I shall soon be called to notice. " The great curse of America is the institution of slavery — of itself far more than the foulest blot upon their national character, and an evil which counterbalances all the excise- men, licensers, and tax-gatherers of England." " That slavery should exist among men who know the value of liberty, and profess to understand its principles, is the con- summation of xv'ickedness. E\^eiy American, who loves his country, should dedicate his whole life, and every faculty of his soul, to efface this foul stain from its character. If nations rank according to their wisdom and their virtue, -what right has the Amer'ican^ a scourger and murderer of slaves^ to com- pare himself with the least and the loxvest of the European na- tions ? much more with this great andhumane country^ where the greatest lord dare not lay a finger upon the meanest pea- sant ? What is freedom, where all are not free ? Where the greatest of God's blessings is limited, with impious caprice, to the colour of the body ? And these are the men who taunt the English with their corrupt parliament, with their buying and selling votes. Let the world judge which is the most liable to censure — we who, in the midst of our rottenness, have torji off the manacles of slaves all over the world^ or they who, with their idle purity, and useless perfection, have remained mute and careless, while groans echoed and whips clanked round the very walls of their spotless Congress. The existence of slavery tJi Afnerica is an atrocious crime^ with which no measures can be kept — for which her situation affords no apo- logy — which makes liberty itself distrusted, and the boast of it disgusting." 6. It was, perhaps, known to the authors of the Review, that no small part of the American public, in spite of all that I have quoted from it of an earlier date, still credulously relied upon its general professions and character. They magnanimously determined at length, to dissipate the delusion, or conceived the project of putting it to the last test, by these fierce invec- tives. Vol. I.— Gg HOSTILITIES OF THE I will discuss, in another place, the validity of the sweeping charges founded upon the existence of domestic slavery among us, my immediate object being little more than to exemplify the feeling, or the policy, of the leading journals of Great Britain. We may, however, delay awhile, to illustrate further the consistency and modesty of the Edinburgh critics. In the same article which contains the charges just mentioned, they write thus.' " Any person, with tolerable prosperity here in England, had better remain where he is. There are consi- derable evils, no doubt, in England; but it would be madness not to admit that it is, upon the whole, a very happy country." Now, it was only in the number of their journal immediately preceding, in the article on Birbeck's Travels, that we read the following language. " With all its excellencies, the English government is a most expensive one : protection to person and property is no where so dearly purchased; and the follies of the people, and the coiTuption of their rulers, have entailed such a load of debt upon us, that whoever prefers his own to any other country, as a place of residence, must be content to pay an enormous price for. the gratification of his wish. In truth, a temptation to emigrate is now held out to all persons of moderate fortune, which must, in very many cases, prove altogether irresistible. Nor can any thing be more senseless than the wonder testified by some zealous lovers of their native land, at any family of small income, seeking a more fruitful soil and a better climate, where half their means may not be seized to pay the state and the poor. Mr. Birbeck, as a moderate capitalist, and the father of a large family, may be justified in every point of view for leaving this country." In the last pages of the article on Bii'beck's Travels, it is elaborately maintained by the reviewer, that the American Union will continue : but, in the next number of the journal, we are told that " it is scarcely possible to conceive that such an empire as the American should very long remain undi- vided." The truly sound doctrine of the article on Birbeck furnishes the best answer to this assertion. It is as follows. " It might be proper, however, to consider the real ground of stability which the government of America possesses, before we decide in so positive a manner against it. There can be little doubt, that the whole question turns upon the difference of American and European societj', and the total want in the former, of that race of political characters which abounds in the latter. In America, all men have abundant occupation of their own, without thinking of the state. Every person is deeply interested, and perpetually engaged, in driving his trade, and cultivating his land : and little time is left to any one for thinking of state affairs, except as a subject of conversation. BRITISH REVIEWS. As a business they engage the attention of no one except the rulers of the SEC country : and even tliey keep the concerns of the public subordinate to their ,._^^ own. The governor of a state is generally a large land owner and farmer of his own ground. A foreign minister is the active member of a lucrative and laborious profession, quitting it for a few months, and returning to its gains and its toils when his mission is ended. The business of the senate occupies but a few weeks in the year ; and no man devotes himself so much to its duties, as to leave it doubtful to what class of the industrious community he properly belongs. The race of mere statesmen, so well known among us in the Old World, is wholly unknown in the New ; aiui until it springs up, even the foundations of a change cannot be considered as laid. The Americans no doubt are, like other freemen, decided partisans, and warm political com- batants; but what project or chance can counterbalance, in their eyes, the benefits conferred by the union, of cultivating their soil, and pursuing their traffic freely and gainfully, in their capacity of private individuals? A preacher of insurrection might safely be left with such personages as the Amei-ican farmers ; and until the whole frame of society alters, even a great increase of political characters will not enable those persons successfully to appeal to the bulk of the community, with the prospect of splitting tlie union. The cautious and economical character of the Federal Government seems admirably adapted to secure its hold over the affections of a rational and frugal people." The Edinburgh Review is, doubtless, the last quarter in which we are to look for proof of the assertions that England is " a very happy country, where all are free" — " a great and humane country, which has torn off the manacles of slaves all over the world." In the same article in which those assertions are made, we read that " a very disgusting feature in the pre- sent English government is its extreme timidit}', and the cruelt}'^ and violence to which its timidity gives birth;" that in government-cases the judges are not independent; that " the savage spectacle" is exhibited " of a poor wretch, perhaps a very honest m.an, contending in vain against the weight of an immense government, pursued by a zealous attorney, and sentenced, by some candidate, perhaps, for the favour of the crown, to the long miseries of the dungeon." On the point of Englands having "•' torn off the manacles of slaves all over the Avorld," the several articles of that journal concerning the condition of the blacks in the British West Indies, of the Hindoos, of the Irish Catholics, furnish an admirable com- mentary. The same number in which that glorious distinction is claimed for England, begins with an account of Mills' History of British India, and ends with a vicAV of the state of the Irish Catholics; wherein her millions of Irish and Indian subjects are represented as labouring under the most galling and withering tyranny. The language of the following passages, for instance, is tolerably significative, and has the advantage of being undeniably true. HOSTILITIES OF TIIF. r I. «» We find, at the very outset of the history of the East India Company as- -,_■ a governing body, a series of acts of treachery and unjust violence, such as it would not be easy to match in the annals of men whom we are accustomed to consider as tlie worst of tyrants." " We are accustomed to rate very highly the security which is derived from being governed by men having the advantages of English education and Enghsh feelings. But it affords a lesson of melancholy instruction as to the feebleness of this security, when we see gentlemen eminently possessed of these advantages, and placed far above the reach of want, ready to destroy the commerce of a great country, to break down the administration of justice, to oppress the people, to violate ti'eaties, to kindle a war, and to depose a monarch, their all}^ merely to secure to themselves the profits of an illegal traffic." " Such are the melancholy results of the attempts to improve the con- dition of Bengal, described not by inimical observers or severe judges, but by the magistrates who, from the prejudices of their situation, would be in- clined to behold every indication of improvement, under the auspices of a British administration, with a favoui'able eye. Every person of rank andi property reduced to the lowest condition, — the cultivator exposed to in- tolei-able exaction, — the courts of justice virtually closed against suitors,- the most terrible of crimes increased to that extent, that no security for] person or property can be said to exist, — minor offences not diminished,- dissoluteness of morals become more general, — and a police, of which th( vices render it, instead of a benefit, a pest to the country: these, according to the highest authorities, are the characteristics of that part of India, wher( our reforms have had the longest time to operate." " To this picture must those open their eyes, who have been consoling! themselves, on every act of aggression and conquest, however unjust ii itself, with the reflection that the extension of the British power was an ex- tension of benefits and of security to the natives. One advantage has certainly attended the introduction of an English administration : the direct oppression which the superiors exercised, as of right, over their inferiors is lessened ; but that oppression was much less terrible than the increased acts of violence and cruelty of the unlicensed plunderers who were kept in awe by the vigi lance of the former rulers; nor can the occasional acts of violence, on th( part of the native governments, towards its higher subjects, bear a compari- son with those regulations, which have produced a greater change in the landed property than was ever known before, and in a few years reduced the majority of the zemindars to distress and beggary." " The lawless habits of the people, in the ordinary and best state of thel interior of Ireland, and all tlie occasional disturbances of a more seriousi character, are to be traced to the system of law which has divided the in-j habitants of Ireland into a Protestant Oligarchy, administering in detail the! government of the country ovei* a Catholic multitude : — The one armed withV all sorts of arbitrary powers; the other excluded from the constitution, am' subjected to every species of penalties." " In all former times of peace, the establishment for Ireland has been 800( men. The number voted last year was 22,000. Besides the expense maintaining this extra number of 14,000 men, there is also the expense oj police establishments, prosecutions, and a variety of other charges, whichj^ grow out of the system of governing the people on the principle of exclusion from their civil rights. In the last year's public accounts, there is a charge of 38,952^. for police establishments in proclaimed districts; and another for 12,000/. secret service, in detecting treasonable conspiracies." "In vain have the hands of government been strengthened in Ireland, and the terrors of its power let loose, in every fojvn of chdl proscription and military execution. The evil of an alienated population is not to be so over- BRITISH REVIEWS. mastered. They cannot love a constitution from which they are excluded, SEC nor venerate a law which withholds from tliem the rights which it secures v_^^ to the more favoured part of the population, by whom it is made and admi- nistered." With respect to the many hundred thousand blacks of the British West Indies, the manner in which their manacles have been " torn off" is sufficiently illustrated in the following passage, quoted by the Edinburgh Review, with full approba- tion, from a Report of the African Institution, for the year 1815. " In what country, accursed with slavery, is this sink- ing fund of mercy, this favour of the laws to human redemp- tion, manumission^ taken away? Where, by an opprobrious reversal of legislative maxims, ancient and modern, do the lawgivers rivet, instead of relaxing, the fetters of private bondage, stand betvv^een the slave and the liberality of his master, by prohibiting enfranchisements, and labour as much as in them lies, to make that dreadful, odious state of man, w-hich they have formed, eternal? Shame and horror must not deter us from revealing the truth. It is in the dominions of Great Britain, This abuse has been reserved for assem- blies, convened by the British crown, and subject to the con- trol of Parliament." In the article on Birbeck, the negro-slavery of the United States is spoken of, and with great truth, as existing " in a form by far the most mitigated^'' and it is unanswerably asked. Who can compare the state of the slave in the sugar islands with that in North America?" In the article of the 50th number, on the general Registry of slaves, all idea of emanci- pating those of the British West Indies is peremptorily dis- claimed, in the name of the English abolitionists ', and the Reviewer adds, " Unprepared for freedom as the unhappy victims of our oppression and rapacity now are, the attempts to bestoxv it on them at once^ could only lead to their own aug-- mentedmisery^ and in'uolve both master and slave in one common ruin.'''' The sagacity which provided this just reflection in favour of Great Britain and the West India legislature, might have discovered the same apology for the southern states of America, and arrested the unqualified sentence pronounced upon them. In truth, all this sudden pother about the bare continued existence of domestic slavery in this country, may be at once ifiderstood to be mere parade, if not artifice, on a reference ;o the tenor of the article in the first number of the Review, concerning the Sugar Colonies. The object of that article HOSTILITIES OF THE was to show, that " the subdivision of the negroes' of the ' West Indies, under the power of masters armed with abso- lute power," had become an indispensable policy for Great Britain; that "the regulation of the treatment of the slaves" ought to be left to the colonial legislatures ; and, principally, that Great Britain should assist the consular government of France (alias Bonaparte) in the attempt to reduce the negroe^ of St. Domingo to their previous state of bondage; to " their cane-pieces, coffee-grounds and spice-walks." The cham- pions of universal emancipation, who now, in the fervour oi their apostleship, proclaim it to be " the consummation of wickedness," on our part, to tolerate even the existence of slavery in our southern states, had, then, so little presentiment of their vocation, or susceptibility to the impressions whicli slavery, " in the most mitigated form," makes upon them now, as they contemplate this republic, that they were eager , for its revival in its severest form, and on a very extensive] scale, in St. Domingo ; because the independence of the ne- ;j groes of that island seemed to threaten the security of the trade which supplied in part " our (the British) fleet witl seamen and our (the British) exchequer with millions." Tht article in question calculates sanguinely and argumentativel}" the advantage secured to Great Britain, on the supposition J that " France had completely succeeded in her colonial mea-'| sures, and, xvith xvhatever perfidy and cruelty^ restored the slavery of the negroes." And it is curious to remark the lan- guage held in relation to the beings, for whose fate xu'ith us^ so profound and resentful a compassion is now expressed. "The negroes are truly the Jacobins of the West Indi islands — thev are the anaixhists, the terrorists, the domestic enenxy. Against them it becomes rival nations to combine, and hostile governments to coalesce. If Prussia and Austria felt their existence to depend on an union against the revolu- tionary arms in Europe, (and who does not lament that the coalition was not more firm and enlightened?) a closer all ance is imperiously recommended to France, and Britain, ar Spain, and Holland, against x\\6 common enemy of civiliz society, the destrover of the European name in the new world " We have the greatest sympathy for the unmerited suff< ings of the unhappy negroes; we detest the odious traffic whi has poured her myriads into the Antilles ; but rue must be per- mitted to feel some tenderness for our European brethren^ al- though they are xvhite and civilized, and to deprecate that incon- sistent spirit of e<2nting philanthropy, xvhich in Europe is 07ih BRITISH REVIEWS. I :.\cuc-d by the ivrongs or miseries of the poor and the projltgate; SEC ixnd^ on the other side of the Atlantic^ is never ivarmed but to- ^-^* wards the savage^ the 7nulatto^ and the slave I! " Admitting all that has been urged against the planters and their African providers, we are much of the opinion which Lord Bacon has expressed in the following sentence: — ' It is the sinfuUest thing in the world to forsake a plantation once in forwardness; for, besides the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of the blood of many commiserable persons.' " The Edinburgh Review is as much at variance with itself, touching the points of the felicity and humanity of Great Bri- tain, as in that of her being the dispenser of universal fx'eedom. As far as the acknowledgment of overspreading pauperism may be considered as an acknowledgment of national wretch- edness, we have it in repeated instances. In the 5Sth number, this evil is represented as " the menacing hydra who swells so gigantically and stalks so largely over the face of the British land." That this hydra had left the land, or had ceased to swell and expatiate, when the critic wrote the phrase " it would be madness not to admit England to be a very happy country," no one acquainted with the progress of her affairs could be bold enough to affirm. With respect to her humanity, it is strangely emblazoned in the abstracts and opinions which the Edinburgh Review has given, of the resistance to the abo- lition of the slave trade; of her administration of Ireland, and India; of her penal code; of the state of her public charities, ler prisons, her hospitals, and of the character of the ministry ivhom she suffers to remain in power. A single passage, which [ take from their volume for 1817, may serve to show how pe critics vindicate, in the detail, the reputation of superior umanity which they assert in the gross, for their country : — " The condition of pauper lunatics, in public institutions, shown sufficiently, by what has been already said. At pri- ate mad-houses, the management of the poor was no better. \x Talbot's, Bethnal Green, where the number was 230, and Rhodes's, Bethnal Green, where 275 paupers were crowd- [d together, there is proof of circumstances that deserve se- re censure. At Miles, Worston, of 486 patients, 300 were pt wholly without medical attention to their mental disorder. V^e case is nearly the same throughout the xvhole of England; ad the sheriff of Edinburghshire states, that " in no instance id he find a pauper lunatic treated with kindness ; in several, arked inhumanity was observable." In remarking, in reference to the United States, that " it is i)t pleasant to emigrate to a country of changes and revolu- HOSTILITIES OF THE f !• tion^'' the same critics add, to enforce their observation — "^ *' then we have a parliiment of inestimable value." In con- firmation of this discovery, I will appeal to the authority of a late leader of the party to which they belong, — a man whose superlative judgment and candour they have celebrated with- out bounds. Sir S. Romilly said — *" Let us recollect that we are the parliament which, for the first time in the history of this country, twice suspended the habeas corpus act in a period of profound peace. Let us recollect that we are the confiding parliament which entrusted his majesty's ministers with the au- thority emanating from that suspension, in expectation that when it was no longer wanted, they would call parliament together to surrender It into their hands — which those ministers did not do, although they subsequently acknowledged that the necessity for retaining that power had long ceased to exist. Let us recollect that we are the same parliament which consented to indemnify his majesty's ministers for the abuses and violations of the law of wliich they had been guilty, in the exercise of the authority vested in them. Let us recollect that we are the same parliament which refused to inquire into the grievances stated in the numerous petitions and memorials with which our table groaned — that we turned a deaf ear to the complaints of the oppressed — that we even amused ourselves with their sufferings. Let us recollect that M'e are the same parliament which sanctioned the use of spies and informers by the British government — debasing that gov- ernment, once so celebrated for good faith and honour, into a condition lov/er in character than that of the ancient French police. Let us recollect that we are the same parliament which sanctioned the issuing of a circular letter to the magistracy of the country, by a secretary of state, urging them to hold persons to bail for libel before an indictment was found. Let us recollect that we are the same parliament which sanctioned tlie sending out of the opinion of the king's attorney-general and the king's solicitor-general, as the law of the land. Let us recollect that we are the same parliament which sanctioned the shutting' of the ports of this once hospitable nation to unfortunate foreigners flying from persecution in their own country. This, Sir, is what we have done; and we are about to crown all by the present most violent and most unjustifiable act (the alien act). Who our successors may be I know not ; but God grant that this country may never see another parliament as regardless of the liberties and rights of the people, and of the principles of general justice, as this padiament has been !" As an American, I may be excused, if, yielding to the pro- vocation of such language as that of the Edinburgh Review, I dwell a little longer, in this place, upon the evidence of the more perfect freedom and tender humanity of Great Britain, which is to be collected from other sources. It has been the uniform cry of the leading members of the opposition in par^ liament, as well as of the Scottish journal, that the ministry^*! could at any time find a majority to enable them to suspend the habeas corpus act: and the same authorities have concurred in the assertions that when the habeas corpus act was suspend- * Debate of June 15, 1818, House of Commops. BRITISH REVIEWS. ccl, there was no difference between the government of Great SEC Britain and the rule of the most despotic sovereign ; that the power which a minister had of committing to prison on such occasions, was quite as great and as dangerous, as that of the lettres de cachet^ so celebrated in the annals of France. The last British parliament, dissolved in 1818, suspended the ha- beas corpus twice — in a time of profound peace with foreign nations. Lord Castlereagh averring on the second occasion, that unless the measure were adopted, " a bloody and disas- trous catastrophe was to be expected." The state of things during the suspension will be made suffi- ciently known, by a few quotations from the debates in parlia- ment on the subject, and will show the real value of the boast for England, that " the greatest lord dare not lay a finger upon the meanest peasant." Lord Holland said (Feb. 19th, 1818) "that forty British subjects had beeii, during the suspension of 1817, immured in prisons and discharged without any trial." Lord A. Hamilton said (Feb. 10th, 1818) " that government had avowed- ly employed spies and informers,* who, it was generally admitted, had, in many cases, fomented the evil which it was the object to counteract. And he begged now to notice the lamentable condition to which suspected per- sons, innocent or guilty, were thus reduced in this frank and /ree country. Any man was liable, on the information of these fomenting instead of de- tecting spies — out of malice or to earn their pay — to betaken by secret warrant — to secret imprisonment — to distant gaol — all access denied him • for fear of tampering' — a law officer to threaten or bribe — some accom- plice to give agreeable evidence — under such circumstances, what chance had lie of bare justice, much less of successfully encountering liis enemies. Such proceedings were in direct opposition to all that they had been accustomed to venerate in the British constitution." Mr. Fazakerley said (Feb. 11th, 1818) " that during the suspension of the habeas corpus, the powers with which it invested government were by no incans sparingly used. The gaols were filled with suspected individuals, appreliended probably on the information of spies; and many persons were thus, in all probability, made the victims of the crimes of others. The va- rious provinces witnessed the novel sight, of state prisoners, itinerant state prisoners, carried about from one place to another. Not that alone — they 6a\v them loaded with irons and placed in close confinement." Sir F. Burden observed (March, 11th 1818) "that no contradiction had ^een attempted of the allegation, tliat men who had not been found guilty of any offence — who were merely accused, and, it was to be presumed, iirrongfully, as they were subsequently discharged, — were confined in soli- tary cells, and loaded with irons, in one instance two of these unfortunate The Earl of Westmoreland, one of the ministry, observed, in the House tif Lordsj 5th March, 1818, " that spies and informers had, from the earli- ;st periods of history, been the objects of popular dislike. But he believed hat no government had ever existed by which they had not been used, ind that hardly any conspiracy or treason had ever been detected and pu- lisHed without their aid." Vol. I.— Hh HOSTILITIES OF THE individuiils were cliained together, compelled mutually to bear all the in- firmities (;f human nature ; a most inhuman practice, and one to which a t} - rant of" old is said to have resoi-ted as to a refinement of cruelty." Sir S. Rouiilly referred to " the petitions of the two booksellers at War- rington, who being charged with no higher oftence than the publishing of a libel, had had their houses searched, their books and papers seized, and had been themselves loaded with irons like felons, and committed to the house of correction, and kept to hard labour, before any trial had taken place." " There was another case of the same kind," he continued, " but of still greater cruelty. It was the case of a man of the name of Swindells, whose house had been broken open in the dead of night, and his books and papers seized. His wife was at the time far advanced in her pregnancy ; the terror ])roduced a premature laboui', which caused the death of herself and of the child; and another inflint, the only remains of the unhappy man's family, was, when he was dragged to gaol, conveyed to the parish workhouse, and from thence, in a siiort time, to the parish burying ground The man, however, had been guilty of no crime. His family was destroy- ed — he Was himself discharged from prison, impoverished, ruined, a wi- dower, and childless, because some unfounded charge had been brought against him." Lord Holland said (Feb. 27th, 1818) " that the noble duke who had in- troduced tlie present bill (indemnity bill) had_ treated the subject rather lightly, by saying, that the government under the suspension act ' had merely abstracted a few individuals, for a time, from society.' So then, you take men from their family, friends, and employments; you immure them in dungeons ; you doom them to solitaiy confinement for months ; you expose their persons to every species of hardship, and their cliaracters to every kind of suspicion, and you call this ' only abstracting a few individuals from society for a time.' " In March, 1817", ah act was passed by the Parliament, — " the seditious meetings bill," — declaring iu the case of any public meeting, the punishment of death without benefit of clergy, for non-compliance with the order of a simple magis- trate to disperse. At that period, there were no less than two hundred crimes, besides murder, treason, and burglary, legal- ly punishable Avith death ; and sixty of them had been made capital in the reign of George III. ; seventeen of these by one act; and, of the number, one was for shooting a man; ano- ther the killing of a rabbit; a third, trying to kill a man in bis bed ; and a fourth, cutting down heads of fish-ponds. To thjs list of capital offences may be added cutting a hop-bine, or 9§ ornamental tree in gentlemen's grounds ; going to a masque* rade with the face blacked, and many others of a similar cast which are detailed in the speeches of Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh, on the British penal code. By the Marriage Act five capital felonies are created in one line. From official evidence presented to the House of Com- mons, it appears, that nineteen persons, and occasionally twenty-one, have been executed on the same day in London- We have an instance, within the three years last past, of j^J BRITISH REVIEWS. woman of the name of Mary Ryan, who had assisted her hus- band in an attempt to escape from Newgate, being brought to the bar for this ofl'ence, a few hours after she saw him carried to execution ; and tried and condemned with her infant at her breast, notwithstanding, as Sir James Mackintosh stated in the House of Commons, that she was, from the dehrium of her grief, as incapable of proceeding on her defence, or of ex- tenuating her act, as if she were in a state of confirmed insa- nity. Mr. Scarlett, a distinguished barrister, and member of the House of Commons, asserted, in his place, without contra- diction, (on the 2d March, 1819,) that if there was any coun- try more disgraced by sanguinaiy enactments than another, it was England. To illustrate further the recklessness of the legislature in such enactments, and the nature of the admoni- tion to which it has remained insensible, I will extract from the parliamentary history, part of a speech delivered in the House of Commons by a member of high standing, the 13th. of May, 1777, on the occasion of a bill for the better securing dock yards,. &c. by the punishment of death. Sir William Meredith said, " Had it been fairly stated, and specifically pointed out, what the mischief of coining silver in the utmost extent is, the hang- ing bill on that subject might not have been so readily adopt- ed ; under the name of treason it found an e. sy passage. I indeed, have always understood treason to be nothing less than some act or conspiracy against the life or honour of the king, and the safety of the state ; but what the king or state can suf- fer by my taking now and then a bad sixpence, or a bad shil- ling, I cannot imagine. By this nickname of treason, how- ever, there lies at this moment in Newgate, under sentence to be burnt alive^ a girl just turned of fourteen; at her master's bidding she hid some whitewashed farthings behind her stays, on which the jury found her guilty as an accomplice with her master in the treason. The master was hanged last Wednes- day ; and the faggots all lay ready for her ; no reprieve came till just as the cart was setting out, and the girl would have been burnt alive on the same day, had it not been for the hu- mane but casual interference of Lord Weymouth. Good God? Sir, are we taught to execrate the fires of Smithfield, while we are lighting them now to burn a poor harmless child for hid- ing a whitewashed farthing ! And yet this barbarous sentence, which ought to make men shudder at the thought of shedding blood for such trivial causes, is brought as a reason for more hanging and burning." HOSTILITIES OF THE , " When a member of Parliament brings in a new hanging law, he begins with mentioning some injury that may be done to private property, for which a man is not yet liable to be hanged, and then proposes the gallows as the specific, infalli- ble means of cure and prevention ; but the bill in its progress often makes crimes capital, that scarce deserve whipping. For instance, the shop-lifting act was to prevent bankers' and silversmiths', and other shops, where there are commonly goods of great value, from being robbed ; but it goes so far, as to make it death to lift any thing off a counter with an in- tent to steal. Under this act, one Mary Jones was executed, whose case I shall just inention : it was at the time when press warrants were issued on the alarm about Falkland's islands. The woman's husband was pressed ; their goods seized for some debts of his, and she, with two small children, turned into the streets a-begging. It is a circumstance not to be for- gotten, that she was very young, (under nineteen) and most remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak ; the shopman saw her, and she laid it down : fov this she -was hanged! Her defence was, (I have the trial in my pocket) ' That she had lived in credit, and wanted for no- thing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her ; but since then, she had no bed to lie on ; nothing to give her children to eat ; and they were almost naked ; and perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did.' The parish officers testified to the truth of this story ; but it seems, there had been a good deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate ; an example was thought necessary, and this woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of some shop-keepers in Ludgate-street. When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, as proved her mind to be in a distracted and desponding state ; and the child xvas sucking at her breast -when she set out for TyburnC " But for what cause was God's creation robbed of this its noblest work ? It was for no injury ; but for a mere attempt to clothe two naked children by unlawful means. Compare this, with what the state did, and with what the law did. The state bereaved the woman of her husband, and the chil- dren of a father, who was all their support ; the law deprived the woman of her life, and the children of their remaining parent, exposing them to every danger, insult, and merciless treatment, that destitute and helpless orphans suffer. Take all the circumstances together, I do not believe that a foulci* BRITISH REVIEWS. murder was ever committed against law, than the murder of SE< this woman by law. Some who hear me, are perhaps blam- v-^ ing the judges, the jury, and the hangman; but neither the jddge, jury nor hangman are to blame; they are but ministe- rial agents; the true hangman is the member of parliament; he who frames the bloody law is answerable for all the blood that is shed under it. I cannot find in history any example of such laws as ours, except a code that was framed at Athens by Draco." Not merely the act of killing, but the mere attempt to kill game at night, in an enclosed place, is felony subject to trans- portation for seven years, under the monstrous system oigame laws. In 1816, according to official returns made to Parliament, twelve hundred persons were immured in various parts of the Jcingdom, for oifences against those laws, to the utter rUin and overwhelming distress of many hundreds of poor families. The preservaUon of game for the tables of the rich, is the equivalent for this mass of human misery, which, at the same time, confessedly leads to a depravation of morals among the lower orders, considerably greater in the proportion. One of the most respectable British Journals, Bell's Weekly Messenger, June 22d, 1818, holds this language : " We have often had occasion to say, and we shall repeat it, that in no country in the world is the revenue so mercilessly collected and enforced as in England. In no country in the world is less conceded to private distress." The critics of Edinburgh can hardly claim for Scotland an exemption from this last reproach, if we are to credit the details given in the following extract from the " Proceedings of the House of Com- mons" for the 30th April, 1818. " Mr. Findlay rose to move for a return of the number of prisoners confined for small debts in the several prisons of Scotland. The House, he was persuaded, could hardly ima- gine the degree of misery which the prisoners alluded to were condemned to suffer, and when the numbers who thus suffered were taken into account, combined with the insignificaht debts .for which they suffered, its astonishment must be excited, ■while its feelings must be severely afflicted. In the prisons .6f Glasgow alone, there were last year no less than ninety- * ree persons confined for sums under one pound, and it was Ik) be recollected that not one of those was likely to come out ^ prison, without having his morals polluted by the persons lie was obliged to associate with, while in prison. The whole adimber of prisoners thus confined in all the Scottish prisons, whounted, he had reason to believe, to several hundreds, while HOSTILITIES OF THE I- he apprehended that those confined for sums under |g5, ^^ amounted to some thousands. He had also to observe that none of these poor prisoners were entitled to any prison allow- ance or succour, until ten days after their committal, while the receipt of each aftenvards was only Ad. per day. Yet the creditor could not commit one of these prisoners, without ex- pending ten shillings, nor could the debtor be released without paying six shillings." Some more extracts from the parliamentary debates of the two last years, will restore the balance between England and our southern states, according to the mode of account opened by the Edinburgh Review, in the article on Fearon's Travels. Lord R. Seymour observed (June 17th, 1817) " that gentlemen not con- versant witli parish workliouses, were not aware how harshly the pauper lunatics were treated in them. To prevent their escape, they were consigned to tlie constant wear of the strait waistcoat, and this being, of all instruments of personal restraint, the most heating and irritating, the poor lunatic in it becomes clamorous and noisy ; when to prevent his annoying his neighbour by his noise, the lancet was applied to him, by which he was not unfrequently reduced to a state of exhaustion." Mr. Bennet presented (Feb. 1st, 1819) "a petition from Dr. Halloran, now under sentence of transportation for seven years, for forging a frank to a Jetter, complaining of the hardships and cruelties to which he was exposed. This case," the honourable member observed, "had excited a good deal of interest, and very naturally, from the disproportion between the offence and the penalty, and in reply, it was said tl\at Dr. Halloran's character was very questionable, and that he was no clergyman, &c. If the individual had assumed a character to which he was not entitled, why was he not prosecuted accordingly ? but as the case now stood, it would appear as if the man were tried for one thing, and punished on account of another. After mentioning the severe treatment to which Dr. H. had been exposed before trial, in be- ing confined among the most horrible characters, the honourable member proceeded to give an account of the convict vessel in which this individual was now confined; a statement, which he begged the House to understand, he made from his own personal observation. Dr. H. was conveyed to the hulks in an open boat, when extremely ill, and left in what was called a cabin, but what he (Mr. B.) should term a hole or dungeon, for nineteen hours, without any one going to him, saying nothing of the absence of medical aid ; he was placed in a hole or dungeon with twenty other convicts — the division being twelve feet square. In this hole or dungeon were cribs six and a half feet long and five and a half feet broad; and into one of these cribs six human beings were stowed. Here they passed the night without the opportunity of turning. The honourable member added, that when he examined this vessel, he was compelled to have the aid of a candle ; and he not only found the cabins limited and confined, as already described, but they were dirty and loath- some in the extreme. Such a sight was abominable to a country calling itself Christian, and particularly so to a government that was peculiarly Christian. The description of the inside of a black slave ship had recently excited a good deal of interest, not only in England, but throughout Europe. But wiiat would the house say when they learned that the inside of uiis ■white slave ship was worse than that of a black slave ship. According to the section of the latter vessel, the blacks had one foot six inches breadth of BRITISH REVIEWS. reposing room ; but the white slave ship only offered one foot one inch. He SEf( dtscribecl what he had seen — he pledged himself for the truth of what he v„^ stated." Mr. B. Bathurst (one of the ministry) "did not mean to deny, that there might be merit due to the honourable member for his active and personal interference. Uespecting- the conditions of the vessels, those who were condemned to them must expect many privations and hardslilps, and the ships luerc such as had long^ been used. The arguments were therefore against the system, not against the particular case. The convict ships were now fitted up iu the way in -which they always had been." Mr. Bennet said (April 3d, 1819) " the House was aware that Ilchester re- turned two members to parliament ; it was a patronised place ; or, In other words, if he might be permitted to use them, it was the property of a par- ticular family. It appeared from the petition which he held in his hands, that the proprietor tliought a small number of constituents more advantageous; and, to accomplish this object, he had pulled down a number of houses, by which about one hundred families had been driven from their homes, and were received into a sort of temporary poor-house, where they were shel- tered for a time, yet only eighteen or twenty of tliem had been paupers, the rest maintaining themselves by honest industry. Notice was however given, in consequence of prevailing political dissensions, that these unhappy families would be deprived of even that slielter ; the parish resisted, and an ejectment being- brought,, they were finally turned out ; thus one hundred and sixty-three men, women, and children, from extreme infancy to extreme age, had been driven into the open streets in tlve most inclement season of the year; some had screened themselves from the cold, with straw and hurdles; some had taken refuge in open stalls or in the neighbouring fields; and a considerable number of old and young of both sexes, decrepit old people with helpless infants and women in the last stage of pregnancy, had been huddled together in the Town Hall without distinction. The unroofing of houses had been heard of as an expedient of exclusion; but it remained for the agents of the proprietor of this borough, to drive a man, his wife, and five children from their dwelling, by filling the upper floors with dung and filth, which oozed and dripped through the ceilings." 7. Few of the persons who may have followed me thus far in this section, will, I apprehend, any longer doubt that the vice of impertinence" has " crept" into the councils of the Edinburgh Review, as well as into the British cabinet; that it has actually " shared in the odious, miserable, vulgar spirit of abuse" which it alleges the opposite political sect to be "fond of displaj'ing against America;" that it has never even appeared to undertake her defence, but from party feel- ings and views; and that by perpetually contradicting itself when treating of her concerns or those of England, it has forfeited all claim to authority on either side of the question. Its readers may still recollect how severely Cobbett was han- (^ed, in the 20th number, for the " versatility of his succes- sive doctrines;" and they will readily apply the following l^ragraphs, with which it concluded its collation of those qtpctrines. »(. V> HOSTILITIES OF THE, &C. T I. " Now, what is it that we infer from this strange alterna- "^^^ tion of praise and blame in the pages of Mr. Cobbett ? Why, that nobody should care much for either ; that they are be- stowed from passion or party prejudice, and not from any sound principles of judgment; and that it must be the most foolish of all things, to take our impressions from a man whose own opinions have not only varied, but been absolutely reversed, within these four years." " By the uncharitable, such a man will always be regarded as a professional bully, without principle or sincerity — whose services may be bought by any one who will pay their price to his avarice or other passions; — and the most liberal must consider him as a person without any steadiness or depth ol judgment; — accustomed to be led away by hasty views and occasional impressions; — entitled to no weight or authority, in questions of delicacy or importance ; — and likely to be found in arms against his old associates, on every material change in hi' own condition, or that of the country." I S49 SECTION VIII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 1. The Quarterly Review is an avowed, implacable enemy, SEC and somewhat more important to us in its hostilities, than the Edinburgh, on account of its intimate connexion with the Bri- tish government. It has constantly argued upon the general question of American concerns, by a reference to the single class of exceptions, and taken as the ground of universal re- probation, those partial irregularities in morals and manners, which are to be found in every country, and which, if they were sufficient to warrant the charge of barbarism or depra- vation against a whole nation, would be equally competent to prove that there is no civilization nor virtue left on earth. Mr. Burke said, in his speech on the Conciliation with Ame- rica — " I do not know the method of drawing up an indict- ment against a whole people. I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow creatures. I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies entrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the same title as a member of the British parliament." What this elevated and enlightened personage thus declared himself incompetent to perform, is the frequent and favourite achievement of a junto of poets and politicians in London, who profess to be of the number of his most faithful disciples and enthusiastic admirers. What he pronounced to be " for wise men, not judicious ; for sober men, not decent ; for minds tinctured *irith humanity, not mild and merciful ;" they can practise without shame, even with ostentation, towards the same coun- try, the vilification of which occasioned his remarks. Opinions utterly repugnant to each other; the most intem- perate and incautious sallies of hate and jealousy ; allegations so exorbitant as at once to manifest and defeat the purpose of ♦the writers, characterize the articles of the Quarterly Review rtrhich relate to the United States, At the same time, nothing s to be found in them of the judgment, humour, knowledge, md elocution, which recommend ether parts of the Journal. Vol. I.-~I i " ' :t HOSTILITIES OF THE ^- The Edinburgh Review is jocose at our expense through pertness and arrogance ; the Quarterly from national fears and monarchical antipathy ; and the leer of the one is, accord- ingly, only smirking, while that of the other is Sardonic. It was utterly unworthy of men of high rank in the world of literature and criticism ; of political teachers of the loftiest pretensions ; of wits claiming to be the successors of the Swifts and Arbuthnots; to appear speculating, and deciding, and jest- ing upon a great country, like America, with such manuals as the travels of Ashe, Janson, Parkinson, Fearon, illiterate and interested slanderers, for whom they could not conceal their own heart)^ contempt, and whose publications, on any other subject, they would have cast from them in disdainful silence. If it had become necessary, for state purposes, such as the prevention of emigration, the weakening of a contrast imfa- vourable to the British order of things, and the counteraction of a dangerous influence with the nations of the continent, — or for the gratification of a prurient wit, a restless arrogance, or private political pique, — that the United States should be re- viled and derided, self-respect and sound policy exacted an exertion of patience to await, or of ingenuitv to contrive, some other occasion than those afforded by reports, the whole cast and tone of which, betrayed to the world, the insufficiency and venality of the authors. The British reviewers would have consulted their own dignity, and the important object of plau- sibility in their expositions of our character and condition more, had they resorted altogether for texts even to the news- papers written among us by " the expatriated Irishmen and Scotchmen," of whom the Edinburgh Journal speaks, rather than to books coarsely manufactured in London, out of the meanest and flimsiestmaterials brought thither by disappoint- ed or stipendiary Englishmen, whose pursuits and views made it impossible for any reflecting person to believe, that they had possessed either the oppoi'tunity, capacity, or inclination to represent the Americans justly and fairly. Other oracles bet- sides these ; or a course of original, and well-adjusted de-» traction, by argument, assertion, and ridicule, were wanting to enable critics, of whatever general authority in their vo- cation, to sophisticate the feelings and bewilder the reason of mankind in relation to the United States. I question whether a single auxiliary has been raised on the continent of Europe, for the crusade against the American name, by the passages which I am about to quote from the Quarterly Review, as samples of its liberality and veracity. BRITISH REVIEWS. " An American's first play-thing is a rattle snake's tail — SEC he cuts clown a tree on which the wild pigeons have built their nests, and picks up a horse load of young birds." " Intoxication with the Americans is not social hilarity betrayed into excess ; it is too rapid a process for that inter- val o{ generous feeling xvhich tempts the European on. Their pleasure is first in the fiery stimulus itself, not in its effect — not in drunkenness, but in getting drunk." " Hence the ferocity with which the Americans decide their quarrels : their roughs and tumbling : their biting and lacerating each other, and their gouging^ a diabolical prac- tice which has never disgraced Europe, and for which no other people have ever had a name."* "Living in a semi-savage state, the greater part of the Americans are so accustomed to dispense with the comforts of life which they cannot obtain, that they have learned to neglect even those decencies which are within their reach." *' They have overrun an immense country, not settled it. In this as in every thing else, the system of things is forced beyond the age of the colonies.''^ " The manners are boorish, or, rather, brutal.** In Ame- rica nothing seems to be respected ; there the government is better than the people. The want of decorum among the Americans is not imputable to their republican government ; ■for it has not been found in other republics ; it has proceed- ed from the effects of the revolutionary war, from their pre- mature independence^ and from that passion for gambling which infects all orders of men^ clergy as xvell as laity ^ and the legislators as well as the people."* *' The state of law in America is as deplorable as that of religion, and far from extraordinary."! *' Two vnlUons of slaves are now smarting under the lash In the American states : more than three millions have been imported and sold in those pure regions since the defeat of Cornwallis."! !■!<- — — ~ * No. 4. — Article on Holmes's Annals. See Note R. _^, -J- No. 6. — Article on Northmore's Washin^on. ^'S This allegation was made in 1809, only 28 years from the period of the li^eat of Cornwallis : so that on an average more than 100,000 must have 'been annually imported ! By the census of the population of the United States for 1810, the whole number of slaves was then only 1,191,364. Therefore, at least two millions must have perished among us since 1781 ! It is wonderful that the African Institution of London has not yet availed , itself of this portentous fact, vouched by the Quarterly Review. HOSTILITIES OF THE , " Every free woman is a voter in America."* " The judges are not independent ; but are subservient tcr the government, and creatures of the President and Senate ."f " No such character as a respectable country gentleman is known in America.":): i i: " For the practitioners of law, physic, and surgery, no preparatory course of study, no testimonial of competency^, no kind of examination, no particular qualifications, no diploma, no license are required. "§ *' Franklin in grinding his electrical machine and flyinj^ his kite, did certainly elicit some useful discoveries in a branch of science that had not much engaged the attentionj| of the philosophers of Europe. But the foundation of Franks lin's knowledge was laid, not in America, but in London. Besides, half of what he wrote was stolen from others, and the greater part of the other not worth preserving. It would be rating his moral writings very high to estimate them at the same value to the community as his eleemosynary legacy ."[) " The supreme felicity of a true born American is inac- tion of body and inanity of mind. "^ " Strange as it may appear, the south-western part of the New World has already begun to consider the north-eastern | as havhig' passed the meridian of life ^ and accordingly given j it the name of old America."**^ " The founders of American society brought to the compo- ( sition of their nation no rudiments of liberal science." " America is all a parody — a mimicry of her parents ; it i is, however, the mimicry of a child, tetchy and wayward in : its infancy, abandoned to bad nurses, and educated in low habits." In the 4th number we were told — " there has been little mixture of nations in America, not more than in England ;" but in the 20th number, we find the reviewer talking of America as " a nation derived from so many fathers," and > explaining " why the thoughtless, dissolute, and_ turbulent of all nations should in commingling^ so neutralize one ano- ther in America, that the result is a people ivithout wit or fancyP At times, this journal has gone into a train of elaborate reasoning to prove the opposition of interests between " Old xvorn out^'' and " New America," and the certitude of their speedy severance. From the same motive — political jea- •No20. :tlbicl. ■ lllbid. ** Ibid. t Ibid. § Ibid. % No. 38, BRITISH REVIEWS. % lousy and alarm — which it has never been able to conceal, itSKC. \ has dealt in menacing cautions, of which the following will ^^"^ serv'c as an amusing specimen, and disclose the kind of com- fort which is sought among the ministerial literati of Lon- don, for the increase of our power. " It is not in Europe only that the prosperity of Russia is likely to be advantageous to the British monarchy. There is a nation without the limits of Europe, to whom, for the sake of our kindred race and common language, we would gladly wish prosperity, but whose hope of elevation is built on our expected fall ; and who, even now, do not affect to conceal the bitterness of their hatred towards the land of their progenitors. Already we hear the Americans boasting that the whole continent must be their own ; that the Atlantic and Pacific are, alike to wash their empire, and that it depends on their charity what share in either ocean they may allow to our vessels. They unroll their map and point out the dis- tance — between Niagara and the Columbia. Let them look to this last point well. They will find in that neighbour- hood a different race from the unfortunate Indians, whom it is the system of their g-overnment to treat with uniform harsh- ness! .' They will find certain bearded men with green jackets and bayonets, whose flag is already triumphant over the coast from California to the straits of Anian, whohave the faculty wherever they advance, of conciliating and even civilizing the native tribes to a degree which no other nation has at- tempted, and whose frontier is more likely to meet theirs in Louisiana, than theirs is to extend to the Pacific. These are not very distant expectations, and they are not unfavourable to England:' (April, 1818.) ". 2. Our backwardness in the production of good books, Ihas not been quite so favourite and frequent a topic with ithe Quarterly Review, as the other assailable points more in the line of the political object. In the midst of the first general denunciation of this country,* we find it ad- mitted that " it is no great reproach to the Americans if they have not yet done more in literature ; and that more ought not to be expected from their circumstances and population." Nevertheless the same writers have not failed to ring all the changes upon the works of Dwight, Barlow, and "• Mr. Chief Justice Marshall." The course pursued ..with three of the American publications, — Inchiquins's » lieview of Holmes's Annals. — No. 4. I « HOSTILITIES OF THE ^ ^' View of the United States, the Travels of Lewis and Clarke, and Colden's Life of Fulton, to which they afterwards ex- tended their notice, is marked by traits as discreditable and disgusting, as individuate any case in the annals of British criticism. The " View of the LTnited States" was a mere vindica- tion of the native country of the author from the aspersions cast upon it abroad ; it simply represented the main features of our character and condition ; pourtrayed with an impartial hard some of our most conspicuous statesmen ; and asserted the merits of two of the American works, which had been traduced in England. It attempted no reprisals upon the English aggressors ; used no harsh language ; decried no European nation. It did not even run into an indiscriminate panegyric of the United States, though it professed to be a *' favourable view of them," which might be considered as at least pardonable, after so much had been written in Eu- rope on the opposite side. Its general complexion argued liberal studies, and it was recommended by a diction, liable indeed to some exceptions, but, on the whole, classical, ele- gant, and vigorous. In short, there was enough about it to soften the national prejudices, and even to win the praise, of a European critic of ordinary liberality. The Quarterly Review, however, assailed this, in itself inoffensive and commendable performance, with the utmost asperity ; it re- viled the author personally ; misrepresented his opinions and misquoted his language ; and took occasion to rake in all the lampoons and gazettes already noticed, for materials, out of which it framed what it called " a correct portrait of the people of the United States," but what no perspicacious and generous mind can see in any other light than as a malignant libel, and hideous caricatiu'e. The " History of Lewis and Clarke's Expedition" had not merelj' nothing in it, to give umbrage, or to rouse national antipathies^ but seemed to prefer irresistible claims upon the favour of all the friends of knowledge, and to leave scope only for the most generous sympathies. The book is a sim- ple, clear narrative, without reference to any invidious topics ; and the expedition itself was alike unexceptionable in the design, conduct, and results, all of which, indeed, bear a salient character of excellence and dignity. It stifled the petulance, and extorted the admiration, of the Scottish critics, who set the proper example to their brethren of London, by pronouncing upon it the following eulogy. *' We myst remark, that this expedition does great credit BRITISH REVIEWS. g both to the government by which it was planned, and to the SEC. ^ persons by whom it was executed. The good sense, activity ^-•''"v^ and perseverance of the commanders cannot be too much commended ; their treatment of the natives was humane and kind; and though their mission was in its intention concilia- tory, yet this purpose could not have been carried into effect but by men of much good temper and sound understanding, considering how long they were exposed to the vexations arising from the suspicion, caprice, and levity of savages. The great harmony that seems to have prevailed, the spirit, steadiness, and exertion in the midst of so much hardship and danger, are highly meritorious ; and exhibit a band of active and intrepid men, which no country in the world would not be proud to acknowledge." This was a strain worthy of the theory of the critical in- stitute, but the spirit of the Quarterly Review could not be exorcised as completely. It relented so far as to admit that Lewis and Clarke " travelled near 9000 miles — the longest river voyage undertaken since that of Orellana ;" and that they performed with equal ability, perseverance, and suc- cess, one of the most arduous journies that ever was accom- plished." Acknowledged merits of such magnitude called for tenderness to the reputation of the individuals in all points; for the kindest interpretation of appearances in the least doubt- ful : yet the English Reviewer did not hesitate scornfully to intimate, that they took pleasure in the obscenities of the In- dians of the Missouri ;* and this affront is given upon no 9ther foundation than that those obscenities are related. The relation, too, is in Latin, uncouth Latin indeed ; but such as it is, it evinces, in the use of this veil, a refinement of feeling, the opposite of the imputed grossness. Let the voyages of Captain Cook, Captain Wilson, and other English naviga- tors ; or the narratives of any of the English travellers among savage nations, be consulted, and it will be seen that they are flftuch less studious of decorum ; and that a charge of the kind might be made against them with more plausibility, if we admit there could be any colour of reason for making it * "The women of the Aricara Indians prostitute themselves publicly, in the intervals of dancing. The writer cannot be charged with oflending de- cency in describing tliis abomination, — lie has related another not less abomi- nable, in Latin, from respect to decorum, but in both instances it is evident that he and Ids companion were not men who felt any pain at beholding the degradation of liuman nature." The very reverse is evident to all who are not of the class of moralists and philanthropists " w illing to lo^ e all mankind, except an ..Tmerican," HOSTILITIES OF THE ^ !• on such a foundation. The personal acquaintance of the ~ two gallant leaders of the American expedition, require no argument to be convinced of their uniform elevation of sen- timent and deportment. They were, certainly, unfortunate in the choice of names for the natural objects which thej'^ were the first to bring to the knowledge of the civilized world. But this merit of dis- covery, and the sagacity, fortitude, perseverance, exemplary temper displayed throughout the expedition, rendered doubly venial so inconsiderable a fault. A refined classical taste has belonged to very few of the illustrious men to whom we are indebted for the enlargement of geographical science; and the exploration of the w ild creation through which Lewis and Clarke penetrated, presented the case, if ever there was one, in which the absence of that accomplishment could be consi- dered as excusable in itself, or its effects — nay even advan- tageous on the whole, and immediately conducive to the more perfect achievement of the gigantic enterprise. Instead of the gentle and courteous reproof which became the occasion, the Quarterly Review made their homely nomenclature the subject of unsparing satire, and turned it into doggerel level- led not only against the heroic adventurers, but their country, and particularly against the high officers of state with whom the expedition originated. If the wretched diatribe to which I refer, coarser by far in its texture than the occasion of it ; too low even for a place in " Coleman's Broad Grins," be- longs to the pen of the author of the Baviad and Mceviad, and the Translator of Juvenal ; of the scourge of poetasters, and the assayer of English verse, it furnishes a striking ex- ample of the power of national prejudice and party-devotion, to work the most violent and pitiable transformations. How capital this stroke at the Americans, on the occasion of their disclosing a new world to the gaze of philosophy and the march of civilization ! " Flow, Little Shallow, flow, and be tliy stream Their great example, as it will their theme !" And how natural and happy the transition from such wit in numbers, to such wit in prose, as the following ! — " From Big-Muddy, they, the explorers — to borrow a title of Ameri- can extraction— proceeded to Jefferson, and with not less fe- licity to Madison from Little Shallow," &c. Before I have done with the article in question, I would call attention to two more passages as illustrative of the spirit presiding over the American department of the Journal. BRITISH REVIEWS. g " It was not long before they (Lewis and Clarke) reached SEC. ^ the remotest source of the Missouri, and drank of the foun- ^^"^ tain — a situation not altogether nmvorthij of being compared with that of Bruce at the fountain of the Abyssinian Nile." " Langsdorff notices a curious trade which the Ameri- cans carry on in this article of fire arms on the North West coast. He says they send out a gunsmith in every ship, to buy up at one place all the guns which want repairing, and sell them as new pieces at another!" I aver, upon the avuhority of some of the distinguished Ame- rican merchants who trade with the North West Coast, that this statement, so kindly copied from Langsdorff, is utterly false. W^ere it true, it would not enable us as yet, to dispute the palm of fraudulent ingenuity, with our English kinsmen. It falls short of such a practice as the following, related by Mr. Southey in " Espriella's Letters ;" a better authority than Langsdorff. " A regular branch of trade here, at Birming- ham, is the manufacture of guns for the African market. They are made for about a dollar and a half : the barrel is filled with water ; and, if the water does not come through, it is thought proof sufficient : of course they burst xvhenfired^ and mangle the ivretched negro^ xvho has purchased them upon the credit of English faith ^ and received them^ most probably^ as the price of human flesh ! No secret is made of this abominable trade i yet the government never interferes ; and the persons con- cerned in it are not marked^ and shunned as infamous.''''* The story from Langsdorff is entitled to about the same credit as the assertion made in the 26th No. of the Quarterly Review, that Captain Porter of the American frigate Essex, after losing half his crew, xvas taken by a ship of inferior force. The hardihood of the Reviewer may almost confound those who read the following extract, from the official letter, dated 0th March, 1814, of Captain Hillyar of his Majesty's ship Phoebe (the antagonist of Porter) to Commodore Brown, tationed at Jamaica. " The defence of the Essex, taking into consideration our great superiority offorce^ the very discou- raging circumstances of having lost her main top-mast, and being twice on fire, did honour to her defender, and must fully prove the courage of Captain Porter." The ' Life of Robert Fulton, by Cadwallader D. Colden Df New York,' has experienced a treatment from these up- right critics, more remarkable still, and, if possible, more * See also, on this head, Clarkson's Histon' of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Vol.11, c. iii. Vol. I.— K k HOSTILITIES OF THE r I. shameless. The work of Mr. Golden appears as a mere "^^ Biographical Memoir, read before the Literary and Philoso- phical Society of New York, conformably to one of the prin- cipal ends of that respectable institution. It obtained the shape of a book at the request of those to whom it was addressed ; and the proceeds of its publication, whatever they might be, were assigned to the erection of a monument to the memory of the illustrious engineer. The author announced himself, even in the title-page, emphatically as his friend, and took charge, avowedly, of his panegyric. This, — for one who had known him in relations of the closest intimacy, and when the deceased had left so many titles to the most solemn commemoration — was unexceptionable in itself, and sanctioned, moreover, by abundant precedents in the practice of the European nations. Mr. Golden was not a writer by profession or habit ; he be- longed to the bar, at which he had established the highest reputation, and filled the highest office. He is now mayor of the city of New York ; a station of great consequence and dignity. He is the grandson of the Lieutenant Governor Gol- den who wrote the celebrated History of the Five Indian Na- tions, and whose merits and honours in the world of science, are second only to those of Franklin among the men that have flourished on the American continent as politicians and philosophers.* The biographer of Fulton has shown himself worthy of this descent, by an acknowledged, invariable pro- bity; a versatile genius; and the assiduous cultivation of the sciences and liberal arts in the midst of extensive professional engagements, and of arduous municipal duties. It was in mo- ments snatched from these, that, to gratify his feelings and the wishes of the learned society which ranks him as one of its most useful and erudite members, he framed the Memoir in ques- tion, with a full conviction, derived from the nearest observa^ tion, of the reality of the services and qualities which he cele"- brated : and, whatever he may have claimed of excellence for the labours of Fulton, it is impossible he could have been more unassuming, or unpretending, as respects his own pro duction. If he has asserted extravagant titles for his subject,it is manifestly without any designs, — from no impulses — which can lay him open to personal reproach or incivility. The tenor of his book proves his competency to his task ; in point of style, arrangement, and general instructiveness, it is all that could be expected or desired for the occasion. He was led by the nature of his theme, and the wondew of steam-navigation which he witnessed about him, to medi-i * See notes.- BRITISH RFA'IEWS. Late much, and lay the utmost stress, upon the magnitude of SEC. its benefits to the human race. It is not surprising that these should appear of less consequence and sublimity, to an observer in England, where, from the shortness of the dis- tances and the faciUties of canal navigation, so little, com- paratively, remained to be done for internal communication ; where the small steam-boats, plying on the diminutive streams, and serving only the purpose of conveying passen- gers a few miles with greater convenience, are so little im- posing either to the eye or to the imagination. But in Ame- rica, the actual and future scene, in this respect, has an engrossing and transporting influence, and is of a real im- portance and magnificence, which scarcely leave scope for exaggeration in feeling or representation, Mr. Golden saw steam-vessels of four and five hundred tons, constructed as commodiously, and furnishing as perfect security for merchandise or passengers, as the ware or the dwelling-house ; overcoming with unexampled velocity the powerful currents of our mighty rivers ; multiplying indefi- nitely on the innumerable waters of this vast country, and almost accomplishing the wish of the lover — the annihila- tion of time and space — in the domestic intercourse of North America. He could at once extend his view to the southern regions of this hemisphere ; to the continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia, and see in prospect the same prodigies wrought there, and the same train of moral and physical advantages ultimately realized. He had seen a steam-frigate of gigantic size, moving on the Hudson with the facility and force of motion, and the military faculties, which would assure invulnerability to the seaports of his country, and might give a new and desirable character to maritime warfare.* He had seen, to use his own words, " the Paragon, of three hundred and thirty-one tons bur- then, tow the steam frigate Fulton, which is of the burthen of two thousand four hundred and seventy-five tons, from the ship yai'ds in the Sound, where she was launched, to the dock or the city of Jersey, on the Hudson, where she was to receive her machinery, at the rate of four miles * " Every one," says Cuvier, in his brilliant Discourse of 24th April, 1816, on the Progress of the Sciences, before the French Institute — " every one may see how much this invention of Steam-Boats will simplify the navigation of our rivers, and how much agriculture will gain in men and horses, that may now return to the fields; but what we may be also permitted to descry, and what will, perhaps, be more important, is the revolution to which it will lead in maritime warfare and in the power of nations. It is extremely probable that we shall have to reckon this among the /experiments, that can be said to have changed tlie face of the world." HOSTILITIES OP THE T I. and an half an hour ; the same frigate, propelled by that ma- ''^»' chinery alone, make a passage to the ocean and back, a dis- tance of 53 miles, in eight hours and twenty minutes — the Fulton steam-boat, which navigates the East river, passing daily through Hell-gate against a rapid frequently running at the rate of six miles an hour." The crossing of the broadest and most rapid rivers, before alike dangerous, difficult, and tedious, had been rendered safe, easy, and expeditious, by the use of steam ferry-boats, capable of carrying hundreds of passengers and vehicles at a time, and almost any mere burden. From these performances, prospects and hopes naturally opened upon the 'mind of our author, which would have warmed any fancy ; and sentiments of admiration and grati- tude towards Fulton were excited, which cannot appear hy- perbolical to an American, especially at this time, when we know that a steam-ship is on her'passage across the Atlantic ; and that a fleet of steam-vessels are makingtheir way, with a detachment of the army of the United States, to establish a post at the Yellow Stone, on the Missouri, in the interior of our continent, two thousand miles from the mouth of the Mississippi. These two facts render it not improbable that, by the same ineans, the passage between Europe and Ame- rica will be made in less time, and with less inconvenience, than a journey between Edinburgh and London was accom- plished half a century ago ; and that a commerce between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans may be maintained, through the Columbia and Missouri, with as much certainty and fa- cility, as it is between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. With such ulterior results as likely,and with the incalculable, realized good, before him, Mr. Golden ventured to say of the man whom he considered as its immediate, intelligent author, that "there could not be found in the records of departed worth, the name of a person to whose individual exertions mankind are more indebted, nor one which would live farther into time, if not robbed of the fame due to superior genius, exerted with wonderful courage, industry, perseverance, and success,'* !No impartial and reflecting reader could view this declaration as extravagant, or fail to approve both of the tone and pur- port of the passage which immediately follows in the biogra- phy. " If the construction of a bridge, or the formation of a j canal, has often given a celebrity which has been transmitted I through many ages, what fame and what gratitude does not he deserve, who has furnished a means of transportation which may bring the inhabitants of the different quarters of the world nearer to each other than, previously, those of the same BRITISH REVIEWS. territory considered themselves ; which will spread with a SEC facility before unknown, the influence of religion, civiliza- tion, and the arts ; which will binng the whole human spe- cies to an intimate acquaintance with each other ; and will unite mankind by the bonds of mutual intercourse." Fulton himself had never pretended that he was the first projector or inventor of steam-boat navigation ; and his bio- grapher is far from having ascribed to him this merit. Mr. Golden admitted that " some ingenious attempts to propel boats by steam had been made long before the time Mr. Ful- ton was known to have thought of it;" and that the idea origi- nated Avith an Englishman, Mr. Jonathan Hulls, who pub- lished his scheme in 1737, at London. Our author received implicitly the statement respecting Hulls' suggestions, which he read in Buchanan's " Treatise on Propelling Vessels by Steam," a work that appeared in Scotland in 1817. What he claimed for Fulton, and what alone Fulton claimed for himself, was, his being the first, who, by improvements on the mere conceptions or vain attempts, of others, established steam-navigation so as to render it perpetually practicable and unboundedly useful — improvements eflfected not by a lucky chance or cunning plagiary, but by a i-are combina- tion of inventive powers, of mathematical and philosophical science, of mechanical knowledge and experience, and of intrepidity and perseverance. Buchanan, the Scottish writer whom I have just mentioned, had owned in his treatise, \ while vindicating the credit of origination for Hulls, that *' the steam-boats of Fulton were the first that succeeded in a profitable way." A more absolute admission, ratifying fully the doctrine of Mr. Golden, has been naade in the April num- ber of Dr. Thompson's Annals of Philosophy, in an able paper on the origin of steam-boats. The writer holds the fol- lowing language. " It is not a little remarkable in the liistory of the arts, and forms a striking instance of the slow and pro- gressive steps by which they advance, that that most elegant and useful discovery, the steam-boat, first brought forward in 1736, by Jonathan Hulls of London, and afterwards pub- licly investigated and tried by Lord Stanhope and Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, should have been carried to America, and there first have changed its character from mere experiment to extensive practice and utility^ and that it should again have been introduced into Britain upon the experience of Americans, only so lately as the year 1813, when it was first employed upon the river Glyde." Even the Quarterly Review, in the article upon which I am about to animadvert, avows it to be HOSTILITIES OP TIIC " beyor.d all question that Mr. Fulton made considerable i)xt* provements in the application of the steam-engine to the navi- gation of boats " and adds — " It is quite natural that the Americans should uphold the reputation of their own coun- trymen. We cannot blame them for it, and some allowance may reasonably be made for excess of panegyric, in speaking of artists of native growth." I have premised all these details, in order to the better un« derstanding of the article in question, which I will now cur- sorily examine. It begins thus : " Although our readers may be inclined to give us credit for some knowledge of our trans-atlantic brethren, yet we can honestly assure them that we were not quite prepared for such a sally as this of Cadwallader Golden, Esq." &:c. alluding to his declaration noticed above, of the obligations of mankind to Fulton. We have then a series of sneers at the panegyrics pronounced upon the engineer by others of his countrymen, and at the New York Historical Society. The Reviewers themselves sit in judgment upon Fulton, and describe him as " a man who possessed just talent enough to apply the in- ventions of others to his own purposes^ Mr. Golden is taxed with disingenuity and misrepresentation, and ever and anon, with as much urbanity as wit, styled " Mr. Gadwallader Col- den," " friend Gadwallader," " the conscientious and con- sistent friend," &c. The critics, by way, we must suppose, of teaching him a lesson of ingenuousness andti'uth, assume, that he had arrogated for Fulton the merit of discovery, in the case of the steam-boat, and proceed laboriously to re- fute the pretended doctrine. It is unlucky, that in setting out, they could find no stronger language in the work of Mr. Golden, than the phrase — ^" We and all the world are indebted to Fulton for the establishment of navigation by steam." With the biography in their hands, and acquainted, no doubt, with what Buchanan had written, they do not scruple to introduce and parade the theory of Hulls, in such a way precisely, as if they were the first to announce it, and Mr. Golden and America to be confounded with the disclosure. They give an account of Mr. Miller's experiments, in the year 1787, on the Forth and Glyde Canal, which they acknowledge " did not succeed to his entire satisfaction ;" and they lay great stress upon those of one of his assistants, of the name of Symington, who pursued his ideas, with no better success in the end. We are told by them, that Fulton paid a visit to Symington, and examined his boat ; and in the same manner, it is affirmed, equally with- BRITISH REVIEWS. ovit the production of any evidence, in the paper of Thomp- SEC son's Annals, to which I have referred, that Fulton, saw the experiments of Miller — a circumstance highly improbable, since Fulton was born only in 1765, and did not leave this, his native country, until after his majority. The very attempts of the Reviewers to invalidate the claim set up for Fulton, tend to show that it is well founded. We may admit, ag Mr. Golden has done, that Jonathan Hulls was the first who thought of using the power of steam for naviga- tion ;* but it is not pretended tliat he ever proceeded to apply his conception, even so far as to make an experiment. It cannot but be perceived by every one conversant with what is now in practice, that Mr. Hulls' scheme would not have been effectual to drive the tow-boat itself, much less to drag '^ a two-decker." The steerage of balloons, and plans for the purpose, have been often suggested ; we have seen re- presentations of them, beating to windward under full sail. Should the art of governing them be hereafter discovered and perfected by the same individual, it will be quite as equitable to deny him the merit of balloon-navigation, in favour of the first speculators, or of the authors of the draw- ings, as it is to detrude Fulton from his pedestal, to substi- tute Jonathan Hulls. Patrick Miller never attempted to apply the engine to ves- sels. The Reviewers inform us that in a book which he pub- lished in 1787, he has said he had reason to believe that the power of the steam-engine might be employed to work the wheelsj so as to give them a quicker motion, and to increase that of the ship. He announced, at the same time, his inten- tion to make the experiment, and to communicate the result, if favourable^ to the public. No such communication is alleged to have been made, and the conclusion is inevitable, that the result was not favourable. With respect to Symington's boat, the assertion that it was seen by Fulton is wholly gratuitous ; there is no trace of the fact in the papers of the latter; it is, however, not impossible, and will be readily admitted. Mr. Golden has furnished proof that Fulton communicated the project of a steam-boat to Lord Stanhope, in the year 1793, seven years previous. The experiment of Symington on the Clyde is mentioned in the biography of Fulton, and it is not * This is not, however, precisely the case. Some of the English writers claim the merit for captain Savery, who, it it said, published the idea in 1698, and even proposed wheels over the sides of the boat. Hulls took out a patent in 1736, for " towing vessels into harbour by means of a boat with patldles, to bci worked by steam." HOSTILITIES OP THE ^ !• denied in that work, that the American availed himself of "'^^ the hints afforded by the abortive or incomplete experiments of his precursors. Their very errors may have suggested t© him the ineans of effecting his object. Scarcely one of the illustrious men who have the credit of noble discoveries, or improvements, in physics or in morals, but enjoyed this ne- gative kind of aid, or the positive advantage of seminal ideas, and partial schemes. Sir Isaac Newton was indebted to the experiments and observations of Kepler, and to the disco- veries of Grimaldi ; Galileo had seen the telescope of Me- tius : Watt profited by the labours of Newcomen : Dr. Jenner was not the first who imagined, or suggested, or tried, the prophylactic virtue of the vaccine. There is a striking ana- logy, in fact, between the cases of Jenner and Fulton : — the glory of vaccination is not more justly due to the one, than that of steam-navigation to the other. The question is not who first proposed to connect steam with navigation ; but who first and completely succeeded in so doing, and enabled others to succeed. The world will never consent to exalt the genius and merits of him who merely throws out a loose hint, or stops short at a diagram, or finishes with an abortive experiment, over those of the sanguine and accomplished enterpriser, who seizes derelict, and vivifies still-born ideas;, who, uniting in himself the aptitude to invent, the sagacity to distinguish, and the skill to execute, puts the world in lasting possession of that, which others had essayed, with such results only as tended to arrest the efforts of industry, and discredit the powers of art. When the Reviewers were dragging forward Mr. Syming- ton as the rival of Fulton, and alleging that his boat fully answered the expectations which had been formed, it would have been well if they had told us what those expectations were, and how fulfilled. For want of this information from them, I am obliged to look elsewhere for it. I find an account of Mr. Symington's experiment, in the Journals of the Royal Institution, for 1802 ; a publication which cannot be suspected of a bias unfavourable to Mr. Symington. It is there stated that he ascertained that his boat would travel at the rate of two miles and an half 2ca. hour; upon the placid surface of a canal, be it understood, where no current was to be breasted. But I will take the language of the Royal Institution itself, that it may be seen how far those who ranked among the best judges in England were, at that date, from clear ideas of the capacities, or fixed hopes of the per- manent success, of steam -navigation. BRITISH REVIEWS. ' " Several attempts have been made to apply the force of SEC. steam to the purpose of propelling boats hi canals^ and there seems to be no reason to think the undertaking by any means liable to insuperable difficulties. *' An engine of the kind proposed by Mr. Symington, has been actually constructed at the expense of the proprietors of the Forth and Clyde navigation, and under the patronage of the governor, Lord Dundas ; it was tried in December last, and it drew three vessels from 60 to 70 tons burden at the usual rate of two miles and a half an hour. Mr. Syming- ton is at present employed in attempting still further im- provements, and when he has completed his invention, it Tn?iy, perhaps, ultimately become productive of very exten- sive utility." Mr. Fulton's first boat went almost from off the stocks at New York, to Albany, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, and performed the voyage with and against the cur- rent of the Hudson, at the rate oijive miles an hour. When her machinery was more perfectly adjusted, she accomplish- ed the same passage at the rate of eight miles an hour. The vessels built on Mr. Fulton's plan, which are now in opera- tion, average ten miles an hour. The difference of speed between Mr. Symington's boat and Mr. Fulton's, alone ar- g^ies some material difference in the machinery. The ac- count above-mentioned, contains a description of Syming^ ton's boat. It is hardly necessary to add that it differs totally from that of Mr. Fulton ; or to ask — of what use would be Mr. Symington's boat, with a movement of two and a half miles an hour, in the American rivers of the south and west, which are now so successfully navigated by the boats oi Fulton, against currents of three and four miles an hour ? If the experiments made in England were so perfect, it is> incomprehensible how it happened, that no vessels were con- structed, and put in common use, until about five years after Fulton's boats were seen in successful operation on the Hudson. Nor is it more easy to conjecture, Avhy all the British boats now in use, are built according to Mr. Fulton's plan, and not according to that of Hulls, or Miller, or Sym- ington. It is pleasant to compare the pretensions set up for Great Britain by the Quarterly Review, with the confession of a British engineer, Mr. Dodd, a man of eminence in his profes- sion, and a skilful architect of steam-boats, — that the first of them which succeeded in Great Britain, was built in 1812 ; and that, although the Americans had given the fulUst trial Vol. I._I, I 5 HOSTILITIES OF THE RT I. to the British invention during five years previous, it was necessary there should be a new one under the eyes of the British nation, to inspire conJide?ice^ and induce the building of more boats.* On the whole, no evidence is to be found of the practical utility of the British projects ; but there exists the most violent presumption to the contrary ; and it is impossi- ble, as regards England, to resist the force of the interrogation put by Mr. Golden — " If steam-boats had ever been construct- ed before the experiment of Fulton, so near perfection as to show that they might be used to their present advantage, can it be believed that they would have been abandoned ?" The unanswerable address of an American to a Briton, on this subject, is — " You conceived the idea of propelling boats by steam, as early as 1698 — you afterwards employed yourselves repeatedly in devising methods and making trials to carry that idea into effect — you could never succeed to your * satisfaction,' that is, to any advantageous extent — you relin- quished your impotent endeavours — one of my countrymen appropriated your conception ; new modelled your plans ; scanned and detected your mistakes ; and, as you confess, changed in America the character of your invention from mere experiment to extensive practice and utility: — the steam- boat issued from his hands as Minerva did from the head of Jupiter — a mature creation ; you were content to receive it, some years afterwards, ' upon the experience of the Ameri- cans,' neglecting entirelv your own boasted constructions of the same name, the utility of which, if not all sufficient for you, upon your narrow geographical scale, could be nothing ; for the rest of the world. Far, then, from holding so over- weening a language, from taking all the credit, you should rather take some shame, to yourselves, that you were not able to improve your notions to the point of general vitility. If, "with the advantage of discovery, you accomplished, virtually, nothing, in the lapse of more than a century, what must be i the merit of the stranger who, in America, accomplished li every thing at the first cast ? If you did not adopt this mode | of navigation, until five years after its complete triumph in America, and then received it with hesitation and a sort of incredulity, when would it have been turned to any account among you, had he not established it there ? How long might not the world have remained without this master-piece ?" * An Historical and Explanatory Dissertation on Steam-Kngines and Steam- Packets, by George Dodd, Civil Engineer. London, 1818. See Note T. BRITISH REVIEWS. % If the degree of merit claimed by Fulton could be con- SEC. A tested with success any where, it is in America, for Ameri- ^-^"^ cans, who preceded him and the British mechanicians, in the attempt to propel vessels by steam. Miller made his experi- ments on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and published his book, in 1787; Symington put his scheme to the test on the same canal in 1801. If Miller, as it is said in Thompson's xA.n- nals, communicated his plan to General Washington in 1787, an American had previously imparted a more perfect one to the general. This person, James Rumsey, of Virginia, con- structed a boat to be navigated by steam, in the summer of 1785, after having obtained an exclusive right to the use of his invention from two states ; in the following year he made an experiment with her in the Potowmac ; and by the force of steam alone, propelled her against the current of that river at the rate of four miles an hour. In 1787, he published a pamphlet on the subject, which I have now before me, bearing this title — " A Short Treatise on the Application of Steam, whereby it is clearly shown, from actual Experir ments, that Steam may be applied to Propel Boats or Ves- sels of any burthen against Rapid Currants, with Great Ve- locity." His main positions in this pamphlet are, to use his own words, " that a boat might be so constructed, as to be propelled through the water^ at the rate of ten miles an hour, by the force of steam ; and that the machinery employed for that purpose, might be so simple and cheap, as to reduce the price of freight at least one-half in common navigation ; likewise that it might be forced, by the same machinery, ,with considerable velocity, against the constant stream of long and rapid rivers." Another passage may be quoted, as not less pointed and remarkable. " In the course of the autumn and winter of 1784, I made such progress in the improvement of some steam engines .which I had long conceived would have become of the great- lest consequence in navigation, that I flattered myself this invention, if it answered my expectation (the truth whereof experiments have now established) would render mv labours more extensively useful, by being equally applicable to small boats, or vessels of the largest size, to shallow and rapid , rivers, or the deepest and roughest seas.'''' In his communication to General Washington, of March 10th, 1785, he remarks, " I have quite convinced myself that boats of passage maybe made to go against the current of the Mississippi or Ohio rivers, or in the gulf stream, from 60 to 100 miles per day." HOSTILITIES OP THE In Thompson's Annals it is said that Miller appears to have been exclusively the inventor of the double boat ; but the first which Rumsey devised in 1784, was of that description. Another American of the name of Fitch engaged in a course of experiments of the same nature v/ith those of Rumsey, about the same time, and a sharp controversy arose between them with respect to priority.* What can be put beyond question, is, that Fitch laid his plan before Congress in 1785; navigated the river Delaware up and down, in the year 1786, with a steam-boat, which was brought, before it was abandoned in 1791, to the celerity of eight miles an hour; and that he obtained in the years 1786, 7, from the legislatures of New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and Penn- sylvania, an exclusive privilege for those states. There is not the least probability that either of these highly ingenious men had even heard of the suggestions of Savery and Hulls; there can be no doubt, indeed, of their total ignorance of •whatever had been proposed or attempted in Europe. Their plans and experiments, besides possessing the meritof origi- nality, have the advantage over those of Miller and Syming- ton In all other respects. A scientific comparison does not lie within my province; but I feel myself authorized to assert, that the result would be in favour of the Americans. Their views were more extensive ; their experiments bolder ; and they accomplished much more with machinery of such work- manship as could be procured in this country, at a tiine when it lagged far behind Great Britain in the mechanical arts. With respect, then, to the point of invention^ exclusive of that oi establishment which is conceded to her, America would seem to have stronger claims, in the matter of steam-naviga- tion, than Great Britain. The mere priority of time in the conception, where no communication can be presumed, will be viewed by none as the main consideration or determi- nate title. Mr. Golden has mentioned in some detail, in th< Life of Fulton, the attempts of Fitch and Rumsey, on oui rivers, and also the subsequent one of Rumsey on the Thames in England, whither he repaired in the expectation of find! ing greater facilities, and more opulent patronage, for hi( plans ; but those attempts are passed over in silence in th< * Fitch published a pamphlet, also, in 1788, which he entitled "The Orig nal Steam-Boat supported, or a Reply to Rumsey" He states therein thai he conceived his plan of steam-navigation in 1785; but discovered aftei'vvards, that two Americans, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Andrew EUicot, both of Pennsylva- nia, had thought of it as early as 1775, and 1778. See Note T. BRITISH REVIEWS. « British publications to which I have adverted.* The writer SEC. > of the article Steam-Engine, in Rees' New Cyclopedia, ob- serves, indeed, that steam-boats had been used in America, before the introduction of them by Fulton ; and " were be- gun there by Mr. Symington !" a fact very creditable to Scot- land, but altogether new in America, which is without record or tradition of the labours of this missionary. To heighten the contrast between their fairness and the disingeiiuity of Mr. Golden, the Reviewers treat of the tor- pedos of Fulton, in a strain, which would imply, that his bio- grapher had represented him as the first to propose the ex- plosion of gunpowder under water. It might also be infer- . red from their language, that he had sought to vindicate the \ offer of the torpedos to the different governments of Europe, i Now, as to the point of discovery, nothing can be more posi- I tive and unambiguous, than the renunciation in the biography. i *' It would," says Mr. Golden, " be doing injustice to the me- j mory of Mr. Fulton, not to notice, that Mr. Fulton did not pretend to have been the first who discovered that gunpowder might be exploded with effect under water ; nor did he pre- tend to have been the first who attempted to apply it in that way as the means of hostility. He knew well what had been done by another ingenious native American, Bushnell, in our revolutionary war." The Reviewers repeat, from this passage, the instance of Bushnell with all formality, and the air of drawing it from their own store of knowledge ! With regard to the conduct of Fulton in proffering his tor- pedos to various governments, his biographer goes no farther, in substance, than to assert, that Fulton reconciled it to his * Brissot de Warville had noticed them in his Travels through the United States, in the following manner : Sept. 1788. "I went^this day to see an experiment near the Delaware, on a boat, the object of which was to ascend rivers against the current. The inventor was Mr. Fitch, who had formed a company to support the expense. The ma- chine which I saw appears well executed and well adapted to the design. The steam engine gives motion to three large oars of considerable force, which were to give sixty strokes per minute. Since writing this, I have seen Mr. Kumsey in England. He is a man of great ingenuity ; and bj^ the ex- planation which he has given me, it appears that his discovery, though found- ed on a similar principle with that of Mr. Fitch, is very dilferent from it, and far more simple in its execution. Mr. Rumsey proposed then (Feb. 1789) to build a vessel which should g-o to America bv the help of the steam-engine, and ■without sails. It -was to make the passage in 'fifteen days. I perceive with pain that he has not yet executed his project, which, when executed, will intro- duce into commerce as great a change as tjie discovery of the Cape of Good Hope." HOSTILITIES OF THE own ideas of propriety, and acted from honest impressions, whether false or correct. The proceeding of Mr. Fulton is certainly supported by European examples without number, and may be considered as natural in every sanguine projector. I cannot easily see how an American, pursuing mechanical inventions in Europe, would be, prima facie^ culpable for offering to France and England indiscriminatel}^, a destruc- tive engine of war. The success of the one or the other power, is to be supposed indifferent to his feelings. I grant that, if the engine could be turned against his own country, he would never be justifiable. The talents and contrivances of English engineers have been lent indiscriminately to aid the hostilities of all the principal nations of Europe ; with the sanction of the government, when the interests of Eng- land were not likely to be affected. The Count de Bonneval and others of his description were never blamed, in Europe, for the mere fact of devoting their genius and skill to the improvement of the Turkisli armies and fortifications. Britain is now enriching herself by supplying both Spain and her colonies with the means of warfare ; from her manufactories issued the weapons and ammunition, with which the nations of Africa assailed and slaughtered each other for the purpose of filling her slave ships. I note these ciixumstances, to emblazon the modesty of the Reviewers in i-aising an outcry against the conduct of Fulton, and the character of his expedient of submarine explosion. They are, forsooth, filled with horror at this " succinct mode of murder en masse ;" these " infernal machines ;" forget- ting the machines called Congreve rockets, which, — while the torpedos can be directed only against armaments, — have been principally used by the British against the towns and domestic dwellings of their enemies ; sometimes, as in the instance of Stonington, to envelope in flames, houses in which unoffend- ing American women and children were placed for shelter. It may be proposed, as a problem for their consideration, whether the destruction of one of the bomb-ketches employed on that occasion, by a torpedo, would have been more atro- cious, than the act of the British general Sheaffe at the town of York in Canada, who left in the fortification from which he was driven by the American army, a secret mine, that ex- ploded a moment too soon, or it would have " blown whole regiments into the air ;" and, as the case was, killed many brave soldiers, — among them, the lamented Pike. *' Lord St. Vincent," say the Reviewers, " appears to have Sethis face against this unworthy mode of warfare, the tor- RniTISH REVIEWS. pedo ; feeling, as we believe every British officer would feel, ° that setting aside the intent, such devices ivere for the -weak and not for the strong. In his own mind, Mr. Pitt did, we dare say, condemn it, as every man of sense and honour would." Now, it is on record, that these two eminent personages, and every British officer, rejoiced in the Congreve rockets ; and that a board of British officers of the highest rank reported them, after their trial at Boulogne and Flushing, a most eligible auxiliary to the British arms. To show how innocent and generous a device they are, when compared with that *' succinct mode of murder en masse," the torpedo, I wiU copy some passages of the ample and able account of them which is given in Rees' Cyclopedia, article Rocket. " The Congreve Rocket. These rockets are of various dimensions, and are differently armed, accordmg as they are intended for the field, or for bombardment; carrying in the first instance either shells or canister shot, which may be exploded at any part of their flight, spreading death and de- struction amongst the columns of the enemy ; and in the second, where they are intended for the destruction of buildings, shipping., stores, &c. they are armed with a peculiar species of composition which never fails of destroying every com- bustible material with which it comes in contact." "■ The carcass rocket has been used in almost every one of our expeditions. They did incredible execution at Copenhagen. At the siege of Flushing, general Monnet, the French com- mandant, made a formal remonstrance to Lord Chatham re- specting the use of them in that bombardment. A small \ corps of rocketeers, in the memorable battle of Leipsic, |1 gloriously maintained the honour of the British arms. All the \ more minute and important particulars of this weapon, both \ of construction and composition, are very properly kept a ". profound secret. The largest rocket that has yet been con- I structed, has not, we believe, exceeded three hundredweight; ! but Sir William Congreve seems to have in contemplation '■■ others weighing from half a ton to a ton." " By means of the rocket, the most extensive destruction, even amounting to annihilation^ may be carried among the ranks of an advancing enemy, and that xvith the exposure of scarcely an individual. For this purpose, the rockets are laid in batteries, &c. They facilitate the capture of a ship by boarding, by being thrown into the ports, &c. ; the confusion and destruction which thence inevitably ensue, facilitate, &c. They are peculiarly adapted to add to the dreadful effect of . ■ fire-ships, which, if they were supplied each with a sufficient. J HOSTILITIES OP THE RT I. number of rockets, such an extensive and devastating fire ^'^^i' would be spread in every direction, os to involve every vessel of the enemy in that destructive element. The jioating rocket carcass^ another of the inventor's applications, may be thrown in great quantities by a fair wind, against any fleet or arsenal,. xvithoiit the smallest risk^or without approaching within range of guns, &c." " Little more need be said in reference to the general im- portance and utility of the rocket system, &c." vj The inconsistency of the Reviewers, as Englishmen, is further manifested by the facts, so well attested as to be un- deniable, that the British ministry conceived strong alarms at the negociations between Fulton and the French govern- ment respecting the adoption of the torpedo ; that they made overtures to him, and drew him to England ; that they en- couraged his experiments with a view to emplo)' his " infer- nal machines," if found effectual, against the enemies of Great Britain; that they actually made an attempt to destroy the Boulogne flotilla by his means ; and that, after appointing a committee to decide upon the expediency of adopting his " devices," they finally rejected them altogether, as imprac- ticable^ — not as cruel, immoral, or dishonourable. From what passed, it is not uncharitable to suspect, that the true key to the rejection, is furnished in the saying of Lord St. Vincent, the authenticity of which the Reviewers do not dis- pute. " Pitt is the greatest fool that ever existed to encou- rage a mode of war which they who command the seas do not want." Mr. Pitt, it would seem from the statement of Mr. Golden, remarked, when he first saw a drawing of the torpedo, with a sketch of the mode of applying it, and un- derstood what would be the eff"ects of the explosion — that " if introduced into practice, it could not fail to annihilate all military marincs^^'' — an eff'ect which Great Britain could not feel it her interest to promote. The occasion of the establishment of steam navigation, appeared to the Reviewers, as that of the exploration of our western regions had done, very suitable for the vilification of the American people at large. Accordingly, they proceed in ' this exalted language — " The vagrant adventurer, Fulton, , having failed in selling his infernal machines, sets himself to • prove, in a high strain of moral pathos, that ' blowing up ships of war' (so as not to leave a man to relate the dreadful I catastrophe) are humane experiments. We ought not to wonder, after this^ perhaps., that the character of Mr. Fulton has sur- vived in America as that of an honesty conscientious, and con- BRITISH REVIEWS. « distent man^ especiallLj as Mr. Cadxvallader Colden has sup- SEC. T ported his claim to it,''^ &c. ^-o' Having painted the American engineer in the blackest co- lours, and denied to him all original genius, they have not, with the London Critical Journal, deemed it advisable to represent him as " a native of Paisley, in Scotland,* where he had steam-boats constructed, actually employed both for experiment and use." But the author of the article in Thompson's Annals, being more kindly in his language con- cerning the merits of Fulton, and therefore not under the same restraint, clinches him and his offspring thus — " The experiments by Mr. Miller on the Forth and Clyde Canal, we have been informed, were either seen by, or communicated to, the late Mr, Fulton, engineer of America, who, it is be- lieved, was a native, or at least resided in this part of Scot- land, but afterwards went to America, where he had the merit and the honour, of introducing the steam-boat, upon an ex- tensive scale, on the great rivers and lakes of that country ; so that we can trace this invention most indisputably to a British origin." We cannot suppose that a " civil engineer," treat- ing of the history of steam-boats, in the month of April, 1819, was ignorant of the existence, or had not opened the volume, of Fulton's biography, where his birth place is so distinctly and authentically stated. The misrepresentation which I have just quoted, is, therefore, unpardonable, and dishonours the valuable Journal in which it is found. There is a littleness, besides, in some of the arts practised by the Reviewers to gratify their spleen in this business of steam- boat navigation, which is truly pitiable. For instance, in the index to the nineteenth volume of the Quarterly Review, at the Avord ' Colden,' we read, '' The Life of Robert Fulton — its bombastic exordium p'' and at the word ' Fulton' — " his in- gratitude to England^'' &c. the index being made, in this manner, the vehicle of reproaches of a particular nature, more direct than are hazarded in the body of the volume. The Reviewers have not been content, in the article under consideration, with mangling the reputation of Fulton and his performances, but have turned aside to assail another Ameri- can, for whom his councry has claimed the merit of an im- portant invention. I allude to Godfrey, who is contemptu- ', • They have, however, in their twentieth number miule Biitenlwuse an Enghshnian. The astronomer was born witliin seven miles of Philadelphia; and never absent from liis native country. His ancestors were of the banks of the Rhine. Vol. I.— M m il HOSTILITIES OF THE .RT I. oysiy mentioned in a note, and introduced in the text with greater indignity. The note is as follows — " A man of the name of Logan^ we think as obscure as Godfrey himself claimed for the latter^ the invention of Had ley'' s ^adrant ! — two years after the description of it had^ as he says^ appeared in the Phi- losophical Transactions.'''' The reference to Godfrey, in the text, is in this strain — " We are almost malicious enough to wish Franklin were alive, to see with what little ceremony his admiring countrymen have dove-tailed him in between two worthies, one of whom (Godfrey) he has himself desig- nated, in his correspondence, as a most dogmatical, overbear- ing, and disagreeable fellow, who gave himself airs because he had acquired a smattering of mathematics." Before I proceed to comment upon the note, which is too choice a specimen of the temper and knowledge which these Reviewers bring to the discussion of American affairs, to be suffered to remain without elucidation, I will beg leave to quote what Franklin has really said of Godfrey, in order that my reader may compare it at once with their report, and better understand the degree of reliance to be placed on their citations. It is not in his Correspondence, but in his Me- moirs, that Franklin speaks of Godfrey, and it is in these words " Among the first members of our Junto^ was Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great 'in his -way., and afterwnrds 'inventor ofrohat is 7iow called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion ; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in every thing said, and was for ever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. I continued to board with Godfrey, who lived in part of my house, with his wife and children, and had one side of the shop for his glazier's busi- ness, though he worked little, being always absorbed in ma- thematics." So much for the smattering of mathematics. And were the other parts of the pretended designation veri- fied, it would be difficult to perceive, what the habits of the mathematician in society, have to do with the question of the invention of the quadrant. The " man of the name of Logan, as obscure as Godfrey,'* can be no other than " the honourable and learned Mr. Logan" of whom Franklin also speaks in his Memoirs, and who, next to William Penn, makes the most considerable figure in the History of Pennsylvania: — whom the proprietary entrusted with the management of all his affairs in the province, and cherished through life as the ablest and most faithful of his BRITISH REVIEWS. f friends ; — who made valuable communications to the Royal SEC. "^ Society, three of which are to be found in one volume of its Transactions, the 38th;* whose charges as Chief yustice of Pennsylvania were reprinted and read with admiration, in London : who corresponded regularly with the most eminent among the scientific worthies of his time ; such as Linnaeus, Fabricius, Dr. Mead, Dr. Halley, Sir Hans Sloan, Dr, Fothergill, Peter Collinson, William Jones (father of Sir William :) and whom all consulted with the deference due to a mind of the first order in the variety and strength of its powers, and of indefatigable activity in the cultiva- tion and advancement of nearly every branch of knowledge. There is a striking similarity in the talents, studies, and vo- cation of Dr. Golden and James Logan ; and of the latter i think I may say, without exaggeration, that he was excelled in no respect by any one of the Europeans who settled on this continent ; and that if he is obscure^ none was better entitled to the most brilliant illustration. An ' honest chronicler,' Proud, with whose History of Pennsylvania the labourers for the American department in the Quarterly Review, ought not to be unacquainted, — has spoken of his *' living actions," and made a summary exposition of his character and career which I will copy for their instruction, vouching myself, from personal inquiry, for the accuracy of all the particulars. " fames Logan was descended of a family originally from Scotland, where, in the troubles of that country, occasioned by the affair of Earl Gozvrie^ in the reign of fames the VI, his grandfather, Robert Logan^ was deprived of a considerable estate ; in consequence of which, his father, Patrick Logan^ being in reduced circumstances, removed into Ireland^ and fixed his residence at Lurgan^ the place of his son fames' birth. Patrick LoganWaA the benefit of a good education, in the university of Edinburgh; where he commenced master of arts; — but afterwards joined in religious society with the ^takers. — This, his son, fames Logan^ being endowed with a good genius, and favoured with a suitable education, made considerable proficiency in divers branches of learning and science ; after which he went to England; from whence, in the year 1699, and about the 25th of his age, he removed to * For the years 1733, 1734. One of the papers is entitled "Some experi- ments concerning the Impregnation of the Seeds of Plants;" another "Some thoughts concerning the Sun and Moon, when near tb« horizon, appearing larger than wheij near the zenith." See Note U. ; HOSTILITIES OF THE iiT 1. Pennsylvania, in company with IVilUam Penn^ in his latter "^"^^-^ voyage to America; and in 1701, he was, by commission from the Proprietary, appointed secretary of the province, and clerk of the council for the same." *' He adhered to what was deemed the proprietary interest ; and exerted himself with great fidelity to it. He held the several offices of provincial secretary, commissioner of pro- perty, chief justice, and for near two years, governed the province, as president of the council." Many years before his death, he retired pretty much from the hurry and incumbrance of public affairs, and spent the latter part of his time, principally at Stanton^ his country seat, near Germcmtoxvn^ about five or six miles from Philadel- phia ; where he enjoyed, among his books, that leisure in which men of letters take delight, and corresponded with the literati in different parts of Europe. He was well versed in both ancient and modern learning, acquainted with the ori- ental tongues, a master of the Latin, Greek, French, and Italian languages ; deeply skilled in the mathematics, and in natural and morul philosophy ; as several pieces of his own writing, in Latin, &c. demonstrate; some of which have gone through divers impressions in different parts of Europe^ and are highly esteemed. Among his productions of this nature, his Experimenta 3Ieletemata de Plantariim GeJieratione^ or his Experiments on the Indian Corn or 3faize of America., with his observations arising therefrom, on the generation of plants, published in Latin, at Leyden., in 1739, and afterwards, in 1747, republished in London, with an English version on the opposite page, by Dr. jf. Fothergill., ai-e both curious and in- genious. — Along with this piece ^yas likewise printed, in Latin, at Leyden., another treatise, by the same author, ei titled, ' Canonum pro inveniendis refractionum., turn simpliciut turn in lentibiis duplicium focis , devionstrationes geoinetricce.''' ^^ Autore yacobo Logan, Judice supremo et Preside provinci Pensilvaniensis, in America.'''' And in his old age, he trand lated Cicero'' s excellent treatise, Z)e senectute,wh\ch,w\ih explanatory notes, was printed in Philadelphia, with a pr^ face or encomium, by Benjamin Franklin, afterwards Dij Franklin, of that city, in 1774. He was one of the peopl called Ridkers, and died on the 31st of October, 1751, agel about 77 years ; — leaving as a monument of his public spiri and benevolence to the people of Pennsylvania, a librai which he h;id been 50 years in collecting; (since called thi Loganiaii Library) intending it for the common use and bene- fit of all lovers of learning. It was said to contain the best BRITISH REVIEWS. editions of the best books, in various languages, arts and SP-C. sciences, and to be the hirgest, and by far the most valua-^-^^^ ble, collection of the kind, at that time, in this part of the world." The reputation which James Logan deservedly enjoyed for a profound acquaintance with the mathematics, led God- frey to seek his notice and aid, and to consult him on his projects in mechanical philosophy. That of the improve- ment of Davis's Quadrant struck Logan as of the greatest ingenuity and importance ; and as Godfrey was then unknown beyond his native province, he undertook to be the herald and voucher of his invention with the philosophers of Lon- don. In the month of 3Iay^ 1 732, he addressed a letter on the subject, to Dr. Edmund Halley ; in which he described fully the construction and uses of Godfrey's instrument. The following passages of this letter explain his views of the case, and the motives and objects of his interposition. " I shall presume, from thy favour shown to me in England, in 1724, to communicate an invention that, whether it an- swer the end or not, will be allowed, I believe, to deserve thy regard. I have it thus." " A young man born in this country, Thomas Godfrey by name, by trade a glazier, who had no other education than to learn to read and write, with a little common arithmetic, having in his apprenticeship with a very poor man of that trade, accidentally met with a mathematical book, took such a fancy to the study, that, by the natural strength of his genius, without any instructor, he soon made himself master of that, and of every other of the kind he could borrow or procure in English ; and finding there was more to be had in Latin books, under all imaginable discouragements, applied himself to the study of that language, till he could pretty well understand an author on these subjects ; after which, the first time I ever saw or heard of him, to my knowledge, he came to borrow Sir Isaac Newton's Principia of me. Inquiring of him here- upon, who he was, I was indeed astonished at his request ; but, after a little discourse, he soon became welcome to that or any other book I had. This young man about 18 months s'lnce^ told me he had for some time been thinking of an in- strument for taking the distances of the stars by reflecting speculums, which he believed might be of service at sea ; and not long after he showed me a common sea quadrant, to which he had fitted two pieces of looking-glass in such a .manner as brought two stars at almost any distance to coin- ■ cide. (Then follows a description of the instrument.) " But I am now sensible I have trespassed in being so 8 HOSTILITIES OP THE RT I. particular when writing to Dr. Halley ; for I well know that to a gentleman noted for his excellent talent of reading, ap- prehending, and greatly improving, less would have been sufficient ; but, as this possibly may be communicated by thee, I shall crave leave farther to add, that the use of the instrument is very easy," &c. *■*' If the method of discovering the longitude by the moon is to meet with a reward, and this instrument, which, for all that I have ever read or heard of, is an invention altogether new, be made use of, in that case I would recommend the inventor to thy justice and notice. He now gets his own and family's bread (for he is married) by the labour of his own hands only, by that mean trade. He had beg^in to make ta- bles of the moon on the very same principles with thine, till I lately put a copy of those that have lain so many years print- ed, but not published, ivith W. Innys, into his hands, and then highly approving- them, he desisted^ In the same year, 1732, Godfrey prepared, himself, an ac- count of his invention, addressed to the Royal Society; but it was not then transmitted, from the expectation which he entertained of the effect of the letter to Halley. No notice, however, was taken of it by Halley, and after an interval of a year and a half, Logan resolved to have the matter sub- mitted immediately to the Royal Society. For this purpose he transmitted a copy of the letter, together with the paper of Godfrey, to Mr. Peter Collinson, an eminent botanist and member of the society, engaging him to lay them before that body. The result is detailed in the following authentic letter"* to Logan, from his respectable friend, Captain Wright, who took charge of his communications to Collinson. London, Feb. 4th, ir34. Mr. James Logan. Sir — Your favour of December 4th I have received, and immediately carried that inclosed to Mr. Collinson (Jan. 26) who with pleasure received that, as he had done the former; and after reading it, with an agreeable smile, he said, " I make no doubt of removing the uneasiness our good friend is under, which is all caused by some of Dr. Halley''s cunning.'''' He very much referred to the management of Mr. Jones's inte- rest, as well as using his own, to have your letters communi- • Taken from tlie original, in the possession of Dr. George Logan, the grandson of James Logan, and who forms one pretty notable exception at least, to the rule of the Quarterly Review — that " there is no such person known in America as si respectable country gentleman." BRITISH REVIEWS. % cated to the Royal Society in the most proper and likely SEC. "N manner to have effect. ' I soon found means to take a glass with Mr, Jones,* who gave me his company a whole afternoon ; when he often hinted at Dr. Halleifs ungenerous treatment of you., hut said that 7vas not the only time., for the doctor had been guilty of such things to others. He very strongly believes Mr. Hadley was the inventor of his own instrument, and gives these reasons to support it : That as he had dwelt so long on improving and bringing to perfection the reflecting telescope, he could not miss of knowing how to bring two objects to coincide by spe- culums ; and he as firmly believes Thomas Godfrey was the inventor of his instrument by the strength of his genius as Had- ley was of his by his help from the refecting telescope., and says each one ought to have the merit of his own instrument. He then asked me the use of the bow I brought him last year, and in what respect it exceeded Davis's quadrant ? I told him as far as I could, but that for my own part I had never used it. He was pleased with the invention, and said it deserved notice, if it answered what was proposed, and desired I would get one made ; for it would signify nothing to mention it to the society, without a model ; and that, being produced, would be a strong voucher for Thomas Godfrey, to show that he had a capacity and a genius tending that way ; and it would be a very good introduction for the reading of your letter to Dr. Halley. I got one made in two days, and carried it to Mr. Collinson (30th Jan.) who sent it to Sir Hans Sloan's ; where it underwent an examination by four or five members, one of which was Mr. Hadley, who, with the others, highly approved of it. The next day it was produced to the Royal Society, where Mr. Norris and myself were introduced by Mr. Collin- son ; and upon reading the description of the bow, I had the pleasure of hearing your first letter to Dr. Halley read, which was all that was then read ; and when done, Mr. Machen ad- dressed the president (or the gentleman who supplied his place ; for Sir H. Sloan was not there, being absent upon ac- count of his brother-in-law's death), and said he had the vouchers ready on the table for any one'*s perusal^ -who might doubt of the truth of that letter., or the instrument being ge- nuine, ^nd no ways taken from Mr. Hadley's, but found out about the same time that his was, or rather prior to it, if the vouchers were true ; and if they are not, then, said he, '' we • Father of the celebrated Sir William Jones, and an eminent mathema- tician. HOSTILITIES OP THE ^ I- must believe that all the people of Pennsylvania are combinetj to impose on the society — which no reasonable man can do." He said some shreivd things of Dr. Halley^ and concluded with saying that the inventor claimed the justice of having that description registered, which he thought no one could deny him ; and should that instrument be the park for the longi- tude, the inventors of the rest must dispute their priority before the learned in law. No person said any thing against itf so that it will be registered. Mr. Williams has been under some pain for these two transactions, as miscarried in Jones's hands, but hope he has cleared it up to your satisfaction. If not, I am certain of doing it on my arrival. My hearty desires for yours and your good family's health, to whom my best respects. I am, dear sir, Your obliged humble servant, Edward Wright. In the month of June, 1734, Mr. Logan addressed to the Royal Society, " A further Account of Thomas Godfrey's Improvement of Davis's Quadrant transferred to the Mari- ner's Bow," which, under this title, was inserted implicitly in the volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society for the same year.* I proceed to extract some parts of Logan's paper, which develop further the history of the case. " Being informed that this improvement, proposed by Godfrey, of this place, for observing the sun's altitude at sea, with more ease and expedition than is practicable by the common instrument in use for that purpose, was last winter laid before the Royal Society, in his own description of it, and that some gentlemen wished to see the benefit in- tended by it more fully and clearly explained, I, who have here the opportunity of knowing the author's thoughts on such subjects, being persuaded in my judgment, that, if the in- strument, as he proposes it, be brought into practice, it will in many cases, be of great service to navigation, have, there- fore, thought it proper to draw up a more full account of it than the author himself has given," &c. " Some masters of vessels, who sail from hence to the West Indies, have got some of them made, as well as they can be done here, and have found so great advantage in the facility, and the ready use of them in those southerly latitudes, that^ they reject all others. It is now four years since Thoma^^ Godfrey hit on this improvement : for his account of it, laid * Month of December. A-rticle 3d. BRirrSH REVIEWS. before the society last winter, in which he mentioned two SEC. years, was wrote in 1732 ; and in the same year, 1730, after v,-^- he was satisfied in this of a real improvement in the quadrant, he applied himself to think of the other, viz. the reflecting instrument by speculums, for a help in the case of longitude, though it is also useful in taking altitudes ; and one of these, as has been abundantly proved by the maker, and those who had it with them, was taken to sea, and there used in ob- serving the latitude, the winter of that year, and brought back to Philadelphia before the end of February, 1731, and was in my keeping some months immediately after." " It was indeed unhappy, that, having it in my power, see- ing he had no acquaintance nor knowledge of persons in Eng- land, that I transmitted not an account of it sooner. But I had other affairs of more importance to me ; and it was owing to an accident which gave me some uneasiness, viz. his attempt- ing to publish some account of it in print here, that I trans- mitted it at last, in May, 1732, to Dr. Halley, to whom I made no doubt but the invention would appear entirely new; and I must own I could not but wonder that our good will at least was never acknowledged. This, on my part, was all the merit I had to claim, nor did I then, or now, assume any other in either of these instruments. I only wish that the ingenious inventor himself might, by some means, be taken notice of, in a manner that might be of real advantage to him." In his letter to the Royal Society, Godfrey expresses him- self in the simple and natural manner which bespeaks entire sincerity. He begins thus — " Gentlemen : As none are bet- ter able than the Royal Society to prove and judge whether svich inventions as are proposed for the advancing useful knowledge will answer the pretensions of the inventors or not; and as I have been made acquainted, though at so great a dis- tance, of the candour of your learned Society in giving en- couragement to such as merit approbation, I have, therefore, presumed to lay before the Societ)^, the following, craving par- ion for my boldness." He then states that finding with what iifficulty a tolerable observation of the sun was taken by Davis's quadrant; he, therefore, applied his thoughts for up- svards of two years, to find a certain instrument. After de- jcribing his improvement and the extent of its utility, he con- cludes with the following phrase — " I hope Dr. Halley has 'eceived a more full account of this from J. Logan, Esq.; herefore I shall add no more than that I am, &c." Neither Logan nor Godfrey knew at the date of these com- nunications, that Mr. John Hadlev, the vice-president of the 1 Vol. I.~N n HOSTILITIES or THE I- Royal Society, had presented a paper to that body, dated May *^ 13th, 1731,* containing a full description and rationale of a reflecting quadrant of the same character, which he claimed as his invention, and that his paper was inserted in the volume of the Philosophical Transactions, for that year. This com- munication of Hadley is the foundation of his title to the in- vention. There is no direct proof, which I can discover, of his having seen, or heard of Godfrey's instrument ; but the quotations which I have made establish the following facts — that Godfrey, without the advantage of a hint, or of aid from any quarter, completed it in the year 1730 ; that it was taken to sea soon after, and there used, in the course of the winter of that year, in observing the latitude, and brought back be- 'fore the end of February, 1731 ; that there was, therefore, a possibility of its being made known to Hadley, within good time for the prepai-ation of his paper of the month of May. The tradition in Philadelphia is, that it was carried to Ja- maica by a captain of Godfrey's acquaintance, and shown there to a captain of a ship just departing for England, who gave information of it to Hadley, as a person distinguished for his skill and ingenuity in the construction and improvement of optical instruments. Be this as it may, the merit of priority, such as it is, lies manifestly with Godfrey ; his invention was as complete, and passed quickly into use among the American masters of vessels. Mr. Logan could have no imaginable motive except benevolence and the promotion of science, for producing and urging the claims of Godfrey ; he expressly disavows any pretension to a share in the invention ; his emi- nent capacity to judge of its character precludes all idea of his having been deceived, as the elevation of his nature and station does that of his having stooped to practise a decep- tion. It will be seen, by an extract which I am about to make from one of his letters, of a later date, to the mathematician Wm. Jones, that he retained his perouasion of Godfrey's title, and was not without suspicion of foul play. " I have very little to say on the subject of instruments, but as in thy teaching, I formerly observed thy methods greatly excelled in neatness, so one instrument may for speed and certainty very much exceed another ; and Thomas Godfrey's inventions were, I think, truly valuable, that by the reflecting speculums appears extremely so. I have here seen two ol them as made by Hadley' s direction, who enjoys both the re- • The volume of the Transactions hi which it is contained, was not, in fact, published, until after the date of Logan's Letters. BRITISH REVIEWS. g putation and profit of them, and I cannot but admire at it. SEC. V Thomas Godfrey has indeed a fine genius for the mathema- tics, and it would, for the sake of his birth place, which is the same as that of my own children, be a great pleasure to me to see him rewarded." The quotation which I have made from Franklin, shows that he ascribed the quadrant called Hadle3^'s, to Godfrey; and as he at one time lived under the same roof with the mathe- matician, and constantly took an interest in his affairs, his testimony is of no little moment. We have a decided opinion to the same effect, from another of his cotemporaries, Dr. John Ewing, a provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the most acute and learned mathematicians whom this country has produced.* Dr. Rittenhouse, when re- quested to pronounce in the matter, stated in writing, " that he knew Mr. Godfrey and his quadrant, and had no doubt both Godfrey and Hadley were original inventors ; that both instruments depended upon the same principles," &c. A weight of authority is thus found in favour of Godfrey's merit, sufficient to satisfy us on this side of the Atlantic. If we claim no more for him than the having accomplished simul- taneously the same as is ascribed to Hadley, we shall have .reason to be proud of his name ; and, in comparing the cir- jCumstances of his education and situation with those of the .vice-president of the Royal Society, be entitled to attribute to him a superior, nay almost unrivalled natural genius. It ;is related that when Newton's Principia Mathematica made .their appearance, " the best mathematicians were obliged to fstudy them with care, and those of a lower rank durst not venture upon them, till encouraged by the testimonies of the ilearned." The American glazier, without encouragement (from any quarter, wholly self-taught in the mathematics and iji the Latin, ventured upon, and mastered this great work at fin early age; and finally, with the embarrassments of an hum- ble trade, and extreme poverty, produced the most useful of astronomical instruments. He may have been, in the courtly .' * See a paper of Dr. Ewing^ in the 1st vol. of the Transactions of A. P. S.; lescribing an improvement of his own in the construction of Godfrey's quad- pant. He calls it the most useful of all astronomical instruments, the world sVer knew. There is also, inserted in the American periodical work, the Ptort Folio, for Dec. 1817, a letter of Dr. Ewing, in which he says, "Logan •jives a full description of the reflecting insU'ument Mr. Godfrey construct- ed, which appears to be the very instrument now in common use ; some very :rifling differences in the construction only excepted; which might have been Tiade by Mr. Hadley, and which are hardly worth the mentioning in the in- dention of such an excellent and uncommon instrument." J HOSTILITIES OP THE T r. language of the Quarterly Review, " a dogmatical, overbear- ing and disagreeable fellow;" but he must still attract the high- est admiration for the strength of his intellectual powers, and the resolution and perseverance of his spirit. Let his coun- trymen, universally, attach his name to the quadrant, and in the course of a few ages, the race between the names of Had- ley and Godfrey will end in the same manner as the rivalry of the British and American nations in numbers, power, and consideration. There is not the least colour, even for the supposition, that the American mathematician drew the notion of his improve- ment upon Davis's quadrant, from an external source; every circumstance imposes the belief that it was entirely the pro- duct of his own genius and combinations. This is not the case, however, with respect to Hadley, though we should dis- miss from the question, the possibility of his being indebted to Godfrey's labours. I do not know but that the Quarterly Reviewers may consider the authority which I am about to cite — Dr. Hutton, F. R. S. of London and Edinburgh, and Emeritus Professor of mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich — quite as obscure as Logan and God- frey. Nevertheless, I will venture to appeal to his Mathema- tical and Philosophical Dictionary, in which, at the article Quadrant, I find the following statement. *' Hadley's Quadrant. So called from its inventor, John Hadley, Esq. is now universally used, as the best of any for nautical and other observations. It seems the first idea of this excellent instrument was suggested by Dr. Hoolre ; for Dr.^ Sprat, in his History of the Royal Society, p. 246, mentions the invention of a new instrument for taking angles by reflec- tion, by which means the eye at once sees the two objects both as touching the same point, though distant almost to a semi-circle ; which is of great use for making exact observa- tions at sea. This instrument is described and illustrated by a figure in Hooke's posthumous works, p. 503. But as it ad- mitted of only one reflection, it would not answer the pur-? pose. The matter^ hoivever^ rvas at last ejected by Sir Isaac Nervton^ who cotnmtmicated to Dr. Halleij a paper of his oxvn •writings containing the description of an instrument with two reflections, which soon after the doctor's death was found among his papers by Mr. Jones, by whom it was communi- cated to the Royal Society, and it was published in the Phi- losophical Transactions for the year 1742. How it happened that Dr. Halley never mentioned this in his life time^ is difficult to account for ; more especially as Mr. Hadley had described^ BRITISH REVIEWS. ;• in the TV ans actions for 1731, his instrument which is con- SEC. a structed on the same principles.^ Mr. Hadley, who was well ^^^"^ acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton, might have heard him say, that Dr. Hooke's proposal could be effected by means of a double reflection; and perhaps in consequence of this hint, he might apply himself, without any previous knowledge of what Newton had actually done, to the construction of his instrument. Mr. Godfrey, too, of Pennsylvania, had re- course to a similar expedient ; for which reason some gen- : tlemen of that colony have ascribed the invention of this excellent instrument to him. The truth may probably be., that each of these g^entleinen discovered the method independent of ! one another.'''* The opinion thus liberally and decorously expressed by Dr. Hutton, was, without doubt, that of the Royal Society in 1733, when the whole matter was brought under their con- sideration. Otherwise, they never would have consented to I admit into the volume of their Transactions, the paper of j Logan, after they had published that of Hadley. The Q.uar- ! terly Review has attributed to Logan — how accurately let the 1 reader now decide — the avowal that two years had elapsed since the appearance of Hadley's paper, when he preferred I the claim of Godfrey. But, admitting the interval to be so i great, if we admit also, the facts, of which there can be no I doubt, — that Godfrey's instrument was completed in 1 730, and that Logan, when he communicated the invention to Dr. Halley, in 1732, believed, as he asserts, that it would appear entirely new to Halley — the delay in the communication of it, which Logan at the same time satisfactorily explains, can fur- nish no argument nor presumption against the validity of God- frey's claim. The dispute between Sir Isaac Newton and Leib- nitz, concerning the invention of the method of fluxions, <* If we consider the character which Halley bore, according' to the state- ment of captain Wright; his silence with respect to Newton's paper; and the suppression of Logan's letter — the conviction forces itself upon the mind, that he had resolved to secure the credit of the invention to Hadley. By the History of the Royal Society, we find that on the first of September, 1732, after the receipt of Logan's letter, Halley volunteered to attend, on the part of the Society, a trial at sea, of lladley's quadrant, and reported in its favour, without giving the least intimation of his knowledge of the con- ception or completion of the instrument in any other quarter. The paper of Newton is inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 465, p. 155, with the description — " \ true copy of a pauer, in the hand writing of Sir Isaac Newton, found amon;< lio papers of Ih? late Dr. Hallev, containing a de- scriptio't of an instrument for observing the moon's distance from the fixed .stars at sea." HOSTILITIES OF THE ^ '• presents a case similar to the present in several respects. "^^ Newton published his method only in 1704, after Leibnitz had given his Differential Calculus to the world. The former traced his invention to the years 1665, 1666 ; and the Royal Societ)^ decided in his favour upon this ground. The scientific world at large has acquiesced in the opinion, that the credit of origination is due to both these illustrious philosophers ; and such, in all likelihood, will be its conclu- Siion in regard to Godfrey and Hadley. "J 3. We might have expected from the Quarterly Review about the same degree of scrupulosity in eulogizing England and its condition, as in defaming the United States. But it •was natural to look for more consistency in the one case than we have found in the other. Here we shall be disappointec to an extent which is truly marvellous, and which destroys all confidence in any of the generalities so profusely sown in the pages of that journal. I must be permitted to bring together^ some of the many passages establishing the instructive facti *' Since man has ceased to exist in the patriarchal state, he has no where, nor at any period, existed in so favourable a condition, as in England at the present time." " England is of all parts of the world, the most prosperous and the most happy, blest above all countries, either of the ancient or the modern world." (No. 31, 1817.) " England is basking in the broad sunshine of peace and prosperity. England wants nothing but thankfulness ; no- thing but a due sense of the mercies which are heaped upon her with an unsparing hand." (No. o7^ 1818.) " England, in the full gloi'v of arts and arms, in the pleni- tude of her strength and exuberance of her wealth, in her free government and pure faith, just lazvs and uncorntpted manners ^T^whYic prosperity ixr\& private happiness ; England, in each and all of these respects, presents an object not to be paralleled in past ages or in other countries, — an object which fills with astonishment the understanding mind, and which the philosopher and the Christian may contemplate not only with complacency, but with exultation, with the deepest gratitude to the Giver of all good, and the most animating hopes for the further prospects and progress of mankind." (April, 1816.) " The great mass of our population is in a state which renders them the easy dupes of every mischievous demagogue." " The English are -in un- educated people." (No. 31, 1816.) " The abuse of the press is the curse of English liberty." (Ibid) " The London theatres are disgraced Ly open and scandalous immorali- ties." (Ibid.) ■ BRITISir REVIEWS, ^1 ^' The next generation may see gi-ass growing in the now populous city of sec. "VI Nottingham, tVom the outrages of the L\iddites." (Ibid.) ♦'.Those who suffered, for the agricultural riots, under the sentence of the law, were men of substance." " The men who grow corn are never the men who set fire to it. A large proportion of the misled multitude, who have been burning barns and corn- stacks, woidd have been aiding the civil power to repress these frantic out- r.iges, if tliey had had their own little j)roperty to defend. Let us not de- ceive ourselves ! Governments are safe in proportion as thegi-eat body of the people are cont(?lited, and men cannot be contented when they work with t/ie prospect ofivant and pauperism hcfove ilcelv eyes, as whatvutst be their destinij at last." (April, 1816.) " In the road which the English labourer must travel, the poor-house is the last stage on tlie way to the grave. Hence it arises, as a natural re- sult, that looking to the parisli as his ultimate resource, and as that to which he must come at last, he cares not how soon he applies to it. There is neither hope nor pride to withliold him : why should he deny himself any indulgence in youth, or why make any efforts to put oft' for a little while that which is inevitable at tlie end ? That the labouring poor feel thus, and reason thus, and act in consequence, is beyond all doubt." (No. 29.) " There can be no doubt, that Christian slaves are subject to much harsh treatment, and especially in Algiers: but ?io Englishman has been made a slave .• and before we go out of the way to seek for objects of misery abroad, it would be wise and humane to relieve those which we have at home. One would think that the general distress in the agricultural and manufacturing classes ; the state of the poor — the prisons — the hospitals and mad houses ; would supply us with abundant objects to relieve the plethora of philanthropy with which we seern to be bursting." (Ibid.) " If adversity be favourable to the development of our virtues, (and in- deed many of oiu* noblest qualities would never be developed under any other discipline,) there is a degree of misery which is fatal to them, and which hardens the heai't as mucii as manual labour indurates the skin, and destroys all finer sense of touch. (Ibid.) " Mournful as this is, it is far more mournful to contemplate the effects of extreme poverty in the midst of a civilized and flourishing society. The wretched native of Terra del Fuego, or of the nortliern extremity of Ame- rica, sees nothing around him which aggravates his own wretchedness by comparison ; the chief fares no better than the rest of the horde, and the slave no worse than his master ; the privations which they endure are com- mon to all ; they know of no state happier than their own, and submit to their miserable circumstances as to a law of nature. But in a country like ours, there exists a contrast which continually forces itself upon the eye and upon the reflective faculty. There was a methodist dabbler in art, who, in the days of our childhood, used to edify the public with allegorical prints from the great manufactory of Carrington Bowles ; one of these curious compositions represented a human figure, of which the right side was dressed in the full fashion of the day, while the left was undressed to the very bones, and displayed a skeleton. The conti-ast in this worse than Mezentian imagination is not more frightful, than that between health and squalid pauperism, who ai-e every day josthng each other in the street." (Ibid.) " It is but too true we fear, that, within the last thirty years, a consider- able degradation of moral character, has been observable among the lower ranks of society ; we wish we could say that it mounted no higher. The ostentatious display of charitable donations, posted in front of the public newspapers, would seem to have subdued that pride and independence of HOSTILITIES OF THE feeling, which would once have shrunk from being held up as the objecls of such charity." •' The labouring people of Scotland live chiefly on potatoes and oat-meal. — In the nortliern counties of England, these furnish the principal part oi" every meal, and it is well known that nine-tenths of the population of Irelami subsist almost entirely upon them." (No. 24.) " The article of fish is a luxury in all the great cities and towns of the empire; is confined to the upper ranks of society." (Ibid.) " The prices of provisions in London are shamefully kept up by monopo- lies, arising out of overgrown capitals." (Ibid.) " The sudden stoppage of any particular branch of manufacture usually .sends multitudes to the poor-house." (Ibid.) "In some parts of England, the paupers average nearly one-fourth of the population." (Ibid.) ; " The recent parliamentary enquiry has shown that there are from 120 to 130,000 children in the metropolis without the means of education, 4,000 of whom are let out by their parents to beggars, or employed in pilfering. A like p-oportion wcniUl be found in all our large cities, and throughout the manu- factiirivg districts a far greater." (No. 29.) " When we have stated upon the authority of Parliament that there are above 130,000 children in London, who are at this time without the means of education, and that there are from three to four thousand who are let out to beggars and trained up in dishonesty, — even this represents 07ify a part of the evil; if the children are vifithout education, the parents are without reli- gion ; in the metropolis of this enlightened nation, the church to whicli they should belong has provided for them no places of worship; and • tivo-thirJs of the lower order of people in London,' Sir Thomas Bernard says, 'live as utterli/ ignorant of the doctrines and duties of Clmstianitt/, and are as errant and Tinconverted pagans, as if they had existed in the wildest part of Jifiica* The case is the same in Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, and in all our large io-ons ; the greatest part of o%ir manufacturing popidace, of the miners and col- lier*, are in the same condition, and if they are not universally so, it is more ow- ing to the zeal of the methodists than to any other cause." (Ibid.) Most of the paragraphs just quoted refer to the year 1816 : and lest it should be supposed that the representation of this journal concerning the state of English affairs at home, might be, at a later period, altogether of an opposite complexion, I will make some further quotations from the number for September, 1818, and take them from the article immediately preceding the one in which it is said that "England wants absolutely nothing- but thankfulness." " Children are daily to be seen in hundreds and thousands about the streets of London, brought up in misery and mendicity, first, to every kind of suffering, afterwards to every kind of guilt, the boys to theft, the girls to prostitution, and this not from accidental causes, but from an obvious defect in our institutions ! Throxighout all our great citiesy throughoiit all our jnanvfac- turing counties, the case is the same as 171 the capital. And this public and no- torious evil, this intolerable reproach, has been going on year after year, in- creasing as our prosperity has increased, but in an accelerated ratio. If this •were regarded by itself alone, distinct from ai! other evils and causes of evil, it might well excite shame for the past, a.stonishment for the present, and ap- prehension for the future ; but if it be regarded in connection with the in- BRITISH REVIEWS. gj crease cf pauperism, the condition of the manufacturing populace, and the SEC. VJ indefatigable zeal with which the most pernicious principles of every kind Vi^^v^ are openly disseminated, in contempt and defiance of the law and of all things sacred, the whole would seem to form a fund of vice, misery, and wickedness, by which not only our wealth, power, and prosperit}', but all that constitutes the pride, all that constitutes the happiness of the British nation is in danger of being absorbed and lost." " Tlie sternest republican that ever Scotland produced was so struck by this reflection, that he chd not hesitate to wish for the re-establishment of do- mestic slavery, as a remedy for the squalid wretchedness and audacious guilt with which his country was at that time overrun." " So little provision has been made for religious and moral education in our institutions, and so generally is it neglected by individuals as well as by the state, that the youth in humble life, who has been properly in- 'structed in his duty towards God and man, may be regarded as imusually 'brtunate. The populace hi England are more ignorant of their religious duties than they are in any other Christian country." " They who reflect upon the course of society in this coimtry, cannot, in- leed, but perceive that the opportunities and temptations to evil have great- y increased, while the old restraints, of every kind, have as generally fallen iito disuse. The stocks are now as commonly in a state of decay as the narket-cross ; and while the population has doubled upon the church esta- ilishment, the munAer of ale-houses has increased tenfold in proportion to the population." \ " What then are the causes of pauperism ? misfortune in one instance, nisconduct in fifty; want of frugality, want of forethought, want of prudence, vant of principle ; — -want of hope also shoidd be added." I " To work a reformation in the metropolis, indeed, is a task that might lismay Hercules himself; a huge Augean stable, which the whole Thames lath not water enough to cleanse ! Yet the gi-eater the evil, the more ;rgent is the necessity and duty of setting about the gi-eat business of re- aoving it as far as we may. The points to be considered are, in what man- ,er we may hope to efl^ect the greatest alleviation of human misery, to litigate the sufferings of the poor, to amend their morals, and to redress. heir wrongs. Let no man think the expression is overcharged. If any hu- jan creatures, born in the midst of a highly civilized country, are yet, by le circumstances of their birth and breeding, placed in a worse condition, oth as physical and moral beings, than they would have been had they been orn among the .savages of America or Australia ; the society in which they ve has not done its duty towards them : they are aggrieved by the esta- lished system of things, being made amenable to its laws, and having re- sived none of its benefits : till this be rectified, the scheme of polity is in- jtnplete, and while it exists to any e.xtent, as it notoriously does exist at thi9 me, ill this country, the foundation of social order is insecure," " It is said among the precious fragments of king Edward, that when 'ayers had been, with good consideration set forth, the people must con- nually be alliu-ed to hear them; instead of this, a great proportion are. ptually excluded, for all the churches in the metropolis, -with all the private lapels aiul conventicles of every description added to them, are not sujfficient to "■.commodate a fourth part of the inhabitants, upon the present system of con- icting public worship." " Forty or fifty years ago, murder was so rarely committed in this coun- y.that any person who has amused himself with looking over the magazines 'Registers of those times, miglit call to mind eveiy case that occuiTed iring ten or twenty years, more easily than he could recollect those of the 1 it twelve months; for scarcely a weekly newspaper comes from the press ithout its taic of blood. And as tlie cilsis becomes more frequent, it ha-s Vol I.— O o I HOSTILITIES OF THE T I. been marked, if that be possible, with more ferociousness, as If there were not only an increase of criminals, but as if guilt itself was assuming a more malignant and devilish type." " Looking, however, to those causes which are within reach of disci- pline and law, certain it is, that the increase of crimes is attributable in no slight degree to the abominable state of our prisons, which, for the most part, have hitherto been nurseries of licentiousness, and schools of guilt, rather than places of correction, so that the young offender comes out of confinement in every respect worse than he went in." 9. The two presiding reviews of Great Britain having put the American people vmder the ban, those of the second rank naturally followed so grateful an example. I do not know whether I ought to apply this description to the " Bri- tish Review, or London Critical Journal," a quarterly pub- lication, which, in general, is marked by nearly an equal degree of learning and ability with its predecessors. It maintains the same principles, religious and political, as the Quarterly, and has, of course, entered the lists against the American republic. The number for May, 1819, contains a copious article, headed " Actual Condition of the United States," and pretended to be drawn from the late works on this country. I have only to cull some passages from the article, to show what a rich source of correct information and benevolent temper has been opened to the British pub- lic, in the London Critical Journal. " The government of Washington, identifying extent of territory with actual power and future greatness, continues to add lands to the immense provinces which it already ' possesses ; it eagerly embraces every opportunity, arising' ;.l from the weakness or misfortunes of its neighbours, to provide fields for remote generations, who, it flatters itself, will one day outstrip all other nations in warlike exploits and commercial wealth, under the auspicious stars of the Union. The present rulers of America appear to think that they shall favour most successfully the rising fortunes of their country by procuring soil whereon American heroes and lawgivers may spring up in their order to fulfil their high destinies." *' In the United States, a debt contracted in one state can-- .,ij not be sued for in the next; and a man who has committed i" murder in Virginia, cannot be apprehended if he make his way into the neighbouring lands of Kentucky."* * " The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and Immunities of citizens in the several states. " A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who "shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on the demand ol BRITISH REVIEWS. 2 " The states of America can never have a native literature SEC. "V ^ny more than they can have a native character. Even their ^■^~>^ wildernesses and deserts, their mountains, lakes, and forests, will produce nothing romantic or pastoral ; no ' native wood- note wild' will ever be heard from their prairies or savan- nahs; for these remote regions are only relinquished by pagan savages to receive into their deep recesses hordes of dis- contented democrats, mad, unnatural enthusiasts, and needy or desperate adventurers." " The steam-boat was hatched in Great Britain, and only acquired some small additional strength of pinion upon its migration across the Atlantic." [ "We are informed that experiments of sailing ships by means of steam were publicly exhibited on the Forth and Clyde canal in 1787; and were either actually witnessed by Mr. Fulton, or communicated to that engineer, who was then a resident in that part of Scotland^ of zuhich he ivas un- \derstood to be a native. In answer to some enquiries which tve have made personally on this subject, we were told that [Fulton was a native of Paisley^ in the neighbourhood of which ■place, he had steam-boats constructed, actually employed [both for experiment and use, and that he afterwards carried the invention to America," &c. •' In the southern parts of the Union, the rites of our holy faith are almost never practised." " When the American captains could not fight to advan- tage, during the last war, they ran away and in some instan- '^es most shamefully . Their Frolic^ for instance, after vainly endeavouring to escape by flight, surrendered to the Orpheus md Shelburne, without firing a single shot."* ' The Americans may become a powerful people, but they he executive authority of the state, from which he fled, be dehvered up, to )e removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime." — Constitution of he United States, Article IV. Sect. 2. • 'i'lie United States sloop of war, Frolic, referred to by the British Re- iew, mounted, according to the British official report of the capture, only 20 funs. The British ships, Orpheus and Shelburne, which captured her, after I long chase, are rated in Steele's list, the first at 36 guns, the other at 14. It vas certainly the duty of the American commander to endeavour to escape torn such a superiority of force. If he did not fire a shot, when overtaken, it vas because he had thrown his guns and ammunition ovei-board to facilitate (is flight. This is stated in the Britisli Report above mentioned. The '.harge brought against the American captain \n tiiis instance, on the ground if his attempt to escape by flight, must appear ridiculous to all who arc ac- luaintedwith naval history and affairs. I HOSTILITIES OF THE RT I. want the elements of greatness ; they may overrun a portion 'v^-' of the world, but they will never civilize those whom they con- quer ; they may become the Goths of the Western Continent, but they can never become the Greeks. The mass of the North Americans are too proud to learn, and too ignorant to teach, and having established by act of Congress that they are alrea- dy the most enlightened people of the world, they bid fair to retain their barbarisin from mere regard to consistency," &c. The barkings of the innumerable minor Reviews and Ma- gazines are incessant, and may be compared to those of the prairie dog, of which we read in the accounts of the Missouri region. They deserve as little to be heeded. I will, how- -4 ever, advert to one of them — the British Critic-^-co-ordinate with the Monthly Review, and long in the enjoyment of great consideration with the ministerial and high-church party. It has recently had a paroxysm of exprobration, on the occasion of reviewing Mr. Bristed's " Resources of America." This gentleman, a Briton by birth, educated at home, it has, like the London Critical Journal, mistaken, or affected to mistake for an American, and in reviling the diction of his book, has held him forth as a sample of American writers. If an author so affectionately and reverentially disposed towards England, fared so ill, for allowing some virtue and prosperity to the United States, these unlucky States had nothing less to expect than a merciless visitation. I would not undertake to repeat any part of the pasquinades of the British Critic, were : it not that they form a proper sequel to those of the Quarterly ' Review, and complete the idea to be entertained of the : strain in which we are celebrated in the British journals ge- nerally. The following extracts will suffice. " The Americans debated in Congress, during three sue- • cessive days, whether they were not the greatest, the wisest, bravest, most ingenious, and most learned of mankind." " The North American republicans are the most vain, egotistical, insolent, rodomontade sort of people that are any where to be found. They give themselves airs.'''' " The Americans have no history ; nothing on which to exercise genius and kindle imagination." " One-third of the people have no church at all. Three i and an half millions enjoy no means of religious instruction, ij The religious principle is gaining ground in the northern '' parts of the Union : it is becoming fashionable among the better orders of society to go to church." " The greater number of states declare it to be unconstitu- BRITISH REVIEWS, tional to refer to the providence of God in any of their pub- SEC lie acts." " The Americans make it a point of conscience never to pay a single stiver to a British creditor." " America is like a dissipated boy, combining the feeble- ness of early youth, with the libertinism of manhood ; the calculating selfishness of declining years, with the decrepi- tude and disease of old age." " America is easy to conquer^ but difficult to keep," Sec. &c. Ribaldry of this description, which, by its absurdness, softens the indignation it is fitted to excite, can require no annotation. But I think it well to examine at once the topic of the first paragraph quoted from the British Critic, — one which has now the additional disrelish of triteness, in any English publication ; so often has it exercised the wit, or provoked the spleen, of parliamentary orators and periodical censors. We have seen that the Edinburgh Review talks of "the ludicrous proposition of the American Congress to de- clare herself the most enlightened nation on the globe." The Quarterly Review also, in the critique of Inchiquin's Letters, descants scoflingly on this supposed proposition, and avers that it was withdrawn " only through fear of giving umbrage to the French Convention.'''' Mr. Alexander Bai-ing refers to it, in his pamphlet on the Orders in Council, saying, that "the Americans gravely debated once in Congress, whether they should style themselves the most enlightened people in the world ;" but he tempers the pungency of the allusion, by re- lating how a distinguished member of the House of Com- mons, Mr. Wilberforce, seriously declared in his place, and was no doubt as seriously believed, " that Great Britain was too honest to have any political connexions with the continent of Europe." By anatural progression, or diversit)'' of reading, the story now goes, as the British Critic has it — " that the Americans debated during three successive days, whether they were not the greatest., wisest^ bravest^ most ingenious., and most learned of mankind P'' This is the shape in which it will, doubtless, be embalmed by the British historians. Let us attend now to the facts of the case, as they are ap- parent upon the face of the printed debate, and remain noto- rious to all who followed the course of our public affairs at j'the time. The French revolution had divided the American people into two great parties; the one disposed for an intimate alli- ance with France ; the other averse from any connexion with the new republic, and amicably affected to Great Britain. HOSTILITIES OF THE RT I. General Washington, by adopting and maintaining the policy of neutrality between the belligerent powers of Europe, and by giving his countenance and official sanction to Jay's treaty, so called, of 1795, with Great Britain, had rendered himself obnoxious to the leaders of that division of our politicians who favoured her enemy, and would have renounced her trade. Their antagonists in Congress were fortified in their dislike and dread of the French republic, and their predilec- tion for the most friendly political intercourse and free commercial relations with Great Britain, by the ill-judged machinations and intemperate language of the French re- presentatives in this country, and the open support which the French government lent to the most insulting trespasses upon our national sovereignty. General Washington having announced his resolution to retire into private life, an election for a successor to the chief magistracy took place in 1796, and gave new animation to the feelings and plans just mentioned. At the close of the year, while this election was raging^ if I maybe allowed the term, Washington delivered his farewell address to the federal legislature ; and in the house of representatives a committee composed of five members, three of whom were friends of his administration, was appointed to prepare an answer to his speech. The draught of an answer which this committee re- ported, contained the following paragraph. " The spectacle of a whole nation, the freest and most enlightened in theworld^ of- fering, by its representatives, the tribute of unfeigned appro- bation to its first citizen, however novel and interesting it may be, derives its lustre fi-om the transcendant merit," &c. The phrase which I have put in italics found its way into the draught, from the desire of the committee to place Washing- ton at the highest elevation possible, in opposition to the de- signs of some zealots of party in Congress, who aimed at di- minishing the lustre of his personal reputation, and the credit of his system of politics. Moreover, France had not long be- fore asserted for herself the pre-eminence over all nations in freedom and political intelligence; and the authors of the draught, with those of the same side in Congress, were eager to countervail this, as well as every other overweening preten- sion, which might enhance her influence in the United States. Mr. Sitgreaves, one of the most distinguished members of the anti-gallican party, explained to the house that " the light spoken of was political light, and had no reference to arts, science, or literature ; that it was intended to make the com- pliment stronger to General Washington, and was to be re- BRITISH REVIEWS. garded as a matter entirely domestic, and not as a public act ^EC for foreign nations." The answer at large brought into view the main political questions which agitated the country, and expressed an un- qualified approval of Washington's official career. A debate arose upon the general strain of it, which lasted two days. This debate turned chiefly upon the point of " the wisdom and firm- ness" of his administration, in reference to England and France, and etnbraced the investigation of all our relations with the latter power. Objection had been immediately made to the phrase which has furnished so much sport to the British wits, not only by the opposition, but by several of the most de- cided federal members. One of these, Mr. Thatcher, finding that it interfered with the principal purpose of obtaining an appearance of unanimity in the homage to Washington and his course of policy, moved, at length, after it had been discussed with some copiousness, though incidentally, that the words " spectacle of a whole nation the freest and most enlightened," should be amended so as to read " the spectacle of a free and enlightened nation," — xvh'ich was carried without a division. In the course of the debate, a suggestion was, indeed, made, in the way of exception, that the use of the superlative would give umbrage to France ; but this consideration must have proved the reverse of dissuasive for the majority, in the state of their feelings towards that power, with whom they so soon aftewards came to open war. They concurred in the amend- ment with such readiness, from the two-fold motive of facili- tating the adoption of the material parts of the answer, and avoiding what might have the air of national arrogance. Thus we see that the famed " proposition of congress to de- dare America the freest and most enlightened nation on the globe," — the " act of congress by which the Americans esta- blished that they are the most enlightened people of the world," • — was no more than an occasional phrase, hazarded by a com- mittee in the draught of a domestic paper, for purposes dis- tinct from that of glorifying the nation; which phrase, though equally suited to favourite aims of the majority of congress, was disavowed and rejected by that majority, chiefly because ' it savoured of presumption, and seemed to infringe upon strict laational decorum. The transaction argues, on the whole, in the congress, sentiments opposite to those which it has fur- nished the English writers occasion to impute ; and, when we advert to the nature of the dispositions towards England, which were mingled^with its origin, we must deem their re- presentations still more ungracious and illiberal. An instance HOSTILITIES OF THE of the same scrupulousness is certainly not to be found in th* annals of the British parliament. I refer to the answers of that body to the speeches from the throne, and to the votes of thanks as presented by the Speakers — particularly the last, Mr. Abbot, — to the public servants whom it has distinguish- ed, for self-applause and claims of national superiority, be- yond which, no intoxication of pride, or reason of state can ever, in the civilized world, carry national pretensions. This reference from an American will, perhaps, be thought a very deficient measure of recrimination; but it is to be borne in mind, that, however transcendant may be the British nation, in all respects, in the comparison with her " kinsmen of the west," her pre-eminence, in valour and science at least, over the nations of Europe, is not so far incontrovertible and no- torious, that, while constantlv asserting it herself, she can, without inconsistency or assurance, make a standing jest of the single example of exaltedness which she charges upon the American congress. The obnoxious phrase in the draught of the American com*'- mittee was, in fact, warrantable in itself, and might have been adopted, as it was meant, with perfect propriety. The com- mittee had in view civil and religious freedom combined, and the diffusiveness of political light, and elementary knowledge ^ — points in which I think it hardly possible to contest the su- premacy of the United States. For proclaiming this supre- macy, there were strong motives derived from the peculiar * situation of the country in regard to France, at the juncture. The confidence of a part of the American people in their own institutions and political wisdom, seemed to be shaken in some degree by the pretensions of French democracy, and to stand in need of such confirmation as the body of their representa- tives could furnish, for their protection against the most mis- chievous delusions. Although I may appear to have allotted already too much space to this topic, I must claim permission to introduce the observations which were made by Fisher Ames, in congress, on the occasion. They belong, in strictness, to its history. Mr. Ames said — " If a man were to call himself more free and enlightened than his fellows, it would be considered as arrogant self-praise. His very declaration would prove that he wanted sense as well as modesty; but a nation might be called so by a citizen of that nation, without impropriety, be- cause in doing so, he bestows no praiseof superiority on him- self ; he may be in fact, sensible that he is less enlightened than the wise of other nations. This sort of national eulogiuin BRITISH REVIEWS. i may, no doubt, be fostered by vanity and grounded in mis- SEC. ^ take: it is sometimes just ; it is certainly common, and not* always either ridiculous or offensive. It did not say that either France or England had not been remarkable for en- lightened men ; their literati are more numerous and dis- tinguished than our own. " The general character with respect to this country, was strictly true. Our countrymen, almost universally, possess some property and some portion of learning, — two distinc- tions so remarkably in their favour as to vindicate the ex- pression objected to. But go through France, Germany, and most countries of Europe, and it would be found that out of fifty millions of people, not more than two or three had any pretensions to knowledge, the rest being, comparatively with Americans, ignorant. In France, which contains twenty-five millions of people, only one was calculated to be in any res- pect enlightened, and perhaps under the old system there was not a greater proportion possessed of property ; whilst in America, out of four millions of people, scarcely any part of them could be placed upon the same ground with the rabble of Europe. " That class called vulgar, canaille, rabble, so numerous there, does not exist here as a class, though our towns have individuals of it. Look at the Lazzaroni of Naples ; there are j 20,000 or more houseless people, wretched and in want ! He ' asked whether where men wanted every thing, and were in the proportion of twenty-nine to one, it was possible that they could be trusted with power ? Wanting wisdom and morals, how could they use it? It was therefore that the iron hand of despotism was called in by the few who had any thing, to preserve any kind of control over the many. This evil, as I it truly was, rendered real liberty hopeless. " In America, out of four millions of people, the proportion of those who cannot read and write, and who, having nothing, are interested in plunder and confusion, and disposed for both, is exceedingly small. In the southern states he knew there were people well informed; he disclaimed all design of invidi- ous comparison ; the members from the south would be more capable of doing justice to their constituents ; but, in the east- . em states, he was more particularly conversant, and knew the \ people in them could universally read and write, and were I well informed as to public affairs. In such a country, liberty I is likely to be permanent. It is possible to plant it in such a I soil, and reasonable to hope, that it will take root and flouri,sh I Vol. I.— P p HOSTILITIES OF THE long, as we see it does. But can liberty, such as we unde^-- stand and enjoy, exist in societies where the fe-u) only havjB property, and the many are both ignorant and licentious ? \ " Was there any impropriety, then, in saying what was a fact? As it regards government, the declai-ation is useful. It is respectful to the people to speak of them with the justice due to them, as eminently formed for liberty and worthy of it. If they are free and enlightened, let us say so. Congress ought not only to say this because it was true, but because their saying so would have the effect to produce that self-re- spect which was the best guard of liberty ; and most condu- cive to the happiness of society". It was useful to show where our hopes and the true safety of our freedom are reposed. It procured in return from the citizens ajust confidence ; it che- rished a spirit of patriotism unmixed with foreign alloy, and the courage to defend a constitution which a people really enlightened knows to be worthy of its efforts." The American Congress has had its full share of maternal abuse. It has been visited with the wrath and the pleasantry of the British writers, on other grounds than the one of which I have just treated. With the Fullers and the Lord Coch- ranes before their eyes, with the Wilkes' and the Gordons ■ fresh in their recollection, they have yet been bold enough to i single, for the purpose of general detraction, out of our legis- ■ lative annals, instances of disorderly deportment in indivi- j duals. That of Mathew Lyon and Roger Griswold, the only ' ^agrant case, is vamped up in all the reviews and books of tra- vels, as if personal violence were a new species of irregularity , in the history of legislative assemblies ; and as if the British particularly furnished no case of the kind for admonishment. But we have onl)'^ to open the parliamentary annals, to find precedents of an early date, which might have sufficed for all purposes. Take, for example, the rencontre narrated in the following extract from the history of the House of Com- mons of the year 1678, in the reign of Charles II. **• Debate on Sir J. Trelawney's calling Mr. Ash a rascal." Sir J. TrelaM-ney said — " I rise up the earlier to speak, be- cause I wish this had been in another place : but perhaps in a more sacred place than this^^'ii any man should call me rascal, * The Quarterly Review is (maugre the example of Sir J. TreJawney) greatly scandalized at the story related by Birbeck, of a citizen of the state of Indiana having declared before a spiritual tribunal, that he should not wish to live longer than he had the right to knock down the man who told him he lied. BRITISH REVIEWS. 2\ I should call him rebel, and giv^ him a box on the ear. SEC. V The cause of the quarrel that happened was this. Colonel v^''>^ Birch was saying — lose this question, and he would vote for a general toleration. No, said I, I never was for that. And Ash said — I am not for popery: — said I — nor I for presby- tery. I came to Ash and told him he must explain his words. Said Ash, I am no more a presbyterian than you are a papist. Upon which I said. Ash was a rascal, and I struck him, and I should have done it any where." Sir Wm. Harbord said — "Sir John Trelawney has behaved himself like a man of honour?'' Sir John was only slightly reprimanded by the Speaker. The nature of this proceeding and the general spirit which gave rise to it, and made the punishment so light, is as little creditable, as the affair of Mathew Lyon, who was, be it re- membered, spurned by the whole American Congress. And it is quite as fair in me to go back to the case of Trelawney, as it is in an English writer to recur to that of Lyon. Our party-heats at the period Avhen this happened, were also ex- treme, although not indeed fed by religious bigotry. If, however, a recent case is wanted, it can be furnished without difficulty. It is from the applauded Travels of Simon, 4n*England, of 1809, that I extract the following history : " The House of Commons has exhibited lately a very cu- rious tragi-comic scene. An honourable member, a country gentleman, and, I believe, a county member, took offence at some slight he had experienced during the late examination in Parliament ; and having made some intemperate remarks, supported by oaths, there was a motion, that the words of the honourable member shovdd be taken down. This produced another explosion from the honourable member, who was or- dered by the Speaker to leave the House, which he obeyed with some difficulty. The House then decided that he should be put into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms. This reso- lution was no sooner announced to him, than he burst in again, furiously calling to the Speaker that he had no right to send him into confinement ; and that the little fellow in the ^ great rvig was the servant^ and not the master of the House of ^Commons. The Speaker, in consequence of the vote of im- prisonment, was obliged to order the sergeant-at-arms to do his duty ; and the latter, with the assistance of some other officers, succeeded in carrying off his prisoner after an obsti- nate combat^ — the honourable member being an Hercules ! j What would the Parisians say to an affair like this in their HOSTILiriKS OF THE I. Senat Conservatrf^ and one of the members in grand costume, *»^ giving battle to the door keeper on the senatorial floor ?''"'* Lyon, the aggressor in the affair of the American House of Representatives, was not an American, and it is probable that those who sent him to the American legislature were chiefly foreigners. The right of suffrage in the United States is sub- ject to few restrictions ; it is acquired, after a few years' resi- dence, without much difficulty, by Europeans of every order. It would not, therefore, be matter of surprise, if men of vulgar manners and unruly spirit — strangers, with the slovigh of their native grossness and virulence, were occasionally found in our Congress. Besides, the American representatives belong to professions, and circles ofsociet}', in which the more elaborate and delicate courtesies cannot be supposed to be practised, nor self-control to be acquired, in the same extent as in what is called the fashionable and polished company of the British islands, where the legislators are boastfully said to be trained to habitual politeness, under a discipline suited to their here- ditary gentility and affluence. Yet, it has so happened, that in- stances of members, such as I have described above, are rare iu the annals of Congress; and that as much decorumhas prevailed in that body at all times, as in any similar institute of modern days. Since the era of our federal assemblies, the British Par- liament has exhibited more scenes of turbulence and inde- cency ; a strain of personal reflection has been immemorially indulged in it, which would not be borne in the former. Mr. Canning complains, in one of his late speeches, of " i\\e prac- tice in the House of Commons, of calumniating public men , on either side of the House, by imputing to them motives of I action, the insinuation of which would not be tolerated in the intercourse of private life." This gentleman allowed him- self, on the floor, to stigmatize Mr. Lambton, one of the most distinguished orators of the opposition, as " a dolt and an < idiot." In Feb. 181 T, Mr. Bennet exclaimed, in his place, ,; against " such ministers as the noble lord, Castlereagh, who yt had already imbrued their hands in the blood of their coub- i try, V and been guilty of the most criminal cruelties." Lord Ij Castlereagh replied by giving the lie directto his accuser. Up- ^ on another occasion in the same year, when vilified by Mr. j Brougham, the noble lord described the speech of the honour- j able and learned gentleman as " a strain of black, malignant, j and libellous insinuation." In reading the invectives of Mr. | Tierney, and the bitter taunts of Mr. Canning, we feel a two- ! ■ < * Vol. I. p. 63, BRITISH REVIRWS. fold wonder — at the licentiousness of the parliamentary SEC tongue, and at the impunity with which such cruel insults are offered on so conspicuous a theatre.* The general style of altercation in both houses of Parlia- ment during the American war, and at some periods of the administration of the younger Pitt, has never, I am sure, been equalled in the American congress in any stage of our party irritations. If I open the volumes of parliamentary de- bates, I fall at once upon such specimens of senatorial tem- perance as the following : " Lord Mansfield rose in great passion, — he charged the last noble lord, (Earl of Shelburne,) with uttering gross falsehoods." — Abnond''s Parliamentari/ Debates^ Feb. 7th^ 1775. " The Earl of Shelburne returned the charge of falsehood to Lord Mansfield in direct terms." — 3?c/. " The Duke of Richmond animadverted in very severe terms, on an expression which fell in the heat of debate from a noble lord (Lord Lyttleton.) He said no man could impute littleness, lowness, or cunning to any member of that assembly (alluding to what his lordship had pointed at Lord Camden) for delivering his sentiments freely, unless he drew the pic- ture from something he felt within himself, as by illiberally charging others with low and sinister designs, the charge could only properly be applied to the person from whom it originated." — Ibid. * The following, of so late a date as June 7th, 1819, is a fair specimen. "-Mr. Canning' said: The shuffing, cowardly, and evasive course recomtnend- ed by the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Tievacy, showed what was his real object, &.c. *' " Mr. Calcraft here rose to order. He could not listen in silence to the "foul, offensive, and almost unparliamentary aspersions which the right honour- able gentleman had passed on his i-ight honourable friend, on himself, and ^ on all his friends around him, &c. " Mr. Canning here interrupted the honourable gentleman. He thouglit that in debate there was tolerably fair room to give and to take ,- and when- ! } ever the terms 'indecent' and 'atrocious,' wliich had been applied to the , proposal of ministers were retracted, then, and not till then, should he re- tract the epithets which he had applied to the conduct of the gentleman opposite. " Mr. Calcraft rejoined. Cowardly, evasive, and shuffling ! from a man : _ too, who when he looked on one side on the honourable friends whom he i had betrayed, and at the other side on the honourable friends vhom lie had lampooned, but with both of whom he was now united in place, might re- ■ fleet, perhaps, on a more exact illustration of such qualities. (Hear, hear, . hear.") HOSTILITIES OF TflE Mr. Edmund Burke said : — " Sir, die noble lord who spoke last (Lord North) after extending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length opened his mouth. I was all attention. After these portents, I expected something still more awful and tremendous : I ex- pected that the Tower would have been threatened in articu- lated thunder ; but I have heard only a feeble remonstrance against violence and passion : when I expected the powers of destruction to cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, an over- blown bladder has burst, and nobody has been hurt by the crack." — Cobbetfs Debates^ 1770. In one particular form of indecorum, I might almost call it enormity, the British Parliament has gone far beyond what is known to our experience in America. I refer to the jocu- larity indulged on occasions the most pathetic in the facts, or the most solemn in the consequences for the interests and honour of the nation. During the debates on the slave trade in the years 1791 and 1792, when disclosures were made of crimes commit- ted by British captains in that trade, so dreadfully atro- cious, that even now they wring the heart, and overpower the imagination of a cursory reader, laughter resounded from time to time in the House of Commons ; and that body listen'^ ed complacently to a speech from Lord Carhampton, to which nothing can be compared, considering the occasion and sub- ject, except, perhaps, the show of dancing-dogs, under the guillotine at Paris, so eloquently stigmatized by Burke. I will take, from the debate of 1791, a more particular exam- ple of this almost incredible levity which has distinguished the British Parliament. " Mr. William Smith related the following anecdote upon the authority of ^ye witnesses. ' A child of about ten months old took sick on board of a British slave-ship, and would not eat. The captain took up the child, and flotjged him with a cat ; 'D — n you,' said he, 'I'll make you eat, or I'll kill you.' From this, and other ill treatment, the child's legs swelled, and the captain ordered some water to be made hot for abating the swelling. But even his tender mercies were cruel; fop the cook putting his hand into the water, said it was too hot. 'D — n him,' said the captain, ' put his feet in.' The child was put into the water, and the nails and skin came all ofl'his feet. Oiled cloths were then put round them. The child was then tied to a heavy log, and two or three days afterwards the captain caught it up again and said, 'I will make you eat, or I will be the death of you.' He immediately flogged the child again; and in a quai'ter of an hour, it died.' One would imagine, that the most savage cruelty woidd here have been satiated ; but, extraordinary as it might appear, of this detestable transaction, the most de- testable part yet remained. After the infant was dead, he would not suffer BRITISH REVIEWS. any of the people on deck to throw the body over, but called the wretched SEC mother, to perform this last sad office to her murdered child. Unwilling as it mig'lit naturally be supposed she was to comply, he beat her till he made her take up the child and carry it to the side of the vessel, and then she dropped it into the sea, turning- her head the other w:iy, that she might not see it !" Mr. Smith asked the committee of the House if ever they had heard of such a deed, 07i -ivhich some of the inconsiderate laughed, and on hearing it, he declared with great Indignation, that he should not have thought it pos- sible for any one man in that committee to have betrayed such a total want of feeling, and that he was almost ashamed of being a member of the assembly, iii lohich so disgraceftd a circumstance had happened." We were told by Sir S. Romilly, (March 11th, 1818,) that, " in the violence of party, cruelties which could not be heard without shuddering, had been treated in a British House of Commons with such levity, that it had been facetiously said, that the outcry which had been raised, was onlyyir a CathO' lie's having got a sore hack.'''' ,1 When the question of abolishing the use of climbing-boys fti the sweeping of chimneys {ihe zvhiie ?iegro slaves ofEiigland^ as they are called by the Quarterly Review) was brought be- fore the House of Lords in the present year, (1819,) accom- panied with harrowing details of cruelty and suffering, lord Lauderdale, who opposed the bill for their relief, got into ia facetious mood, and put his brother peers in the same, by the following, among other appropriate and refined anecdotes : " In some parts of Ireland," the noble lord said, " it had been the practice, instead of employing climbing-boys, to tie a rope round the neck of a goose, and thus drag the bird up a chim- ney, which was cleaned by the fluttering of its wings. This practice so much interested the feelings of many persons, that, for the sake of protecting the goose, they were ready to give up all humanity towards other animals. A man in a country village, having one day, according to the old custom, availed himself of the aid of a goose, was accused by his neighbours of inhumanity. In answer to the remonstrance of his accuser, he observed that he must have his chimney swept. Yes, re- plied the humane friend of the goose, to be sure you must sweep your chimney, but you cruel ha'ist you, why dont you take two ducks, they will do the job as well." {^Laughing.l Whoever was present in the gallery of the House of Com- mons, during the examination of Mrs. Clarke, in the affair of the Duke of York, can well remember the sportfulness of the House, exercised in loose allusions, and pushed, from time to time, to clamorous merriment. We have witnessed no such edifying spectacle, whether as to the cause or the effect, in the American Congress. Before I finish with this 4 HOSTILITIES OF THE ^'^T I- topic, I will offer one case more of parliamentary insensi- '''"^^**^ bility, which, together with what I have already produced, may soften the horror of the Quarterly Review at the occur- rence of" one member's striking at another" in the American Congress. I quote from the proceedings of the House of Com- mons for April 7th, 1819: — Mr. Bennet said — " That from the year 1781 to the year 1818, two thousand nine hun- dred and eighty-seven women convicts, being in the proportion of one- seventh of tlie men transported during the same period, had been sent out of the country. Of two hundred and twenty women sent from the yeai* 1816 to 1818, one hundred and twent)'-one were sentenced to the Hmited term of seven years transportation. Few of these women ever returned. Their only means of returning was prostitution. Many of the convicts had received judgment for capital offences, and many for minor ones. Now the act of the 9th of the King, chap. 74, had been drawn up on the principle, that persons convicted of minor ofl^ences ought to be confined to peniten- tiaries, and not sent at a gi'eat expense to a distant settlement. A learned and distinguished judge had told him, that on the last circuit he was about to sentence a woman to be transported, when his resolution was changed by the clerk of the peace informing him that it was nearly impossible for wo- men to return. No classification e.visted on board, but petty offenders were compelled to herd and associate with capital convicts and hardened delin- quents. This appeared to him in the light of a gratuitous infliction of pain, which was unworthy of, and discreditable to, a great country. He must complain also of the manner in which women were brought from country gaols to one spot, for the purpose of being put on board the vessels des- tined for New South Wales. One unfortunate girl had been brought from Cambridge, so bound in chains that it was necessary to saw them asunder; and another girl from Carlisle, sent up in the same way, on the top of a coach, had had her child torn from her breast ! When she was brought to Newgate, she was in the utmost state of torture. When once on board, no distinction was observed between the small and the great offender ; tlie girl whose passion for finery had prompted her to commit a petty theft, was placed in the same bed with the shameless prostitute who robbed on system. He held in his hand a letter written by Mr. Marsden, Chaplain- general in New South Wales, and stating that promiscuous intercourse be- tween the seamen and female convicts had prevailed on board a ship which had cairiedout a great number of women previously trained under the care of Mrs. Fry and others, to habits of morality and decorum. " Whether the new system of this year, with respect to the i-egulations on board female convict ships, would be better than that of last year, he should not inquire ; but he objected to a system under which, when the wo- men arrived at New South Wales, they had no place where they could lay their heads." Mr. Wilberforce said — " that in the present state of the colony, every fresh addition to the number transported, while there was no increase of accommodation, must add to the misery and vice of those who were at present there, besides plunging the new comers into the same wretched state." " Mr. F. Buxton conceived that the case of the unfortunate female con- victs deserved particular consideration. It already appeared that out of' one hundred and sixty women employed in one manufactory, there were one hundi'ed and twenty turned out every night, and obliged to depend, BRITISH REVIEWS. not to s:jy for comforts, but for necessaries, upon the casual wages of pros- SEC titution." Mr. Bathurst (one of the ministry) said — " that before he examined tlie speech of the honourable mover, he should allude to the argument of his ho- nourable friend (Mr. Wilberforce,) who had argued that no female con- victs should be sent off until the report of the committee was made, and he supposed, till some regulation was founded upon it. Now, if this argument were followed out consistently, it would go much beyond the present mo- tion, as it would apply not to one vessel, but to all convicts, male or female. But then it was argued by the honourable mover, that it was difficult to keep men, but that femides might be kept with great convenience, 8tc." {A laugh.^ Vol. I.— Q q 306 SECTION IX. OF THE EXISTENCE OF NEGKO SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES, AND OF THE BRITISH ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. RT I. * 1. I HAVE reserved for the concluding section of this first part of my Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain, the topic of our negro slavery, the side on which we appear most vulnerable, and against which the reviewers have directed their fiercest attacks. With respect to their reproaches on all other grounds, enough, I think, has been adduced to show bow strangely they have overlooked the lesson of the gospel — he that is without sin let him first cast the stone. They have aggravated the offence of malevolence by extreme folly, , in selecting heads of accusation which may be retorted with . complete success. This is as much the case in relation to i the existence of domestic slavery among us, as in any other ■ instance, and I shall not hesitate to avail myself on this oc- casion, as heretofore, of an error in reasoning, which springs 5 as well from a corruption of political morals, as from aai 4 eclipse of the understanding. Of all Europeans, an English ' man is the one, who should have most cautiously abstained f from venting reproaches, that brought Africa and the slave trade into view : If there is any nation upon which pru- dence and shame enjoined silence in regard to the negro bondage of these States, England is that nation ; but it hap- pens precisely as in all the other questions open to the most direct recrimination, that it is from her the loudest outcrie^ and the sharpest upbraidings have come. We experienced this particular injustice, even during our colonial dependence, while she was actively supplying us with slaves, and endeavouring by the most jealous precau- tions, to secure this favourite branch of her monopoly. Her writers drew invidious comparisons between the situation and prospects of the mother country and those of the con- tinental colonies, founded upon the presence in the latter, of the multitude of blacks v*^hose number and miseries she NEGRO SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. < was daily and forcibly aug-menting. When her merchants SECT and travellers returned from this reprobate land, they insti-' tilted similar contrasts; stigmatized the colonial slave-holders; and could not pardon the atrocity of retaining in bondage even the white convicts whom she had thrust into their hands. They spread, concerning the habitual state of the latter, as well as of the slaves, tales of horror, of the nature of which we may form some idea from the following passage, dated 1720, of the preface to Beverley's History of Virginia. " It hath been so represented to the common people of England as to make them believe, that the servants in Virginia are made to draw in cart and plow as the oxen do in England, and that the coun- try turns all people black who go to live there; Avith other such prodigious phantasms." The worthy and intelligent histo- rian, whose life had been spent in that colony, under circum- stances the most favourable to extensive and accurate obser- tion, bore a very different testimony, which may serve equally well for the present day — " I can assure with great 'truth that generally the slaves in Virginia, are not worked jiear so hard, nor so many hours in a day, as the husbandmen and day labourers in England ; that no people more abhor the thoughts of cruel usage to servants than the Virginians."* Since our independence, slave-holding has seemed to be fairly let loose to the Briton for the purposes of self-congratu- lation, and of the execration of American existence ; as if, in- deed, England retained no longer a connexion with the West Indies ; frequented no more the coast of Africa ; and had ac- tually *' in the midst of her rottenness, torn off the manacles of slaves all over the Avorld." The negro has invariably figured in the reports of the writers of that nation who have condescended to'visit this country, as a "goblin damn'd;" he is the chief bugbear which Lord Sheffield set up, in 1784, to deter Irishmen from exchanging the blessings of their do- mestic condition, for the miseries of the American ; which Fearon was instructed to put forward to correct that "most mischievous evil," the emigration of English artisans ; and which Birbeck has employed to draw into his own neigh- bourhood in the Illinois, such of his countrymen as persist in seeking these shores, in spite of Lord Castlereagh, and ot the effigies of that evil " which counterbalances all the ex- cisemen, licensers, and tax-gatherers of England." The Edinburgh Review having, in the 60th number, in the article on Birbeck's Travels, presented views tending to en- * Book IV, c. X. $ NEGRO SLAVERY AND RT T. courage this disposition to emigrate, would seem to have dis- covered that it had gone too far, and suddenly resolved to counteract the effects of its first representations. This is the natural explanation of the patriotic mood in which we find it in the 61st number, where every thing in Britain is repre- sented as inspiring confidence, and inviting contentment ; while all in America is made to wear a sinister and repulsive aspect. The zeal of a proselyte is proverbially ardent. Hav- ing, in a rapid evolution, set itself against emigration, this journal could, of course, " keep no measures" with negro slavery in America. Here was the yawning gulph of crime and perdition, at which an Englishman should pause, as he was blindly rushing onward from the tax-gatherer, and the "menacing hydra (pauperism) that stalked over his native land." Better remain where he was, safe from the demoraliz- ing- effects of commanding slaves, and with the consolation at home, that he had " an inestimable parliament ;" that " the next twenty years might bring a great deal of internal im- provement ;" that " the apprentice laws had been swept away," and "the strong fortress of bigotry rudely assailed." Care was taken at the same time not to inform him how large a portion of our vast country, is wholly without the institution of slavery ; how small a part of our white population is in- debted to the labour of slaves ; — that considerably more than a moiety of our whole population, inhabiting distinct portions of territory, is altogether free from the reproach and the de- triment of commanding slaves, while a great probability ob- tains that within " the next twenty years," no inconsiderable part of the remainder will enjoy the same exemption. Nor were these considerations, or the facts which I propose presently to adduce, allowed to interfere with the design of a sweeping ban against the American people, which should put every Englishman in a better humour with the " rottenness" of England, by exhibiting her in contradistinction, as the tute* lary genius of freedom, and the country after which he han- kered, as marked with fouler stains, and doubly gangrened to the very core. I have already quoted literally, the passage of the Review, which composes the grand arraignment, and will now repeat the several weighty allegations into which it is resolvable. They are as follows: — The institution of slavery is the foulest blot in the national character of America ; it§ existence in her bosom is an atrocious crime — the consumma- tion of wickedness, and admits of no sort of apology from her situation ; — the American, generally, is a scourger and vmrderer of slaves, and therefore below the least and lowest of SLAVE TRADE. the European nations in the scale of wisdom and virtue ; and, SECT above all, he sinks, on this account, immeasurably, in the com- parison with England, who, become the agent of universal emancipation, may challenge the world to decide which of the two people is the most liable to censure, upon a general consideration of their demerits. These propositions imply, and iiiay be converted into, others of this purport — that Ame- rica is chiefly to blame for the establishment and continuance of her negro slavery ; that she could have suppressed it either before or since her independence, even with safety and ease ; that it is a system of flagellation and murder, with which she is universally chargeable ; that her congress has remained in- diflferent to its enormities ; that on her own part it is incom- patible with soundness of heart or understanding, and with the love or the possession of political freedom ; that no nation of Europe, not the lowest and least, presents a similar or equally revolting spectacle of servitude ; that England exhi- bits, within the pale of her power, a clear and glorious sun- shine of personal liberty and security ; that she is in no wise implicated in the guilt of the American ; that her dispositions have always been benign, and her hands pure, in relation to the unhappy race, whom we conspire to oppress and extermi- nate ; or, at least, that if she has not always been busy in *' tearing off their manacles," and assuaging their sorrows, if she has ever been taxable with a part of their Avrongs, and stained with Vifexv drops of their blood, she has, by her subse- quent temper and conduct, purged away the taint, and made ample amends to them, and to the cause of justice and freedom. America and Britain are here put at direct issue, on points which vitally affect national character ; the American is cited, officiously and triumphantly, before the world, bv a British literary tribunal on the Areopagus of Edinburgh, to measure himself upon them with the Briton. For the sake of historical truth, as well as for our own honoui-, and the re- pulse of arrogant and invasive pretensions, we are bound to appear, and answer in the best way we can, toAvards our vin- dication, and the confusion of the aggressor. There is no keenness or latitude of retaliation which will appear exces- sive after such provocation; and indulgence will be readily granted, for the same reason, should details of fact be re- produced, either familiar to most readers, or harrowing for the feelings of humanit3% 2. I am not sorry to have an opportunity, at length, of |»leading the apology of the early American colonists, on a ) NEGRO Slavery and RT I. score left untouched in the pages which I have devoted to them in particular. What then is the first general fact which offers itself in the question ? It is this — that England, who had been actively, eagerly, engaged in the slave trade since the year 1562, herself supplied her North American colonists, from the outset, with negroes whom she sought, and seized, and manacled on the coast of Africa, and dragged and sold into this continent. The institution of negro slavery, " the great curse of America," lies, indisputably, at her door. What was her motive ? The alleviation of the lot of her sons whom she had driven into the distant wilderness ? No British writer has counted so far upon the simplicity of man- kind as to hazard this explanation. The motive was sheer love of gain ; omniverous avarice ; looking not merely to the immediate profit upon the cargo of human flesh, but to the greater and permanent productiveness of the settlements whose staples were to be monopolized by the mother country. Let it be conceded, that the colonists received the auxilia- ries thus brought to their hands, and whom they durst not reject, without repugnance, perhaps with avidity. But, con- sidering the nature of their respective motives and situation, does the guilt of the receiver in this case bear any propor- tion to that of the trader ? Can the seduced be brought down, by any principle of reasoning, to the level of the se- ducer ? If the colonists, the southern particularly, in a new climate noxious to the white labourer, but favourable to the African constitution ; exposed to much physical suffering from other causes, and to so many additional influences de- pressing for the mind ; liable to be called off from the cul- ture of the soil by the irruptions of the savage native ; — yielded to the temptation so immediate, of being relieved from the wasting labours of the field, and enabled to provide more effectually for their defence against the Indian ; — if \ve suppose them even to have gone in quest of the negro slave, in a few instances, after the mother country had set them the example, and given them a taste of the relief which he could afford, — are they not to be considered quite as excusable as we can conceive men to be by any possibility, in any instance of the adoption of domestic servitude, or, indeed, of the commission of any wrong ? It is a contested point whether the constitution even of the native white is equal to the task of cultivating the earth suc- cessfully in our southern states, in the actual condition of its surface ; but, in the first century of settlement, when the forest was still to be felled, and the climate, more noxious in itself, SLAVE TRADE. exercised a more fatal influence, the service of the negro was SECT more important, and would naturally be thought indispensa- ble by the colonists. This plea, too, may be urged for them, that, in common with some of the wisest men of the age, numbers believed slavery to be strictlj'- lawful in itself, both according to natu- ral and revealed religion. The same plea has, indeed, been advanced in favour of the slave-dealing nation ; but, though we cannot suppose the conscience of the colonist, with the bible in his hands, to have remained at rest upon the mere purchase and appropriation, at his door, of the negro, with the mode of whose acquisition, in Africa, he was unacquaint- ed, it is impossible to imagine so entire a perversion and tor- por of human reason and feeling, as is implied by the supposi- tion that the former, while exciting intestine wars in Africa, trepanning the unwary, tearing the native from the centre of the dearest ties, exercising, in short, the most nefarious arts, and fell ci-uelties, to secure the African victim, could remain insensible to the criminality of the pursuit. Another bond- age, the guilt of which none have had the hardihood to palm upon the colonists, I mean that of men of their own colour and nation, objects, for the most part, of the injustice and vengeance of faction and bigotry in the mother country, tended to reconcile them the more to the subjection of the ne- gro whom she taught them, at the same time, to regard as of an inferior species. In every way did she familiarize and train them to that institution which she now charges upon their descendants as " the consummation of wickedness." 3. It has been shown, in my second section, that the colo- nists became dissatisfied, at an early period, with the intro- duction of the British convicts among them, and endeavoured, though ineffectvially,both by remonstrance and edicts, to arrest the practice. They conceived, also, before the expiration of the seventeenth century, both disgust and apprehension at the importation of the negro slaves, and took, with no better suc- cess, similar measures for its repression. Some few of the merchants of the northern colonies had embarked in the trade, and a comparatively small number of the victims was held in servitude there ; but only a very short time elapsed, before scruples arose among the conscientious puritans and quakers, and the whole system fell into disrepute and reprobation. Clarkson has not been able to show for Great Britain, its chief patron and agent, so early and pointed an expression of just views and feelings on the subject, from any quarter, as is- NEGRO SL.WERY AND found in the following facts, which I adduce upon the autho- rity of public records, and in the language of Dr. Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire : " In 1645, the General Court of Massachusetts, which then exercised jurisdiction over the settlements at Pascataqua, * thought proper to write to Mr. Williams, residing there, understanding that the neg-rces which a Captain Smyth had brought, were fraudulently and injuriously taken and brough^ from Guinea, by Captain Smyth's confession, and the rest of the company — that he forthwith send the negro, which he ha(f of Captain Smyth, hither ; that he may be sent home ; which the court do resoh-e to send back without delay. And if you, haye any thing to allege, vrhv you should not return him, to be disposed of by the court, it will be expected you should forthwith make it appear, either by yourself or your agent.' 'v About the same time, yiz. 1645, a law was made, "pro- hibiting the buying and selling of slaves, except those taken in lawful war, or reduced to servitude for their crimes, by a^ judicial sentence ; and these were to have the same privileges' as were allowed by the law of Moses." "■' Among the laws for punishing capital crimes, enacted in,. 1649, is the following — ' 10. If any man stealeth a man or' mankind, he shall be surely put to death. Exodus, xxi. 16.' "*^ In 1703, the legislature of Massachusetts imposed a heavy dvity on every negro imported, for the payment of which both' the vessel and master were ansv/erable. In 1767, they made a# more direct attempt to effect the object of that impost. A* bill was brought into the House of Representatives "to pre- vent t/ie unnatural and nmvarrantablc custom of erislaving man- kind^ and the importation of slaves into the province." In its progress it was changed, in consequence of the utter improba- ■ bility of the success of one of that scope, with the royal go-^ vernor, into " an act for laying an impost on negroes imported.'*" Even this was sometamorphosed and mutilated by the council, that the house refused to proceed in the business. It must have failed with the governor, had it passed both assemblies, and in whatever shape, as all the royal governors had it in ex- press command from the British cabinet to reject all laws of that description. The original instructions, afterwards pub- lished, of the date of June 30th, 1761, toBenning J. Wentworth, Esquire, governor of NcAV Hampshire, contained this clause — * See the 4th vol. aiassachusetts' Hjstor. Coll. for Dr. Belknap's accoiiU of Slavery in that province. SLAVE TRADE. " Yjou are not to give your assent to, or pass any law, impos- SECT ing duties on negroes imported into New Hampshire."* The legislature of Massachusetts persisted, in defiance of the known policy of the British rulers ; and in January, 1774, framed a bill, entitled " An act to prevent the importation of negroes, and others, as slaves into this province." It passed through all the forms in both houses, and was laid before governor Hutchinson, for his sanction. On the next day, the assembly received a harsh answer, and notice of pro- rogation. The negroes of the province had deputed a com- mittee respectfully to solicit the governor's consent; he told them that his instructions forbade it. His successor. General Gage, when solicited in the same way, gave the same answer. The courts of justice in Massachusetts went farther than the legislature. Several blacks sued their masters for their freedom, and for wages for past service, upon the grounds, that the royal charter expressly declared all persons born or i residing in the province to be as free as the king's subjects residing in Great Britain ; that by the laws of England no man could be deprived of his liberty, but by the judgment of his peers ; that the laws of the province relating to an exist- ing evil, and attempting to mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it ; that though the slavery of the parents should be admitted to be legal, yet no disability of the kind could de- scend to children. The first trial took place in 1770, and ter- minated in favour of the negroes. Other suits were instituted between that period and the revolution, and the juries invaria- bly gave their verdict for the plaintiffs. The case of the negro Somerset has been the subject of unceasing boast and compliment for England. Yet, if we consider the circum- stances on both sides, it must appear less creditable than the judgment of the Massachusetts court in 1 770. The latter preceded the British decision by two years ; it was given upon equally broad principles, in the midst of a long established practice of negro slavery ; and in defiance of the system of the British colonial administration. We are told by Clarkson, that, in 1 768, an African slave prosecuted, in England, a per- son of the name of Newton, for kidnapping his wife, and sending her to the West Indies ; and obtained no more, upon the conviction of the defendant, than one shilling damages^ and an order for the restitution of the woman within six months ; that, Avith respect to the doctrine of the immediate, disenthralmentof the African slave on his arrival in England I , ' II - * See Gordon, Hist, of .^m. Rev. vol. v. letter 2. • Vol. I.—R r " NEGRO SLAVERY AND Judge Blackstone discountenanced it when his opinion was sought by Granville Sharp ; that no satisfactory answer could be obtained from the lawyers to whoiti this philanthropist applied ; that Lord Mansfield wavered, or rather inclined to the adverse sentiment; and that, until the trial of the Somer- set case, the great question had been studiously avoided. Legislative proceedings in relation to the exclusion of slaves, similar to those of Massachusetts, are recorded in the annals of the other New England provinces. Pennsylvania and New Jersey trod in their footsteps, and early displayed a strong desire, arising from the same considerations, to plant an effectual barrier against the evil of continued importation; but their enactments were regularly overruled in England.* The condition of the slaves, in all the provinces north of the Susquehannah, was more exempt fi-om hardship and ab- jection than negro slavery had ever been known to be else- where. In New England particularly, their lot was fa» from being severe. They were often bought by conscien- tious persons, for the purpose of being well instructed in the Christian religion. They had, universally, the enjoyment of the Sabbath as a day of rest or of devotion. No greater toil was exacted from them than from the white labourers, who worked in common with them. In the maritime towns, they served either in families, as domestics, or at mechanical em- ployments ; and in neither case did they fare worse than their white comrades. In the country, where they were much less numerous, altogether, and in no instance exceeded three or four in the hands of one proprietor, they lived as well as their masters, and not unfrequently sat down to the same table, as their emancipated brethren do at this day, in the interior of Pennsylvania, and the eastern states. For se-~ rious offences they were committed to the common houses of correction, to which disorderly persons of all colours were sent. To be sold to the West Indies, was the most formi- dable punishment, with which they could be threatened <^ visited. Popular opinion early and spontaneously proscribed th^ slave trade ; disgrace attached to the character of those who were engaged in it principally or ministerially ; cases of sea^ • men perishing by the homicidal climate of Guinea, or in coii- • tests with the natives ; and of death-bed repentance at home^, rendering audible and unequivocal the voice of consciencef. * The law of Pennsylvania, of 1728, imposing- a duty upon the importa- tion of netfroes, allo^vs a drawback on re-exportation. SLAVE TRADE. confirmed the public antipathy. Had there been a general SECT readiness to engage in the traffic, the opportunity could not have been found. The British merchants, and the Royal African Company in particular, which I shall mention further by and by, were too eager for the exclusive enjoyment, to al- low the provincials to share in it in a material degree. The American vessels which appeared on the African coast, were regarded as interlopers, infringing a precious monopoly. The Reports of the " Proceedings in the House of Commons on the state of the African Company and of the Trade to Africa," inform us, that " proofs were given by the Company of some ships trading directly from Virginia, and other parts of Ame- rica, and disposing of their cargoes of tobacco and other coiu- modities, the produce of that country, on the coast, and in re- turn purchasing slaves and returning whence they came, under the suifrance or rather open toleration of the governors and other subordinate persons in command." This fact of the toleration of Americans was brought forvv^ard " to prove the injury the forts and governors were to the trade to Africa ;" it being also in evidence that" the governors were all traders on their own account, or factors for principals in England, and en- deavoured to forestall the market." In stating the value of the British exports to America, Lord Sheffield remarks, in his Observations, that there was to be added " between two and three hundred thousand pounds sterling, sent to Africa annually for the purchase of slaves which were chiefly import- ed by British merchants into the American provinces." But it is superfluous to adduce testimonv of this kind, since no his- torical fact is more notorious, than that by far the greater portion of the negroes introduced into North America, was brought by British vessels, on account of British merchants, and under the special sanction of the British parliament, - 4. If the government of the mother country, to favour the British trade with Africa, laboured to prevent the exclusion of negro slaves even from New Hampshire, its policy on this head would naturally be of a most determined and jealous character in reference to the southern provinces. The history of Virginia furnishes illustrations as creditable to her, as dis- graceful to the British councils ; and, though that history in general may never have been examined by the writers of the Edinburgh Review, they cannot be supposed to have been ignorant of the following passage of Brougham's Colonial Po- licy. — "E very measure proposed by the Colonial Legislatures, that did not meet the entire concurrence of the British Cabinet, NEGRO SLAVERY AND IT I. was sure to be rejected, in the last instance, by the crown. In the colonies, the direct power of the crown, backed by all the resources of the mother country, prevents any measure obnoxious to the crown from being carried into effect, even by the unanimous efforts of the colonial legislature. If examples were required, we might refer to the history of the abolition of the slave trade in Virginia. A duty on the importation of negroes had been imposed, amounting to a pi-ohibition. One assembly, induced by a temporary peculiarity of circum- stances, repealed this law by a bill which received the imme- diate sanction of the crown. Butnever afterwards could the royal assent be obtained to a renewal of the duty, although, as we are told by Mr. Jefferson, all manner of expedients were tried for this purpose, by almost every subsequent as- sembly that met under the colonial government. The very first assembly that met under the new constitution, finally prohibited the traffic."* I have suggested the circumstances which would greatly ex- tenuate any degree of eagerness, on the part of the first inhabi- tants of the southern provinces, in receiving the British slave ships. Whatever this may have been in Virginia, the oppo- site disposition certainly manifested itself in her legislature, before the expiration of the seventeenth century. The learn- ed Judge Tucker, of that state, whose notes on the Commen- taries of Blackstone are so highly and justly valued among us, furnishes a list of no less than twenty-three acts, impos- ing duties on slaves imported, which occur in the various compilations of Virginia laws. The first bears date in the year 1699 ; and the real design of all of them was, not reve- nue, but the repression of the importation. In general, the buver was charged with the duty, in order to secure a better reception for the acts in England, and particularly to render them less obnoxious to the African Company. The royal as- sent was first obtained, not without great difficulty, to a duty of five per cent, in this shape. Requisitions for aids from the crown, on particular occasions, furnished pretexts for in- creasing the duty from five to ten, and finally to twenty per cent. In 1 772, most of the duties previously imposed were re- enacted, and the assembly transmitted, at the same time, a petition to the throne, which speaks almost all that could be desired for the confusion of our slanderers. Judge Tucker has made the following extract from it, in his Appendix to the 1st vol. pt. 2. of Blackstone : — • :Book II. Sect. i'. SLAVE TRADE. i "'' We are encouraged to look up to the throne, and im-SECT plore your majesty's paternal assistance in averting a cala-' mity of a most alarming nature." " The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa, hath long been considered as a trade of great inhu- manity^ and under its present encoiiragement^we have too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of your ma- jesty's American dominions." " We are sensible that some of your majesty's subjects of Great Britain may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic, but when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies, with more useful inhabitaJits ^ and may in time have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope, that the interest of a fexu will be disregarded when placed in com- petition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects." " Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your majesty to remove all those restraints on your majesty'' s governors of this colony^ which inhibit their assent- ing to such laws as might check so very pernicious a com- merce." .• The petition proved vmavailing. In the first clause of the itidependent constitution of Virginia, " the inhuman use of the royal negative" in this matter, is enumerated among the jpeasons of the separation from the mother country. Mr. Burke, as we have seen in one of the quotations which I have made from his speech on the Conciliation with Ame- rica, recognized her "refusal to deal any more in the inhu- man traffic of the negro slaves, as one of the causes of her quarrel with Great Britain." I must claim permission to connect here with the petition, a statement subjoined to it, by Judge Tucker, which shows that it did not cost the British go- vernment a moment's deliberation to sacrifice " the security and happiness of such numbers of his majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects," to " the interest of the few" in England. " I have lately been favoured with the perusal of a manuscript copy of a letter from Granville Sharp, Esq. of London, to a friend of the prime minister, dated March 25th, 1794, in ^hich he speaks of the petition thus : " I myself was desired, by a letter from America, to inquire for an answer to this ex- traordinary Virginia petition. I waited on the Secretary of 'State, and was informed by himself that the petition ruas rc- ^eived^ but that (he apprehended) no answer would he given?"* That the inclination to impose the yoke of perpetual bon- da|ge on any part of their fellow creatures, if it ever existed NEGRO SLAVERY AND among' the majority of the Virginia planters, soon subsided, is manifest from an act which is traced to 1662, declaring that " no Englishman^ trader, or other, who should bring in an^ Indians as servants, and assign them over to any other, should sell them ior slaves^ nor for any other time than Pmglish of like age could serve by act of assembly." Thus early was the state of slavery prohibited, where it was not exacted by the higher authority: and the first opportunity was taken, after the declaration of independence, to extinguish the detestable commerce so long forced upon the province. In October, 1778, during the tumult and anxiety of revolution, the general as- seinbly passed a law, prohibiting, under heavy penalties, the further importation of slaves, and declaring that every slave imported thereafter, should be immediately free. The exam- ple of Virginia was followed at different times before the date of the federal constitution, by most of the other states. While the mother country withheld from the provinces the power of arresting importation, and incessantly added to the number of the blacks, the abolition of slavery itself was wholly out of the question. It was rendered impossible for the southern colonists, consistently with their own preserva- tion ; and had it seemed practicable, and been attempted by any of the colonial legislatures, the royal negative would have been still more readily and vigorously exercised than in the case of importation. Even the West India Islands en- deavoured, from time to time, to limit the importation of slaves into their ports ; and were counteracted by the African interest^ as it was called, in England. In 1744, the legislature of* Jamaica laid duties amounting nearly to prohibition ; in 1774, they made a similar experiment, alleging as their mo- tive, the apprehension excited in the island by the numbers of the negroes imported ; the merchants of England engaged in the trade, took the alarm on their side, petitioned against the duties, and obtained a royal order to the governor of Jamaica to discontinue the levy. In the history of the relations of Great Britain with the American colonies in general, there is no circumstance more» abundantlj^ evidenced, than her steady determination to maintain her slave trade in the greatest activity and extent, whatever might be their feelings of disgust or apprehension; and however gloomy the aspect v/hich the continuation of it gave to their destinies. Their permanent welfare, their im- mediate comfort, weighed as nothing in the balance with the prosperity of the Royal African Company, and the plenty ol American products. SLAVE TRADE. All tfiat the English writers now pour forth about the in- SEGl Liinsic horrors and miseries of negro slavery; its obvious ^-^^ ;ind certain destructiveness to the morals of the masters ; and its equally manifest and inevitable tendencv to quench the spirit of liberty, and banish social order and domestic peace ; all, if we admit it to be true, recoils upon Great Britain, who, having these things before her e37es, yet, from the thirst of gain, — in order that her commerce and revenue should re- ceive every possible increase — opened this even worse than Pandora's box, upon the race of her offspring in this hemis- phere, and remorselessly continued to replenish it, in spite of their remonstrances and terrors, as long as the)^ remained subject to her control. The act xvhich dissolved the indentures of servants e7ilisting in his majesty''s service in America^ is the only one in the re- cords of the British parliament, that looked to the "tearing oft" manacles" here. Not a single step was ever taken by the British government, towards the suppression or mitigation, of any form of bondage in the North American provinces. 5. From the facts which I have adduced, we may confi- dently infer, that the North American provinces would, but for the oppressive and avaricious opposition of the mother country, have put a stop to the importation of negroes at a much earlier period than the era of their independence. We may even believe, that, with their general dispositions and views, they would have gone further ; since the multiplica- tion of the slaves presented, next to the will of the British government, the most serious obstacle to abolition. We have scarcely room to doubt of the course which New Eng- land, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, in particular, would have pursued, in their more favourable domestic situation, and under the influence of their more rigorous principles, had they been free to act as these must have prompted. As little doubt can be entertained, that, if their colonial connexion with Great Britain had continued, they would have been com- pelled to submit to the continuance of the evils in question. The voice of religion and humanity crying out against the traffic in human flesh, was heard at an earlier period, and more distinctly, from the bosom of these colonies, than from any other part of the British dominions. Clarkson has narrated at large, in his History of the Abolition, the systematic efforts towards that end, of benevolent individuals on this side of the Atlantic. He was unacquainted with the pamphlet of George Keith, written before the end of the seventeenth ceiitury; but NEGRO SLAVERY /iiiU he has celebrated the labours of Lay, Sandiford, Woolman, Benezet, and Rush. The Scottish critics might have learned from him, that the writings which gave the first impulse, and exerted the widest influence, in the cause which they haver united with him in exalting to the skies, issued from thisr quarter ;* that a numerous society devoted to that cause, and composed of men of all religious denominations, was organ- ized here twelve years before any association for the same purpose existed in England. There, a multitude of writers and speakers have contended for the justice^ humanity^ and evangelical character of the slave trade : here, we have had no instance of a formal vindication of it, in any shape. I have never heard of an American speech or pamphlet on the subject, which did not acknowledge its atrocity. England renounced the slave trade on the 25th of March, 1807, by a law which enacted, that no vessels should clear out for slaves from any port within the British dominions after the 1st of May, 1807, and that no slave should be landed in the colonies after the 1st of March^l808. She has claimed the me- rit of having set the example of this renunciation to the world. Lord Castlereagh boasted, in the House of Commons, on the 9th of February, 1818, that, on the subject of making the slave traffic punishable as a crime, Great Britain had led the way. Virginia was, however, a sovereign and independent state, when she abolished the traffic in 1778. Pennsylvania, Mas- sachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, had the same cha- racter, when they prohibited it to their citizens, in whatever degree or form, and under the severest penalties, in the years 1780, 1787, 1788. On the 16th of March, 1792, Denmark promulged a law on the subject of the slave trade, which pro- vided for its total cessation on the partor in behalf of Danish subjects, at the beginning of the year 1803 ; and which pre- scribed that all importations of slaves into the Danish domi- nions should cease at the same period. This law was carried into complete execution, according to the letter, and has been faithfully observed. It established, besides, some very salutary regulations for the improvement of the mind, morals, and general condition of the blacks in the Danish Islands. The American continental Congress, so called, passed a re- solution against the purchase of slaves imported from Africa j and published an exhortation to the colonies to abandon the * Scarcely an)' suggestion on the subject, of real importance, has been, made in England, which is not to be found in Anthony Benezet's \^'ork, en- titled " Some Hi^btoncal Account of Gwihea." SLAVE TRADE. trade aftogether. The third Congress of the United States, SEC: linder the present federal constitution, prohibited the carrying ^^ ^ of the slave trade from our ports. But in order to show ihore fully, the grounds upon which the American govern- *ient may contest the merit, both of priority and zeal with me British, I will transcribe from the general index to the laws of the former, the abstract of what it had done in this j^espect, before the date of the British prohibition. 1-; No citizens or othei-s to build or fit out vessels, &c. to carry on the slave .trade to or between foreign countries, &c. — Vessels fitted out, 8ic. to carrv ♦ ou the slave trade, to be forfeited, &c. (22d March, 1794.) 3. Two thousand dollars forfeit' for persons fitting' out vessels, or aiding", 8ic, 3. Owners, he. of foreign vessels, suspected of intention to trade in slaves, » &c. to g'ive bond, &c. 4. P'orfcit of two hundred dollars by citizens, for every person received on board for the purpose of being sold as a slave, &.c. A moiety to the per- ' son suing, &.c 3^. The importation of slaves into the Mississippi territory from foreign 'parts prohibited, under penalty of three hundred dollars for each one ; and slaves imported entitled to freedom. (7th April, 1798.) 6. Citizens or residents proliibited from holding any right or property in vessels employed in transporting slaves from one foreign country to ano- ' ther, on pain of forfeiting their right of property, and also double tlie =^alue of that right in money, and likewise double the value of the interest in the slaves. 7. Citizens or residents not to serve on board vessels of the United States employed in the transportation of slaves from one foreign countiy to . another, &c. on pain of fine and imprisonment, &c. (10th May, 1800.) 8. Citizens voluntarily serving on board foreign ships employed in the slave . trade, liable to disabilities, penalties, Sic. 9. Commissioned vessels of the United States may seize vessels employed contrary to this act, &c. 10. Vessels seized for trading in slaves, contrary to this act, together with .tackle, guns, goods on board, &.c. except slaves, forfeited, &c. 11. Commanders of commissioned vessels to take officers and crews of ves- sels employed contrary to this act, &c. into custody, &c. Iz. District and circuit courts to have cognizance of offences against the pro- hibitions of this act. 13. Nothing in this act to authorize the bi-inglng into any state prohibited ^persons. 14. A moiety of forfeitures to Informers, except where the prosecution is first Instituted oti behalf of the United States. 15. After the 1st of April, 1803, masters of vessels not to bring Into any port, where the laws of a state prohibit the importation, any negro, mu- iatto, &c. not a native, a citizen, registered seaman, &.c. under the penalty , of one thousand dollars. (28th Feb. 1803.) 16. The persons sued under this act, may be held to special bail. 17. Nothing in this act to prohibit the admission of Indians. 18. Vessels arriving with negroes, mulattoes, or other prohibited persons on board, not to be admitted to entry, &c. 19. If any negro, &c. be landed In any prohibited port or place, &c. the ves- sel, &c. to be forfeited: A moiety of the forfeiture to the informer. 20. The officers of the customs to notice arid be governed by, the laws of states prohibiting the admission of negroes, fkc. and vi^lantly to carry them Into effect, &c. Vol. I.— S s NEGTIO SLAVERY AND 21. The importation of slaves prohibited after the 1st of Januar)-, 1808. (2d Marcli. 1807.) 22. Vessels fitted out or sailing', after the 1st of January, 1808, for the purpose of transportinsf slaves to any port or place within the jurisdic- tion of the United States, may be seized, condemned, &.c. in any of the circuit or district courts, for the districts where the vessels may be found or seized. 23. Persons fitting out vessels, &c. to be employed in the slave trade, after the 1st of January, 18U8, or aiding or abetting, Sec. to forfeit severalh , twenty thousand dollars. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the person pro- secuting. 24. Five thousand dollars forfeit for taking on board from any of the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, after the 1st of January, 1808, any negro, mulatto, &c. for the purpose of selling them as slaves within the jurisdiction of the United States, Sic. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the person prosecuting, &c. 25. Vessels in which negroes, &.c. have been transported, their tackle, ap- parel, &c. to be forfeited, &c. 26. Neither the importer, nor persons claiming under him, to hold any right to any negro, &c. brought within the United States, &c. in violation of thi.") law. but such negro, he. to remain subject to the regulations of tlie legis- latures of the several states, &c. 27. Citizens or residents taking on board, after the 1st of January, 1808, from the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, &c. any negro, mulatto, &.c. and transporting and selling them wiihin the jurisdiction of the United Slates, as slaves, &c. to suffer imprisonment from Jive to ten years, and pay a fine, from one to ten thousand dollars. 28. Forfeit of eight hundred dollars for selling any negro, &c. imported from any foreign kingdom, See. after the 31st of December, 1807, Sec. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the person prosecuting, &c. — The forfeiture not to extend to the seller or purchaser of any negTO, &c. disposed of by virtue of any regulations of the legislatures of the several states, in pur- suance of this act and the constitution of the United States. 29. Vessels found, after the 1st of January, 1808, in any river, port, bay, &c. within the jurisdictional limits of the United States, &c. having on board I any negro, &c. for the purpose of selling them as slaves, &c. to be Ibr- feited, together with their tackle, goods on board. &c. SO. The president may employ armed vessels to cruize on any part of the coast where he may judge attempts will be made to violate this act, and instruct commanders of armed vessels to seize and bring in vessels found I on the high seas contravening the provisions of this law, &c. — Masters of I vessels seized, &.c. liable to prosecution, and to a fine, not exceeding teni thousand dollars, and to imprisonment from tivo to four years. — The proceeds - of vessels, &c. seized, prosecuted, and condemned, to be divided equally i between the United States and the officers and men, &.c. whether of the ^ navy or revenue cutters, and distributed as in the case of prizes, &c. The officers and men thus entitled are to safe keep every negro, miilatto, he, and deliver them to persons appointed to receive them, £c. 31. Masters of vessels of less than forty tons burden, not to take on board after the 1st of January, 1808, nor transport, any negro, &c. to any port on place whatever, for the purpose of disposing of him as a slave, on penalty i of forfeiting eight hundred dollars. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the per- son prosecuting, &c. — But nothing in this section to prohibit the transport- ing, on any river or inland bay of the sea, within the jurisdiction of tlie ■ United States, any negro, &:c. not imjjorted contrary to the provisions of' this act, in any vessel or species of craft whatever. SLAVE TRADE. 52. Masters of vessels, of the burden of forty tons or more, after the Ist of SEC January, 1808, sailing coastwise, &c. andliaving on board any negro, &c. \^^ to be transported and sold as slaves, &c. to make out and subscribe dupli- cate manifests of every negro, &c. and deliver the manifests to the collec- tor or surveyor, &c. The master, owner, &c. to swear that the pereons were not imported after the 1st of January, 1808, &c. — The collector or surve3-orto certify, &c. grant a permit to proceed, &c. 53. Vessels departing without the master's having made out and subscribed duplicate manifests of every negro, &c. on board, &c. or takiiig on board any other negro, &c. than those specified in the manifests, to be for- feited, together with tackle, apparel, &c. .34. The master, &c. to forfeit one thousand dollars for every negro, &c. transported, &c. contrary to this act. — A moiety of the forfeiture to the ' person prosecuting, &c. ,S5. The master, &.c. of every vessel of forty tons or more, sailing coastwise after the 1st of January, 1808, and having on board any negro, 8ic. to sell, ' &c. arriving in one port of the United States from another, to deliver the certified manifest, &c. and swear to the truth of it, &c — If the collector, '! &c. is satisfied, &.c. h'e is to grant a permit for the landing of the negro, f &c. ■36. Masters, &c. neglecting or refusing to deliver the manifests, or landingany negro, &.c. before deUvering manifests, &,c. to forfeit ten thousand dollars. .' A moiety of tlie forfeiture to the person prosecuting, 8ic. , ^i It is seen by the foregoing abstract, that federal America .interdicted the trade from her ports, thirteen years before .Great Britain; that she made "it punishable as a crime,'* ^even years before ; that she fixed, four years sooner, -the period for non-importation — which period was earlier "than that determined upon by Great Britain for her colonies. ^e ought not to overlook the circumstance, that these mea- sures were taken, by a legislature composed in considerable J.part, of the representatives of slave-holding states ; slave- holders themselves, in whom, of course, according to the doc- . trine of the Edinburgh Review, conscience had " suspended tits functions," and "justice, gentleness, and pity," were ex- ttinguished. What are we to think of the British Parliament, ^ which suffered itself to be outstripped thus by such men ? and ^;When would it have abolished the trade, had it contained van equal proportion of slave-holders from the West In- "®dies ?* * In truth, the representatives from our southern states have been foremost in testifying their abhorrence of the traffic ; an '^ abhorrence springing from a deep sense, not merely of its ini- quity, but of the magnitude of the evil which it has entailed upon their country. It was only at the last session of the • Mr. Pitt said, (1792) that the " Parliament being now fully convinced of the cruelty and injustice of the slave trade, it was their duty to put an end to it. Were" the West India planters to be con.sultcd they might think differ- ently," &c. (P.irliamentary History.) KEGRO SLAMiRY AND American Congress, (March 1st, 1819,) that a member from ' Virginia proposed the following regulation, to which the House of Representatives agreed without a division. — "'Every person who shall import into the United States, or knowingly aid or abet the importation into the United States, of any Afi-ican negro, or other person, with intent to sell or use such negro, or other person, as a slave, or shall purchase any such slave, knowing him or her to be thus imported, shall, on con- viction thereof, in any circuit court of the United States, be punished with deathP The rarity of capital punishment in the penal code of the United States, and the extreme aver- sion from a recourse to it, universally prevailing, make this instance a potent proof of the sincerit}' of the dispositions which we profess respecting the slave trade. Additional evidence not less striking, is afforded by the act which pass- ed and became a law at the same time, and of which the printed abstract is as follows : " 1. An act in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade. (3d March, 1819.) " The president may employ the armed vessels of the Uni- ted States to cruise on the American coast, or coast of Africa, to enforce the acts of congress prohibiting the slave trade. Vessels employed, contrary to law, in the traffic of slaves, may be seized by the armed vessels, and brought into port. The proceeds to be equally divided between the United States and the captors, whether by an armed vessel or revenue cut- ter. The captors to safe keep and deliver the negroes, &c. to the marshal, &c. transmitting a descriptive list to the presi- dent ; and the commanders are to apprehend every person found on board the offending vessels, being officers and crew, and deliver them over to the civil authority. The president to make regulations for the safe keeping, support, and re- moval out of the United States, of the negroes, &;c. delivei-- ed and brought within their jurisdiction, and ma}- appoint agents on the coast of Africa, to receive negroes, &c. A bounty of twenty-five dollars to the officers and crews of com- missioned vessels and revenue cutters, for every negro, &c. delivered to the marshal, &c. Prosecution, by information, against persons holding negroes, &c. unlawfully introduced. Fifty dollars to informant for each negi"o, &c. thus deliver- ed to the marshal from the unlawful holder, by judgment of the court, besides the usual penalties." 6. If there be any two pieces of history which Great Bri- tain should wish to see extinguished, in particular, they are the accounts of the African slave trade itself, and of her abo- SIAVE TRADE. ' IJtion bf that trade. Clarkson's relation of the Abolition is a SEcn memorial, which, though it has left nothing that is any wav creditable in the progress of the affair, uneinblazoned, and magnifies inordinately the lustre and utility of the result, still presents a balance of infamy, which, in my opinion, renders it desirable that the whole were expunged, for the honour of human nature. The enormity of the system of crime and cruelty which he lays open ; the hardened depravity of the sea-ports which he visited ; the pusillanimity and prevarica- tion of witnesses ; the effrontery and security of culprits ; the mean and wicked arts practised by the highest and the lowest of the kingdom, to defeat his purpose ; the long resistance of parliament, after the fullest proof of the facts ; the tenor of the speeches delivered there by some of the members in oppo- sition ; and many other similar traits salient in his book, are far from being redeemed by the act of abolition, especially when attention is given to some of the grounds upon which it was obtained, and to the sequel, which I propose to notice in due time. We Americans would trust it to the bitterest enemy of these States, to deduce a narrative of their aboli- tion of the traffic ; challenge him to lay on what colours he pleased ; and, provided he would take the facts as his ground v/ork, remain assured that while the world posses- sed Clarkson's work, we could but rise in its estimation. As a general proposition, it is undeniable, that the nation which wrested the African from his home, and sold him into perpetual bondage, is as criminal, at least, as those by whom he •was purchased, and who may have retained him in that state : It is no less evident, that after having thrown millions of ne- groes into one quarter of the world, and reaped the profits of the horrible traffic, it is not for her to upbraid the purchasers for using their bargain, and to summon them, in the name of justice, humanity, and natural rights, to relinquish at once their hold, at whatever loss and risk to themselves. Yet this is Avhat is done towards the Americans, by the writers of the Edinburgh Review, in their character of Britons, and upon the foundation of the British abolition of the slave trade. It is, therefore, fair to pass in review the facts which go to show, that they have no such privilege, but are obnoxious to the maxims which I have just stated. . The English embarked in the slave trade in the year 1562i In that year they carried slaves to Hispaniola ; and the first cargo was obtained with circumstances of abominable fraud.* * See the History of Hawkins's Voyage in Hackliiyt'3 Collection, or in the 4th Book, c. ii. of Edwards's History of the West Indies. Hawkins was after- 6 NEGRO SLAVERY AND .RT T. It proved lucrative, and immediately, associations were form<*, "'*'^^^*-' ed in England, among the most opulent and distinguished men of the countr}', to follow up the adventure. Soon the object began to be considered as of national importance, and so early as the 16th of James I, a royal charter w^as granted to a numn ber of eminent citizens of London, as a joint stock company, to carry on a trade to Africa, with an exclusive privilege. The private merchants, envious of the harvest which seemed to await the company, interloped upon the African coast, and so embarrassed the trade that the charter was abandoned. Another company was created by Charles I; but it shared the same fate, from the same cause, — the cupidity and miscon- duct of the unlicensed adventurers. " On the accession of Charles II," says Davenant,* " a representation being soon made to him, that the British plantations in America were, by degrees, advancing to such a condition as necessarily required a greater yearly supply of servants and labourers than could well be spared from England, without the danger of depopu- lating his majesty's native dominions, his majesty did {upon account of supplying' these plantations xvith negroes) publicly invite all his subjects to the subscription of a new joint stockj , for recovering and carrying on the trade to Africa." His majesty's subjects obeyed the call with alacritv ; and some of the most imposing names of the kingdom appear at the head of the ample subscription list. But poachers swarm- ed again, and "^lo^z^tditheii- natural right ^?ai(\ parliament found it expedient, in 1697, to lay open the trade for a term of years. The recrimination between the privileged and the interloping traders, unfolds abuses and enormities committed before the commencement of the 18th century, similar to those which were proved to parliament, when the question of abolition was agitated. It would be ne»?dless for me to detail the prO'^ gress of the African trade to the highest consideration and favour with the government; the contest maintained with the commercial nations of the continent for the monopoly of that wards knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and made Treasurer of the Navy. " The • success which attended the first expedition to tiuinea," says Edwards, • " appears to have attracted the notice and excited the avai'ice of the British government. We find Hawkins in the following year, appointed to the com- mand of one of the queen's" ships, th^ Jesus, of 700 tons, and with the Solojnon, the 'J'iffer, and the Swallow, sent a second time on the same trading expedi- tion. In reg-ard to Hawkins, he was, I admit, a Murderer and a Robber. His avowed pmposc in sailing to Guinea was to seize by stratagem, or force, and cany away the unsuspecting natives, in the view of selling them as slaves, &c." * Reflections on the African Trade, voir, of his Works. SLAVE TRADE. J irade, and the successful advances made to this " consum- SECT mation of wickedness." Factories were formed on the v-'^'v African coast ; forts built ; grants of money obtained from parliament;* and in the year 1792, twenty-six acts of that body, encouraging and sanctioning the trade, could be enu- merated by its friends. In the year 1689, England made a regular convention with Spain, for suppl3ang the Spanish West Indies with negro slaves from the island of Jamaica. The twelfth article of the treaty of Utrecht, (1713) "grants to her Britannic majesty and to the company of her subjects appointed for that pur- pose, (the South Sea Compaiiy) — as well the subjects of Spain as all others being excluded — the contract for introducing negi-oes into several parts of the dominions of his Catholic majesty in America, (commonly called El pact o de el assiento de neg'ros') at the rate of 4,800 negroes yearly, for the space of thirty years successively." ^ To this compact there have been two pointed references of ^i late in the British parliament, which I will repeat here in fur- • therexplanationof its character. " By the ti-eaty of Utrecht," ^ said Mr. Brougham, (l6th June, 1812) "which the execrations ', of ages have left inadequately censured, Great Britain was ' content to obtain, as the whole price of Ramillies and Blen- \ heim, an additional share of the accursed slave trade." — ^ Mr. C. Grant, jun. said, (Feb. 9th, 1818) "• that in the be- ginning of the last centmy, we deemed it a great advantage to obtain by the Assiento contract, the right of supplying with slaves the possessions of that very power which we were now paying for abolishing the trade. During the negociations which preceded the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, we higgled for four years longer of this exclusive trade; and in the treaty of Mad- rid, we clung to the last remains of the Assiento contract." By degrees the English merchants engrossed permanently two-thirds of the whole African exportation, and became the carriers for the European world. They either supplied the French Islands directly, or served as the factors of the French trader on the coast of Africa. They occasionally hired their ships to France, to be manned and equipped in the French ports. They stocked Trinidad, and the province of Caraccas, by contract with the Spanish government ; and, in the years 1786 and 1788, the Havannah. The Philippine * From 1759 to 1744, it anmially voted to the African Company 10,000/. sterling, to pay their debts ; in 1744, the grant was doubled by reason of the war with France and Spsun. 18 NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^RT I. Company of Spain, when invested with the exclusive privi« '^''^^ lege of importing- slaves into South America, employed, by contract, British vessels, manned by British seamen. The re-e^qjortation from the British West Indies, for double pro- fit, was so far encouraged, that by the West India free port act of 1766, foreign vessels were allowed to carry from the free ports, negroes imported in British ships. England es- tablished a higher reputation than any other power for skill iij the management of the trade, and in the choice and prepara- tion of the articles of barter. Among her chief exports tp Africa were British spirits, rum and brandy, guns, cutlasses^ and ammunition. Of three millions of pounds of gunpowder, which she exported in one year, one-half was sent to the West Coast alone ; and, as I have already had occasion to remark, several thousand persons were exclusively employed in Bir- mingham, in manufacturing guns for that market. In a Report of the Board of Trade, dated 17 75, stress is laid upon the ne- cessity of encouraging the trade of fire-arms to Africa. England employed from one hundred and fifty to two hun- dred ships in the slave trade, and carried off, on the average, forty thousand negroes annually ; at times, one-half more, in the year. In 1 768, the number which she took from the coast between Cape Blanco and the Rio Congo, reached 59,400, more than double the share that fell to all the other traders. Mr. Pitt said, in 1792, that Jamaica had imported one hundred and fifty thousand negroes in the course of twen- ty years, and that this was admitted to be only one-tenth of the traffic. .Mr. Dundas said, on the same occasion, that, " in 1791, the whole British importation consisted of 74,000, not less than 34,000 of which were exported for the service of foreign nations." The Pailiamentary Report of 1789, on the slave trade, states, that the whole number of negroes brought to Jamaica, from the year 1655 to 1787, amounted to 676,276, of whom 31,181 died in the harbour, from the noxious quality of the drugs employed in making them up for sale. The Edinburgh Review made the following statements in the years 1805 and 1806. " Before the American war, the Dutch used to carry, in \ their own bottoms, from Africa to Guiana, ten thousand ne- groes annually ; and it is proved, by papers laid before par- ■ liament, but which, we believe, have not yet been printed, , that this importation was greatly increased during the last: war, when those possessions were in the hands of Great Bri- tain. It is certainly not over-rating its present amount, to SLAVE TllADE. g -estimate the yearly supply of negroes carried to our conquer- SECT. «d colonies at fifteen thousand, — about one-half the supply s^^v of our own islands, which is the subject of the abolition question."* "The 38,000 slaves exported annually from Africa in Bri- tish vessels, are only in a small proportion destined for the use of the colonies ; above 22,000 are stated by the friends of the trade to be intended for the foreign settlements. To this must be added a large number of slaves carried by British vessels under cover of a neutral flag. From certain documents which we have had an opportunity of consulting, we cannot estimate these at less than 8000; and the si\pply of the conquered co- lonies considerably exceeds 10,000 annually."! Authority is to be found for much higher estimates than these. I take the following from Anthony Benezet's Histo- rical Account of the Slave Trade. " In a book printed in Liverpool, called, The Liverpool Memorandum, which contains ainongst other things, an ac- count of the trade of that port, there is an exact list of the vessels employed in the Guinea trade, and of the number of slaves imported in each vessel ; by which it appears, that in the year 1753, the number imported to America by one hun- dred and one vessels belonging to that port, amounted to up- wards of thirty thousand, and from the number of v^essels em- ployed by the African Company, in London and Bristol, we may, with some degree of certainty, conclude, there are one hundred thousand negroes purchased and brought on board our ships yearly from the coast of Africa. This is confirmed in Anderson's History of Trade and Commerce, lately print- ed ; where it is said, "that England supplies her American colonies with negro slaves, amounting in number to above one hundred thousand every year." When the vessels are full freighted with slaves, they sail for our plantations in America, and may be two or three months in the voyage, during which time, from the filth and stench that is among them, distem- pers frequently breakout, which carry off commonly a fifth, a fourth, )^ea sometimes a third or more of them ; so that taking all the slaves together, that are brought on board our ships yearly, one may reasonably suppose that at least ten thousand of them die on the voyage. And in a printed account of the state of the negroes, in our plantations, it is supposed that a fourth part more or less die at the different islands, in what is * No. 13. t No. 16. Vol. L—T t ) NEGRO SLAVERY AND RT I- called the seasoning. Hence it may be presumed, that at a '*'^^^ moderate computation of slaves who are purchased by our African merchants in a year, near thirty thousand die upon the voyage and in the seasoning. Add to this, the prodi- gious number who are killed in the incursions and intestine " wars, by which negroes procure the number of slaves wanted to load the vessels." The Edinburgh Review has declared that England is the nation Avhich "had most extensively pursued and most so?- lemnly authorized the slave trade ;" that she had been "piin- cipally instrumental in barring out from benighted Africa the blessings of Christianity and the comforts of civilization;" that it is she who had " checked or rather blasted in its bud the improvement of the African continent." The same strain is familiar in the speeches of Fox and Wilberforce. The latter reminded his countrymen, in 1814, in parliament, that they had enjoyed the largest share of the guilty profits of the slave trade. Mr. Pitt declared in 1792, that parliament ought to consider themselves as the authors of it. His more emphati-s cal language of the year preceding is recorded by Clarkson — ^ " The truth is, there is no nation in Europe which has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Britain. We stopped the natural progress of civilization in Africa. We cut her off from the opportunity of improvement.. We kept her down in a state of darkness, bondage, ignorance, and bloodshed. We have there subverted the whole order of nature; we have aggravated every natural barbarity, and furnished to every man motives for committing under the name of trade, acts of perpetual hostility and perfidy against his neighbovir. Thus had the perversion of British commerce carried misery instead of happiness to one whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of trade, unmindful of our duty, what almost irreparable mischief had we done to that continent ! We had obtained as yet only so much knowledge of its productions as to show, that there was a capacity for trade, which we checked." That capacity was, indeed, checked, not incidentally alpne, but directly ; for, in order to obviate all obstruction to the slave , trade, pains were taken to prevent the Africans from cultir vating with success, the staples of their soil, — cotton, tobaccoi, , sugar and indigo. In this point, the English were, as in alll others, pre-eminently culpable, since the number of fort^ > Vhich they possessed along the coast, with districts round each of them, afforded them better means, than any other European nation possessed, of giving the natives a taste foi* agriculture and the true objects of commerce. ^ SLAVE TRADE. 3 * f. The general character of the British slave trade has been SECT, so pourtrayed by the highest and ablest men of the British v^''^^ nation, that in describing it, I am supplied, in their language, with the strongest which I could wish to employ. The suffi- ciency of the following testimony will hardly be questioned. In the Debate on the Abolition in the year 1792, Mr. Wil- berforce said, " that of all the trades that disgraced human beings, this was the very worst. In others, however infa- mous, there were traits of something like humanity, but in this there was a total absence of them. It was a scene of uni- form, unadulterated, unsophisticated wickedness ; never was there a system so big with wickedness and cruelty." In the same debate, Mr. Beaufoy said — " Who does not recollect, that, by the evidence which the slave merchants themselves have given at your bar, it appears, that such, on board an African vessel, is the rate of mortality, that if the march of death were the same in the world at large, the whole human race would be extinguished in four- teen years, and the earth itself be converted into one vast charnel house. Show me a crime of any sort, and in the slave trade I will show you that crime in a state of tenfold aggravation. Give me an instance of guilt, atrocious and ab- , horred, and the slave trade will exhibit instances of that guilt, ] more inveterate, more strongly rooted in all, diffusing a more / malignant poison, and spreading a deeper horror. All other ^ injustice, all other modes of desolating natui-e, of blasting the ' happiness of man, and defeating the purposes of God, lose, in comparison with this, their very name and character of evil. Their taint is too mild to disgust, their deformity is too slight to offend. The shrieks of solitary murder ; whaL-.are they, when compared with the sounds of horror that daily and niglitly ascend from the hatchway of the slave ship! I have . heard of the cruelties of the Inquisitions of Portugal and Spain; but what is their scanty account of blood, when compared with that sweep of death, that boundless desolation which accompanies the negro traffic ! Superstition has been called j^ man's chief destroyer ; but superstition herself is less obdu- / rate, less persevering, less steadfast in her cruelty, than this / cool, reflecting, deliberate, remorseless commerce." In the debate of 1807, Sir Samuel Romilly said, " The cruelty and injustice of the slave trade had been established beyond a doubt. It had been shown to be carried on by ra- pine and robbery and murder ; by fomenting and encouraging wars ; by false accusations and imaginary crimes. The un- happy victims were torn away not only in the time of war, ]SrEGRO SLAVERY AND i A.RT I. but of profound peace. They were then carried across the ^^'^^ Atlantic in a manner too horrible to describe, and afterwards subjected to perpetual slavery." Lord Henry Petty said, " The slave trade produced in Africa, fraud and violence, robbery and murder. It gave birth to false accusations and a mockery of justice. It was the parent of every crime that could at once degrade and afflict the human race. After spreading vice and misery all over a continent, it doomed its unhappy victims to hardships and cruelties which were worse than death. Cruelty begat cruelty ; the system, wicked in its beginning, was equally so in its pro- gress," &c. The tone of the Edinburgh Reviewers has been in unisoil with that of the eloquent members of parliament. They have described the trade as " one long continuous crime, involving every possible definition of evil; combining the wildest phy- sical suffering with the most atrocious moral depravity;" as one " which condemned a whole quarter of the world to un- ceasing and ferocious warfare ; which annually exterminated more than fell during the bloodiest campaigns of European! hostility ; which regularly transported every six months, in (Circumstances of unparalleled affliction, more innocent per- sons than suffer in a century from the oppression of all the tyrannies in the world." In the 24th number of the Review, a picture was presented so hideous and so faithful, that the recollection of it would seem sufficient to have stayed any hand from hazarding, in the same frame, a comparison be- tween the humanity of England and that of any other nation, in reference to the sons of Africa. '' The history of the slave trade is the history of a war ofl more than two centuries, waged by men against human na- ture; a war too, carried on, not by ignorance and barbarism against knowledge and civilization ; not by half famished multitudes against a race blessed with all the arts of life, and softened and effeminated by luxury; but, as some strange Non- descript in iniquity, waged by unproA^oked strength against uninjuring helplessness, and with all the powers which long- periods of security and equal law had enabled the assailants to develop, — in order to make barbarism more barbarovis, and to add to the want of political freedom the most dreadful and debasing personal suffering. Thus all the effects and in- fluences of freedom were employed to enslave; the gifts oi knowledge to prevent the possibility of illumination ; and powers, which could not have existed but in consequence oi morality and religion, to perpetuate the sensual vices, and tt) SLA.VB TRADE. 3 ward off the emancipating blow of Christianity ; and, as if SECT, this were not enough, positive laws were added by the best v-^-^^ and freest nation of Christendom, and powers intrusted to the basest part of its population, for purposes which would almost necessarily make the best men become the worst." 8. However strong these general representations, they are more than confirmed by the details of which the world had the fullest proof. It was remarked with great truth by Mr. William Smith in the debate of 1792, in the House of Com- mons, that numberless facts had been related by eye witnesses, to Parliament, so dreadfully atrocious, that the very magni- tude of the crimes rendered them incredible to others. I will select some of the particular features in the character of the trade, and a few d the single incidents, as they were related in Parliament, upon such evidence as no longer to admit of contradiction. Mr. Wilberforce said, " it was well known that it was customaiy to set fire to whole villages in Africa, for the purpose of throwing the inhabitants into confusion, and taking them as they fled from the flames. Every possi- ble fraud was put in practice to deceive the ignorance of the natives, by false weights and measures, adulterated commo- dities, and other impositions of the sort." " On the windward coast an agent was sent to establish a settlement in the interior country, and to send down to the ships such slaves as he might be able to obtain ; the orders he received from his captain were a very model of conciseness and perspicuity ; ' he was to encourage the chieftains, by brandy and gunpowder, to go to war, and make slaves.' He punctually performed his part, the chieftains were not back.> ward on theirs ; the neighbouring villages were ransacked, being surrounded and set on fire in the night; their inhabitants were seized when making their escape, and being brought to the agent, were by him forwarded, men, women, and chil- dren, to his principal on the coast. Mr. How, a botanist, who, in the service of government, visited that country with captain Thomson, gave in evidence, that being at one of the subordinate settlements on the Gold Coast, on the arrival of an order for slaves from Cape Coast Castle, the native chief immediately sent forth his armed pai'ties, who, in the night, brought in a supply of all descriptions, and the necessary as- sortment was next day sent off, according to the order. The : wide extent of the African coast furnished but one uniform • detail of similar instances of barbarity." " The exciting of wars," added the same speaker, " be- tween neighbouring states, is almost the slightest of the evils NEGRO SLAVERY AND Africa is doomed to suffer frotn this trade. Still more into- lerable are those acts of outrage which we are continually*, stimulating the kings to commit on their own subjects. A chieftain, to procure the articles for the gratification of ap- petites which we have diligently and too successfully taught them to indulge, being too weak or too timid to attack his neighbours, sends a party, of soldiers by night to one of his. own defenceless villages ; they set fire to it, and hurry the inhabitants to the ships of the traders, who, hovering like vultures bver these scenes of carnage, are ever ready fol* their prey. We are perpetually told of villages half con- sumed, and bearing every mark of recent destruction. Whi- thersoever a man goes, be it to the watering place or to the field, he is not safe. He can never quit his house without fear ■ of being carried off by fraud or by force. When the chief- tains are going up the country to make war in order to pro- cure s;aves, they are supplied with muskets and cutlasses by the traders." Mr. Pitt said on the same occasion — " Can we hesitate in deciding whether the wars in Africa are their wars or ours. It was our arms in the river Cameroon, put into the hands of the negro trader, that furnished him with the means of pushing his trade, and I have no more doubt they are Bri- tish arms put into the hands of Africans, which promote uni- versal war and desolation, than I can doubt of their having done so, in that individual instance." Mr. Wilberforce related, that in the year 1789, in the' neighbourhood of the river Cameroon, the master of a Liver-^ pool ship, of the name of Bibby, fraudulently carried off thirty- two relations of one of the chiefs of the country, who had been put on board as pledges for goods : and to illustrate the fa- miliarity of the practice, he quoted the following anecdote. " When General Rooke commanded in his majesty's settle- ments at Goree, some of the subjects of a neighbouring king, with whom he was on terms of amity, came to pay him A friendlv visit ; there were from 100 to 150 of them; men, wo- men, and children ; all was gaiety and merriment, it was a scene to gladden the saddest, and to soften the hardest: heart : but a slave captain, ever faithful to the interest of his . employers, is not so soon thrown off his guard; with whaft astonishment would the House hear, that in the midst of this ; festivity, it was proposed to General Rooke to seize the whole of this unsuspecting multitude, hurry them on board the ships, and carry them off to the West Indies. It was not merely one man, but three, who were bold enough to venture on such a SLAVE TUADK. 6t proposal. Three English slave captains preferred it as their SECT, i joint request, alleging the precedent of a former governor^ who '"^'^'^ in a similar case., had consented P'' &c. One more of the numberless authenticated occurrences of this nature, will suffice. " Mr. Wilberforce said that these enormities were increasing ; for, no longer ago than last Au- gust, (1791,) when that House was debating on the subject of this very trade, six British vessels had anchored off the town of Calabar, in Africa, a town which seemed devoted to mis- fortune. It appeared, from the report, that the natives had raised the price of slaves. The captains consulting together, agreed to fire on the town, to compel them to lower the price of their countrymen. To heighten, if possible, the shame of this proceeding, they were prevented for some time, froni effecting their purpose, by the presence of a French captain, who refused to join in their measures, and purchased at the high price which had been put upon the slaves." " However, in the morning they commenced a fire, which lasted for three hours. During the consternation, the wretch- ed inhabitants were seen making their escape in every direc- tion. In the evening, the attack was renewed, which con- tinued until thev agreed to sell their slaves at the price stipu- lated by the captains. In this attack upwards of twenty persons were destroyed." The situation of the slaves on board ship, or what is com- monly cd\\Q.6. the middle passage^ even surpassed in horror the depravity and cruelty exhibited in the original acquisition. Lord Grenville declared in 1806, in tlie House of Lords, " that in the transportation of the negroes, there was a greater portion of misery condensed within a smaller space, than had '\ ever existed in the known world. This he had said on a for- mer occasion, and would repeat." Mr. Fox observed, in the House of Commons, that " the acts of barbarit)^, proved upon the slave captains in the course of the voyages, were so extra- vagant that they had been attributed to insanit}^." The single instance of the British ship Zong, in 1781, from v/hich the / captain threw into the sea one hundred and thirty-two slaves, alive, in order to defraud the underwriters in England, gives a truly demoniac character to the temper and conduct of the commanders of the slave ships. The assertion of Lord Gren- ville, just quoted, would seem to be warranted by the facts which were in undeniable evidence before the committees ot Parliament. With respect to tiie middle passage — apart from the administration of the chip's officers, still more har'narous, than the situation v/as deplorable, — the principal features of 3 JS.EGHO SLAVERY AN6 ^"^ ^- it are these, according to the testimony of witnesses produced "^'"^^ on the side of the trade. Every slave, whatever his size might be, had only five feet six inclies in length, and sixteen inches in breadth, to lie in. The floor was covered with bodies stowed or packed accord- ing to this allowance. But between the floor and the deck or ceiling were platforms, or broad shelves, in the midway, which were covered with bodies also. The height from the floor to the ceiling, within which space the bodies on the floor and those on the platforms lay, seldom exceeded five feet tw© inches, and in some cases it did not exceed four feet. The men were chained, two and two together, by their hands and feet, and were chained also by means of ring-bolts, which were fastened to the deck. They were confined in this manner at least all the time they remained upon the coast, ■which was from six weeks to six months, as it might happen. Their allowance consisted of one pint of water a day to each person, and they were fed twice a day with yams and horse- beans. Instruments were kept on board to force them to eat, when sulky. After meals, they jumped up in their irons for exercise. This was so necessary for their health that they were whipped if they refused to do it, and often danced thus under the lash. They were usually fifteen or sixteen hours below deck out of. twenty-four. In rainy weather they could not be brought up for two or three days together. If the ship was full, their situation was then inexpressibly distressing. They drew their breath with anxious and laborious efforts. Thus crammed together, some died of suffocation, and the filth and noisomeness occasioned putrid and fatal disorders ; so that the officers who inspected them in a morning, had occa- sionally to pick dead slaves out of their rows, and to unchain their carcases from the bodies of their fellow-sufferers, to whom they were fastened. The scenes and practices in the next stage of the sacrifice, — the sale in the West India port, — rivalled those of the transportation. The slaves who survived the passage, fre- quently arrived in a sickly and disordered state, and then they , were made up for the market, by the means of astringents, washes, mercurial ointments, and repelling drugs, so that their wounds and diseases might be hid. Many people in th&i islands, in Jamaica particularly, were accustomed to speculate.! in the purchase of those who were left after the first day's sale. They then carried them out into the country, and re- tailed them there. A most respectable witness declared that, SLAVE TRADE. Ke had seen these landed in a very wretched state, sometimes SECT in the agonies of death, and sold as low as a dollar, and that ~ he had known several to expire in the piazzas of the vendue- Biaster. 9. In the list of the evils and atrocities accompanying this trade, one of the most certain and shocking, was the extensive mortality, independent of that inseparable from the wars and devastations in Africa, to which it gave rise. We read in Macpherson's Annals, that the whole number of negroes de- livered, fell short of the number shipped, twenty or thirty per cent. ; that in Jamaica, if fifteen out of twenty new negroes bought, were alive at the end of three years, the purchaser was thought very lucky. We are told by the Edinburgh Re- view, (No. 8,) that upon an average, no less that seventeen in an hundred died before they were landed, and that there was a further loss of thirty-three in the seasoning, arising chiefly from diseases contracted during the voyage. " Of the Afri- cans," says Dr. Dickson, in his Mitigation of Slavery, " above one-fourth perished on the voyage to the West Indies ; and 4|- per cent, more, being nearly the annual mortality of London, died on an average, in the fortnight intervening between the day of entry and sale. To close this awful triumph of the king of terrors, between one-third and one-half, or about two in five were lost in " the seasoning," within the three first years." The representations of Mr. Wilberforce on this head were never invalidated, and are as follows. " It would be found," he said, " upon an average of all the ships, upon which evidence had been given, that, exclusively of such as perished before they sailed from Africa, iiot less than twelve and a half per cent, died on their passage ; besides these, the Jamaica report stated, that four and a half per cent, died while in the harbours, or on shore, before the day of sale, which was only about the space of twelve or fourteen days after their arrival there, and one-third more died in the sea- soning, and this in a climate exactly similar to their own, in which they were acknowledged to be heakhy. Thus out of every lot of one hundred shipped from Africa, seventeen died in about nine iveeks^ and not more than fiftij lived to become effective labourers in our islands.'''' Mr. Wilberforce adduced, on another occasion, upon the authority of indisputable evidence, some cases of particular mortality, of which I will transcribe his relation, because it brings into view additional attributes of the trade. " It was no longer ago than in the year 1788, that Mi*. Vol. I.— U u NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^^ ^- Isaac Wilson, whose intelligent and candid manner of giving his evidence, could not but impress the committee with a high opinion of him, was doomed to witness scenes as deep- ly distressing as almost ever occurred in the annals of the slave trade." " His ship was a vessel of three hundred and seventy tons, and she had on board six hundred and two slaves, a number greater than we at present allow, but rather less, I think, than what was asserted by the slave merchants to be necessary, in order to carry on their trade to any tolerable profit. Out ot these six hundred and two she lost one hundred and fifty-five. I will mention the mortality also of three or four more vessels, which were in company with her, and belonged to the same owner. One of them brought four hundred and fifty, and buried two hundred; another brought four hundred and sixty- six, and buried seventy-three ; another brought five hundred and forty-six, and buried one hundred and eighty-eight : be- sides one hundred and fifty-five from his own ship, his num- ber being six hundred and two ; and from the whole four, after the landing of their cargoes, there died two hundred and twenty. He fell in with another vessel, which lost three hundred and sixty-two : the number she had brought was not specified. To these actual deaths, during and immediately after the voyage, and the subsequent loss in what is called the seasoning, I consider that this loss would be greater than ordinary in cargoes landed in so sickly a state. Why, sir, were such a mortality general, it would, in a few months, de- populate the earth. We asked the surgeon the causes of these excessive losses, particularly on board his own ship, where he had it in his power to ascertain them. The substance of his reply was, that most of the slaves appeared to labour under a fixed dejection and melancholy, interrupted now and then by lamentations and plaintive songs, expressive of their con- cern for the loss of their relations and friends, and native country. So powerfully did this operate, that many attempted various ways of destroying themselves ; some endeavoured to drown themselves, and three actually effected it; others obsti- nately refused to take sustenance, and when the whip and other violent means were used to compel them to eat, they looked up in the face of the officer, who unwillingly executed this painful task, and said, in their own language, ' Presently we shall be no more.' Their state of mind produced a ge- neral state of languor and debilitv, which were increased, in many instances, by an unconquerable abstinence from food, ajrising partly from sickness, partly, to use the language ,of SLAVE TRADE, | slave captains, from * sulkiness.' These causes naturally SECT produced the dysentery ; the contagion spread, numbers were daily carried off, and the disorder, aided by so many powerful auxiliaries, resisted all the force of medicine. " The ship in which Mr. Claxton, the surgeon, sailed, since the regulating act, afforded a repetition of all the same horrid circumstances I have before alluded to. Suicide, various ways, was attempted and effected, and the same barbarousr expedients were resorted to, in order to compel them to con- tinue an existence too painful to be endured : the mortality also was as great." 10. Bryan Edwards, in his History of the West Indies,*- computes the total import of negroes, in British vessels, into all the British colonies of Amei'ica and the West Indies, from 1680 to 1786, at 2,130,000, being on an average of the whole, 20,095 annually. He acknowledges that this estimate " is much less than is commonly supposed," and that he had not *' sufficient materials to enable him to furnish an accurate statement." There can be no doubt that he is far short of the real number. It is calculated, as we have seen, by Ander- son, that the annual British export from Africa was one hun- dred thousand, and the annual mortality twenty thousand. Mr. Long confesses, in his History of Jamaica, that twenty- seven thousand were imported into that island in two years and an half; and Mr. Edwards puts down the Jamaica importa- tion at one-third of the whole. The Dutch colonies of De- merara, Guiana, and Berbice, fell into the hands of Great Britain in 1797 ; and immediately called for a great number of negroes, having been prevented from supplying themselves during the war. It is averred in the Edinburgh Review, (No. 24,) that the British slave trade then rose to fifty-seven thousand, and continued at that standard for eight years ; that is, until 1805, when the importation into the Dutch colonies was terminated by an order in council, to appease the jealou- sies and clamours in the old islands. Taking the data which the statements quoted in the preced- ing pages afford, I should not certainly transcend the mark, if I added ten thousand to the average of Edwards. If we state it, in round numbers, at thirty thousand, we shall have, for the one hundred and sixyears,three millions one hundred and eighteen thousand negroes imported into the Bi-itish possessions alone. But to have the whole number which Great Britain obtained ••B.IV.C.2. I NEGRO SLAVERY AND flT I. from Africa, we must bring into the account those whom she procured antecedent to the j-ear 1680, and after the year 1 786 ; those whom she imported directly into the foreign posses- sions, under her contracts, and otherwise; and also, those who perished on her hands on the coast of Africa, and in the trans- portation. The aggregate ofher immediate prey musthave ex- ceeded six millions, and we may rate the direct mortality for which she is answerable, at two millions, for the century of the trade preceding the abolition.* If we call to mind, besides, the general physical suffering undergone by the survivors, be- fore the)'^ reached their ultimate, most calamitous lot; the men- tal agony implied in their divulsion from their native soil and the bonds of kindred and friendship ; we must stand aghast, at the account of crime which remained open against the British nation at the time of the abolition. In addition to the items mentioned, those are of no small moment which are suggested in Mr. Pitt's apostrophe to the House of Commons. " Do you think nothing of the ruin and the miseries in which so many other individuals, still remaining in Africa, are involved, in consequence of carrying off so many myriads of people ? Do you think nothing of their families which are left behind ; of the connexions which are broken ; of the friendships, attach- ments, and relationships that are burst asunder ? Do you think nothing of the miseries, in consequence, that are felt from generation to generation, of the privation of that happiness which might be communicated to them by the introduction of civilization, and of mental and moral improvement ?" From the foregoing exposition, it may be asserted, with confidence, that the British slave trade caused immediately, during the two centuries of its legal prosecution, the destruc- tion of more negroes than have existed, altogether, in North America, since the first settlement. The leaders of the abo- lition, the Pitts, the Foxes, the Horsleys, did not hesitate to bestow upon that destruction the most fearful of epithets. *' What is it," exclaimed Lord Grenville, " but murder to * This is much below the calculations of her own writers. " The num-i ber," says one of these, " of slaves which the ships profess to take is not an' exact criterion of the number actually taken. The public number does not include the quota, allowed to the respective officei-s of the ship ; nor do the owners confine themselves to any exact number, if, on the arrival of the ship in Africa, the commodity is cheaper than they expected." For obvi- ous reasons, the mortality of the negroes in the transportation would not be disclosed in all its extent. The number smuggled by the British into the Spanish possessions, while they enjoyed the assiento, was not inconsiUer* able. SLAVE TRADE. | pursue a. practice which produced annually untimely death to SECT, thousands of innocent and helpless beings !" Now, I would "^^^"^ ask, which it is, the Briton or the American, that can, with most propriety, be stigmatized, nationally, as " a murderer of slaves ?" If we admitted as true all that the British writers have re- lated of the condition and treatment of the slaves in this country, we could yet defy them to make out an amount of injustice, and suffering, and cruelty, in any way equal to that which the}' have charged and proved upon their African trade. In portentous individual instances of inhuman conduct, whe- ther as to enormity or multitude, that trade far outstrips the North American negro slaverA'; the history of which presents, indeed, no authenticated case of barbarity which does not ap- pear almost venial, in thecomparison with the monstrous pro- ceedings consigned in the parliamentary minutes of evidence. 11. The thirst of gain and the ambition of commercial su- premacy, which engaged and animated the British people and government in this detestable traffic, inspired them with the aim of monopolizing every market for human flesh. The cargo of negroes was carried with equal readiness to Caraccas or to Jamaica, to Pennsylvania or to Guiana. No discrimi- nation was made as to the character of the masters to whose absolute will they were to be consigned, or to the nature of the climate or the toil which they were to undergo. The French and the Spaniards had, like ourselves, their full shai-e of obloquy from the English traveller, on account of the seve- rity of their rule over the very slaves whom the English tra- der sold to them ; and the French and Spanish character stood degraded, on the same account, in elaborate contrasts with the British, when the French and Spanish ports were crowded with British slave ships, and the British ministers struggling for the prolongation of the Assiento-contract. Doubtless, Great Britain was answerable for the fate of the whole number of beings whom she delivered over to perpe- tual bondage in this hemisphere ; knowing the temper and habits of the Spanish and French planters, she partook in the guilt of their excesses of cruelty towards the slaves whom they had received from her ships. In the case of the slavery in her own islands she was more than an accessary ; and it could not be surpassed in hardship and inhumanity. That in the American Provinces was universally acknowledged to be much more mild. While every where in the latter, i NEGRO SLAVERY AND l^T L there was an excess of births over deaths among the ne- ^'"^"^ groes, and in some, a rapidity of increase; in the British West Indies, the whole stock requii-ed renewal in less than fifteen years.* I had intended to copy from the parliamentary statements some of the facts illustrative of this additional waste of the human species, and of the condition and treatment of the negroes, under British dominion ; but I have already dealt 3n details of this nature, as much as is compatible with my limits, and the tenderness due to the feelings of my readers. It is enough to refer to the debates in the British parliament on the abolition, and on the slave registry bills. The tone of the British writers has often been such on these subjects, as if they considered the conscience of England clear with respect to the slave trade and to slavery, because these were imknown in her own immediate territory. This miserable casuistry was noticed in Parliament in the year 1792, in the following pointed and just remarks. " Mr. Robert Thornton said, — the people of England were called a humane set of people. Liberty was the boast of our island ; and it was said that no African was landed on our soil, who did not instantly become free. They were guilty, however, of a contradiction, as long as they sent those misera- ble wretches elsewhere into slavery j they were governed by Ji selfish principle ; they could send these wretches out of their sight to be vilified, and disgraced, and, scourged, but they did not themselves like to witness their cries, their tears, and all their degradation. He recollected an old motto, * Qui facit per alium, facit per se.' " Neither the Parliament nor nation could, at any time, plead ignorance of the character of the trade, and of West India slavery. The collections of early voyages ; the reports of tra- * " According to Sii* Isaac Newton," says Dr. Dickson, " mankind die ofF, and are renewed every tliirty-three or thirty-four years. But the slaves col- leclively, bought and bred, die off, and are renewed, in about fifteen years; and therefore more than twice as fast as the rest of the species; and the bought alone more than four or Jive thnes as fast." When the whole number of slaves in the Bi'ilish West India Islands was computed at 265,666, the an- mial consumption of them was estimated at 23,743, Mr. Malthus remarks ia the Appendix to his Essaj^ on Population, that if the slaves in the West In- dies had been only in a tolerable condition; if their civil condition and moral habits had been made only to approirch to those which prevail among the -mass of the human race in the worst governed countries in the world, it is contrary to the general laws of nature to suppose, that they would not have been able by procreation fully to supply the effective demand for labour. SLAVE TRADE. . vellers ,•" the mutual, printed accusations of the Royal Afri-SE,CT can Company, and the private adventurers ; the inevitable notoriety of facts where considerable cities were almost en- tirely devoted to the traffic ; the constant intercourse with the West Indies, through all ranks of life ; the solemn admoni- tions of the writers whom Clarkson has cited ; the insurance eases which were brought into the courts of justice ; preclude the charitable supposition that mercy, and justice, and honour were unconsciously trampled upon in the race of com- mercial competition. Mr. Wilberforce, after displaying, in bis speech of 1792, the enormities of which I have men- tioned a small part, added, " nor do we learn these transac- tions only from our own witnesses ; they are proved by the testimony of slave-factors themselves, whose works were written and published long before the present enquiry." < I have observed that, until the year 1786, no society was formed among any description of persons in England, which had for its object the abolition of the trade. The callousness of the government too is almost inconceivable, Clarkson re- lates that Granville Sharp communicated all the facts of the hideous case of captain Zong, with a copy of the trial to the Lords of the Admiralty, as the guardians of justice upon the seas, and to the duke of Portland, as principal minister of state ; but that no notice was taken by any of them, of the information thus imparted. When the Quakers presented, in 1783, their petition to Parliament against the slave trade, — the first of that purport ever presented, — Lord North ad- mitted, in the House of Commons, the grievousness of the evil, and only "• regretted that the trade against which the "petition was so justly directed, was, in a commercial view become necessary to almost every nation in Europe." In 1776, the estimable David Hartley, after exposing to the House of Commons, the abominations of the slave trade, and laying on the table of the House some of the fetters and other instruments of torture employed on board of the slave ships, moved "that the slave trade was contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man." This motion was seconded by the patriot and philanthropist, Sir George Saville, who lives so brilliantly in the splendid eulogy of Burke ; and yet it failed utterly. The proceeclings of the Commons the year following, (1777,) on the state of the African Company, are remarkable on account of the tone which prevailed in the discussion. It was such, as if the trade were not only unimpeached, but Unimpeachable. Nothing betrayed the business to be con- sidered in any other light than as an ordinary one, except. t NEGRO SLAVERY AND T^i' I- perhaps, the folloAving remarks of Mr. Temple Luttrell, who "^""^^ had the charge of unfolding the case of the Company and the interests of the trade. "• Some gentlemen may, indeed, ob- ject to the slave trade as inhuman and impious, but, hard as the case of a negro slave may appear to a free born Briton at first view, I conceive him to be far less an object of comiaii- seration, (his native state and local birthright being taken into the comparison,) than a poor impressed sailor within this island," &c. Another extract from the speech of Mr. Lut- trell, which passed without animadversion, will show the pre- vailing temper and policy on the subject; — how coollv and nicely the comparative value of human flesh was calculated in an assemblv of *■' free born Britons." " In the slave ti-ade also, there might be prodigious im- provements ; but the attention of the Board of Trade and Plantations in this matter has been too much limited ; the ne- groes from the Gold Coast suit our West India islands remark- abh^ well ; they are laborious, bold, hardy, and live upon little besides salt fish and roots^ which they meet with in Jamaica. The negroes from Congo, Angola, and the lower Guinea, are of a more soft, voluptuous, and efteminate nature, and their women chiefly till the ground ; so that upon being transplant- ed to the hardsiiips of oar sugar colonies, they commit suicide rather than endure them : hence it is thatone Gold Coast negro is worth, for sugar plantations, two of the others; but in North America^ xvhere they meet with food and entertainment^ and usage better adapted to their habits^ they do perfectly xvelL''^ 12. At length, in 1787, through the indefatigable exertions of a few humane individuals in the middle ranks of life, the enormities of the slave system, in all its stages, were forced upon the attention of the government and nation. A member of parliament of great personal consideration, took up the subject of abolition with the zeal of an apostle, and the reso- lution of a martyr. He announced his intention to summon the government to the performance of its duty ; and at once a, din of protestation and fierce defiance arose from every quar- / ter. The slave trade, says Clarkson, " appeared, like the fabu-. I lous hydra, to have a hundred heads; the merchant, the plan- ' ter, the mortgagee, the manufacturer, the politician, the legis- lator, the cabinet minister, lifted up their voices against its annihilation." The humanit)- and patriotism of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, and of some other distinguished orators of parliament, were, however, enlisted with Wilberforce ; and no inconsider- able number of auxiliaries had been gained throughout the*: SLAVE TRADE. country, by the diffusion of the tracts of Benezet, Sharp, and SECl Clarkson ; of pathetic songs, and moving pictures, and what- ""^^^ ever could vivify public feeling and excite national shame. Among the higher classes, little real progress would seem to have been made ; since, according to Clarkson, most of the persons of rank and fortune in the west end of the metropolis, were converts to a pamphlet from the pen of a Liverpool champion, entitled, " Scriptural Researches on the Licitness of the Slave Trade," in which the holiness of the trade was stoutly maintained. In 1788, when a sufficiently marked excitement had been produced in the country, and the imposing shape of evidence before the privy council given to facts, a bill was brought into the House of Commons for the mere regulation of the trade, i so as to diminish the miseries of the middle passage. At this day, it is scarcely credible what resistance was made, both in doors and out, to this bill, which common humanity seemed to exact ; what dilution it underwent in its progress ; and how narroAvly it escaped extinction, notwithstanding the earnest support of the minister, and a phalanx of the ablest rhetori- cians who have ever existed. It was bandied several times in new forms, between the two houses, and at length passed I the Lords, through an ordeal, says Clarkson, as it were, of fire. He adds, that it was " the first bill which ever put fetters upon the destructive monster — the slave trade;" but the fact soon transpired, that it missed its aim, and was interpreted by the slave merchants into an additional charter, or recognition of their pursuit as a lawful branch of commerce. In 1789, Mr. Wilberforce ventured to lay upon the table of the House of Commons, as subjects for future discussion, twelve historical propositions founded upon the evidence in the case of the slave trade, reported by the privy council. Matters were not ripe for the proposal of abolition to parlia- ; ment, until 1791, when Mr. Wilberforce made his first grand : motion to that effect. After a vehement and protracted debate, in which the leaders of the cause exerted their utmost ability, it was lost by a considerable majority. For the opinion to be entertained of this result, I need only refer to the language of ,1 ' Mr. Fox and the Edinburgh Review. Mr. Fox said, in the de- ,1 bate, that" the trade was defensible upon no other ground than : that of a highwayman ; and that if the house, knowing as they did by the evidence, what it was, did notb)- their vote, mark to all mankind their abhorrence of a practice so savage, so enor- . mous, so repugnant to all laws human and divine, they would consign their character to eternal infamv." The Edinburgh Vol. I.— X X k NEGRO SLAVERY AND Review has told us, that " the question of the slave trade was always one in which interest, or an apprehension of in- terest, stood more daringly and nakedly opposed to humanity and justice, than any other on record." Certainly, never was a question of such awful import, so treated as this was, by the numerous advocates of the slave trade in Parliament. / On the occasion just mentioned, Mr. Grosvenor said, " that gentlemen had exhibited a great deal of eloquence in ex- I hibiting in horrid colours, the traffic in slaves. He acknow- ( ledged it was not an amiable trade ; but neither was the trade \ of a butcher an amiable trade ; and yet a mutton chop was^ \ nevertheless^ a good thing.''''* \ Another and equally strenuous effort was made, the ensu- ing year, in the House of Commons, by the abolitionists. The house rejected the proposition of Mr. Wilberforce, but manifested a disposition to vote a gradual abolition. So much, after the admissions extortedbythe testimony, from the lead- ers of the majority, and with the prospect of an effervescence of public sentiment from the cogent arguments and eloquent pictures of the speakers in the affirmative, could not, in decency or policy, be refused. Mr. Pitt, who, on this occa- sion, put forth all the energies and beauties of his unrivalled oratory, afterwards expressed himself in his place, in these terms : " I feel the infamy of the trade so heavily, and see thie impolicy of it so clearly, that I am ashamed I have not been able to convince the house to abandon it altogether at an in- stant — to pronounce with one voice the immediate and total abolition^ There is no excuse for us, seeing this infernal traffic as we do. It is the very death of justice to utter a syllable in support of it." Mr. Dundas, one of the antagonists of immediate abolition, in a short time, brought in a bill for a gradual one, with some singular additions. He proposed that, for the futme, none but young persons should be allowed to be taken from Africa, , and that a bounty should be given upon the importation of young negresses into the West Indies. On this latter point, Mr. Fox, in his overwhelming answer to Mr. Dundas, bore with particular severity. *' A right honourable gentleman proposes a bounty on the importation of females, or in other • In the final debate in the House of Lords, in 1807, Earl St. Vincent I said, " He was sui-prised at the proposition of abolition before the house, _ and considering the high character and intelligence of the noble proposer, Lord Grenville, he declared he could account in no other way for his having ; brought it forward, but by supposing that some Obiman had cast his spell upon him!" {Alau^h.) SLAVE TRADE. Vrords,Tie proposes to make up the deficiency in the propor' SECl tion of sexes, by offering a premium to any crew of unprin- cipled and savage ruffians, who will attack and carry off any of the females of Africa ! a bounty from the parliament of Great Britain., that shall make the fortune of any man, or set of men, who shall kidnap or steal any unfortunate females from that continent ! who shall bring them over as slaves, in order that they may be used for breeding slaves !" In the course of the debate, Mr. Dundas declared, that these United States would, if Great Britain abandoned the slave trade, purvey for the West Indies ; and he added — " Is it to be ima- gined that the Americans are so favourably disposed towards this country, as to resist the temptation of forming so valuable a connexion with our colonies ? A connexion once begun by supplying them with negroes would not end there ; and we viight lose the West Indies without accomplishing our object.''^ Mr. Fox replied, that he was not so much alarmed by the possibility of the British Islands getting into habits of intimacy with foreigners. Though the apprehension of Mr. Dundas concerning our assumption of the British slave trade has, no (doubt, vanished from the minds of his successors in office, we may suspect, that the alarm at the possible consequences of an intimacy between these States and the West Indies, is one of the motives of the present rigorous system of commercial ex- clusion. The Commons voted a gradual abolition, and the Lords Refused to concur. The next year, 1793, the former refused \o renew their vote, and rejected amotion of Mr. Wilberforce, to abolish that part of the British trade, by which the British merchants supplied foreigners with slaves. This motion, how- ever, being revived in 1794, was finally carried in a very thin house ; but lost with the Peers by a majority of forty-five to four. I need not recite the annual and fruitless attempts of the abolitionists between this period and the year 1807, when they finally succeeded. The degree of merit for the interv^al, to which the Parliament and nation are entitled, may be col- lected from the following passage of the Edinburgh Review.* " The vast and general sensation produced by the first de- velopment of the horrible traffic in human flesh, speedily gave place to a much more sober and partial sentiment of re- probation ; no small difficulty was experienced in attracting the attention of the public to the discussion for many years ; it was pretty uniformly debated among empty benches^ in those august assemblies., whose walls can scarce contain their crowds^ • No. 47. NEGRO SLAVERY AND xvlien a person of honour is to be attacked^ or a female of easy vir- tue is to &"eve evidence.'''' 6 The degree of success obtained at any time with the pub- lic, and the final triumph of the question, were owing in no small measure to considerations of expediency. It was found important to give quite as extensive a circulation to Clarkson's Essay on the Impolicif of the 'Slave Trade, as to the pam- phlets on its criminality, and the abstracts of the evidence re- specting its unparalleled barbarities. In Parliament, the abolitionists laboured mainly to prove, that instead of being advantageous to Great Britain, it was most destructive to her interests; was the ruin of her seamen; prevented the extension of her manufactures ; was no longer necessary for the mainte- nance of the due number of labourers in the West Indies ; that a much more lucrative intercourse with Africa might be substituted for it ; that the other powers of the world would either relinquish it, or be unable to carry it on, so that all xvoiild remain upon a footing., &c. Mr. Wilberforce, in his first speech, admitting, for argument's sake, that " the rivals of Britain, the French," might take it up, asked '' Would they not then be obliged to come to us, in consequence of the cheapness of our manufactures, for what they wanted for the African market?" We find the Edinburgh Reviewers rebuking the great abolitionist, in their 47th number, for talking, in his printed letter to M. Talleyrand, of the great sacrifice which England had made in the abolition, after he and all his coadjutors had uniformly, and so efficaciously pleaded the mischievousness of the traffic to her, whether as a nursery for seamen, or a channel for the employment of capital. In the final debate of 1807, on the abolition, Mr. Whit- bread, one of its most zealous advocates, said " It was com- plained that too much feeling and too much passion had been carried into this discussion. He complained on the contrary, that it had been made too little a question of feeling, and that it had been made almost entireli/ a matter of cold calculations of profit and loss between English money and African blood." Lord Castlereagh, indeed, did, in his first interview with the emperor of Russia, on the subject of genei-al abolition, expa- tiate upon what the British parliament had done in spite of the suggestions of national interest ;^ but, in the general confer- ences on the same subject, at Vienna, "lord Castlereagh," says the protocol of the sitting of 20th January, 1815, " communi- • See Letter of Lord Castlereagh to Earl Bathurst, dated Vienna, Januarj 2^il, 1815, among the papers laid before Parhament, April, 1815. SLAVE TKADE. g cated authentic documents to prove that in the affair in ques- SECT; tion, the interest of the powers of Europe went hand in hand with their duty ; that the abolition was particularly for the real advantage, and even indispensable for the security, of the colonial countries," &;c.* On all hands, there must be an immediate concurrence in the general allegation of the Edinburgh Review, that " for the long space of twenty years, Mr. Pitt could persuade about three'-fourths of the members of Parliament to adopt any scheme of finance, or of external policy which he chose to countenance, but did never once prevail against the slave tra- ders and consignees of sugar in Bristol and Liverpool."! The Reviewers have made this failure, considered in con- nexion with the prompt success of the Fox administration, the ground of a most atrocious charge against the memory of Mr. Pitt — that he was not sincere in the cause of abolition, as a minister, although he might have been as a man. The distinction would not save him, if this were true, from being regarded as the vilest of hypocrites, nor the genius of the British government from appearing as the most entirely ar- tificial and selfish ever known. The strain of Mr. Pitt's speeches absolves him, however ; and Clarkson has borne the strongest testimony to his good faith. His colleagues in the ministry, particularly the lord chancellor, Thurlow, exerted themselves indefatigably, in opposition to the measure, and weakened the impression of his station. The stigma does not attach to him, but to the Parliament, if he could inake a majority in such a case; if he could bring them to act pro- perly on a question the most important for humanit^^, and the reputation of the British name, only by using his influence as minister ; that is, as the head of a party, and the dispenser of place and patronage. There is another question which neither Mr. Pitt nor Mr. Fox could have carried through both houses of Parliament, even as ministers — that of catho- ■ lie emancipation; and the reader will remark that it is alone on two points of this description, in which the freedom of millions was involved, ministerial influence has been found ineffectual in the British legislature. In the course of the present parliamentary session, (1819,) Mr. William Smith of Norwich — to whom the cause of abo- lition is as much indebted as to any other parliamentary ad- vocate, except Mr. Wilberforce — stated to the House of Com- mons, that even at last, in 1807, after the twenty'years discus- * Pieces Officielles dc Schoell. vol. vli. \ No. 24. NEGRO SLAVERY AND r I. sion, it required all the efforts of almost every member of that "^-^ house, who had any title to the character of an orator or a statesman, to carry the act through the Parliament. In fact, in the final debates, the justice and humanity of the trade were maintained as boldly as they ever had been ; arguments of counsel were heard at the bar, and petitions received, against the abolition ; Lord Castlereagh, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Hawkesbury, Lord Eldon, Lord Westmoreland, Mr. Rose, Mr. Bathurst, spoke in opposition. These were the men who, immediately after the abolition became a law, took the place of its patrons in the government. Clarkson remarks, that though the bill had now passed both houses, " there was an awful fear lest it should not receive the royal assent, before the Grenville ministry was dissolved." This awful fear was founded upon the conviction that, with a ministry adverse to the measure, no parliament could be found to adopt it at the instigation of a member out of office. There is nothing, therefore, forced, or illiberal, in the conclusion, that it was a general party movement ; an act of subserviency in the old routine to the will of an administration firmly united and inextricably entangled in the object; that, had that ministry been dissolved before the royal assent was given, the slave traffic would be at this day a lawful branch of British com- merce.* As the case was, seventeen years had elapsed since superabundant, irrefragable evidence of the history and cha- racter of the traffic was officially before Parliament: within that interval it had been allowed to flourish on an enlarged scale. Sir Samuel Romilly told the House of Commons, in 1806, that " since the year 1796, no less than three hundred and sixty thousand Africans had been torn away, under the continued sanction of Parliament, from their native land." This estimate is certainly too low, for the annual exportation of the British, according to the Edinburgh Review, rose to 57,000, after the acquisition of the Dutch colonies in 1797. The Report of the African Institution for the present year, * The following extract from the debate of the House of Commons of June 27th, 1814, will shew that I am not alone in this conjecture. "Ml-. Philips said — " I cannot forget that tlie public voice had been raised even more loudly against the slave trade before the administration of Mr. Fox, than during its brief existence ; and to such a degree do I think the gratitude of the friends of justice and humanity due to that short-lived and much misrepresented ad- ministration, that I do in mii conscience believe, but for them, the British slave trade -wonld at this inoment have been continued to the disgrace of the country, to the outrage of public feeling, and in violution of evenj pi-inciple of policy, justice, ■and humanitij." SLAVE TRADE. (1819,) states the average at 55,000, and admits that the num- SECl her taken from Africa in 1806 and 1807, in the prospect 0/^-^^ the approaching abolition of the trade ^ ivas very considerable. From the period when Mr. Pitt declared to Parliament that they had examined sufficiently into the nature of the trade to enable them to decide, and must be convinced of its cruelty and injustice, until the date of the cessation of importation into the British colonies, the number of negroes carried into slavery by the British merchants with the authority of the nation, could not have been less than one-third of the whole number now existing in the United States, 13. My readers may already understand, that the British abolition is not quite so abundantly creditable, as to render it an adequate foundation for reflections on the United States. But I will suppose that the motives were altogether pure and magnanimous ; that it was the immediate fruit of Chris- tian conviction ; — a national act of contrition and atonement. The questions then arise, — was it in itself a sufficient repara- tion for the wrongs done to Africa ? and if not, has Great Britain performed her utmost to make full amends ? The ad- vocates of the abolition admitted, universally, what all must perceive, that by it she had merely stopped the increase of her vast debt to that continent and to humanity ; that she was bound to go further ; to rectify the condition of the negroes ^ within her dominions, and, if possible, to withdraw all the other nations from the slave trade. Every one saw that un- less her example were imitated by the slave-dealing powers of Europe, her proceeding, however useful to her own com- merce and character, would be productive, comparatively, of little advantage to Africa, and followed by an extensive clandestine trade in her own dependencies. Reviewing the statements of those who brought about the abolition, respecting the immensity of the crime she had com- mitted, and the misery and mischief she had caused ; and, on the other hand, the estimates made by the anti-abolitionists, of the vast emolument and general advantages which she had gained in the prosecution of the trade, closet-moralists thought it incumbent upon her, to interpose her whole strength in fa- vour of the region she had so long desolated, and of the portion of its oflfspring within the limits of her empire, in any way that might be found necessary to give efficacy to her intervention, and at any risk. For the sake of an addition to her revenue, she had hazarded and incurred the loss of thirteen flourishing co- lonies ; for the acquisition of slips of territory in America, and NEGRO SLAVERY AND I. of sugar islands filled with black slaves, — for points of honour «*• and maritime prerogative ; for security from possible dangers, — she had waged long and destructive wars. She might, then, to make her atonement for the enormity and havoc of the slave trade, in some degree commensurate withher guilt — to prevent the contiimance of a svstem subversive of the law of nations, and of the principles of Christianity; superlatively baneful and immoral, — she might, if no other means would suffice, un- sheath her sword, and be assured in so doing of the favour of the God of battles, and of all the friends of humanity and jus- tice on earth. On such an occasion it became her, when con- vinced of the futility of every other expedient, to exert her maritime superiority, regardless of all forms and obstacles — a course of proceeding not without precedent in her history. At the period of her abolition, France and Spain being at war with her, had long been cut off from the trade. The only power engaged in the prosecution of it, was Portugal, Avhose government depended upon her for its existence. Scarcely a year elapsed, when Spain returned to a state of amity with her, under such circumstances, as rendered it impossible she should be refused any boon she might be pleased to ask. But I will leave it to an English writer to explain the nature of the conjuncture, and to state the result. I find the following exposition in a remarkable work publish- ed the last year, (1818,) in London, and entitled, " A View of the present Increase of the Slave Trade, by Robert Thorpe, L. L. D. late Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, and Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court in that Colonj^" "■ At the moment England abolished the slave trade, all Eu- rope was most favourably circumstanced to ensure an univer- sal abolition. The royal family of Spain threw themselves into the arms of France, and were handed to a prison. The royal family of Portugal sought the protection of England, and were safely conveyed to their Brasil dominions. We only wanted the co-operation of these powers to establish a perfect abolition ; we upheld them as kingdoms ; we had a right to insist on their abolishing the slave trade; every principle of justice and humanity called for such a demand, while the po- licy and professions of this nation, should have made compli- ance necessary. Such a requisition could not have been con- sidered as interfering with the independence of those govern- ments, nor with the rights of their subjects. Independence is ■not comprised iii a power to enslave^ nor do the lawfid rights of any people consist in their ability to invade the natural rights of man. While England was exhausting her blood and treasure SLAVE TRADE, 3^ in defence of the liberty of Spain and Portugal, she was not SECT, i warrantable in diminishing the resources of her wealth, to ex- v-^^v-s tend the cruelty of their commerce ; but the most fortunate coincidence was criminally neglected."* Nothingcanbemorejustthan all this representation. Every one acquainted with the history of the era of Bonaparte's invasion of the Peninsula, must be convinced, that it was in the power of England, to extort from Portugal and Spain the abolition of their slave trade. "It would have been," said Mr. Canning, palliating the omission in the House of Com- mons, " umvise to have taken a high tone with them in the day of their distress ; a strong remonstrance on this subject would have gone with too much of authority, and have appeared in- sulting."! So fastidious a delicacy, where the object was, according to the British theory, of immeasurable importance to the repose of the national conscience, and to humanity ! The day of the absolute dependence of those powers upon England, Avas the only day, in which there was any likelihood of the accomplishment of that object with them ; and a strong' remonstrance against the prosecution of a system so exorbi- tantly wicked and pernicious, could not in itself have worn the air of insult, but would rather have appeared an act of noble friendship and resolute philanthropy. With the lives and happiness of millions of Africans, and all the other momen- tous considerations attached to the extinguishment of the slave trade, at stake, the opportunity was to be improved determinately, though at a greater cost than a little violence done to perverted feelings, and the excitement of an impo- tent discontent. If Spain and Portugal could be induced to comply at once, then, as no lawful trade in slaves would exist during the war. Great Britain ruling the seas and exercising the belligerent right of search, might repress all illicit trade, and take much more effectual precautions against its revival in any shape. In this point of view the opportunity seemed doubly precious, and irretrievable. The coincidence was, to repeat the language of Dr, Thorpe, *' criminally neglected." The British abolition took the cha- racter of a division of the British share of the trade between foreign powers, and a number of British subjects upon whom the act of Parliament would not serve as a restraint. The- anti-abolitionists predicted this, and contributed to the fulfil- ment of the prediction. Portugal was left at liberty to supply not only her own dependencies, but those of Spain ; and to the * Page 24. f Debate on the Treaty of 1814. Vol.. I.—Y y NEGRO SLAVERY AND latter, cargoes were incessantly carried under the Portuguese ' flag, until at length the British cruizers were authorized to bring in for adjudication, such Portuguese ships as might be found carrying slaves, to places not subject to the crown of Portugal, It was discovered, within the year after the ter- mination by law of the British exportation, that the tradc' itself had not suffered the least abatement ; but, on the con- trary, was plied with greater activity, to a greater extent, and with aggravated barbarity, under the Spanish, Swedish, and Portuguese flags. " The slave trade," says the Report, dated 1810, of the commissioners of African inquiry, " is at pre- sent carried on to a vast extent. By the autumn of 1809, , the coast of Africa swarmed with contraband vessels ; and it was not until the arrival of a small squadron of his majesty's ■ vessels, early the next year, (1810 !) that any interruption r could be given to their proceedings." In 1810, Great Britain i concluded a treaty with Portugal, by which she secured to i herself great commercial advantages, and consented that Por- tugal should carry on the trade in slaves from the African i dominions (claimed or in possession) of the Portuguese ; crown, precisely the great marts of the trade — Portugal an- nouncing, at the same time, with what sincerity, will sooni be seen, her resolution to co-operate with his Britannic ma- jesty in the cause of humanity and justice, &c. To display the efficacy of the British abolition for the first I years, I will here make a few extracts from the Reports off the London African Institution — a society which boasts off the most illustrious names, and is the centre of informatioai respecting African affairs. " Circumstances," says the Report of 1809, "have come; to the knowledge of the directors of this institution, which i leave them no room to doubt that means are at this moment! employed by persons formerly engaged in the slave trade;- for eluding the salutary provisions of the abolition act, and! perpetuating the guilt and misery of that traffic." " No foreign states," says the Report of 1810, " have hi- therto followed the example set them by the legislatures of Great Britain and the United States of America. The flags of Spain and of Sweden have of late been extensively employed; in covering and protecting a trade in slaves. Nor is this alUl It has been discovered that, in defiance of all the penalties imposed by act of Parliament, vessels under foreign flag*; have been- fitted out hi the ports of Liverpool and London^ fot the purpose of tarrying slaves from the coast of Africa to the Spanish and Portuguese settlements in America. Some earn SfaWE TRADE. 3^ goes from that coast have been landed at St. Bartholomews, sect. I and smuggled thence into English islands. The discovery of ^i^~>^ one transaction has likewise discovered to the directors facts, ' which tend to implicate persons of some consideration in so- ciety, in the guilt of these and similai- practices." j " On the coast of Africa," says the Report of 1811, " the i same melancholy scene has been exhibited during the last j year, which the directors had the pain of describing in their ' former report. The coast has swarmed with slave ships, > chiefly under Portuguese and Spanish colours, &c. Suffice it j to say, that accounts from various quarters concur with certain judicial proceedings which have taken place in this country, to prove, that a very considerable trade in slaves has been car- ried on of late, ?[.v\6. a large portion of it by means of the capital \ and credit of British siibjects.^^** After the length to which '' the report has already run, the directors are unwilling to enter ' into minute details, with regard to the means which have been practised in the West Indies, to elude the laws prohibiting the importation of slaves. Suffice it to say, that they have re- ceived information which satisfies them that those laws have ' been grossly, and in some instances openly violated, by the importation of slaves, to a considerable extent^ into our own \ West India colonies." " There is a large class of contraband slave ships fitted i out chiefly from London or Liverpool, destined in fact to the ! coast of Africa," &c. \ " The representations," says the Report of 1812, *' which ^ the directors made in their last report, of the extent to which J the slave trade had revived on the coast of Africa, appear to \ have fallen short of the truth. The result of the intelligence ^ which they have since received is, that, during the year 1810, ; no less than from 70 to 80,000 Africans were transported as slaves from the western coast of Africa to the opposite shores , of the Atlantic. The greatest proportion is either a British \ -or an American trade, conducted under the flags of Spain and i Portugal." A " What," says the Report of 1813, " has been represented j i as a bona fide Spanish and Portuguese slave trade, has turned \ I out, upon strict examination, to be, in many instances, a trade > in slaves, illegally carried on by British capital and British } subjects^ and in some instances by American subjects." ■^, " The directors have to bring before the general meeting a j new species of slave trade, carried on, it should seem, between i Egypt and the island of Malta. They have received informa- j tion on which they are disposed to rely, stating that several : (5 NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^RT I. slaves have been brought from Alexandria to that island, and ""^'''^»' there sold to Englishmen^ as well as to Maltese inhabitants. These poor creatures consist principally of negro children, brought from countries bordering on the upper Nile," &c. " It is with extreme regret that the directors are again obliged to state the want of success which has attended their repeated, earnest, and urgent representations to government respecting the slave trade, carried on by means of the Por- tuguese island of Bissao," &c. " The condition of the slaves, in the new British conquests, the Isles of France and Bourbon, is wretched in the extreme. It is with feelings of deep regret that the directors, in pro- ceeding to advert to the condition of slaves in the West In- dies, express their belief that most flagrant abuses continue to exist in the administration of the law, as far as regards those unhappy beings, if, indeed, they can be said to be under the protection of any law." " The directors cannot close their observatioiis on the state of Africa, without adverting to the exportation of arms and gunpowder to that continent. It is well known that before the passing of the act for the abolition of the slave trade, these were exported thither in very large quantities. Letters re- ceived from persons in Africa, whose veracity is unquestion- able, assert the fact, that the slave traders are supplied with these necessary implements of their traffic, solely from this country., and that, indeed, they were to be obtained no where : else." " A very considerable slave trade," says the Report of 1814, , " is still carried on to the islands of France and Bourbon." "There is too much reason to believe that a considerable traffic of slaves still exists on the north coast of Africa.'''' " The board have still to lament the continuance of flagrant I abuses in several of the West India islands," &c. 14. On the triumph of the allied arms over the power of Bo- naparte, in thespringof 1814, another crisis seemed to present i itself, propitious to the object of universal abolition. Great Britain had the chief share of the glory and profit of that event ; it was to her, in the language of all her subjects, that Europe owed its deliverance ; she had rescued Portugal and Spain; restored Ferdinand to his throne, and reinstated the house of Bourbon in France. Hence, it would be im- possible for the governments of those countries to resist her solicitations in favour of Africa ; or, at all events, to brave i herpower, in case she manifested a determination to interpose < SLAVE TRADE. 3? it as a shield between that continent and their ruthless cupi-SECT. 1 dity. The African Institution, in the Report which I have v^''^^ last quoted, did not overlook the new turn of aflairs. " The directors," said the Report, " have long been persuaded, that all that can be effected, in inducing particular states to renounce the traffic in slaves, however important in itself, Avill produce but a very partial benefit to Africa, unless, on the conclusion of a general peace, the renunciation should be- come general, and be ado])ted as a part of the standing policy of the great commonwealth of Europe. While the war con- tinues, it is a matter of no moment whether the slave trade is abolished in France ; but it is obvious, that, if a general peace should leave the merchants of that countiy at liberty to renew their former traffic in their fellow-creatures, little, comparatively, av ill have been achieved for Africa by all the _generous efforts of this country. The present moment having appeared to the directors to be peculiarly favourable to the hope of obtaining a recognition of the great principles of the abolition, and even the entire and unqualified renunciation of this nefarious traffic by all the great powers of Europe, they have endeavoured to impress upon the minds of his majesty's ministers, the unspeakable importance of establishing a gene- ral convention amongthe European powers, for that purpose." To aid the British negotiators at Paris, the two houses of Parliament voted unanimouslv, on the 2d of May, addresses to the Prince Regent, representing the importance of a gene- ral abolition, and their conviction, that unless it took place, the practical result of the restoration of peace would be " to open the sea to swarms of piratical adventurers who would renew and extend, on the shores of Africa, the scenes of carnage and rapine in a great measure suspended by maritime hostilities ; to kindle a thousand ferocious wars," &c. In supporting the address of the House of Commons, Mr. Wil- berforce trul}^ remarked, that " with regard to France, the war had practically abolished the trade, and therefore, if car- ried on by her, it would be creating it anew." On the 30th May, 1814, the treaty between Great Britain and France was signed at Paris; and lo! France was allowed a term of five years in which to pursue the traffic in human flesh, and his Britannic Majesty restored to his most Christian Majestv all the colonies, factories, and establishments, of what- ever kind, which France possessed the 1st of January, 1792, in the seas and upon the continents of America, Africa^ and Asia, with the exception of the islands of Tobago and St. Lucia, and of the Isle of France and its dependencies. This IT T, NEGRO SLAVERY AND was an electric shock for the abolitionists upon principle, and the signal for a vigorous party assault upon the ministry. It seemed impossible to doubt that France would have yielded, had the immediate and total prohibition of the trade been made the sine qua non of the restitution of her colonies ; or had she been tempted with the Mauritius. Her utter ina- bility to renew the war, and the certainty that the allies would not have passed over to her side to enforce her pretensions to the slave trade, were points on which even the most credu- lous could not be deceived. The African Institution passed resolutions of reprobation ; petitions without number were got up throughout the coun- try ; motions made in Parliament ; and the stir had on the whole an imposing character. The following is part of the representations of the African Institution on the occasion. *' A provision is contained in the recent treaty of peace with France, the consequence of which must be the revival of the slave trade on a large scale, and to an indefinite extent. This revival is attended with circumstances of peculiar aggrava- tion. Great and populous colonies,* in which, during the last seven years, the importation of slaves has been strictly pro- hibited, have been freely ceded to France, not only without any sti-pulation for the continuance of that prohibition, but with the declared purpose on the part of that country, of commencing a new slave trade for their supply." The apprehensions of the Institution did not receive much relief on the appearance of the French slave trade ordinance. By a circular letter from the administration of the customs, dated 29th August, the merchants of France were apprized, that "the traffic was restored in all its privileges, and might be carried on from every port having a public bonding ware- house : — That all the goods, foreign as well as domestic, in- cluding arms and ammunition, required for this trade, might be shipped for the coast of Africa, duty free : That the same provision extended to the ship's provisions, both for the crew and negroes : That the cargoes or provisions were not to be employed, except in the purchase and conveyance of negroes : That French ships only could engage in the trade ; and, that they might import into all the French colonies, of which the government should recover possession, as well as those ceded by the treaty." The language held in Parliament was no less emphatical than that of the African Institution. As a specimen, I will offer some extracts from the speech of Lord Grenville. "That the immediate and total abolition of the slave trade SLAVE TRADE. 3^ t- might, in this treaty, if pursued with zeal, have been with SECT, i certainty obtained, is, unless I am greatly misinformed, the v^'>^ general sentiment of all who are conversant in foreign ne- gotiation ; the concurrent and decided judgment of enlight- ened statesmen in every country in Europe." " What credulity will acquiesce in the pretence, that to extort from France the surrender of her conquest, was easy ; to dis- suade her from the revival of the slave trade impracticable?" " This treaty has secured to our country commercial profits and colonial acquisitions, at the expense of France ; inconsi- derable in value, I admit it, but still sufficient to brand our national character with the dishonour of interested guilt. To France the renewal of the slave trade is conceded ; into her hands we deliver up the wretched inhabitants of Africa; and from her in return we receive back those advantages ; the con- tract is reciprocal ; the transactions simultaneous ; included in the same treaty, never will they be separated in the opi-!- nion of mankind." " We have consented to revive and guarantee the slave- trade, not because we feared war, but because we thirsted for more extended possessions. Such will be the just judg- ment, both of the present time, and of posterity; the opinion of impartial men in all ages. If, they will tell us, you could not otherwise refuse yourselves to a dishonourable contract for guilt, you might have proffered in exchange for it the abandonment of these acquisitions ; an exchange which France most certainly would gladly have accepted." " You are fully sensible also, how difficult it will be to prevent the application of British capital to this wickedness when authorized by France. How large a portion of thi^ trade will really be carried on in her name by your own sub- jects ; how much of it will be diverted to the supply of your own colonies, under a pretended destination to those with which they are so closely intermixed in the West Indian seas." The subject was taken up officially in the Edinburgh Re- view, and treated with as little reserve. The Reviewers cried out against " the vile mockery of an abolition in rever- sion, expectant upon a five years term of unstinted, nay, en- couraged slave trade." " England," they added, " has no manner of difficulty in obtaining Malta, Tobago, St. Lucia, the Isle of France, (not to mention the Cape ;) in short, any thing which may serve her interests ; she surrenders Guada- loiipe^ that her islands may be supplied by smuggling.'''* Lord Castlereagh defended the treaty, upon the grounds of " the strong objection" of the French rulers to immediate abolition, because they would appear to submit to English die- NEGRO SLAVERY AND tation! of the importance of ending the negotiation in mutual respect and confidence ; of the danger of prolonging the war by insisting upon a concession which France felt to be dishonour- able to her character as a nation, &c. He was " ready to admit, that Guadaloupe and Martinique being permitted to be points of depot, did, to a certain degree, increase the probabi- lity of an illicit trade being carried on from those islands with the British colonies. But if France had even consented to abolish the trade, the number of depots which would have otherwise existed, was sufficiently numerous for the illegal introduction of slaves into the islands belonging to Great Bri- tain. From the Havanna and Porto Rico, the possessions of Spain, slaves might very easily find their way into the British colonies." His lordship remarked, too, a point of delicacy as to pressing the abolition : " However disposed he and the Bri- tish nation might be to make sacrifices for it, he could assure the house that such was not the impression in France, and that even among the better classes of people there, the British government did not get full credit for their motives of acting. The motives were not there thought to arise from benevolence^ but fr 0711 a wish to impose fetters on French colonies and injure their commerce.'''' This misgiving of the French was of no fresh date, and could not have been altogether unknown to Parliament. In 1807, Lord Lauderdale, whom Mr. Fox sent to negotiate with Bonaparte the preceding year, made the following statement in the House of Lords. " On my urging to the French minis- ters the abolition of the slave trade, I was answered, that it could not be expected that the French government, irritated as it had been by the negroes in St. Domingo, would readily agree to the abolition of the trade. I answered that the abo- lition would have been the only effectual means of preventing the horrors which had occurred in that island. Then the truth came out. I was told that England, with her colonies well stocked with negroes, and affording a larger produce, might abolish the trade without inconvenience ; but that France, with colonies ill-stocked, and deficient in produce, could not abolish it without conceding to us the greatest ad- vantages, and sustaining a proportionate loss."* The transactions in England, and the fundamental policy in the case, prompted the British ministry to renew their in- stances with the French government. An island, or if pre- ferable, a pecuniary indemnity to the French planters, was- offered for the immediate abandonment of the trade, or the — — — ? ' * Cobbclt'b Paiiiamentary Debates, vol. viii. SLAVE TRADE. 3( abridgment of the term stipulated by the treaty. It was SECT proposed to France to establish a system of license, so as to prevent the importation into her colonies of more negroes than rvould be necessary for the existing plantations^ and to pre- clude the cultivation ofnexv lands. Lord Wellington disco- vered that there was no disposition among the French states- men to relinquish the trade at once ; but, finally, after a ne- gotiation, the particulars of which are not a little curious, means were found by England to persuade the French go- vernment to put restrictions upon it ; particularly that of confining it to the south of Cape Formosa. The first attempts upon the Spanish government bear date in 1814; but Ferdinand was upon his throne, and Spain clear of the French. The Spanish monarch consented to forbid his subjects to carry slaves to foreign possessions ; nothing more could then be obtained, in the way and upon the terms which suited the views of England. Lord Castlereagh made his main effort, within the limits prescribed, at the Congress of Vienna. He succeeded, not- withstanding the opposition of the Spanish and Portuguese plenipotentiaries, in rendering the eight principal powers parties to the settlement of the question. Four sittings were specially assigned to its discussion. The fruit of the first, the only fruit of the whole arrangement, was the celebrated declaration of the 8th of February, 1815, in which all the powers proclaimed their detestation of the character, and their desire to accomplish the abolition of the slave trade ; at the same time that they acknowledged the right of each to take its own time for the total relinquishment on its own part. Talleyrand would not consent to abridge the term granted to France ; Spain would make no acceptable concession : Por- tugal pix)fessed her readiness to limit the duration of her trade to eight years, provided his Britannic majesty would on his side acquiesce in certain material changes in the commercial relations between her and Great Britain. Some of the general observations made by the Spanish and Portuguese plenipo- tentiaries, in reply to Lord Castlereagh, are worth repeating. The first, Count Labrador, said, " if the Spanish colonies of America were, as to the supply of negroes, in the same state as the English colonies, his Catholic majesty would not hesi- tate a moment in decreeing an immediate abolition : But, the question having been before the British parliament from 1788 to 1807, the English traders and planters had full time to make extraordinary purchases of slaves ; and, in fact, they did so. This was proved bv the case of Jamaica, which. Vol. L— Z z IV NEGRO SLAVERY AND T I. in 1787, had only two hundred and fifty thousand slaves, "^^ whei-eas, at the period of the abolition, in 1807, she possess- ed four hundred thousand. During the long war with Eng- land, Spain had been deprived of the faculty of procuring negroes for herself, Jamaica had ten blacks to one white ; in the island of Cuba, the best provided with slaves of all the Spanish colonies, there were two hundred and seventy- four thousand whites, and only two hundred and twelve thousand slaves." The representative of Portugal alleged that " the position of Brasil was particularly delicate in this matter ; it was an immense country, which was far from possessing the num- ber of hands necessary for its cultivation ; that a sudden stoppage in the importation of negroes would be of incalcur- lable mischief, as well for Brasil as for the Portuguese es- tablishments on the coast of Africa; that the treatment of the slaves in Brasil was notoriously mild ; and that these considerations made the case of Portugal an exception; at all events she might be excused if she proceeded leis'tifely and cautiously in the affair, since, in the instance of Eng- land, so long an interval had occurred between the proposal * and the adoption of the measure of abolition." The primary object of Lord Castlereagh was to secure from . the intrusion of foreign slave vessels, that part of the African coast, which England had marked out for her general trade. In the interval between the first and second general confer- ence, (21st and 22d of Januarj^, 1815,) he signed two conven- tions with the plenipotentiary of Portugal, by which Great Britain released the balance due upon an old English loan to Portugal, and allotted three hundred thousand pounds ster- ling as a fund of indemnity for the owners of the Portuguese slave ships which her cruizers had captured before the 1st of June, 1814, on the ground of their being engaged in the trade illegally : She agreed at the same time to the abrogation of the treaty of 1810: Portugal, on her part, covenanted to pro- hibit her subjects from carrying on the slave trade, in any manner, to the north of the equator^ it being understood that they were to pursue it unmolested to the south of the line, as . long as it should be at all permitted by the Portuguese laws. '^ In a secret and conjidential letter of Lord Castlereagh to the duke of Wellington, j^t Paris, of August, 1814,* his lordship stated, that it was become necessary to consider how far cer- tain powers might be brought to do their duty in the matter * See the Pieces Officielles de Schoell, vol. vii. p. 90. SLAVE TRADE. of abolition, by a sense of interest ; or, in other words, how SECl they might be deprived of the undue advantage which they enjoyed over the states who, by a feeling of moral obligation, renounced the trade. Nothing, he suggested, appeared more likely to work the effect, than a concert among those states to exclude from their dominions the colonial produce of the refractory powers. Duke Wellington was instructed to sound the prince of Benevento on the subject. The true motives of this plan did not, we may presume, escape the penetration of the latter. Lord Castlereagh proposed it anew at Vienna to the emperor of Russia, in his formal interview with that monarch on the subject of the slave trade. The abolition states could not, he urged, do less than adopt it: Unless they gave a preference to such colonial products as were not raised by slaves 7iexvly introduced^ they would be partakers in the scandal and crime accompanying the growth of such as were ! The British negotiator was indiscreet enough to submit the project for adoption, at the conferences of the plenipotentia- ries ; with the modification that the products of the colonies in which the trade was forbidden, should be alone receiv- ed, or those of the vast regions of the globe furnishing the same articles by the labour of their own native inhabitants, meaning, says Schoell,* the British possessions in the East Indies. The ministers of Spain and Portugal protested against this expedient of coercion, and threatened that their courts would exclude in turn the most valuable export of the coun- tries by which it should be employed. What England could not persuade the Bourbons to do in 1814, Bonaparte did spontaneously on his return from the Island of Elba. He interdicted the French slave trade at once, from motives of personal interest which few were at % loss to detect. When Louis was replaced on his throne, no- thing remained for him but to submit, apparently, to the will of the British minister who escorted him into Paris, and who , required him not at least to retract the only favour granted by the arch-tyrant to humanity. Accordingly, on the 30th of July, 1815, Talleyrand announced to Lord Castlereagh that the slave trade was thenceforward, forever, and universally, forbidden to all the subjects of his most Christian majesty. The tenor of the correspondence on the subject between the two viziers is among the curiosities of that day. In 1816, England resumed her negotiation with Spain, * Histoire abregee des Traitcs de Paix, vol. si. KEGUO SLAVEltY AND T I. and, finally, availing herself of the necessities of the latter, 'JK' effected the treaty of Madrid of the 23d Sept. 1817. By / this treaty, Spain, for a sum of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, stipulated to renounce the slave trade at once to the north of the line, and to prohibit it entirely, in all her do- minions, from the 30th May, 1820. The sum of four hun- dred thousand pounds bore a small proportion, indeed, to the wealth which Britain had drawn from the traffic in human flesh ; or to that which she expected to derive from the ac- complishment of her views on Africa.* But the new sacri- jice was emblazoned in Parliament, and the rescue of the northern part of that continent declared to be consummated. " We have now," said Lord Castlereagh, " arrived at the last stage of our difficulties, and the last stage of ouf exertions. One great portion of the world was rescued from the horrors of the traffic. The approval of the grant amounted to this^ whether the slave trade should be abolished or not." Lord Castlereagh announced, on the same occasion, the conclusion of a treaty with the Portuguese ambassador in Lon- don, for the final suppression of the Portuguese slave trade^ and the certaint)^ of its ratification : But his lordship's assu- rance was premature. The court of Brasil could not be drawn into any further retrenchment, than was stipulated in the treaty of Vienna, to which I have adverted. Sweden, who had never authorized the trade, readily consented to prohibit it, on receiving Guadaloupe, in 1813, hi deposit. The king of the Netherlands accepted of the condition of a total renun- ciation, attached to the restitution of the Dutch colonies in 1814. 15. Before I proceed to exhibit the actual, and what — it is to be feared from late British statements, which I shall produce, — may be considered as the final result of all these boasted triumphs for Africa, I wish to illustrate further the English sins of commission. We have seen that the African Institution acknowledges the participation of Bri- •In the debate in the House of Commons, (Feb. 9th, 1818,) Mr. Wilber- force said, " He could not but think that the gi-ant to Spain would be more than repaid to Great Britain in commercial advantages, by the opening of a J^eat continent to British industry; an object which would be entirely de- feated, if tlie slave traffic was to be carried on by the Spanish nation. Our commercial connexion with Africa will do much more than repay us for any pecuniary sacrifices of this kind. He himself would see Great Britain de- riving the greatest advantages from its intercourse with Africa." HansarcTs Pari Deh. I SLAVE TBADE. tish subjects in the trade, to a great extent. The same ad- SECi mission has been made repeatedly in Parliament, by the high- ^--"^ est authority. Before the establishment of the peace of 1814, Mr. Whitbread stated in the House of Commons, that "thei-e were, to his knowledge, persons in England base enough to wish for the return of peace, on account of the facilities it would afford for carrying on the slave traffic under another flag."* On the 18th April, 1815, Mr. Barham alleged in the same place, "■ that it was a well known fact that a large Bri- tish capital was employed in British ships, in the slave trade." And on the 9th of February, 1818, Lord Castlereagh held this language to Parliament. " It would be a great error to ' believe that the reproach of carrying on the slave trade ille- gally, belonged only to other countries. In numltrless in- stances, he was sorry to say, it had come to his knowledge, that British subjects were indirectly and largclij engaged." With respect to the British West India islands, it is of notoriety that they have been replenished with negroes since the British abolition. In the quotations which I have made from the Reports of the African Institution, the con- traband trade of those islands is formally denounced. The Report of that Society for 1815, is more pointed and circum- stantial in its declarations on the same head, in relation to all of them. It gives us to understand that twenty thousand ne- groes had been yearly smuggled into them, and avers that " all of the settlements were confident of having the means of providing themselves still with slaves in the proportion of their actual demand ;" that " insular laws, whose policy plainly depended on the permanence of the slave trade, re- mained unrepealed;" that "the assemblies still looked to Africa for the supply of their -wasting population." The Edinburgh Review, in expressing some incredulity with res- pect to the amount of the illicit importation, intimated in the Report, remarks, however, that " to question the fact of clandestine importation would prove extreme ignorance of West Indian morals, and of the state to which the adminis- tration of the law is of necessity reduced, where nine persons in ten of the inhabitants are incompetent witnesses, and are, moreover, the property of the remaining tenth."f The same Report denies that the slaves, in any one island, had, in regard to their legal condition, then derived the least benefit from the abolition acts. It represents them, also, as suffering the same miseries ; as equally cut off from all • Debate of May 2d, 1814. f No. S'd. NEGRO SLAVERY AND T I- means of mental and religious improvem,ent. In their article '^^*' upon this Report, the Edinburgh Reviewers ratify its exposi- tion, and speak thus of their " sugar planting brethren :"— - *' They not only have taken no steps to encourage religious instruction, but have again and again attempted to prevent the black population from receiving it, in the only form in which it ever can reach them, as things are at present constituted, namely, by missionary preachers. The zeal of pious men was beginning to carry the blessings of the gospel into the settlements, not sectaries merely, but Church-of-England missions. The wisdom of colonial legislation took the alarm ; acts were regularly, and in all the forms, passed, to stop, by main force, all such attempts at illuminating the hundreds of thousands of their Pagan subjects. The royal assent has been refused, but they arfc of sufficient efficacy in the interval, and as often as one is annulled, another is passed. In some of the colonies, the impediments to manumission are enormous. The tax imposed by the policy of the law in those enlight- ened latitudes, for ever closes the door to emancipation. In Jamaica, the negroes are prohibited from being taught," &c. The work of Dickson and Steele, entitled Mitigation of Slavery^ of which I have already availed myself, is one of great and deserved authority on these subjects. It was pub- lished in London, in 1814, and the writers, who had long re- sided in the West Indies in high stations, go even beyond the African Institution in their representations of the nature of the slavery, and of the futility of the abolition acts, in that quarter. "The abolition," says Dr. Dickson, " of what is called the African slave trade, was, in itself, an object every way wor- thy of the long and arduous struggle which effected it. But its relative value, as a corrective of West Indian abuses, hath been greatly overrated. The reader of this volume will see distinctly that, as many of the worst evils of the West Indian "slavery were owing to other causes than the African slave trade, those evils could not possibly be remedied by the aboli- tion of that trade. This important position, so solidly esta- blished in the first part of the following collection, hath been deplorabh^ exemplified, since the date of the abolition act, in the accounts of respectable individuals; and in the correspond- ence of the secretary of state with the West Indian governors. The facts alluded to, though but a mere specimen of the West Indian slavery, clearly show, that they flowed from a source inherent in that slavery itself. An additional proof is, that, notwithstanding the abolition of the slave trade, the low- price of produce, and the exorbitant price of slaves, (all strong SLAVE TRADE. naotives for economizing their lives,) the deaths among theS^C slaves of one island^ in 1810, exceeded the births bif above ten v.^ thousand. No cause of any extraordinary mortality is alleged; but that surplus of deaths appears to have happened in the common course of business. On the whole, we may safely affirm, that the general treatment of the slaves, in the old su- gar islands, has not received any material improvement for a century and a half. The new islands have but copied the old ; with the difference, that the hardships inseparable from the clearing of fresh lands have, in all cases, deplorably ag- gravated the mortality." " Facts leave not a dovibt in the mind, that the harshness of the slave laws is but little softened by the lenity of the general practice in a7iy of the sugar islands. Bad is the best treat- ment which the negroes experience in the West India colo- nies. They all perform their labour under the whip. Mr. Mathison, that sensible and candid planter, states broadly, in 1811, the general practice of underfeeding from one end of Jamaica to the other. He also believes that excessive labour is one of the prevailing causes of depopulation among the slaves on that island." The registry system for the West Indies, is grounded upon the inefficacy of the abolition there ; and, so far as appears by the facts disclosed in the House of Commons, the one has been found as nugatory as the other.* We may take an instance from the mouth of Mr. Wilberforce, of the state of things in Barbadoes, where, according to Dr. Dickson,f slavery is not near so bad as in most of the other islands. "Mr. Wilberforce said, (April 22d, 1818,) that the situa- tion of the slaves in Barbadoes was most wretched. Lord Seaforth when governor of the island, endeavoured to improve it by procuring a law to render the murder of a slave capital. The island was at first enraged with the governor for pro- posing such a measure. When it was consented to, and the friends of humanity in this country were led to believe that the condition of the slaves in that island was much bettered,' what was their surprise and disappointment, to find in two years after, when this law was laid upon the table of the house, that it was rendered entirely nugatory by a condition annexed to it ; for it was provided, that the murder to be capital must be unprovoked." • See, on this head, the Twelfth Report of the African Institution, p. 42. + Mitigation of Slavery, p. 512. NEGRO SLAVERY AND "There were cases," Mr. Wilberforce continued," in which a negro had purchased his freedom, and the freedom of his children, and trained them up with the most exemplary care, yet his offspring had afterwards been seized on by the creditors of his deceased master, because he had died an insolvent, and had been thus transported even to the mines of Mexico."* With such testimony as we have seen, notoriously extant, concerning the importation of negroes into the British West Indies, and their general condition, after the abolition act, the British minister. Lord Castlereagh, ventured, in his cor- respondence with the foreign powers in the year 1814,f to make the following representation. " The experience of eight years which have elapsed since the total abolition of the slave trade, as far as that depended on Great Britain, by the Par- liament of the United Kingdom, has furnished complete proof that the settlements in the West Indies have not suffered by the want of fresh supplies of African labourers. These colo- nies continue to be in a flourishing condition, and since there has been no new importation of slaves, the treatment of those already possessed has improved, and the lights of religion and civilization have been diffused among them?'' Another striking case of ministerial hardihood is furnished in the following extract from a speech of Mr. Goulburn, on the production of the Registry returns to the House of Com- mons, on the 9th June, 1819. ''The apparent increase of negro population had not arisen from any illegal importation of slaves into our colonies, but was attributable to other cavises. It might appear extraordinary that in one island the colonial slaves had increased, in the course of two years, up-* wards of five thousand. Some of these might be the produce of certain captures ;\ but he was perfectly convinced that the augmentation was not attributable to any illegal traffic !" Representations of this sort, in the face of those of the African Institution, in defiance of all fact and reason, belong to the old system which is exemplified in the following pas- sage of Mills' History of British India. " When the opinions which Lord Cornwallis expressed of' the different departments of the Indian government, at the time when he undertook his reforms, (1790,) are attended to, it will not be easy to conceive a people suffering more intensely" * Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. \ Official letter to the British minister at Madrid, 15th July, 1814. 4^ That is to say, of foreign slave ships, whose cargoes have been sold in the British islands. §LAVE TRADE. 3f 6^' the vices of government. The administration of justice SECT, i through all its departments in a state the most pernicious and ^^^v^ depraved; the public revenue levied upon principles incompa- tible with the existence of private property; the people sunk in poverty and wretchedness; such is the picture on the one hand: — Pictures of an unexampled state of prosperity rvere^ neverthe- less^ the pictures held forth at this very moment^ by speeches in parliament^ to the parliament and the fiation^ — and the f ottering- pictures^ as they were the pictures of the minister^ governed the belief of parliament^ and through parliament that of the nation.''''^ 16. The strain of the communications of the British go- vernment, respecting the slave trade, to the foreign powers, down to the conclusion of the treaty with Spain, in 1817, implied that every thing would be accomplished for the por- tion of Africa north of the line, when the abolition was uni- versal with regard to that portion. At every new arrangement, a descant was chaunted in Parliament, to the triumphant and generous zeal of the ministry, who, by the progressive deca- pitation of " the hydra," had nearly crowned all the generous sacrifices of Britain with the expected reward, in the security of Africa and the reformation of Europe. But there was reason to suspect that Louis XVIII would not so easily have made a virtue of necessity in 1815 ; nor Ferdinand, — urgent as were his pecuniary wants, and comparatively unimportant as the acquisition of negroes had become to Spain from the revolt of her colonies, — have prescribed so near a term to the legal slave trade of his subjects ; hadnotthese monarchs been assured of an abundant and ready supply where it should be wanted, whatever anathemas and engagements might be ex- torted from them by the ascendant position and plausible re- clamations of Great Britain. All that circumstances made it natural to suspect, and rendered, indeed, obviously certain, has been realized, and is now at length proclaimed by the British government itself. As the political scheme has reach- ed a crisis when a full and vivid disclosure of the truth is ne- cessary for progression and complete success, it is acknow- ledged outright, and vehemently bewailed, that nothing has as yet been accomplished for Africa, practically ; that the slave trade has been constantly increasing, and that no limits can be descried to its duration or its depredations. Such is the purport of the thirteenth Report, dated 24th March, 1819, of the African Institution ; a report which bears intrinsically the • Book VI. vol. iii. p. o34. Vol. 1.-3 A NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^' '• character of a government-manifesto : and which furnishes materials to complete a skeleton of the history of the abolition. I will use it freely in detailing the result of the British ma- nagement as respects France, Spain, and Portugal, severally^ and the main ostensible object of retribution to Africa. And first, with regard to France. In the Appendix to the Report, there is an eloquent address on the subject of the slave trade, to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, which is said to have been distributed there by Mr. Clai-kson, during the sittings in November, 1818. This address is evidently the work of the African Institution, under the direction of the British ministry ; and the distribution of it an expedient of both for their joint and several purposes. It contains the- following statement as to the French trade. " No sooner was peace proclaimed, than the traders inhu- man blood hastened from various quarters to the African shores, and, with a cupidity sharpened by past restraint, re- newed their former crimes." " Among the rest, the slave merchants of France, who had been excluded for upwards of twenty years, from any direct participation in this murderous traffic, now eagerly resumed it ; and to this very hour, they continue openly to carry it on, notwithstanding the solemn renunciation of it by their own government, in 1815, and the prohibitory French lawa which have since been passed to restrain them." " The revival and progress of the French slave trade have, in one respect, been peculiarly opprobrious, and attended with aggravated cruelty and mischief." " During the ten years which preceded the restoration of Senegal and Goree to France, no part of the African coast, Sierra Leone excepted, had enjoyed so entire an exemption! from the miseries produced by the slave trade as those set- tlements, and the country in their vicinage." " The suppression of the traffic was there nearly complete ; and, in consequence, a striking increase of population and of agriculture in the surrounding districts, with a proportion- ate improvement in other respects, gave a dawn of rising, prosperity and happiness, highly exhilarating to every be- nevolent mind." " It was in the month of January, 1817, that these interest- ing settlements were restored to France ; and melancholy, indeed, had been the effects : no sooner was the transfer com- , pleted, than, in defiance of the declarations by which the king of France had prohibited the slave trade to his subjects, that trade Avas instantly renewed, and extended in all directions. SLAVE TRADE. 3 The ordinary excitements to the native chiefs, have produced SECT, more than the ordinary horrors. In the short space of a single v^-v^ year, after the change of flags,the adjoining countries, though previously flourishing in peace and abundance, exhibited but one frightful spectacle of misery and devastation." " Now, let it here be recollected, that France had profess- ed, in the face of the civilized world, her abhorrence of this guilt}^ commerce. In the definitive treaty of the 30th of No- vember, 1815, she had pledged herself ' to the entire and eifectual abolition of a traffic so odious in itself, and so highly repugnant to the laws of religion and nature.' As early as the 30th of July, 1815, she had informed the ambassadors of the allied powers, that directions had actually been ist;ued, * in order diat on the part of France the traffic in slaves might cease from that time, everj^ where and for ever.' She had, even previously to this, assured the British government, that the settlements of Senegal and Goree, restored to her by treaty, should not be made subservient to the revival of the slave trade. Yet, notwithstanding all this, no sooner do these set- tlements revert to her dominion, than the work of rapine and carnage, and desolation commence ; every opening prospect of improvement is crushed ; thousands of miserable captives, of every age and sex, are crowded into the pestilential holds of slave ships, and subjected to the well known horrors of the middle passage, in order to be transported to the French colo- nies in the West Indies. There, such of them as may survive, are doomed to pass their lives in severe and unremitting la- bour, exacted from them by the merciless lash of the cart- whip in the hands of a driver. It would admit of proof, that probably at no period of the existence of this opprobrious traffic, has Africa suffered more intensely from its ravages than during a pai-t of the time which has elapsed since the re-establishment of the peace of the civilized world." In another part of the Appendix, it is averred, and sufficient- ly proved to the date of September, 1818, that the French authorities in Africa allorv the slave trade to be carried on to any extent, under their command ; that in Senegal and Goree, they themselves are interested in carrying it on; and that the French vessels of war connive at the departure of slave ships. In the body of the Report, positive information to the same effect, is announced in this language — " The subscribers to the Institution will no doubt recollect the painful task which devolved upon the directors last year, in detailing the state of the slave trade on the coast of Africa, and more particularly that part of it which lies in the neighbourhood of the French NEGRO SLAVERY AND T I. settlements of Senegal and Goree. Of the statements then "^"^ made, ample confirmation has since been received, accompa- nied by additional information of a similarly disti-essing na- ture. A considerable slave trade appears also to have been carried on by French subjects at Allredra, and other places in the river Gambia. The information, indeed, which the direc- tors have received subsequently to their last Report, confirms the statement therein contained, of the existence, to a great extent, of this traffic in the French settlements on the coast of Africa," &c. So much for the unconditional restoration of the French possessions, and the five years charter for organized kidnap- ping and murder ! In the debate in the House of Commons, of February 9th, 1818, which I have alreadv mentioned, some curious particu- lars were disclosed respecting the French slave trade, that de- serve to be known, in addition to the above. I will report them as they were stated by Sir James Mackintosh. " It being discovered that the trade was still carried on by France with great vigour, application was made by Sir Charles Stewart, the British ambassador, in January, 1817, for co- pies of ' Laws, Ordinances, Instructions, and other public acts, for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.' The Due de Richelieu had nothing to communicate but a mere colonial re- gulation passed eight days before^ prohibiting the importation of slaves into the French colonies. Notwithstanding the as- sertion of Prince Talleyrand's letter, in spite of the more solemn affirmation of the treaty, it appears that France had taken no legal measure for the abolition, during eighteen months, after she professed she had adopted it. What she did at that time was imperfect, and it did not appear that she had done any thing since." So little had she done, indeed, that Sir AVilliam Scott found himself obliged to release, in 181 7, a French slave ship detained by a British cruizei-, on the ground that there was no sufficient proof that the French vessel, in carrying on the slave trade, had violated the laws of France. Let us now see how the case stands with respect to Spain and Portugal, whom it would have been so easy to subdue to the purpose of abolition, ten years ago, and the mischiefs of whose legal appearance in the trade, might, therefore, have been averted. The Appendix to the Report contains a series of queries, dated December, 1816, addressed by Lord Castle- reagh to the Institution, respecting the state of the trade during the pre<:eding twenty-five years. Part of the information com- municated in reply is as follows: " The number of slaves SLAVE TRADE. 2 withdrawn from western Africa during the last twenty-five SECT, years, is necessarily involved in much uncertainty'. There is ^"^"^ reason to believe that the export of the Portuguese was much more considerable than the amount supposed, 15,000. Pre- vious to the British abolition, the Portuguese had confined their trade almost entirely to the Bight of Benin, and the coast to the southward of it, but in consequence of the reduc- tion in the price of slaves on the Windward and Gold Coasts, they were gradually drawn thither. The whole of the slave trade, whether legal or contraband, passes, with very few ex- ceptions, under the Spanish and Portuguese flags. The Span- ish flag is a mere disguise, and covers the propei'ty of un- lawful traders, whether English, American, or others." " Since the Portuguese have been restricted by treaty from trading for slaves on certain parts of the African coast, they have resorted to similar expedients for protecting their slave trade expeditions to places within the prohibited district. And at the present moment, there is little doubt, that a consi- derable part of the apparently Spanish slave trade, which is carrying on to the north of the equator, where the Portuguese are forbidden to buy slaves, is really a Portuguese trade." " A farther use is now found for the Spanish flag, in pro- tecting the French slave traders ; and it is afl!irmed, that the French ships fitted out in France, for the slave trade, call at Corunna for the purpose of effecting a nominal transfer of the property engaged in the illegal voyage, to some Spanish house, and thus obtaining the x-equisite evidence of Spanish ownership." '"'' In conseqfuence of these uses to which the Spanish flag- has been applied, a great increase of the apparently Spanish slave trade has taken place of late. And as the flag of that nation is permitted to range over the whole extent of the Afri- can coast, it seems to keep alive the slave trade in places from which it would otherwise have been shut out ; and it has of late revived that trade in situations where it had been previously almost wholly extinguished." " The Portuguese flag is noAV chiefly seen to the south of the equator, although sometimes the Portuguese traders do not hesitate still to resort to the rivers between Whydaer and the equator, even without a Spanish disguise. The only two cni'izers which have recently visited that part of the coast, found several ships under the Portuguese flag openly trading for slaves, in Sago and the Bight of Benin." " The slave trade has certainly been carried on during the last two years, to a great extent, north of the equator. The NEGRO SLAVERY AND I. native chiefs and traders who began to believe at length that ■^ the abolition was likely to be permanently maintained, have learnt from recent events to distrust all such assurances. Notwithstanding all that has been said and done, they now see the slave traders again sweeping the whole coast without molestation. It would be difficult fully to appreciate the deep and lasting injury inflicted on northern Africa, by the transactions of the last two or three years. An abolition on the part of Spain would at once deliver the whole of northern Africa from the slave trade, provided effectual measures were taken to seize and punish illicit traders. By the pro- longation of the Spanish slave trade, on the contrary, not only is the whole of northern Africa, which would otherwise be exempt, given up to the ravages of that traffic, and the progress already made in improvement sacrificed, hit facili- ties are afforded of smuggling into every island of the West In- dies ; which could not otherwise exist, and which, while slave ships may lawfully pass from Africa to Cuba, it would, perhaps, be impossible to prevent." This was the state of things, according to the Institution, at the end of 1816. We will now see what it was at the be- ginning of the present year, notwithstanding the conventions signed with Spain and Portugal in the interval. " The Afri- can slave trade," says the Report itself, " is still unhappily carried on to an enormous extent under the foreign flags, with aggravated horrors. The directors have to lament the enormous extent, not of the French slave trade only ; that of Spain and Portugal appears also to have greatly increased. Notwithstanding the great pecuniary sacrifices made by Great Britain to these nations, their subjects are stated by the governor of Sierra Leone to be now deeper in blood than ever." The Report mentions the fact, that at the distance of more than a year from the date of the Spanish and Por- tuguese conventions, the British naval commmander in chief on the African coast had received no instructions as to the nmeasvires to be taken in pursuance of them, nor as yet had any commission been established, as they prescribed. The estimate which the directors make in the Appendix to the Report, of the number of negroes transported of late years from Africa under the Spanish and Portuguese flags, falls greatly short of the real amount. Dr. Thorpe, whose testimony, on this head, is certainly entitled to weight, has made some statements which agree better with the direct knowledge which we have in this country, of the importation into the Spanish islands and into Brasil. He alleges that the SLAVE TRADE. < commissioners appointed by the British government to survey SECT the West Coast of Africa, three years after it had abolished the trade, reported eighty thousand H& the number of negroes annually carried away, and divided equally between the Por- tuguese and Spaniards. He computes, himself, from returns made by persons residing in the Havanna, in the Brasils, and on the coast of Africa, that the Spaniards carried from the West Coast, in 1817, one hundred thousand ; and the Portu- guese not less. He adds forty thousand as the number taken by other nations, and from other parts of that quarter of the globe. There is something almost overpowering for a real philanthropist in the observations with which this writer con- cludes his calculations. " As it appears that in 1807, about sixty thousand inhabitants of Africa were annually enslaved, and in 1817, two hundred and forty thousand, we may judge of her present deplorable condition, when the very cause of her barbarous and degraded state has increased four-fold; we should recollect the unshaken testimony presented to Parlia- ment, which established her miserable condition before 1807 ; and we cannot but lament that all the professions for her hap- piness, and promises for her civilization, reiterated since that time, have been perfectly delusive."* Dr. Thorpe asserts, also, that at the time Great Britain had the right of search, nineteen out of twenty of the contraband slave vessels escaped. One cannot but think that their success would not have been quite so great, had her cruizers exercised the same zeal and vigilance in pursuing them, as they did in hunting down the commerce of the United States, under the Orders in Council. In the first negotiations respecting the trade, which Lord Castlereagh opened with the French cabinet after the treaty of 1814, he suggested, as a desirable arrangement, the con- cession of a mutual right of search and capture in certain latitudes, between France and Great Britain, in order to pre- vent an illicit exportation from the coast of Africa. The Duke of Wellington made the proposition to the Prince of Benevento, but soon discovered that it was " too disagreeable to the French government and nation, to admit of a hope of its being urged with success."! I ^^ ^^ot find from the history of the conferences at Vienna in 1815, that it was more than hinted in those conferences. Spain and Portugal, however, in their mock renunciation of the trade north of the equinoc- * P. 13. View of the Increase of the Slave Trade. t See his letter to Lord Custlereagh of the olh Xov. 1814. I NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^T I. tial line, acceded to a stipulation of like tenor. Great satis- faction was expressed in Parliament with the arrangement, when the Spanish treaty came under discussion. "The in- troduction of the right of search and bringing in for condem- nation in time of peace," was declared to be " aprecedent of the utmost importance." Of this precedent the British mi- nister resolved to avail himself at once. There is a quasi official exposition of his proceedings in the thirteenth Report of the African Institution, of which I will abstract as much as m.ay convey a sufficient idea of the new turn given to the question of abolition. The ministers of the great powers were assembled in Lon- don to confer on the subject: all attended readily except the representative of Portugal, who consented to appear only on condition of a perfect freedom of action being left to his so- vereign. At a meeting held in February, 1818, Lord Castle- reagh produced a note, which alleged, among other things. That, since the peace, a considerable revival of the slave trade had taken place, especially north of the line, and that the traffic was principally of the illicit description : — That, as early as July, 1816, a circular intimation had been given to all British cruizers, that the right of search (being a bellige- rent right) had ceased with the war : — That it was proved be- yond the possibility of a doubt, chat unless the right to visit vessels engaged in the slave trade should be established by mutual concessions on the part of the maritime states, the illicit traffic must not only continue to subsist, but increase : That even if the traffic were universally abolished^ and a single state should refuse to submit itsfiag to the visitation of vessels of other states^ nothing effectual ruoidd have been done : That the plenipotentiaries should, therefore, enter into an engagement to concede mutually the right of search, adhoc^ to their ships of war, &c. They did not deem themselves authorised to proceed so far, but undertook to transmit the proposition to their respective courts. It does not appear that the American minister was invited to be a party to these conferences. To him, however. Lord Castlereagh addressed a special letter in the month of June, 1818, enclosing copies of the treaties made with Spain and Portugal, and inviting the government of the United States to enter into the plan digested in those treaties, for the repres- sion of the slave trade, which must, otherwise, prove irreduci- ble. The answer of the American government, communicated at the end of December by the American ambassador, is de- tailed in the Report of the Institution, It asserts the deep and SLAVE TRADE; 3 unfeigned solicitude of the United States, for the universal SKCT. extirpation of the slave trade ; but, with all due comity, de- Vi^'^^ clines the proposed arrangements, as being of a character *' not adapted to the circumstances or institutions of the Uni- ted States." Truly, the United States had sufficiently proved the British right of search in time of war, to be careful not to create one for the season of peace. No answer had been received from the courts whose minis- ters attended the conferences in London, when the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle furnished the British government with the fairest opportunity of pushing the adoption of its whole pro- ject. Thither, on the heels of Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Clark- son repaired with the memorial, which I have already cited. It stated to the assembled sovereigns — That^ " in point of fact, little or no progress had been made in practical^ abolishing the slave trade :" That " all the declarations and engagements of the European powers as to abolition, must prove perfectly unavailing, unless new means were adopted :" That the only means left were — the universal concession of the mutual right of search and detention ; and the solemn proscription of the slave trade, as Piracy under the law of nations. Lord Castlereagh's official representations were of the same purport, and were answered in separate notes from the pleni- potentiaries of Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia. The respondents profess their readiness to make a combined ad- dress to the court of Brasil, in order to engage it to acceli^te, as much as the circumstances and necessities of its situation may permit^ the entire abolition of the trade ; but all reject the proposition of a mutual right of search, that new sine qua non of the salvation of Africa. France, whose concurrence, ac- cording to Lord Castlereagh, was," above all others, import- ant," gave the most peremptory refusal ; and suggested, on her side, a plan of common police for the trade, which would enable the several powers to know the transactions of each other, and would keep each government well apprized of all abuses within its jurisdiction. Upon the emperor Alexander, both Lord Castlereagh and the directors of the African Insti- tution had counted, as a sure and irresistible auxiliary. The " unkindest cut," however, would seem to have come from his Russian Majesty. The answer of his plenipotentiary was fitted to produce a double disconcertion ; and might be sus- pected of a little malice in the design. Besides alleging that it appeared to the Russian cabinet, beyond a doubt, that there were some states which no consideratioii would induce to submit their navigation to a principle of such high importance Vol. I.— 3 B i NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^^ ^- " as the right of visit," he proposed an expedient to effect the common purpose, which went to deprive England of her sway, and unembarrassed action, on the west coast of Africa. This expedient consisted in " an institution, the seat of which should be a central point on that coast, and in the forma- tion of which all the Christian states should take a part." It is thus particularly described in the Russian note: " De- clared for everj^ neutral, to be estranged from all political and local interests, like the fraternal and Christian alliance, of which it would be a practical manifestation, this institu- tion would pursue the single object of strictly maintaining the execution of the law. It would consist of a maritime force, composed of a sufficient number of ships of war, appropri- ated to the service assigned to them ; of a judicial power, which should judge all crimes relating to the trade, according to a legislation established upon the subject, by the common wisdom ; of a supreme council, in which would reside the au- thorit\' of the institution, — which would regulate the opera- tions of the maritime force — would revise the sentences of the tribunals — would put them in execution — would inspect all the details, and would render an account of its administration to the future European conferences. The right of visit and de- tention would be granted to this institution, as the means of fulfilling its end; and perhaps no maritime nation would refuse to submit its flag to this police, exercised in a limited and clearly defined manner, and by a power too feeble to allow of vexations ; too disinterested on all maritime and commercial questions, and, above all, too widely combined in its elements, not to observe a severe, but impartial justice towards all." Neither the French plan oi siirveillance^ nor the Amphyc- tionic Institution of his Imperial Majesty, suited the views of Lord Castlereagh, who could not be persuaded of the practi- cability of either. His lordship finally proposed to qualify the desired right of search, by limiting its duration to a certain number of years ; and by this and other modifications, " he flat- ters himself," says the thirteenth Report of the African Insti- tution, " that he has made a considerable impression in re- moving the strong repugnance which was at first felt to the measure." But the directors themselves do not appear to be so sanguine, if we may judge from the following passage of the Report: "• Thus ended the conferences, and proceedings at Aix-la~Chapelle, respecting the more effectual abolition of the African slave trade, and thus have the directors been disap- pointed in the hopes which they had entertained, of seeing the SLAVE TRADE. 3^ noble principles, announced to the world by the congress at SECT, i Vienna, carried into complete effect, by the sovereigns and ^-^""''^ plenipotentiaries assembled in the course of the last autumn. Whether such another opportunity of bringing those principles into action may ever again occur, cannot be foreseen ; but the directors must be allowed to express their unfeigned regret, that so very favourable a combination of cixcumstances has led to such ummportant results^ The plan of England to obtain from the congress a sen- tence oi piracy upon the slave trade, appeared to the sove- reigns rather wanting in courtesy towards their royal brother of the Brasils, while he persisted in authorizing his subjects to prosecute it indefinitely as to number. It was evident, said the emperor of Russia, that the general promulgation of such a law could not take place, until Portugal had totally renounced the trade. At the same time, the con- gress might not have been able to discern the consistency, of proclaiming that a capital crime in the subjects of one nation, which those of another might do with impunity, under the sanction of recent treaties. It was certainly an awkward dut)' for an English ministry, to solicit the denun- ciation of piracy against the slave trade, which the English nation had, for two centuries, struggled to monopolize. The reflection upon all the generations of that whole tract of time, was rather too strong, in the use of such language as this — *' Slave-trading always involves man-stealing and murder. Even on the passage its murders are numerous,"* &c. The Lord Chancellor Eldon could not have thought so, when, op- posing the British abolition in 1807, "he entered into a review of the measures adopted by England, respecting the trade, which, he contended, had been sanctioned by Par- liameirts in which sat the wisest lawyers, the most learned divines, and the most excellent statesmen."! Nor could Lord Hawkesbury, when he moved that the words " in- consistent with the principles of justice and humanity," should be struck out of the preamble of the British abo- ^ lition bill.! -^o^ could Lord Sidmouth, when he said, *' to the measure itself he had no objection, if it could be accomplished without detriment to the West India islands ;"§ Nor the Earl of Westmoreland, in declaring that " though he should see the presbyterian and the prelate, the metho- dist and field preacher, the jacobin and murderer, unite in ♦ The Memorial. f Hansard's Debates, vol. viii. +Ibid. §Ibid. I NEGRO SLAVERY A\D *T I. favour of the measure of abolition, he would raise his voic6 ■^"■^i^ against it in Parliament."* Throughout the conferences and negotiations above men- tioned, we find the continental powers betraying a rooted distrust of the motives of the British government. The vehemence of its execrations upon the trade ; the intensity of its present zeal for the welfare of Africa, contributed to excite suspicion, when compared with the language I have just cited, and with the toleration of the Spanish and Portuguese traffic before the peace ; — with the treaty of 1814, by which England, having secured for herself, in the general distribu- tion of spoil, some favourite objects of interest, delivered over to the miseries now so pathetically described, whole provinces which she boasted of having entirely relieved — with the free export of fire-arms and ammunition from the British ports to the coast of Africa ; and with the existence of slavery in its worst form, in all the British settlements, including those of Asia Minor and the East Indies. It was remarked that, as soon as it was seen in England, in 1806, that her trade would be abolished. Parliament petitioned the king to nego- tiate with foreign powers for the abolition of theirs ; but that nothing was vigorously attempted in this way, — all had been languor and connivance, — until the conclusion of peace, when the restitution took place, of considerable colonies, which, being stocked regularly and cheaply with slaves, while those retained by England received only a precarious and dear sup- ply, might speedily outgrow the latter, and supplant them in the markets of the world ; and when on other grounds avowed and pressed in Parliament, the commercial interests of Eng- land evidently required, if not universal abolition, at least the restriction to the south of the equator. France knew that it was with British capital and shipping that her merchants had embarked in the trade, immediately after the peace ; Spain and Portugal, that the greater part of the trade carried on under their flags was on British ac- count; and they were somewhat incredulous, when they were told of the British negotiators being " the organs of a people unanimous in its condemnation ; apprized of all its horrors; impressed with all its guilt; foremost in re- moving its pollution from themselves, and waiting with con- fident, but impatient hope, the glad tidings of its universal abolition." None of the powers had ever found those organs disposed to make a sacrifice for this object, beyond an island, • Ibid. SLAVE TRADE. § a subsidy, or a largess ; which might be considered as offered SECT, with a view to ample compensation in lucre ; for Mr. Wilber- v^'v- force was implicitly to be believed, when he said, in the House of Commons, in addition to what I have already quoted from him of a like tenor, that, " in a commercial point \ , of view, it was of incalculable advantage to have the supply \/ of that large tract of country, from the Senegal down to the / Niger, an extent of more than 7500 miles, with the necessa- ^ ries and gratifications which British manufactures and com- merce afford."* Parliament still contained several of the hitherto inflexible anti-abolitionists, who had harangued with- out end to prove the justice and humanity of the trade at large ; its very unanimity, therefore, where that of foreign powers was concerned, had the effect of lessening confidence abroad. Such a phenomenon as the union of General Gas- coyne with Mr. Wilberforce, of Lord Westmoreland with Lord Grenville, in proclaiming the unequalled guilt and in- famy of the slave traffic, could be viewed by the Talleyrands and the Nesselrodes only as indicating a universal sense of the great importance of the end in view, to the commercial ascendancy of Great Britain. It is easily seen, from the strain of the diplomatic notes addressed to Lord Castlereagh at Aix-la-Chapelle, that the congress had a common jealousy of the designs of England upon the African coast, and acted in concert in disappointing the hopes, and alarming the policj', of her plenipotentiary. To maintain a fleet upon that coast would obviously be in the power of none but England, so that the idea of recipro- city in the right of search was illusive ; and it was not con- trary to the entire analogy of British maritime administra- tion, to suppose, that, in this case, it might be pei-verted to the ends of rapacity, oppression, or monopoly. The invidiousness of the proceedings of the English states- men, and the incredulity which they have rendered inveterate in the foreign cabinets, as to their professions, in this matter of the slave trade, make it doubtful whether the cause of real, universal abolition has not suffered by the intervention of England. Had the appeal to the justice, humanity, magnani- mity, and true interests of France, Spain, or Portugal, come from a quarter where no selfish or hostile views could be sus- pected to lurk; had it been urged with steady effort, with the directness of conscious benevolence, and with only a part of that eloquence and sagacity which Great Britain has dis- * February 11, 1818. NEGRO SLAVERY AND IT I. played in the argument^ it might, in the end, have effectually reclaimed those powers, or have raised against them such a combination of influence as would have led to the same happy result. But, in dealing with Great Britain, the calculation with them has been, how to avoid a suspected snare ; to coun- teract an insidious rival policv ; to preserve the interests ■which they ostensibly sacrificed in compliance with the par- ticular necessities of their situation. Hence a more eager and obstinate purpose of filling their colonies with negroes in every practicable mode ; a greater callousness to the shame and criminality of the traffic — hence on the part of other powers, giving the same construction to the instances of England, little disposition to adopt any system that should cut off their supplies, or second her aims. Hence, too, the unmeaning engagements about abolition after a certain period of enjoyment, which only serve to stimulate the exertions of the slave trader, and aggravate the immediate desolation of Africa ; " the vows of future amendment coupled with pre- sent perseverance in guilt;" sacrifices promised to be made, with a determination to prove faithless ; solemn assurances of future rectitude, for whose accomplishment we are to wait until commercial jealousy shall cease, avarice be satiated^ or the sword drawn to enforce performance. More of cant, hypocrisy, and inconsistency, has never dis- graced any occasion, than this of the abolition of the slave trade. While it is admitted universally, and solemnly pro- claimed by the potentates, to be the opprobrium of Christen- dom, and the bane of Africa ; " repugnant to the principles of humanity and essential morality,"* they enter into compacts among themselves for guaranteeing to one or the other, the \ unmolested prosecution of it, during such a term as the con- ' venience of the part)'^ may require ; and in no case is there an intention of observing the limitation prescribed. France de- mands, to use the language of Lord Grenville, five years of injustice and rapine, of murder and violence, laying waste a whole quarter of the globe, that she may recruit her colonial vigour, and particularly that she may have the facility of re- peopling St. Domingo with slaves, in case of the reduction of that island; England, the tutelary genius of Africa, specially ratifies this demand: Portugal and Spain must have eight years of the same horrible career, and will not agree to desist even then, unless their commercial relations with England * See the Declaration of the Congress of Vienna, 8th Feb, 1815. Slave trade. 3i shall undergo a particular change : they acknowledge the SECT. ] teeming wickedness of the traffic ; but, unluckily, they have ^^^^^ the prosperity of their dominions to promote : England dis- claims all idea of giving the law on the subject, or pushing matters to extremity :* Russia, Austria, ancl Prussia, cannot undertake to coerce any power, either as to time or space ; and decide that each is to be left to consult " the prejudices, habits, and interests of its subjects, and the circumstances of its situation :" All pledge themselves, in the last place, to make every possible effort to accelerate the triumph of the magnificent cause of universal abolition! The only governments, in fact, which have acted sincerely and independently^ in relation to it, are those of Denmark and the United States. I am free to confess that no small share of the illicit trade has been carried on by Americans, or by persons assuming the character ; and that no inconsiderable number of negroes has been clandestinely imported into the most southern parts of our territory. Perhaps the Federal Government has not exerted all the vigilance in repressing these abuses, which their enormity required; but the heartiest detestation of them is common to it and to the majority of the nation. The least participation in the slave traffic is certainly a deep stain, and a heinous guilt. The violence which this traffic does, in its very conception, to the rights and obliga- tions of human nature ; its effect in brutalizing those who pursue it ; the flagitious and ferocious practices with which it is attended ; the ineffable, accumulated woes which it inflicts upon its defenceless victims ; the immeasurable evils of every kind with which it overspreads the continent of Africa, and threatens that of America — conspire to invest it with a charac- ter of greater deformity, scandal, depravity, and pernicious- ness, than belongs to any other general crime of the civilized world. I have been the more liberal of details concerning the horrors of the British trade, in order to attract a more earnest attention to our own late offences of the sort, about which we have been too supine ; and against which the voice of every good citizen and moral man, as well as the voice and the arm of the government, should be perpetually raised. 17. Widely different, under the circumstances in which we find ourselves, is the case of retaining the wretched race of Africa in bondage. The most zealous of the English philan- Sae the Protocol of the third conference at Vienna, Feb. 4th, 1815. 4) NEGRO SLAVERY AND J^T I- thropists have not carried their aims so far, with respect to '■^*''*«-' West India slavery, as its immediate or speedy abolition. I have quoted, in my seventh section, the protest entered by the Edinburgh Review, against the imputation of such a de- sign, either to the Reviewers or any of the adversaries of the slave trade. 7'hat journal has returned several times to the topic; in the eighth number, for instance, in the following language : — " It is scarcely necessary to premise, that the ad- vocates for the abolition of the slave trade most cordially reprobate all idea of £'OT<:/?zc?/?a^2V?^§- the slaves that are already in our plantations. Such a scheme indeed is svfficientlif an- swered by the story of the galley slaves in Don ^tixotc^ and we are persuaded, never had any place in the minds of those enlightened and judicious persons, who have contended in this cause." So late as 1817, Lord Holland, one of the most devoted among the associates of Mr. Wilberforce, moved, in the House of Peers, a petition to the Prince Regent, praying that the idea of emancipating the West India slaves might be disowned by royal proclamation throughout the islands ; which was done accordingly. Their itnjitness for freedom^ no less than the danger to the white inhabitants, has been al- leged as the motive for discarding all projects implying their liberation. This has always been treated in England as a question of practicability, not of strict justice. To give a specimen of the mode of reasoning on the subject, I will ex- tract a passage from a speech of Mr. W. Grant, in the House of Commons. " Mr. W. Grant said, he had ever conceived that the end of legislation was to do good, and to consider justice in our means of doing it. Now, there were some occasions on. which it was impossible to do so ; and there the greatest good must be the object even in violation of strict justice. He would illustrate his meaning by an instance. Let them sup- pose a case of emancipation. Wherever slavery existed, there necessarily existed oppression, and the continuance of slavery was consequently a continuance of oppression. If he had professed to do justice, and a slave were to ask him, how could he account for the use he had in view in making him a slave ; if he meant to do j ustice, he should not continue him a slave? he should answer, that his means were circumscribed, and that it Avas true philanthropy to effect the greatest good, which the nature of the case would admit. If he forbore to do an act, abstractly an act of humanity, but which would produce a different consequence, he surely acted rightly i SLAVE TRADE. g were he to act otherwise, he should not satisfy his con- SECT, science, because he should not diminish the misery he wish- v^"^^ ed to relieve." Expediency is thus justified, and allowed on all hands to prevail, touching the existence of slavery in the West Indies. That the British government possesses the poiver to suppress it, no one ventures to deny. The Edinburgh Review has scouted the supposition of armed resistance on the part of the islands, to any exertion of the supreme authority of the mother country. " If," says the 50th number, " a threat of following the example of America, that is, of rebelling, be held out, then the answer is, that what was boldness in the one case, would be impudence in the other, and England must be reduced very low, indeed, before she can feel greatly alarmed at this threat from a Caribbee island." She is, therefore, responsible for the existence of slavery in the West Indies, as much as if it existed within her own bosom, and we might retort upon her the phrase of the Edinburgh Review directed against us, — " That slavery should exist among men who know the value of liberty, and profess to understand its principles, is the consummation of wickedness.'''* Were the question of the abolition of West India slavery to be treated as one of strict justice, England could have no escape from its fullest pressure. The circumstance of her having created and fostered the slavery itself; of her having been chiefly instrumental in making it the fate of so many millions of the race of its victims there, would give every possible degree of force and solemnity to the abstract obli- gation in the case. V/hile, therefore, slavery continues to exist undisturbed in the West Indies, the Briton who approves of the policy of maintaining it, cannot deny to the United States, the benefit of the plea of expediency in regard to the emancipation of their blacks. To avert a personal danger from her planters, and to maintain her lucrative connexion with the islands, England abstains from " tearing off the manacles," — the most galling that ever were imposed — from, a million of that race ; she even abstains, upon considera- tions of possible disadvantage, as the postponement of the Registry Bill shows, from measures adapted merely to the amelioration of their condition. I have, I think, proved in the first pages of this sec- tion, that but a slight degree of blame attaches to the co- lonists, respecting the existence of slavery in this country ; and that their descendants were in no measure culpable, as far down as the declaration of our independence. Thev Vol. 1,-3 C NEGRO SLAVERY AND were no more so, than they would have been, for an heredi- tary gout or leprosy, ascribable in its origin to the vices of the parent state, and which the authors of it should have stu- diously prevented them from curing. The continuation of the system of slavery among us, dvring the Revolution^ was as much a matter of necessity, as it ever had been before. It was not the time for the southern states, to make the experi- ment of a fundamental alteration in the whole economy of their existence, when they were contending with a ruthless foe who sought to array the whole body of negroes against the whites, and who would have availed himself of the greater freedom of action which emancipation must have afforded the former, to accomplish his diabolical purpose. But the northern and middle states, more auspiciously cir- cumstanced, began the work of extirpating the evil from their own bosom, even before the termination of the revolutionary struggle. In 1780, Pennsylvania decreed a gradual aboli- tion ; in the same year an immediate one was virtually effect- ed in Massachusetts ; the example of Pennsylvania was fol- lowed throughout New England at the distance of a few years ; all that portion of the Union, north of the state of De- laware, has since pursued the same course. It was more than a practical moralist could expect or ex- act, that the southern states, retaining sovereign governments of their own, should trust the federal councils with the determination of such a question as the emancipation of their slaves, on which their highest interests of property and safety were immediately dependent. No power to decide for them on this question could be communicated, according to the drift and nature of our union, either to the Revolutionary Confederation, or to the actual government. The power of legislating in all respects for the territory belonging to the United States, accrued necessarily, however, to both ; and it was exercised in relation to slavery, by the first, in a manner to evince the rectitude of the general spirit on the subject, ren- dered impotent in the south by the strongest of impulses, if not the first of duties — self-preservation. The ordinance enacted by the Congress of the United States, in 1787, for the go- vernment of the territory north west of the river Ohio, con- tains the following article — '' There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This vast region was thus scrupulously preserved from the evil; and the states of Ohio, Indiana, and niinois formed out of it, make an integral part of that consi",* SLA^VE TRADE, 3y derable and most prosperous division of our empire, to which, SECT, i; happily, an Englishman may emigrate without " exposing his own character or the character of his children to the demoralizing effect of commanding slaves." 18, The question of the existence of slavery isnot,asIhave intimated, — could not be, — put within the jurisdiction of the present government of the United States. The condition of things assuring, for a long time, to the part of the country ex- empt or soon to be exempt from the evil, a numerical majo- rity in the federal legislature, this domestic interest of the southern members of the Union, vital and pre-eminently delicate in its nature, would have been placed at the mercy of men incapable, like the Edinburgh Reviewers, of under- standing it thoroughly ; liable to an undue bias resulting from the action of good principles ; and who, whatever their general spirit of forbearance, considerateness of character, and warmth of political friendship, might, from ignorance and prejudice combined, through a mistaken patriotism and philanthropy, or in obedience to a sentimental clamour of their constituents, seconded by a generous zeal in their own breasts, hastily take a step which would sooner or later in- volve both master and slave, in the south, in one common ruin. As regards, then, the existence of slavery within the limits of the Union, the federal government has no responsibility such as that of the British parliament, in its omnipotence, with respect to the whole internal economy of the British possessions. The eleven of these American states, in which slavery is now abolished, are not implicated in the demerits of the question. To break loose from the confederation, and thus to risk their own political independence, because the other members do not perform that which is impracticable; because these happen, without their own fault, to be afflicted with the curse of negro slavery ; or to attempt to enforce by arms, an abolition ; is what no sane person will consider as incumbent upon them, and what would hardly be advised by England, who neither coerces nor discards the West Indies; and who would not " give the law" to Spain, Portugal, or France, with respect to the slave trade — infinitely the more detestable crime and destructive evil — when those powers were at her beck. The eastern and middle states have not been backward in discharging any duty in the way of exhortation and aid, which their political and other ties with the slave-holding countries might seem to create. Their doctrine as to human rights is as 8 NEGKO SLAVKRY AXD IRTI. broad, as sincerely adopted, and as loudly proclaimed, as '^''^^^ that of England ; abolition societies abound in them, who do not yield in point of zeal to the African Institution, and have no compromise to make with any government.* The citizens of those states, in emigrating to the w^est, as they do constantly in great numbers, manifest the soundness of their feelings and principles on this subject, by settling in preference, in the parts from which negro slavery is exclud- ed. Hence, the astonishing growth of the states of Ohio and Indiana, the first of which has outstripped, in advances of every kind, whatever the world had seen in the spontane- ous formation of communities. But, those members of the Union, of which I am noAV speaking, while they have inculcated w ithout reserve, in the national councils, every truth, either abstract or practical, ap- pertaining to the question of our negro slavery, have not been blind to the just sentiments of their southern associates, who alone are accountable ; nor have they overlooked, though they tnavnot have always fully measured, the difficulties inherent in the situation of the latter. They, who have better opportuni- ties of understanding it than the British reviewers, are far from thinking that it " affords no apology for the existence of slavery." They see it in the same light, in this respect, as thev see that of the West Indies, which the Reviewers have declared a complete justification : for, though the negroes in our slave-holding states are not near so numerous in the pro- portion to the whites, as in the West Indies ; and though, from the superiority of their condition, they are better pre- pared for freedom, yetthey are in sufficientnumber to assure, in the event of insurrection, the most horrible disasters, before they could be subdued, with the earliest possible aid from the other states ; and, they are still, from inevitable causes, far from the point of being prepared to exist here out of the bonds of slavery, with advantage to themselves, or safety to the whites. 19, Before the American revolution, the British policy of multiplying their numbers by impoi-tations from Africa, closed the door against an attempt to qualify them, by moral and po- litical instruction, for that state. Such an attempt would ap- pear to have been equally impracticable, in the course of the revolutionary war, if we look only to the engrossing avoca- • See the writings of Dr. Thorpe for an explanation of this innuendo. He roundly charges Mr. Wilberforce and tlie Institution, with playing into the hands of the ministiy. SLAVE TRADE. ? tions of the struggle, and to the belligerent system of the mo- SRCT ther coiintr}-. But it was so then, and has been ever since, ^-^"^ from other causes ; more obviously, as the numbers of the blacks increased. An effectual training of the kind is incom- patible with their very being as slaves, and with the nature of the toil incident to their situation. It presupposes their eman- cipation, or such a modification of their existence as would be equivalent, in reference to their value as property, or to the danger threatened by their exemption from restraint. The doctrine so long popular and pursued in England, and main- tained openly by some of her most distinguished statesmen,* that the labourinji^ classes should not be enlightened, lest they might become unwilling to perform the necessary drudgery of their station in life, and prone to rise against the monarchical scheme of social order, was not, perhaps, in her case, altoge- ther without foundation as to the latter topic of apprehension. Now, though the very reverse is the soundest policy for us, with our institutions, as respects the whites, that doctrine, if the right of the southern American to consult his own safety and the ultimate happiness of his slaves, be admitted, is un- questionably just in relation to the body of the southern ne- groes. You could not attempt to improve and fashion their minds upon a general system, so far as to make them capable of freedom in the mass and apart, without exposing yourself, even in the process, or in proportion as they began to under- stand and value their rights, to feel the abjection of their position and employment, calculate their strength, and be fit for intelligent concert — to formidable combinations among them, for extricating themselves from their grovelling and se- vere labours at once, and for gaining, not merely an equality in the state, but an ascendancy in all respects. The diflference of race and colour would render such aspirations in them, much more certain, prompt, and active, than in the case of a body of villeins of the same colour and blood with yourselves, ' whom you might undertake to prepare for self-government. The Duke of Wellington, in the late debate on Catholic emancipation in the British House of Peers, expressed his belief that the Catholics of Ireland, if relieved from tlieir ! disabilities, would endeavour to put down the reformed reli- gion, and this because of the feelings which must accompany the recollection, that that religion had been established in their i country by the sword. What consequences, then, might we not expect in the case of our slaves, from the sense of recent * See puge 69, Sect. ii. NEGRO SLAVERY AND suffering and degradation, and from the feelings incident to the estrangement and insulation growing out of the indelible distinctions of nature ? I know of but one mode of cori-ecting those feelings and preventing alienation, hostility, and civil war ; of making the experiment of general instruction and emancipation with any degree of safety. We must assure the blacks of a perfect equality in all points with ourselves ; we must labour to in- corporate them with us, so that we shall become of one flesh and blood, and of one political familv ! It is doubtful even whether we could succeed in this point, so gregarious are they in their habits, and so strong in their national sympathy. No sublime philanthropist of Europe has, however, as yet, in his reveries of the impiety of political distinctions founded upon the colour of the body, or in his lamentations over our inj ustice to the blacks, exacted from us openly this hopeful amalgama- tion. It would, no doubt, suit admirably the views of our friends in England, who would then have full scope for plea- santcomparisons between the American and English intellect, and the American and English complexion.* I could suggest another consideration, alone sufficient to have deterred our southern states from hazarding, since our revolution, the measure of a general abolition of negro slavery, accompanied with the continuance of the negroes within their limits. It would have put those states especially, and this federal union, at the mercy of Great Britain. The facility of tampering Avith the blacks, and of exciting them to insur- rection, would have been increased for her, incalculably, in their new condition, in time of war. Let her conduct on this head during the revolutionary struggle, and in our late contest, in relation both to the Indians and negroes, determine the point whether she would have availed herself of the op- portunity. On the subject of the abolition of the negro slavery of the south. Judge Tucker, whom I have already cited, has made some remarks which cannot fail to have great weight with every dispassionate and candid mind. " It is unjust," he says, "to censure the present generation for the existence of slavery in this country, for I think it un- questionably true, that a very large proportion of our fellow- citizens lament that as a misfortune, which is imputed to them * See tlie Quarterly Review of May, 1819, on the point of compJcxion. " The white men, women, and cliildren, are all saHow in America," &ci SLAVE TRADE. as a reproach ; it being evident that, antecedent to the revolu- SECT. tion^ no exertion to abolish, or even to check the progress of ' ""^ slavery, could have received the smallest countenance from the crown, without whose assent the united wishes and exer- tions of every individual here, would have been wholly fruit- less and ineffectual: it is, perhaps, also demonstrable, that at no period since the revolution, could the abolition of slavery in the southern states have been safely undertaken, until the foundations of our newly established governments had been found capable of supporting the fabric itself, under any shock, which so arduous an attempt might have produced." " The acrimony of the censures cast upon us must abate, at least in the breasts of the candid, when they consider the difficulties attendant on any plan for the abolition of slavery, in a country where so large a proportion of the inhabitants are slaves, and where a still larger proportion of the cultiva- tors of the earth are of that description. The extirpation of slavery from the United States is a task equally momentous and arduous. Human prudence forbids that we should pre- cipitately engage in a work of such hazai-d as a general and simultaneous emancipation. The mind of man is in some measure to be formed for his future condition. The early im- pressions of obedience and submission, which slaves have re- ceived among us, and the no less habitual arrogance and as- sumption of superiority among the whites, contribute equally to unfit the former for freedom^ and the latter for equality. To expel them all at once from the United States would, in fact, be to devote them only to a lingering death, by famine, by disease, and other accumulated miseries. To retain them among us, would be nothing more than to throw so many of the human race upon the earth, without the means of subsistence ; they would soon become idle, profligate, and miserable. They would be unfit for their new condition, and unwilling to return to their former laborious course." These observations were published in 1803 ; but they are equally applicable to the succeeding period. Our foreign re- lations were always such in the interval between the com- mencement of the late war with England and the year just mentioned, as to give an aspect of extreme danger to imme- diate abolition; and there was no room for the question during the continuance of the war. The difficulties of the case increased, indeed, with the great increase of the ne- groes, independently of our general political embarrass- ments, both internal and external, Avhich were sufficient to absorb our care and faculties. 1 NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^T r. It was by gradual, voluntary enfranchisement, not by legis- lative abolition, that an end was put to the villeinage of Eng- land, a bondage as complete and degrading as that of our ne- groes, and which lasted until the reign of Elizabeth. But the villein^ when emancipated, being of the same race, colour, and general character with the master, was assimilated and conciliated at once ; intermarriage neither debased the blood, nor destroyed the identity, of the nation ; but added to its strength and security. The gradual emancipation of the ne- groes of our southern states, if we supposed them to remain, would, in the end, produce the same inadmissible condition of things as the immediate, — a two-fold, or a motley nation ; a perpetual, wasting strife, or a degeneracy from the Euro- pean standard of excellence, both as to body and mind. As far as it has been tried, it has inspired no confi- dence, whether as regards the happiness of the blacks, or the security of the whites. Virginia took advantage of her in- dependence to authorize manumission, which the policy of the mother country discountenanced. Judge Tucker calcu- lates that upwards of ten thousand obtained freedom in Virginia in this way, in the interval between 1782, when she passed her law, and the year 1791. In 1810, according to the census, the number of her free negroes amounted to thirty thousand five hundred and seventy. In Maryland, there were forty thousand j the increase having been near twenty- six thousand since 1790. In the states south of Virginia, this class was not so numerous, but yet not inconsiderable. We find, by Dr. Seybert's tables, that the free negroes and mulattoes increased 185.05 per centum, from 1790 to 1800 ; and from 1790 to 1810, 313.45. This extraordinary in- crease he ascribes to emancipations of slaves by their mas- ters. Thus the experiment has been ample ; and now let us see what is the result in the slave-holding states. It is fully given in the following representations which come from the pen of a politician well known, and most deservedly and highly respected, in Europe. " You may manumit a slave, but you cannot make him a white man. He still remains a negro or a mulatto. The mark and the recollection of his origin and former state still adhere to him; the feelings produced by that condition, in his own mind and in the minds of the whites, still exist; he is associated by his colour, and by these recollections and feel- ings, with the class of slaves; and a barrier is thus raised be- tween him and the whites, that is, between him and the free class, which he can never hope to transcend. The authority of the master being removed, and its place not being supplied SIAVE TRAi.^:. < by moral restraints or incitements, he Hvls in idleness, and SECT.',' probably in vice, and obtains a precarious supj.'ort by begging ^^"V or theft. If he should avoid those extremes, and follow soine regular course of industry, still the habits of thougluless im- providence which he contracted while a slave himself, or has caught from the slaves among whom he is forced to live, who of necessity are his companions and associates, prevent him from making any permanent provision for his support, by prudent foresight and economy; and in case of sickness, or of bodily disability from any other cause, send him to live as a pauper, at the expense of the community." " But it is not in themselves merely that the free people of colour are a nuisance and burden. They contribute greatly ^to the corruption of the, slaves, and to aggravate the evils of their condition, by rendering them idle, discontented, and dis- obedient. This also arises from the necessity under which the free blacks are, of remaining incorporated with the slaves, of associating habitually with them, and forming part of the same class in society. The slave seeing his free companion live in idleness, or subsist, however scantily or precariously,, by occasional and desultorv employment, is apt to grow dis- contented with his own condition, and to regard, as tyranny and injustice the authority which compels him to labour. Hence he is stronglj- incited to elude this authority by neglect- ing his work as much as possible ; to withdraw himself from it altogether by flight, and sometimes to attempt direct resist- <. ance. This provokes or impels the master to a severity which : would not otherwise be thought necessary ; and that severity, by rendering the slave still more discontented with his con- I dition, and more hostile toward his master, by adding the sen- timents of resentment and revenge to his original dissatisfac- tion, often renders him more idle and worthless, and thus in- duces the real or supposed necessity of still greater harshness on the part of the master. Such is the tendency of that com- parison which the slave can'not easily avoid making, between his own situation and that of the free people of his own colour, •who are his companions, and in every thing except exemption from the authority of a master, his equals : whose condition, though often much worse than his own, naturally appears bet- ter to him ; and being continually under his observation, and in close contact with his feelings, is apt to chafe, goad, and irritate him incessantly. This effect indeed is not always pro- duced, but such is the tendency of this state of things ; and it operates more extensively, and with greater force, than is commoniv supposed.'' Vol. i.~3 D N'EGnO SLAVERY AND !• ^" But this effect, injurious as it must be to the character •' oiKi r.jnduct of the slaves, and consequently to their comfort ar.^,| hannah, with regard to this class of persons, is not, on thefv whole, much more encouraging. The numljer of respectable l; individuals is considerably greater indeed, but the charactepx of the mass nearly the same. Nor can it be urged that they are here debarred access to the ordinary means of moral and intellectual regeneration. On the contrary, schools are established for them ; they are aided in procuring the conve- niences for religious instruction and divine worship; they are united in societies adapted to produce self-respect, and men- tal activity ; exemplary attention is paid, in numerous in- * LeUcr of Robert Goodloe Harper, Esq. to the Secretary of the Ameri- can CoJonization Sliciety. August 20th, 1S17. . SLAVE TRADE. £ stances, to the rcg-ulation of their habits and principles. SECT. Thej^ have every facility which is enjoyed by the labouring '■>^^^ classes among the whites, of acquiring a plain education, and a comfortable subsistence, and of making provision for their children. They have the same legal security in person and property, and generally, the same political rights as the rest of the community. In the slave-holding states, they do, indeed, labour under civil incapacities ; and the policy of denying them the higher privileges of citizenship, is imperative. We have felt the in- convenience of naturalized Europeans exercising those privi- leges in distinct bodies, collected and animated by national feeling; the risk of the African race voting and legislating with the esprit de corps^ is too serious to be incurred, even where all of the race might be free, provided they should be at all numerous ; and to incur it would be madness, where a considerable number of them should, as slaves, remain to be irritated and goaded to revolt, by the invidiousness of the example, and the inevitable conspiracy of the others for the universal release of their brethren. If we suppose that the multitude of free blacks whom Virginia, for instance, has now in her bosom, would exercise the privileges of citizenship, were these granted to them ; and if we then assume the na- tural consequences, the elevation of some of their number to the legislature, and a concert of views and action among the whole, we must see, that she would have to prepare herself at once for the alternative of a general extinction of her negro slavery, whatever might be the catastrophe ; or of the establishment of a restraining code and police which, if it proved effectual to prevent that danger, must aggravate the condition of the slave, and defer the period at which his emancipation might otherwise take place. " The experiment, so far as it has been already made among us," says Judge Tucker, " proves that the emancipated blacks are not ambi- tious of civil rights. To prevent the generation of such an ambition, appears necessary; for if it should ever rear its head, its partizans, as well as its opponents, will be enlisted by nature herself, and always ranged against each other." 20. The complaints which the British travellers and re- viewers have made of the unjust disfranchisement of the free blacks, have then no foundation in fact, as regards the eastern states ; nor in sound speculation, in reference to the southern. The disfranchisement which exists in the latter, cannot be said to be unjust^ if injustice in the business of life, NEGRO SLAVERY AND be not a mere abstraction, and have any thing to do with the ' consideration of self-preservation, and the welfare of the ma- jority. All qualifications of property in the matter of elec- tion and legislation would be unjust^ and the doctrine of uni- versal suffrage, which the Edinburgh Review has so stoutly combated, the only true one, if the above mentioned com- plaints were admissible. With what an ill grace does reproach on the subject of disfranchisement, come from an Englishman ! One-fourth of the whole united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland — four-fifths of the population of Ireland separately — are inca- pable of sitting in Parliament, and of holding various civil and military stations. The motive for continuing this sys- tem of exclusion is avowed to be expediency. A large por- tion of the most intelligent politicians of Great Britain deny the fact of the alleged expediency ; and surely, in the case of the Catholics of England, a small body, confessedly quali- fied in point of understanding, morals, property, tried loyal- m ty ; there could be no practical inconvenience, as there is not » even pretended to be the least direct danger, in admitting them to all the benefits of the British constitution; except only that their admission might render the Catholics of Ire- land more earnest and importunate in seeking the 'same level. The case of the latter even, which wears a more plausi- ble air as to expediency, is, in this respect, in no degree so strong as that of the negroes in our southern states, and in- finitely beyond it in point of practical hardship and moral de- formity.* England disfranchises, not a race of men of a different complexion from her own, and of inveterate hete- rogeneity ; degraded, in the general estimation of the Eui-o-J pean race, and who had been forced upon her hands by ano-| ther country ; insensible to the value of political rights, and incompetent to exercise them beneficially ; but a people in whose favour all the natural sympathies, and most endearing natural affinities plead to her heart; whom she and all the civilized world acknowledge to be their equals in the choicest endowments of mind and body ; whose country she invaded, I and whose independence she crushed ; among whom she es tablished by the sword that reformed religion, the dissent from which is the pretext for their disfranchisement; to whom she owes a boundless retribution for ages of acknowledged* misgovernment and oppression, and gratitude for the most* important services and aids rendered to her in every branch of her public business. * See Note V. SLAVE TKADE. I 21. Noth'.ng can be more false than the representations of SK<^'T, the English travellers concerning the treatment of the free '"^'^ blacks by the whites in the middle and eastern states. It is not true that they are " excluded from the places of public worship frequented by the white ;" that- " the most degraded white will not walk or eat with a negro ;" or that they are *' practically slaves."'* Tlieir situation as hired domestics, mechanics, or general labourers, is the same in all respects as that of the whites of the same description; they are fed and paid as well ; equally exempt from personal violence, and free to change their occupation or their emplover. They approach us as familiarly as persons of the correspondent class in Eng- land approach their superiors in rank and wealth ; and, in general, betray much less servility in their tone and carriage. They do not make part of our society, indeed; they are not invited to our tables ; they do not marry into our families; nor would they, were they of our own colour, with no higher claims than they possess, on the score of calling, education, intelligence, and w.ealth. I confess that whatever claims they might possess in these or other respects, those are advantages from which thev would be excluded ; there must remain, in any case, a broad line of demarcation, not viewed as an incon- venience by them, but indispensable for our feelings and inte- rests. Nature and accident combine to make it impassable. V Their colour is a perpetual memento of their servile origin, .and a double disgust is thus created. We will not, must .not, expose ourselves to lose our identity as it were ; to be stained in our blood, and disparaged in our relation of being towards the stock of our forefathers in Europe. This may be called prejudice ; but it is one which no reasoning can overcome, and which we cannot wish to see extinguished. We are sure that it would exist in an equal degree with any nation of Europe who might be circumstanced like our- selves ; we do not find it so gross in itself, or so hurtful and unjust in its operation, as those of an analogous cast which prevail in England. " Men of true speculation," says Mr. Burke, " instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which inheres in them. If they find what they seek, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and leave nothing but the naked reason." * These are the allegations of Fearon ; worthy of notice only so far as they liave been employed as texts by tlie Reviewers. See Note W. NEGRO SLAVERY AND r I- 22. The unfortunate condition and character of the free "^•^ blacks generally, are not imputable to the whites ; but to the existence itself of negro slavery among us, and to the circum- stance of a distinctive colour. The first is the work of Eng- land ; the other of nature. As the case is, we need not be sur- prised, nor can we much lament, that some of the southern states have passed laws to discourage manumission. The enactment of such laws proves that the practice prevailed, or was likely to prevail, notwithstanding the injuriousness of the effects.. We know that many thousands of the planters of the old states in the south, are restrained, not by the laws, but by a tenderness and sense of duty to the negroes themselves, and to the commonwealth. There are few Americans capable of reasoning calmly and from experience, on this subject, who do iiot concur, in reference to the southern states at least, in the following sentiments of the enlightened and benevolent en- quirer, whose accurate representation of the condition of the free blacks I have quoted above. "The considerations stated in the first part of this letter, have long since produced a thorough conviction in my mind, that the existence of a class of free people of colour in this country is highly injurious to the whites, the slaves, and the free people of colour themselves : consequentl)', that all eman- cipation, to however small an extent, which permits the per- sons emancipated to remain in this country, is an evil, which must increase with the increase of the operation, and would become altogether intolerable, if extended to the whole, or even to a very large part, of the black population. I am, therefore, strongly opposed to emancipation, in every shape and degree, unless accompanied by colonization." Coloni-zation is, in fact, the only reliance in this great ques- tion. Without it, no plan of abolition can be effectual for the security of the whites, or the good of the blacks ; since the permanence of the latter, free or enslaved, within the abode, or the neighbourhood of the former, is the main dan- ger. Colonization is, no doubt, itself attended with appalling difficulties. The aspect of these difficulties prevented the legislature of Virginia from adopting, at an early period, a bill prepared by a conmiittee, for gradual emancipation in that state. It was thought, and not without reason, that to plant a nation of negroes in the American territoiy, would be to lay the foundation of intestine wars which could terminate only in their extirpation or final expulsion ; that to assign them a country beyond the settlements of the whites, would be to put them on a forlorn hope against the Indians. The expense of ST-AVE TRADE. 3| their transportation and establishment presented itself, also, SECT. ; as an obstacle little short of insurmountable.* s.-'~v^ The expedient of transplanting the free blacks to the coast of Africa ; of opening there a receptacle for our black popula- tion at large ; occurred to the Virginia legislature in the be- ginning of the present century. At the solicitation of that bodv, the federal government endeavoured, in 1802, through Mr. King, the American minister in London, to negotiate with the Sierra Leone Company, for the admission of the American blacks into their colony. But the application did not suc- ceed ; and the same fiite attended a similar attempt which was made with Portugal, to obtain an establishment for them within her South American dominions. ' While the British slave trade continued, no hope could be entertained of the prosperity of such an establishment on the coast of Africa. " To account," said the Edinburgh Review, in 1805, " for the failure of the Sierra Leone plan, it is quite sufficient to reflect, that it was undertaken in 1791, on the supposition then so natural, of the slave trade being about to cease ; — that, instead of this expectation being realized, the traffic in question increased daily and hourly in growth ; that the compan}' in vain besought Parliament to check the trade, at least in the narrow district where the colony was planted.'' In sending our negroes thither, we should only have been fur- nishing aliment for that insatiable passion which occasioned ; the introduction of the race into our own country. Constantly si expecting a rupture with Great Britain, or actually engaged I in hostilities with her, from the period of her abolition of the { slave trade, it is only of late that we could again look to the ■ coast of Africa. The project of making a settlement in that quarter, for the purpose of gradually restoring our black popu- lation to their native region, and thus extirpating the slavery which we detest, and fear, has been revived. As soon after ■ the conclusion of the peace in 1815, as our political circum- stances would permit, a society, styled the American Coloni- zation Societ}-, was formed in the south, on the most liberal plan, and under the most distinguished auspices. It enjoys the ■ particular patronage of the legislature of Virginia ; has the countenance and aid of the federal government; and appears to be viewed with an eye of favour by the slave-holding states in general. Auxiliary societies have been organized in differ- ent parts of the country, and will, probably, multiply fast, and excite every where an interest in the important object, whicit Tucker's Notes on Blackstone. NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^ ^- will greatly facilitate its success. The principal society has already caused the western coast of Africa to be explored, and is sanguine as to the practicability of the plan of settle- ment in some district of that coast. I must confess that I have no hope of its success. The British government, what- ever may be its professions, will not allow any establishment to thrive and be perpetuated, which may interfere with its particular views in that direction. As long, moreover, as the slave trade is prosecuted in its present frightful extent, or, indeed, until it shall be contracted within very narrow li- mits, no colony which we may form, can be prevented from becoming, either its prey, or one of its factories. The acting attorney-general of Sierra Leone declared in 1812, on the trial of certain persons for an infraction of the British aboli- tion laws, that the town itself. Sierra Leone, was " the heart from which all the arteries and veins of the slave-trading system had for years been animated and supplied."* The directors of the African Institution, in their ansAvers to the queries of Lord Castlereagh, already cited, hold the follow- ing language. " Sien-a Leone, and its immediate neighbour- hood, may be considered as the only part of the African coast where plans of improvement can be pursued without imme- diately encountering the malignant influence of the slave trade. It is almost necessary, therefore,- to confine within that sphere, at least for the present, any direct efforts made for the civilization and improvement of Africa. Even the esta- blishment formed in the Rio Pongas, for the instruction of the natives, it is feared, must be withdrawn, in consequence of the revival of the slave trade." Though, from the commercial jealousy of Great Britain, the prevalence of the slave trade, or our liability to be involved in wars with the European nations, which would interrupt \ our communication with Africa, we should be obliged to with- dra\Y our aims from that continent, the plan of colonization may, I think, still be pursued on our own, with equal conve- nience and less risk of final miscarriage. Lwill not undertake to point out the spot for its execution"; this does not belong to my subject ; but there cannot be wanting a spot within our reach, free from all invincible objections. The object is of infinite importance j it calls for the earnest attention of the" whole Union, and the unanimous agency of the federal * Sec Dr. Thorpe's View of the present Increase of the Slave Trade, SLAVE TRADE. ^ government, " The alarming danger," says General Harper,* SECT "■ of cherishing in our bosom a distinct nation, which can ne- v^-^^ yer become incorporated with us, while it rapidly increases in numbers ; a nation which must ever be hostile to us, from feeling and interest; the danger of such a nation in our bosom, need not be pointed out to any reflecting mind. It speaks not only to our understanding, but to our very senses." 23. In defiance of the lessons of history and of the true philosophy of the human mind, the British writers have in- sisted, that freedom must be altogether an empty name in the country where domestic slavery is established. Their doctrine would deprive Greece and Rome of the distinction, upon which the admiration of mankind for those republics has been chiefly built. Freedom would be just horn, as it were, in the world. "In every age and country," says Hal- lam, in his History of the Middle Ages, "until times com- paratively recent, personal servitude appears to have been the lot of a large, perhaps, the greater portion of our species. We lose a good deal of our sympathy with the spirit of free- dom in Greece and Rome, when the importunate recollection occurs to us, of the tasks which might be enjoined, and the punishments which might be inflicted, without control either of law or opinion, by the keenest patriot of the Comitia, or the Council of Five Thousand. A similar, though less powerful feeling, will often force itself on the mind, when we read the history of the middle ages." The institution of slavery in the ancient republics was at- tended with every circumstance which might appear incom- patible with the prevalence of true liberty, or of the moral and political virtues of the highest class. f But who can deny to Greece and Rome an ample share of those honours ? " We feel," says Ferguson, in his Essay on the History of Civil * Letter to the American Colonization Society. f " In the ancient states," says the Scottish philosopher, Millar, in his Ori- gin of Itanks, " so celebrated upon account of their free g-overnment, the bulk of their mechanics and labouring people were denied the common privi- leges of men, and treated upon the footing of inferior animals. In propor- tion to the opulence and rehnement of those n.itions, the number of their slaves was increased, and the grievances to which they were subjected be- came the moi-e intolerable." " Allowing five persons to each family, the Athenian slaves exceeded tho freemen in the proportion of between two and three to one. In the most flourishing periods of Rome, when luxury was carried to so amazing a pitch, the proportion of the inhabitants reduced into sevvitiide was in allprobabi!iW greater." Vol. I.— 3 E NEGRO SLAVERY AND Society, " the injustice of the institution of slavery at Sparta. We suffer for the helot ; but we think only of the superior order of men in this state, when we attend to that elevation and magnanimity of spirit, for which danger had no terror interest no means to corrupt j when we consider them ab friends or as citizens, we are apt to forget, like themselves, that slaves have a title to be treated like men." Hallam, in the v/ork which I have quoted above, has con- tended for the freedom of the English constitution during the days of English villeinage, and ascribed to the commons of those days a proud sense and tenaciousness of equality in civil rights. In what manner the villeins were treated, and in what light viewed, will be understood from the following passage of this author. " By a very harsh statute in the reign of Richard II, no servant or labourer could depart, even at the expiration of his service, from the hundred in which he lived, without permission under the king's seal ; nor might any one who had been bred to husbandry, till twelve years old, exercise any other calling. A few years afterwards, the commons petitioned that villeins might not put their children to school, in order to advance them by the church; 'and this for the honour of all the freemen of the kingdom,' In the same par- liament they complained, that villeins fly to cities and boroughs where their masters cannot recover them, and prayed that the lords might seize their villeins in such places, without regard to the franchises thereof."* If the traits which I have cited in the second section of this volume, from the early political history of the southern btates, were not enough to convince the mother country of the compatibility of the love and possession of the broadest civil liberty, with the institution of domestic servitude, the part which they took as colonies in asserting and maintaining the rights of America against her scheme of usurpation, ought to have dispelled all her doubts on the subject. One of her statesmen, at least, an adept in the science of human nature, did not remain in error ; but placed the question be- fore her in the just and full light, as an admonition against perseverance in her perilous career. It is strange that it should be necessary to repeat, for the instruction of some of her most witted writers of the present day, the following pas- sage of Burke's speech on the conciliacion with America. "There is a circumstance attending these southern Ameri- * Vol. ii. c. viii. SLAVE TRADE. 4.(i can colonies, which makes the spirit of liberty still more high SECT. \ and haughty there than in those to the northward. It is that, in Virginia and the Carolinas, they have avast multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free, are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with rnuch abject toil^ ■with great misery^ xvith all the exterior of servitude^ liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal. I do not mean to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the iiature of man. The fact is so ; and these people of the southern colonies are much more strong- ly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those of the northward. Such were all the an- cient commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such in our days were the Poles ; and such will be all masters of slaves, who are not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of domination combines vrith the spirit of free- dom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible." All our experience in America, since the revolution, con- firms the opinion of the orator ; or, at least, assures us, that the citizens of the slave-holding states understand quite as well, and cherish as fondly, the principles of republicanism, as those of the other members of our union. Bryan Edwards has indicated in the character and demeanour of the West Indians, what we find universal among oiu- south and south- western brethren. " Of the character," says this author, *' common to the white residents of the West Indies, it ap- pears to me tliat the leading feature is an independent spirit, and a display of conscious equality, throughout all ranks and conditions. The poorest white person seems to consider him- self nearly on a level with the richest, and, emboldened by this idea, approaches his employer with extended hand, and a freedom which, in the countries of Europe, is seldom dis- played by men in the lower orders of life towards their supe- riors. It is not difficult to trace the origin of this principle. It arises, without doubt, from the pre-eminence and distinc- tion which are necessarily attached even to the complexion of a white man, in a country where the complexion, gene- rally speaking, distinguishes freedom from slaveiy."'"= * History of the West Indies, ch. i. b. J v. NEGRO SLAVKRY AND I may apply in the same way the following representations which Edwards makes in continuation. " Possibly too, the climate itself, by increasing sensibility, contributes to create an impatience of subordination. But, whatever may be th'. cause of this consciousness of self-importance in the West Indian character, the consequences resulting from it are, on the whole, beneficial. If it sometimes produces an ostenta- pi tious pride, and a ridiculous affectation of splendour, it more ^ frequently awakens the laudable propensities of our nature — frankness, sociability, benevolence, and generosity. In no part of the globe is the virtue of hospitality more generally prevalent, than in the British sugar islands. The gates o'" the planter are always open to the reception of his guests To be a stranger is of itself a sufficient introduction." 24. There is some plausibility in the theory of the Edin burgh Review concerning the effects of commanding slaves upon the heart and the morals. But it is not established by our experience, as true in the general. The native citizen of the slave-holding state displays, specifically, as rriuch sen- sibility, justice, and stedfastness, in all the domestic and social relations, as the European, of whatever country. He is as strongly influenced by the ties of kindred and friendship 5 as open to the impressions which attemper and refine our nature. He has had a large share in the formation and administration of our institutions and laws ; in all the executive offices, civil and military ; and we have never discovered in him any parti- cular proneness to tyranny or inhumanity; a torpid conscience, or an imperfect sense of equity. In none of the nobler vir- tues and qualities has he ever proved deficient, in the compa- rison with the individual born and fashioned among freemen alone. If there be any thing contradistinguishing in his man- ners and disposition, it is certainly not ferocity or even harsh- ness. The planter of our old southern states has always been rather remarkable for his urbanity and facilitv, as well as for the dignity and liberality of his sentiments. Morals, it is said, are more loose inthe slave-holding states. If we admitted this to be the case, it would by no means follow that the institution of slavery is the principal cause of the relaxation. An original difference of religious institutions, and maxims of conduct; of soil and climate ; of modes of livelihood and materials of traffic ; of circumstances attending the connexion with the mother country ; might give the same result. Domestic sla- very continues in Germany and the northern parts of Europe ; it has disappeared from the southern ; but the dissoluteness of SLAVE TilADE. ^ these is notoriously greater. Hungary is more in the odour SKOT , of sanctity than the kingdom of Naples. The institution in ^--""^^ tjuestionis to be abhorred, on account of the violence which it offers to human rights, and the abjection to which it reduces human nature : a priori it would seem to exert a fatal influence on the character of the master; but our experi- ence, at least, I repeat it, would not justify us in adopting the theory. When we investigate the dispositions and morals of the European nations, it is not with the "lowest and least" of them alone, but with the highest and greatest that we ven- ture to compare the white population of our slave-holding states. It is not unknown to us, that in Russia the number of slaves held as property, and subject to absolute v/ill, is sextuple that of our negroes :* That, in the other parts of Europe, where the institution of slavery does not exist, there are other institutions generating a hundred fold more vice, misery, and debasement, than we have ever witnessed in the same compass in America. 25, The laws of the slave-holding states do not furnish a criterion for the character of their present white population, or the condition of the slaves. Those laws were enacted, for the most part, in seasons of particular alarm, produced by attempts at insurrection ; or when the black inhabitants were doubly formidable by reason of the greater proportion which they bore to the whites, in number, and of the savage state and unhappy mood in which they arrived from Africa. The real measure of danger was not understood but after long- experience ; and in the interval, the precautions taken, were naturally of the most jealous and rigorous aspect. That these- have not been all repealed, or that some of them should be . still enforced, is not inconsistent with an improved spirit of legislation ; since the evils against which they were intended to guard are yet the subject of just apprehension, England ^inundated South Carolina for instance, with barbarians, and now reproaches her wit;h the measures which she took for her security against their brute force. There is no Code Noir which surpasses in atrocity that * See tlie Appendix to Storcl^'s Course of Political Economy, St. Peters- !uirg, 1815. 'l'lii.s wi-iter states, tliat in 1782, the number of male peasants, or serfs, of tiie crown, amounted to 4,675,000 ; that they could be li-red out, •sold, given away, &c. ; and the number of male slaves, the property of sub- ' •'^ts, h.r> ostin^-^'^'"'^ ■■': ^ f^rn(\(v\. '-nnally at the disposal of the masters. NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^ ^" part of the British statute book relating toRoman Catholics.* ''**^ What Englishman will allow us to make this, as it stood be- fore Sir George Saville's act, or even as it now stands, the index to British humanity and justice? Acts of proscription are still suffered to remain in terrorcm^ ready for a barely possible emergence. " The laws against the Catholics," said the Bishop of Worcester, in the House of Lords, (May 19th, 1819,) "had hitherto been administered tenderly and sparingly; they would, doubtless, continue to be so ad- ministered, unless some event should occur to render their strict enforcement necessary.'''' Since the revolution, most of the southern codes have been softened in regard to the slave police ; and the murder of a negro is now capital throughout our union, except in one state. I have already quoted the assertion of Dr. Dickson, that "the harshness of the slave laws is but little softened by the lenity of the general practice in the British sugar islands." The reverse of this is notoriously true of the American states. The patrol laws, for example, of South Carolina, which contain the most oppressive of her regulations, are rarely put in execution. In Virginia, the interdict laid, at the time of what is called Gabriel's insurrection, upon the assemblage of negroes, — a " seditious meetings bill," like that passed by the British parliament in 1817,j — is wholly neglected. No restraint in this respect is imposed upon them by their masters, except such as may be necessary for purposes of domestic order and labour. Before our revolution, the negro slavery of this country was, as we have seen, acknowledged to be universally less severe than that of any other part of the world. It has undergoi^e, since that event, a great and striking amelioration. To this fact, all who have witnessed and compared the former and present lot of the slaves of our southern states, bear the most confident testimony. What was once deemed a moderate treatment, would now be a rigid one ; and the tolerated rigour * "Laws," says IVIr. Burke, in his speech at Bristol, previous to tlie e tion, " were made in tliis kingdom against Papists as bloody as any of th which had been enacted by the Popisji princes and states; and where tli laws were not bloody, they were woi-se ; as they \^ ere slow, cruel, outrage on ovir nature, and kept men alive, only to insult in their persons eri^ry of tlie rigiits and feelings of humajiity." f By the standing Riot Act of fcingland, not more than twelve persons allowed to continue together, after it has been read by the magistrate. L Castlereagh said in Parliament in 1817, tliat "there was not on the slat book a lavv' which had been more beueticial to the country." SLAVE TRADE. ^ of the first period could find no countenance at the present. SECT..- The negro has gained nearly as much by our separation from ^-'''^^•' Great Britain as the white. The causes of this undeniable fact are various and obvious. With the importation of the Africans, ceased much of the dread, which the slave population inspired, while it was con- tinually receiving large accessions of strangers. At this time by far the greater part of the slaves of the old states, have been born and brought up by the side of the whites. In pro- portion as the indigenous character predominated, the pro- pensity on the one hand to shake off the yoke, and the mis- trust on the other, which occasioned its aggravation, regu- larly diminished. Another circumstance tended to render the slaves in a much less degree objects of terror, and to make room for the' kindlier dispositions of our nature to operate ; the whites came soon to exceed them considerably in number, from emigration added to natural increase. Brougham has speculated in his Colonial Policy, in confoi'- mity to the facts in our case. "There can be little doubt," he says, " that the fatal disproportion of the two classes, the great proportion of the imported negroes, and the cruel treat- ment of the slaves in general, would be all materially altered by any revolution that should separate the colonies from the parent state, while the more rigorous administration of an independent community, would lessen the danger arising from such a mixture of negroes, or such abuses of the slave system as might still remain." Not onlv does the proportion which the slaves bear to the free part of the community, contribute to determine their con- dition, but, in general, the greater or smaller numbers in which they belong to individuals. The abolition of entails and the rule of primogeniture, together with the evaporation of those old prejudices which fettered parental affection in the testa- mentary distribution of estates, have, since the establishment of our independence, led to the subdivision of every kind of property, in the southern communities. The negroes, being- more widely apportioned, exist in smaller bands, and are of Course more under the immediate care and inspection of the masters, in whose eyes they must at the same time have, singly, more value. The interest of the master in the welfare of the slave is not to be urged as a full security against ill usage ; but it cannot fail to have a considerable influence; and it has been constantly increasing from the enhancement ot the price of negroes, occasioned by the demand for their la- bour in the new states, and the insufiiclency of the supplies NEGRO SLAVERY AXa which the illicit importation from Africa can furnisli. The ' more abundant production of food, the increase of wealth with the planters, and more strictness of principle and regu- larity' of habits, (for these too can be proved to be among the effects of the revolution,) have redounded likewise to the advantage of the slaves. It is not to be doubted, that the political discussions, which preceded our revolution, the spirit of the institutions which grew out of it, and the diffusion of education, excited a greater sensibility to human rights; a quicker sympathy with human sufferings; a more general liberality of sentiment; and a higher pride of character, in the slave-holding part of our population. Hence a new public opinion sprung up, re- quiring a system of lenity and generosity in the government and sustentation of the slaves ; and repressive, not only of barbarity, but of habitual severity in any marked degree, and of what may be equivalent in its effects, habitual indif- ference and estrangement. These abuses have become dis- reputable ; they expose the man who is guilty of them to the disdain and reprobation of his neighbours ; and in this way are more efficaciously checked than they could be by any legislative enactments. The master who should deprive his negro of his pecultum^ — the produce of his poultry house or his little garden ; who should force him to work on holidays or at night ; who should deny him the common recreations, or leave him without shelter or provision in his old age, would incur the aversion of the community, and raise obstacles to the advancement of his own interests and external aims. 26. The American negro slavery is almost wholly free from two of the grievances which characterize that of the West Indies — under-feeding- and over-work'mg. With regard to the great article of food, the American negroes are, assuredly, better supplied than the free labourers of most parts of Europe. Flesh meat is not attainable for the latter in the same quantity which is commonly given to the first ; it would seem, (on this head I refer to the quotations which I have made from the Quarterly Review,*) not to be attainable at a'll for the poorer classes of Great Britain and Ireland. In respc to clothing and lodging, the comparison would give neai the same result. On the score of fuel, the want of which occ sions so much suffering in particular counties of Great Britai and, as to the point of labour also, the advantage is greal * See page ^'^S. SLAVE TRADE. 4 on the side of the American negroes. I cannot, here, SECT.;; enter into the details of the system, upon which they are v^'"n'' worked on the southern plantations ; but I can say of it, that it involves nothing like the same intensity, duration, or con- tinuity of exertion, which would appear to be indispensable in Great Britain, in almost all the lower walks of mechanical industry, for the mere support of animal life. The average number of hours of daily toil exceeds there, by nearly one half, that which is exacted under the system just mentioned. A few extracts from recent debates of Parliament will deter- tnine the validity of this assertion. In the House of Commons, (April 29th, 1818,) " Mr. Peel said, in Manchester alone, 11,600 children were em- ployed in the cotton factories, and the average time of labour thirteen hours a day. Most of these poor children, after the thirteen hours of labour, were obliged to go to school to learn to write." " Sir Robert Peel said, it was proved that in Lancashire, children were employed fifteen hours a day, and after any stoppage, from five in the morning until ten in the evening, seventeen hours^ and this often for three weeks at a time. On Sunday they were employed from six in the morning until twelve in cleaning the machinery.'* " Mr. Peter Moore said, (May 13th, 1819,) in the town which he had the honour to represent, (Coventry,) there were five classes of manufacturers, each working nineti/six hours in the week, or sixteen hours in the daj'^. The first of these classes gain, in return for their labour, ten shillings a week, or two pence halfpenny an hour, which is but a very trifling share of what they were formerly in the habit of ac- quiring. The second class gained 5s. Qd. a week. The third 2*. 9t/., which is labouring four hours for five farthings. The two remaining classes receive 2s. and 1*. 6d. a week, which is working at the rate of seven and nine hours for a single halfpenny." " Mr. "Mansfield said, (March 25th, 1819,) that he had at- tended a committee that day, before whom a case was proved of a great number of labourers, who, by working fifteen or sixteen hours a day, could not earn above seven shillings per week." The physical condition of the American negro is, on the whole, not compai-atively alone, but positively good, and he is exempt from those racking anxieties — the exacerbations of despair, to which the English manufacturer and peasant are VoT.. L--r> F I NEGRO SLAVERY AND ^'^' I- subject in the pursuit of their pittance.* The old age of the negro, in Virginia and the Carolinas particularly, is by no means one of cheerlessness or destitution. He is not tasked beyond his strength ; he is sure of nutriment ; he remains in the midst of his comrades ; and, in most cases, has a family about him with the feelings and attractions of legitimacy ; for, the polygamy, and promiscuous intercourse between the sexes, which crown the abominations of West India slavery, are not common features in the North American. We have it upon the authority of the Quarterly Review, that the great body of the British people " work with the prospect of want and pauperism before their eyes as xvhat must be their destiny at last ;" that " in the road in which the English labourer 7nust travel, the poor house is the last stage on the way to the grave."-) If we are entitled to form an opinion from the Parliamentary Reports, — no mean authority, — this final stage of the English labourer is worse than any stage in the career of the American negro. The *' victim of American barbarity" finds in his " quarter" comforts which the tenant of the British poor house might envy, and can ne- ver hope to enjoy. From the minutes of evidence before the parliamentaiy com- mittee on the state of the poor, it would appear, that the treat- ment which they experience in the receptacles provided for them, is wretched and barbarous almost beyond credibility. By way of example, the witnesses stated that in one room 28 feet long by 15 wide, there were two and twenty persons * I appeal to the petitions presented to Parliament by bodies of ten and twenty thousand agriculturists and manufacturers at a time. The fol- lowing representation, made by Mr. Brougham in the House of Commons, may be taken as a specimen of their condition. " Mr. Brougham observed that the weavers, in consequence of the reduc- tion of their wages, were comj)eJled first, to part for their sustenance with all their trifling property by piece-meal, from the little furniture of their cottages to the very bedding and clothes tliat used to cover them from the v.eather. They struggled on with hunger, and went to sleep at night-fall, upon the calculation that if they worked an hour or two later, they might in- deed earn tiiree halfpence more, one of which must be paid for a candle, but then the clear gain of a penny would be too dearly bought, and leave them less able to work the next day. To such a frightud nicety of reckoning are human beings reduced, treating themselves like mere machines, and ba- lancing the produce against the tear and wear, so as to obtain the maximunri that their phi^sical powers can be made to yield ! At length, however, the)' nuist succumb; the work -house closes their dismal prospect; or, with a re- luctance that makes tlieir lot a thousand times more pitiable, they submit to take parish relief; and, to sustain life, pai't with tlie independent spirit, the best bii-tliriglit of an English peasant." f See page 287. SLAVE TRADE. ^ sleeping ; that Idiots lived promiscuously with the other pau- SECT, pers ; that the fowls and chickens were kept in the pantries v.^~v- where the food for the poor was kept ; that they were in ge- neral extremeh' ill clothed, &c. The parishes contracted with individuals for keeping their poor at so much ahead, and made them thus victims of avaricious speculation. It was shown that one individuaiy^/rwz^rt'the poor of no less than forty pa- rishes, receiving six shillings a week for each pauper; and spending of course, for the accommodation of his guests, as little as possible of this stipend. London had eighteen thou- sand poor inthe difFer'entwork-houses inEngland. Irefertothe Report of the House of Commons on Mendicity, for a general picture of the condition of the paupers in those work-houses. " Your committee," says the Report, " cannot hesitate to suggest that there are not in the country a set of beings more immediately requiring the protection of the legislature than the persons in a state of lunacy and mendicit}^, a very large proportion ofxvhom are entirely neglected by their friends and relations. If the treatment of those in the middling or in the lower classes of life, shut up in hospitals, private mad-houses, or parish work-houses., is looked at, your committee are per- suaded that a case cannot be found, where the necessity for a remedy is more urgent." The details of the Report recall to mind, but with strokes of tenfold patheticalness, the touching lament of the poet Crabbe: " Then too I own, it grieves me to beliold Those ever virtuous, helpless now and old, B}' all for care and industry approv'd, For truth resjiecied, and for temper lov'd ; - I And who, by sickness and misfortune try'd, j Gave Want its worth and Poverty its pride : I own it prieves me to behold them sent From their old home; 'tis pain, 'tis punishment. To leave each scene familiar, every face, For a new people and a stranger race : For those who, sunk in sloth and dead to shame. From scenes of guilt with daring spirit came ; Men, just as guileless, at such manners start. And bless their God that time has fenc'd their heart, Confirm'd their virtue and expell'd the fear Of vice in minds so simple and sincere. Here the good pauper, losing all the pi-aise By worthy deeds acquir'd in better days, I Breathes a few months, then to liis chamber led, 1 Expires while strangers prattle around his bed."* 27. The religious instruction of the slaves cannot be said to be an object of immediate care with the majority, or any * See Note X. NEGRO SLAVERY AND great proportion, of the American masters ; but they are far from refusing them access to it, in any form. It is left at the option of the negroes to frequent the churches and meeting houses, which, in the country, have universally a compart- ment for their occupation. The old, or infirm, or those whose conduct has been exemplary, are indulged with horses to ride to sermons. They have, in numerous instances, houses of worship for their separate use, where individuals of their own number, empowered by the white elders, preach, and discharge the other functions of the ministry. Itinerant mis- sionaries of the gospel have formed congregations of them in almost every district ; and though the Christian lecture cannot be otherwise than rare, and the attendance upon it loose, yet enough is done to leave a salutary impression, and to make it utterly inconsistent with the truth to say of them, what the Quarterly Review says — no doubt with great truth — of two- thirds of the lower order of people in all the large cities and towns of England, and of " the greatest part of her manufac- turing populace, and her miners and colliers," — that they live as utterly ignorant of the doctrines and duties of Christianity^ and are as erraiit and uncoriverted Pagans^ as if they had ex- isted hi the -wildest part of Africa?''^ South Carolina has had a great share of the obloquy of the British travellers, on this subject. Their outcry will not be si- lenced, but the friends of justice and humanity will be gratified, by the following facts which I extract from an official Report, dated the 14th June, 1819, of a committee of the Board of Managers of the Bible Society of Charleston, respecting the progress and present state of Religion in South Carolina. *' From the best information the committee have been able to obtain, they find that the Gospel is now preached to about six hundred and thirteen congregations of Protestant Christians; that there are about two hundred and ninety-two ordained clergymen who labour amongst them, besides a considerable number of domestic missionaries, devoted and supported by each denomination, who dispense their labours to such of the people as remain destitute of an established ministry. From actual returns, and cautious estimates where such returns have not been obtained, it appears that in the state there are about 46,000 Protestants who receive the holy communion of the Lord's supper. In the city of Charleston, upwards of one- fourth of the communicants are slaves or free people of colour : and it is supposed that in the other parts of the state, the • See page 288. SLAVE TRADE. .] proportion of such communicants may be estimated at about SECT, one-eighth. In every church they are freely admitted to attend^ on Divine service — in most of the churches distinct accommo- dations are provided for them, and the clergy in general make it a part of their pastoral care to devote frequent and stated seasons for the religious instruction of catechumen from amongst the black population." This train of affairs in South Carolina is somewhat more creditable than that in the British West Indies, whei-e scarce- ly any thing has been done for the conversion of the negroes. If we did not see by the statements of the Quarterly Review and the parliamentary papers, to what a deplorable extent the initiation of the people of England into Christianity has been neglected,* we should find it difficult to believe that her established church had, in the course of nearly two cen- turies, attempted nothing towards the regeneration of the millions of heathens who have been held in bondage in her islands. To this effect, however, is the testimony of all the best authorities concerning the affairs of those islands. Mo- ravian missionaries alone had sought to introduce the light of the Gospel among a population requiring its lessons and consolations, more, perhaps, than any other on earth. At length the late Bishop Porteus founded a " Society for the conversion of negro slaves," which has been nearly inopera- tive. With respect to the British planters themselves, it is asserted in a recent work entitled to full credit, that " there is not, and never was, either worship or instruction of any kind provided by them for their numerous slaves. "f The number of negroes in the British West Indies, baptized and endoctrinated, bears no assignable proportion to those so circumstanced in the United States. 28. The British philanthropists, in making their appeal in favour of the former, have seemed to consider every thing as gained, if only " the humblest and coarsest necessaries of /i/e, the protection of laiv^ and the assistance of labouring cattle^ could be secured to them.:}: It is long since so much and more has been secured to the great majority of the North American negroes ; and the irresistible proof offers itself in the increase of their numbers. The Edinburgh Reviewers would, with all their ingenuity, find it difficult to reconcile the aspersions * See Note Y. t Letters on the West Indies, by James Walker, London, 1818. Letter VI. 4 Dickson's Mitigation of Slavery. Preface. NEGRO SLAVERY A>!D r I. which they cast upon the American as the murderer and scour- ''>^ ger of slaves^ with the fact that, according to the rate of in- crease from 1790 to 1810, the number of years required for the duplication of our slave population is only 25.99. The allowance to be made on account of importations, would not extend this term to twenty-eight at the utmost, for the natu- ral increase. The population of Great Britain, as appears by authentic documents, does not double in less than eighty years.* Even in the most unhealthy districts of South Caro- lina, where rice is cultivated, and the labour of the negroes comparatively severe, they do not diminish in numbers. A benevolent practice prevails among some of the rice planters, of paying to the overseers, in addition to their regular emoluments, a certain sum per head, (usually ten dollars) i for the annual increase ; and it has proved no insignificant source of revenue to the latter. " The increase of the American slaves and people of co- lour," says the Quarterly Review of Mav, 1819, "appears to-: have been \n a much greater proportion than that of the white population, and it is not improbable, that in a few generations, the negro race will exceed\S\Q. whites in all except the eastern states. The number of slaves in the United States, is now above two millions, and including the free negroes, the black population of America, constitutes more than one-fourth part of the whole." If all this were accurate, it would refute at once the tales which the orthodox journal has so often repeat- ed con amore^ respecting the treatment of that black popula- tion. It is marked, however, by the usual ignorance, or spirit of exaggeration, where America is in question. Our census of 1810 teaches, that, according to the ratio of increase for the twenty years preceding, the number of years required for the duplication of the whites was 22.48 ; and that required for the slaves, as I have mentioned, 25.99. The whites in- creased from 1790 to 1810, 85.26 per cent. ; the slaves 70.75. The mei*e natural increase is not, however, shown exactly by this calculation. We should deduct the annual addition made to the numbers of both from without, which would probably leave the proportion the same. The whole number of slaves in 1810, was 1,191,364; and of free people of co- lour, 186,466. Together they did not equal one-fourth of • "It appears by Mr. Pickman's tables," says the Quarterly Review, "that llic population of England and Wales has nearly doubled in the last hvndred years," — a term nearly four times longer than that required for the duplica- tion of the American negroes. SLAVE TRADE. the white population, which was, 5,862,092; nor make butSECl little more than one-sixth of the whole. At present, the proportion must be still less, as the ratio of increase for the white population is undoubtedly greater.* In 1810, the white population of the nine slave-holding states of that period, amounted to 2,153,455; that of the coloured, free and en- slaved, to 1,242,862. The census of 1820 will give three millions atleast of white population in the slave-holding coun- tries of the union; and not more than 1,700,000 of black, allowing for the addition made to the number of the last hv illicit importation. Should we admit the ratio of increase to be the same for both, the political arithmetician of the Quar- terly Review would find it difficult to solve the problem, in how many generations " the negro race will exceed the whites," especially if he be confined to his own limitation — " in all except the easteim states," under which denomination he could not mean to include Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois ; con- taining nearly a million of whites, without the alloy of a slave. 29. The removal of considerable numbers of the slaves from the old slave-holding states, to the south and south-west, tends materially to increase the relative majority of the whites in those states, and is likely to continue, so as greatly to lessen the danger to which they may be held to be exposed. The slaves emigrate either with their original owners, or with per- sons of the same or an adjoining state, to whom they are sold, and who purchase them for their own use ; or with the negro traders^ so called. The greater number go with the two first descriptions of persons, to a more fruitful soil ; to a cli- mate equally or more favourable to their constitutions: alto- gether they suffer but little, if at all, by the change of position. They are not, in general, committed to a new master, vv-ho is unknoAvn ; or who does not possess the best testimonials as to his views, and the respectability of his character. It had been long the practice to sell the intractable slaves, and such as were guilty of crimes, to the traders^ who disposed of them to the planters of South Carolina and Georgia. This disposition even of culprits may scandalize the writers of the Quarterly Review ; but it is not quite so harsh as that of selling them to * The operation of it may be understood from the following' statement. In 1790, for every 100 free persons, there were 22.13 slaves. In 1800 - ditto 20.29 do. In 1810 - ditto - • - - - - 19.69 do. NEGRO SLAVERY AND ' !• the Bey of Tripoli* would have been ; nor worse than the "^^^ transportation of the British convicts to Botany Bay, ac- cording to the description of it which I have already given in the language of members of Parliament ;f or to the cha- racter of it which is implied in the following extract from the volume of Parliamentary Debates for the year 1792. *' Mr. Fox noticed the mention that had been made of the transportation of convicts to Botany Bay, and said, that the hardships of the passage would appear less extraordinary^ when it was known, that the transportation was undertaken by slave merchants, and slave captains, and that a part of the misery of the convicts was the effect of slave fetters being used instead of those employed in general for con- victs.":}: The proportion of slaves of good character, whom the tra- ders obtain, is small comparatively : The severance or disper- sion of families is by no means so common as might be sup- posed from the tales of the English travellers. This evil is produced in England in a hundred instances to one that oc- curs among our negroes, and with tenfold affliction, by the extensive emigration which the public burdens occasion, and ♦ The Repoi-t of the Parliamentary proceedings of April, 1819, furnishes the following. " Mr. Bennct said (House of Commons) he had no high opinion of the. tender sympathies of ministers on these subjects. He had in his recollec- tion what passed on tlie subject of convicts in tlie year 1789, when they were first sent out; when (the house would scarcely believe it) it -^vas proposed ami discussed in the Privy Coviicil, -uhether the convicts at that time should not he sold to the Bey of Tripoli as slaves .' Tliis proposition (the proposition of, as we uniler- stood, //oni .4HfA-/(/7irf) was considered, though of course rejected; thoiig-li it showed how little disposed the government were at that time to attend to the situation of the convicts. At the same time, a ship that was sent out with them had not any settled destination ; and the sentences of some of the convicts had expired before they reached the colony to which they were at length consigned." ■j- See page 304. i "From the year 1785 to 1801, of 3833 convicts embarked, 385 died or^ noai-d the transports, behig nearly one in ten." O^IIura's History of JV*. S ll'ales. " The difRculties, which for a long course of years attended the plan for sending our convicts to New South Wales, gave rise to the convict cstablisH- ments at Woohvick, Sheerness, and Portsmouth : where great munbers of criminals were crowded together to await the hour of their deportation, un- der circumstances of the most afflicting nature ; many, who have been seri- tencedto transportation, having passed the whole period of their punishment in a state of wretched and useless imprisonment at home. Such was then the condition of these establishments, that they were pronounced in the House of Commons, by one of the best and greatest men that ever entered its walls, to be a hot bed of vice and wiclcedness." lioscoe, Obaervations o?i jPehal Jurisprndeiice, 1819. SLAVE TRABl'. :\e operation of the poor laws ; to say nothing of the cases so SEC common in time of war, of seamen impressed when returning ^--^ irom distant voyages, and that even without being allowed the comfort of seeing their families. Kidnapping is frequent ; but the states have universally subjected it to the severest penalties ; some of them to that of death. As great an abhorrence for it pervades the whole country, as any crime can be supposed to excite among a moral people. The flagellation of the slaves for misdemeanors, or troni the impulses of anger, or churlishness in the masters, is, no doubt, too common ; but it would be every way unjust to judge of the conduct of the Americans in this respect, by what passes in the West Indies. In the use of the lash the discipline of the southern plantations is contradistin- guished from that of the West Indian, as much as in the de- gree of labour and the supply of food. Public opinion, and all the other causes of reformation which I have no- ticed, operate equally in this matter. But it is not for an Englishman to complain of the use of the lash among fo- reigners. The hysterical indignation ofthe British Reviewer^ and travellers on this head, appears even ludicrous, when we advert to the fact, that no nation employs the scourge more se- verely or generally than the British. Education with her is con- ducted with the birch; whippingis almosther sum of discipline in the army and navy; the seaman is flogged from ship to ship; the soldier, tied up to the halberds and exposed in the most shameful and ignominious manner,dies under the stripes of the drummer, or is withdrawn only when the surgeon who watches his ebbing pulse, declares that nature can bear no more. The number of apprentices in Great Britain is, probably, little less than that of our negroes ; corporal punishment is as familiarly inflicted-upan them, and as frequently to a brutal excess : I attest the Old Bailey calendar, when I assert, that they are oftener maimed and murdered by the hand of the mas- ter. So horrid and multiplied were the enormities of this kind, which accident or private feeling brought to light, that the legislature was compelled to interfere ; but with how little effect the records of the Assizes and the tenor of the late Parliamentary Reports, will show. In short, there is no form of human suffering which an Englishman is so much accus- tomed to witness, to hear and to read of, in his own country, as flagellation in all its varieties and degrees. I do not wisli to pursue this odious topic, on which reprisals might have no nd, further than to quote a passage of some significancv from Vol. I.— 3 G NEGRO SLAVERY AND T I- a late and excellent work of Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool. " " It has frequently been observed, with some degree of exul- tation, that torture is not permitted in this country. If by torture be meant the subjecting a person to the rack, for the purpose of compelling him to give evidence, or to confess an imputed crime, this country is certainly not chargeable Avith so diabolical a practice. But, if the lacerating and scourging the person of an individual, as a punishment for his offences, be torture^ it is a proceeding not only well known to our laws, but of frequent occurrence. There are, in fact, few mutilations or sufferings to which the human frame can be subjected, that have not, in this countrj', at one time or another, been resort- ed to, as a punishment for offenders ; nor does there appear to be any obstruction, other than such as arises from the more improved and humanized spirit of the times, to similar pun- ishments being again inflicted ; but independent of these bar- barities, the use of the whip is general throughout the prisons of the kingdom, where prisoners, for small offences, are rvhipljed and discharged.''''^ Those advertisements for the recovery of runaways, which are copied into the English Reviews, and books of Travels, with exclamations of such horror and reproof, as though Eng- lish newspapers contained nothing to chafe the feelings of humanity, and rouse the spirit of freedom, are incident to the existence itself of negro slavery ; and I think I have shown that this is an evil which could neither be avoided nor remov- ed by America. Negroes cannot be held as property, without being subject to alienation. A mortmain would be impracti- cable, and if it could be established, mischievous to all par- ties. The proclamation of the intention to sell, while it gives effect to the necessary and useful right of alienation, affords the subject of it a better chance of being transferred into good hands. At all events, it is an inevitable incident of an inevi- table institution. Slaves who abscond from the master must be reclaimed, or there would be an end to all slavery in the most mischievous of all forms of abolition. Without the aid of the public, the master would be unable to recover the fugi- tive. And it is to be presumed that the latter is, quite as often, ii delinquent seeking independence for the sake of licentious- ness, or from a refractory disposition, as a victim escaping the exactions of avarice, or the lash of tyranny. Unfortunately, the character of the negro race with us, and indeed the charac- ter which is produced in all cases of bondage, might warrant Observations on Vo:;al Jurisprudence, 1819. SLAVE TliADE. a presumption more unfavom-able to the slave. His flight is,SKC' in a general point of view, a violation of the order of society, ^^-^^ which it is the interest, and, abstractedly, the duty, of ever\ citizen to repress and correct. The Quarterly Review of May, 1819, after transcribing irom Fearon's Travels a couple of plain advertisements of negroes yir sale or h'lre^ which that missionary had extracted from a New York paper, proceeds thus — " What, subjoins ]Mr. Fearon with an amiable warmth, should xve say, if in England we saw such advertisements in the Times news- paper ? Should rve not conclude that freedom existed onlv in words? Such would, indeed, be a legitimate conclusion." — Alas, then, for the freedom of England herself, as late as 1772, notwithstanding the boasts of the Britons of that day! Clarkson and Granville Sharp have kept a record which, upon the principles of Mr. Fearon and the Quarterly Review, in- ^alidates all their pretensions. Clarkson, having mentioned the opinion given in 1729, by the great law officers of the crov/n — that a slave coming from the West Indies into Great Britain did not become free, and that the master might legal- ly compel him to return again to the plantations, — makes the following statement: " The cruel and illegal opinion was delivered in the year , 1729. The planters, merchants, and others, gave it of course all the publicity in their power. And the consequences were as might easily have been apprehended. In a little time slaves absconding were advertised in the London papers as runa- ways, and rewards offered for the apprehension of them, in the same brutal manner as we find them advertised in the land of slaverv. They were advertised also, in the same pa- pers, to be sold by auction, sometimes by themselves, and at others with horses, chaises, and harness. They were seized also by their masters, or by persons employed by them, in the very streets, and dragged from thence to the ships ; and so unprotected now were these poor slaves, that persons in no v/ise concerned with them began to institute a trade in their persons, making agreements with captains of ships going to the West Indies to put them on board at a certain price." Granville Sharp, unmindful, like the British Reviewers, that the domestic slavery which Britain had planted in ovir * soil, and so assiduously cultivated, could not be excinded, nor divested of its essential properties, also suffered him- self to be fired by some New York advertisements. When he has recited them, in his " Representation of the Injus- XilGRO SLAVKUY AND tice of Slavery,"* he proceeds, however, m a different way — " But hold! perhaps the Americans may be able, with too much justice, to retort this severe reflection, and may refer us to newspapers published even in the free city of London, which contain advertiseiTients, not less dishonourable than their own. See the following advertisement in the Public Ledger of 31st December, 1761. " FOR SALE, " A healthy Negro Girl, aged about 15 years; speaks good English, works at her needle, washes well, does house- hold work, and has had the small pox. By I. W. &:c." Another advertisement, not long ago, offered a reward for stopping a female slave who had left her mistress in Hatton Garden. And in the Gazetteer of 18th April, 1769, ap- peared a very extraordinary advertisement, with the follow- ing title. " HORSES, TIM WHISKEY, AND BLACK BOY. " To be sold, at the Bull and Gate Inn, Holborn, a very good Tim Whiskey, little the worse for wear, &c." After- wards, " A chesnut Gelding." — Then, " A very good grev Mare." — And last of all, (as if of the least consequence) "A well made good tempered Black Boy ; he has lately had the small pox, and will be sold to any gentleman. Enquire as above." Another advertisement in the same paper, contains a very particular description of a negro man, called Jeremiah , and concludes as follows : — " Whoever delivers him to captain M — u — y, on board the Elizabeth, at Prince's stairs, Rother- hithe, on or before the 3 1st instant, shall receive thirty guineas reward, or ten guineas for such intelligence as shall enable the captain or his master, effectually to secure him." " A Creole Black Boy is also offered to sale in the Daily Advertiser of the same date." " Besides these instances, the Americans may perhaps taunt us with the shameful treatment of a poor negro servant, who not long ago was put up to sale by public auction, toge- ther with the effects of his bankrupt master. — Also, that the * London, 1769. SLAVE TRADE. prisons of this free city have been frequently prostituted of SEC late by the tyrannical and dangerous practice of confining ^•-^~' negroes, under the pretence of slavery, though there has been no warrant whatsoever for their commitment." It may be said that these practices were arrested in Eng- land. They were indeed, and so have they been wherever tliis could be done, in the United States. But they were more wanton and malignant in that countrv, since they did not spring out of a general and long established system of slavery; and they show how the people of England would have acted, if the old law had not proved to be, on laborious investigation, peremptory upon the Subject. The British merchant, however, continued to fit out his ship at Liver- pool, or London, for the coast of Africa ; the British factory supplied him with troops of kidnapped negroes; his captain transported them, with every refinetnent of crueltv, to the British West Indies, and there advertised and sold them, un- der the sanction of the British government, in the name of his owner, a great stickler, perhaps, for liberty and universal emancipation ; who railed each day against American incon- sistency and barbarity in holding and advertising slaves, and repeated complacently the well known verses of Cowper, '■'■ slaves cannot breathe in England," &c. 30. We do not deny, in America, that great abuses and evils accompany our negro slavery. The plurality of the leading men of the southern states, are so well aware of its pestilent genius, that they would be glad to see it abolished, if this.werc feasible with benefit to the slaves, and without inflicting on the country, injury of such magiiitude as no communitv has ever voluntarilv incurred. While a really practicable plan of abolition remains undiscovered, or undetermined ; and while the general conduct of the Americans is such only as neces- sarily results from their situation, they are not to be arraigned for this institution. If, — as I have no doubt is the case, — it produces here much less misery and vice, than it produces in the other countries which are cursed with it, it fur- nishes occasion rather for praise than blame. The native Americans claim the distinction of abusingless the dangerous power with which it invests the slave-holder ; of consulting- more the comfort and general welfare of its victims ; than the foreigners, Britons not excepted, who so readily participate in ^hat power on associating themselves to this nation. We are KEG 110 SLAVEilY AND r I. told by an English writer, Ramsay,* who is supported in the "^^ assertion by Edwards, tliat, with respect to the West India slavery, " adventurers from Europe are universally more cruel and morose towards the slaves than the Creoles or na- tive West Indians." The analogy is perfect in our case, and of notoriety. It is a matter of old experience in Virginia and the Carolinas ; and the American planter appears to like advantage atpresent in Louisiana, inthe contrast, on this head, with the French and Spanish, Avho have pursued, but who are gradually abandoning under the salutar}' influence of our political and social spirit, an hereditar}' svstem of rigour. In admitting the deformity and evil of our negro slavery, we are far from acknowledging, that any nation of Europe is entitled, upon a general comparison between our situation as it is thus unluckily modified, and her own, with all appen- dages and ingredients, to assign to herself the pre-eminence in felicity, virtue, or wisdom. On the contrary, we know of none with which we Vv'ould make .^ general exchange of" in- stitutions," and are assured that there is none, whose mode of being on the Avhole, is not much more unfavourable than ours, to the attainment of the great ends of society. Who can say that the negro slavery of these states, combined even with every other spring of ill existing among us, occasions, propor- tionably, as much of suffering, immoralitv, and vileness, as the imequal distribution of wealth and the distinctions of rank, the manufacturing system, the penal code, the taxes, the tythes, the poor lates, the impressment in England ? Are there not as many of her inhabitants, as the xvliolt number of our blacks^ as effectually " disfranchised ;" as entirely uninstruct- ed ; in the last stage of penury and distress ; whose physical conditipn universally, is hardly better than that of the most lov.dv plantation slave, and who are heart-struck and broken- spirited, if not hardened and enraged? Let us examine for a moment how the case stands with the people of England, as to one of the worst of the effects, with which our, and all other domestic slavery, is properly re- proached, — the abasement of the human character. Lord Sheffield is a witness who will never be suspected of a dispo- sition to. disparage his country. In 1818, he published a pamphlet, entitled Observations on the Poor Laws ; which contains the following, among other striking representations : " There is much truth in the remark that a small additional increase of the assessments would, in many instances, render • F.ssay on the treatment and conversion of slaves, &c. SLAVE TRADK. tbe land productive of no rent at all. The very aggravated SEC situation of our little farmers is deplorable ; it is ruinous." ^-^ " In many parishes, three-fourths, sometimes four-fifths of the parish, actually receive relief: the greatest part of the population have become beggars, and often insolently insist upon relief, depending rather upon their clamorous demands than on their industry, foresight, or economy." " The prevailing abuses have brought the country to such a pass, and have so demoralized and vitiated a great propor- tion of the people^ that, notwithstanding the ruinous expense incurred by the poor rates, the misery of the lower ranks is so for from being alleviated, that it is virtually created and extended by it." In the House of Commons, March 3d, 1818, Mr. Curwen said, that " the inadequacy of wages and the practice of sup- plying the deficiencv of them from the parish funds, had de- troijcd the apirit of independence among the poor?'' In the month of March of the year preceding, Lord Castlereagh re- marked to the house, that " it must be aware that a great proportion of the wages of the countrv was paid out of the poor rates." On the 19th May, 1819,' Lord J, Russel said, in the same place, " he must refer to tlie conduct of the mi- nistrv on the important subject of the poor laws, the discus- sion of which subject not one of his majesty's ministers had attended. A lamented friend of his, whose loss v\-as felt every day more and more^ — he meant Mr. Horner — had ob- served that by the present poor laws, the people were return- ing fast to a state of villeinage. The observation was true ; they were returning to a state of villeinage., and to a state of villeinage that was incalculably more dangerous that that %.hich existed six centuries ago in an age of darkness and superstition. S;>rry v/as he to say that the once manly peasantry of this country, were now becoming lazy and riot- ous, and disrespectful to their superiors, and that they were begiiming to look up to the laws with no other view than that of obtaining by them a temporary subsistence." We have the curious confession of Lord Sidmouth, made in the House of Peers, on the 3d June, 1818, that "it was notorious the dread of transportation had almost subsided, and perhaps had been succeeded by the. desire to emigrate to Nexv South Wales.'''' This desire, which indicates so clearly the state of things at hoine, would not appear, however, to have been always indulged. Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, in her evidence befoi'e the committee of the House of Commons on the state of the prisons, mentioned that " several persons, NBGRO SLAVERY AXD SLAVE TRAHE. L husbands in anxiety to follow their wives, and vice versa, were ■^"^ induced to commit crimes. She instanced one woman who lately suffered death, viz. Charlotte Newman, actuated by a desire to follow her husband to Botanv Bay, who had com- mitted the same offence ; but it was thought proper to make an example of her, and shetvas executed i''"' I could produce lamentations without end, uttered in Par- liament and in the British pamphlets on domestic affairs, re- specting this prostration of character among the body of the English people. It is one view of the state of society in Great Britain, which excites grief and commisseration ; but there are numberless others which fill the mind with horror, and bring unequalled disgrace upon human nature. The extent and variety of the disorder, corruption, oppression, and bar- barity ; in short, of every species of guilt, miser}", and degra- dation, which we find unveiled in the late Parliamentary Re- ports concei-ningthe poor laws ; the state of the prisons ; the lunatic asylums, and work-houses ; the charitable trusts ; the mendicity and vagrancy, particularly of London ; the igno- rance of the lower orders ; the administration of the penal code, — could not be believed, if they were not so authenti- cated ; and can as yet scarcely be conceived to exist in a community professing to be well governed, and st)ding itself the " best and most enlightened" in the world.* America will be content to admit all that British travellers have writ- ten of her negro slavery ; to " hold each strange tale de- voutly true ;" and then to stand the comparison with Great Britain, provided tlie disclosures of those Reports, the prac- tice of impressment, the system of discipline in the army and navy, the proceedings during the suspension of the habeas corpus act, the excise, and the hulks, be kept in view by the umpire. ♦See Note' Z. NOTES. ^NOTE A, p. 35.) The character of the American Indians is too apt to be nnderrated PART l. by the historians, and the proper degree of credit to be, therefore, v^<-v~^^ withheld from the European settlers in North America, as regards the issue of the struggle. 1 select from writers, who may be considered as of the highest authority, some general views of Indian hostilities. "The Indians," says Ramsay, in his History of South Carolina, " in their miHtary capacity, were not so inferior to the whites as some may imagine. The superiority of muskets over bows and arrows, managed by Indians, in a woody country, is not great. The savage, quick-sighted and accustomed to perpetual watchfulness, springs from his hiding- place, behind a bush, and surprises his enemy with the pointed arrow before he is aware of danger. He ranges tiirough the trackless forest like the beasts of prey, and safely sleeps under the same canopy with the wolf and bear. His vengeance is concealed, till he sends the tidings in the fatal blow." "The Indians go to war," says Franklin, in his Canada Pamphlet, "as they call it, in small parties, from fifty men down to five. Their hunting life has made them acquainted with the whole country, and scarce any part of it is impracticable to such a party. They can travel through the woods even by night, and know how to conceal their tracks. They pass easily between your forts undiscovered ; and privately ap- proach the settlements of your frontier inhabitants. They need no convoys of provisions to follow them ; for whether they are shifting from place to place in the woods, or lying in wait for an opportunity to strike a blow, every thicket and stream furnishes so small a number with sufficient subsistence. When they have surprised separately, and murdered and scalped a dozen families, they are gone with inconceiv- able expedition through unknown ways : and it is very rare that pur- suers have any chance of coming up with them." PoimaWs Administration of the Colonies. "Our American frontiers," says governor Pownall, in his Adminis- tration of the Colonies, " from the nature of advancing settlements, dispersed along the branches of the upper parts of our rivers, and scattered in the disunited vallies, amidst the mountains, must be always unguarded, and defenceless against the incursions of Indians. And were we able, under an Indian war, to advance our settlenitnts yet far- ther, they 'vould be advanced up to the very dens of those savages. A settler, wholly intent on labouring on ths soil, cannot stand to his arms. Vol.. I.— 3 H N0TE3. nor defend lilmself against, nor seek his enemy. Environed with woods and swamps, he knows nothing of the country beyond his farm. The Indian knows every spot for ambush or defence, 'flic farmer, driven from his little cultured lot into the woods, is lost: the Indian in the woods is every where at home ; every bush, every tliicket, is a camp to tile Indian, from whence at the very moment wlien lie is sure of his blow, he can rush upon his prey. Tl>e farmer's cow or his horse cannot go into the woods, where alone they must subsist : his wife and children, if they shut themselves up in their poor wretclied log-house, will be burned in it : and the husbandmen in the field will be shot down while his hands hold the plough. An European settler can make but mo- mentary efforts of war, in hopes to gain some point, that he may by it obtain a series of security, under whicli to work his lands in peace. Tiie Indian's whole life is a warfare, and his operations never discon- tinued. In short, our frontier settlements must ever lie at the mercy of the savages : and a settler is the natural prey to an Indian, whose sole occupation is war and hunting. To the countries, circumstanced as our colonies are, an Indian is the most dreadful of enemies. For, in a war with Indians, no force wliatever can defend our frontiers from being a constant wretched scene of conflagrations, and of the most shocking murders. Whereas, on the contrary, our temporary expeditions against these Indians, even if successful, can do these wanderers little harm. Every article of their property is portable," &c. " The Indians," says Loskiel, in his History of the Indian Missions, " need not much provocation to begin a war with the white people ; » trifling occurrence may easily furnish a pretence. They frequently first determine upon war, and then wait a convenient opportunity, to find reasons for it : nor are they much at a loss to find them. "It has occasioned much surprise, that notwithstanding the prevail- ing fear of the Six Nations, lest the Europeans should become too powerful, they have sold them one tract of land after the other. Some thought it was done merely for the sake of the presents offered by the purchasers. But experience has shown, that this settling of land proved the best pretence for a war. For when the white people had settled upon the purchased territory, they drove them away again. They have frequently continued their hostilities against the white people, even dtu'ing the settling of the peace, or renewed them soon after. In such a critical juncture, the Europeans cannot sufficiently guard against the Indians, especially against the Iroquois. They will treat a white person, who is ignorant of their evil designs, with all ai>i)arent civility, and give him victuals and drink, but before he is aware, cleave his skull with an hatchet." (NOTE B. p, 42.) Thk first constitution of South Carolina was framed by Locke. M. Verplank, in the beautiful Anniversary Discourse, from which I have made a long extract in the text, celebrates him ;\mong "the illustrious dead, the rich fruits of whose labours we are now enjoying ;" as one of the original legislators of the country, who gave to our political charac- ter its first impulse and direction." It appears to me, that the great philosopher is not entitled to these distinctions, as far, at least, as his fuiidamentul constitutions for Carolina are concerned. M. Verplank, in claiming for them "7nw^^^-^ter> lations generally, could have fallen upon a scheme cf government so fanciful, and indeetl so preposterous, wiien viewed in rcfei'ence to the character and situation of the colonists fur whom it was intciuied. "No- thing," says Chalmers, "can show more clearly the fuilibihty of the human understanding' than the singular fite of these constitutions. Dis- covered instantly to be wholly inapplicalde to the circumstances of au inconsiderable colony, and in a variety of cases, to be altogether im- practicable, tiiey were immediately changed. The identity of them was debated by tliose to whom they were offered as a rule of conduct, because they had not been consulted in the formation of them. They gave rise to the greatest disscntions, which long distracted llie province, and engendered civil discord. And, after a little period of years, the whole, found inconvenient and even dangerous, were laid aside, and a much simpler form established."* " Locke," adds this author, " was, iir the year 1670, created a land- grave, as a reward for his services ; and, like the other Carofmian no- bles created under this constitution, would have been consigned to oblivion, but for tiiose writings that have enlightened the world, while they have immortalized himself." Tiiose admirable writings had, un- doubtedly, a sensible influence over the minds of the American legisla- tors of a subsequent period. Tiieir impress is distinguishable in our present federal constitution particularly. His fundamental principles were, however, embodied in political statutes, and put into steady ac- tion, in the midst of the North American wilderness, even before the era of his birth. If we compare his constitutions fur Carolina witli those which the New England settlers iiamed for themselves, we will not have much to complain of "tlie fallibility of the human understand- ing," as to mock at the pride of philosophy, and to question the compe- tency of the highest talents in specidation, to the business of devising the "true rule of action for communities of men. The French phi- losophers succeeded for their country, no better than Locke for Carolina: Jeremy Bcntham's " Codification" is a master-piece of ab- surdity, &c. (NOTE C. p. 48.) TuE body of Roman Catholic gentlemen, who settled Maryland in 1633, appear to me to be clearly entitled to the merit of priority in the establishment of religious freedom for all Chrislian sects. Lord Balti- more, as we have seen in the text, by his original plan of polity, estab- lished Christianity agreeably to the old common law, with the express denial of pre-eminence to any sect. His associates recognized this principle, and acted upon it from the outset. The first assemblies of the freemen of the province, held in 1634-5-7-8-9, all admitted it as fundamental. I'hat of 1649, promulged a statute concerning religious equality and freedom, which is not only prior in date, as a charter for all Christian sects, to any other legislative act of the kind, of which this country can boast, but provides more minutely and anxiously than any other extant, for the protection of the rights of conscience, and the preservation of religious harmony. I know of no law on the subject * Annals, p. 528. 3 N0TK8. JIT I. bespeaking so tolerant a spirit as to the divisions of Cln-istianily ; s© ■v^Vi^ prudent and sound a judgment, and so generous a solicitude. It is to be noted, that among the early settlers, were several priests. The num- ber of these had increased at the date of the act, and their concur- rence in its regulations, is ascertained from unquestionable evidence. The toleration of the Church of England might have been unavoidable for the founders of Maryland, and at all events, tended obviously to keep them well with the English government. But no motive of this nature existed with respect to the sectaries, whose familiar appella- tions tliey enumerated, as far as it was practicable, in the law, in order to their greater security even from insult. The favour of the English government was, on the contrary, to be gained by the persecution of the Quakers and Puritans. Roger Williams began his plantation in Providence in 1635. Rhode Island was settled 1638. In these settlements, a system of universal toleration would seem to have been pursued from the beginning. .^-^ But there is no specific law on the subject of religious freedom in the first code of Rhode Island, of 1647, although the concluding paragraph of that code implies universal toleration. It is said in the Political An- nals of Chalmers,* that among the ordinances of the Rhode Island S.s- sembly of 1663, there is one which enacts, that " all men professing Christianity, and of competent estates and civil conversation, Roman Catholics only excepted, shall be admitted freemen, or may choose or be chosen colonial officers." Holmes has repeated this statement in his very useful Annals ; and its correctness does not appear to have been questioned by any of our historians. This disfranchisement of Roman Catholics was so little in unison, however, with the doctrines previously asserted and acted upon by Rhode Island and her illustrious founder, Roger Williams, that it was natural to doubt of the existence of the al- leged exception. The attention of the public having been drawn to the subject, last winter, by Mr. Verplank's Discourse, James Burril, jun. Esq., the distinguished senator from Rhode Island, in the federal con- i' grass, zealous for the honour and credit of Roger Williams, as the -^ earliest apostle of unlimited toleration, solicited Mr. Samuel Eddy, the secretary of state of Rhode Island, to make research into her records, with a view to the solution of the difficuUy. Mr. Eddy had occupied,the station of secretary from October, 1/97, until May, 1819, and acquired a tliorough acquaintance with the archives and antiquities of Rhode Island. He is besides, a gentleman of discriminating mind and scrupu- lous veracity, who must inspire the fullest confidence in every point of view. ,.,-j'^" Mr. Burril has had the goodness to communicate to me the answer of Mr. Eddy, containing the results of a diligent investigation. I am induced to make it part of this note, notwithstanding its length, being assured that it will be considered as interesting and valuable, by all who are curious or concerned about American history. It affords a fine lesson of state liberality, and establishes the singular facts — that the restriction in the law, to those only who profess Christianity, and the exception of Roman Catholics, were introduced after the year 1638, by some com- mittee who prepared a new digest of the laws ; that if the restriction, with the exception, was ever approved of by the Rhode Island Assem- bly, this approbation must have been given after 1688 ; and that the ob- ject of its introduction and continuation was solely to win favour in England in the reigns of William and Anne. The bigotry of the mother country is set in a striking light, by the necessity of such a feint for the acquisition of her good will. * C. xi'. ]SOT£S. Statement of Mr. Eddij. PART The first settlers in Providence, (1636) and in the island of Tlhodc Island, (1638) were governed by voluntary associations until 1647. Re- ligious liberty was fully enjoyed in these associations. In March 1643-4, a charter was obtained by Roger Williams from " the Governor in Chief, Lord Admiral, and Commissioners for foreign plantations," au- thorising the inhabitants to adopt "such a form of civil government as by voluntary consent of all or the greater part of tiiem, they should iind most suitable to their estate and condition," " and to make and or- dain such civil laws," &c. " as they or the greater part of them should by free consent agree unto," " to be conformable to the laws of V.n^- land so far as the'nature and constitution of the place would admit." Pursuant to this charter, in May 1647, a form of government and p. body of laws were agreed to. The laws are thus introduced : " And now to the end that we may give each to the other (notwith- standing our different consciences, touching the truth as it is in Jesus, whereof upon the point we all make mention,) as good and hopeful as- surance as we are able, touching each man's peaceable and quiet en- joyment of his lawful right and liberty. We do agree unto, and by the authority abovesaid, enact, estabhsh, and confirm these orders fol- lowing." Among others, " That no person in this colony shall be taken or im- prisoned, or be disseised of his lands or liberties, or be exiled or any otherwise molested or destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by some known law, and according to the letter of it, ratified and confirmed by the major part of the General Assembly, lawfully met, and orderly managed." " For as much as the consciences of sundry men truly conscionable, may scruple the giving or taking of an oath, and it vi'ould be no ways suitable to the nature and constitution of our place, (who pi'ofess ourselves to be men of different consciences, and not one willing to force another,) to debar such as cannot so do, either from bearing office among us, or from giving in testimony in a case dejiending. Be it enacted," &c. " that a solemn profession be accounted of as full force as an oath," &c. This body of laws is concluded by these memorable words, " These are the laws that concern all men, and these are the penalties for the transgressions thereof, which, by common consent, are ratified and established throughout the whole colony. And otherwise than thus, what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their con- sciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God. And let the lambs of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever." These are all the laws relating to this subject under the charter of 1643-4. The second charter bears date July 8, 1663, was brought over (by Capt. George Baxter,) and presented to the Court of Commission- ers, November 24, 1663, and the next day to " a very great meeting and assembly of the freemen of the colony." The day following, the Court of Commissioners resigned their authority, and declared them- selves dissolved. -— The preamble to this charter recites, "that whereas in their hum- ble address, they have freely declared, that it is mucli in their hearts (if they may be permitted) to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberiy in religious concernments," and then declares, " That no person within the .said colony at any time hereafter shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion in matters of religion, who do KOTES. not actually disturb the civil peace of oui* said colony, but that all and every person and persons may from time to time, and at all times here- after freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences in matters of religious concernments, they behaving them- selves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness, and profaneness, nor to the civil injury nor outward disturbance of others." The first meeting of the General Assembly under this charter, was March 1, 1663-4, when the government was organized. They repealed certain laws, which were " contradictory to the form of the present government," and " ordered and enacted that all olher laws be of force, until some other coiu'se be taken by a General Assembly for better provision therein." The proceedings of this session are all entire, and there is not a word 071 record, of the act referred to by Chalmers, Political Annals, c. x'l. and contained in the revision of 1745, purporting to have been passed the session of 1663-4. Nor is there any thing on record, at either of the sessions this year, which has any relation to the subject, unless the following may be so considered. At May session, the inhabitants of Block Island, being incorporated into a town, the recorder (secretary) was desired to fur- nish them with " a transcript of the body of laws," (enacted under the first charter,) and " at present," to communicate to them the fol- lowing words of the charter, to wit, " That no person within the said colony at any time hereafter, shall be anywise molested, punished, dis- quieted, or called in question for any difference of opinion in matters of jeligion, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the said colony." At the same time, John Sands and Joseph Kent, freemen of Block Island, presented a petition in behalf of a number of the inhabitants, of that island, praying that the latter ntight be admitted freemen of the colon}-, " and being demanded, if they did know, that all the aforesaid persons were men of peaceable and good behaviour, and likely to prove worthy and helpful members of the colony, they answered yea." Whereupon they were admitted. No where have I discovered any en- quiry I'especting religion, on the admission of freemen. At the session in May, 1665, three of the king's commissioners, Carr, Cartwright, and Maverick, presented to the General Assembly five propositions or proposals, as they are called in the records ; the first and second of which are in these words, — 1st. " That all householders, inha- biting this colony, take the oath of allegiance, and that the administra- tion of justice be in his majesty's name." 2d. •' That all men of com- petent estates, and civil conversation, wlio acknowledge, and are obedi- ent to the civil magistrate, though of difierent judgments, may be ad- mitted freemen, and have liberty to choose and to be chosen officers l)oth civil and military." In answer to the first, after saying much about liberty of conscience in relation to oaths, &c. (See Hist. Collections Massachusetts, vol. 7. 2d series, p. 95.) they enacted, that an "engagement of allegiance" should be given (the form of which is prescribed) " by all men capable, within tlieir jurisdiction." In answer to the second, they enacted, " That so many of them that take the aforesaid engagements, and are of competent estates, eivil conversation, and obedient to the civil magistrate, sliall be admitted freemen of this colony, upon their express desire therein declared to the General Assembly, either by themselves, with sufficient testimony of their fitness and qualifications, as shall by the Assembly be deemed satisfactory, or if by the chief officers of the town or towns where they live, they be proposed and declared as abovesaid, and that none shall have admission to vote for public officers or deputies, or enjoy any pri- NOTES. ' 43 viliege of freemen, till admitted by the Assembly as aforesaid, and their PAUT 1 names recorded in the general records of the colony." To the third proposal (See Hist. Coll. Mass. p. 99.) they say, "This Assembly do witli all gUidness of heart and humbleness of mind, ac- knowledge the great goodness of God, and favour of his Majesty in that respect, declaring, that as it hatii been a jjrinciple held forth and main- tained in this colony ,/?'«H» the very beginning tliereoJ\ so it is much in their hearts to procure the same liberty to all persons within this colony for- ever, as to the worship of God therein, taking care for the preservation of civil government, to the doing of justice, and preserving each other's privileges from wrong and violence of others." Among other reasons assigned in a law allowing compensation to the members of Assembly, to enable them the better to discharge their duties, passed September, 1666, is this, " So as in some good measure to answer one main ground of his Majesty's grant, which was to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, and that among his English subjects, with a full liberty in religious eoncernmenls." A militia law, passed May, 1&77, is concluded with the woi'ds, "Pro- vided always, that this Assembly do hereby declare, that it is their full and unanimous resolution, to maintain a full liberty in religious con- cernments, relating to the worship of God, and that no person inhabit- ing within this jurisdiction shall be in any wise molested, punished, dis- quieted or called in question for any difference in opinion in matters of religion, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of this colony.'', I have formerly examined the records of the state, from its first set- tlement, with a view to liistorical information, and lately, from 1665 to 1719, with a particular view to this law, excluding Roman Catholics from the privileges of freemen, and can find nothing that has any re- ference to it, nor any thing that gives any preference or privileges to men of one set of religious opinions over those of another, until the re- vision of 1745. It remains now to account for the law quoted by Chalmers, as con- tained in this revision of 1745. To do this, it may be proper to state, that the general practice was, and which continued under different re- gulations till 1798, (the date of the last revision,) either for the secre- tary or others united with him, to draw up in form the laws and pro- ceedings at the close of each session, and for the secretary to record the same, and until 1747, to send copies in manuscript under the seal of the colony, to the several towns. The first order for printing the proceedings of the General Assembly, was in October, 1747. This first edition of the La-ivs was printed in 1719.* This was attended witii so many errors, that a committee was appointed to correct them, in a sup- plement that was to be printed and annexed to the edition. The .second was printed in 1730, by whom, or at what place, I have not learnt. Neither of these editions is in the secretary's office, nor have I been able to find them. The third was printed in Newport, in 1745, and from which I imagine Chalmers quoted. Th? laws have beeu uniformly revised by committees. Their prac- tice has been to embody in one all the different laws on the same sub- ject previously passed, with such additions and amendments as they thought proper, confirmed, however, before publication by the General Assembly. The two last revisions (1767 and 1798,) give no date to the several laws, other than by figures in the margin, generally oppo- site the title or first section of the law, referring to the years when the different laws embodied in one are supposed to have been passed. These references are inaccurate and deficient. * By Nicholas Boone in Boston. In the revision of 1745,* the ivhole of every law purports to havfc been passed at a particular session, though composed of a number o( acts passed in different and subsequent years, and which, in many in- stances are referred to in tiie margin. None of them are dated before March, 1663-4, the time of the first meeting under the second charter, and of tiiose which bear this date not one section of any one oftliem -tuas pass- ed at this sessio7t. The following act, bearing this date, is traced from its origin as a specimen of the inaccuracy of the dates m this revision of 1745. " Be it enacted," &c. " Tiiat there be one seal made for the public use of the colony, and that the form of an anrhor be engraven thereon, and tiie motto thereof shall be the word Hope." In the laws of 1647, '* It is ordered that the seal of the Province shall be an anchor." There is nothing more on this subject till March, 1663-4, " when or- dered that for the present, the old seal that liath been the seal of the colony, shall be the present seal," until a new one be procured. May, 1664, "ordered, that the seal with the motto Rhode Island and Provi- dence Plantations, with the word Hope, over the head of the anchor, is the present seal of the colony." This continued to be the seal till 1686, when on the surrender of the charter, it was broken by Sir Ed- mund Andros, and in February 1689, the charter having been resumed, it was " ordered that the seal brought in by Mr. Arnold Collins, being the anchor, with the motto Hope, is appointed to be the seal of the colony, he having been employed by this Assembly to make it." This is now in the secretary's office, and has ever since been the seal of the colony and state, is the only one of this description the colony ever had, and is tiie same pointed out in the before mentioned act (revision of 1745,) purporting to have been passed in 1663-4. The intention in this revision appears to have been either to date the laws at or after the time when tlie operations of government commen- ced under the second charter, as having derived all their validity from that, or to let the whole of each law compiled as before mentioned, bear date when the first act on the subject was supposed to have exist- ed under the second charter. For although the " body of laws," as enacted under the first charter was continued under the second, yet in noinstance do our printed laws imply or express an existence before 1663-41 Whatever the intention was, great inaccuracy exists as to their true date. Thus the law particulary ••eferred to by Chalmers, the greater part of which is from Magna Charta, was, in substance, passed in 1647, as will appear by an extract on the former part of this communi- cation. The latter part of the law, and which has occasioned this in- quiry, is in these words, " And that all men professitig Christianity, and of competent estates, and of civil conversation, who acknowledge, and are obedient to the civil magistrate, though of different judgments in religious affairs, Roman Catholics only excepted, shall be admitted free- men, and shall have liberty to choose and be chosen officers in the colony, both military and civil." Now that this law was not passed in 1663-4 is most certain, for not only does it make no part of the record of either session this year, but omitting tiie words professing Christianity. and Soman Catholics only excepted, they are the very words of the se- cond proposition of Carr, Canwright, and Maverick, made to the Gene- ral Assembly in May, 1665, and which at the same time were enacted into a law. In addition to this, these commissioners, in a narrative of their pro- * There have been five, 1719, 1730, 1745, 1767, and 1798. j- Policy migiit have suggested the imprudence of noticing an au- thority derived from an act of the Long I'arliarnent, under which the first chvirter was g^ranted. MfB. 433 ceedings under their commissions, (Hutchinson's Col. 412) expressly PART I. Slate that this colony " Admit all in bt; freemen thvii de&ire it, they allow \^'\'^Sm^ liberty of conscience and worship to all who live civilly." They fur- ther saj-, that " this colonj', which admits of all religions, even Quakers and Generalists, was begun by such as the Massachusetts would not suffer to live among them, and is generally hated by the other colonies, who endeavoured several ways to suppress tliem." The answer of the colony in 1680, to the enquiries of the commis- sioners for foreign plantations as slated by Chalmers, is a farther con- firmation of the correctness of this sutement, in which they say, that all of different persuasions and principles " enjoy their liberty accord- ing to his Majesty's gracious charter." " We leave every man to walk as God shall persuade their hearts, and do activel}', impassively yield obedience to the civil magistrate." Though Chalmers, supposing the law relative to Roman Catholics to have been passed in 1663-4, consi- ders this answer to have been a designed concealment of that act. Thus you have positive and undubitable evidence, that the law ex- cluding Roman Catholics from the privileges of freemen was not passed in 1633-4, but that they were, by law, at this time, and long after, en- titled to all the privileges of other citizens ; and satisfactory evidence, that these privileges were continued by law until 1719, when, or in one of the subsequt-nt revisions, the words "professing Christiamty" and "Jioman Catholics ojiiy excepted," were inserted by the revising commit- tee. These words may possibly have been inserted in a manuscript copy of the laws sent over in 1699, but of this the words afford no evi- dence. Roger VVilhams was an assistant (member of the upper house) in the years 1664, 1670, and 1671. He was chosen in 1677, but refused to serve. He was also a deputy (member of the lower house) in May, 1667. Tiiese ai-e the only years in which he was in office under the second charter. He tiied in 1682; "When he was buried with all the solemnity the coh)ny was able to shew." (Callender.) Most of the first settlers were dead at this time. Indeed, that such a law should have been passed in the lifetime of the first settlers, is hardly credible. Re- ligious liberty was their pride and boast. The records abound with allusions to it. (See Coll. Mass. Hist. Society, vol. vii. 2d series, pp. 83, 85, 88, 103-4. See also Hutch. Coll. 154.) The legal enjoyment of it was granted and secured at their special request ; and, notwithstanding this distinguishing feature in their government was stigmatized with the most reproaciiful and opprobrious epithets, they considered it as their highest honour ; and themselves in the enjoyment of a natural right, denied to the great body of mankind. I acknowledge that this account does not exhibit a very flattering view of the legislative accuracy of Rhode Island ; but I believe it exhibits a true one, and that is my object. It may be proper to add, that each revision of the laws appears to have been attended with delays and dis- appointments. It was nearly twenty years after the appointment of the first committee, for revising and printing the laws, before the publica- tion of the first edition. There was no printing press in the colony till 1745, and no newspaper printed till 1758. The colony was frequently pressed by the government in England for copies of their laws and other proceedings, and, in 1699, they sent over a copy of the laws in manu- script. How, or from what originals they were made up, does not ap- pear. As usual, it was done by a committee. A list of the laws was ordered to be left in the seci'etary's office, but is not now to be found. I would also suggest, that it appears at all times to have been an im- portant object with the colony to be on the best terms with the mother country. Being poor, of small extent of territory, and in contention with the bordering colonies, both on account of its boundaries and Vol. I. — 3 I *'5'* NOTES. PART I. tolerating principles, it required the special protection of the British ga- >.^-v'-^^ vernment. I am inclined to think, that tlie exception of Roman Catho- lics in the printed laws (1745,) was inserted with the view of ingratiating tiie colony the more with the mother countr}'. I have no evidence of this but the general tenor of the laws, and the spirit of liberality which they always manifest on religious subjects. In 1696, a letter was re- ceived from William Blaithwait, containing a form of association, recom- mended to be entered into, to defend the king against the conspiracies of the papists, "in consequence of the discovery of the late horrid con- spiracy against his majesty," (the assassination plot). It does not ap- pear, however, that the general assembly took any steps about it. Why a law should be passed to exclude from the privileges oifvecmen, those who were not inhabkants, by those who believed uU to be equally enti- tled to their religious opinions, is difficult to conceive, unless for the purpose above suggested. There were no Roman Catholics in the co- lony in 1680. (Chalmers, 284.) That this colony was an asylum for the persecuted of all i-eligions, as well of those of none, is evident from Cotton Mather, who says, anno, 1695, " Rhode Island colony is a collec- tion of Antinomians, Familists, Antisabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters, and every thing but Roman Catholics and true ©hris- tians." Douglass, vol. ii. 110, 112. The same fact is established by the testimony of others of the old writers, who speak of the colony with the utmost contempt on that account, and also by the evidence of the colo- nial records. In the proceedings of June session, 1584, is this entry, "In answer to the petition of Simon Medus, David Brown, and associ- ates, being Jews, presented to this assembly, bearing date June 24, 16S4, * we declare they may expect as good protection here as any stranger, not being of our nation, residing among us, in this his majesty's colony, ought to have, being obedient to his majesty's laws.' " These Jews are supposed to have l-een Portuguese. On the revocation of the edict of Nantz, many of the Hugonots set- tled in this colony. In the proceedings of February session, 1689-90, is this enti-y : " Ordered, that the F'renchmen that reside at Narragan- sett be sent for by Major John Greene, to what place in Warwick he shall appoint, to signify unto them the king's pleasure, in his proclama- tioji of war (against France,) and his indulgence to such Frenchmen as behave themselves well, aufl require their engaeements thereunto." It is observable, that the laws of the colony never made any provision for ascertaining any other qualification of a freeman, than competency of estate, and that no test or oath could ever be required by law of any man in any case, wiw^'^There is one trait in the laws of the first settlers of this colony, which places them, as advocates for the equal rights of all men in matters of religion, on an elevation above their contemporaries. The liberality of the most liberal of the latter is cotifinedto Christiuns, believers in Je- sus^ holy church, (Chalmers, 213, 215, 218, 235.) ; that of the former is extended to all men of civil conversation, without regard to their opi- nions, whether Christians or Jews, believers in Moses, or Jesus, or Ma- homet, or neither. The life only, being of competent estate.s, furnished to the former evidence of the fitness to be freemen. Chalmers justly contends for the equal rights of the Roman Catholics with other Chris- tians, and he ought, for the same reasons, to have contended for the equal rights of Jews, IMahometans, and all others, whether believers or not believers; for their natural rights are certainly equal. -'■*' N. B. The records of the colony from 1663 to 1686 are entire. From the latter period to 1715, the proceedings of the General Assembly are not recorded ; but manuscript copies of the proceedings during this period, under the seal of the colony, are in the town clerk's office, and some of them in the secretary's office, and have been examined, except NOTES. 43 ibr the year lG92,in which I have found the proccedinnsof one session patj-t only. ^^ ri\ivi . The foregoing is a copy of a communication from Mr. Samnel Eddy, secretary of this state from October, 1797, to iVIay, 1819, and now re- presentative in Congress, in reply to enquiries made bv me relative to the correctness of the assertion of Chalmers, (PoliticalAnnals, p. 276,) that the toleration of Roger Williams and the first settlers, at Pi-ovidence and Rhode Island, did not extend to Roman Catholics. .TAMES BUR RILL, Jujrn. Providence, .May 12, 1815. •— (NOTE D. p. 51.) It will be thought extraordinary, that IMr. Brougham, who .appears to have road our history, and not to be unacquainted with that of England, should have hazarded such a statement as the following, in his Colonial Policy. " Long after the mother country had relinquished fur ever the arts of persecution, they found votaries in the constituted authorities of the colonies; and the northern states at the end of the seventeenth cen- tury, afforded the disgraceful example of that spiritual tyranny, from which theii- territories had originally served as an asylum !"* 'I'he per- secutions for witchci'aft, of which 1 have given a full explanation in the text, are the only instances of spiritual persecution, if they can be so denominated, which disgrace the annals of New England at so late a period as the close of the seventeenth century. None took ]ilace after- wards, in any of the colonies, except in New York, where the royal go- vernor, Lord Cornbury, of detested memory, attempted to stifle the Presbyterian worship ;f and in Maryland, against the Catholics, at the instigation of the British government. It is true, that the legislatures of Massachusetts and New York passed each, in the first year of the eighteenth century, a law proscribing Catholic priests ; but the motive was political ; it being believed that those priests laboured uniformly to excite the Indians to hostilities against the Anglo-Americans. No doubt, the spirit of intolerance continued for some time to prevail, in a greater or less degree, against poptry, alternately the bugbear and the stalk- ing-horse of the British rulers. They, however, not only studiously fomented, but exacted that spirit in the colonies; where, as we have seen in the last Note, it was even thought necessary to counterfeit per- secution, in order to retain their favour. The author of the Colonial Policy has not specified the period at which the mother country relinquished for ever the arts of persecution; and after which the constituted authorities of the colonies cultivated them ; but he is to be understood as referring to the end of the seven- teenth century. His accuracy, or his candour, will be illustrated bj-- the following extracts, which I make from an article of the Edinburgh RevieWjt commonly ascribed to his pen. " The arms of William III. overthrew the last remnant of Catholic government or ascendancy in Britain and Ireland ; and, by the articles in Limerick, which closed the scene of hostility in 1691, it was ex- pressly stipulated, that the Roman Catholics should enjoy such privi- leges, in the exercise of their religion, as are consistent with the laws * B. T. p. 1. \ See Smith's Histoi-y of New York, vol. iii. p. 119. i Volume for 1807. Article on Catholic Question. NOTES, of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles 11. ; and their majesties, as soon as tliey can summon a parliament in tliis kingdom^ will endeavour to procui-e tlie said Roman Catholics such further security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturi)ance on account of their religion. This solemn instrument of pacification, liranted in the moment of victory, was ratified and publisl;e.d in letters patent, under the great seal, in the fourth year of king William ; anO in three years thereafter, was passed, in direct violation of it, the famous act for pre- venting the growth of poperj', the foundation and model of the many barbarous enactments by wliich tiiat race of men were oppressed for little less than a century thereafter." " By this barbarous act, and the statutes by which it was followed up, Catholics were disabled from purchasing or inheriting land, — from being guaniians to their own children, — from having arms or horses, — from serving on grand juries, — from entering in the inns of court, — from practising as barristers, solicitors, or physicians, &c. &c." "At the close of the reign of Queen Anne, in short, when the privi- leges and liberties of Englishmen stood on so triumphant a footing, nothing remained to two-thirds of the inhabitants of Ireland, by which they could be distinguished from slaves or aliens, but the right of voting at elections. Of this, too, they were deprived under the succeeding sovereigns." The following account of the above mentioned act, and of some of its effects, given in Mr. Burke's speech of 1780, at Bristol, previous to the election, is a slill more pointed commentary upon the assertion that the arts of persecution were relinquished in Great Britain,/or ever, at the endofthe seventienth century "A statute was fabricated," says Mr. Burke, "in the year 1699, by which the saying mass (a church service, in the Latin tongue, not ex- actly the same as our liturgy, but very near it, and containing no olfence against the laws, or against good morals,) was forged into a crime pu- nishable with perpetual imprisonment. The teaching school, an use- ful and virtuous occupation, even the teaching in a private family, was, jn every Catholic, subjected to the same unproportionate punishment— Your industry, and the bread of your children, were taxed for a pecuni- ary T' ward to stimulate avarice to do what nature refused, to inform and prosecute on this law— Every Roman Catholic was, under the same act, to forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through a profession of what he did not believe, he redeemed, by his hypocrisy, what the law had transferred to the kinsman as a recompense of his profligacy. When thus turned out of doors from his paternal estate, he was disabled from acquiring any other by any industry, donation, or charity; but was rendered a foreigner in his native land, only because he retained the religion, along with the property, handed down to him from those who had been the old inhabitants of that land before him." " The effects of the act have been as mischievous, as its origin was shameful. From that time, every person of that communion, lay and ecclesiastic, has been obliged to fly from the face of day. The clergy, concealed in garrets of private houses, or obliged to take a shelter (hardly safe to themselves, but infinitely dangerous to their country,) imder the privileges of foreign ministers, officiated as their servants, and under their protection. The whole body of the Catholics, con- demned to begg.iry and to ignorance in their native land, have been (ibliged to learn the principles of letters, at the hazard of all their other principles, from the charity of your enemies. They have been taxed to their ruin, at the pleasure of necessitous and profligate relations, and according to the measure of their necessity and profligacy. Examples, of this are many and affecting. Some of them are known by a friend who stands near me in this hall. It is but six or seven vears since a NOTES. 437 cWrgyman, of the name of Malony, a man of morals, neither guilty, nor PART I, accused of any thing noxious to the state, was condemned to perpetual s^rw'^^,^ imprisonment for exercising the functions of his religion; and, after lying in jail two or three years, was relieved by the meicy of govern- ment from perpetual imprisonment, on condition of perpetual banish- ment. A brother of the earl of Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a nume respect- able in this country, whilst its glory is any part of its concern, was hauled to the bar of the Old Bailey, among common felons, and only escaped the same doom, either by some error in the process, or that the wretch who brought him tiiere could not correctly describe his person ; I now forget which," &c. (See on this subject — Note V.) (NOTE E. p. 86.) "On the 14th of December, 1795," says Bryan Edwards (Hist, of W. Indies, b. ii ) "the British commissioners who went to the Havanna for cssistance, arrived at Montego Bay with forty chasseurs or Spanish hunters (chiefly people ot colour) and abuui one hundred Spanish dogs." Their number was really one hundred and twenty according to Dallas, and a great proportion of them not regularly trained, so that the fugi- tive wl^om they overlook could not escape being torn in pieces by them. The following compact is copied from Dulias's History, (vol ii ) — " Articles of Agreement between his Britannic Majesty's Commissary and the undersigned Spanish Chasseurs. "1st. We, the undersigned, oblige ourselves to go to the island of Jamaica, taking each three dogs for the htintinjs: and seizing negroes. — 2d. That, when arrived at the said island, and informeil of the situation of the runaway or rebellious negroes, we oblige ourselves to practice every means that may be necessary to pursue, and to appreliend with our dogs, said rebellious negroes. — 3(1. Our stay in the island shill be three months. — 4th. If, at the expiration of our being three months in the island of Jamaica, government should consider our residence there for a longer time necessary, it then shall be at our option to make a new. agreement," &c. [Here follows the signatures, &c,] (NOTE F. p. 92.) "To his most excellent majesty George, King of Great Britain, Sec &c. "The humble petition of his subjects, the late French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, formerly settled on the Bay of Minasand rivers thereunto belonging ; now residing in the province of Pennsylvania, on behalf of themselves and ye rest of the late inhabitants of the said bay, and also of those formerly settled on the river of AnnapoHs-Royal, wheresoever dispersed. " May it please your Majesty, "It is not in our power sufficiently to trace back the conditions upon which our ancestors first settled in Nova Scotia, under the protection of your majesty's predecessors, as the greatest part of our elders who were acquainted with these transactions are dead, but more especially because our papers, which contained our contracts, records, &c. were by violence taken from us, some time before the unhappy catastrophe NOTES. which has been tlie occasion of the calamities we are now under, but , we always understood the foundation thereof to be from an agreement made between your majesty's commanders in Nova Scotia, and our fore- fathers, about the year 1713, whereby they were permitted to remain in the possession of their lands, under an oath of fidelity to the British government, with an exemption from bearing arms, and the allowance oi'the fre^ exercise of their religion. "It is a matter of certainty, (and within the compass of some of our memories,) that in the year 1730, general Phihps, the governor of Nova Scotia, did in your majesty's name confirm unto us, and all the inhabi- tants of the whole extent of the bay of JMinas and rivers thereunto be- longing, the free and entire possession of those lands we were then possessed of, which by grants from the former French government we held to us and our heirs forever, on paying the customary quit-rents, &c. And on condition that we should behave with due submission and fidelity to 5 our majesty, agreeable to the oath which was then administered to us, whicli is as follows, viz. " We sincerely promise and swear by the faith of a Christian, that " we shall be entirely faithful, and will truly submit ourselves to his *' majesty king George, whom we acknowledge as sovereign lord of " New Scotland, or Arcadia ; so God help us." •' .\nd at the same time, the said general Philips did, in like manner, promise the said French iniiabilants in your majesty's name, ' That they should have the true exercise of tlieir religion, and be exempted from bearing arms and from being employed in war either against the French or Indiitus ' Under the sanction of this solemn engagement we held our lands, made further purchases, annually paying our quit-rents, &c., and we had the greatest reason to conclude that your majesty did not disap- prove of the above agreement : and that our conduct continued during a long course of years to be such as recommended us to your gracious protection, and to the regard of the governor of New England, appears from a printed declaration made seventeen years after tliis time, by his excellency William Shirley, governor of New England, which was pub- lished and dispersed in our country, some originals of which have escaped from the general destruction of most of our papers, part of which is as follows. "By his Majesty's command, " A declaration of William Shirley, Esq. captain-general and governor in chief, in and over his majesty's province of Massachusetts Bay, &c. "To his majesty's subjects the French inhabitants of his province of Nova Scotia : Whereas, upon being informed that a report had been pro- pagated among his majesty's subjects the French inhabitants of his province of Nova Scotia, that there was an intention to remove them from the'iT settlements in that province, I did, by my declaration, dated 16th September, 1746, signify to them that the same was groundless, and that I was on the contrary persuaded that his majesty would be gra- ciously pleased to extend his royal protection to all such of thera as sliould continue in their fidelity and allegiance to him, and in no wise abet or hold correspondence with the enemies of his crown, and there- in assured them that I would make a favourable representation of their state and circumstances to his majesty, and did accordingly transmit a representation thereof to be laid before him, and have thereupon re- ceived his royal pleasure, touching his aforesaid subjects in Nova Scotia, with his express commands to signify the same to them in his name : Now by virtue thereof, and in obedience to his majesty's said orders, I do hereby declare in his majesty's name, that there is not the least foun- dation for any apprehensions of his majesty's intending to remove them, the said inhabitants of Nova Scotia, from their said settlements and ha- NOTES. 'iitations within the said province, but that on the contrary, it is lii.s ma- jesty's resohition to protect and maintain all such of them as have ad- hered to, and shall continue in their duty and allegiance to him in the quiet and peaceable possession of their respective habitations and set- tlements, and in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges as his sub- jects, &c, &c. " Dated at Boston, the 21st of October, 1747. " And this is farther confirmed by a letter dated 29lh June, in the same year, wrote to our deputies by Mr. Mascarine, then your majesty's chief commander in Nova Scotia, which refers to governor Shirley's first de- claration, of which we have a copy legally authenticated, part of which is as follows, viz. *' ' As to the fear you say you labour under on account of being threat- * ened to be made to evacuate the country, you have in possession his 'excellency William Shirley's printed letter, whereby you may be * made easy in that respect : you are sensible of the promise 1 have *made to you, the effects of which you have already felt, that I would 'protect you so long as by your good conduct and fidelity to the crown ' of Great Britain you would enable me so to do, which promise I do ' again repeat to you.' "Near the time of the pubhcation of the before mentioned declara- tion, it was required that our deputies should, on behalf of all the peo- ple, renew the oath formerly taken to general Philips, which was done without any mention of bearing arms — and we can with truth say, that we are not sensible of any alteration in our disposition or conduct since that time, but that we always continued to retain a grateful regard to your majesty and your government, notwithstanding which we have found ourselves surrounded with difficulties unknown to us before. Your majesty determined to fortify our province and settle Halifax; which the French looking upon with jealousy, they made frequent in- cursions through our country in order to annoy that settlement, where- by we came exposed to many straits and hardships ; yet from the obli- gations we were under, from the oath we had taken, we were never under any doubt but that it was our indispensible duty and interest to remain true to your government and our oath of fidelity, hoping that in time those difficulties would be removed, and we should see peace and tranquillity restored : and if, from the change of affairs in Nova Scotia, your majesty had thought it not consistent with the safety of your said province, to let us remain there upon the terms promised us by your governors, in your majesty's name, we should doubtless have acquiesced with any other reasonable proposal which might have been made to us, consistent with the safety of our aged parents and tender uives and children ; and we are persuaded if that had been the case, wherever we liad retired, we should have held ourselves under the strongest obliga- tions of gratitude from a thankful remembiance of the happiness we had enjoyed under your majesty's administration and gracious protection. About the time of the settlement of Halifax, general Cornwallis, go- vernor of Nova Scotia, did require that we siiould take the oath of al- legiance without the exemption before allowed us, of not bearing armsi, but tliis we absolutely refused, as being an infringement of the princip^ condition upon which our forefathers agreed to settle under the British government. " And we acquainted governor Cornwallis that if your majesty was not willing to continue that exemption to us, we desired liberty to eva- cuate the countiy, proposing to settle on the island of St. John's, where the French government was willing to let u.s have land, which proposal he at that time refused to consent to, but told us he would acquaint your majesty therewith, and return us an answer. But ws never received 40 NOTES. . ^ART I. an answer, nor was any proposal of that made to us until w^were madd ,^ prisoners. / " After the settlement of Halifax, we suffered many almses and in- sults from your majesty's enemies, more especially from tlie Indians in the interest of the French, by whom our cattle was killed, our houses pillaged, and many of us personally abused and put in fear of our lives, and some even carried away prisoners towards Canada, solely on ac. count of our resolution steadily to maintain our oath of fidelity to the English government, particularly Ueiie Leblanc (our public notary,) was taken prisoner by the Indians vvjicn actually travelling in your majesty's service, his house pillaged, and himself carried to the French fort, from whence he did not recover his hberty but with great difficulty, after four years captivity. « vVe were likewise obliged to comply with the demand of the ene- my, made for provision, cattle, &c. upon pain of military execution, which we had reason to believe the government was made sensible was not an act of choice on our part, but of necessity, as those in authority appeared to take in good part the representations we always made to them after any thing of that nature had happened. "Notwithstandmg the many difficulties we thus laboured under, yet we dare appeal to the several governors, both at Halifax and Annapolis- Royal, for testimonies of our being always ready and willing to obey their orders, and give all the assistance in our power, either in furnish- ing provisions and materials, or making roads, building forts, &c. agree- able to your majesty's orders, and our oath of fidelity, whensoever cal- led upon, or required thereunto. " It was also our constant care to give notice to your majesty's com- manders of the danger they from time to time have been exposed to by the enemy's troojjs, and had the intelligence we gave been alsvays attended to, many lives might have been spared, particularly in the un- liappy affair, which befel major Noble and his brother at Grand-Pray, when they, with great numbers of their men, were cut off by the ene- my, notwithstanding the frequent advices we had given them of the danger they were in ; and yet we have been very unjustly accused as parties in that massacre. " And although we have been thus anxiously concerned to manifest our fidelity in these several respects, yet it has been falsely insinuated, that it had been our general practice to abet and support your majesty's enemies ; but we trust that your majesty will not suffer suspicions and accusations to be received as proofs sufficient to reduce some thousands of innocent people, from the most happy situation to a state of the greatest distress and misery! No, this was far from our thoughts; we esteemed our situation so happy as by no means to desire a change We have always desired, and again desire tiial we may be permitted to answer our accusers in a judicial way. In the mean time permit us Sir, here solemnly to declare, that these accusations are utterly false and groundless, so far as they concern us as a collective body of people. It hath been always our desire to live as our fathers hath done, as faith- ful subjects under your majesty's royal protection, with an unfeigned resolution to maintjxin our oath of fidelity to the utmost of our power. Yet it cannot be expected, but that amongst us, as well as amongst other people, there have been some weak and f^ilse -hearted persons suscepti- ble of being bribed by the enemy so as to break the oath of fidelity. Twelve of these were outlawed in governor Shirley's proclamation be- fore mentioned; but it will be found that the number of such false- hearted men amongst us were very few, considering our situation, the number of our inhabitants, and how we stood circumstanced in several respects : and it may easily be made appeal-, that it was the constan* NOTES. 441 care of our deputies to prevent and put a stop to such wicked conduct PART I. when it came to their knowledf^e. \_^'-\'^*^_/ " We understood that the aid granted to the Frencli by the inhabi- tants ofChignecto liHS been used as an argument to accek rate our ruin; but we trust that your majesty will not permit the innocent to be in- volved with theg-uihy; no consequence can be justly drawn, that be- cause those people yielded lo tlie tiu-eats and persuasions otthe enemy, we shoidd do the same. Tliey were situated so tar from Halifax as to be in a great measure out of the pi'otection of the English government, which was not our case ; we were separated from them by sixty miles of uncultivated land, and had no other connexion with them than what is usual with neighbours at such a distance ; and we can truly say we looked on their defection from your majesty's interest with great pain and anxiety. Nevertheless, not long before our being made prisoners, the house in which we kept our contracts, records, deeds, &c. was in- . vested with an armed force, and all our papers violently carried away, none of which have to this day been returned us, whereby we are in a great measure defirived of means of making our innocency and the just- ness of our cotnplainls appear in their true light. " Upon our sending a remonstrance to the governor and coimcil of the violence that iiad been ofFereil us by the seizure of our papers, and ef the groundless fears the government appeared to be under on our account, by their taking away our arms, no answer was returned us ; but tJiose who had signed the remonstrance, and some time after sixty more, in all about eighty of our elders, were sununoned to appear be- fore the governor and council, which they immediately complied with, and it was required of them that they should tnke the oaili of allegiance, without the exemption, which, during a course of near fifty years, had been granted to us and to oiir fathers, of not being oiiliged to bear arms, and which was the principal condition upon which our ancestors agreed to reinain in Nova Scotia, when the rest of the French inhabi- tants evacuated the coiuitry, which, as it was contrarj to our inclination and judgment, we thought ourselves engaged in diUy absolutely to re- fuse. Nevertlieless, we freely offered, and would gladly have renewed, oisiroath of fidelity, but this was not accepted of, and we were all im- mediately made prisoners, and were told by tiie governor, that our estates, both real and personal, were forfeited for your m.ijesty'.s use. As to th(!se who remained at home, they were summoned to ajjpear before the commanders in the forts, which, we showing some fear to comply with, on the account of the seizure of our papers, and impri- sonment of so many of our elders, we had the greatest assurance given us that tliere was no other design but to make us renew our former oath of fidelity ; yet as soon as we were within the fort, the same judgment was passed on us as had been passed on our brethren at Halifax, and we were also made prisoners. " Thus, notwithstanding the solemn grants made to our fathers by general Philips, and the declaration made by governor Shirley and Mr. Mascarine in your majesty's name, that it was your majesty's resolution to protect and maintam all such of us as should continue in their duty and allegiance to your majesty, in the quiet and peaceable possession of their settlements, and the enjoyment of all their rights and privileges, as your majesty's subjects ; we found ourselves at once deprived of our estates ami liberties, without any judicial process, or even without any accusers appearing against us, and this solely grounded on mistaken jealousies and false suspicions that we are inclinable to take part with your majesty's enemies. But we again decl;u'e that that accusation is groundless ; it was always oui fixed resolution to maintain to the utmost of our power the oath of fidelity which we had taken, not only from a sense of indispensable duty, but also because we were well satisfied with Vol. I.— 3 K NOTES. our situation under your majesty's government and protection, and did aot think it could be bettered by any change which could be proposed to us. It has also been falsely insinuated that we heltl the opinion that we might be absolved from our oath so as to break it with impunity ; but this we likevvise solemnly declare to be a false accusation, and which we i)luinly evinced, by our exposing ourselves to so great losses and sufferings, rather than take the oath proposed to the governor and council, because we apprehended we could not in conscience comply therewith. " Thus we, our ancient parents and grand parents, (men of great in- tegrity anil approved fidelity to your majesty,) and our innocent wives and children, became the unhappy victims to those groundless fears : we were transporled into the English colonies, and this was done in so much haste, and with si> little regard to our necessities and the tenderest ties of nature, that from the most social enjoyments and affluent cir- cumstances, many found themselves destitute of the necessaries of life: Parents were separated from childien, and husbands from wives, some of whom have not to this day inet again ; and we were so crowded in the transport vessels, that we had not room even for all our bodies to lay down at once, and consequently were prevented from carrying with us proper necessaries, especially for the support and comfort of the aged and weak, many of wliom quickly ended their misery with their lives. And even those amongst us who had suffered deeply from your majesty's enemies, on account of their attachment to your majesty's government, were equally involved in the common calamity, of which Rene Lablane, the notary public before mentioned, is a remarkable instance. He was seized, confined, and brought away among the rest of the people, and his family, consisting of tiventy childrtn, and about one hundred and fifty grand children, were scattered in different colonies, so that he ivas put on shore at JYexu York -with only his loife and two youngest children, in an infirm slate of health, from whence he joined three more of his children at Philadelphia, where he died without any more notice being taken of him than any of us, notwithstanding his many years labour and deep sufferings for your majesty's service. " The miseries we have since endured are scarce sufficiently to be expressed, being reduced for a liveliiiood to toil and hard labour in a southern clime, so disagreeable to our constitutions, that most of us have been prevented by sickness from procuring the necessary subsist- ence for our families, and therefore are threatened with that which we esteetn the greatest aggravation of all our sufferings, even of having our children forced from us, and bound out to strangers, and exposed to contagious distempers unknown in our native country. "This, compared with the affluence and ease we enjoyed, shows our condition to be extremely wretched. We have already seen in this province of Pennsylvania two hundred and fifty of our people, which is more than half the nuinber that were landed here, perish through misery and various diseases. In this great distress and misery, we have, under God, none but your majesty to look to with hopes of relief and redress : We therefore hereby implore your gracious protection, and request you may be pleased to let the justice of our complaints be truly and impar- tially enquired into, and that your majesty would please to grant us such relief as in your justice and clemency you will think our case requires, and we shall hold ourselves bound to pray," Sec. This pathetic appeal of the Acadians had not the least efTect with the Britisli government. When Jasper Mauduit, agent of tiie province of jVlassachijsetts, represented to Mr, Grenville, tlie British Minister, that his most Christian majesty, looking upon the Acadians as of the number of those who had been his most faithful subjects, had signified his wil- NOTES. 443 iingness to order transports for conveying them to France, from the PART I. | British provinces, Mr. Gr^ville inimediutely said — " that cannot be — s^^^-y^,/ ,. that is contrary to our acts of navigation — how can the Frencii court send ships to our colonies ?" (See the letter of Jasper Manduil, dated Dec. ires, to the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Kepresenta- tives — in the vol. of the Mass. Hist. Coll. for l/'99. (NOTE G. p. 113.) "The English made, in 1745, an important conquest, which they considered as an ample indemnification for the losses which the allies had suffered in the low countries : it was that of Cape Breton," 8cc. Koch. Histoire Abregee des Traites de Paix. Vol. ii. In the negotiations of 1748, France prescribed the restitution of Louis- bourg as the first article of a pacification. It was the first point taken up by the plenipoteritiaries at Aix la Chapelle ; and the British minister stated at once the readiness of England to restore it, for certain equi- valents. We have the following account in that instructive work, His- toire de la Diplomatic Frangaise, (b. v. vol. 5 ) " A memoir was sent by the French com-t to the Count St, Severin, its minister at Aix la Chapelle, upon the indispensable necessity of Cape Breton to France, and upon the fital consequences of leaving that island in the hands of the English, in relation to the free trade of Canada and Louisiana, and the general trade of the other powers of Europe." "It will be the more necessary," said the official instructions, " to show merely a moderate wish to recover the island, as we know tliat England has it not much at heart to retain her conquest. The Coiml St. Sev'erin may tlien give the Earl of Sandwich to understand, that the loss of Cape Breton is less important in itself, than on account of the stress laid upon it by the public opinion in France ; and that the king does not attach so much consequence to the matter himself, as not to prefer an equivalent in the low countries," &c. It is stated in the work from which I have made these quotations, that the British court proposed to France, in 1755, that the whole southern bank of the river St. Lawrence should remain uninhabited, and the lakes unappropriated. " The pretext of the war of 1756," says die same work, " on the part of England, was the encroacliment of the French on the limits of Acadia, and some acts of violence committed on the Ohio ; but the real motive was to avail herself of the supposed weakness of the cabinet of Versailles, to destroy the French navy, and to avenge the defeats of Fontenoy and of Lawfeldt. (Vol. vi. b. 1.) (NOTE H. p. 119.) BRABDOcit's papers all fell into the hands of the French. In the year 1757, there was made and published in Philadciphi'i, a translation of three French volumes found on board a French privateer, ami contain- ing authenticated copies of those papers. Tliey throw gr.-at rght upon the origin of his expedition, and do not redouf.d to ilie credit of the British government for good failh in its negotiation with France, preli- minary to the war of 1756. A few extracts from (he instructions given to Braddock, and his correspondence with his government, may serve to amuse the American reader. iS'OTES. *' His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland," says the letter of irt' structions of November 25, 1754, "recommends to you that it be con- stantly observed anions^ the troops under your command, to be particu- larly careful that they be not throivn into a panic by tlie Indians, with which thev are yet unacquainted, whom tbe French will certainly em- ploy to frighten ihein. HisKoyal Highness rrcommends to you the visit- ing your posts night and day, tiiat your colonels and other officers be careful to doit, and that you yourself frequently set them the example^ and give all your troops plainly to understand tliut no excuse rdll be ad- mitted for any surprise whatsoever . Part of a letter from General Braddock, to the Hon. Thomas JRobinson. " Alexandria, 19th of April, 1755. " Governor Shirley will acquaint you, sir, of the expense of JVew £72^-- /a/ic/ upon the prodigiotis levy of men that has been made in these go- vernments, yor the enterprises of the north, tbe other governors have done very little, or rather nothing. I cannot but take the liberty to repre- sent to you the necessity of laying a tax upon all his majesty's dominions in Jlmerica, agreeably to the result of council, for reimbursing the great sums that must be advanced for the service and interest of the colonies in this important crisis." From the same to the same. " Fort Cumberland, (at Will's Creek,) June 5th, 1755. " I have at last assembled all the troops destined for the attack of Fort dn Quesne, which amount to two thousand effective men, of which there are eleven hundred furnished by the southern provinces, tuho have so little courage and disposition, that scarce any military sei^ice can be ex- pected from them, though I have employed the best officers to form them." " I desired Mr. B. Franklin, Post-Master of Pennsylvania, who has great credit in the provinces, to hire me one hundred and fifty wag- gons and the number of horses necessary, which he did with so much goodness and readiness, that it is almost the first instance of integrity, addres.s, and ability that I have seen in all these provinces." (NOTE I. p. 125 ) His Excellency the Commander in Chief, the Earl of Loudon, though of a very lordly carriage towards the provincials, was unable to stifle the petuience of their press. The newspapers of their large towns carped and sneered at his operations, in a manner that might iiave pro- voked the master of fewer legions to exert a vigour beyond the law. The following piece published in the New York gazette, during his presence in that city, shows the boldness of the censorsliip exercised over tl^e management of the British commanders, and furnishes a good sketch of the first campaigns of the war. Extract of a letter from JVew York, to a gentleman in London, dated JVew- York, August 26, 1757. "Tiie situation of aflairs in .\merica, grow more and more danger- ous; and what makes us despair of seeing things mend, is that, by I NOTES. know not what fatality of conduct in our commanders, the more we are strengthened with land forces from Great Brilain, the more ground we lose against the French, whose number of regular troops is, according to the best information we can get here, much inferior to ours. "To give you some idea of this, all the success we can pretend to boast of in the course of this war, happened in the two frst years of it, when we had not a fourth part of the regular troops we now have, and the French had at least an equal number in Canada and Louisbourg. " Our campaign in 1755, opened with an expedition against the en- croachments of the French in Nova Scotia, with about four hundred troops of the three regiments posted here, and two thousand New- England irregulars, fitted out from Boston ; which was conducted in such a manner, that the French forts upon the isthmus v.'ere soon sur- rendered to us ; their garrisons transported to Louisbourg ; one of their forts upon the river St. John, abandoned by them, and their settlements about it broken up ; and in the same year our own fortifications were advanced towards Montreal as far as lake St. Sacrament, now lake George, as in the preceding year they had likewise begun to be upon the river Kennebeck, towards the metropolis of Canada : — And the French general Deiskau, wiio came from France that year with about three thousand troops, and had begun his march to invest Oswego, was prevented from making an attempt upon it, and defeated in his attack upon our camp at Lake George ; and in the year 1756, a large party of French regulars, Canadians and Indians, which attacked by surprise a party of our balteaux men, upon tiie river Onondago, were entirely de- feated by an inferior number of them. " No sooner were our forces increased by those which arrived here from Europe with general Abercrombie, in June, 1756, but things took a very different turn. Thougii timely information was given, that a large French camp was formed within about thirty miles of Oswego, with intent speedily to attack it ; yet, by some unaccountable delay to send it a reinforcement, that most material place was lost ; General Webb, who did at last embark with one for its relief, not setting out till two days before it was taken. "Our next misfortune, which followed close upon the heels of this, was, that when our general had got as far as the great carrying-place, at Oneida, (a pass in the country of the Six Nations,) which was so strongly fortified, and so inaccessible to the enemy's artillery, that it might have defied the whole French army to take it, he demolished the fort and works there in a few days, and retired with his forces to a place called the German-Flats, which is sixty miles nearer Albany, and soon after to Schenectady, which is no more than seventeen miles from that city ; and thereby not only abandoned the Six Nations of Indians, and their country, to the enemy, but left the French a free passage from Oswego, through the Mohawks river, to Schenectady. — And what is still more extraordinary in this, is, that whilst the general was de- mohshing the works at this carrying-place, and retiring back to Sche- nectady, the French were as busy in demolishing the works at Oswego, and retiring from thence back towards Montreal. "This precipitate retreat was immediately followed by as fatal a de- lay ; for though we had a suflficient force ready to have proceeded that year in our expedition against Crown Point, yet we wasted the whole season in entrenching at Lake George, and fortifying Fort WiUiam- Henry there : the consequence of which was, that we not only lost a favourable opportunity for making an attempt against Crown Point, but paid for that neglect, by the loss of Fort William-Henry itself, this year. " This closed our operations in 1756 : The beginning of this year was spent in making preparations for the expedition against Louisbourg, JSfOTES. ^RT I. which took us up till the latter end of June ; then our transports sailed ^-NT-^^j from hence for Halifax, with about six thousand regular troops ; and in their passage most miraculously escaped being taken by the French ships, which, we are informed, had been about live da\s bei'ore cruiz- ing off that harbour. After spending about five weeks at Halifax in holding councils of war, the result of them was, to lay aside the expedi- tion against Louisbourg. " VVIiilst we were employed in making this dangerous passage to Ha- lifi'X, and holding councils of war there, Mons. Montcalm took the op- portunity of Lord Loudon's absence, and proceeded from Quebec to Crown Point, with about ten thousand men, consisting of regular troops, Canadians, and Indians ; from whence he made Fort William-Henry a visit, which he took, after a siege of about five or six days, and de- molished : disabled the garrison, which consisted of about two thousand three hundred men, from serving against the French for the space of eighteen months; made himself master of our magazines of provision and stores ; the former of which were of very great service to the ene- my ; and secured the entire possession of the lakes between Lake George and Montreal ; finished this business, and retired with his army, before the return of Lord Loudon with his troops from Halifax, which are expected here every day. " Such is the present state of our affairs, the fruits of our two last years inactive campaigns, of our want of proper intelligence, and the little use we make of what we do get ! we find by woful experience, that our great immbers of regular troDps have been of no service, for want of proper management ; the French carry all before them : and what the next ye&v. will produce, God only knows j I tremble to think." (NOTE J. p. 131.) Every account of these campaigns, which was published in England, eontained some fabricated or distorted anecdotes, tending to bi'ing ri- dicule or contempt upon the provincials. In Knox's Historical Jour- nal,* for instance, the most considerable and esteemed work respecting the operations in America from 1756 to 1760, I find such stories as the two which I am to quote, and which have neither verisimilitude nor poignancy to compensate for their falsehood. " March 28, 1758. — Two sail of ships were discovered to cross the basin below, and run up Moose and Bear rivers, which being unusual for British ships, a boat was sent down for intelligence, and to watch their motions. The boat returned, and brought up the masters of the two vessels ; they came from fort Cumberland, and are bound to Boston ; by them we are informed there is an embargo laid on all the ports of New England, New York, Halifax, &c. &c. We hear of great prepa- rations for opening the campaign, that there are more troops expected from Europe, and that the province of Massachusetts is raising a large body of provincials to co-operate with the regulars ; the masters of these sloops say, that all is well at. Chegnecto, and also at Fort Edward and F'srt Sackville, where they have lately been ; these men farther add, that it was reported at Boston, that the particular department of the * Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America, for the years 1757, 175S, 1759, ^nd 1760, by captain John Knox: dedicated by permission, to general Amherst. 2 vols. 4to. NOTES. 44 New England troops this campaign, would be the reduction of Canada ; pART 1 this was matter of gi-eal mirth to us, and an officer wiio was present, v^->^<^^ humorously replied, And let the regulars remaiti in the different forts and garrisons, to hew wood and dig sa7id, &c. then the French -will be finely hum- bled in America." Vol. i. p. 112 "December 1st. 1758. — We weighed this morning about eight o'clock, and attempted to get out into the bay ; but not consulting the proper lime of tide, we were obliged to put back, and come to an an- chor ; about noon we weighed again with the tide of ebb, and little wind falling, with an agitated seu, occasioned by conflicting currents, our transport miSsed stays, and we narrowly escaped being wrecked upon a lee shore, where the vessel would probably have been dashed to pieces, the western side of the entrance being a complete ledge of rocks, the master instantly fell upon his knees, crying out — ' What shall we do ? I vow I fear we shall all be lost, let us go to prayers; what can we do dear Jonathan r' Jonathan went forward muttering to himself, 'do — I vow Ebenezer, I don't know what we shall do any more than thyself;' when fortunately one of our soldiers, who was a thorough bred seamen, and had served several years on board a ship of war, and after- wards in a privateer, hearing and seeing the helpless state of mind -which our poor JVev) England men luere under, i\ni\ our sloop driving towards the shore, called out, ' why d — your eyes and hmbs, — down with her sails and let her drive a — e' foremost ; what the devil signifies your cant- ing and praying now ?' — Ebenezer quickly taking the hint, called to Jonathan to lower the sails, saying, he vowed he beheved that young man's advice was very good, but wished he had not dehvered it so pro- fanely.' However, it answered to our wish ; every thing that was ne- cessary was transacted instantaneously ; the soldier gave directions, and seizing the helm, we soon recovered ourselves, cleared the strcight, and drove into the bay stern foremost." Knox's Hist. Journal, vol. i, p. 217-18. The London newspapers were never without '' extracts of letters from officers serving in the British army in America," which surpassed the formal relations of the war, in ridicule and obloquy of the Ameri- cans. A lampoon of this description, published in the London Chroni- / cle of May, 1759, drew an answer from Dr. Franklin, which was insert- ^ ed in the same paper a few days afterwards. I have not seen this characteristic production in any collection of his works, and I therefore give it place in this volume, with the aim of which it so happily coin- cides. It evidences the staleness, as it explodes the absurdity of those contumelious allegations against us, which the same spirit that gave them birth at the earliest period, and has never since decUned, now re- proaches in the British Journals, From the London Chronicle. *• Mu. Chronicie, ■ " SiH, while the public attention is so much turned towards America, every letter from thence that promises new information, is pretty ge- nerally read ; it seems, therefore, the more necessary that care should be taken to disabuse the public, when those letters contain fijcts false in themselves, and representations injurious to bodies of people, or even to private persons. "In your paper, No. 310, I found an extract of a letter, said to be from a gentleman in general Abercrombie's army. As there are several strokes in it tending to render ihe colonies despicable, and even odious to the mother country, which may li:ive ill consequences; and no no- tice having been taken of the injuries contained in that letter, other > iSIOTES. RT I. letters of the same nature have shice been published ; permit me to -v-^^ make a few observations on it. "The writer says, • New England was settled by Presbyterians and Ind.;pen(lents, who took shelter there from the persecutions of Arch- bishop Laud ; — they still retaiti their original character, they generally hate the Church of England,'' says he-, li is very true, that if some resentment stiU remained for the hardships their fathers suffered, it might perhaps be not much wondered at ; but the fact is, that the moderation of the present Church of England towards dissenters in old as well as New- England, has quite eif uced tliose impressions ; the dissenters too are be- come less rigid and scrupulous, and the good will between those differ- ent bodies in that country, is now both mutual and equal. " He goes on : ' They came out with a levelling sjnrit, and they retain it. They cannot bear to think that one man should b^ exorbitantly rich, and ano- ther poor ; so that, except in the sea-port towns, there are few great estates tiinong them. This equality produces also a msticity of manners ; for in their lauj^uage, dress, and tn all their behaviour, they are more boorish than any thing you ever saxv in a certain northern latitude.' Oiif would imagine from this account, that those who were growing poor, plundered those who were growing rich, to preserve this equality, and that property had no protection ; whereas, in fact, it is no where more secure than in the New England colonies, the law is no where better executed, or justice obtained at less expense. The equality he speaks of, arises first from a more equal distribution of lands by the assemblies in the first settle- ment than has been practised in the other colonies, where favourites of governors have obtained enormous tracts for trifling considerations, to the prejudice both of the crown revenues and the public good ; and se- condly, from the nature of their occupation ; husbandmen with small tractsof laud, though they may by industry maintain tliemselves and fa- milies in mediocrity, having few means of acquiring great wealth, espe- cially in a young colony that is to be supplied with its clothing, and many other expensive articles of consumption from the motlier country. Their dress the gentleman may be a more critical judge of, than I can pretend to be : all I know of it is, that they wear the manufacture of Britain, and follow its fashions perliaps too closely, every remarkable change in the mode making its appearance there within a few months after its invention here ; a natural effect of their constant intercourse with England, by ships arriving almost every week from the capital, their respect for the mother country, and admiration of every thing that is British. But as to tiieir hmguage, I must beg this gentleman's pardon, if I differ from him. His e.ir, accustomed perhaps to the dia- lect practised in the certain northern latitude he mentions, may not be qualified to judge so nicely what relates to pm-e English. And ( appeal to all Englishmen here, who have been acquainted with the colonists, whether it is not a common remark, that they speak the language with such an exactness both f)f expression and accent, that thougii you may know tlie natives of several of the counties of England, by peculiarities in their dialect, you cannot by that means distinguish a North Ameri- can. All the new books .^nd pamphlets worth reading, that are pub- lished here, in a few weeks are transmitted and found there, where there is not a man or woman born in the country but what can read : and it inust, I should think, be a pleasing reflection to those who write either for the benefit of the present age or of posterity, to find their audience increasing with the increase of our colonies ; and their lan- guage extending itself beyond the narrow bounds of these islands, to a continent larger than all Europe, and to a future empire as fidly peo- pled, which Britain may one day probably possess in those vast western regions. " But the gentleman makes more injurious comparisons than these : NOTES. 44i * That latitude,' he says, ' has this advantage over them, that it has pro- PART I. diu-.ed sh;»rp, acute men, fit for war or learning, whereas, the others are ^^^^ -^ remarkably simple or silly, and blunder eternally. We have 6000 of their militia, which the general would willingly exchange for 2000 re- gulars. They are for ever marring some one or other of our plans, when sent to execute them. Tiu-y can, indeed, some of them at least, range in the woods; but 300 Indians with their yell, throw 3000 of them in a panic, and then they will leave nothing to the enemy to do, for they will shoot one another; and in the woods our regulars are afraid to be on a command svith them on that very account.' I doubt, Mr. Chronicle, that this paragraph, when it comes to be read in Ame- rica, will have no good effect ; and rather increase tiiat inconvenient disgust which is too apt to arise between the troops of different corps, or countries, who are obliged to serve together. Will not a New-England officer be apt to retort and say, what foundation have you for this odi- ous distinction in favour of the officers from your certain northern lati- tude ? They may, as you say, he. fit for learning ; but, surely, the return of your first general, with a well appointed and sufficient force, from his expedition against Lonisbourg, without so much as seeing the place, js not the most shining proof of his talents for -war. And no one will say his plan was marred by nis, for we were not with him. — Was his successor who conducted the blundering attack, and inglorious retreat from liconderoga, a New-England man, or one oi that certain latitude? — Then as to the compai'ison between regulars and provincials, will not the latter remark, that it was 2000 New-England provincials, with about 150 regulars, that took the strong fort of Beausejour, in the be- ginning of the war; though in the accounts ti-ansmitted to the English Gazette, the honour was claimed by t!ie regulars, and little or no no- tice taken of the others. — That it was the provincials who beat general Dicskau, with his regulars, Canadians, and 'yelling Indians,' and sent him prisoner to England. — That it was a provincial-born officer,* with Amei-ican batteaux-men, that beat the French and Indians on Oswego river. — That it WnS the same officer, with provincials, who made that iongand admirable march into the enemy's country, took and destroy- ed Fort Frontenac, with the whole French fleet on the lakes, and struck terror into the heart of Canada. — That it was a provincial offi- cer,"!" witii provincials only, who made another extraordinary march into the enemy's country, surprized and destroyed the Indian town of " Kittanning, bringing off the scalps of their chiefs. — That one ranging captain of a few provincials, Rogers, has harrassed the enemy more on the frontiers of Canada, and destroyed more of their men, tiian the whole army of regulars. — That it was the regulars who surrendered themselves, with the provincials under their command, prisoners of war, almost as soon as they were besieged, with the forts, fleet, and all the provisions and stores that had been provided and amassed at so im- mense an expense, at Oswego. That it was the regulars who surren- dered for' William-Henry, and suffered themselves to be butcliered and sculped with arms in their hands. — That it was the r.gidars under Braddock, who were thrown into a panic by the ' yells of 3 or 400 In- ' dians,' in their confusion shot one another, and, with five times the force of the enemy, fled before them, destroying all their own stores, ammunition, and provision ! — These regular gentlemen, will the provin- cialrangers add, may possibly be afraid, as the say they are, to be on a command with us in the woods ; but when it is considered, that from all past experience, the chance of our shooting them is not as one to a hmtdred, compared with that of their being shot by the enemy ; may it * Colonel Bradstjeet. f Colonel Armstrong, of Pennsylvania. Vol. I.— 3 L NOTES. not to be suspected, that what they give as the very account of their fear and unwilling'nessto venture out with us, is only the very excuse ; and th;it a concern for their scalps weighs more with them than a regard for their honour. " Such as these, Sir, 1 imagine may be the reflections extorted by such provocation, from the provincials in general. But tlie New-England men in particular, will have reason to resent the remarks on their re- duction of Louisbourg. Your writer proceeds, ' Indeed they are all very ready to make their boast of taking Louisbourg, in 1745; but if people were to be acquitted or condemned according to the propriety and wisdom of their plans, and not according to tlieir success, the per- sons that undertook the siege, merited little praise : for I have heard officers, \yiio assisted at it, say, never was any thing more rash ; for had one single part of their plan tailed, or had the French made the for- tieth part of the resistance then that they have made now, every soul of the New-Englanders must have fallen in the trenches. The garrison was weak, sickly, and destitute of provisions, and disgusted, and there- fore became a ready prey: and, when they returned to France, were decimated for their gallant defence.' Where then is the glory arising from thence .'' — After denying his facts, ' that the garrison was weak, wanted provisions, made not a fortieth part of the resistance, were de- cimated,' &c. the New-England men will ask this regular gentleman, if the place was well fortified, and had (as it really had) a numerous gar- rison, was it not at least brave to attack it with a handful of raw undis- ciplined militia ? If the garrison was, as you say, ' sickly, disgusted, des- titute of provisions, and ready to become a prey,' was it not prudent to seize that opportunity, and put the nation in possession of so important a fortress, at so small an expense ? So that if you will not allow the en- terprize to be, as we think it was, both brave and prudent, ought you not at least to grant it was eitfier one or the other ? But is there no merit on this score iu the people ; who, though at first so greatly divided, as to the making or forbearing the attempt, that it was carried in the af- firmative, by the small majority of one vote only ; yet when it was once resolved on, unanimonsly prosecuted the design, and prepared the means with the greatest zeal and diligence ; so that the whole equip- ment was completely ready before the season would permit the execu- tion ? Is there no merit of praise in laying and executing their plan so well, that, as you have confessed, not a single part of it failed .'' If the plan was destitute of ' propriety and wisdoin,' would it not have re- quin-d the sharp acute men of \\\tt northern latitude io execute it, that by supplying its deficiencies thev might give it some chance of success ? But if such ' remarkably silly, simple, blundering mar plans, as you sa) we are, could execute this plan, so that not a single part of it failed, does it not at least show that tiie plan itself must be laid with sotne ' wis- dom and propriety ?' — Is there no merit in the ardour with which all de- grees and ranks of people quitted their jjiivate afiairs, and ranged themselves under the banners of their king, for the honour, safety, and advantage of their country ? Is there no merit in the profoiuul secrecy guarded by a whole people, so thai the enemy had not the least intelli- gence of the dt'siiin, till they saw the fleet of transports cover the sea before their port ? — Is there none in the indefatigable labour the troops went tiirough during the sie^e, performing the duty both of men and horses; the hardships they patiently suffered for want of tents and otiier necessaries ; the rradiness with which they learnt to move, direct, and manage cannon, raise batterie.s, and form approaclies ; the bravery with which they suslainfd sallies; and final!), in their consenting to stay and garrison the place after it was taken, absent from their busi- ness and families, till troops coidd be brought from England for that purpose, though they undertook the service on a promise of being dis- NOTES. 451 cliarged as soon as it was over, were unprovided for so long an ab- PART I. seiice, and actually suffered ten times move loss by mortal sickness v^*'-v-^h> through want of necessaries, tiian tiiey suftcrcd fi-om the arms of tlie enemy ? Tlie nation, however, hud h sense of this uiiderUiking' different from the unkind one of this gentleman. At the treaty of peace, the possession of Louisbourg was found of great advantage to our aflairs in Europe ; and if the brave men that made the acquisi'jon for us were TiOi re-warded, at least they were praised. Envy may continue awhile to caval and detract, but public virtus will in the end obtain esteem ; and honest impartiality in this and future ages, will not fail doing justice to merit. " Yowv gentleman writer thus decently goes on. * The most substantial men of most of the provinces, are children or grandchildren of those that came here at the king's expense : that is, thieves, highwaymen, and robbers.' Keing probably a military gentleman, this, and therefore a person of nice honour, if any one should tell him in the plainest lan- guage, that what he iiere says is an absolute f dseiiood, challenges and cutting of throats might immediately ensue. I shall, therefore, only re- fer him to his own accoimt in this same lettei; of the peopiiug of Xew-Eng- land, which he says, with more truth, was by Puruanswho fled thither for shelter from the persecutions of Archbishop Laud. Is there not a wide difference between removing to a distant country to enjoy the exercise of religion, according to a man's conscience, and his being trnsported thither b}' a law, as a punishment for his crimes ? This con- tradiction we therefore leave the gentleman and himself to settle as well as they can between tliem. One would think from his account, that the provinces were so many colonies from Newgate. The truth is, not only Laud's persecution, but the other public troubles in the following reigns, induced many thousand families to leave England, and settle in the plantations. During the predominance of the parliament, many royalists removed or were banished to Virginia and Barbadoes. who af- terwards spread into the other settlements: The Catholics sheltered themselves in Maryland. At the restoration, many of the deprived non- conformist ministers, with their families, friends, and hearers, went over. Towards the end of Charles the Second's reign, and during James the Second's, the Dissenters again flocked into America, driven by persecu- tion, and dreading the introduction of popery at home. Then the high price or reward of labour in the colonies, and want of artisans there, drew over many, as well as the occasion of commerce ; an I wlien once people begin to migrate, every one has his little sphere of .icqualntance and connections, wltich he draws after him, by invitation, motives of in- terest, praising iiis new settlement, and other encouragements. The • most substantial men' are descendants of those early setilers; new comers not having yet had time to raise estates. The practice of send- ing convicts thither, is modern ; and the same mdolence of temper and habits of idleness that make people poor and tempt them to steal in England, continue with them when they are sent to America, and must there have the same effects, where all who live well, owe their subsist- ence to labour and business ; and where it is a thousand times more diffi- cult than here, to acquire wealth without industry. Hence the instances of transported thieves advancing their fortunes in the colonies, aie ex- tremely rare ; if there reaily is a single instance of it, which I very much doubt; but of their being advanced there to the gallows, the instances are plenty. Might they not as well have been hanged at home ? — We call Britam the mother country; but what good mother besides, would introduce thieves and criminals inio the company of her children, to cor- rupt and disgrace them .?— And how cruel is it to force, by the high hand of power, a particular country of your subjects, who have not de- served such usage, to receive yovir outcasts, repealing all the laws they 32 NOTES. 'ART I. "^ake to prevent their admission, and then reproach them with the de- ^0-Y^,^_^ tested mixture ycu have made : ' Their emptying their jails into our set- tlements,' says H writer of that country, ' is an insult and contempt, the cruellest perhaps that ever one people offered to another ; and would not be equalled even by emptying their jakes on our tables.' •* The letter I have been considering, Mr. Chronicle, is followed by another, in your paper of Tuesday the 17th past, said to he from an officer ivhu attended Brigadier-general Forbes, in his march from Philadelphia to fort Du Quesne; but written probably by the same gentleman who wrote the former, as it seems calculated to raise the character of the officers of the certain northern latitude, at the expense of the reputation «'f the colonies, and the provincial forces. — According to this letter- writer, if the Pennsylvanians granted large supplies, and raised a great body of troops for the last campaign, it was not obedience to his majesty's com- mands, signified by his minister, Mr. Pitt, zeal for the king's service, or even a regard for their own safety ; but it was owing to the * general's proper management of the Quakers, and other parties in the province.' The withdrawing the Indians from the French interest by negotiating a peace, is all ascribed to the general, and not a word said to the honour of the poor Quakers, who first set these negotiations on foot, or of honest Frederick Post, that completed tiiem with so much ability and success. Even the little merit of the Assembly's making a law to regu- late carriages, is imputed to the general's ' multitude of letters.' Then he tells us, 'innumerable scouting parties had been sent out during a long period, both by the general and Col. Bouquet, towards fort Da Quesne, to catch a prisoner if possible, for intelligence, but never got any.' — How happened that ? — Why, ' it was the provincial troops that were constantly emploved in ths't service,' and they, it seems, never do any thing they are ordered to do. — Tltut, however, one would think, might be easily remedied, by sending regulars with them, who of course must command them, and may see tha tht-y do their duty. JVo ; The regulars are afraid of being shot by the provincials in a panic. — Then send all regulars. — Jit/cf Tliat -was ivhat the colonel resolveil upon. — 'Intelli- gence was nov\ wanled, (says the letter-writer) colonel Bouquet, whose aticntion to business was [onU] very considerable [th.it is, not quite so great as the general's, for he was not of the northern latitude] was deter- mined to h\nd NO MORE provincials a scoutini;.' — And how did he exe- cut. iiis determination.'' Whv by sending ' Major Grant of the High- lantiers, with seven lumdred men, three hundred of them Highlanders, THE HEST Americans, Virginians, and Pennsjlvanians!' — No i/wntfer this in our writer; but a misfortune ; and he is, nevertheless one of those ' acute sharp' men who are ^Jlt for learning .'' — And how did this major and seven hundred men succeed m catching the prisoner } — ^Why their 'marcli to fort Du Quesne was so conducted the surprize was complete.' — Perhaps you may imagine, gentle reader, that this was a surprize of the enemy.— No such matter They knew every step of his motions, and had, every man of them, left their fires and huts in the fields, and re- tired into the fort. — But the major and his 700 men they were sur- prized; first to find no bodv there at night, and next to find themselves surniunded and cut to p:eces in the morning; two or three hundred being killed, drowned, or taken prisoners, and among the latter the major himself Those who escaped were also surprized at their own good fortune ; and the whole army was surprized at the major's bad management. — Thus the surprize was indeed complete ; — but not the dis- grace ; for provincials tvei^t 'eapon than an Englishman's bayonet.'' In the present war, the chief of the blood that had been shed, was slied by the point of the bayonet ; )et, who talked of the bayonet as a savage instrument of war .'" The Earl of Dunmore declared, (Dec. 5, 1777) that the " Virgini- ans finding themselves disappointed in obtaining the aid of the Indians, had dressed up same of their own people like the Indians, with a z'ieiu to terrify the forces under him ; and his lordship declared, he heartily wish- ed more Indians were employed; that they were by no means a cmel people; that they never exercised the scalping knife, or were guilty of a barbarity, but by way of striking terror into their enemies, and by that means /JM^/np- an end to the further effusion of blood." " Mr. Burke said (1778) — "The savages were now only formidable from their cruelty ; and to employ them was merely to be cruel our- selves in their persons : and thus, without even the lure of any essen- tial service, to become chargeable with all the odious and impotent barbarities which they would inevitably commit, whenever they were called into action. " No proof whatever had been given of the Americans having at. tempted an offensive alliance with any one tribe of savage Indians. Whereas the imperfect papers already before the house demonstrated, that the king's ministers had negotiated and obtained such alliances from one end of the continent of America to the other. That the Americans had actually made a treaty on the footing of neutrality with the famous Five Nations, which the ministers had bribed them to vio- late, and to act offensively against the colonies. That no attempt had been made in a single instance on the part of the king's ministers, to U iNOTES. VRT I. procure a neutrality ; and, that if the fact had been, ftvhat he denied it »-«v— ^^ to be, J that the Americans had actually employed those savages, yet the dif- ference of employing them against armed and trained soldiers, embodied and encamped, and employing tliem against the unarmed and defenceless men, women and children, in the cowitry, ividely dispersed in their habitations, ■was manifest ; and left those who attempted so inhuman and unequal a re- taliation, rvithont a possibility of excxtse." (NOTE N. p. 211.) WnoEVEK has read the dissertation of Talleyrand upon the advan- tage of forming colonial establishments for \.\\v French, after their late revolution, will be at once aware of the acknowledgments which Eng- land owes to tlie first emigrants, who prepared this continent for the reception of that portion of her population, whom she could not retain with safety, or who could not exist with comfort or freedom, at home. The enlightened author of the European settlements in America readily discerned and recognized the benefit. " In the various changes which our religion and government have undergone, which have in their turns rendeied every sort of party or religion obnoxious to the reigning powers, this American asjdum, open in the hottest times of our persecu- tions, has proved of infinite service, not only to the present peace of England, but to the prosperity of its commerce, and the establishment of its power." Dr Davenanthad taken a similar view of the subject in his Tract on the Plantation Trade. " Such as found themselves disturbed and uneasy at home, if they could have found no other retreat, must have gone to the Hans towns, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, or Holland, (as many did before the plantations flourished, to our great detriment,) and they who had thus retired to the European countries, must have been for ever lost to England. " But Providence, which contrives better for us than we can do for ourselves, has offered in the new world, a place of refuge for these, peradventure, mistaken and misled people, where, (as shall be shown by and by,) their labour and industry is more useful to their mother kingdom, than if they had continued among us. " And as to malcontents in the state, perhaps it is for the public safety, that there should always be such an outlet or issue for the ill humours, which, from time to time are engendered in the body politic.'* (NOTE O. p. 219.) At the instigation of Franklin, a society was instituted in Philadel- ])hia, in the year 1743, which took the name of The .^erican Philoso- pMcal Society. It pursued, modestly and privHtel}', for the improvement of the members, of whom Franklin and Kittenhouse were the most active and distinguised, enquires into most branches of physical sci- ence. In 1766, another society was formed in the same city, with the title of The American Society for promoting and propagating vseful knowledge. It m:s composed of unpretending men of all professions, anxious to increase the stock of tlieir own information, and to be in- NOTES. stru menial in enlarging that of their country. Tlie test which tlicy established, does them tiie highest honour, Tor the liberality and purity of the principles of v/hich it exacted the acknowledgment. They confined themselves to the discussion of practical questions, and the investigation of matters of immediate utility. The perusal of their Minutes must inspire every unprejudiced person with a high idea of their intelligence and zeal; I might say, with admiration, when the range of their study and research, is considered in connection with the attention and drudgery, required by the active professions in which they were universally engaged. Points of social economy and general pohtics were often discussed at their sittings, and determined upon the broadest principles of reason and humanity. Tlie following ques- tion, for example, was taken up by them on the 3d September, 1762, " Is it good policy to admit the importation of negroes into America .'"' Their views of the subject were in conformity with the true theory of national welfare and moral obligation. They could show, in the hst of their foreign correspondents, who did justice to their enhghtened character and benevolent aims, British phi- lanthropists and statesmen of the first rank. I may name Sir George Saville,"as one of the several distinguished whigs with whom they cai'- ried on a commerce of enquiry and speculation, creditable to the sense, patriotism, and catholic spirit of both parties. The two Philadelphia associations were amalgamated jby common consent in 1769: and, in 1780, incorporated, as the American Philoso- phical Society, by an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature. 1 have admitted by implication in the text, to give greater force to tlie charge of illiberality against the Reviewers, that the Transactions of the present institute are not of much intrinsic worth. They deserve, how- ever, a higher character ; and have never been decried any where but in Great Britain. The astronomical papers of the first volume drew lofty compliments and eager enquiries, from several of the most cele- brated savans of Europe. Dr. Maskelyne bore, in letters preserved in the records of the society, the strongest testimony to the genius of Rittenhouse, and to the merit of his Observations on the Transit of Ventis, which were republished in the Transactions of the Royul So- ciety. I happen to have now under my eyes, a communication to the American Society, from Zach, Director of the Observatory of Saxe Gotha, and an eminent astronomer; in which compliments are paid to its labours, indicating a sense of their value, somewhat different from that of the Edinburgh Review. A short extract from Dr. Zach's com- munication may not be unacceptable here. " Last year I received the 3d. vol. of the Transactions of the A. P. Soc, which I perused with great satisfaction. The observation of the annular eclipse of the sun, April 3, 1791, made at Philadelphia, by Dr. Rittenhouse, has given me great pleasure, and was of very great use in ascertaining the true diameters of the ©and the Moon; and also of the injiexion and iiTadiafioii of lig'ht : several astronomers of Europe have inferred by it very eatisfactory results; so has the celebrated French astronomer, M. de la Lande found, that the observed duration of the ring 4' 17" agrees perfectly well, with his diameter O (L > assumed in his Astronomical Tables, (iii. edit 1792.) The American Philosophical Society has always been more studious of doing good within itself, than ambitious of publishing vohimes for the approbation of the world. A much more favourable idea of its indus- tr)', learning, and usefulness, is conveyed by the private records of its proceedings, thun by the si.x quartos of its Transactions, reputable as these are, and must be confessed to be, when impartially considered. It was early marked by public spirited designs. Witness the appoint.. ment in 1763, of committees of its members to make, in dificrent NOTES. . places, observations on that rare phenomefion, the transit of Venus ^ over the Sun's Disk. The expense of this undertaking it defrayed, though possessed, as at present, of no other regular funds than those aris- ing from an annual contribution of two dollars from each of its resident members. It has given a particular and steady attention to the re- sources open to us in the three kingdoms of nature, and to plans of improvement in our physical economy. Its functions were suspended necessarily during the revolution, as :dl of its members were more or less ardent in the cause of independence, and fitted to act a servicea- ble part in the struggle. There has not been displayed since, the de- gree of vivacity and earnestness in its proper career, which could have been wished ; but, as much, perhaps, as was reasonably to be expected under the circumstances of the country, and in the absence of all pecuniary patronage. The hopes to be entertained of it now, are considerable, from the numbers, particularly among the rising genera- tion, who have imbibed a relish for scientific studies, and from the greater importance which it is likely to acquire in the public estima- tion, as education and knowledge spread and ripen over the land. Its library consists of about four thousand volumes, comprising the best ele- mentary treatises in science and the technical arts. It has exclianged Transactions with most of the academies of Europe, and has been en- riched with many valuable works, bestowed spontaneously and with ex- pressions of lively esteem, by their authors, such as the BufTons, the La- voisiers, the Hunters,* whose vision was either less distinguishing, or less clouded, (I leave the world to decide which,) than that of the British reviewers. Its Museum of Natural History, though not exten- sive, contains a number of rare specimens, chieHy in mineralogy. Its '■^meeting house," to use the language of the Edinburgh Review, where, according to this liberal and courteous journal, its "transactions Are scraped together ," is a commodious and handsome edifice, and the room in which it assembles, is, certainly, styled " Philosophical Hall." The remark of the Review, that this denomination is in the genuine dialect of tradesmen, bespeaks as much of effrontery as ill nature : since the Reviewers must have known, that the place of assembling of most of the learned societies and professions of Great Britain bears the same title of Hall ; and that a term exactly correspondent is tised re- spectively by almost every one of the Academies of Europe : Salle de I'Institut, &c. The imagination of these critics might be supposed to be affect- ed with regard to " tradesmen." It will be recollected, that in their first review of Franklin's Works, they complained of his indulging, in his Memoirs, in too many details and anecdotes concerning that class of persons — "obscure individuals." In Zenophon's Memorabilia, we read the following as part of one of the dialogues : " Critias, interrupting Socrates, said — ' And I, Socrates, 1 can inform thee of something more thou hast to refrain from ; keep henceforth at a proper distance from the carpenters, smiths, and shoemakers, and let us have no more of your examples from them.' ' Must [ likewise give up the consequences,' said Socrates, 'deducible from these examples, and concern myself no longer with justice and piety, and the rules of right and wrong.' Thou must, by Jupiter, replied Charicles," &c. * I might add the names of Ingenhauz, Haiiy, Humboldt, De la Lande, Cuvier, Ebeling, Adelung, Maseres, Biot, Delambre, Campo planes, &c. NOTES. (NOTE P. p. 225.) ' ", A just account of the character of General Marshall and of his work, is given in the letters of Inchiquin, (letter 8.) The following parts of it I could wish to be read in connexion with my tfext. "During the war of the revolution, the present cliief justice accom* panied the American forces in the capacity of deputy judge advocate, which situation afforded him the best means of becoming practically conversant with the details of that contest, its difficulties and resources ; the character and views of those on whom it mainly devolved ; and the construction, movements, and engagements of the armies. In process of time he attained to situations of more importance, and successively filled several of the first offices. Possessed with tliese advantages, en- dowed with a masculine, versatile, and discriminating genius, and hold- ing a place, calculated to give weight to whatever he should publish, he was selected to compile from the manuscripts of Washington, and from the public records and papers, the joint annals of Washington and his country. "The objects of the work were to furnish a correct and honourable memorial of national events, and to immortalize Washington. His biography is therefore prefaced with a full account of the discovery and advancement of North America, down to the period when he ap- pears upon the scene. After which period, till his death, it is natu- rally interwoven with the transactions of the revolution, which his achievements so largely contributed to effect, and with the formation of the government, at the head of which he was placed. " The public documents of wiiich the chief justice had the disposi- tion, would be inestimable, even if arranged by inferior hands, without any attempt at shaping them into a connected narrative. But wrought as they have been by him, into a clear, manly, systematic, and philosophi- cal history, without a grain of merit on the score of composition, they would outweigh the most beautiful composition that ever was formed. There is not another national history extant, which is composed entirely of authentic, public materials, by a cotemporary and a participator. " Nor is the composition so unworthy of the subject. The commen- taries and reflections are simple, natural and just. The style plain, nervous, unaffected ; perhaps too bare of ornament, and sometimes liable to the imputation of verbosity, but never rough, irksome, or in- elegant. " As great expectations were entertained of this performance, con- siderable disappointment has been expressed at some of its alleged de- fects ; particularly by those who, vitiated by the malevolent system of criticism that prevails in England and this country, are never satisfied with nature and plain sense, but incessantly crave the amazing and ro- mantic. In every department of letters, standards are erected, to which fresh publications are referred for their estimate. But is it fair to condemn an American historian to oblivion, because he is less enter- taining than Hume or Gibbon, or an epic poet, because he falls short of Milton ? "The American historian had neither anomalies nor miracles to deal with. The recent discovery of a new world ; the still more recent struggles of an infant people to shake offtlie trammels of colonization : late events, of little except moral interest ; partial, procrastinated, and seldom signalized warfare ; the adjustment of treaties and formation of republican institutions; though highly interesting to modern contem- plation, are much less malleable, than remote and doubtful traditions . of astonishing transactions, into the magazine of entertainment, which" seems to be looked for in modern history. But whatever the present age may desire, facts soon become vastly more important than disserta NOTES. tlons ; nor can moi'Sl results ever be fairly taken, unless readers may im Illicitly rely on the truth of the details. " The narrative of the Life of Washington might, perhaps, have been enlivened with more biographical and characteristic sketches. But it must be remembered, thiitto draw living characters is an arduous and invidious task. And when the whole subject matter is well considered, the author will be found well entitled to our approbation for the cau- tion he has exercised in this particular. As to Washington himself, the uniformity of his life, and taciturnity of his nature, precluded any suf- ficient funds for this minor scene : though I cannot refrain from observ- ing, that his unaffected and warm piety, hisbelief in the Christian reli- gion, and exemplary discharge of all its public and private duties, might have been enlarged upon with more emphasis and advantage. " At such a period as the present, when the press is converted into a powerful engine of falsehood, proscription and confusion ; when letters are perverted to tRe most treacherous and unwoilhy pur- poses, it behoves every American, who admires the history of his country, it behoves, indeed, every man who loves truth, to uphold an authentic national work, like Marshall's, against its malign enemies and lukewarm friends, and to cherish it as a performance whose Sub- ject and authenticity alone, independent of any other merits, should preserve and magnify it for ever." (NOTE Q. p. 228) It is curious to find a journal published in Scotland, complaining ot the Americans as a " scattered, minatory, and spectUating people," and attributing to them as such, a system of manners and morality below the European standard. M. Brougham lately asked in Parliament a ques- tion which we may repeat — in what part of the world is it in which Scotchmen are not to be found in numbers ? and, we may add, in which they do not appear as adventurers and speculators ? We do not, how- ever, tax them, on this account, with having " great and peculiar faults," but on the contrary, we respect in them that spirit of enterprise, and pride of independence, which prompt them to incur all the hazards and hardships of distant emigration, rather than groan in poverty, and crouch under hereditary superiors, at home. I think it would be diffi- cult to show the process by which the sense o//i9?ioMr improves, as "the spirit of adventure is deprived of its object, and as population thickens and becomes crowded." It is in this state of tilings that poverty and ser- vility are engen(,lered ; that crimes multiply from the impulses of des- peration ; that turpitude snd brutality are kept in countenance by the multitude of examples. The operation of hope upon the mind ; the very career itself of seeking and compassing a more comfortable, independ- ent condition, are favourable to the manners and morals. The sense of honour improves with the sense of personal importance, which grows out of self-reliance, and equality of rank. Tlic second number of " The Old Bachelor," a work, which, in gene- ral, is creditable to our literature, contains a keen retort for the para- graphs of tlie Edinburgh llcview, to which this note reft^rs. " They exhibit," says the Virginian essayist, " a palpable and ludicrous struggle between the object and the conscience of the critic ; between the con- flicting purposes of lasliing Mr. Ashe, for lampooning the Americans, and id the same time of inflicting the lash on them himself." See No. 2, 1st volume of Old Bachelor, for a full exposition of the absurdity of those paragraphs. NOTES. (XOTE R. p. 251.) The whole concentrated reproach of this and the succeeding page of the text is capal)le of beini^- fully rt- filled ; and svill be so, I trust, by the simple atnuinciation of facts, in my intended exposition of the actual state of this count r}'. It may be also retorted, and this is the proper mode of dealing with it at present. AVe shall convict the English writer of the most hardy dising^enuousness, in describing, as peculiar to the United Slates, dispositions and practices which notoriously prevail uround him, in England, to an unparalleled extent; which had their origin there ; and are almost daily aggravated in amount and malignity. The determination on the part of the Reviewer to calumniate the Americans, is immediately betrayed by the preposterous and arbitrary refinement of distinguishing between their feelings in getting drunk an.d that oi" the European. The pleasure of the one is sensual and brutal, while that of the other is liberal minded and somewhat sentimental! And hence it is, according to, the critic, that the Americans decide their <|uarrels in ways which, we are given to understand, are unknown in Europe, — rough and tumbling; biting and lacerating. &c. 1 will not refer to t!ie Parliamentary statements respecting the quan- tity of whiskey, licensed and unlicensed, consumed in Ireland ; and the prevalence of intoxication in that unhappy country. The vice there is not merely "social hilarity betrayed inio excess," but the desperation of want and abjection, springing from selfisli mi.sgovernment by the ruling kingdom. We will confine ourselves to England, and leave it to the common sense of the reader to determine whether she is entitled to boast of lier superior sobriety ; and whetlier there is much that is sentimental and generous in the proce.ss of intoxication with the topers mentioned in tlie extracts which I am about to otl'er. I take the follow- ing from the late Reports of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Police of the Metropolis. " Question put to one of the most respctable witnesses — " Do you tliink tliere has been an increased consumption of gin within thes^ few years ^ I have no doubt of it, as the increase of beg- gars is visible : almost all these persons about the streets drink, and they train up their children in drinking. I have seen them at the door of the gin-shops, giving their children in arms the draining of a glass. There are five large gin siiops, or wine-vaults, as they are called, close to the Seven Dials, whicli are constantly frequented. There is one where they go in at one door and out at another, to prevent the inconvenience of their retiu-ning the same way, where there are so many. A friend of mine, who lived opposite, had the curiosity to count how many went in in the course of one Sunday morning, before he went to church, and it was 320." Statement of another respectable witness. •'On a Sunday morning, from April so early that they get drunk, and are rioting and fi.^iiting about. 1 should think that there must be two or threc^, or four hundred — it is quite like a market — loose, disorderly people of both sexes — I have seen as m ich as three or four fights on a Suiuiny morning. Thompson's gin-shop is what they call tlie best. I should not wonder if there were a thousand customers on a Sunday morning, hef st it should be still supposed that London has a monopoly of the gen- try >vhom "social hilarity betrays into excess" of potation, or that the race may be extinct, I will quote a passage on the subject from a very recent work of unquestionable authority — the "Observations of William Tioscoe, Esq. of Liverpool, on Penal Jurisprudeuce." " In taking a sur-- NOTES, 467 vey of society around us," says this eye witness, and zealous patriot, l^-^I'T I- "one of the most slriiiing oDJecls whicli attracts our attention, and v.^^v^^-' which parlicnhu-ly excites the observation and surprise ot every stranger, is the shoclcing liabit of intoxication, which is exhibited, noi only in the metropolis, but in most other parts of the kingdom, and wliicli if not actu- ally encouraged, is openly pernaitted, to the most alarming and incrediblt; extent. Let the reader who doubts this assertion examine tlie reports of the committee of the House of Commons, appointed to inquire into the police of the metropolis; he will there tind such a representation of the dreadful effects of this vice, as cannot fail to call the public atten- tion to a subject, in which, not only the interests of morality and reli- gion, but tlie personal and individual safety of every member of the community is in some degree involved. It is principally to this source that the committee have traced up the increased depravity of the pre- sent times ; and they have shown, by the most authentic evidence, that most of the horrible crimes which have of late been committed, in and about the metropohs, have been occasioned by the 'brutalizing effect of spirituous liquors ; by which the criminal is rendered insensible to the milder feelings of his nature, and regardless of all consequences, whether as affecting this world or another.' To the same cause a very respectable witness attributes the spirit of insubordination and sedition, which has manifested itself in some districts, and the murders to which it has given rise." As for tiie practice of gambling which the Quarterly Review, with monstrous injustice, charges upon " all orders of men, clergy as well as laity" in the United States, L will again refer to Colquhoun's book,* for a sketch of the sins of the British metropolis on this score. The details are such, both in that work and in the Parliamentary liepoi-ts, as 1 do not wish to repeat; but no one who has read them, and who knows America, will deem me extravagant, when I assert, that the gambling of London alone far exceeds that of the whole United States, whether as to the variety and odiousness of its forms ; the depravity of spirit with whicli it is pursued; the knavery with which it is accomjjanied ; the crimes and miseries to which it leads ; or the amount of the sums staked within the year. Colquhoun estimated this amount at 7,225,000^. ster- ling, besides o,135,00j/. iov fraudulent insurances in the lottery^ M. Roscoe, in the work of his which 1 have just quoted, alleges that one of the principal causes of the unexampled frequency of crimes in the present day, in England, is the open and unrestrained practice of gambling, which, originatmg in the higher class.: s, has infected the lower, till it has become the habitual occupation even of children of ihe lowest ranks, who are seen in the strc ets of the metropolis, on the Sunday particidarly, in gaming parties, fifty or sixty in a gang.":|: Let us now attend to the pretended eff'ects of the anomalous inebria- tion of the Americans : — their rough and tumbling; their biting and /a- ceraiing each other, and xhe'w gouging. The last named practice is the thrusting out of the antagoiust's eye in a pugilistic comb-U. No in- stance of it has ever been known in the states north of Marylmd ; it has occurred in some of the sottthern ; but is now rare, and become dishonourable even among that class of persons, the vulgarest and most licentious, to which it was confined. But, admitting it to be aground of national reproach, is it in itself more savage and disgraceful than the * 1'. 142, 3d sec. Police of the Metropohs. t In his Treatise on Indigence, Colquhoun estimates at 10,000, the class of persons whom he calls lottery vagrants, employed in London in' prociuing insurances during the lottery drawings. t Page 30. too NOTES. PART I. knobbing. Jibbing, miliing, and all the other modes of injury in fight, for ^^-..y,,^. which the Erii^lish have invented a technical vocabulary ? Is there any thing worse in it, than wliy.l we read in almost all tiie accounts of the set and mercenary battles, at which the English of all ranks attend ia thousands with the keenness of passion — to wit : that such a one, and such a one, "the champion of England," "the cock of the nation," after having demolished one of his antagonist's eyes, "made continual play ai the other !" Is the spectacle which the gouged combatant may be supposed to oifer, indicative of more ferocity in the combat, or more shocking lo the memory, or more oflensive to the sight, than that of the vanquished party in tiie affair described in the following extract from Bell's Weekly Messenger, of Dec. 7, 1818. " The great battle between Turner and Randall, at Copthorn, on Saturday. " 'I'his match for one hundred guineas a side was fought on Saturday it the abovi spot, amidst thousands of spectators. "Turner from the seventh round exhibited a head like a red night- cap, not a slice of flesh, (for it was hit in all directions,) but what was covered with blood. There was no knock down till the fourteenth round, when Randall, after a hit in every round, to keep the blood in motion, floored iiim by a clean right-handed body hit." Gouging is abhorred by every man of this country who pretends to character: seeking lo witness it as an entertainment is not imaginable in the habits or tastes of any such person. But the head like a red night- cafi ; the fainting pugilist covered with blood, blinded and mangled, and finally, when incapable of all further offence or resistance, deliberately laid senseless, perliaps lifeless, with " a clean right-handed body hit" — This is the exhibition in which men of rank and fashion in England de- light ; over which they preside, and which can draw together twenty thousand spectators of all classes, as to a festival not only yielding gra- tification, but furnisliing an opportunity for gambling speculations.* Horrible as tiiese prize fights are, they are thought worthy of encou- ragement as a substitute for the modes in which the English peasantry and populace were and are wont "to decidt: their quarrels." In the volume for 1806, of Nicholson's Philosophical Magazine, there is a dis- sertation written by Dr. Bardsley, of Manchester, " On the Use and Abuse of popular Sports and Exercises ;" which discloses to us what, doubtless, the Quarterly Review must have considered as a secret, that those modes are precisely the rough and tumbling, biting and lacerating, which it would represent as peculiar to the Americans. Even the goug- ing is included, virtually, if not by name, and very frequently manslaugh- ter, a term sufficiently familiar in England. We are outdone by the very models of civilization, as will appear by the following statements of the Manchester writer. "Even in France, and most parts of Germany, the quarrels of the people are determined by a brutal appeal to force, directed in any man- ner, however perilous, to the annoyance or destruction of the adver- * (Boxing.) Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 10th, 1819.) "The match between Randall and Mirtin, took place on Tuesday, on Crawley Downs, more than thirty miles from London, anrl the spec- tators were at least twenty thousand in number ; they fought nineteen roimds in about fifty minutes, when Martin resigned the contest. Ran- dall was matched 150/. to 100/. betting was seven to four upon him. — Spring and Carter next entered the ring. A worse fight has not been seen for many years. Spring won it in an hour and three quarters. There -was very little money betted on this fight in London Many were of opinion that the whole was a trick upon the knowing ones." NOTES. sary. Slicks, stones, and every dangerous kind of weapon, are resorted to for the gratification of passion or revenge. But the most common y and savage method of settling quarrels upon the continent, is the adop- tion of the Roman pancratium. I'he parties close, and struggle to throw eacii other down ; at the same time the teeth and nails are not unem- ployed. In short, they tear each other like wild beasts, and never de- sist from the conflict till their strength is completely exhausted; and thus, regardless of any established laws of honour whicli teach forbear- ance to a prostrate foe, their cruelty is only terminated by their inability to inflict more mischief." " 'I'he mode of fighting in Holland, among the seamen and others, is well known by the appellation of snicker-snee. In this contest sharp knives are used ; and the parties frequently maim, and sometimes de- stroy each other. The government deems it necessary to tolerate this savage practice." "It is a singular though striking fact, that in those parts of the king- dom of England where the generous and manly system of pugilism is least practised, and where, for the most part, all personal disputes are decided by the exertion of savage strength and ferocity — afondnessfor barbarous and bloody sports is found to prevail. In some parts of Lancashire, bull-baiting and man-slaying are common pi'actices. The knowledge of pugilism as an art is, in these places, neither understood nor practised. There is no established rule of honour to save the weak from the strong, but every man's life is at the mercy of his successful antagonist. Th'e object of each combatant in these disgraceful contests, is, to throw each other prostrate on the ground, and then with hands and feet, teeth and nails, to inflict, at random, every possible degree of injury and torment. This is not an exaggerated statement of the barbarism still prevailing in many parts of this kingdom. The country assizes for Lancashire afford too many convincing proofs'of the increasing mischiefs arising from these and other disgraceful combats." " A disgusting instance of this ferocious mode of deciding quarrels, was not long since brought forward at Manchester sessions. It ap- peared in evidence, that two persons, upon some trifling dispute, at a public house, agreed to lock themselves up in a room with the landlord, and ' fight it out' according to the Bolton method. This contest lasted a long time, and was only terminated by the loss of the greatest part of the nose and a part of the ear, belonging to one of the parties, which were actually bitteji off by the other, during the fight. The suff*erer exhibited at the trial part of the ear so torn ofl'; and upon being asked by the counsel what had become of that part of his nose which was missing — he replied with perfect naivete — ' that he believed his anto- gonist had swallowed it !' It has happened to the writer of these re- marks to witness, in more than one instance, the pickint; uj) in the streets, lacerated portions of ears and fingers, after these detestable and savage broils " " The judges, on the occasions above mentioned, have freqaenlly de- clared in the most solemn and' impressive charges to the grand jury, that the number of persons indicted for murder, or manslaughter, in const quence of the bestial mode of fighting practised in this country, far exceeded liiat of the whole northern circuit ; and that, in future, they were determined to punisii with the utmost rigour of Uie law, offenders of this descri.ption — liut, alas ! these just denunciations have little av^iilf d — at one assize, no less than nine persons were convicted of manslaughter, originating from these disgraceful encounters." The reader would f.iin biMieve, I presume, that these "diabolical practices," recited from Barrlsley, have ceased; but 1 cannot give him this consohition, or in any wav disguise the truth, as lotig as the principal London Journals present paragraphs like the following : JNOTES. Courier, Jan. 18th, 1819, ' " MIDDLESEX SESSIONS. " D. Donovan was found guilty of biting off the nose of M. Donovan, in a fight which they had. J.J. Wakeman was sentenced to six months imprisonment, having been found guiUy of seizing R. Cotton by the throat, and forcing out his tongue, half of which he bit off, and the next day bragged of having eaten." Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 31, 1819. "EPSOM RACES, Friday— Third day, May, 28, 1819. " Several races of minor importance took place this day, and afforded considerable amusement and interest to the sporting gentry. When the races were concluded, the\ endeavoured to amuse themselves by a view oi & ruffianly sort of Jight heUv&cn Oliver, Siwd a black by the name of Kenrich, in which the former obtained the victory." Sporting Magazine, April, 1819. *• A pugilistic combat for 100 guineas a side, and 10 guineas, took place on Forest Heath, a few miles from Stony Stratford, on Wednes- day, April 7th, between George Uunkeley, a giant of 17 stone, and 6 feet 4 inches in height, ana Harry Foreman, a miner from O.xfordshire, of nearly equal weight. Many thousand spectators were ])resent. They fought nine rounds in the most slaughtering and ferocious manner, and in the latter Dunkeley broke his adversary's left jaw, and was declared the victor. Dunkeley was so much injured by body hits, that he was carried off the ground in a dangerous state." Sporting Magazine, May, 1819. " PUGILISM. " Battle between Carter and Spring, on Crawley Downs, 30 miles from London, on Tuesday, May 4. "It is supposed if the carriages had all been placed in a line, they v,ould have reached from London to Crawley. The amateurs were of the highest distinction ; and several noblemen and foreigners of rank were upon the ground. " The signal was given for stripping, and a most extensive ring was immediately beat out ; and among the crowd numbers of females were to be seen/anxious to get a peep at these famous heroes," &c. Sporting Magazine, May, 1819. « COCKING— CHESTER. " During the races, a main of cocks was fought between the gentle- men of Cheshire, (Giliiver, feeder,) and the gentlemen of Lancashire, (Partridge, feeder,) for ten guineas a battle, and two hundred guineas the main. " The great main of cocks, between the gentlemen of Norwich and Cambridge, was fought this month, at the Swan Inn, in Norwich, and was won by the former — one battle a-head." ♦' On Monday, May 3, and two following days, the match of cocks between the gentlemen of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, took place at the cockpit, Holywell, in Oxford, when the former were victors, three in the main, and six in the bye battles," &.c. " Pugilistic contest, near Barnesley, Yorkshire. — This battle was for sixty guineas a side, between John Wike, the champion of the latter place, and aw amateur of the name of Green a pupil, of I, the scientific George Head, on Wednesday, April 14- This contest excited con- NOTES. derable interest for miles round Barnesley, and the battle took place at the Full-dews, about four miles from Barnesley, in the presence of , some thousands of spectators. For one hour and fifty-two minutes the heat of battle raged, and during which period 94 rounds were severely contested. " Wike's head was materially changed, one of his ogles was closed, and the other fast verging to darkness. In the 94th and last round, Wike was floored from a tremendous hit upon his throat," &c. The Sporting Magazine, April, 1819. "PUGILISM. " Between Purcell and Warkley, for a purse of 50/. given by the amateurs of Norwich, on Thursday, April 1. " The above contest excited considerable interest among the provin- cial fancy, and no less than 10,000 persons assembled on the above spot to witness the battle. •' ROUNDS. " 7. Warkley got Purcell's head under the rope, and made some heavy hits with his right hand. Purcell's head appeared truly terrific, being one mass of blood. "8. Purcell showed a severe cut under the before contused eye, which appeared nearly closed, and bled profusely." " 17. After retreating to his old corner, he fought most dreadfully, and no feature of Purcell's face could be distinguished from the flowing of blood," &c. I have had occasion to remark, in the second Section of this volume, that the legislators of New England prohibited the vulgar sports com- mon in the mother country. Bull and bear-baiting, horse-racing, and cock-fighting, have never been practiced in our northern States ; in the mifldle, they have not, with tite exception of horse-racing, often oc- curred ; and it is only in the south that bull and bear-baiting is now known ; even there it occurs but very seldom. The baiting of horses, of which I have quoted an instance, in the text, from the Memoirs of Evelyn, appears to have been a favourite sport in the mother country. Struit has recorded it in his amusing volume on " the Diversions anil Pastimes of the people of England," and given a plate of the manner in which it was performed. Asses were treated with the same inhuma- nity. With respect to this useful animal, and the more noble one the horse, the Americans are altogether free from the reproach of having followed the ignominious example of torturing and destroying them at the stake. Nor do our annals afford an instance of the British refine- ment of whipping a blinded bear. This popular practice consisted, to use the language of Strutt and Bardsley, " in several persons at the same time scourging with whips, a blind-folded bear round the ring, ■whose sufferings and awkward attempts at revenge highly gratified the noble as well as ignoble spectators." The duck hunting described by Strutt, is equally without example in this country, and so I believe to be be the favourite English amusement of thr owing at cocks, of which he treats in his third book. But the English traveller, Fearon, has disco- vered that the Kentuckians have a pastime called gander-pulling, that is, twisting off at full gallop the head of a gnnder tied to a tree. Fea- ron does not allege that he saw it himself. There are, certainly, very few Kentuckians who have even heard of it. It is, however, eagerly seized upon by the Quarterly Reviewers, who, affect to sliudder, and to be scandalized infinitely, as if the feelings of an Englishman at home were virginal in respect to acts of brutality towards animals. Dr. Bards- ley shall inform us specifically whether this be the fact. The following '2 NOTES, ART I. passajfes of his Dissertation might have taught the lleviewers a little ^^^■^^. caution. "If the Romans set us the example in devising these sports, (the buiting and torturing of animals,) it must be confessed we have ' bet- tertd the instiuctions ' For to English refinement and ingenuity, may be ascribed tlie noble invention of the gafHe or spur; by the aid of which, the gallant combatants of the cockpit mangle, torture, and de- stroy each otiier ; no doubt to the great satisfaction and delight of ad- miring spectators. Another instance of our barbarous ingenuity must not be omitted No other nation but the British has contrived to put in practice the battle-royal and the Welsh-main. In the former, the spectator may be gratified with the display of numbers of game-cocks destroying each other at the same moment, withoutorder or distinction. In th( latter, tiiese courageous birds are doomed to destruction in a more regular, but not less certain manner. They fight in pairs, (sup- pose sixteen in number.) and the two last survivors are tjien matched agiiinst eacli other; so that out of thirty -two birds, thirty-one must be necessarily slaughtered. " Thro-ivhig at cocks, is another specimen of unmeaning brutality, confined solely to our own country. After being familiiirized to the barbarous destruction of this courageous binl in the cock-pit, it was only advancing one step further in the progress of cruelty, to fasten this most gallant animal to a stake, in order to murder him piece-meal. " Bull-baiting, during the 16th and early part of the 17th century, was not confinetl within the limits of a bear garden, but was universally practised on various occasions, in all the towns and villages tliroiighout the kingdom. In many places, the pr.ictice was sanctioned by law, and the bull-rings, affi.xed to large stones driven into the earth, remain to this day, as memorials of this legalized species of barbarity. " Numbers of bulls were, and still continue to be, regularly trained and carried about from village to village, to enter the lists against dogs bred for the purpose of the combat. I'o detail all the barbarities com- mitted in these encounters would be a disgustmg and tedious task. All the iiad passions which s|)ring up in ignorant and depraved minds, are here set afloat. " At a bull-baiting in StafTordshire, in 1799 ; after the animal had been baited by single dogs, he was attacked by numbers, let loose upon hint at once. Having escaped from his tormentors, they again fastened him to the ring ; and with a view either of gratifying their S3vage revenge, or of better securing their victim, they actually cut oflT his hoofs, and enjoyed the spectacle of his being worried to death on his bloody and mangled stumps." "The practice of bull baiting," says the author of Espriella's Letters, "is not merely permitted, it is even enjoined by the municipal law in some places, .\tttmpts have twice been made in the legislature to suppress this barbarous custom : they were baffled and ridiculed ; and somi of the most distinguished members were absurd enough, and hard- hearted enough to assert, that if siuh sports were abolished, there woidd be an end of the national courage. The bear and the badger are baited with the same barbarity ; and, if the rabble can get nothing else, they will divert themselves by worrying cats to death." Tlie bcldiKss of the tr.iveller Fearon, and of the Quarterly Review, in attempts ti> degrade the American character, by stories of gander ]ju1'ingin Kentucky, and bear baiting at New Orleans, must be apparent r'rom the quotations 1 have just made; but 1 wish to show further, to what they expose the Rritisli nation by authorizing requital. In open- ing by accident, the English Monthly Magazine, for Sept. 18o3, 1 fell upon the article which 1 am about to transcribe. The character of the NOTES. 47; author is unknown to me ; but lie is not a foreign witness, and cannot I'AllT 1 be suspected of a wisli to iHsparujjo his owa country. v^^r-v-^ "To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. " SIR, " It has been remarked by some author, that the English nation is more addicted to cruelty than any otiicr enligiitened people of Europe, and though we must naturally be reluctant in achnitting a charge of so disgraceful a nature, yet a little attention to what is passing around us, particularly in respect to our own iiidifl'erence to the sufferings of the brute creation, will, I fear, rather corroborate than refute the asser- tion. I shnll confine my remarks to two instances of diabolical cruclt}'. " A gentleman of my acquaintance was eye witness to an instance of this horrid propensity, near Buxton ; a fellow exhibited a bear which was tied to a stake, with a small length of chain allowed ; the bear was not, however,' attacked by dogs, as usual, but by monsters in human shape, who diverted themselves by trundling a wheel barrow at it — if this ma- chine struck the animal, th(.' bear-ward paid 6d. to him who twirled the {)arrow, and if it missed, (wliich was oftener the case, as the poor bear, from woful experience, had acquired considerable dexterity in avoid- ing the blow,) then the bear-ward received 6d, "The otiier instance, wi)ich fell wiihin my own observation, seems to me to conibine more associations of a kind disgraceful to human nature, than any other I remember ever to have heard of. " As I passed through a lane, a few days before last Shrove-Tuesday, I observed a considerable ci'owd in an adjoining field, enjoying some game, in wh.ich a number of boys were busily engaged ; on a nearer ap- ])roach, I saw ten or twelve boys, with their hands tied, pursuing a cock, the wings of which had been previously clipped, to retard its escape ; on enquiry, I learnt this poor creatur.; was to be the prize of him who could carry it off to a certain part of the field, in his teeth ; this, unfortunately for the object of their pursuit, was no easy task, and the scene I witnessed in its prosecution was sucli, as surely was never equalled in the .annals of brutality. " The cock, as in most such sports, had a little start allowed, when on a signal, all its pursuers gave chace ; the first who came up with it, endeavoured to stun it witli his foot, and if that failed, his next re- source was to fall upon it with his body, full length, in which position he couirived Xo^fix his teeth in some part, hnt the head w.as usually prefer- red, as the animal could not easily retaliate in this situ.alion ! sometimes all these bloodhounds were down upon or itear the poor cock at the same time, one pulling it by the feet, another by the wings, and a third tugg- ing at its head, til! the weakest part gave way, and the strongest teeth bore away the prize in triumph ; whilst the poor creature struggled so violently,' as at times, by its convulsions, to escape for a moment, the 7nonster''s jaros ; but if the conqueror proved too strong to prevent this momentary escape, his triimiph was of very short duration, for by the rules of this game, the unsuccessful followers were permitted to trip the heels of the hero who was thus bearing away the prize, which they generally contrived to do, and before he could arrive at the goal, he was usually overthrown by his pursuers, who, falling upon him and each other, with the wretched animal in the midst of them, resumed this inhuman struggle. "To the disgrace of human nature, most of the less cruel diversions ■which 1 have mentioned, are conducted by ?nen ,• but in tlieir refine- ments upon all former species of cruelly, boys are selected, and en- couraged by the men, and taught to make use of their teeth like canni- bals." (Signed, > " F.GEllTOX SMITH, " of Liverpool." Vol.. 1.— 3 O WOTES. VVe may tuppose Mr. Fearon, but not the Quarterly lleviev,', to be ig norant of the speech of Lord Erskiiie, on the bill which he introdiiceG into the House of Lords in 1809, respecting' cruelty to animals. 'I'lie Reviewers ought to have recollected also, the fate of that bill in the. House of Commons, where, notwithstanding the disclosure of the most horrid barbarities, a quorum could not be kept to secure a decent re- jection in the forms. The speech of Lord Erskine to the Peers, fur- nishes a kind of evidence which cannot be got over ; for the facts ad- duced to demonstrate the necessity of his bill, are vouched upon the liighest responsibility. The humane mover said, " He could bring the most unexceptionable testimony to their lord- ships bar, to prove the existence of such practices as were a disgrace to humanity, to a civilized nation ; one barbarous practice was, the cut- ting and tearing out the tongue of so noble an animal as the horse."* I will confine myself to an extract in addition, from this speech, in relation to the treatment of that " noble animal, the horse," which treatment, generally, I believe to be more savage in England, than in any other country on earth. The following statement of Lord Erskine, will illustrate also, what kind of meat it is such of the poor of England as aspire to that lu.^ury, usually obtain. " A very general practice prevails, of buying up horses still alive, but not capable of being further abused by any kind of labour. These horses, it appeared, were carried in great numbers to slaugliter houses, but not killed at once for their flesli and skins, but left without suste- nance, and literally starved to death, that the mat-ket might be gradually fed. The poor animals in the mean time, being induced to eat their own dung, and frecjuently gnawing one another's manes in the agonies of hunger."! I cannot refrain from noting here a circumstance connected with the treatment of horses in England, which I find stated thus in one of the principal newspapers of London. * See the number of the English Sporting Magazine, for June, 1819, for an atrocious insiinice of this practice. •j- Some humane person has returned to this subject, in the Sporting Magazine, for April, 1819, and given the following account of the same hideous abomination : "Let me most earnestly, and with a heart affected by sadness and melancholy, and indignant with sensations of shame, call the attention of ?nen to the last and dreadfid stage of the life of the laborious horse, which has spent the whole of his strength, and wasted his spirits and his blood in the most painful, perhaps the most excruciating services. lie is, in tlie metropolis more especially, sold in his aged, worn out) and unpitied state to a set of brutal, unfeeling — infernal savages 1 as any that disgrace and shame the bosom of their mother earth — the nackers, or horse butchers; men whose fierce and hardened features, and blood stained hands and bodies, are an appalling representation of their horrid calling. Their places are dens of famine, animal misery, and torture, whicii mi,;ht make humanity weep tears of blood ! Here are seen horses worn out with ago and labour, in every possible state of decrepi- tude and disease, kept alive as long as possible for the convenience of market, lingering under all the horrors of famine, to the degree of de- voip'ing each other's manes, from excessive hunger, and at last sinking to the earth, one after the other, from emptiness and weakness ! Some of them m;iy have been purchased in the country, and driven long jour- nies, with barely food enough, and that of the most sordid and worth- less kind, to enable them to stand upon their legs." NOTES. 47o "December 29th, 1818. This day were sAof at the Queeo's stsfcles, part T. Jive horses belonging to her late majesty. Tliey had bten in the queen's ^ ^^^^.^^ ^ service bet7veeii thirtu and fortii years, txnd were now despatcli*^d (oeintj no longer able to do hard-work,) to prevent their fulling to the work of dust carts, &c. Sec." • Among the ancients (barbarians and pagans!) Ibe beasts that had been employed in the building of certain temples, were ever afterwards released from druc'_^ery, and delicately fed. They were not " des- patched to prevent their failing to the work of dust carts." When .Tulius Caesar, in passing the Rubicon, devoted a number of horses to the divinity of that river, he set them free to rove in ihe abundant pastures in its neighbourhood. — Was there no field at Frogmore, in which the five horses wiiich had served her majesty for t/iir/y or forty years, could have been permitted to enjoy the remnant of their existence ; if noi as a debt of humanity to them, at least as a mark of respect to the memory of their mistress ^ The lines of old Ennius furnish a lesson to her ma- jesty's executors. Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui sxpe supremo A'icit (Jlympia, nune senio confectu quiescit. ■ (NOrE S. p. 258.) Dr. Mitchill, of Xew York, has made the following mention of Gt;- vernor Col.len, in his Anniversary Discourse of 1813, before the New York Historical Society. " Cadwallader Golden had a large share in the provincial administra- tion of New York. He sent to Sweden, for his correspondent, the dis- tinguished professor at Upsul, a collection of the plants growing in Ul- stei' county of New York, and accompanied the herbarium with de- scriptions. Tlie great author of the scxtiu! system caused the descrip- tions to be printed, and in his several publications referred to them as authorities. Colden's Catalogue may be seen in the Upsal Transactions for 1743. Tiiis performance displays great industry and skill, and justly places the auihor among the botanical worthies of North America." Linnjeus named'a plant of the tetrandous class, Coldenia, in honour of the daughter of Colden. The historian cultivated mathematics with distinguis!»ed success, and maintained a correspondence on various branches of science with several of the most eminent savans of Europe. In the year 1743, he suggested and explained in detail, in a letter to Dr. Franklin,* the stereotype method of printing. The process which he recommended, is the same as that practised, and said to have been in- vented, by Herban at Paris. (NOTE T. p. 266.) The first steam boat launched in the Hudson was at once crowded with passengers, and in no part of the United States where the same Tninle of conveyance appeared, did the inhabitants manifest the least hesitation aljout making immediate use of it. Not so in Great Britain. * See the letter in the 1st vol. of the New York Medical Register. KOTES. We read in an article on steam boats, in the 45lh vol. of Tillock's Pbl- losopiiioal ]Vl:ig;iziiie, the following statement: " At first, owing to tlie novelty and apparent danger of the convey- ance, when the first steam boat appeared in tl>e Cijcie in 1812, the number of passengers was so very small, that the only steam boat on the river could hardly clear her expenses ; but the degree of success which attended that attempt soon commanded public confidence." I take the following additional illustrations of this ::>ibject from a mas- terly j-eview of Coldtn's Life of Fulton, published in the Analectic Magazine for Sept. 1817". " To show how little jiretensions the E^nglish have to this discovery, we lay before our readers tlie following extracts from the best and most popular of the monthly publications of that country. In the London Monthly Magazine for October, I8l3, p. 244, it is said, " We have made it our spoci-1 business to lay before the public, all the particulars we have been able to collect relative to the invention of steam passage boats in America, and their introduction into Great Bri- tain ; because we consider this invention as worth to mankind more than a hundred battles gained, or towns taken, even if the victors were en- gaged in a war, which might have some pretence to be called defensive anti necessary. It affords us great satisfaction to be able to lay before our readers a correct description of the Clyde steam boat, obligingly communicated to us by Messrs. Woods, shi]) builders in Port Glasgow. It is but justice, however, to those gentlemen, to state, that they candid- )}' consider the steam boats, as they are at present constructed, (that is on the Clyde,) to be in a very rude stale, and capable of great improve- ment. *' The boat runs in calm weather four, or four and a half miles per hour ; but against a considerable breeze, not more than three." In the Monthly Magazine for November, 1813, vol. 36, p. 385, an account is given of the New York steam boats running on an average, with or again.st the tide, at the rate " of six miles an hour, with the stnooihness of a Dutch Slreckshute." In the same page is a wooden cut of the Ciyde boat ; and a note of the editors, stating, " that the inhabitants of the populous banks of the Thames are not at present acquainted with steam boats, only through our descriptions of them." In the same Magazine for January 1814, p. 529, is a proposal to erect a company for the purpose of building steam boats to navigate the Thames. In the Magazine for February 1814, p. 29, is a further description of the American steam boats, as an interesting article of information. In the same Magazine for April 1814, a further account of American steam boats is given by Mr. Ralph Dodd, engineer, who had visited them in this country. He states that there were then two places in Great Britain where steam boats had been employed, to wit, on the river Braydon, between Yarmouth and Norwich, and on the river Clyde, between Glasgow and Greenock: and at the close of his account, he mentions that he had been urging the use of this mode of conveyance for two years past, and was happy to find his recommendations realized. By the Monthly Magazine for 1814, p. 358, it appears, that the above named Ralph Dodd had succeeded in forming a company to build steam boats to be used on the Thames ; and in the same page it is stated, that the Clyde steam boat had run for eighteen months past : that is, the first steam boat began to run in America under Fulton's direction in 1807, and tlie first steam boat began to run in Great Britain in or about the month of May, in the year 1313, six years after they had been in full opera'ion in this country; in all probability, if it had'not been for Ful- ton's enterprise andingenuity, Great Britain would not have had a steam ' NOTES. 47' bo^t tor Ihese twenty years to come. He showed Lbem how to succeed. PART I Yet is the account in llees'sEncycIopaediuso drawn up, as if the vvliole v^-y-'^ of the invention w:is owii\g to Enghsh skill and enterprise. " We hear much (s;iy the editors of the Monthly Magazine for April 1813, vol. 33, p. 243,) of the proven success of the sleani passage boats against the rapid streams of the great rivers in America ; yet nothing of this kind has yet been adopted in Great Britain. Are we to succumb to America in the mechanic arts ?" This was true ; for the Clyde boat had not begun to run when that paragraph was v. litten, nor, we believe, till at least a month after it was published. " The general index to the first twenty volumes of the Edinburgh lleview, comprehending the month of October 15512, has not an article relating to steam boats. Yet no o.'ie can complain that the editors of that work are not sufficiently alive to their national claims." (NOTE U. p. 275.) In the Discourse of Dr. MitchiM, of New York, to which I have re ferredin Note S, there is the fo'!.)vvi(i;v notice ot Jam^s Lot^'an. " I have a copy of James Logan's ' Experimenta, et MtU 'emata circa- generationcm plantarum.' I'hey were printed at LondoTi, ui Latin and English. He relates expL-rimenls made on Indian C(n'n to prove the prolific nature of staminal dusl. He quotes Dr Grew, as ascribing to Mr. Thomas Millington the origii.al idea, as long .igo as 1676, that plants have sexes. It is not a little remaikable, thai this small tract is more likely to perpetuate the author's fcime, than all the judicial acts of his life." 1 would observe, on the last phrase of this quotation, that, if the learned author of the discourse meant to disparage the judicial acts of Logan, he has committed a signal injustice, or spoken without due knowledge. Logan's judicial cai-eer was one of great integrity, and utility to the state. .Vs Poiuisylvania was divided into parties for and against the Proprietary, and as this early friend of Penn took the lead on the side of lais family, he became dbnoxious to keen enmities, and unsparing detraction. 1 his accounts for the angry proceedings of the House of Assembly towards him from time to time, and for the co- lours in which he is painted in the Historical Review of Pennsylvania, published in London to counteract the Proprietary interest there. I am well informed that Franklin, the authorof the Review, acknowledged, at a distant period, that Logan had been represented in the work pursuant to party feelings and aims, and not in conformitv with his real charac- ter and services. The ciiarges which Logan delivered, as chief justice of Pennsylvania, to grand jurits, are of siiigidar excellence. He appears in them not only as a watchful guardian of the domestic weal, and as rv sagacious director, but as a profound moralist, and beautful writer. Such subtle disquisition, and lofty speculation, such variety of know- ledge, and richness of diction, are seldom found in compositions of any kind. Of the ])ractical lessons which he incwlcated, 1 am induced to quote the following, from a charge dated April 13, 1736, because it has- a curious appositentss to the present times in this country, and contains maxims of universal and perpetual validity. " As poverty, and the want of money, has of late been the great cry- in this place (Philadcl|)hia) ; and riches have been shown to be the na- tural eHiccts of sobriety, induslrv, and frugality ; the true causes of this poverty may just)}' deserve a more near and strict inquiry : upon which. NOTES. the case, if I mistake not, will appear as follows. It is certainly with a , state, as with a private family ; if the disbursements or expenses are gitaler tliaii the iii. ome, that family will undoubtedly become poorer. And, in tlie same manner, if our importations are greater than our ex- ports, the country in general will sink by it. This has been our case for some jears past, owing, in a great measure, not only to the badness of tlie commodicy we exjjorled, to tiie great injury of our credit, (which, no;'vitlist;uidmg, is now in some degree retrieved, by the diligence of orn .fiicei-, aui,l Uie country will undoubtedly reap the advantages of is) but cilso to our using more European and other goods than we can pay for by our produce, or perhaps really want ; and then the balance must be paid (if 'tis e\ er done) in money. " These are the open and avowed reasons, that may be given, for our scarcity of coin ; but as to our poverty, it may be inquired, whether there l>e not yet a cause ? And every man who complains, may ask himself, wh-therhe has been as industrious and frugd, in the manage- meni of his affairs, as his circumstances required? wiiether credit has not hurt iiim, by venturing into debt, before he knew how to pay ? and whether the attraovjons of pleasure and ease have not been stronger than those of busin'ss ? but Solomon says, He that loveth pleasure, sliall be a poor man ; and he that loveth wine and oil, (that is, high living,) shall not be rich, Prov. 21, 17. He tells us also, elsewhere, who they are that shall come to poverty, and what it is tiiat clothes a man with rags, Prov. 23, 21 ; and shows, very clearly, that the ways to get wealth were tlie very same, near three thousand years ago, that they are at -this day, and probably, they may continue the same to the end of the world. "If pcopleof substance cannot employ men to build, orby other means to improve the country, but at higher rates than the work will be worth to them when finisheil, whether 'tis to be let or sold, such workmen cannot expect employment, but poverty must come as one that iravel- leth, and want as an armed man And if the same love of pleasure, wine, and oil, still continue under these circumstances, it will not be difficult to find a cause why such are not rich. It is not to be doubted, but that young beginners in the world have mistaken their own condi- tion ; have valued an appearance, and run too easily into debt; and tliat workmen ileclining labour on practicable terms, to put it in the pov.'er of others to employ them, and yet continuing their usual expense ; it is not to be doubted, I say, but that great numbers, by these mea- sures, though they may not be the only cause, have been plunged into distressed circumstances, of which tiiey themselves will not see the reason : but being uneasy under ihem, they repine, and grow envious against those who, by greater diligence and circumspection, have pre- served themselves in a more easy and safe condition of life. Such peo- ple run into complaints of grievances ; cry out against the oppression of the poor, though perhaps no country in the world is more free from it than ours ; they grow factious and turbulent in the state ; are for trying new politics, and like persons afflicted with distempers, contracted through vicious habits, who are calling for lenitives to their pains, but will not part with the beloved but destructive cause ; they are for in- venting new and extraordinary measures for their relief and ease ; when St is certain, that nothing can prove truly effectual to them, but a change of their own measures, in the exercise of those wholesome and healing virtues I have mentioned, viz. sobriety, industry, and frugality : not by contracting new debts, for this is a constant snare, and a pit, in which the unwary are caught ; for tlie borroiver, we are told, is a servant to the lender, and the man who gives .surety worketh his own destruction : for why (ills said) should he (thy creditor) take thy bed from under thee .' or, which amounts to the same, why should he take that from thee. •NOTES. 4753 ftom which thou must gain tliy bread, or tlie place on which tliy bed PART I. stands? such relief is but a snare : and I will here be bold to sny, that y^^s/"^^ it is not even the greatest quantity of coin thai can be imported into this province, (unless it were to be dislributed for nothing,) nor of any other specie, that can relieve the man wiio has noiliing to purchase it with ; but it is his industry, with frugality, that must ease him, and enti- tle him to a share of it." (NOTE V. p, 396.) TuE petition which Lord Nugent presented to the House of Cojii- mons, during its last session, (18 19) on the part of the English Roman Cathohcs, was signed by lO.oOO persons, among whom were eleven peers, thirteen baronets, and three liundred gentlemen of landed pro- perty. To make the American reader acquainted with the intent of their disfranchiaement, I olfer the following exti-acts from some of tlieir late petitions and addresses, as preserved in a valuable work published the present year in London, and entitled, " Historical Memoii'S of the English Catholics, by Charles Butler, Esq." " Several lUsabimg aiid penal laws stilt remain in force ugainst English Catholics. Still are civil and mditary offices denied them ; still are they axchided from many lines in tlie profession of the law and medicine ; still are some avenues to commercial wealth shut against them ; still is entrance into corporations prohibited to them ; still the provisions for tlieir schools and places of religious worship are without legal security ; Still they are disabled from voting at elections ; still ibey are deprived of eligibility to a seat in the House of Commons; still Roman Catholic peers are excluded from their hereditary seats in ti)e House of Lords ; and still Roman Catholic soldiers and sailors are legally subject to heavy penalties, and even to capital punishment, for refusing to confirm to the religious rights of the established church. Each of these penal laws has a painful operation : their united effects is very serious. It meets the Catholics in every path of life ; makes their general body a depressed and insulated cast ; and forces every individual of it below the rank in society which be would otherwise hold. Seldom, indeed, does it hap- pen, that a Roman Cathohc closes his life, without having more than once experienced, that his pursuits have failed of success, or that, if they have succeeded, the success of them has been greatly lessened or greatly retarded, or that his children have lost provision or preferment, in consequence of his having been a Roman Catholic." " How injurious the test acts are, both to the public and to the indi- viduals on whom they operate, appeared in 1795 -, in which year, during the then great national alarm of invwsion. Lord Petre, the grandfathei' of the present lord, having with the express leave and encouragement of government, raised, equipped', and trained, at his own expense, a corps of two hundred and fifty men for his majesty's service, reqviested that his son might be appointed to the command of them. His son'd religion was objected, his appointment refused, and another person was appointed to the command of the corps. You cannot but feel how much such a conduct tended to disco\irage the Catholics from exertions of zeal and loyalty : — but, the noble faniily had too much real love of their country to resign from her service, even under tiiese circum- stances. His lordship delivered over t!ie corps, completely equipped, and completely trained, into the hands of government, aixl his soii served in the ranks." " In the last Parliament, (1816) it was shown, that a meritorious pri- NOTES. vale, for rci'iisiiig (wliicli lie did in a most respectful manner,) to at- ^ tend divine Service and sermon, according to the rights of the estab- lished church, was confined nine days in a dungeon, on bread and water." " Thus the Englisli Cntliolic soldiers are incessantly exposed to the cruel alternative of either nialiing a sacrifice of their religion, or incur- ring the extreme of legal punishment ; than which, your petitioners iiumbly conceive, there never has been.^and cannot be a more direct Z'eliglous persecution. To an alternative, equally oppressive, the En- glisli Roman Catholics are exposed on their marriages; the law re- quires, for tiie legal validity of a marriage in England, that it should be celebrated in a parish church; as Roman Catholics believe marriage to be a sacrament, the English Roman Catholics naturally feel great re- j)ugnance to a celebration of their marriages in other churches than their own." With reg-ird to tiie Irish Roman Catholics, their situation is worse. Their cUsfrandusement is as entire in substance, and much more galling in its operation, tlian that of the American negroes. In 1812, the num- ber of the Irisli Catholics was estimated at 4,200,000 ; making Hve- sixlhs of the whole population of Ireland, and being as 10 to 1, in the proportion of the Protestants. Their clergy amounted to upwards of two thousand. The following representations are copied from a very able and full exposition of their grievances published at the period just mentioned.* If a Catholic clergyman happens thougli inadvertantly, to celebrate marriage between two Protestants, or between a Protestant and a Ca- tholic, (unless already married by a Protestant minister,) he is liable by law to siifler death. The Catholic clergy are unprotected by any law, prohibiting the dis- turbance of Divine service, whilst celebrated by them. The Catholic clergymen, bound by his vows to a life of celibacy, and generally in narrow circumstances, feels the harshness of being held lialile to the payment of a modern tax, called bachelor's tax. The Catholic *it'rgy are interdicted from receiving any endowment, or permanent provision, either for their own support, or for that of their houses of worship, &c. Whilst the members of all other religious persuasions in Ireland are permitted to provide for the permanent maintenance of their respective ministers of worship, and of the establishment connected with their respective tenets, the Catholics alone are denied this permission. Re- proaclied, as ihey frequently :.re, with the poverty of their clergy, the misery of their peojile, and tlie supposed ignorance of their poor, Ihey are forbidden by law, to resort to the necessary measures for supply- ing these deficiencies. In Ireland, the Protestant parishioners actually enjoy the prlvdege of assembling togetiiei-, under the name of Parish Vestries, articuiiir hilarity to their carriage. We have ano- her Englisli writer of travels. Lieutenant Hall, wh.o has assigned u ; liaptev specially to the negro slaver}' of the United States, and j^assed geneial sentence, confessing at the same time, that " information as to "the condition of the negroes, in jioint of fact, is little attainable by a cursory traveller." lie, it would seem, only traversed Virginia, Xorih Carolina, and a part of South Carolina, rapidly, in the stage coach, and hy the main road. As he passed along, in the nig'it, he saw the '• fire- light shining through some of the negro huts," from v.'hich he inferred, Luat thcv were universally withou". sufficient .shelter from the inclemen- ey of the season. Wood, he acknowledges, they might have in plenty; but then "they must have their night's rest perpetu;dly broken by the oidigation of keeping up their tires." IIow happy would be the poor in England, if they were subjected to the same •jbligatioii ! lids traveller moans, too, over the diet of the negroes in the lower parts of Soudi Carolina — rice, Indian meal, and dried fish ! He does not deny, that they arc amply supplied with the two first articles. Poultry he says, they may raise ; but ive know that they do raise it in abun- dance, and either consume it themselves, or by the .sale ot it, procure gratifications iintasted by the British labourer. If the subsistence upon vice be- so calamitous a lot, there is enough to engross the compassion of «n Englishman, in the fate of the vast majority of the population sub- ject to the Biiiish power in India. It is only on the rice land.s, and ge- nerally near the coast, Ihut the negroes of Carolina are stinted as to animal food : in what is called the upper countrj", it is given to them in suflicient quantity for a daily and plentiful meal. Throughout the slave- holdmg states, tiiere are diit'erences in the living of the blacks, according to the greater or less productiveness of the soil, the nature of the staple product, &c. But no where are they without whohscMTie victuals, adequate to the demai.ds of the appetite, and the support of the frame in its full vigour. Lie.ilenajit Hall remained a few we. ks at Charleston, and there picked up some stale anecdotes about th'- op- pression of the negroes. He fomul a Socrates in the black cook of a vessel,' condemned to death for poisoning tiie crew ; and has made a most ridiculous romance of the affair. Of the kidnapping of free ne- groes, he hoard something, and is moved, of course, to high indigna- ;ion and rebuke. I do not deny t!ie atrocity of the crime, as odious to i NOTES- RT T. Americans Tn general as it can be to foreigners; but it has more than ' ->^^^^_y onu direct parallel in fc^ngland, to divert the anger and denunciations of her sons from this unlucky country. Possiblj', our traveller may liave lieard of a practice, which Sir James Mackintosh has described as " a Jiouritihing though accursed trade,"* false accusation — the swearing' away tiie life or liberty of an innocent person, for the sake of the re- ward called A/ooJ 7no?ie^. I will make the reader further acquainted with it by a few extracts from the debates of the House of Commons. " Mr. Bennet said, (March '2, 1818,) that he was convinced he was not exaggerating, when lie averred, that it had been a long established practice in this country, (England,) for individuals, day after day, year after year, to stimidate oUiersto the commission of crime, for the pur- pose of putting money in their pockets by their conviction." "Mr. Bennet said, (April 13, 1818,) that in many cases, false evi- dence was given by police officer.s, \n order to bring the offence within the reach of the remuncralion. Mr. Slielton, the clerk of the arraigns at tlie Old Bailey, stated that too frequently these officers endeavoured to stretch the point, with the view of sharing in the price of blood. The calendars of the criminal courts estabhshed the same conclusion. "Fixed rewards have long been the great blot in our system of cri- minal procedure. "All the ]) -rscns who were connected with the pohce acknowledg- ed, that the principle of the present system was bad, and that, from the beginning of it to the end, instead of chfckuig or controlhng crime, it operated as a bounty to base and designing n»en, who went about, not merely to tempt adults to the commission of crime, but (which was the most lamentable fact,) to train up children to be criminals. ChiUlren of nine or ten years of age, inst(-ud of being indicted, as the\ ought \o be_, for picking pockets, were frequently, in liopes of the reward, indicted for highivay robberies Not many months ago, two children, one tliir- teen the otln;r mne years of age, were convicted of highway robbery, one of the witnesses being a child of six years of age; although he was as sure as he stood there, that were it not for the system of re- wards, their oifcnce vvould never have been ranked so high. "Tlie bank was known to give a reward of 7/ on the conviction of persons for passing bad money ; and this very circuiTistance was the cause of a great numhcr of the convictions which took place for that offence. A gr,eat many poor Germans, Swedes, and Irishmen, who were ignorant of the English language, were entrapped into the pass- ing of bad coin, by persons whose only object was, the getting of the reward offered in consequence." "Mr. Alderman Wood expressed his conviction, (April 21,1818,) that nine out of ten of the prosecutions for forgery in London, oiigi- nated with persons who were paid for exciting others to commit the crime This he was enabled to state, from official experience and au- thentic information." The kidnapping of children for the purpose of converting them into beggars and thieves, or of seliiiig them to those who are engaged in the lowest and most disgusting callings of civilized life, is of more frequent occurrence in. England, than the kidnapping of free negroes in the United States. Cases of child stealing, accompanied with circumstat\ce.s of monstrous barbarity, are daily announced in tho English gazettes. I will illustrate the fact and the process, by sorne quotations from the Re- port of the Committee of the House of Commons, concerning chimney sweepers. " Children are sometimes sold by their parents to master chimney sweepers, and oftentimes they are stolen. These children are very " jjouse of Commons, M.iy 4, 1818, NOTlES, ibo le to cough rmd inflammation of the chest, from their being out at all PATH' I. hours, and in all weathers: tliese are generally increased by the wretch- s.^-v'^**' edness of their habitations, as they too frequently have to sleep in a | shed exposed to the changes of the weather, their only bed a soot bag, and anotiier to cover them, independerit of their tattered garments. " They are very subject to burns, from their being forced up, chim- neys while on fire, or soon af er they have been on fire, and while over- heured ; and. howeTer they may cry out, their inhuman masters pay not the least attention, but compel them, too of' en with horrid imprecations, to i^roceed. They are sniiwtimes sent np cliimneijs on fire, "It is in evidence before your C)mmittee, lliat at Hadleigh, Barne.t, Uxbridgc, r, the assertion is true to the very letter. They are deprived in childiiood of all instruction and :ill enjoyment; of the sports in which childhood insiinctively indtilges ; offi i sh air by.day and of r.itural sleep by night. Their heaUh, physic. d and moral, is alike dcslroved; they die of diseases induced by unremitting task-work, by confinement in the Impure atmosphere of crowded rooms, by the particles of metaTlic NOTES. 48S . -.egetabie clusl. wliich tliey are continually inlmling'; or tlicy live (o PART I. grow up wltliout cloccnc-y, wiUiout comfort, and wiihoiU iiope ; witli- ^^s'-v-'^-' out morals, without religion, and wiiiiout shame ; and liring forth shves like themselves to tread in the same path of misery." " Let us leave to England the boast of supplying all Europe with her wares. The poor must be kept m;serab!\- poor, or such a state of things coidd not continue ; tliere must be laws lo regulate their wages, not by the value of their work, but by ti»e pleasure of their masters ; laws to prevent their removal from one place to another within the kingdom, r.nd to prohibit their emigration out of it. "The gentry of the land are beltc lodged, better accommodated, better educated tiian their ancestors; the poor man lives in as poor a dwelling as his forcfaliiers, when they were slaves of the soil, works as hard, is worse fed, and not better taught. His situation, therefore, is relative!}' worse." There is nothing in the foregoing statements which is not fully con- firmed in the late lieports of the select committee of the House of Com- mons on ti-.e Poor Laws. The report dated Jul}', 18ir, makes, with the minutes of evidence taken before the committee, a folio of 168 pages. It unfolds a state of society extraordinary and deplorable beyond the utmost stretch of the imagination, in reference to a country, wearing, externally, an aspect of the highest general vigour and prosperity. The passages which I am about to extract can convey no idea of the im- pression left by the whole. " Your committee cannot but fear, from a reference to the increased numbers of the poor, and increased and increasing amount of the sums raised for their relief, that this system of poor laws is perpetually in- creasing the amount of misery it was designed to alleviate. •'The result appears to liavc been highly prejudicial to the moral habits, and consequent happiness, of a great body of the people, who have been reduced to the degradation of a dependence upon parochial support." " In 1803, the sum raised, ss poor rates, was 5,848,205/. ; in 1815, 7,068,999/. It is apparent, that both tiie number of paupers, and the amount of money levied by assessment, are progressively increasing, while the situation of the poor appears not to have been improved. In practice, the burden has been imposed almost exclusively on land and houses." " Of tlie cultivator of a small farm, it has been said, forcibly and truly, that ' he rises early, and it is late before he can retire to rest ; lie works hard and fares hard ; yet with all his labour and his care, he can scarcely provide subsistence for his numerous family. He would feed them better, but the prodigal must Jirst be fed ; he would purchase warmer clothing for his children, but the ciuldren of the prostitute must ^first be clothed.' " "The independent spirit of mind which induced individuals in the labouring classes to exert themselves to the utmost, before they sub- mitted to become paupers, is much impaired; this order of persons are every day becoming less and less unwilling to add themselves to the list of paupers." '• Iri the petition from the parish of Wombridge, in Salop, the peti- tioners state, • that the annual value of lands, mines, and houses in this parish is not sufficient to maintain the numerous and increasing poor, even if the same were to be set free of rent, and that these ciicumstances will inevitably compel the occupiers of lands and mines to relinquish them, and the poor will be without relief, or any kno-vn mode of ob- taining it, unless some assistance be speedily afforded them.' And your committee apprehend, from the petitions before them, that this is one only of many parishes which are fast approaching to a state of derehc- tlon." Vox.. 1.-3 Q " in proportion to the aggregate number of persons wiioare reUuL-c '■ to this unfortunate dependence on parish relief, must he not only i: ^ increase of misery to each individual, but also the moral dcterioriaii m of the people." " The casualties of sickness and old age do not constitute the greater proportion of the demands upon the p.oor's rate which liave raised it to its present hi.piness among tiieni ? Losing the feelings of indf^pendence tiiey Imd, and their mditt'erence about taking relief" " Tile liev. Richard Vernon. — You are rector of the parish of Bush f" Yes. Is your's a purely agricultural parish ? Yes. Would a man with NOTES. 4! ... shillings a week maintain four in a family ? That must be cal- p \TiT ;l:ile(lon the price of bread, or potatoes rather, for tliej' are cheap. \..^-\r-% "What are the weekly earnins^s of your labourers in general? rwelve shillings tiicy cull it. We have many families who do not be- long- to us, and we keep them in the i)arish for fear of what a pauper li'Hi su-ear, for to belong to a parish he tikes, he ~uill swear any thing. " \V'hat is your opinion of the workliouses ? That they act two ways, one a little good, and a very great evil ; the little good is, that they act as goals to terrify people from coming to the parish ; the evil is, that M'hen they are in, however loath they were to get there, they soon be- come used to it, and never get out again. " You conceive it corrupts the morals of the people ? Completely. 1 believe it impossible to miix the lower orders of mankind without doing mischief. *' Should you not think workhouses, which should be considered as ho.spilals for the aged, and schools for the young, as beneficial to the individuals, and economical to the parish .■' Certainly not ; as schools for the young notliing can be more sliocking, except a gaol ; and as for the old, they are more comfortable a hundred times in private houses with their relations and friends. "Do you see any dispo.sition in the younger persons to help their pa- rents, by gi^■ing them any of their earnings ? .No ; the poor rate pre- vents tiiat; they must go to the parish." "John 15eiriiet, Esq. — In v.liai parish do you live.'' In Tisbur}' ; a large parish about three miles from Hindon. *' ITave you any persons whose wages will not maintain them and their families, to whom you give relief from the poor rates ? A vast number, T think tliree parts out of four of our labouring populatimi. 'Do you think the morals of the lower classes have been much de- 1 ioiated of late years ? "N'ery much. "Is the custom altered in your county of hiring their labourers short of tile year .'' Yes, we never hire by the year now ; we hire toevadethe settleaieiil of the labourer, for six, nine months, Stc. "1 am ])erfectly convinced the price of labour at present, and for the last three years (7s. per week) has never been repaid to the firmer, in- chiding all other things ; the firmer has never received a remuneration for the labour, generally including poor rates, taxes, and all other tilings." " Mr. William liankin. — You reside at Docking.'' Yes. You say the amount ol'the poor rate during the last year, in your parish, is about 5000/. .'' Yes. Therate last year was nearly 18s. in the jjound ; this year it is 23.." .!>:!:> a.-, " Mr. Thomas Lacoast, of the parish of Chetsey. — Do you not con- ceive the labourers, if they were provided for in the house of a farmer, and under the superintendence of a master and mistresb, would be more capable of doing work, and at the same time live cheaper than if they provided for themselves:' — I certainly think it would be better for the labourers ? I am sure that a man who does not live well cannot do liie work so well as a man who does. 1 have a man who is very honest and works very hard, and I pay him long wages for doing it, and he has been at my house not less than nineteen hours out of the twenty-four; and I found he complained that he was not able to do the work, and I gave him his dinner afterwards every day, and since that he has been able to do the work." " Rev. J. W. Cuimingham. — ^You are vicar of Hirrow ? Yes. Have you any communication to make respecting ' Friendly Benefit Societies for the Poor.' 1 have had an opportunity of knowing perhaps sixty or seventy Friendly Societies, pretty .accuratcl)-, and Mie general state of those 1 have observed is of this kind : They are all held at public houses ; I'uelr priiici|jal universally is, either to forfeit or.e-eighth of the wijoi'. savings for liie beiu-fit of the i>ublic iionse, to spend in beer, or else onc-fouith. Among these sixty orsevent)", 1 do not know a single ex- ception to tiiat case ; they drink for the benefit of the house, a pot or u pint of beer each person. This morning' I was examining into the case of two in which there were sixty members; a member told me there were very raiely twen'.y who attended; therefore, in each of those cases they drank sixty jiols of beer, and of course got to a state in which; if they could, 1 hey would drink sixty more ; and that principle T believe to be almost universal ; it certainly is in my own neighbour- hood ; in a large number of those societies now, I need hardly say, that the demoralizing effects of Benefit Societies, under their present consti- tution, is perfectly enormous." (NOTE Y. p. 413.) The state of religion in America has been at all times a theme of invective and affected lamentation in England. As the majority of the Amevlcan population was composed, from the outset, of dissenters, the established church naturally found them horribly delinquent in respect to Christianity. We have English sermons of an early date, particu- larly one of the celebrated Archbishop Seeker, when Bishop of Ox- ford, delivered in 1740, before the British Society for the Propagation of tlie Gospel in Foreign Parts, in w1)ich New England is I'epresented as being without the knowledge of God, and about to return to " en- lire barbarism." His lordsliip particularly complained that there were several districts in Vmerica of sixty or seventy miles long, having but one minister to officiate in them. The case was undoubtedly the same in some parts of England and Scotland, when the reproof was uttered, and it is so still iu the latter country. We read in the history of the proceedings of the Hotise of Commons upon the propo.sition of Mr. Vansittart, (May 18, 1818,) to appropriate money to the building of new churches, what follows. " Mr. C. Grant said, that lie hoped the House would see the neces- sity of extending the benefits of the grant for the erection of new churches to Scotland. To his own knowledge, there were several dis- tricts in the northern part of the kingdom, some of sixty miles in length, and twenty in brcadlli, witiiout a church sufficient to contain the one- twentieth part of the population." The Quarterly Rrview has acknowledged, within the last threeyears, that the popidace of England are "more ignorant of their religious du- ties than they are in any other Christian country ;" and that " two- thirds of the lower order of English are errant and unconverted Pa- gans." N^evertheless, it holds itself entitled to commiserate our un- hajjpy lot, in being without an established church. We may fairly, therefore, enquire, by what traits this institution is distinguislied in England, apart from the circumstances of its having left so large a por- tion of her population in the darkness of gentilism. Before I adduce the extracts which I propose to make from British statements, for the illustration of the point, I ought to remind my reader, that the English hierarchy has an immense revenue ; but that those who discharge the common parochial duties of the church are miserably provided. In the year 1810, it was proposed by the British ministry to ajipropriate 100,000/. as a temporary relief for the poorer clergy. Some members of the Opposition suggested that in- stead of laying an additional burden on the people, the higher benefices, NOTES. 4a .ind the livings in the gift of the Crown, should ije taxed in favour of I'\IIT 1 those real an. I almost starving labourers in the vineyarei- would be 1494. It was, hov/ever, too large an alIo\vance to in 'hide iis virtual residents, ul! those who resided near, and did the duty, for '•i KDTES. MIT I. raany cases must occur In which the parish saw nothing' of its pastor, ^^^_^^ except when lie perioriTied the service of church once a week, or once a mon'.li, in i!ie course of iiis morning- or evening ride. Of the remain- ing 2503 ])ariu!u:s, of vvliich the income was not 150/. a year, and where tile inni Pibeni neither actually nor virtually resided, the income of the officiating clergyman could only be what the incumbent was able to spare oui of his own pittance, or rather, generally, it must be the low- est price at which it was possible to get the labour performed. The power of the bishop to raise the salaries of the curates was rarely ex- erted, and its effect might be defeated by private agreement between the parties. " This was therefore the state of the church, as it appeared upon the returns; on 11,164 parishes there were 3556 legally, or actually resi- dent incumbents, with incomes of 150/. per annum, and 1494 with in- comes below that sum. The remaining 6124 parishes were left (sub- ject to the preceding observations) chiefly to the charge of curates. That ihe non-residc-nce of incumbents existing to so enormous an ex- tent, was a serious evil, hi- would not stop to argue ; the mam question was, whether it was an evil which the liberality of parliament, without a revision of the existing laws, respecting non-residence, and pluralities, could alone remedy. " The present practice, according to which, the nonresident incum- bents o! hvings of 50/., 60/., or 70/. a year, put into their own pockets a portion of this wretched piitant:c, and left iivich less than t/ie -wages of a day labovrerfor tlw subsistence of their curates, appeared to him far from creditable to the parties concerned, and calculated to degrade the cha- racter of the church. Many instances came withui his own knowledge, in v.liich parishes were served for 20/. or even for 10/. per annum, and in wliich, ofcour.se, all they knew of tlieir clergyman was the sound of his voice, in the reading desk or pulpit, once a week, or a fortnight, or a month. This must also be the case where curates are permitted to serve more than two churches. " In t)ie present state of the law, or at least, according to the present mode of executing it, there was a great difficulty in obtaining permis- .sion to erect an additional place of worship, according to the church of England, within the limits of an existing parish. The inliabitants, therefore, had no choice. They might prefer the church of England, but tliut church shut her doors against them; they had, therefore, no option, but either to neglect divine worship entirely, or to attend it in a form which they did not so well approve." After Lord Harrovvby had finished his statements, — of which that part relating to the non-residence of the reverend usufructuaries of no less than six thousand one hundred and twenty-four livings out of eleven thou.sand one hundred and sixty-four, is so instructive and ex- traordinary — the Earl of Stanho|ie proceeded in this strain: " However he might in general differ from the noble earl, he had always listened to him with a certain degree of satisfaction, because that noble earl always appeared as contradistinguished to many of his colleagues, to speak really what he meant. , "In his present speech tliere was much to approve, and he had only to observe, th.'it if from his lips similar observations had fdlen, he would be charged as the hbeller of the church, as the enemy of our rehgious interests, and the plague knew what. « He woidd venture to predict, that, whether you voted six millions, or sixty millions, whether you built churches or no churches, whether you co'hunniated Dissenters or otherwise, the number of communicants of the establishment woidd decrease, and that of Dissenters increase, as long as they saw the church of England made the engine of state policy; as long as they saw.its prelates translated and preferred, not for their NOTES. -vjligious merits, but tlieir slavish support lo tlie ministers of tlic day. 'i'or he would ask tlie noble carl fairly to answer, if lie knew of no pre- ferments in tlie higlier ranks of the clertjy conforreil upon such pre- tensions ? When lie saw the bishops, acconfing to the injunctions of their reiig'ion, voting against wars, when lie saw them voting for the libertiesof the people, then he would pronounce tiiat the church of England had no reason to fear." With the established religion there exists, strange as it may appear, avast deficiency of places of worship, so that a great proportion of the British population, gri ater, I will venture to assert, than the proportion of our own so situated, has no access to public worship. I will offer in proof, the statements made the last year in the House of Commons, on the occasion already mentioned, of a grant for the erection of new churches. ♦' The Chancellor of tiic Exchequer observed, (March 16, 1818,) that, for more than a cenUtnj, the want of accommodation for public worship iiad been felt by the members of the established church as a most se- rious evil ; and an attempt had been made so long ago by parliament to remedy it, so far as respected the metropolis and its inuncdiate vicinity. This attempt, however, though attended with considerable expense, had been very imperfect in its execution, only elmen churchen having' been bttiU out of fifty, which it was proposed to erect. Since that time no farther steps had been taken by public authofity, though the evil had been perpetually increasing with the growing population of the coantry. He had extracted from Parliamentary accounts a list of twenty- seven parishes, in which the deficiency of churclies was most enormous. The excess of the inhabitants beyond the means of accommodation in. the churches exceeds 20,000 in each. Of these, sixteen were in or about London, and eleven in great provincial towns. In three of them the ex- cess in each was above 50,000 souls : — in four more from 40 to 50,000 ; — in eight from 30 to 40,00u : and in the remaining twelve, from 20 to 30,000. In Liverpool, out of 94,376 inhabitants, 21,000 only could be accommodated in the churches, leaving a deficiency of 73,376 ;: — in Manchester, of 79,459, only 10,950, leaving 68,509; andinMary-le-bone, of 75,624, no moi'e than 8700, leaving 66,924 without the means ofac- commodation. It thus appeared, that in three parishes only, there were near 210.000 inhabitants who could not obtain access to their churches. «' The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated, (March 18, 1818,) that the population of London and its vicinity, was 1,129,551 ; of whom the churches and episcopal chapels can only contain 151,536, leaving an ex- cess of 977,915. "In the dioceses of York and Ciiester, the disproportion of popula-, tion to the capacity of churches, was little lessthanin the district of the metropolis. In the diocese of York there were ninety-six churches, which afford room for 139,163 inhabitants — the whole population amounted to 720,091, so that there was a deficiency of accommodation for 580,928. In that of Chester, there were one hundred and sixty-seven parishes, the churches in which vvould contain 228,696; hut the actual population was no less than 1,286,702, leaving a dehciency of 1,040,006. "In cases such as these, the impossibility in which the fiu- greater part of the inhabitants were placed, of attending divine service even once a day, was, however, by no means the only evil. There were many other most important functions of his sacred office, wliich it was impos- sible for anv? clergyman, however zealous and laborious, adequately to discharge towards a population of 40 or 50,000 souls, or even a much smaller number. With respect to the deficiency in the number of places for public worship. Lord Selsey remarked, " th^ fact was too notorious to require r«OTEg. explanallun. Miuiy imvta of t!ie Idngdoiii, he iamentcd to say, were u: terly destitute of any means of acquiring moral instniclion." The chancellor of the exchecjuer observed, on ihe same occasion on which we made the statements quoted from him above, that the church of Scotland stood equally in need of assistance. The committee of the church of Scotland has, in fact, lately represented, that, in that country, there are forty-seven parishes in need of churches or chapels, and eijhtij- dght other parishes hut ill supplied with religious instruction. During- the discussion, in the House of Commons, of the question of erecting new places of worship, the following, among many representa tions of like import, were made by members of the highest dislmclion Lord Milton said, that " there was hardly a parish church in the king- dom, in which great encroachments had not been made, by persons of wealth, on that part of the church which was the property of the popu- lation of the parish." " Where tithes exist," said Mr. Brougham, " the pastor is seen in the light of a tax-gatherer. Among the causes of irreligion or lukewarni- iiess, and ecclesiastical feuds and schisms, he believed none to be so prominent as the disputes which arose out of tithes." "Alarge prnjm-tion," SM.(\ Sir Charles Monck, " of the present endow ments of the church, are employed in a manner not at all calculated t(» promote tiie interests of religion." The mere tact of non-residence, that is to say, the total personal de- reliction of their parishes, by so large a proportion of the holders of benefices, ministers of the Gospel, who had solemnly declared, on enter- ing into holy orders, that they verily believed themselves moved by the iioly Ghost, — the mere fact bespeaks a great perversion of character and functions among the clergy of the eslablisiied church. It is in a }}ritish publication of no inconsiderable note and autiiority, the Christian Observer, for Nov. lall, that I find the following details, which could not have been hazarded, if not in great pan indisputably true. " Christianity forms little or no part in the regular plan of instruction ?.t our universities. Contrary to our experience in every other profes- sion, candidates for our ministry are taught every branch of science but that in which they are to practise. Chapel is not attended till it is half over. Many go there intoxicated, as to a kind of roll call ; and though the assumption of the Lord's supper is peremptory upon the students, no care is taken to teach them its importance." " So very lax has become the examination for orders, that there is no man, who hastuken a degree at the university, who cannot reckon on ordination as a certainty, whatever his attainments in learning, mo- rals, or religion." " A great proportion of our clergy are a set of men, wrapt up in secu- lar pursuits, with a total indifference to the spiritual duties of their call- ing. Many of them seem to consider, that they are appointed to a hfe of sloth and inactivity, or merely to feed upon the fat of the land; -and that, in return for immense and growing revenues, they have only to gabble through a few furm^l offices." *' .Many in the higher ofHccs of the church are distinguished for learn- ing and pictv, but for all this, we may fear that a great proportion of the clergy are the very reverse of these high examples — and betray an indif- ference of conduct, and dissoluteness of manners, which, whilst it is most shaniefid to them, would not be borne with in any other state of life." " A horse race, a fox chuse, or a boxing match, is never without its reverend attendants ; and the man, wiio, in the house of God, hurries over the offices of devotion, as beneath his attention, will be seen, the iiext day, the noisy toast master, or songster, of a club. Their profes- sional indolence, hut one degree removed from positive misconduct , NOTES. icir occasionul aclivily, at a county election, in a cathedral county luwn. You have the hcMiour of finding yourself, in sucli contests, act- v, inj; in concert with d-^ans, chancellors, archdeacons, prebendaries, and minor canons, without luuiihcr. On such occasions grave, very grave persons are to be seen, shouting the chorus of some election ribaldry, whose zeal, w even common industry, upon important topics, had never been witnessed." ^Ve are not av a.lnss for still higher authority on this subject. The late Disliop Watson, of Liandaff, wrote thus in his " Memoirs" recently given to tiie world. " It has been said (1 believe by D'Alembcrt,) fjiat the highest offices in church and suite resemble a pyramid whose top is accessible to only two sorts of anin^.als, eagles and reptiles. My pinions were not strong enough to pounce upon its top, and I scorned b)- creeping to ascend its summit. Not that a bishoprick was then, or e\er, an object of my am- bition ; for 1 considered t])e acquisition of it as no proof of personal merit, inasn:uch as bisliopricks are as often given to the Jlatterivg depend- ants, or to the unlearned younger branches of noble families, as to men of the greatest erudition; and 1 considered the possession of it as a frequent occasion (if ])ersonal demerit -, for I s(nv the geneiaiity of the bishops hartering their indcpendrnce and the dignity of their order for the cluuicc of u translation ; and poihiting gospel humiliiy by the pride of prelacy. I used then to say, and i say so still, rc-nder the office of a bishop respectable, by gi\ing some civil distinction to its possessor, in order that his exam|)le may have n;ore weigid with both the laity and clergy. Annex to each bishoprick some portion of the ro}al ecclesiasti- cal patronage vjhich is now proslitntcd by the chancellor and the ininister' of the day to the purpose of parliamentary comtption." in a remarkable work, entiiled, "The .State of theEstablished Church, in a series of lietters to the Right Honourable Spencer Pei'cival," it is saitl, that the London clergy allbrd a faint, though laudable exception to the above gerteral description. 1 am not disposed to question the fact, but I lay before the American reader, that he may judge for him- self, the following extract from the [jroceedingsof the British House of Connnons, on the 24th Marcii, lbl9. " Sir .James Graiiam called the attention of the house to the situation f)f the clei-gy of hf'y of the parislies in the city of London. In thirty out oi'{\\effly parishes, the peiiiini.ns performed the duty in person." " Mr. Harvt-y said, he was of opinion that the petitioners were endea- vouring, by slow, but sure degrees, to accomplish designs which (hev ired not unfoUi at once, as they knew the rapacity which -was their cha- ■ icteristic, would not fail to cause the house to repel them with indigna- iion if those designs were fully known. The Hon. Baronet had en- deavoured to awaken the sympathy of the house for these gentlemen, but he (Mr. Harvey) stated almost all of them to have 400/. per an- num, and some had 6001. or more. Above twenty were pluralists, and if they had no residence in the city, it was because they were the best calcidators in it, and preferred letting their houses f(u- the sake of the profit that might be thus obtained. Not one of them dared to call on the house to take his individual case into consideration. The value they tliemselves .-ittaciied to their own labours, might be collected from the sums they paid to the curates who officiated for them, and who received 50/., 60/., or 70/. per annum from those who were in they earlv receipt of 1000/., 1500/., or 2000/." Now what are the character and situation of the episcopal clergy ihroughout this country, where the church is divorced from the state f As a body they are, unimpeachable in all respects; of the best morals and most regular habits; indefatigable in discharging the most solemn f trusts; ever at the post of duty. One small part of them is no" Vol.. I. — 3 R NOTES. endowed with princely revenues, while tlie m.^jority drag on a life o ■ indigence ant! abjection. The provision for each member is not ample, but for t lie most part enougli to assure a decent, conifbrlable, and inile- j)endent existence. The same remarks may be extended to our regidar clergy of every description, among wliom non-residence and pluralities are unknown, and whose stipend arises directly as it weie, from the esteem and confidence of their parisliioners. The detections lately made in England, respecting the abuse of tlif public charities, with which the established clergy arf; so largely con- nected, furnish additional proof of the state of tilings implied by the circumstance of " three-fifths of the livings being in lay jjatronage, and being usually disposed of to the private coimexions of the patron." The bill for enquiring into the malversLition of the charities, which Mr. Brougham, us the chairman of the education committee, introduced into the House of Commons, was vehemently opposed in the upper house by the prelates, and destroyed through their influence. There are, it would seem, five hundred free schools in England and Wales, all of which are grossly perverted from their purpose. " It is ab.soluteh necessary," said Lord Eldon, speaking r.s chancellor, (C. 13. V. 580,) •'that it should be perfectly known that charity estates all over the king- dom are dealt with in a manner most grossly improvident, amoiinlinf^ to the most direct breach of trust." The Report of the committee of Parliament on the education of the lower orders, (May 1818,) is still stronger on this head. " It appears clearly from the returns," s.'tys the committee, "as well as from other sources, that a very great deficiency exists in the means of educating the poor, wherever the population is thin and scattered over the coimty districts. The efforts of individuals combined in societies, are almost wholly confined to populous places." " In the course of their enquiries, j'our committee have iiician had thus nobly ap- propriated, fell in a great measure to the establisheil church as such, and the consequence is the waste of nearly two-thirds by embezzlement and neglect ! It is incredible what opposition was made both in and out of parliament to the idea of a parliamentary commission for enquiring into cliarilies having special "visitors, governors and overseers'." "Almost every considerable charity," .says Mr. Brougnam, "is subject to special visitation. We (the education committee) were severely re- prpved for pushing our inquiries into establishments destined it was said for the education of the upper classes, while our instructions * P. 51, 2. oo NOTES. ART I. confined us to schools for the lower orders. Unfortunately, we ri.' ^-y-^/ sooner looked into any of these institutions, than we found that this ob- jection to our jurisdiction rested upon the very abuses, which we were investigating, and not upon the rtal nature of the foundation. For as often as we examined any establishment, the production of the charter or statutes proved that it was originally destined for the education of the poor.* The alarms conceived by the members and friends of the church at the prospect of a thorough investigation, and tlieir strenuous, and in part successful, efforts to avert that calamity, are strikingly contrasted, as they are related by Mr. Brougham in his pamphlet, with tlie fact announced in the following statement. " Tlie Chanccilor of the E.xchequer said (House of Commons, June od, 1318,) that the bill (on the subject of the olviritable institutifin in- quiry) exempted the scJioois of Quakers, and yet he was a'.uhori/.ed to say from that respectable body of men, tliat they had not only no objec- tion to the examination of their few charitable schools, but tliat they should rejoice at finding them made the subject of Parliamentary in- quiry." The advantage of an establislied church, as regards the cause of Chris- tians, if not imaginary, would he she'vn, at least in the greater morality and decorum of the lives of its professors and constiiutionai supporters. If it failed to make real Christians and e.\em|)hiry citizens of its imme- diate allies, its superior influence in Uiis respect with the mass of a na- tion might well be questioned. We have seen how the case stands as to the Episcopal clergy, in England. Now, what is it as to the royal family, the peers, and gentry 1 Ha^^e the princes set a Christian ex- ample ^ In the scandalous debate of the House of Commons (April loth, 1818,) respecting tlie marriage of the royal ftmily. Ion', (lastle- reagh remarked that "of the seven sons of his Majesty, not one, al- though the youngest was forty -five years of age, hail any lawful issue. To excite some of the members of the royal family to marriage was now an object of consequence. The Prince Hegent, sensible of this, had made oftisrs to such of his royal brothers as could reconcile mar- riage to their feelings." The open concubinage in which they have lived, without being pro- scribed by the estabhshed cluircli, is sufficiently notorious. i)n the subject of these misogamisls, I need only repeat tiie phrase (ifMr. Wil- berforce, uttered in the House of Commons on the day after the debate just mentioned. "As to the allusion made to the character of the princes, he agreed that we had no right to enter into the discussion of any man's private character. But yet it was impossible to suppress what we saw, and felt, and thought!" To what class of persons belong those flagrant cases of adultery with which the English newspapers ar.- filled .■' To-t!ie noi)ihty and gentry, the hereditrHry pillars of the estublhhmeiit. 'Who give the grand dinner parties and cdiicerts, which distinguisti the Sabbath in London ? Who make a gala-da^- of it in the Park, and in fact take the lead in its dese- cration ? How is it spent by the high officers of state, the.cabinet-minls- ters, ike. The spirit of toleration is not, indeed, the distinguishing trait in the history qf the Christian world, but this spirit i.s, doubtless, one of the ends of Christianity. How far it has been displayed and cultivated by the established church of England, is seen from the contents of a pre- ceding note (V). I will make the case somewhat more plain by a few additional facts stated upon Parliamentary authority. There are ver)' near one hundred and fifty acts on the British statute book, relative to —. —^^ , * Letter to sir Samuel Komilly, p. 481. XOTES. est oatlis, of supremacy, allegiance, abjuration. Sec. (Mr. Croker, May PATJ 3.1, 1819, House of Commons.) Catholic emaiicipi.tion lias liecii now agitated in Parliament since forty years. (Mr. Graltan, May 3cl, 1819) The principal tenets of the Catholic religion — transuhslantiation, the sa- crifice of the mass, the invocation of saints, are still declared idolatrous, on the British statute-book. Tims, near five millions of thx^ inhiihi- t^jits of the British Isles, are held and stigmatized by law as idolaters. Earl Grey, in the House of Lords (May 17lh, 1819,) and general Thorn- ton, in the House of Commons (May Ztli, 1818,) moved to expunge from the British code, this insult and injustice to so large a portion of liis ma- jesty's subjects; but they could make no impression upon the majority of Parliament. Tlie Enrl of Uonouglimore, in supporting the Catholic petition, in the House of Peers, in 1818, related the following anec- dote : The Earl of Donoughmore s.'iid " a circumstance had happened in the metropolis itself, which he would slate. Jt was a toast given in a large societi/ of gentlemen, and which is resorted to by none but persons who, in point of situation and property, are entitled to that denomination. But what was this toast .'' it was so nauseous and disgusting, that it was with difficulty that he could prevail upon himself to pollute their lord- ships House by the mere repetition of it. "The pope in the pillory, the pillory in hell — pelted with priests by the devil!" " But this was not a mean drunken folly; — it was the sober malignity of the bigot which the unguarded sincerity of beastly debauch had in- tliscreetly brought into open day. And all this took place in the me- tropolis, as he had already stated, which was the station of a Parlia- ment, and is still the residence of the king's representative." Thus, in whatever point of view we look at the established church in England, we do not find it accomplishing any thing for Christianity beyond v. Iiut is effected elsewhere under a different system. It has not produced a better clergy; nor a more moral gentry; nor a more educated and christianized people ; it has left a great part of the nation without instruction; without temples of worship ; it has tended to de- grade the clerical character by the intrigue and competition to which its large livings have given rise ; and by the abject ])overty and dis- parity of lank to which those of its professors not so fortunate as to gain the prizes in the lottery, have been condemned. It m;iy be an e.vcel- lent engine of state; but, as our civil institutions, with which we are per- fifctly content, do not stand in need of such aid, we cheerfully leave the honor and profit of it to England. (NOTE Z. p. 424.) Is addition to the facts respecting tlie condition and character of the British popuUition and institutions, which 1 have scattered through the preceding notes; I will present the reader, here, with a miscellany of a similar purport, vouched by parliamentary and other unquestionable evidence. It cannot be thought harsh, if, too, I subjoin a few extracts from Briti.sh newspapers and journals, in the manner of the English iTavellers and critics, when they treat of our affiiirs. The Quarterly Jleview lays great stress upon scraps picked out of American gazettes, us illustrations of the state and morals of the whole American people. Xec lex ulla sequior est, &c. HOSPITALS, PRISONS, IMPRISONMENTS, &c. In 1814, says the Parliamentary Iveport on the Police of the Metro- polis, ninety-eight boys under sixteen were committed to Newgate ; f.-iur of thorn of nine ycar.s, eight of them of ten j'ears, and twelve i NOTfcS. ' lRT I. of them of eleven years of ag-e. Tn ISlo, ninety-eiglit boys under -y-'^^ sixteen were committed; and in4816, 146 cf the same age were com- mitted. In 1816, there were commiUed 1683 persons under twen- ty, of these 1281 were of seventeen and under, and 957 of these of se- venteen years of age and under, were committed for felonies. From the 25th of August, 1814, to October 1816, 200 boys liad been in cus- tody. Of these, twenty-tree liad been in custody for the fu-st offence ; one aged sixteen liad been forty times in custody, and another l^ad beeli eighty times in custody; and 170 of them had been from tliree to four times in custody, for different offences. Of tliese 200 tiiere were con- victed 141; 26 of them capitally, the youngest of these was nine and a lialf years old; 42 w'ere transported, llieyoungest of llieni was eleven; and 73 were imprisoned for different terms. Of these 200 two-thirds were under fourteen, and down to eight years of age. Tiie remainder one-third were from fourteen to seventeen years of age. Of these 200 miserable beings, two-lhirds could neither read nor v/rite. "On the sabjectof transportation, it appeared, that since 1812, 4659 persons had been transported to Hotany IJay, of whom 3978 were males, and 681 females. Of these, 1116 v.ere under twenty-one; of whom, 5 were of eleven years; 7 of twelve years; 17 of thirteen years ;' 32 of foiu'teen years; and 65 of fifteen years of age. Of tliese 4659 persons^ 2055 were transported for life, 726 for fourteen years, and 1916 for se- ven years. Of 2038 who were on board the iuilks in 1815, tliere were 111 under twenty years of age, amongst whom one was of eleven, two of twelve, and four of fourteen years of age. T!ie number of boys of seventeen and under, confined in Newgate in 1317, was 359, and in 1818, of persons under twenty-one years of agt^, six hundi-ed, including males and females." " On the first day of January, 1817, there were on board the different hulks, two thousand and fo.ty-one prisoners; from, vvliich time to the first of January, 1818, two thousand three hundred and sixty-four were received on board from tiie diiferent goals; one thousand seven !uin- dred and ninety have actually been transported to New South Wales, (being an excess of the preceeding year of seven hundred and eight} ■ two prisoners,) forty-five have died ; and four hundred and tliirty-seven have been discharged, or removed to other places of confinement ; leav- ing on board the respective ships on the first of .lanuary, 1818, two thousand one hundred and thirty -two prisoners." (Official Report to Lord Sidmouth.) The third Report on the Prisons of the Metropolis, states, th.ii; through three o^ the prisons "tliere passed in 1819, 10,371 persons, all of whom must have gone away more corrupt than 'hey came." In the Report on Mendicity ?.nd Vagrancy, of the House of Com mons, it is stated, that in one half of the cases of those who beg, beg gary is the effect of real distress. The number of street mendicants in London, was returned at 15,238, of whom 9218 were children. Mr. Bennet said, June 5, 1818, "the House of Commons was proba- bly not aA-are, that, from tlie year 1816 to 1818, no less than 3600 had been sent to Botany Bay ; ar.d that from the year 1798, it had cost tiie country no less than foiir millions to defray the expense of transporta- tion." In the three first months of the year 1818 — 118 persons were tried for forgery of Bank of England Notes — the expenses for whicii were Z.19,982 5s. 6d Lord Castlereagh (March 1, 1819,) admitted, that it appeared by tiie feturns, that within the last three oi- four years, crime Imd increased to an alarming extent, almost in the proportion of two to one ; and com- paring the commitments of the last year with those ten years ago, in NOTES. some classes of crime they were in the ratio of nearly three to one. Such a view was in some respects appalling. The punishment of death, certainly had increased in frequency in these kingdoms. At the close of the year 1805, the number of capital convictions was 350, and at the termination of the last year 1250." Alderman Wood observed, (March 1, 1819,) "the great increase of crimes was to be ascribed to the promiscuous congregation of prisoners left without employment. He had, by virtue of an authority from Lord Sidmouth, visited all the gaols in the country, and was convinced that it would take nix or seven years lo make un efficient parliamentary in- quiry." Mr. W. Wynne, (March 11, 1819.) " He was shocked to find, and every man of humanity would shudder at the idea, that the lunatic sel- dom or every obtained his release." Mr. Beniu;t, (May 20, 1818,) presented theHeport of the Committee appointed to intjuire into ll'.e state of fcver in the metropolis. In moving that tiie report be printed, the honourable member said, "the medical institutions of tiiis ci'y were very defective. In all the Hospitals itwasthe practice to mix cuses of contagious fevers with common instances of in- ject to this terrible punishment for thirteen mouths, one fur seven months, and one for four months " Among the cases mentioned in the return was that of a man who had been kept in solitary confinement three months^ for destroying a phea- sant's egg! That Vvfas to say the miserable being who fell under the sentence was kept twenty-three hours out of twenty-four wiiliin four small walls, without any kind of employment, either entirely open to the air, or quite excluded from light ; and the crime for which this punishment was inflicted was tiie breaking of a plieasant's egg." "Mr. Western said, (April 2, 1819) that in looking at the returns already prepared for the years 1817 and 1818, it would appear that there were two thousand persons in each year, against wiiom either no bills were found, or who were not prosecuted, and two thousand six hundred wlio were acquitted. In the period which elapsed between July and the Lent assizes, many persons had been confined, who had remained in prison perhaps fourteen or fifteen months, before they had been tried — an enormous evil." " Mr. M. A. Tavlor asked, (.May 26, 1818,) did the house consider it fit and proper that this stale of tilings should continue ; that in four counties there should be but one assize in a year; and liiat prisoners should, notwithstanding all the exertions of magistrates, in disposing of minor offences, lie for so many months in confinement,, before they were brouglit to trial. A man, taken up on suspicion, and sent to the county gaol, must in such a case be ruined, however innocent of the crime imputed to him. We might boast as mucli as we pleased of oiu* superior laws, and practice of adminisiei'ing them, but there was no country in Europe where so monstrous a defect existed in the judiciary system — a defect equally injurious to individuals and disgraceful to the character of justice. A case of manslaughter had recently occuired, in which the prisoner was acquitted, after lying eleven months in con- finement ; the whole punisliment annexed by law to the conviction of that olfence being but twelve months' imprisonment. One man he had known indicted for stealing a game cock, who was closely confined for nine months; and when he was at length brought to trial, there was not a shadow of evidence to prove his guilt." "Mr. W. Smith said, (May 26, 1818,) that he had been informed by the town clerk of Norwich, that instances had occurred of jjersons being confined nine or ten months previously to their trial ; and a navy surgeon had been confined for tv.-elve months, and then acquitted'. By so long an imprisonment, individuals sometimes suffered more than they would have ilone, if convicted, from the sentence of the law." " Mr. Beimet said, (May 6, 181?,) that last year there was a wr.tched individual in the Fleet, who had been confined there, under an order NOTES., 5(' of the court of chancery, for contempt of court, for no less a lime than PART ' thirty-one years. T!ie name of that man was Thomas Williams, lie y.^^-v^ had visited iiim in Iiis wrtlched house of liondage, where lie found him sinking' under all the miseries that can afflict humanity ; and on tlie following day he died. 'I'here were at tiiis moment within the walls of the same prison, besides the petitioner, a woman who had been in con- finemeat twenty-eight years, and two others wliohad been there sesen- Icen years." " It was worthy of remark that eight hundred persons were committed to Clerkenwell prison, in one year, chiefly for assaults." Tile following is au authentic list of persons, who, in Oc'ober, 1817, were confined in the Fleet prison alo?ie, i'or contempt of court, no other charges oeing alleged against ihem : viz. Hannah IJaker, confined twen- ty-seven years; Charles Buhner, eighteen years; Ann Britner, ten years; llichard Bell, five years ; Matiliew Bland, five years ; Jere^iiah Board, three years ; Elizabeth Dawson, seven years ; David William, si.x years ; Mary Tiuch, three yeurs ; Samuel Mansell, four years ; John Melson, three years ; George Picked, fifteen years; Thomas Pale, three years ; Peter Itigb), four years ; I. Scribner, eight years; .lohu \Vutts, four years ; John Somax, seven years ; WiUiam Smith, eighteen ears. " Mr. Bennet said, (March 28, 1817,) that the situation of th.e pri- .-ons in Dublin was miserable in the e.\treme, and certainly it could not be too much lamented that any human being should be confined in them." " Mr. Peele entirely coincided in the opinion of the honourable gen- tleman, as to the miserable state of the prisons in Ireland, and should be happy to find that any measures could be taken, which would lead to the amelioration of the condition of the wretched inmates." "The Marquis of Lansdowne said, (June 3, 1818,) from the informa- tion contained in the report of the House of Commons on the state of the pri.sons of the kingdom, it appeared, tliat, in the course of ten years, such had been the progress of crimes, that they had increased to three timesjtheir former amount. It was not improbable that, out of the number annually consigned to the prisons, thirteen thousand w eve permitted to return to society, either by being acquitted, or after hav- ing undergone the sentence of imprisonment. In what a state of de- gradation must they, under their present system, return to the duties, or, he was afraid, rather to the vices of civilized men." "Mr. Buxton said, that from parliamentary documents it could be seen, that it was ten to one that an offender was not taken, fifty to one that he was not prosecuted, a hundred to one that he was not convicted, and more than a thousand to one that he was not executed." " Alderman Wood rose, (House of Commons, March 12, 1819.) He said, that the petition which he hud to present did not complain of the heavy burdens which the lord mayor and corporation had to bear, in supporting the various persons confined in the diifereni prisons of the metropohs, but of the crowded state of the gaols at the present mo- ment. They were so full, that it was totally impossible to attempt any .reformation in their inmates, by classifying them, according to the crimes of which they had been guilty. Newgate was filled to repletion with criminals under different sentences : there was now in it forty- seven individuals condemned to death, besides sixteen individu.ds for lesser offences, who had been .sent t.iere by th-^ mag'straies from the Clerkenwell sessions. Of these si.xteen he was sorry to oijscrve that fifteen were for abominable and infamous oft'ences, and that from want of space they had Ml been placed in rne room. This was an evil which aught, by all means, to be remedied. There was another, also, which he wished to press upon the attention of the house, Th-'r'^ was no V'oL. !.—3 S M NOTES. iiccominodalion, in any of the prisons, for state prisoners ; and li ^ f thought it rather hard that an individual of respectable rank and cha- racter should be compelled to herd with common felons, as he now was obliged to do, if committed by that house. Latterly, Newgate had been so crowded, that in the fifteen condemned cells they had been obliged to place the forty-seven men now under sentence of death, thus giving a proportion of more than three inmates to each cell ; which was much greater than it ougiit to be." " Men, who see their lives respected, and thought of value bj' others, come to respect that gift of God tiiemselves. Before he sat down, he begged leave to say a few words on a pul)lic spectacle, which had been made at Newgate, of a wretched man, who, being accused of murder, - had destroyed himself. It was stated in the newspapers of that day, that the mangled and bloody corpse had been e.xhibited in an elevated situation, with a small gallows erected over it, to which was appended the fatal instrument of destruction. Such a horrid exposition, he was persuatled, was calculated to produce the most mischievous conse- (|uences on the men, women, and cliildren by whom it was beheld." (Sir Samuel Homilly, ib, Feb. 25, 1818.) " Mr. Buxton said, (March 3, 1819,) with respect to the effect which an e.\ecution was supposed to have upon the minds of the criminals, he could assure the house that it was next to nothing ; and if any gentle- man would expose his feelings to the pain of seeing one of these dreadful exhibitions, the truth of his assertion would immediately ap- pear. " He believed there was not a single instance of an execution having taken place, without some robbery being committed at the same time, under the gallows. Indeed, it had been admitted by one of the light- fingered gang, that an execution was their harvest, as, while peo])ie's eyes were open above, their pockets were loose below. "Tliere was a fact within his recollection, which, if possible, would place the matter in a stronger light. A man was executed in this me- tropolis for selling forged bank notes: his body was given over to his family, and it was taken home. The first feeling would be that of com- passion towards his afHicted children, and a disconsolate widow ; but the house would be shocked to hear that this unhappy family and mourning friends were actually seized by the police officers in the act of selling forged notes, over the dead body. It was evident, therefore, that something ought to be done." "From the Report of tlie Committee of the House of Commons on the Police of the Metropolis, it appears that many thousands of boys are daily eng-iged in the commission of crime : that in one prison only (Clerkenwell,) where young and old are all mixed indiscriminately together, tliree hundred and ninety-nine boys, under twenty, were con fined for felonies in the last year ; of whom' was one of nine, two were often, seven of eleven, fourteen of twelve, and thirty-two of thirteeis years of age ! " Nor is it possible to pass over, in this inquiry, the dreadful state " our infant population, and the alarming increase oi' jitveniie deiingaei To no cause whatever can this be attributed to with so much certai as to the depraved and hardened disposition of the parents, the res of that habit of intoxication, which induces them either to abaiK their oifspring altogether, or, in order to supply the cravings of th depraved appetites, to incite them to, and instruct them in, every sj cies of theft and depredation. The extent to which this has been c ried, not only in the metropolis, but in some of the princii)al towns the kingdom, would be as incredible as it is disgraceful, were it i li'om its almost daily exposure in our judicial proceedings." Roscoe's Observatio7i3 on Pena[ Jurisprudence. 1S19 NOTES. COURTS OF LAW ANEf CHANCERY. jmm, June 3d, 1818.] A nuiTibcr of the objections which .i.vi ueen made to tlic bill (t'of a comiTiiUee to inquire into the edu- cation of the .poor,) were grounded on tiie confidence whicli those wlio made them reposed in courts of hiw, as aRordini^ the means of correcting abuses. He confessed that he himself liad not any rehance pn courts of law in that respect, especially vvitii reference to expedi- tion and cheapness. He allowed those courts the possession of learn- ing without stint. He allowed them great copiousi\ess, great power of drawing out written argument. The faculty of caring nothing for the time and patience of suitors, and the hundreds of thousands of their clients' money they enjoyed in a perfection which the wild- est sallies of imagination could not go beyond. But as to expedition and cheapness, and attention to the comfort of those who were in- volved in the business of those courts, they were qualities by which vliey were certaiidy not distinguished' Xotwithstunding all the good qualities on the part of the noble and learned lord (Chancellor,) it was his (Mr, Brougham's) duty to say, that there was something in the court of chancery that set at defiance all calculations of cost and time, and rendered the celebrated irony of Swift, when he made Gulliver tell the worthy Hynynhmn, his master, (what he says, his honour found it hard to conceive,) that his father had been wholly ruined by the misfortune of having gained a chancery suit, witli full costs, not only not an exaggeration, but a strictl}^ coi-rect de- scription of the fact. Sir John Newport stated (June 2d, 1818,) "To show the enormous nature of the fees in the Court of Chancer}-, he might mention that in one case, the fees for docketing, enrolling, exemplifying, and register- ing a decree, amounted to upwards of 800i." The Marquis of Lansdowne observed (March 6lh. 1818,) "That no source of revenue operated to produce greater mischief to the poorer classes, than the stam.ps on law proceedings. The expense they occa- sioned was' an obstacle to the attainment of justice. " As to the present measure, he continued, it went merely to re- lieve unfortunate poor persons from paying tlie fees on pardons, which amounted on each to about 60/, and tlierefore it could operate in a very slight degree towards the reduction of the revenue." " The bill of the solicitor of the excise, in the prosecution of Weaver, for tiie offence of selling a ceriain drug to a brewer, amounted to nearly 250/. In this case, there were five counsel employed for the Crown, and the penalty ultimately recovered from the delinquent was 200/" The following return has been laid before the House of Commons, of the amotuU of property locked up in the Court of Chancery in England; viz. in 179G, upwards of fourteen millions of pounds stt^rling; in 1806, upwards of twenty-one millions; in 1816, upwards of thirty-one mil- lions ; in 1818, upwards of thirty-three millions. Mr. Hume (March, 1818,) begged to call the attention of the House of Commons particularly to the police in India. Persons were frequently taken up, and months elapsed before any information was exhibited against them. In the interval, they were confined in crowded and un- healthy prisons, where death not unfrequently overtook them, or after enduring the aggravated misery of imprisonment, nothing whatever appeared against them, and they were liberated. The whole system of police at Bengal was conducted by a set of spies, who were generally composed of bands of robbers; these, when once discharged, were let loose to ravage the surrounding country. By a minute of the Bengal go- vernment, dated the 24th of November, 1810, it appeared that the pro- NOTES. ,iT 1. fcbsioii ot" a spy, in India, look Its rise upon the onler issued in 17'92, ib; .^^-,^, the encuuragemcnt of liead money. Every police-office had its rt-i^ular and orgaiiizrd set of spies, wlio shared the reward or iirad money wi'li the chief of tlie decuits (a species of robhers.) Much hadheen said by :■ ■' lionourable member (sir W. lJurrougll^i) as to tlie economy observed m the appointment of legal men in India, afiecting- the administration c* justice. So fi*rnom tliere being any thing like economy in this respect, 'the \vhv)le of Europe, put togetlier, was at less expense for law ofiicers than India alone — (H- ar.) The wiiole revenue of India was estimated at li.,OUJ,OvjO/. : liie charges of tlie law altogether were no less than 1,7^5,000/. sterling, above one-eleventh of that revenue. BANKRUPTCY. "In Scotland," (said lord Archibald Hamilton, 1818,) "the burgh of Aberdeen had been declared bankrupt for 230,000/. sterling, attend- ed with extensive ruin. It had dissolved ip its rottenness." "Sir William Curtis remarked, (Feb. 24tl), 1818,) that rich men can go to the King's-bench prison, and drink their burgundy: They first rob their neighbours, and then get wliitevvaslied." " Up to the 1st of March, 1817, (said Mr. Waithman, Feb. 12th, 1819,) 9000 persons were discharged under the debtors' insolvent act, whose united debts amounted to nine millions sterling ; whilst the property which they had given up to their ci-editors would not, on the average, pay a dividend of one half a farthing in the pound." " Sir S. Homilly observed, that every man conversant with the bank- rupt laws must know, that not a year passed without the occurrence of a great number of fraudulent bankruptcies." (lb. Feb. 25th, 1816.) Mr. Lockart rose (Feb. 17th, 1817,) according to notice, to move for the introduction of a bill to amend the baid^rupt laws. The evil of Which he complained was the multiplication of fraudu- lent bankruptcies to an extent which threatened the mogt frightful coiU sequences to the commerce and morals of the country. By late returns to Parliament it appeai-s, that the aggregate number of insolvent debtors discharged since tlie last return in 1815, up to 1st of February, 1819, was 13,291; the amount of their debts 9,506,837/. 16s. 11^'/. ; and the amount of dividends but sixty thousand pounds. " Every one who heard him," said Mr. Bu.xton, (House of Commons, Marcli 3d, 1819,) "certainly must know how many fraudident circum- stances were connected -ivith almost alt the battkruptcies that nmv take place ; and after a more careful examination, it had been declared, on the highest authority, that of the bankruptcies which occurred, by far the greater number were of a fraudulent description." FINANCIAL MATTEll.-?. Mr. Baring said, (1817,) "there could be no doubt, m)Luitlistanding the delicacy which had been professed On the subject of touching the sinking fund, that to all practical purposes, it was comjiletely swept away." • • ' ^ Mr. Ricardo (June 10, 1819,) had already opposed the grant of three millions towards a sinking fund, because he did not wish to place such a ftmd at the mercy of ministers, who would take it whenever they thought urgent necessity required it. He did not mean to sav that it NOTES. •vou!d be belter witli one set of ministers lli;m aiiollier, for he looked upon it tbui all ministers would l)e anxiuiis, on cusosof what they con- , >;oived em-.-r.^enry, to appropriate it to tiie public use. He thought, 'lierefore, the whole thiiijj a delusion upon the public, and on that ac- count he would never support a tax to maintain it. The evil of the national debt ought to be met. It was an evil wliich iihnost any sacrifice would not be too great to get rid of. It destroyed lie equilibrium of prices, occasioned many persons to emigrate to other countries, in order lo avoid the burden of taxation whith it entailed, and hung like a millstone round the exertion and industry of the country, lie therefore, never would give a vote in support of any tax which v.ent to continue a sinking fund; for if that fund were to amount to eight millions, ministers woidd on any emergency give the same account <^f it as tliey did at present. The delusion of it was seen long ago by ail those who w-erc acquainted with the subject; and it would have been but fair and sound policy to have exposed it long ago. Mr. Brougham said, (.fune 8, 1819,) "How stood the circumstances with respect vo this fund? In 1786, it amounted to one million, and an addition of 200,000/. was made soon after. In 1792, it was increased b" .so muc!) of each loan, as gave assurance that^t tiie end of 45 years sucii ioiin would be expimged by the gradiv»l operation of the sinking fund. This pledge contitiued to l}i02, when new arrangements were made by Lord Sidni.uith, that did not much postpone the tei'm of payment. The operation of 18l3, was to accelerate the liquidation of the debt, towards the close of tiie period jilcdged for that purpose, and the fiuid was then reduced to 15,000,000/. instead of 21,000.000/. to which it had accumu- lated. Tiie I'und holder was then told that j-epayment would go on at an accelerated rate from a certain term, and now came tlie plan by which all this was bid adieu to, and the -sinking fund -reduced to 5,000,000/. Did not this place the public credit on a diflercnt footing? and was it not, to all intents and purposes, a breach of faith ? "Lord Holland stated, in a speech sometime since, that the royal fa- mily of England, tiiat is to say, the maintenance of the mere state of the crown, cost llie country o?ic millioii tijo laindred thonscmd powids ! or nearl) one-fourth of the whole assessed taxes of the kingdom." (Bell's Weekly Messenger, May 18, 1819.) " air. Tierney stated, (April 5, 1818,) that his majesty's privy purse amounted to sixty thousmd pounds. A privy purse of sixty thousand pounds^ in the present state of his majesty ! [Ilecir, Hear.] Out of this .sum he admitted that the allowance to the piiysicians had to be paid; bui; on the most liberal allowance lo them, this woidd not amotmt to eighteen tiiousand pounds a year, 'i'here was also received out of tlic dutchy of Lancaster ten thousand pounds. So lliat here was seventy thou.sand pounds that her majesty had, without there being a necessity of rendering an account for any ])art of it. With the deduction of an allowancfe lo the physicians, and a few pensions, this was a fund for ac- cumulation for ,sonie!)ody. Her majesty's establishment amounted to one luMulrcd thousand pounds a year. These two sums together made one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. But besides this, her ma- jesty was allowed for her Windsor establishment fifty-eight thousand pounds, and an additional allowance of one thousand pounds a year for %vhat was called travelling expenses; and the allowance for the two ■ princesses was twenty-six thousand pounds, making tl»e total of the Windsor establishments amount to no less a sum than two hundred and sixty-four thousand pouiuls per .innum." [Hear, hear.'] "Mr. Rrougham considered, 1817,) tiiat the amount of the pen.sion list in 1SG9, a year wiien the four and a half per cent, fell exti'emely shoi-t, was two hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Upon that list were to be found the names of those who had rendered no service-. i\'0TE3. IT I. persons who belonged to families not more distinguished for their anti- .^-^^ quity and rank tlian for their wealth and splendour, and whose only title to their pensions, he presumed, was their invariable support of the ministers of the crown, whoever those ministers miglit be." "'J'he sinecure vacated by the death of the Earl of Buckingham shire had been worse than useless ; it had served as a screen to the most shocking abuses, and the most abominable frauds." (,Lord Lans- downc, May, iSlf^ ) "Sir II. Varneil said, (July 13, 1819,) in staling the increase of the civil list, it ought to have been stated to have increased from 900,000?. to 1,030,000/." " Mr. Calcraft expressed his obligations to the honourable baronet for bringing forward his resolutions, and trusted that he would not be deterred from future inquiries by the criticisms whicii every man who talked of economy was exposed to, from the bench opposite him. The main resolutions had .lot been grappled with by the riglit honourable gentleman (Mr Long,) that the revenue was collected at the enormous expense of 5,500,000/. He had shown that it was collected at lessi* This was the key to the; popularity and consequence of the present administration. So long as they had these 5,50TJ,000/. to distribute, so long would they iiear, froni ti'.ose who received it, ofilieir popularity." " The credit of the custom house tables (said Mr. Brougiiam, in his speed) of June 16, 1812.) would be but small, after the acfcoimt of them which appears in evidence. But the evidence sufficiently ex- plains en which side of the scale the error is likely to lie. There is, it would seem, a fellow feeling between the gentlemen at the custom house, and their honoured masters at the board of trade ; so that when the latter wish to make blazing statemeius of nutiona! prosperity, the i'ormer are ready to find the fact. 'i"he managing clerk of one of the greatest mercantile houses in the cily, tells you that he has known packages entered at 500/. which were not worth 50/. — that those sums urc entered at random, and cannot be at all relied upon. Other wit- nesses, particularly from Liverpool, confirm tiie same fact ; and 1 know, as does my right hon. fi'iend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was present, that the head of the same respectable house, a few days ago mentioned at an official conference with him, an instance of his own clerks being desired at tlie Custom House, to make a double entry of an article for export. After such facts as these, I say it is in vain to talk of Custom House returns, even if they were contradicted in no re- spect by other evidence." The consumers of tea, said Mr. Ellice, (Jisne 18, 1819,) paid not only .3,500,000/. to government, but 2^000 OQO/. to the monopoly of the East India company. Civil Contingencies Bill — March 19, 1819 — 3191/. for expense of fur- niture for one room in the Royal Yatcht — 13,300/. expenses of grand duke Nicholas. 22,500/ for snuff boxes "to foreign ministers. 10,897/. for fees and presents to German Barons, &c. Mr. Tierney said, (1819,) tlr.it the amount of pensions for England and Scotland, independently of those founded on parliamentary grants, was 250,000/. LOOSE EXTRACTS FROM ENGLISH JOURNALS. •' After the bodies of the criminals, Chennel and Chalcraft, had been cut down, they were received into the waggon, which conveyed them to the place of ex^ulion, and extended on the elevated stage which and been constructed in the vehicle. The procession of officers, con- iMiTES, •itable. &c. was then re-formed, and the remains of the murderers wen conveyed in slow and awful silence lliroiigli the town of Godulming, un til they arrived at the house of the late .Mr. Cheniicl. Here the pro cession halted, and the bodies of Cliennel and Ciiatcmft were removei from tlie waggoiylnto the kitchen of the hotise, one of tliem beinf placed on the very spot where the housekeeper, Elizabeth AVilson, wa: found murdered. After tiiis the surgeon proceeded to perform the Hrst offices of dissection, and the bodies in tiiis state were left to the gaze of thousands, who tiiroughout the day eagerly rushed in to view them. (Bell's Weekly Mes.senger, 1818.) " The coiuitry assizes," said tlie London Courier of April 4, 1817 — " now just terminated, have presenl-cd a list of criminals quite unparal- leled for magnitude in the history of this coimtry. At no former pe- riod have they amounted to more 'ban a fourth or a third part of their present number. From Jifteeii tojlfti/ capital coyivictions have taken place in almost every county. At Ltnr.tister Aotizes J'orty-ux pei^sons received sentence of death. In October vi^.i it was proved in a court of law, that a club of conspirators (linlteis) at Manchester, perjured themselves by wholesale, to the amount of one hundred and thirty at a time ; and now it is just proved that a kn^il of assassins can be as easily, hired in England, as in Italj. Tiiree hundred of Messrs. Bodin's workmen, at Loughbo- rough, having conspired against their employers about wages, subscrib- ed a fund, and hired, at five pounds each man, a squad of assassins well skilh d in the art of liouse burning, and murder, who destroyed their master's premises in revenge." Hevolt in iVinchester College. — " We are happy to state, that tranquil- lity has been restored at Winchester College, that the business of die school has oeen resumed with order, and that the young gentlemen have since shown perfect resignation to the will of their nble teachers. About ten of the gentlemen commoners have been allowed to resign. There were only six (out of 23^) who did not join in the revolt, the two senior and four other college prefects. (Bell's Weekly Messen- ger, May 18, 1818) " We are happy to announce that prosecutions have been brought against a number of grocers for the manufacture and sale of a perni- cious substitute for tea, composed of tlie leaves of the black and wliite thorn, boiled, dried on copper plates, and coloured with logwood, ver- digrease, and Dutcli pink. The fitcls were proved at great length, and verdicts found in the Court of Exchequer, on Saturday, against no fewer than ten de-.ders in the metropolis, for this frauil. Several of them sub- mitted to conviction without resistance, and thus the important fact is established, tiiat this deleterious mixture is imposed on the fair trader. There ar*- other :irticles of human con.sumption, eqtially e.NLposed to similar friuds. Porter and ale, it has frequently been proved, have been mixed with drugs of the most pernicious quality. Port wine, as it IS called, and especially that sold at very low prices, it is known, has been manufactured from sloe juice, British brandy, and logwood. Gin, in order that it may have the grip, or iiave l\\t appearance of being par- ticularly strong, is known to be adulterated with m decoction of long pepper, or a small quantiiy of aquafortis. Bread, from public convic- tions, is known to have o -.on made of a mixuu\. of flour, grmnd stone, chalk, and pulverized b.-.ues. Milk to have been adulterated with whitening and water. Sug...r to have been mixed with sand. Pepper with fuller's earth and other earths. Mustard, with cheap pM"gent seeds. Tobacco, with various common British he.rb«. There is ^ arce an article of ordinary consumption, which is not rendered de.structu c 'ly the^nfamoiis and fraudulent practices of interested persons. (Bell's Weekly IVfe^enger, May 13, 1818.) " The practice of advil'erating flotir, with bones be'comes more eom- tliesefew veaiF-tVoni ten per.ce a busliel. to tig'.iteen pence to theEfs purchi'Scrs. The coi?eclion oi" bones, is, in' fact, pursued as a regulai- trade in the metiopoiis. Fine pulverized clay, is a'si) mixed with Xl: prime necessary of lite.■'.(Litcr;l^^ Panoruma, July iy, 1819.) "1'he contraband trade ot G}-e;; geiieral assembly which sat only a few weeks ago." " Dec. 1818. It is a fact that Chief Justice Abbott, (the Lord Chief JuFti'je of England,") lately threatened to adjourn the court of King's bevich, because tallow cimdlcs iiad been produced, instead of wax Sights." '•It is aijo a fact, that -the late Justice Gould, when en the circuit, once threatened to remove the Essex Assizes from Chelmsford to Col- chester, because no good smali beer could be found in the former lowri." " In a debate which look place in the lio'ise of Commons, April 1819, on the circumstances attending the arrest of general Gourgan i-\v George Cockbuin threw out an accusation, whiUt speukiiig in hi i'iacr, ag;iinst Gourg;ind, by relating what he had heard from him at S! Helena, in the hasty and unguarded vwments of private conversation " 1 general," said sir Geortre Cockburn, "staled to me that he had grd reason to complain of that scoundrel Bertrand, for so these per.s " ••vcre in the habit of speaking of each other." II ^ r\ ^ 124^D' ERRATA. '*.gc 43, for 1668, read 1688, — 76, for 1668, read 1688 — 209, for " five thousand five hundred,'* read sixteen hundred and ten. • ^'•V } ^rfv Wo iy w 5^""^^. (ii-- ^0- ,Hq V-^^ 0^ .-^j,:* '^o 0^ "bp .0 '^0^ «i"^ • ^^-;^. V *o^ o' .0 ■^ , ^0 o > ^^o^ ^oV 'ff: "^uj/^^ ^^' o_ '^AVv^-/ ^^ ^^-r >- .^^ o_ ^•p^ "^ .^ Z,^'-, ^-^-..Z -•:«^¥a'. % * <^ '^J, ■'^ ^0^ Q^'^Y 79 x^-^^ : ^^ ^^ -1 ..