Yale University Library 39002003756005 LI \fM'-thefov?uunQ »l;give theft. Masks I for-, tiefaipufntgnf a Coitegt in, th^Caionyr 10 >Y^ILE«¥]MII¥IEI^Sinr¥o DEPOSITED BY THE LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT. BY GEOKGE BANCROFT. Sttje &ttthor'0 £nat ftetnsion. VOLUME IV. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 1890. COPYRIGHT, Bt GEOEGE BANCROFT, 1858, 1860, 185-6, 1884, 1886. CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH YOLUME. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN FIVE EPOCHS. m.— AMERICA TAKES- UP ASMS FOS SELF-DEFENCE AND ASBIVES AT INDEPENDENCE. CHAPTER I, AMEEIOA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. May 1774. The American revolution. Its necessity. Its principle Most cherished in America. Britain should have offered independence infatuation of the king and parliament. Port act received in Boston ''Sleeting of nine committees. The tea not to be paid for .--Circular to the colonies. Boston town-meeting. Gage arrives His character. Firmness of Newburyport, Salem, and Boston New York Sons of Liberty propose a general congress . Formation of a conservative party Effect of the port act in Connecticut and Providence . New York committee of fifty-one . The king approves two acts against Massachusetts Dickinson's measures New York and Connecticut plan a congress . Hutchinson's addressers .... Suppression of murmurs. The Massachusetts Legislature --Patience of Boston Baltimore, the model. New Hampshire. New Jersey . Sympathy of South Carolina for Boston. Virginia Its burgesses appoint a fast ; are dissolved ; hold a meeting Convention called in Virginia. North Carolina. Union of the country Philadelphia PAGE 3 4 5 99 10 10. 11 121313 14141516 1718 CHAPTER II. PBEPAEATIONS FOE A GENEEAL CONGEESS. June- August 1774. ^Blockade of Boston 19 Effects elsewhere. The mandamus councillors 20 iV CONTENTS. yThi PAGE The troops may be ordered to fire on the people 20 (lie king and Samuel Adams. The new league and covenant . . .21 The legislature at- Salem. Proceedings of the council. The house . . 22 More troops arrive • .22 Firmness of the people 23 /Massachusetts appoints time and place for the continental congress . . 23 Gage dissolves its assembly . 23 John Adams in Boston town-meeting 24 Promptness of Rhode Island and of Maryland 24 Generous conduct of Marblehead and Salem. Intrigues of Gage . . .25 Boston town-meeting approve their committee of correspondence . . .25 /^Address to Hutchinson. Gage's proclamation . ... . . .26 Threats of arrest not executed 26 Hutchinson reaches England. His interview with the king . . . .27 The king confident. Boston ministered to by the Carolin'as . . . .28 Connecticut. Quebec. Delaware. Maryland 28 And by Virginia 29 Public spirit in New York. State of parties ...... 30 Character of John Jay. New York delegates to congress . . . .31 Opposition to the nomination in the New York committee . . . .31 South Carolina elects its deputies. Timidity of Dickinson . . . .32 Pennsylvania chooses its deputies. New Jersey. New Hampshire . . 33 Compromise between the parties in New York 34 Virginia convention. Paper by Jefferson. The slave-trade forbidden . . 34 Opinions of "Washington 35 Decision of Virginia. Of North Carolina 36 CHAPTER III. MASSACHUSETTS DEFEATS THE ATTEMPT OF THE BEITISH PAELIAMENT TO OHANGE ITS OHAETEE. May- August 1774. Character of Louis XVI Marie Antoinette. Caron de Beaumarchais . Choice of Maurepas as chief minister. His character Vergennes minister of foreign affairs. His character Turgot minister of finance . . . - . Abuses in the French finances. Turgot plans reform France leans to the colonies. Gage receives the regulating act. Two other acts against Massachusetts. Boston consults the . 46 Spirit of resistance. Thomas Gardner. Number of the militia. Putnam . 47 Charles Lee. Opinions of Hawley. Courts of New Hampshire broken up . 48 Mandamus councillors. Ruggles. Timothy Paine. Murray . . .49 Willard resigns. Watson. Massachusetts delegates in Connecticut . . 50 They reach the Hudson. New York disinclined to war 51 Suffolk county convention. Convention of three counties in Boston . . 52 . 37 . 38 . 39 . 40 . 41 . 42 Its character . 43 country towns . 45 CONTENTS. Court at Springfield interrupted. Supreme court in Boston Middlesex convention at Concord . PAGE . 53 . 54 CHAPTER IV. THE FIEST AMEEIOAN 0ONGEES8. September-Ootober 1774. ^Gage seizes the powder of the province. The people rise . . . .55 More councillors resign. Good conduct of the people. Opinions of Fox 56 Rising of the people. Courage of Putnam. Consequences of the rising . 67 Gage requires more troops. Wishes to raise Canadians and Indians . . 57 England seeks Indian alliances 58 /Gage fortifies Boston. The court at Worcester interrupted . . . .59 frfas. Suffolk convention. Its resolutions 59 Formation of regiments. Fearlessness of Warren 60 Massachusetts wishes to revive its old charter. The congress organized . 61 The method of voting. Speech of Patrick Henry 62 The vote by colonies conceded. Congress is opened with prayer . . 64 The psalm for the day. The foundation and extent of colonial rights . . 65 ^Jtifmience of Samuel Adams. Congress approve the Suffolk resolutions . 66 Dissolution of parliament. Uncertainty of Gage 67 Gage avoids meeting the Massachusetts assembly 68 The general congress find their grievances to be innovations . . 68 Congress accept the acts of navigation. Plan of Galloway . . . .69 His defeat. Pennsylvania elects Dickinson to congress . . . .70 Sympathy of congress for Boston. Maryland punishes the importers of tea . 71 A letter from Washington. The resistance of Massachusetts approved . 72 Sentence passed upon eleven acts of parliament 73 Congress threaten to stop British imports and exports 73 The slave-trade discontinued. Congress address the British people . . 74 Congress petition the king . . 75 Independence not yet desired .... . . 76 Preparations for war which Henry predicts . 77 CHAPTER V. HOW BEITAIN BEGAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, AND HOW VIEGINIA NULLI FIED THE QUEBEC ACT. October-November 1774. Patrick Henry's opinion of Washington "Massachusetts forms a congress and prepares for war . -Acts of Connecticut and Massachusetts The emancipation of Catholics in Canada ...... Restoration of the French system of law. Canadian nobility conciliated Establishment of the Catholic worship Congress get the better of their bigotry against Catholics Their address to the Canadians. Virginia opposes the Quebec act 7878 7979 808081 VI CONTENTS. Dunmore's rapacity . . . . • He occupies Pittsburg and its dependencies, They take revenge for murders by Indians . Cresap's private war. Logan's revenge Dunmore calls out the militia of the South-west . Great victory of the Virginians near Point Pleasant Dunmore concludes a peace with the Shawnees The western Virginians assert the rights of America Proceedings in South Carolina and Maryland The backwoodsmen CHAPTER VI. THE FOURTEENTH PAELIAMENT OF GEEAT BEITAIN. October 1774-January 20, 1775. Hopefulness of Warren. Venality of seats in parliament Westminster elects tories ; Burke succeeds in Bristol . Gage reports the state of America .... Opinions of the king, the lords, the commons ; of Franklin Confidence of the ministry Fortitude of Massachusetts. Seizures in Rhode Island , in New Hampshire /Condition of Massachusetts. Its clergy. Magnanimity of Boston ' The king receives the petition of congress Britain unequal to the war. Lord Howe in vain negotiates with Franklin Jamaica offers its mediation. Views of the French ministry Chatham's position. His interview with Franklin .... Chatham and Rockingham differ. American papers laid before parliament Virginia Presbyterians in council. Their decision .... Speech of Chatham for removing the army from Boston His eulogy of the American people Of the wisdom of congress The king's anger at Chatham. The debate in the house of lords . Good effects of Chatham's speech CHAPTER VII. THE KING DEOLAEES MASSACHUSETTS IN EEBELLION. January-February 1775. Firm union of the continent. The policy of Georgia . Movements in Maryland and Virginia .... In Delaware ; in New York The old New York assembly falters .... The conduct of Pennsylvania and New Jersey The old New York assembly sends no delegates to the next congress The press of New York. Pamphlets of Alexander Hamilton Parliament unrelenting. Instructions to Gage to act offensively Chatham interposes with a plan for reconcilement It is scouted at in the house of lords CONTENTS. Chatham extols Franklin and inveighs against the ministers /The house of .commons declare Massachusetts in rebellion . Interview with Franklin. Renewed debate in the house of commons Violent debate in the house of lords Parliament promise on their lives and honor to suppress the rebellion Vll PAGE 116117118119120 CHAPTER VIII. THE SPIKIT OF NEW ENGLAND. Eebruary-March 1775. , Massachusetts appoints its committee of safety 121 - Its measures for defence . . . .122 Leonard recommends submission ..... ... 123 The reply of John Adams 124 New England to be excluded from the fisheries. Concessions to the French . 126 Lord North consults Franklin on sending commissioners to America . . 127 His plan hateful to the house of commons. Appointment of Howe as general 128 Of Lord Howe as admiral and commissioner; of Clinton and Burgoyne . 129 Holland rudely menaced 129 Opinions on Lord North's proposal. Spirit of the Dutch Americans . . 130 Of western Virginia. Of South Carolina. Of Boston . ... 181 Expedition to Salem. Confidence of the king 132 Oration of Warren on the fifth of March . . ... 133 . Irritation of the army in Boston . . 134 CHAPTER IX. THE ETNG AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. March-May 1775. Character of Samuel Johnson 135 Wesley for the court . .136 Camden speaks for the Americans. Sandwich calls them cowards . 137 Franklin's interview with the French minister ; with Edmund Burke . 138 He sails for America. His frank sincerity 139 Edmund Burke vainly proposes his plan of conciliation 140 Vermont 142 Delaware. Conservative character of Virginia . . . . .143 Its second convention. Henry proposes measures of defence . . . 144 His plan, after debate, is adopted . 145 Dunmore carries off gunpowder from the magazine of the colony . 146 The people threaten to rise; Dunmore to free and arm the slaves . .146 Moderating advice prevails in Virginia 147 Vigorous measures in New York .147 ^Massachusetts soothes the Indians and prepares for war . . . .148 The city of London intercedes for America. Confidence of Hutchinson . 149 The king sure of New York 160 Fresh orders to Gage to act on the offensive. Dalrymple's pamphlet . .150 How far Lord North was false. The king confident. Europe on the watch . 151 vm CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. TO LEXINGTON AND CONOOED, AND BACK TO BOSTON. April 19, 1775. Gage sends an expedition to Concord . Revere's ride. The news reaches Concord and Acton . The militia and alarm-men of Lexington turn out . The conflict at Lexington .... • The village martyrs ... Prophecy of Samuel Adams. The people of Concord rally . The British enter Concord. Isaac Davis and the men of Acton The British begin the destruction of stores . The beginning of the revolution .... The first martyrs at Concord. The British retreat The Americans give them chase through Lincoln . The British are re-enforced at Lexington Their further retreat and pursuit through Cambridge The British reach Charlestown .... The siege of Boston. Import of the nineteenth of April 1775 PAGE . 152153154 155156 157 158 159 160161162163164165166 CHAPTER XI. EFFECTS OF THE DAT OF LEXINGTON AND CONCOED. EISING. THE GENEEAL April-June 1775. The alarm spreads over the continent .... The people of Massachusetts rush to the camp Men of New Hampshire. John Stark . The men of Connecticut. Israel Putnam Movements in Rhode Island. Character of the army . The British officers put to shame. How Percy forgot himself Wrongs of the people of Boston The voice of Connecticut Want of military stores. Proposed expedition against Quebec Want of money. Massachusetts needs a government of its own Formation of an American army .... Character of Greene of Rhode Island . A new committee in New York. An association . Address from New York to London .... Journey of the delegates from Massachusetts and Connecticut Spirit of New Jersey. Of Pennsylvania Of Maryland. The rising in Virginia .... Triumph of Henry. Proceedings in South Carolina In Georgia . . The men of Vermont cross Lake Champlain . Ticonderoga taken by surprise ... The British flag is struck to mariners of Maine 167168169170171172 172172173 174 174 175 176 177177 178179 180 181 182 183 184 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER XII. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION EMANATES FROM THE PEOPLE. May-July 1775. How the news was received in London .... The words of John Wesley Address of the city of London to the king. Meeting of the cabinet The king relies on his allies, the Six Nations The king's brother and La Fayette at Metz . The opinion of Paris. Of Vergennes . Meeting of the second continental congress . Difficulty of getting the support of an unformed nation . First deputy from Georgia. Congress instructs New York . Jay proposes a second petition to the king . The affair on Grape Island and the skirmish near East Boston Ticonderoga and Crown Point garrisoned. Kentucky settled Career of Daniel Boone ¦ . Spirit of the county of Mecklenburg They declare independence and establish a government They publish their resolves. Confidence of Governor Martin PAGE . 185 . 187 . 188 . 188 . 189 . 189190 . 191192 . 192 . 193 . 194 . 195 . 196 . 197 . 198 CHAPTER XIII. MASSACHUSETTS ASKS FOE GEORGE WASHINGTON AS OOMMANDEE-IN-OHIEF. May-June 17, 1775. Opinions of Washington and Franklin . Dickinson advocates a second petition to the king .... Hancock chosen president of congress Duane's proposal for a negotiation between Great Britain and the colonies Second address to the Canadians. Lord North's offer .... Dunmore convenes the Virginia legislature. Jefferson's opinion . Last use of the king's veto power. Flight of the governor . Answer of the burgesses to Lord North's proposition .... The answer approved by Shelburne and Vergennes .... The American continental army • • Washington chosen general. His character Knowing the difficulties before him, he accepts . ... The pledges of congress. Effect of his appointment .... . 199 . 199 . 200 . 200 . 200 . 201 . 202 . 202 . 203 . 204 . 205 . 211 . 212 CHAPTER XIV. BUNKEB HILL. June 16-17, 1775. The American army round Boston Gage designs to occupy Charlestown Prescott fortifies Breed's Hill 213214215 CONTENTS. Surprise of the British Gage orders an attack. Courage of Prescott and his band . Landing of British troops. State of Prescott's defences Ward avoids a general action Spirit of the army. Seth Pomeroy. Joseph Warren . Men of Essex, Worcester, and Middlesex counties join Prescott Stark completes the line of defence to the Mystic Putnam's orders. Number of Howe's forces Number of the Americans in the engagement. Free negroes Charlestown set on fire. Howe's first attack Conduct of Prescott. The British attack. Their reception . The British near the rail-fence recoil. The second attack . They are again driven back The third attack on the redoubt Prescott, in want of powder, gives the word to retreat . Putnam takes possession of Prospect Hill. Prescott at headquarters The British make no pursuit. Their. loss. Loss of the Americans Death and character of Warren British and American opinions on the battle .... CHAPTER XV. THE ARMY BOUND BOSTON. June 17- August 1775. Effect of British losses. Election of American major-generals Gates chosen adjutant-general and brigadier .... Thomas Jefferson enters congress. Further election of brigadiers Washington leaves Philadelphia for the army .... Washington and Tryon in New York New York plan of accommodation .... Congress emits bills of credit, and authorizes the invasion of Canada Congress sets forth the causes for taking up arms Second petition of congress to the king Addresses to the people of Great Britain and to London. Richard Penn Washington takes the command at Cambridge Sufferings of the inhabitants of Boston . . ... Number of the British army, and of the American Washington introduces reforms. Lee negotiates with Burgoyne . Organization of government in Massachusetts. Continual skirmishes How the army is supported. Washington's report Schuyler. Canada frontier .... Franklin proposes a confederacy. Georgia. Ireland and America The British court the aid of the savages Apathy of congress. Lord North's proposal, and Jefferson in reply Further organizing government in America How to redeem the paper money ...... Congress refuses to open the American ports, and adjourns . CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER XVI. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. July-October 1775. PAGE Duties of Washington. Morgan and his Virginia riflemen .... 247 Riflemen of Maryland and Pennsylvania 248 Treatment of American prisoners. The war spreads over the sea . . 249 Washington's difficulties 250 Acts of the provincial congress of New Jersey. Strife in Pennsylvania . 251 Firmness of Delaware ; of Maryland. Charles Carroll. Samuel Chase . 262 The convention at Annapolis. Dunmore in Virginia 253 Acts of the Virginia convention at Richmond 254 Self-will of the governor of South Carolina 255 Order of Gage to employ savages at any expense 256 Preparations for defending Charleston harbor 257 Spirit of North Carolina • 258 Acts of the congress of North Carolina in August 1776 .... 259 Organization of the provincial council of North Carolina .... 260 The news of Bunker Hill battle in Europe. Howe supersedes Gage . . 260 The army for independence ; the American congress undecided . . .261 Negroes allowed to serve in the army 261 A committee of congress visit the camp. Gage embarks for England . . 262 Origin of the American navy .......-• 263 Division in Philadelphia. Congress uncertain 264 CHAPTER XVII. ¦ FTNAL ANSWER OF THE KING TO AMEEI0A. August-December 1775. Question at issue between America and Britain . Colonial system of Townshend, of Grenville Of Pitt. Theory of Rockingham. The principle of the colonies . Townshend. A preamble and a tax The king and the East India company defeated by Boston . . The Massachusetts charter. The king threatens blows . Richard Penn and the second petition to the king . The king proclaims the Americans rebels .... Reception of the proclamation in France and in America Joseph Hawley advises an annual national parliament of two houses The colonies think of establishing governments of their own Opinions of Jefferson and George III Character of the empress Catharine II of Russia . Character of her first minister She is asked for twenty thousand men to serve in America . The empress recommends concession, and refuses troops Her sarcastic letter to the king . 265 . 266 . 267 . 267 . 268 . 269 . 269 . 270 . 271 . 272 . 273 . 274 . 275 . 276 . 277 . 278 . 279 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. FINAL ANSWEE OF PAELIAMENT TO AMEEICA. October-December 1775. What Europe thought of the application to Russia Grafton's interview with the king The king's speech to parliament. Debates in the commons . Opinions of Shelburne, the university of Oxford, and Vergennes . Lord George Germain takes the American department. His character Weakness of the ministry ..... • • Burke and Germain on American taxation by parliament The Irish house of commons and America . . • • Measure of Lord North supported by Mansfield. Opinion of Robertson Opinions of John Millar, David Hume, and Adam Smith Of Josiah Tucker and Soauie Jenyns PAEG . 280 . 281 . 282 . 283 . 284 . 286 . 287 . 287 . 288 . 289 . 290 CHAPTER XIX. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. August-December 1775. Carleton proclaims the border Americans as traitors .... Seth Warner promoted. Hesitation of Schuyler. Richard Montgomery Montgomery moves forward without Schuyler's orders . Schuyler's short service in Canada. Montgomery invests St. John's Ethan Allen's attempt to surprise Montreal .... Montgomery captures St. John's and Montreal His political plans. He resolves to go down to Quebec Washington sends two battalions under Arnold against Quebec Their sufferings on their overland journey . British flotilla captured. Carleton reaches Quebec Montgomery, with Arnold, appears before Quebec Their desperate situation Order given to assault the lower town . Montgomery leads his men Montgomery and others fall. His party retreat . Arnold is wounded. Morgan's company carry a barricade The Americans within the town surrender. Tributes to Montgomery 291292293 294295296 297 298299301302 303 304305 306307308 CHAPTER XX. ADVANOING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. Last Months of 1775-March 1776. New Jersey refuses to address the king separately Movements in New York city. Disarming of the Highlanders The people demand a declaration of independence Thomas Paine in " Common Sense " urges the declaration . 310 311312 313 CONTENTS. xin And the formation of a continental government Opinions of Washington, Greene, and John Adams. Hesitancy of Maryland Efforts of Samuel Adams, Wythe, Franklin, and Hooper Dunmore begins the war in Virginia. His instructions He offers freedom to indented servants and negro slaves Repulse of the British from the Elizabeth river . Dunmore burns the city of Norfolk The Virginia convention demands free trade State of the army round Boston. Black men among them Congress impatient for an attack on Boston ... Washington's reproof of congress .... The British army in Boston have no thought of danger Washington prepares to drive them from Boston . Dorchester Heights fortified in one night Howe embarks his army. Joseph Brant in England What England was expecting when the Americans moved into Bo; Washington's reception in Boston .... Rhode Island renounces allegiance to the king ston PAGE . 314 315 . 316 . 317 . 318 . 319 . 320 . 321 . 322 . 323 . 324 . 325 . 326 . 327 . 328 . 329 . 330 . 331 CHAPTER XXI. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. February-April 1776. Character of John Adams ....... America claims a right to contract alliances Pennsylvania still professes allegiance to the king Enlistments for the army. Choice of general officers . Congress charge the king himself with their grievances . Congress totally forbid the importation of slaves . American ports thrown open to the commerce of the world . Pennsylvania adheres to the proprietary government . Heroism of James Mugford Instructions to the British commissioners for America . Pamphlet of Richard Price on "Liberty" .... The exercise of authority under the crown to be suppressed The congress order the colonies to make governments of their own American legislatures to consist of two branches . A republic an Elysium compared with monarchy or aristocracy CHAPTER XXII. BRITAIN SEEKS FOEEIGN AID. 1775-1776. The king asks a brigade of Holland . Opposed by the states of Overyssel and fails Britain desires to recruit in Germany in spite of the law Saxony refuses subsidiary troops 332 335 336337 338 339 339 340341342343344 345 346 347 348349349 XIV CONTENTS. PAGE The negotiation with Brunswick 35° With the landgrave of Hesse 352 Embarkation of the troops corruptly delayed 355 Further negotiations. Debate in the house of commons .... 356 In the house of lords 357 Judgment on the German princes 358 CHAPTER XXIII. AMERICA SEEKS FOEEIGN AID. 1775-1776. The presentiments of Vergennes The employment of Bonvouloir as a French agent Beaumarchais has an interview with Arthur Lee . Congress appoints a committee of foreign correspondence Employment of Dumas. Bonvouloir at Philadelphia' . Silas Deane commissioner and agent to France Opinion of Vergennes on aiding America Turgot's reply France desires representative government Retirement of Malesherbes Of Turgot. Sartine favors war with England. Grimaldi France and Spain send aid to America. Unhappy condition of France Prediction of a revolution by Leibnitz. By Wesley The age of skepticism 359360361362362 363 364366369369 370 371 372373 CHAPTER XXIV. THE BRITISH REOOVEE CANADA. NOETH OAEOLINA DEOLAEES FOE INDEPENDENCE. January-July 1776. The British plan for the recovery of Canada . The Americans in Canada reinforced Measures of congress for the reduction of Quebec A commission from congress reaches Canada The Americans decide on a retreat .... The American commissioners advise to retire from Canada Zeal of congress. The mishaps of Sullivan . The retreat to Crown Point ..... Attempt at the reduction of the southern colonies Seven British regiments ordered to the Carolinas . Charles Lee at New York He is invested with the southern command . A Highland regiment formed in North Carolina Their march toward Wilmington Their courage and fidelity to the king .... Defeat of the Highlanders by the Americans 374 375 376377 378379380381 382383 384385 386 387388389 CONTENTS. xv Great rising in North Carolina .... Georgia ready for independence and self-government RAGE . 390 . 891 CHAPTER XXV. HOW SOUTH CAROLINA ADVANCED TO INDEPENDENCE. Eebruary-July 1776. The convention of South Carolina South Carolina establishes its own constitution John Rutledge is chosen and inaugurated president. His address Speech of the chief justice on opening the court . The British fleet enter Cape Fear river Burning of Hooper's house. First expedition of Cornwallis Rutledge in Charleston prepares to meet the British Arrival and opinions of General Lee . . . . He proposes the evacuation of Sullivan's Island The British army lands on Long Island Preparations of each side for battle Description of Fort Moultrie .... The British begin the attack The advance party of the Americans receive no damage British vessels of war ground. Heroism of Jasper and Macdaniel Effect of the American fire on the British flag-ship Retreat of the British Losses of the British . . ... Honors to the defenders of Fort Moultrie News of the victory are sped to the North 394395396397398398399 400401402403 404 405406407408 409410 411 CHAPTER XXVI. VIEGINIA PEOOLAIMS THE EIGHTS OF MAN AND PROPOSES INDEPENDENCE. May-June 1776. The constituent convention of Virginia 412 The people of Virginia unanimous 413 Edmund Pendleton chosen president of the convention 414 They resolve on independence and a confederation 415 George Mason drafts the declaration of rights. Madison's amendment . 416 The rights of man as declared by Virginia . 417 The independent policy of Maryland .... • 419 The proprietary government in Pennsylvania overthrown .... 420 The position of Dickinson 421 The irresolution of the assembly of Pennsylvania 422 Richard Henry Lee offers the resolution for independence .... 423 He is supported by John Adams ......••• 424 The desire of the court of Vienna 424 Committees to prepare a declaration of independence 425 To digest the form of a confederation 425 XVI CONTENTS. To treat with foreign powers The law of treason and state citizenship PAGE . 425 . 425 CHAPTER XXVII. * THE PEOPLE OF EVEEY AMEEICAN COLONY DEMAND INDEPENDENCE. June-July 1776. American independence the choice of the whole people . . . 426 Virginia becomes a republic .... 427 Connecticut. Delaware. New Hampshire . 428. Massachusetts. The wise conduct of New York insures its unanimity . . 429 The British foment a deadly conspiracy against Washington . . . 430 New Jersey frames its constitution and government . . . .431 The counties of Pennsylvania frame a government . . . 432 Questions of internal reform and of religious liberty 433 The constituent convention of the people of Maryland ... . 434 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE RESOLUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. From the First to the Fourth of July 1776. The members of congress of that day ...... . 435 The voices of the colonies .......... 436 Speech of John Adams for independence . . . . . 437 Reply of Dickinson 438 The committee of the whole house resolve on independence . . . 440 The colonies without dissent resolve on independence . ... 441 The enthusiasm of John Adams ... ... . 441 Character of Thomas Jefferson ... 442 He drafts the declaration of independence ..... 444 Criticisms on his paper ....... . 445 Principles of the declaration 446 The king has striven to govern the colonies absolutely .... 447 Parliament has enacted unconstitutional laws .... . 448 The king has waged war against the colonies .... . 449 The British people have been appealed to in vain .... . 449 The colonies become free and independent states .... . 450 The principles of the declaration addressed to all nations .... 450 Its relation to other forms of government ... . 451 Why America became a republic ...... , 451 The declaration established a people and a government .... 452 The declaration not signed on the fourth 4.52 Why the fourth of July is the great anniversary 452 THE AMERICAN REYOLTJTION IN FIVE EPOCHS. EPOCH THIRD. AMERICA TAKES UP ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE AND ARRIVES AT INDEPENDENCE. Feom 1774 to 1776. VOL. IV. — 1 AMERICA TAKES UP ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE AND ARRIVES AT INDEPENDENCE. CHAPTEE I. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. Mat 1774. The hour of the_ American revolution .was corne. The peapTfTof the continent obeyed one general impulse, as the earth in spring listens to the command of nature and without the appearance of effort bursts into life. The movement was ' quickened^even when it was most resisted : and its fiercest adversaries worked with the most effect for its fulfilment. Standing m manifold relations with the governments, the cult ure, and the experience oi the past, the Americans seized* as their peculiar inheritance the traditions of liberty. Beyond anyother nation, they had made trial of the possible forms of popular representation, ana respected individual conscience and thought. The resources of the country in agriculture and commerce! forests and fisheries, mines and materials for manu factures, were so diversified and complete that their develop ment could neither be guided nor circumscribed by a govern ment beyond the ocean. The numbers, purity, culture, indus try, and daring of its inhabitants proclaimed the existence of a people rich in creative energy, and ripe for institutions of /own.they refused to acknowledge even to themselves the hope that was swelling within them,jand yet in their political aspi- rations they deduced from universldNprjnciples a bill of rights, as old as creation and as wide as humanity/*** The idea of free- 4 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; ch. i. dom had alwaysrevealed itself at least to a few of the wise wh"ose~rrroT5hetic instincts were quickened by love of their kind, and its growth can be traced inthe tendencyjaFthe ages. In America, it was the breath oFIifeto the people. For the first "time it found aregion_anda race where it couMhejorofesged With the earne7tnessof~arTraoTw^lling convicHonTand be de fended with the, enthusiasm that had marked JiQ-wars but those for religion. "W'nen^all Europe slumbered over questions of liberty, a band of exiles, keeping" watcjLbv night, hearonhe" gladtidings which promised the political regeneration of the' world, —AjeyolQtion, unexpected in the moment of~its com ing, but prepared by gloriousforerunners, grew naturally and necessarily out ol the series of past eyents by the- formative principle of a living belief! And why should man organize resistance to the grand design of Providence"? Why should not the consent o± the ancestral land and tEe gratulations of every other call the young nation to its place among the pow ers of the earth ? Britain was the\mightyTnotEer\who bred men capable of laying the foundation of so noble an empire, and she alone could have trained them up. She had ex celled all the world as the founder of colonies. The condition which entitled thorn to independence was now fulfilled. Their vigorous vitality refused conformity to foreign laws and ex ternal rule. They could take no other way to perfection than- by the unconstrained development of that which was within them. They were not only able to govern themselves, they alone were able to do so ; subordination visibly repressed their energies. Only by self-direction could they at all times employ their collective and individual faculties in the fullest extent of their ever-increasing intelligence. Could not the illustrious nation, which had gained no distinction in war, in literature, or in science, comparable to that of having wisely founded distant settlements on a system of liberty, willingly perfect its benefi cent work, now when no more was required than the acknowl edgment that its offspring was come of age? Why must the ripening of lineal virtue be struck at, as rebellion in the lawful sons ? "Why is their unwavering attachment to the essential principle of their existence to be persecuted as treason, rather than viewed with delight as the crowning glory of the country 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. 5 from which they sprung ? If the institutions of Britain were so deeply fixed in its usages and opinions that their deviations from justice could not as yet be rectified ; if the old continent was pining under systems of authority not fit to be borne, and not ripe for amendment, why should not a people be heart ened to build a commonwealth in the wilderness, where alone it was offered a home \ ^ So reasoned a few in Britain, who were jeered at "as vision ary enthusiasts." Parliament had asserted an absolute lordship over the colonies in all cases whatsoever, and, fretting itself into a frenzy at the denial of its unlimited dominion, was de stroying its recognised authority by its eagerness for more. The majority of the ministers, including the most active and resolute, were bent on the immediate employment of force. Lord North, recoiling from civil war, exercised no control over his colleagues, leaving the government to be conducted by the several departments* As a consequence, the king be came the only point of administrative union. In him an ap proving conscience had no misgiving as to his duty. His heart knew no relenting ; his will never wavered. Though America were to be drenched in blood and its towns reduced to ashes, though its people were to be driven to struggle for total independence, though he himself should find it neces sary to bid high for hosts of mercenaries from the Scheldt to Moscow, and in quest of savage allies go tapping at eVery wigwam from Lake Huron to the Gulf of Mexico, he was re solved to coerce the thirteen colonies into submission. On the tenth of May 1774, which was the day of the acces sion of Louis XVI., the act closing the port of Boston, trans ferring the board of customs to Marblehead, and the seat of government to Salem, reached the devoted town. The king was confident that the slow torture which was to be applied to its inhabitants would constrain them to cry out for mercy and promise unconditional obedience. Success jn_resistance could come only from an American union, which was not to be hoped feiHufless" Boston should otter herself^as a 'wiljing_eamtice7 Themechanics and merchants and" laborersTaltogether scarcely 7r> many aa thirtv-five hundred able-bodied men, knewlhat "ffiey were acting "Sot for a yrornnseHlGherica, but for frefr , 6 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; ch. i. dom itself . Thevwere ir^pired_bythe thought thatthe Proyi- dence whlcE~TTrrgs~tKe~~world demanded of_ thernHEeroTc^Telf- denial as the champions of humanity. anTth^y^eyeFoTouSted the fellow-feeling of the continent. As soon as the act was received, the Boston committee of correspondence, by the hand of Joseph Warren, invited eight neighboring towns to a conference "on the critical state of public affairs." On the twelfth, at noon, Metcalf Bowler, the speaker of the assembly of Ehode Island, came before them with the cheering news that, in answer to a recent circular let ter from the body over which he presided, all the thirteen gov ernments had pledged themselves to union. Punctually, at the hour of three in the afternoon of that day, the committees of Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, Charles town, Lynn, and Lexington, joined them in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, where for ten years the freemen of the town had debated the question of justifiable resistance. The lowly men who now met there were most of them accus tomed to feed their own cattle, to fold their own sheep, to guide their own ploughs ; all were trained to public life in the little democracies of their towns ; some of them were captains in the militia and officers of the church according to the dis cipline of Congregationalists ; nearly all of them communi cants, under a public covenant with God. They grew in greatness as their sphere enlarged. Their virtues burst the confines of village life. They felt themselves to be citizens not of httle municipalities, but of the whole world of mankind. In the dark hour, light broke upon them from their own truth and courage. Placing Samuel Adams at their head, and guided by a report prepared by Joseph Warren of Boston, Thomas Gardner of Cambridge, and others, they agreed unanimously on the injustice and cruelty of the act, by which parliament, without competent jurisdiction and contrary as well to natural right as to the laws of all civilized states, had, without a hear ing, set apart, accused, tried, and condemned the town of Bos ton. The delegates from the eight towns were reminded by those of Boston that that port could recover its trade by pay ing for the tea which had been thrown overboard ; but they held it unworthy even to notice the offer, promising on their 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. 7 part to join "their suffering brethren in every measure of relief." The meeting knew that a declaration of independence would have alienated their sister colonies, nor had they as yet found out that independence was the desire of their own hearts. To suggest nothing till a congress could be convened would have seemed to them like abandoning the town to bleed away its life. The king had expected to starve its people into submis sion ; in their circular letter to the committees of the other colonies they proposed, as a counter action, a general cessation of trade with Britain. " Now," they added, " is the time when all should be united in opposition to this violation of the liber ties of all. The single question is, whether you consider Bos ton as suffering in the common cause, and sensibly feel and resent the injury and affront offered to her? We cannot be lieve otherwise ; assuring you that, not in the least intimidated by this inhuman treatment, we are still determined to main tain to the utmost of our abilities the rights of America." The next day, while Gage was sailing into the harbor,- Sam uel Adams presided over a very numerous town-meeting, at which many were present who had hitherto kept aloof. The thought of republican Rome, in its purest age, animated their consultations. The port act was read, and in bold debate was pronounced repugnant to law, religion, and common sense. At the same time those, who from loss of employment were to be the first to encounter want, were remembered with tender compassion, and measures were put in train to comfort them. Then the inhabitants, by the hand of Samuel Adams, made their appeal " to all the sister colonies, inviting a universal sus pension of exports and imports, promising to suffer for Amer ica with a becoming fortitude, confessing that singly they might find their trial too severe, and entreating not to be left to struggle alone, when the very being of every colony, con sidered as a free people, depended upon the event." On the seventeenth, Gage, who had remained four days with Hutchinson at Castle William, landed at Long Wharf, amid salutes from ships and batteries. Received by the coun cil and civil officers, he was escorted by the Boston cadets. whom Hancock commanded, to the state-house, where the 8 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep.iii.; oh. l council presented a loyal address, and his commission was pro claimed with three volleys of musketry and as many cheers. He then partook of a pubhc dinner in Faneuil Hall, at which he proposed "the prosperity of the town of Boston." His toast in honor of Hutchinson " was received with a general hiss." Yet many favored a compromise, and put forward a subscription to pay for the tea. On the eighteenth, Jonathan Amory very strongly urged that measure in town-meeting, but it was rejected by the common voice. There still lingered a hope of relief through the intercession of Gage ; but he was fit neither to reconcile nor to subdue. By his mild temper and love of society he gained the good-will of his boon companions and escaped personal enmities ; but in earnest business he in spired neither confidence nor fear. He was so poor in spirit and so weak of will, so dull in his perceptions and so unsettled in his opinions, that he was sure to vacillate between words of concession and merciless severity. He had promised the king that with four regiments he would play the " lion," and troops beyond his requisition were hourly expected ; but he stood too much in dread of the leading patriots of Boston to attempt their arrest. The people of Massachusetts were almost exclusively of English origin ; beyond any other colony, they loved the land of their ancestors ; for that reason were they more sensitive to its tyranny. Taxing them without their consent was robbing them of their birthright ; they scorned the British parliament as " a junto of- the servants of the crown, rather than the rep resentatives of England." Not disguising to themselves their .danger, but confident of victory, they were resolved to stand together as brothers for a life of liberty. The merchants of Newburyport were the first who agreed to suspend all commerce with Britain and Ireland. Salem, the place marked out as the new seat of government, in a very full town-meeting and after unimpassioned debates, decided almost unanimously to stop trade not with Britain only, but even with the West Indies. If in Boston a few still proposed to purchase a relaxation of the blockade by " a subscription to pay for the tea," the majority were beset by no temptation so strong as that of routing at onee the insignificant number of troops who 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. 9 had come to overawe them. But Samuel Adams, while he compared their spirit to that of Sparta or Rome, inculcated " patience as the characteristic of a patriot ; " and the people, having sent forth their cry to the continent, waited self-pos sessed for voices of consolation. New York anticipated the prayer of Boston. Its people, who had received the port act directly from England, felt the wrong to that town as a wound to themselves, and even the lukewarm kindled with resentment. From the epoch of the stamp act, their Sons of Liberty, styled by the royalists " the Presbyterian junto," had kept up a committee of correspond ence. Yet Sears, Macdougall, and Lamb, still its principal members, represented the mechanics of the city more than its merchants ; and they never enjoyed the confidence of the great landed proprietors, who by the tenure of. estates in New York formed a recognised aristocracy. To unite the province, a more comprehensive combination was required. The old com mittee, while they accepted the questionable policy of an im mediate suspension of commerce with Britain, proposed a gen eral congress of deputies from all the colonies. These recom mendations they forwarded through Connecticut to Boston, with entreaties to that town to stand firm ; and, in full confi dence of approval, they sent them to Philadelphia, and through Philadelphia to every colony at the south. The inception of the continental congress of 1774 was the last achievement of the Sons of Liberty of New York. On the evening of the sixteenth of May they convoked the inhabi tants of their city. A sense of the impending change tem pered passionate rashness. Some who were in a secret under standing with officers of the crown sought to evade all decisive measures ; the merchants were averse to headlong engagements for suspending trade ; the gentry feared lest the men who on all former occasions had led the multitude should preserve the control in the day which was felt to be near at hand, when an independent people would shape the permanent institutions of a continent. Under a conservative influence, the motion pre vailed to supersede the old committee of correspondence by a new one of fifty, and its members were selected by open nomi nation. The choice included men from all classes. Nearly a 10 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. np.in.; oh. i. third part were of those who followed the British standard to the last ; others were lukewarm, unsteady, and blind to the nearness of revolution ; others again were enthusiastic Sons of Liberty. The friends to government claimed that the majority was inflexibly loyal ; the control fell into the hands of men who still aimed at reconciling a continued dependence on Eng land with the just freedom of the colonies. The port act was rapidly circulated through the country. In some places it was printed upon paper with a black border, and cried about the streets as a barbarous murder; in others,. it was burnt in the presence of a crowd of the people. On the seventeenth, the representatives of Connecticut made a declara tion of rights. " Let us play the man," said they, " for the cause of our country ; and trust the event to Him who orders all events for the best good of his people." On the same day, the freemen of the town of Providence, unsolicited from abroad and after full discussion, voted to promote " a congress of the representatives of all the North American colonies." Declaring "personal liberty an essential part of the natural rights of mankind," they expressed the wish to prohibit the importation of negro slaves, and to set free all negroes born in the colony. On the nineteenth, the city and county of New York inau gurated their new committee with the formality of pubhc ap proval. Two parties appeared in array : on the one side, men of property; on the other, tradesmen and mechanics. Fore boding a revolution, they seemed to contend in advance whether their future government should be fcrmed upon the basis of property or on purely popular principles. The mass of the people were ready to found a new social order in which they would rule ; but on that day they chose to follow the wealthier class if it would but make with them a common cause ; and the nomination of the committee was accepted, even with the ad dition of Isaac Low as its chairman, who was more of a loyalist than a patriot. In Philadelphia, where Wedderburn and Hutchinson had been burnt in effigy, the letter from the New York Sons of Liberty had been received, and when, on the nineteenth, the messenger from Boston arrived with despatches, he found 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. H Charles Thomson, Thomas Miffiin, Joseph Reed, and others preparing to call a pubhc meeting on the evening of the next day. On the morning of the twentieth, the king gave in person his assent to the act which made the British commander-in- chief in America, his army, and the civil officers, no longer amenable to American courts of justice ; and to the act which mutilated the charter of Massachusetts, and destroyed the free dom of its town-meetings. " The law," wrote Gamier, " the extremely intelligent" French charge, "must either lead to the complete reduction of the colonies, or clear the way for their independence." " I wish from the bottom of my heart," said the duke of Richmond, during a debate in the house of lords, " that the Americans may resist, and get the better of the forces sent against them." Four years later, Fox observed : " The alteration of the government of Massachusetts was cer tainly a most capital mistake, because it gave the whole conti nent reason to think that their government was liable to be subverted at our pleasure and rendered entirely despotic. From thence all were taught to consider the town of Boston as suffering in the common cause." While the king, in the presence of parliament, was accept ing the laws which began a civil war, in Philadelphia the Pres byterians, true to their traditions, held it right to resist tyranny ; " the Germans, who composed a large part of the inhabitants of the province, were all on the side of hberty ; " the merchants refused to sacrifice their trade ; the Quakers in any event scru pled to use arms ; a numerous class, hke Reed, cherished the most passionate desire for a reconciliation with the mother countiy. The cause of America needed intrepid counsellors ; but the great central state fell under the influence of Dickinson. His claims to public respect were indisputable. He was hon ored for spotless morals, eloquence, and good service in the colonial legislature. His writings had endeared him to Amer ica as a sincere friend of liberty. Residing at a country seat which overlooked Philadelphia and the Delaware river, he delighted in study and repose, and wanted boldness of will. "He had an excellent heart, and the cause of his country lay near it ; " " he loved the people of Boston with the tenderness 12 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. EP.m.;OH. i. of a .brother;" yet he was more jealous of their zeal than touched by their sorrows. " They will have time enough to die," were his words on that morning. " Let them give the other provinces opportunity to think and resolve. If they ex pect to drag them by their own violence into mad measures, they will be left to perish by themselves, despised by their enemies, and almost detested by their friends." Having ma tured his scheme in solitude, he received at dinner Thomson, Mifflin, and Reed, who, for the sake of his pubhc co-operation, acquiesced in his delays. In the evening, about three hundred of the principal citi zens of Philadelphia assembled in the long room of the City Tavern. The letter from the Sons of Liberty of New York was read aloud, as well as the letters from Boston. Two meas ures were thus brought under discussion : that of New York for a congress, that of Boston for an immediate cessation of trade. The latter proposition was received with loud and gen eral murmurs. Dickinson, having conciliated the wavering merchants by expressing himself strongly against it, was heard with applause as he spoke for a general congress. He in sisted, however, on a preliminary petition to his friend John Penn, the proprietary governor, to call together the legis lature of the colony. This request every one knew would be refused. But then, reasoned Mifflin and the ardent politicians, a committee of correspondence, after the model of Boston, must, in consequence of the refusal, be named for the several counties in the province. Delegates will then be appointed to a general congress ; " and, when the colonies are once united in councils, what may they not effect?" At an early hour Dickinson retired from the meeting, of which the spirit far exceeded his own ; but even the most zealous acknowledged the necessity of deferring to his advice. Accepting, there fore, moderation and prudence as their watchwords, they did little more than resolve that Boston was suffering in the gen eral cause ; and they appointed a committee of intercolonial correspondence, with Dickinson as its chief. On the next day, the committee, at a meeting from which Dickinson stayed away, in a letter to Boston drafted mainly by WiUiam Smith, embodied the system which, for the coming 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. 13 year, was to control the counsels of America. It proposed a general congress of deputies from the different colonies, who, in firm but dutiful terms, should make to the king a petition of their rights. This, it was believed, would be granted through the influence of the wise and good in the mother country; and the most sanguine predicted that the very idea of a general congress would compel a change in the policy of Great Britain. In hke manner, the fifty-one who now represented the city and county of New York adopted from their predecessors the plan of a continental congress, and to that body they referred all questions relating to commerce, thus postponing the proposal for an immediate suspension of trade, but committing them selves irrevocably to union and resistance. At the same time, they invited every county in the colony to make choice of a committee. The messenger, on his return with the letters from Phila delphia and New York, found the people of Connecticut anx ious for a congress, even if it should ,not at once embrace the colonies south of the Potomac; and their committee wisely entreated Massachusetts to fix the place and time for its meeting. At Boston, the agents and supporters of the British minis ters strove to bend the firmness of its people by holding up to the tradesmen the grim picture of misery and want; while Hutchinson promised to obtain in England a • restoration of trade, if the town would but pay the first cost of the tea. Be fore his departure, one hundred and twenty-three merchants and others of Boston addressed him, " lamenting the loss of so good a governor," confessing the propriety of indemnifying the East India company, and appealing to his most benevolent disposition to procure by his representations some speedy re- Kef ; but at a full meeting of the merchants and traders the address was disclaimed. Thirty-three citizens of Marblehead, who signed a similar paper, brought upon themselves the pubhc reprobation of their townsmen. Twenty-four lawyers, including judges of aolmiralty and attorneys of the crown, sub scribed an extravagant panegyric of Hutchinson's general char acter and conduct ; but those who for learning and integrity most adorned their profession, withheld their names. 14 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; oh. i. On the other hand, the necessity of a response to the cour age of the people, the hearty adhesion of the town of Provi dence, and the cheering letter from the old committee of New York, animated a majority of the merchants of Boston, and through their example those of the province, to an engagement to cease all importations from England. Confidence prevailed that their brethren, at least as far south as Philadelphia, would embrace the same mode of peaceful resistance. The letter from that city was received with impatience. But Samuel Adams suppressed all murmurs. " I am fully of the Farmer's sentiments," said he ; " violence and submission would at this time be equally fatal ; " but he exerted himself the more to promote the immediate suspension of commerce. The legislature of Massachusetts, on the last Wednesday of May, organized the government for the year by the usual elec tion of councillors ; of these, the governor negatived thirteen, among them James Bowdoin, Samuel Dexter, William Philhps, and John Adams, than whom the province could not show purer or abler men. The desire of the assembly that he would appoint a fast was refused ; " for," said he to Dartmouth, " the request was only to give an opportunity for sedition to flow from the pulpit." On Saturday, the twenty-eighth, Samuel Adams was on the point of proposing a general congress, when the assembly was unexpectedly prorogued, to meet after ten days at Salem. The people of Boston, then the most flourishing commer cial town on the continent, never regretted their being the principal object of ministerial vengeance. " We shall suffer in a good cause," said the thousands who depended on their daily labor for bread ; " the righteous Being, who takes care or the ravens that cry unto him, will provide for us and ours." Hearts glowed warmly on the banks of the Patapsco. That admirable site for commerce — whose river-side and hill-tops are now covered with stately warehouses, mansions, and monu ments, whose bay sparkles round the prows of the swiftest barks, whose wharfs invite the wealth of the West Indies and South America, and whose happy enterprise, availing itself of its nearness to the west, sends across the mountains its iron pathway of many arms— had for a century been tenanted only 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. 15 by straggling cottages. But its convenient proximity to the border counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia had been ob served by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and others ; and within a few years they had created the town of Baltimore, which already was the chief emporium within the Chesapeake bay. When the messages from the old committee of New York, from Philadelphia, and from Boston, reached its inhabitants, they could not " see the least grounds for expecting relief from a petition and remonstrance." Calling to mind the contempt with which for ten years their petitions had been thrust aside, they were " convinced that something more sensible than sup plications would best serve their purpose." After consultation with the men of Annapolis, who promptly resolved to stop all trade with Great Britain, the in habitants of the city and county of Baltimore advocated sus pending commerce with Great Britain and the West Indies, chose deputies to a colonial convention, recommended a con tinental congress, appointed a numerous committee of corre spondence, and sent cheering words to their "friends" at Boston. " The Supreme Disposer of all events," said they, " will terminate this severe trial of your patience in a happy confirmation of American freedom." For this spirited conduct, Baltimore was applauded as the model ; and its example kin dled new life in New York. On the twenty-eighth, the assembly of New Hampshire, though still desiring to promote harmony with the parent land, began its organization for resisting encroachments on American rights. Three days later, the people of New Jersey declared for a suspension of trade and a congress, and claimed "to be fellow- sufferers with Boston in the cause of liberty." For South Carolina, the character of its labor forbade all thought of rivalling British skill in manufactures. Its wealthy inhabitants, shunning the occupations of city life, loved to re side in hospitable elegance on their large and productive estates. Its annual exports to the northern provinces were of small ac count, while to Great Britain they exceeded two millions of dollars in value. Enriched by this commerce, its people cher ished a warm affection for the mother country, and delighted 16 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; oh. i. in sending their sons " home," as England was called, for their education. The harbor of Charleston was almost unguarded, except by the sand-bar at its entrance. The Creeks and Chero- kees on the frontier, against whom the English government had once been solicited by South Carolina herself to send over a body of troops as a protection, were still numerous and war like. The negro slaves, who in the country near the ocean very far outnumbered the free, were so many hostages for the allegiance of their masters. The trade of Charleston was in the hands of British factors, some of whom speculated already on the coming confiscation of 'the rice-swamps and indigo-fields of " many a bonnie rebel." The upland country was numer ously peopled by loyal men who felt no grievances. And yet the planters refused to take counsel of their interests or their danger. " Boston," said they, " is but the first victim at the altar of tyranny." Reduced to the dilemma either to hold their liberties as tenants at will of the British house of com mons, or to prepare for resistance, their choice was never in doubt. " The whole continent," they said, " must be animated with one great soul, and all Americans must resolve to stand by one another even unto death. . Should they fail, the con stitution of the mother country itself would lose its excellence." They knew the imminent ruin which they risked ; but they "remembered that the happiness of many generations and many millions depended on their spirit and constancy." The burgesses of Virginia sat as usual in May. The exten sion of the province to the west and north-west was their great ambition, which the governor, greedy of a large possession of land and of fees for conniving at the acquisitions of others, selfishly seconded in flagrant disregard of his instructions. To Lady Dunmore, who had just arrived, the assembly voted a congratulatory address, and its members invited her to a ball. The thought of revolution was not harbored ; but they none the less held it their duty to resist the systematic plan of par liamentary despotism ; and, without waiting for an appeal from Boston, they resolved on its deliverance. First among them as an orator stood Patrick Henry. But eloquence was his least merit : he was revered as the ideal of a patriot of Rome in its austerest age. At the approach of danger his language gained 1774. AMERICA SUSTAINS THE TOWN OF BOSTON. 17 the boldness of prophecy. He was borne up by the strong support of Richard Henry Lee and Washington. It chanced that George Mason was then at Williamsburg, a man of strong and true affections ; learned in constitutional law ; a prof ound reasoner ; honest and fearless in council ; shunning- the ways of ambition from sorrow at the death of his wife for whom he never ceased to mourn ; but earnestly mindful of his country, as became one whose chastened spirit looked beyond the in terests of the moment. After dehberation with these associ ates, Jefferson prepared the resolution which, on the twenty- fourth, at the instance of Robert Carter Nicholas, the house of burgesses adopted. In the name of Virginia it recommended to their fellow-citizens that the day on which the Boston port act was to take effect should be set apart " as a day of fasting and prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition for averting the dreadful calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of a civil war ; and to give to the American people one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." The resolve, which bound only the members themselves, was distributed by express through their respective counties as a general invitation to the people. Especially Washington sent the notice to his constituents; and Mason charged his little household of sons and daughters to keep the day strictly, and attend church clad in mourning. On the morning which followed the adoption of this meas ure Dunmore dissolved the house. The burgesses immediately repaired to the Raleigh tavern, about one hundred paces from the capitol ; and with Peyton Randolph, their late speaker, in the chair, voted that the attack on Massachusetts was an attack on all the colonies, to be opposed by the united wisdom of all. In conformity with this declaration, they advised for future time an annual continental congress. They named Peyton Randolph, with others, a committee of correspondence to invite a general concurrence in this design. As yet social relations were not imbittered. Washington, of whom Dunmore sought information respecting western affairs, continued his visits at the governor's house ; the ball in honor of Lady Dunmore was well attended. Not till the offices of courtesy and of patriot- VOL. IV. — 2 . 18 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep.iii.joh.l ism were fulfilled did most of the burgesses return home, leav ing their committee on duty. On the afternoon of Sunday, the twenty-ninth, the letters from Boston reached Williamsburg. So important did they appear that the next morning, at ten o'clock, the committee, having called to their aid Washington and all other burgesses who were still in town, inaugurated a revolution. Being but twenty-five in number, they refused to assume the responsi bility of definite measures of resistance ; but, as the province was without a legislature, they summoned a convention of delegates to be elected by the several counties, and to meet at the capitol on the first day of the ensuing August. The rescue of freedom even at the cost of a civil war, a convention of the people for the regulation of their own in ternal affairs, an annual congress of all the colonies for the perpetual assertion of common rights, were the policy of Vir ginia. When the report of her measures reached England, the startled ministers called to mind how often she had been the model for other colonies. Her influence continued undimin ished ; and her system was promptly adopted by the people of North Carolina. " Lord North had no expectation that we should be thus sustained," said Samuel Adams ; " he trusted that Boston would be left to fall alone." In three weeks after the receipt of the port act, less time than was taken by the unanimous British parliament for its enactment, the continent, as " one great commonwealth," made the cause of Boston its own. *774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 19 CHAPTER II. pbepaeattons foe a geneeal congbe8s. June-August 1774. On the first day of June 1774, Hutchinson embarked for England ; and, as the clocks in the Boston belfries finished striking twelve, the blockade of the harbor began. The in habitants of the town were chiefly traders, shipwrights, and sailors ; and, since no anchor could be weighed, no sail un furled, no vessel so much as launched from the stocks, their cheerful industry was at an end. No more are they to lay the keel of the fleet merchantman, or shape the rib symmetrically for its frame, or strengthen the graceful hull by knees of oak, or rig the well-proportioned masts, or bend the sails to the yards. The king of that country has changed the busy work shops into scenes of compulsory idleness ; and the most skil ful naval artisans in the world, with the keenest eye for forms of beauty and speed, are forced by act of parliament to fold their hands. Want scowled on the laborer as he sat with his wife and children at his board. The sailor roamed the streets listlessly without hope of employment. The law was executed with a rigor that went beyond the intentions of its authors. Not a scow could be manned to bring an ox or a sheep or a bundle of hay from the islands. Water carriage from pier to pier, though but of lumber or bricks or lime, was forbidden. The boats that plied between Boston and Charlestown could not ferry a parcel of goods across Charles river ; the fishermen of Marblehead, when from their hard pursuit they bestowed quintals of dried fish on the poor of Boston, were obliged to transport their offering in wagons by a circuit of thirty miles. The warehouses of the thrifty merchants were at once made 20 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. m.;0H.n. valueless ; the costly wharfs which extended far into the chan nel, and were so lately covered with the produce of the tropics and with Enghsh fabrics, were become solitary places; the harbor, which had resounded incessantly with the voices of prosperous commerce, was disturbed by no sounds but from British vessels of war. At Philadelphia, the bells of the churches were muffled and tolled, the ships in port hoisted their colors at half mast, and nine tenths of the houses, except those of the Friends, were shut during the memorable first of June. In Virginia, the population thronged the churches ; Washington attended the service, and strictly kept the fast. No firmer words were addressed to the sufferers than from Norfolk, which was the largest place of trade in that " well-watered and extensive do minion," and lay most exposed to ships-of-war. " Our hearts are warmed with affection for you," such was its message; " we address the Almighty Ruler to support you in your afflic tions ; be assured we consider you as suffering in the common cause, and look upon ourselves as bound by the most sacred ties to support you." " If the pulse of the people," wrote Jefferson, " beat calmly under such an experiment by the new and till now unheard of executive power of a British parliament, another and another will be tried, till the measure of despotism be filled up." At that time the king was so eager to give effect to the law which subverted the charter of Massachusetts that, acting upon information confessedly insufficient, he, with Dartmouth, made out for that province a complete list of councillors, called mandamus councillors from their appointment by the crown. Copies of letters from Franklin and from Arthur Lee had been obtained ; Gage was secretly ordered to procure, if possible, the originals, as the ground for arraigning their authors for treason. Thurlow and Wedderburn furnished their opinion that the power to caH for support from the military forces be longed to the governor as the conservator of the peace in all cases whatsoever. "I am willing to suppose," wrote Dart mouth, " that the people will quietly submit to the correction their ill conduct has brought upon them ; " but, should they not prove so docile, >Gage was required to bid the troops fire 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 21 upon them at his discretion ; and was informed that all trials of officers and troops for homicides in America were, by a recent act of parliament, removed to England. This system of measures was regarded by its authors as a masterpiece of statesmanship. But where was true greatness really to be found ? At the council board of vindictive min isters ? With the king, who preferred the loss of a continent to a compromise of absolute power ? Or in the humble man sion of the proscribed Samuel Adams, who shared every sorrow of his native town ? " She suffers," said he, " with dignity ; and, rather than submit to the humiliating terms of an edict barbarous beyond precedent under the most absolute mon archy, she will put the malice of tyranny to the severest trial. An empire is rising in America ; and Britain, by her multi plied oppressions, is accelerating that independency which she dreads. We have a post to maintain, to desert which would entail upon us the curses of posterity. The virtue of our an cestors inspires us ; they were contented with clams and mus sels. For my own part, I have been wont to converse with poverty ; and I can live happily with her the remainder of my days, if I can thereby contribute to the redemption of my country." On the second of June the Boston committee received and read the two bills, of which the one was to change the charter, the other to grant impunity to the British army for acts of violence in enforcing the new system. " They excited," says their record, " a just indignation in the mind of the commit tee," whose members saw their option confined to abject sub mission or an open rupture. They longed to escape the neces sity of the choice by devising some measure which might recall their oppressors to moderation and reason. Accordingly, Warren, on the fifth, reported " a solemn league and covenant " to suspend all commercial intercourse with the mother coun try, and neither to purchase nor consume any merchandise from Great Britain after the last day of the ensuing August. The names of those who should refuse to sign the covenant were to be published to the world. Copies of this paper were forwarded to every town in the province, with a letter entreat ing the subscriptions of all the people, " as the last and only 22 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep.hi.; oh. a, method of preserving the land from slavery without drenchmg it in blood." "Nothing," said the- patriots, "is more foreign from our heartaihan a spirit of rebehion^ notwithstanding we have teen contending these ten years with Great Britain for our rights.. What can they gain by the victory, should they subjugate us? What will be the glory of enslaving their children and broth ers? Nay, how great will be the danger to their own liber ties!" The people of the country towns in Massachusetts Bigned " the league and covenant," confident that they would have only to sit still and await the bloodless restoration of their rights. In this expectation they were confirmed by the opinions of Burke and of Franklin. From the committee-room in Faneuil Hall, Samuel Adams hastened to the general assembly, whose first act at Salem was a protest against the arbitrary order for its removal. The council, in making the customary reply to the governor's speech, was listened to as they laid claim to the rights of Eng lishmen without diminution or " abridgment." But when they proceeded to read their hope " that his administration would be a happy contrast to that of his predecessors," Gage inter rupted their chairman and refused to receive the address,. giving as his reason that the conduct of those predecessors had been approved, and therefore the language " was an insult to the king and an affront to himself." The house of representatives was the fullest ever known. The continent looked to them to fix the time and place for the meeting of the . general congress. This required the utmost secrecy, for any perceptible movement would have been fol lowed by an instant dissolution. The governor hoped that the legislature would lead the way to concession, and that, on the arrival of more troops, an indemnity to the East India com pany would find supporters. " Don't pay for an ounce of the damned tea," wrote Gads den, on the fourteenth of June, as he shipped for the poor of Boston the first gifts of rice from the planters of Carolina. On that day the f ourth regiment, known as " the king's own," encamped on Boston common ; the next, it was joined by the forty-third. Two companies of artillery and eight pieces of 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 23 ordnance had already re-enforced Castle William ; and more battalions of infantry were hourly expected. The friends of government exerted every art to win over the tradesmen. " There will be no congress," they said ; " New York will never appoint members ; Massachusetts must feel that she is deserted." To a meeting of tradesmen, a plausible speaker ventured to recommend for consideration the manner of pay ing for the tea; and, after some altercation, they separated without coming to any resolution. But Warren, encouraged by the glowing letter from Baltimore, proved to his friends that the payment in any form would open the way even to a total submission. " Vigilance,' activity, and patience," he cried,' " are necessary at this time ; but the mistress we serve is Lib erty, and it is better to die than not to obtain her." " We shall be saved," he added; and, that no cloud might rest on the " fortitude, honesty, and foresight " of Boston, a town-meeting was called for the following Friday. Samuel Adams received a summons to come and guide its debates, but a higher duty kept him at Salem. He had ori one evening secretly consulted four or five of his colleagues ; on another, a larger number ; on the third, so many as: thirty ; and on the morning of Friday, the seventeenth of June, con fident of having the control of the house, one hundred and twenty-nine being present, he locked the door, and proposed a continental congress, to meet on the first day of September at Philadelphia, where there was no army to interrupt its ses sions. Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine were chosen delegates. To defray their expenses, a tax of five hundred pounds was apportioned on the province. The towns were charged to afford speedy and con stant relief to Boston and Charlestown. Domestic manufac tures were encouraged, and it was strongly recommended to discontinue the use of all goods imported from the East Indies and Great Britain until the grievances of America should be radically redressed. In the midst of these proceedings the governor sent his secretary with a message for dissolving the assembly ; but he knocked at its door in vain, and could only read the proclama tion to the crowd on the stairs. 24 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. _ ep. iii. ; oh. h. The number which on that same day thronged to the town- meeting in Faneuil Hall was greater than the room would hold. Samuel Adams was not missed, for his kinsman, John Adams, was elected moderator. The friends to the scheme of indem nifying the East India company for their loss were invited to "speak freely," that a matter of such importance might be fairly discussed in the presence of the general body of the people ; but not a man rose in defence of the proposition. The blockade, the fleets, the army, could not bring out a symp tom of compliance. A month before, John Adams had said : " I have very httle connection with pubhc affairs, and I hope to have less." For many years he had refused to attend town-meetings ; he had kept aloof from the committee of correspondence, and had had no part in concerting the destruction of the tea. The morning of that day dawned on him in private life ; the even ing saw him a representative of Massachusetts to the general congress. That summer he followed the circuit for the last time. " Great Britain," thus Sewall, his friend and associate at the bar, expostulated with him, as they strolled together on the hill that overhangs Casco bay with its thousand isles, " Great Britain is determined on her system ; and her power is irresistible." " Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination," answered Adams. "I see we must part," rejoined Sewall; "but this adieu is the sharpest thorn on which I ever set my foot." Two days in advance of Massachusetts, the assembly of Rhode Island unanimously chose delegates to the general con gress, which they desired to see annually renewed. The people of Maryland met at Annapolis on the twenty- second of June, and, before any message had been received from Salem, elected delegates to the congress. With a mod esty worthy of their courage, they apologized to Virginia for moving in advance, pleading as their excuse the inferiority of their province in extent and numbers, so that less time was needed to ascertain its sentiments. The martyr town was borne up in its agony by messages of sympathy. From Marblehead came offers to the Boston merchants of the gratuitous use of its harbor, its wharfs, its 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGREbS. 25 warehouses, and of all necessary personal attendance in lading and unlading goods. Forty-eight persons were found in Salem, willing to entreat of Gage his " patronage for the trade of that place ; " but a hundred and twenty-five of its merchants and freeholders, in an address drafted by Timothy Pickering, re pelled the ungenerous thought " of raising their fortunes on the ruin of their suffering neighbors." The governor, in his answer, threw all blame on Boston for refusing to indemnify the East India company ; and he employed eA'ery device to produce compliance. It was pub lished at the corners of the streets that Pennsylvania would refuse to suspend commerce ; that the society of Friends would arrest every step toward war; that New York would never name deputies to a congress ; that the power of Great Britain could not fail to crush resistance. The exasperation of the selfish at their losses, the innate reverence for order, the ha bitual feeling of loyalty, the deeply seated love for England, the terror inspired by regiments and ships-of-war, the allurements of official favor, the confidence that the king must prevail, dis posed a considerable body of men to concession. So great was the throng to the Boston town-meeting of the twenty-seventh of June, it was adjourned from Faneuil Hall to the Old South meeting-house. There the opposition mus tered their utmost strength, in the hope of carrying a vote of censure on the committee of correspondence. The question of paying for the tea was evaded, while "the league and cove nant " was cavilled at. It was proposed that Boston, hke New York, should supersede the old committee by a more moderate one. The patriot Samuel Adams, finding himself not only proscribed by the king, but on trial in a Boston town-meeting, left the chair, and took his place on the floor. His enemies engaged with him in debate till dark, and, at their own request, were indulged with an adjournment. On the next day, notwith standing the utmost exertion of the influence of the govern ment, the motion of censure was negatived by a vast majority. The town then, by a decisive vote, bore its testimony " to the upright intentions and honest zeal of their committee of cor respondence," and desired them " to continue steadfast in the way of well-doing." Of the opposition, one hundred and 28 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. ii. twenty-nine, chiefly the addressers to Hutchinson, confident of a speedy triumph through the power of Britain, ostentatiously set their names to a protest, which, under the appearance of anxiety for the prosperity of the town, recommended un qualified submission. They would have robbed Boston of its great name in the annals of the world. The governor hurried to the aid of his partisans; and on the following day, without the consent of the council, issued the proclamation, from which British influence never recov ered. He called the combination not to purchase articles im ported from Great Britain " unwarrantable, hostile, and trai torous ; " its subscribers, " open and declared enemies of the king and parhament of Great Britain;" and he "enjoined all magistrates and other officers, within the several counties of the province, to apprehend and secure for trial all persons who might publish or sign, or invite others to sign, the covenant." For any purpose of making arrests the proclamation was useless; but, as the exponent of the temper of the British administration, it was read throughout the continent with un controllable indignation. In Boston it was the project of Gage to fasten charges of rebellion on individuals as a pretext for sending them to jail. On Friday, the fiiet of July, Admiral Graves arrived in the Preston, of sixty guns; on Saturday, the train of artillery was encamped on the common by the side of two regiments that were there before. On Monday, these were re-enforced by the fifth and thirty-eighth. Arrests, it was confidently reported, were now to be made. In this mo ment of greatest danger the Boston committee of correspond ence, Samuel Adams, the two Greenleafs, Molineux, Warren, and others being present, considered the rumor that some of them were to be taken up, and voted unanimously " that they would attend their business as usual, unless prevented by brutal force." The attempt to intimidate gave an impulse to the cove nant. At Plymouth, the subscribers increased to about a hun dred. The general excused himself for not executing his threats by complaining that the edicts of town -meetings con trolled the pulpit, the press, and the multitude, overawed the judges, and screened "the guilty." "The usurpation," said 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 27 he, " has by time acquired a firmness that is not to be anni hilated at once, or by ordinary methods." The arrival of Hutchinson in England lulled the king into momentary security. Tryon, from New York, had said that the ministers must put forth the whole power of Great Britain if they would bring America to their feet ; Carleton thought it not safe to undertake a march from the St. Lawrence to New York with less than ten thousand men ; but Hutchinson, who, on reaching London, was hurried by Dartmouth to the royal presence, assured the king that the port bill was " the only wise and effective method" of bringing the people of Boston to submission ; that it had occasioned among them extreme alarm ; that no one colony would comply with their request for a gen eral suspension of commerce ; that Rhode Island had accom panied its refusal with a sneer at their selfishness. The king listened eagerly. He had been greedy for all kinds of stories respecting Boston ; had been told, and had believed, that Hutchinson had needed a guard for his personal safety ; that the New England ministers, for the sake of promoting liberty, preached a toleration for any immoralities; that Hancock's bills, to a large amount, had been dishonored. He knew some thing of the pohtical opinions even of the Boston ministers, not of Chauncy and Cooper only, but of Pemberton, whom, as a friend to government, he esteemed "a very good man," though a dissenter. The name of John Adams, who had only in June commenced his active pubhc career, had not yet been heard in the palace which he was so soon to enter as the min ister of a republic. Of Cushing, he estimated the importance too highly. Aware of the controlling power of Samuel Adams, he asked : " What gives him his influence ? " and Hutchinson answered : " A great pretended zeal for liberty, and a most in flexible natural temper. He was the first who asserted the in dependency of the colonies upon the supreme authority of the kingdom." For nearly two hours the king continued his in quiries, and was encouraged in the delusion that Boston would be left unsupported. The author of the pleasing intelhgence obtained a large pension, was offered the rank of baronet, and was consulted as an oracle ; among others, by the historian Gibbon. 28 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. up. ni. ; oh. n. " I have just seen the governor of Massachusetts," wrote the king to Lord North, " and I am now well convinced the province will soon submit." But, as soon as the true character of the port act became known in America, every colony, every city, every village, and, as it were, the inmates of every house, felt it as a wound of their affections, and vied with each other in liberality. The record kept at Boston shows that " the pa triotic and generous people " of South Carolina were the first to minister to the sufferers, sending early in June two hundred barrels of rice, and promising eight hundred more. At Wil mington, North Carolina, the sum of two thousand pounds currency was raised in a few days ; the women of the place gave liberally ; Parker Quince offered his vessel to carry a load of provisions freight free, and master and mariners volunteered to navigate her without wages. Hartford was first in Connecticut to pledge assistance ; but the earliest donation was of two hundred and fifty-eight sheep from Windham. " Gentlemen " of Norwich drove two hun dred and ninety-one, the gift of that town. " The taking away of civil liberty will involve the ruin of religious liberty," wrote the ministers of Connecticut to the ministers of Boston, cheer ing them to bear their heavy load " with vigorous Christian fortitude and resolution." "While we complain to heaven and earth of the cruel oppression we are under, we ascribe right eousness to God," was the answer. " The surprising union of the colonies affords encouragement. It is an inexhaustible source of comfort that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." The small parish of Brooklyn, in Connecticut, through their committee, of which Israel Putnam was a member, opened a correspondence with Boston. " Your zeal in favor of liberty," they said, " has gained a name that shall perish but with the glorious constellations of heaven." Throughout New England, the towns sent rye, flour, peas, cattle, sheep, oil, fish, whatever land or sea could furnish, and sometimes gifts of money. The French and English inhabitants of Quebec jointly shipped a thousand and forty bushels of wheat. Delaware devised plans for sending relief annually. A special chronicle could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds. Maryland and Virginia contributed liberally, being 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 29 resolved that the men of Boston, who were deprived of their daily labor, should not lose their daily bread, nor be compelled to change their residence for want. Washington headed a sub scription paper with a gift of fifty pounds, and, on the eigh teenth of July, he presided at a convention of Fairfax county, where twenty-four very comprehensive resolutions, which had been drafted by George Mason and carefully revised by a com mittee, were with but one dissentient voice adopted by the freeholders and inhabitants. They derived the settlement of Virginia from a solemn compact with the crown, conceded no right of legislation to the British parliament, acknowledged only a conditional acquiescence in the acts of navigation, enu merated the various infringements of American rights, pro posed non-importation and, if necessary, non-exportation as means of temporary resistance, urged the appointment of a congress of deputies from all the colonies, and recommended that that congress should conjure the king " not to reduce his faithful subjects to a state of desperation, and to reflect that from their sovereign there could be but one appeal." As to the further importation of slaves, their words were : " We take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such ai wicked, cruel, and un natural trade." These resolves, which expressed " the sense of the people of Fairfax county," were ordered to be presented to the first convention of Virginia. "We are not contending against paying the duty of threepence per pound on tea as burthensome," said Washington ; " no, it is the right only that we have all along disputed." Beyond the Blue Ridge, the emigrants on the banks of the Shenandoah, many of them Germans, met at Woodstock, and with Muhlenberg, then a clergyman, soon to be a military chief, devoted themselves to the cause of liberty. Higher up the valley of Virginia, where the plough already vied with the rifle, and the hardy hunters had begun to till the soil, the sum mer of that year ripened the wheat-fields of the pioneers not for themselves alone. When the sheaves had been harvested, and the corn threshed and ground in a country as yet poorly provided with barns or mills, the backwoodsmen of Augusta county, without any pass through the mountains that could be 30 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. n. called a road, dehvered at Frederick one hundred and thirty- seven barrels of flour as their remittance to the poor of Boston. Cheered by the universal sympathy, its inhabitants " were de termined to hold out, and appeal to the justice of the colonies and of the world," trusting in God that " these things should be overruled for the establishment of liberty, virtue, and hap piness in America." George III. ranked " New York next to Boston in opposi tion to government." There was no place where a congress was more desired, and none where the determinations of the congress were more sure to be observed. The numerous emi grants from New England brought with them New England principles ; the Dutch, as a body, never loved Britain. Of two great families which the system of manorial grants had raised up, the Livingstons inclined to repubhcanism, and, uniting activity to wealth and ability, exercised a predominant influ ence. The Delanceys — who, by taking advantage of temporary prejudices, had, four years before, carried the assembly — no longer retained the public confidence, and outside of the legis lature their power was imperceptible. After being severed from Holland, its mother country, New York had no attachment to any European state. All agreed in the necessity of resisting the pretensions of England ; but dif ferences arose as to the persons to be intrusted with the direc tion of that resistance, and as to the imminence and extent of the danger. The merchants wished no interruption to com merce; the Dutch Reformed church, as well as the Episco palians, were not free from jealousy of the Congregationalists, and the large landholders were alarmed by the social equahty of New England. The people of New York had destroyed consignments of the East India company's tea ; but the British ministry bore their act without rebuke, striving by bland lan guage to lull them into repose. The executive officers had for several years avoided strife with the assembly. The city had been the centre of British patronage, and friends had been won by the distribution of contracts, and sometimes by com missions in the army. The organs of the ministry were to promise on the part of the crown a spirit of equity, which its conduct toward the province seemed to warrant as sincere. 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 31 The lovers of peace, which is always so dear to a commercial community, revolted at the thought of an " appeal " to arms, caught eagerly at every chance of an honorable escape from a desperate conflict, and exerted themselves strenuously to secure the management of affaire to men of property. For this end, they relied on the abihty of John Jay, a young lawyer of New York. Descended from Huguenot refugees, educated in the city at its college, of the severest purity of morals, an able writer, and a ready speaker, his superior endowments, his activ ity, and his zeal for hberty, were tempered by a love for order. He was both shy and proud, and his pride, though it became less visible, suffered no diminution from time. Tenacious of his purposes and his opinions, sensitive to indignities and prone to sudden resentments, not remarkable for self-posses sion, with a countenance not trained to concealment, neither easy of access nor prompt in. his advances, he was alike with out talents or inclination for intrigue, and but for his am bition, which he always subjected to his sense of right, he would have seemed formed for a life of study and retirement. On the fourth of July 1774, it was carried in the committee of fifty-one that delegates should be selected to serve in the general congress. Sears, who was still foremost in the con fidence of the mechanics, seconded by Peter van Brugh Liv ingston, a man of great intelligence, proposed John Morin Scott and Alexander Macdougall. Fitter candidates could not have been found ; but they were both passed over by a great ma jority, and the committee nominated Philip Livingston, Alsop, Low, Duane, and Jay, all of whom as yet repressed the thought of independence. The mass of the inhabitants resolved to de feat this selection. On Wednesday, the sixth of July, many of them, especially mechanics, assembled in the Fields ; and, with Macdougall in the chair, they recommended the Boston policy of suspending trade, and approved a general congress, to which, after the example of Virginia, they proposed to elect representatives by a colonial convention. The committee of fifty-one, keeping steadily in view the hope of conciliation with England, disavowed the meeting in the Fields. A minority of nine, Sears, Macdougall, VaiLBrugh Livingston being of the number, in their turn disavowed the 32 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. h. committee from which they withdrew. The conservative party, on their side, offered resolutions which Jay had drafted, and which seemed to question the conduct of Boston in destroying the tea ; but the people, moved by the eloquence of John Mo- rin Scott, rejected them as wanting in vigor and tending to disunion. In this way began the conflict of two parties which were to increase in importance and spread throughout the country. The one held to what was estabhshed and made changes only from necessity ; the other welcomed reform and went out to meet it. The one anchored on men of property ; the other on the mass of the people : the one, loving liberty, was ever anx ious for order ; the other, firmly attached to order which it never doubted its power to maintain, was mainly anxious for freedom. During this strife in New York the inhabitants of South Carohna held in Charleston a meeting which continued through three days. The merchants, among whom were factors for British houses, agreed with the planters in the necessity of a congress, to which both parties, by way of compromise, referred the regulation of commerce. As the election of deputies was to be contested, the name of each* voter was registered, and the ballot kept open till midnight on the seventh. It then appeared that the planters had elected Gadsden, Lynch, and John Rut ledge, the boldest members of the congress of 1765, with Edward Rutledge and Middleton. The delegates elect were empow ered to agree to a suspension of exports as well as imports. A general committee of ninety-nine was appointed, of whom the disproportionate number of thirty were taken from Charleston, and nearly all the rest from the parishes near the sea. In due time, the house of assembly, meeting at eight in the morning, just half an hour before the governor sent to prorogue them, confirmed these proceedings and ratified the choice of delegates to congress. The convention of Pennsylvania, which, with Thomas Willing for its president, was but an echo of the opinion of Dickinson, recommended an indemnity to the East India com pany, dissuaded from suspending trade, and advised the gentler method of a claim of redress. The idea of independence they 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 33 disowned and abhorred. If Britain would repeal the obnoxious acts, they were ready to engage their obedience to the acts of navigation, and to settle an annual revenue on the king, subject to the control of parliament. They referred the choice of dele gates to the proprietary assembly, in which Quakers and roy alists had a majority ; for Dickinson desired to maintain the proprietary government and charter. These views, which were intended as instructions from the people to the men who might be chosen to represent them in congress, Dickinson accompanied with a most elaborate argu ment, in which the rights of the colonies were confirmed by citations from a long train of lawyers, philosophers, poets, statesmen, and divines, from the times of Sophocles and Aris totle to Beccaria and Blackstone. . Tenderly susceptible to the ideas of justice and right, he refused to beheve that a British ministry or king could be deaf to his appeals ; and he shrunk from perilling the fortunes and lives of millions. His success in allaying the impassioned enthusiasm of patriotism went be yond his intentions. The assembly of Pennsylvania, which was suddenly called together on the eighteenth of July, passed him over in electing their delegates to the continental congress, and preferred Galloway, their speaker, whose loyalty to the king admitted of no question and who was suffered to draw up his own instructions. In New Jersey, Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister, presi dent of Princeton college, and " as high a Son of Liberty as any man in America," met the committee at New Brunswick ; and with William Livingston labored to instruct their delegates that the tea should not be paid for. The matter was left to the general congress, to which WiUiam Livingston was chosen. From New Hampshire, the members of its convention brought with them money, contributed by the several towns to defray the expenses of a representation in congress. The inhabitants of that province solemnized their action by keep ing a day of fasting and pubhc prayer. Massachusetts did the same ; and Gage, who looked with stupid indifference on the spectacle of thirteen colonies organizing themselves as one peo ple, on occasion of the fast issued a proclamation against " hy pocrisy and sedition." VOL. IV. — 3 34 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. ii. Meantime, New York had grown weary of dissensions. The persons nominated for congress gave in writing a satisfac tory profession of their zeal for liberty ; and, on the twenty- seventh of July, the nomination was unanimously ratified by the inhabitants. Yet the delegation was lukewarm and di vided, leaving Virginia to give the example of energy and courage. Dunmore had issued writs for an assembly ; but the dele gates from the counties of Virginia none the less came to gether in convention. Blness detained Jefferson on the road, but he sent for inspection a paper which foreshadowed the declaration of independence. It was presented by Peyton Randolph, and printed by some of the delegates. Enumerat ing the grievances which affected all the colonies, it made a special complaint of a wrong to Virginia. "For the most trifling reasons," said he, " and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abohtion of domestic slavery is the great ob ject of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily intro duced in their infant state. But, previous to the enfranchise ment of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa ; yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative, thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the Ameri can states, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice." Of these words every heart ac knowledged the justice. Moreover, the Fairfax resolves, in which George Mason and Washington had given their solemn judgment against the slave-trade, were brought by the Fairfax delegates before the convention; and, in August, that body came to the unanimous vote : " After the first day of Novem ber next we will neither ourselves import nor purchase any slave or slaves imported by any other person, either from Af rica, the West Indies, or any other place." On the affairs of Massachusetts the temper of the Virgini ans ran exceedingly high. "An innate spirit of freedom," such were the words of Washington, " tells me that the meas- 1774. PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 35 ures which the administration are most violently pursuing are opposed to every principle of natural justice." He was cer tain that it was neither the wish nor the interest of any gov ernment on the continent, separately or collectively, to set up independence ; but he rejected indignantly the claim of par liament, and saw no "reason to expect anything from their justice." " The crisis," he said, " is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us tame and abject slaves." From the first, he was convinced that there was not " anything to be expected from petitioning." " Ought we not, then," he exclaimed, "to put our virtue and forti tude to the severest test ? " Thus Washington reasoned with his friends. In the convention, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry were heard with such dehght that the one was compared to Cicero, the other to Demosthenes. But Washing ton, who never was able to see distress without a desire to assuage it, made the most effective speech when he uttered the wish to " raise one thousand men, subsist them at his own ex pense, and march at their head for the.relief of Boston." Through the press, the great lawyer Thomson Mason denied the right of a British parliament to make laws for the colo nies, and specially held up the laws of navigation " as a badge of slavery, never to be submitted to." The wrongs done to Boston seemed to him " httle less than a declaration of war." " In order to make the repelling of illegal force one general act of all America, let each colony," said he, " send a quota of men to perform this service, and let the respective quotas be settled in the general congress. These measures will be the most moderate, the most constitutional, and the most effectual you can pursue. I do not wish to survive the liberty of my country one single moment, and am determined to risk my all in supporting it." The resolves and instructions of Virginia claimed that the restrictions on navigation should be restrained. Especially were they incensed at the threat of Gage to use the deadly weapon of constructive treason against such inhabitants of Massachusetts, as should assemble to consider of their griev ances, and form associations for their common conduct ; and 36 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. m. ; oh. n. they voted that " the attempt to execute this illegal and odious proclamation would justify resistance and reprisal." The first provincial congress of North Carolina met in August, at Newbern, under the eye and in defiance of its gov ernor. In their comprehensive resolutions the rights of Amer ica were clearly stated and absolutely claimed ; a convention of a county in Massachusetts could not have better enumerated the acts of that province which they approved. If grievances were not redressed, they were ready to cease all importations and all exportations even of the staples on which their pros perity depended. They heartily approved the meeting of a continental congress ; and electing Hooper, Hughes, and Cas well as their deputies, they invested them with the amplest powers. After their adjournment, James Iredell, of Edenton, a British official, addressed through the press the inhabitants of Great Britain, as constituting the greatest state on earth be cause it was the most free ; and as able to preserve the connec tion with America only by delighting in seeing their friends as free and happy as themselves. 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 37 CHAPTER III. massachusetts defeats the attempt op the beittsh par liament to change its chaetee. Mat-August 1774. The colonies needed for their support against Britain the alliance of France, but Louis XV., in the last years of his life, courted the friendship of George III., not to efface the false notion of international enmity which was a brand on the civili zation of that age, but to gain new support for monarchical power. On the tenth day of May he died, and Louis XVI., the " desired one " of the people, while not yet twenty years old, suddenly became king. The city of Paris was delirious with joy at his accession. " It is our paramount wish to make our people happy," was the language of the first edict of the new absolute prince. " He excels in writing prose," said Voltaire, on reading the words of promise ; " he seems inspired by Mar cus Aurelius; he desires what is good and does it. Happy they who, like him, are but twenty years old, and will long enjoy the sweets of his reign." The young monarch, when heir to the throne of France, had not been admitted to the royal council, and had grown up ignorant of business. In manner he was awkward and em barrassed, and even at his own court ill at ease. He had neither military science, nor martial spirit, nor gallant bear ing ; and a warhke nation interpreted his torpid languor as a want of courage. His sphere of vision was narrow, and he apphed himself chiefly to details or matters of little importance. His turn of mind was serious, yet his countenance betrayed 38 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. in. irresolution, foreboding an unsteadiness in the administration springing from his own character, and making his life a long equipoise between right intentions and executive feebleness. He believed, like Ms predecessor, that the king alone should reign ; yet his state papers were soon to cite reverently the law of nature and the rights of man ; and the will of the people was to walk its rounds in the palace, invisible yet supreme. Marie Antoinette, the new queen, in the splendor of supreme rank, preserved the gay cheerfulness of youth. Soon after her arrival in France her mother wrote to her : " God has crowned you with so much grace and sweetness and docility that all the world must love you." She was conscious of being lovely, and was willing to be admired ; but she knew how to temper graceful condescension with august severity. Impatient of stately etiquette, which controlled her choice of companions even more than the disposition of her hours, she was ready to break away from wearisome formahties with eager vivacity. From the same quickness of nature she readily took part in any prevailing pubhc excitement, regardless of reasons of state. Caron de Beaumarchais, the sparkling dramatist and rest less plebeian adventurer, made haste to recommend to the royal patronage his genius for intrigue. " Is there," said he through Sartine, then the head of the police, " anything which the king wishes to know alone and at once, anything which he wishes done quickly and secretly, here am I, who have at his service a head, a heart, arms, and no tongue." The sovereign of Spain, on wishing his kinsman joy of his accession, reminded him, as the head of the Bourbons, of their double relationship by his mother's side, as well as his father's, and expressed the wish for " their closest union and most perfect harmony ; " for, said he, " the family compact is the guarantee of the prosperity and glory of our house." The " London Court Gazette " announced Louis XVI. as "king of France," though English official language hereto fore, and the herald's office still knew no other king of France than the king of Great Britain. At the same time, the British ministers, always jealous of the Bourbons, kept spies to guess at the secrets of the French ministers, and bribe workmen in their navy-yards for a report 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 39 of every keel that was laid, of every new armament or re- enforcement of the usual fleets ; and, from apprehensions of interference which could not be lulled to sleep, they were impelled to force the American struggle to an immediate issue. The continuance of the cordial understanding between Britain and France would depend upon the persons in whom the young king should place his confidence. Conforming to the public wish, he began by dismissing the ministers of his pre decessor, and then felt the need of a guide. Marie Antoinette would have recalled Choiseul, the supporter of an intimate. friendship between France and Austria, the passionate adver sary of England, the prophet and the favorer of American in dependence ; but filial respect restrained the king, for Choiseul had been at variance with his father. He turned to his aunts for advice ; and their choice fell on the Count de Maurepas from their regard for his experience, general good character, and independence of the parties at court. Not descended from the old nobility, Maurepas belonged to a family which, within a hundred and fifty years, had fur nished nine secretaries of state. He came into office in the last days of Louis XIV. Under the successor of that monarch he made it his glory to restore the navy of his country, and had the repute of hating England. Foreign envoys at Paris foretold for France a great part if he ever should be intrusted with the government. At the age of seventy-three, and after an exile from the court of twenty-five years, he was still, as he had been in youth, pohte, selfish, jealous, and superficial. De spising gravity of manner and airs of mystery, and incapable of serious passion or profound reflection, he charmed by the courtesy and ease of his conversation, enjoying the present moment, careless of the future which he was not to share, and taking all things so easily that age did not wear him out. Full of petty artifice in attack, of sly dexterity in defence, he could put aside weighty objections by mirth, and laugh even at merit, having no faith in virtues that were difficult. With all the patronage of France in his gift, he took from the treas ury only enough to meet his increased expenses, keeping house with well-ordered simplicity, and at his death leaving neither debts nor savings. Present tranquilhty was his object, rather 40 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iti. ; ch. hi. than honor among coming generations. He was liberal, and willing that the public good should prevail, but not at the risk of his ascendency with the king. A jealousy 'of superior talents was his only ever wakeful passion. To foreign ambas sadors he paid the attentions claimed by their station ; but the professions which he lavished with graceful levity had such an air of nothingness that no one ever confided in them enough to gain the right of charging him seriously with duplicity. To men of every condition he never forgot to show due regard, disguising his unfailing deference to rank by freedom of re mark and gayety. His administration was sure to be weak, for it was his maxim never to hold out against any one who had power enough to be formidable, and he wished to please alike the courtiers and pubhc opinion, the nobihty and the philoso phers, those who stickled for the king's absolute sway and those who clamored for the restoration of parliaments, those who wished a cordial understanding with England and those who favored her insurgent colonies. Louis XVI. was looking for an experienced and firm guide to correct his own indeci sion ; and he fell upon a well-mannered, complacent old gentle man, who had the same fault with himself. Declining a department, Maurepas, as the head of the cabi net, selected his own associates, choosing men by whom he feared neither to be superseded nor echpsed. To the Count de Vergennes was assigned the department of foreign affairs. The veteran statesman; then fifty-seven years old, was of ple beian origin, and married to a plebeian ; unsupported by the high nobility, and without claims on Austria or Marie Antoi nette. His father had been president of the parliament at Dijon. His own diplomatic career began in 1740, and had been marked by moderation, vigilance, and success. He had the courage of Choiseul, equal acquaintance with courts, equal sensitiveness to the dignity of France, and greater self-controL Indefatigably laborious, he conducted affairs with method, rec titude, and clearness. His character was firm, his mode of thinking liberal, and he loved to surround himself with able men. His conversation was marked by caution ; his manner, grave and coldly polite. As he served a weak king, he was always on his guard, and to give a categorical answer was his 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 41 aversion. Like nearly every Frenchman of that day, he was thoroughly a monarchist ; and he gained at once, and ever re tained the good opinion of Louis XVI. Eleven years before, he had predicted that the conquest of Canada would hasten the independence of British America, and he was now from vantage-ground to watch his prophecy come true. The philosophers of the day, hke the king, wished the happiness of the people, and public opinion required that they should be represented in the cabinet. Maurepas complied. Malesherbes received the department of Paris and the police of the kingdom. The ministry of the marine was conferred on Turgot, whose name was as yet httle known at Paris, and whose artlessness made him even a less dangerous rival than Vergennes. Coming forward in the purity of studious phi losophy to take part in active life, he was well-informed, amiable, and of a taste the most delicate and sure; austere, yet holding it to be every man's business to solace those who suffer; wishing the accomplishment of good, not his own glory in doing it. For him the human race was one great family under a common Father; always, through calm and through " agitations," through good and through ill, through sorrow and through joy, on the march, though at "a slow step," toward a greater perfection. In five weeks he so won upon his sovereign's good-will that he was transferred to the ministry of finance. This was the wish of all the philosophers : of Alembert, Condorcet, Bailly, La Harpe, Marmontel, Thomas, Condillac, Morellet, and Voltaire. Nor of them alone. " Tur got," said Malesherbes, "has the heart of L'H6pital and the head of Bacon." His candor, moreover, gave him clear sightedness and distinctness of purpose ; his hopefulness prom ised to bear him serenely through the bitter warfare with selfish passions. At a moment when everybody confessed that reform was essential, it seemed a national benediction that a youthful king should intrust the task of amendment to a states man who in a Ubertine age joined unquestioned probity to comprehensive intelligence and administrative experience. At his accession, the cry of joy broke from Voltaire : " A new world is about to bloom." In France, the peasants were poor and ignorant, but, like aU 42 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; ch. hi. Frenchmen, were free, and in the happiest provinces had been so for half a thousand years. In many parts of the kingdom they had retained their rights of property in the acres which they tiUed. The defence of the country had passed from the king and his peers with their vassals to the king and his standing army. With the decay of the feudal system the nobles sought service in his pay ; their vassals became a people. The nobility, claiming for themselves exemptions from taxation which of old belonged to them in return for their de fence of the kingdom, gave up none of their claims on the peasants who were crushed under a complicated system of irre deemable dues to roads and canals ; to the bakehouse and the brewery of the lord of the manor ; to his wine-press and his mill; to his tolls at the river, the market, or the fair; to ground-rents and quit-rents and fines on alienation. But there existed no harmonizing of the contrasts between privilege and poverty. The poor, though gay by temperament, hved sad and apart ; bereft of intercourse with superior culture ; never mirthful but in mockery of misery ; not cared for in their want, nor solaced in hospitals, nor visited in prisons. The annual public expenditures largely exceeding the revenue, the nobility suffered the monarch to impose taxes on the un privileged-classes at his will. The imposts, which in two cen turies had increased tenfold, fell almost exclusively on the lowly, who toiled and suffered ; having no redress against those employed by the government; regarding the monarch with touching reverence and love, though they knew him mostly as the power that harried them ; ruled as though joy were no fit companion for labor ; as though want were the necessary goad to industry, and sorrow the only guarantee of quiet. They were the strength of the kingdom, the untiring producers of its wealth, the source of supply of its armies, the chief contribu tors to the royal revenue, and yet so forlorn was their condi tion that they cherished scarcely a dim vision of a happier futu rity on earth. Out of this sad state Turgot undertook to lift his country by peace, order, and economy. " It is to you personaUy," said he to Louis XVI., " to the man, honest, just, and good, rather than to the king, that I give myself up. You have confided 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 43 to me the happiness of your people, and the care of making you and your authority beloved ; but I shall have to combat those who gain by abuses, the prejudices against all reform, the majority of the court, and every solicitor of favors. I shall sacrifice myseK for the people ; but I may incur even their hatred by the very measures I shall take to prevent their dis tress." " Have no fear," said the king, pressing the hand of his new comptroUer-general ; " I shall always support you." The policy of Turgot imphed a continuance of peace ; yet the distrust of England, as an ever vigilant and unscrupulous rival which in 1755 had begun hostihties without notice and at the end of the war had stripped France of its best acquisi tions in America and Hindostan, could not be hushed. French statesmen, therefore, bent the ear to catch the earliest surgings of American discontent ; and they observed of the instructions from the convention of Virginia to its delegates in the conti nental congress : " They are the first which propose to restrain the act of navigation itself, and give pledges to resist force by force." On Saturday, the sixth of August, Gage received an official copy of the act of parliament " for the better regulating the province of the Massachusetts Bay." It was, on the side of Great Britain, aggressive and revolutionary ; it had been strenu ously resisted and was utterly condemned by the Whig party of England. That the memory of their resistance might not perish, Rockingham and his friends had placed on the records of the house of lords their protest against the act. They con demned it " because," said they, " a definitive legal offence, by which a forfeiture of the charter is incurred, has not been clearly stated and fully proved ; neither has notice of this ad verse proceeding been given to the parties affected ; neither have they been heard in their own defence ; and because the governor and council are intrusted with powers with which the British constitution has not trusted his majesty and privy council, so that the lives and properties of the subjects are put into their hands without control." The principle of the statute was the concentration of all executive power, including the courts of justice, in the hands of the royal governor. Without previous notice to Massachu- 44 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. hi. setts and without a hearing, it took away rights and hberties which the people had enjoyed from the foundation of the col ony, except in the evil days of James II., and which had been renewed in the charter from WiUiam and Mary. That charter was coeval with the great English revolution, had been the organic law of the people of Massachusetts for more than eighty years, and was associated in their minds with every idea of Enghsh liberty and every sentiment of loyalty to the English crown. Under its provisions, the counciUors, twenty-eight in number, had been annually chosen by a convention of the council for the former year and the assembly, subject only to the negative of the governor ; henceforward they were to be not less than twelve nor more than thirty-six, were to derive their appointments and their emoluments from the king and to be removable at his pleasure. The governor received author ity, without consulting his council, to appoint and to remove aU judges of the inferior courts, justices of the peace, and all officers belonging to the council and the courts of justice. The governor and council might change the sheriffs as often as they pleased. In case of a vacancy, the governor was to ap point the chief justice and judges of the superior court, who were to hold their commissions during the pleasure of the king, and depend on his good-will for the amount and the payment of their salaries. The right of selecting juries was taken from the inhabitants and freeholders of the towns, and conferred on the sheriffs of the several counties within the province. This regulating act, moreover,- uprooted the dearest institution of New England, whose people, from the first settlement of the country, had been accustomed in their town-meetings to transact all business that touched them most nearly as fathers, as freemen, and as Christians. There they adopted local taxes to keep up their free schools ; there they, regulated the mu nicipal concerns of the year ; there they chose their representa tives and instructed them ; and, as the Umits of the parish and the town were usually the same, there most of them took measures for the settlement of ministers of the gospel in their congregations ; there they were accustomed to express their sentiments on any subject connected with their interests, rights, hberties, or religion. The regulating act, sweeping away the 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 45 provincial law which had received the approval of WiUiam and Mary, permitted two meetings annually, in which town officers and representatives might be chosen, but no other matter be introduced ; every other assembhng of a town was forbidden, except by the written leave of the governor, and then only for business expressed in that leave. The king trampled under foot the customs, laws, and privileges of the people of Massa chusetts. He was willing to spare them an exphcit consent to the power of parliament in aU cases whatever ; but he required proof that Boston had compensated the East India company, that the tax on tea could be safely coUected, and that the prov ince would peacefully acquiesce in the change of its charter. With the regulating act, Gage received copies of two other acts, designed to facilitate its enforcement. By one of them he was authorized to quarter his army in towns ; by the other, to transfer to another colony or to Great Britain any persons informed against or indicted for crimes committed in support ing the revenue laws or suppressing riots. The regulating act went into effect on the moment of its being received, and precipitated the choice between submission and resistance. Within a week, eleven of the mandamus coun- ciUors took the oath of office, and were foUowed in a few days by fourteen more. They were persuaded that the province could by no possibility hold out, and that the promise of assistance from other colonies was a delusion. No assembly existed in the province to remonstrate ; and Gage might delay or wholly omit to send out writs for a new election. But a people who were trained to read and write ; to discuss aU pohtical questions, privately and in pubUc ; to strive to exhibit in their lives the Christian system of ethics, the beauty of holiness, and the un selfish nature of virtue ; to reason on the great ends of God in creation ; to beheve in their own immortality ; and to ven erate their ancestry as above aU others pure, enlightened, and free — could never forego the civil rights which were their most cherished inheritance. " Being stationed by Providence in the front rank of the conflict," such was the letter of the committee of Boston to all the other towns in the province, "we trust we shall not be left by heaven to do anything derogatory to our common lib* 46 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. iii. erties, unworthy of the fame of our ancestors, or inconsistent with our former professions. Though surrounded with a large body of armed men, who, having the sword, have also our blood in their hands, we are yet undaunted. To you, our brethren and dear companions in the cause of God, we apply. From you we have received that countenance and aid which have strengthened our hands, and that bounty which hath oc casioned smiles on the face of distress. To you, therefore, we look for that advice and example which, with the blessing of God, shaU save us from destruction." The earnest message was borne to the northern border of the province, where the brooks run to the Nashua, and the upland farms yielded but scanty returns to the hardest toil. The husbandmen in that region had already sent many loads of rye to the poor of Boston. In the coming storm they clus tered round Wilham Prescott of PeppereU, who stood as firm as Monadnock that rose in sight of his homestead ; and, on the day after the first mandamus councillors took their oath of office, his townsmen put their soul into his words as he wrote for them to the men of Boston : " Be not dismayed nor dis heartened in this day of great trials. We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort, and relief, knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. We consider we are all embarked in one bottom, and must sink or swim to gether. We think, if we submit to these regulations, aU is gone. Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and rehgious, and transmit them to their posterity. Their children have waded through seas of difficulty, to leave us free and happy in the enjoyment of English privileges. Now, if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed ? Is a glorious death in defence of our liberties better than a short infamous life, and our memories to be had in de testation to the latest posterity ? Let us all be of one heart, and stand fast in the liberties wherewith Christ hath made us free ; and may he of his infinite mercy grant us dehverance out of aU our troubles." Everywhere the rural population of Massachusetts were 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 47 weighing the issues in which they were involved, and one spirit moved through them all. From the hiUs of Berkshire to the Penobscot they debated the great question of resistance as though God were hearkening ; and they took counsel rever ently with their ministers, and the aged, the pious, and the brave in their viUages. Adjoining towns held conferences. The shire of Worcester, in August, set the example of a county congress, which disclaimed the jurisdiction of the British house of commons, asserted the exclusive right of the colonies to originate their laws, rested their duty of aUegiance on the char ter of the province, and declared the violation of that charter a dissolution of their union with Britain. Thomas Gardner, of Cambridge, promised a like conven tion of the county of Middlesex. " Friends and brethren," he wrote to Boston, as if at once to allay its anxiety and prophesy his own approaching end, " the time is come that every one that has a tongue and an arm is caUed upon by his country to stand forth in its behalf. I consider the caU as the caU of God, and desire to be aU obedience. The people will choose rather to fall gloriously in the cause of their country than meanly submit to slavery." After searching the rolls of the several towns, the patriots estimated the population of the province at four hundred thou sand souls ; the number of men between sixteen and sixty years of age at about one hundred and twenty thousand, most of whom possessed arms, and were expert in their use. During the summer the drum and fife were heard in every hamlet, and the companies paraded for discipline. One day in August, Gage revoked Hancock's commission in the Boston cadets, upon which the company sent to him the king's standard and disbanded. Israel Putnam, of Connecticut, the oracle of aU patriot cir cles in his neighborhood, drove before him to Boston one hun dred and thirty sheep, as a gift from the parish of Brook lyn. The " old hero " became Warren's guest, and every one's favorite. The officers whom he visited on Boston common bantered him about coming down to fight. " Twenty ships of the line and twenty regiments," said Major SmaU, " may be ex pected from England in case a submission is not speedily made 48 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; ch. iii. by Boston." " If they come," said the veteran, "lam ready to treat them as enemies." The growing excitement attracted to New England Charles Lee, a restless officer, who, from having been aide-de-camp to the king of Poland, had the titular rank of a major-general. This claim, which gave him precedence over aU who were likely to draw the sword for America, was, on occasion of his visit, universally acknowledged. He professed to see in the New England yeomanry the best materials for an army, and paid court to the patriots of Massachusetts. Meantime, the delegates of Massachusetts to the general congress were escorted by great numbers as far as Watertown, where many had gathered to bid them a solemn fareweU. On the Connecticut river they received a letter of advice from Hawley, the great patriot of Northampton, whose words were : " We must fight if we cannot otherwise rid ourselves of Brit ish taxation. The form of government enacted for us by the British parliament is evil against right, utterly intolerable to every man who has any idea or feeling of right or liberty. There is not heat enough yet for battle ; constant and negative resistance wiU increase it. There is not military skill enough ; that is improving, and must be encouraged. Fight we must finally, unless Britain retreats. Our salvation depends upon a persevering union. Every grievance of any one colony must be held as a grievance to the whole, and some plan be settled for a continuation of congresses, even though congresses will soon be declared by parhament to be high treason." Hawley spoke the sentiments of western Massachusetts. When, on Tuesday, the sixteenth of August, the judges of the inferior court of Hampshire met at Great Barrington, it was known that the regulating act had received the royal approval. Before noon the town was filled with people of the county, and five hundred men from Connecticut, armed with clubs and staves. Suffering the royal courts of justice to sit seemed a recognition of the act of parhament, and the chief judge was forced to plight his honor that he and his associates would do no business. On the rumor that Gage meditated employing a part of his army to execute the new statute at Worcester, the inhabitants of that town prepared arms, musket-balls, and pow- 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 49 der, and threatened to fall upon any body of soldiers who should attack them. The mandamus councillors began to give way. Williams of Hatfield, refused to incur certain rain by accepting his com mission ; so did Worthington, of Springfield. Those who ac cepted dared not give advice. Boston held a town-meeting. Gage reminded the select men of the act of parhament, restricting town-meetings with out the governor's leave. " It is only an adjourned one," said the selectmen. " By such means," said Gage, " you may keep your meeting ahve these ten years." He brought the subject before the new councU. "It is a point of law," said they, " and should be referred to the crown lawyers." He asked their concurrence in removing a sheriff. " The act of parha ment," they rephed, "confines the power of removal to the governor alone." Several members gave an account of the frenzy which was sweeping from Berkshire over the province, and might reach them aU even while sitting in the presence of the governor. " If you value your life, I advise you not to return home at present," was the warning received by Ruggles from the town of Hardwick. Bj nine o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth, more than two thousand men marched in companies to the common in Worcester, where they forced Timothy Paine to walk with his hat off as far as the centre of their hollow square and read a written resignation of his seat at the council board. A large detachment then moved to Rutland to deal with Murray. The next day at noon, WUder of Templeton and Holden of Prince ton brought up their companies; and by three in the after noon about fifteen hundred men had assembled, most of them armed with bludgeons. But Murray had escaped on the pre vious evening, just before the sentries were set round his house and along the roads ; they therefore sent him a letter requiring him to resign. " The consequences of your proceedings will be rebelhon, confiscation, and death," said the younger Murray. " No consequences," they replied, " are so dreadful to a free people as that of being made slaves." " This," wrote he. to his brother, " is not the language of the common people only : those that have heretofore sustained the fairest character are 50 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; ch. iii. the warmest in this matter ; and, among the many friends you have heretofore had, I can scarcely mention any to you now." One evening in August the farmers of Union, in Connecti cut, found Abijah Willard, of Lancaster, Massachusetts, within their precinct. They kept watch over him during the night, and the next morning would have taken him to the county jail ; but, after a march of six miles, he begged forgiveness of all honest men for having taken the oath of office, and prom ised never to sit or act in council. The people of Plymouth were grieved that George Watson, their respected townsman, was willing to act under his appoint ment. On the first Lord's day after his purpose was known, as soon as he took his seat in meeting, dressed in the scarlet cloak which was his wonted Sunday attire, his neighbors and friends put on their hats before the congregation and walked out of the house. The public indignity was more than he could bear. As they passed his pew he hid his face by bend ing his bald head over his cane, and determined to resign. Of thirty-six who received the king's summons as counciUors, more than twenty declined to obey them, or revoked their acceptance. The rest fled in terror to the army at Boston, and even there could not hide their sense of shame. The congressional delegates from Massachusetts, consecrated by their office as her suppliant ambassadors in the day of her distress, were welcomed everywhere on their journey with hos pitable feasts and tears of sympathy. The men of Hartford, after giving pledges to abide by the resolutions of the congress, accompanied them to Middletown, from which place they were escorted by carriages and a cavalcade. The bells of New Haven were set ringing as they drew near, and those who had not gone out to meet them thronged the windows and doors to gaze. There they were encouraged by Roger Sherman, whom solid sense and the power of clear analysis were to constitute one of the master builders of our republic. " The parliament of Great Britain," said he, "can rightfully make laws for America in no case whatever." Simultaneously, James Wil son in Philadelphia, a Scot by birth, of rare ability, who, having been bred in the universities of his native land, emi grated to America in early manhood, and Jefferson in Vir 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 51 ginia, without a chance of concert, published the same opin ion, the former deducing it from "the rights of British Amer ica," the latter from an able investigation of "the nature and extent of the legislative authority of the British parlia ment." The freeholders of Albemarle county, in Virginia, had, a month earlier, expressed the same conclusion ; and, in the language of Jefferson, claimed to hold the privilege of exemp tion from the authority of every other legislature than their own as one of the common rights of mankind. After resting one night at New Haven, the envoys visited the grave of the regicide DixweU. As they reached the Hud son, they found that the British ministry had failed to aUure, to mtimidate, or to divide New York. A federative union of all the Enghsh colonies, under the sovereignty of the British king, had for a quarter of a century formed the aspiration of its ablest men. The great design had been repeatedly pro moted by the legislature of the province. The people wished neither to surrender Uberty nor to dissolve their connection with the crown of England. The possibiUty of framing an independent repubhc with one jurisdiction from the far North to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic indefinitely to the West, was a vision of which nothing in the history of man could promise the realization. Lord Karnes, the friend of Franklin, though he was persuaded that the separation of the British colonies was inevitably approaching, affirmed that their pohti cal union was impossible. Prudent men long regarded the es tablishment of a confederacy of widely extended territories as a doubtful experiment, except under the moderating influence of a permanent executive. That the colonies, if disconnected from England, would faU into bloody dissensions among them selves, was the fear of Philip Livingston of New York. Union under the auspices of the British king, with the security of all constitutional rights, was stiU the purpose of Jay and his inti mate associates. This pohcy had brought all classes together, and loyal men, who, like WiUiam Smith, were its advocates, passed for " consistent, unshaken friends to their country and her hberties;" but the "appeal" to arms was nearer at hand than the most sagacious beheved. Before Samuel Adams departed, he had concerted the 52 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. in. measures by which Suffolk county would be best able to bring the wrongs of the town and the province before the general congress ; and he left the direction with Warren, who had re-, luctantly become convinced that all connection with the British parhament must be thrown off. Since town-meetings could not be caUed, on the sixteenth of August 1774, a county con gress of the towns of Suffolk, which then embraced Norfolk, met at a tavern in the village of Stoughton. As the aged Samuel Dunbar, the rigid Calvinist minister of its first parish, breathed forth among them his prayer for liberty, the vener able man seemed inspired with " the most divine and propheti cal enthusiasm." " We must stand undisguised upon one side or the other," said Thayer of Braintree. The members were unanimous ; and, in contempt of Gage and the act of parlia ment, they directed special meetings in every town and pre cinct in the county, to elect delegates with full powers to appear at Dedham on the first Monday in September. From such a county congress Warren predicted "very important conse quences." On Friday, the twenty-sixth, the committee of Boston was joined at Faneuil Hall by delegates from the several towns of the counties of Worcester, Middlesex, and Essex ; and on the next day, after calm consultation, they collectively denied the power of parliament to change the minutest tittle of their laws. As a consequence, they found that all appointments to the newly instituted council, and all authority exercised by the courts of justice, were unconstitutional ; and therefore that the officers, should they attempt to act, would become " usurpers of power" and enemies to the province, even though they bore the commission of the king. The Boston port act they found to be a wicked violation of the rights to life, liberty, and the means of sustenance, which all men hold by the grace of heaven, irrespectively of the king's leave. The act of parlia ment removing from American courts the trials of officers who should take the lives of Americans they described as the ex treme measure in the system of despotism. For remedies, the convention proposed a provincial con gress with large executive powers. In the mean time the un constitutional courts were to be forbidden to proceed, and their 1774. MASSACHUSETTS MAINTAINS ITS CHARTER. 53 officers to be detested as " traitors cloaked with a pretext of law." As Gage had orders to make arrests, each individual patriot was placed under the protection of his county and of the province. The practice of the military art was declared to be the duty of the people. Gage looked about him for more troops, recommended the repair of Crown Point, a strong garrison at Ticonderoga, a well-guarded line of communication between New York and Canada. On the same day began the tenn of the inferior court at Springfield. But, early in the morning, fifteen hundred or two thousand men, with drums and trumpets, marched into that town, set up a black flag at the court-house, and threat ened death to any one who should enter. After some treaty, the judges executed a written covenant not to put their com missions in force ; Worthington resigned his office of council lor ; those of the lawyers who had sent an address to Gage atoned for their offence by a written confession. WiUiams, the tory of Hatfield, and others, were compeUed successively to go round a large circle and ask forgiveness. Catlin and Warner feU upon their knees ; old Captain Mirreck of Mon- son was drawn in a cart and threatened to be tarred and feath ered. The people agreed that the British troops, if they should march to Worcester, should be resisted by at least twenty thou sand men from Hampshire county and Connecticut. The last Tuesday of August was the day for holding the supreme court at Boston. To support Chief Justice Oliver, Gage came expressly from Salem. The day arrived; the judges took their seats and the prescribed proclamations were made. On proceeding to business, the men who had been re turned as jurors, one and aU, refused to take the oath, Thomas Chase, who was of the petit jury, giving as his reason " that the chief justice of the court stood impeached by the late rep resentatives of the province." A paper offered by the jury disputed the authority of the judges for the further reasons, that the charter of the province had been changed with no warrant but an act of parliament, and that three of the judges, in violation of the constitution, had accepted seats in the new council. 54 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; ch. m. The chief justice and his colleagues, repairing in a body to the governor, represented the impossibility of exercising their office in Boston or in any other part of the province ; the army was too small for their protection ; and, besides, none would act as jurors. The authority of the new government, as estab lished by act of parliament, perished in the presence of the governor, the judges, and the army. Gage summoned his council, but only to meet new discom fitures. Its members dared not show themselves at Salem, and he consented to their violating the act of parliament by meet ing in Boston. Hutchinson, son of the former governor, with drew from the council. The few who retained their places advised unanimously to send no troops into the interior, but so to re-enforce the army as to constitute Boston a " place of safe retreat." On that day the county convention, in which every town and district of Middlesex was represented, met at Concord. " We must now exert ourselves," said they, " or all those efforts which for ten years past have brightened the annals of this country will be totally frustrated. Life and death, or, what is more, freedom and slavery, are now before us." In behalf, therefore, of themselves and of future generations, they enu merated the violations of their rights by late acts of parha ment, which they avowed their purpose to nullify ; and they sent their resolves by an express to the continental congress. " We are grieved," said they, " to find ourselves reduced to the necessity of entering into the discussion of those great and pro found questions ; but we deprecate a state of slavery. Our fathers left us a fair inheritance, purchased by blood and treas ure ; this we are resolved to transmit equally fair to our chil dren ; no danger shall affright, no difficulties intimidate us ; and if, in support of our rights, we are called to encounter even death, we are yet undaunted ; sensible that he can never die too soon who lays down his life in support of the laws and liberties of his country." The convention separated in the evening of the last day of August, to await the decisions of the continental congress ; but before the next sun was up the aspect of affairs was changed. 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 55 CHAPTER IV. the first ameeican congeess. September-October 1774. The province kept powder for its militia at Quarry HiU on a point of land between Medford and Cambridge. The towns had been removing their stock, each according to its propor tions. On the first day of September; a corps of two hundred and sixty men, embarking from Boston an hour before sunrise, seized all the powder that remained, amounting to two hun dred and fifty half-barrels, and transferred it to the castle. A detachment from the corps brought off two field-pieces from Cambridge. This seizure, secretly planned and suddenly executed, set the country in a flame. The next morning, thousands of free holders, leaving their guns in the rear, advanced to Cambridge. Warren, accompanied by as many of the Boston committee as came in his way, crossed to Charlestown, and with the com mittee of that town hastened to meet the committee of Cam bridge. On their arrival, they found Danforth, a county judge and mandamus councillor, addressing a very large gathering of people who stood in the open air round the court-house steps ; and such order prevailed that the low voice of the feeble old man was heard by the whole multitude. He finished by giv ing a written promise never " to be any way concerned as a member of the council." Lee, in Uke manner, confirmed his former resignation. The turn of Phipps, the high sheriff, came next, and he signed an agreement not to execute any pre cept under the new act of parliament. Oliver, the Ueutenant-govemor, who resided at Cambridge, 56 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. iv-. repaired to Boston in the " greatest distress." " It is not a mad mob," said he to the British admiral ; and he warned Gage that " sending out troops would be attended with the most fatal consequences." Had they marched only five miles into the country, Warren was of opinion that not a man of them would have been saved. Gage remained inactive, writing as his justification to the ministry : " The people are numerous, waked up to a fury, and not a Boston rabble, but the free holders of the county. A check would be fatal, and the first stroke wiU decide a great deal. We should therefore be strong before anything decisive is urged." Oliver returned to Cambridge with the assurance that no troops would appear, and to beg the committee's leave to retain his places. But in the afternoon a great throng surrounded his house and demanded his resignation. " My honor is my first consideration," said Oliver ; " the next, my life. Put me to death or destroy my property, but I will not submit." Yet, on the first appearance of danger, he yielded to all their de mands. For three hours, beneath the scorching sun of the hottest day of that summer, the people kept the ranks in which they were marshaUed, and their "patience, temperance, and forti tude " were remarked upon, as the chief elements " of a good soldier." They allowed the force of the suggestion that the governor, in removing the stores of the province, had broken no law ; and they voted unanimously their detestation of mobs and riots, and of the destruction of private property. Their conduct showed how formidable they might prove in the field, but rumors reached England of their cowardice and defeat. "What a melancholy consideration for all thinking men," said Fox to Burke, " that no people, animated by what principle soever, can make a successful resistance to military discipline ! I was never so affected with any public event, either in history or in hfe. I am dejected at heart from the sad figure that men make against soldiers." At that time the British army in Boston feared an invasion ; the guards were doubled, cannon were placed at the entrance of the town, and the troops lay on their arms through the night. The militia of Worcester county, hearing of the removal 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 57 of the powder belonging to the province, rose in a mass and began the march to Boston. On Friday afternoon and Satur day morning the volunteers from Hampshire county advanced eastward as far as Shrewsbury. It was thought that twenty thousand were in motion. The rumor of the seizure reached Israel Putnam in Connecticut, with the addition that the Brit ish troops and men-of-war had fired on the people and killed six men at the first shot. Despatching the report to Norwich, New London, New Haven, New York, and so to Philadelphia, he summoned the neighboring mmtia to take up arms. Thou sands started at his caU, but these, like the volunteers of Mas sachusetts, were stopped by expresses from the patriots of Bos ton, that at present nothing was to be attempted. In return, assurances were given of most effectual support whenever it might be required. " But for this counter intelligence," wrote Putnam and his associates on the committee of Pomfret, " we should have had forty thousand men, well equipped and ready to march this morning. Send a written express to the fore man of this committee when you have occasion for our mar tial assistance ; we shaU attend your summons, and shall glory in having a share in the honor of ridding our country of the yoke of tyranny, which our forefathers have not borne, nei ther will we." This rising was f oUowed by many advantages. Every man was led to supply deficiencies in his equipments ; the people gained confidence in one another, and a method was concerted for calling them into service. Outside of Boston, the king's rule was at an end. The wealthy royalists, who entertained no doubt that all resistance would soon be crushed, were silent from fear, or fled to Boston as their " only asylum." Gage wrote home that, " to reduce New England, a very respectable force should take the field." He had five regi ments at Boston, one at the castle, and another at Salem ; two more he summoned hastily from Quebec ; he sent transports to bring another from New York ; he still required re-enforce ments from England ; and resolving to employ " irregulars, of one sort or other, in America," he asked of Carleton, who was just then expected to arrive from England at Quebec, " what measures would be most efficacious to raise a body of Canadians 58 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. iv. and Indians to form a junction with the king's forces." The threat to employ the savages against the colonists had been thrown out at the time of Tryon's march against the regula tors of North Carolina, and may be traced back to the discus sions in the time of Shirley on remedies for the weakness of British power. The commission to Carleton, as governor of the province of Quebec under the act of parhament, conveyed authority to arm and employ not the Canadians only, but " all persons whatsoever," including the Indian tribes from the coast of Labrador to the Ohio, and to march them against rebels " into any one of the plantations in America." There were no English precedents for the practice. Dur ing the French war, Britain had formed connections with the Indian tribes, through whose territory lay the march of the hostile armies, and enroUed and paid warriors of the Six Na tions rather to secure neutrality than service. No war-party of savages was ever hounded at Canadian villages. The French, on the other hand, f rpm their superior skill in gaining the love of the red men and their own inferiority in numbers, had in creased their strength by Indian alliances. These the British king and his ministers now revived, and, against their own colonies and kindred, loosed from the leash these terrible aux iliaries. The execution of the sanguinary orders fell naturally into the hands of the most unscrupulous Enghsh officers and the most covetous and cruel of the old French partisans. Carleton reprobated the measure, which he was yet constrained to pro mote. " You know," wrote he of the Indians to Gage, " what sort of people they are." The cannibal Indian was a deadly foe only as he skulked in ambush, or prowled on the frontier, or burned the defenceless farm-house, or struck the laborer in the field, or smote the mother at her household task, or crashed the infant's head against a rock or a tree, or tortured the pris oner on whose flesh he was to gorge. The women and chil dren of England had an ocean between them and the Indian's tomahawk, and had no share in the terror that went before his path, or the sorrows that he left behind. Yet Gage, without much compunction, gave directions to propitiate and inflame the Indians by gifts, and to subsidize their war-parties. His 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 59 commands to employ them extended to the utmost bounds of his mihtary authority, so that the councils of the Cherokees and Choctas and Mohawkn were named as currently in the correspondence of the secretary of state as the German courts of Hesse and Hanau and Anspach. By the fifth of September, Gage had ordered ground to be broken for fortifications on the Neck, which f ormed the only entrance by land into Boston. In the evening the selectmen remonstrated, but with no effect. The next clay the conven tion of Suffolk county, which it had been agreed between Samuel Adams and/ Warren should send a memorial to the general congress, met in Dedham. Every town and district was represented, and their grand business was referred to a committee, of which Warren was the chairman. WhUe their report was preparing, the day came for hold ing the county assize at Worcester. On that morning the main street of the town was occupied on each side by men, ar ranged under their leaders in companies, six deep, and extend ing for a quarter of a mile. Through this great multitude the judges and their assistants passed safely to the court-house ; but there they were compelled to stay proceedings, and promise not to take part in executing the unconstitutional act of parhament. An approval of the resistance of the people was embodied in the careful and elaborate report which Warren on the ninth presented to the adjourned Suffolk convention. " On the wis dom and on the exertions of this important day," such were its words, " is suspended the fate of the New World and of un born millions." The resolutions which foUowed declared that the sovereign who breaks his compact with his people forfeits their aUegiance. By their duty to God, their country, them selves, and posterity, they pledged the county to maintain their civil and religious hberties, and to transmit them entire to fu ture generations. They rejected as unconstitutional the regu lating act of parliament and aU the officers appointed under its authority. They enjoined the mandamus counciUors to resign their places within eleven days. Attributing to the British commander-in-chief hostile intentions, they directed the col lectors of taxes to pay over no money to the treasurer whom he recognised. The governor and council had formerly ap- 60 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. iv. pointed all mihtary officers ; now that the legal council was no longer consulted, they advised the towns to elect for themselves officers of their militia from such as were inflexible friends to the rights of the people. For purposes of provincial government they advised a provincial congress, while they promised respect and submission to the continental congress. Against the pres ent hostile appearances on the part of Great Britain they ex pressed their determination " to act upon the defensive so long as such conduct might be vindicated by reason and the princi ples of self-preservation, but no longer." Should Gage arrest any one for pohtical reasons, they promised to seize every crown officer in the province as hostages ; and, as it might become necessary suddenly to summon assistance from the country, they arranged a system of couriers who were to bear written messages to the selectmen or corresponding committees of the several towns. The resolutions which thus concerted an armed resistance they unanimously adopted, and forwarded by express to the continental congress for its consideration and advice. " In a cause so solemn," they said, " our conduct shaU be such as to merit the approbation of the wise and the admiration of the brave and free of every age and of every country." The country towns in general chose their own officers, and mustered for exercise at least once a week ; and the colonel and the clergyman and the squire appeared in the ranks with a firelock to be taught the manual exercise. The county of Worcester formed all their male inhabitants from the age of sixteen to seventy into companies and regiments, and it was agreed that one-third part of the enrolled should hold them selves ready to march " at a minute's warning." The intrenchments on Boston Neck placed all within the lines at the mercy of the army ; yet, fearless of heart, Warren hastened into the presence of Gage, to protest in the name of Suffolk county against the new fortifications that closed the town. The carpenters of Boston, at the height of their distress for want of employment, refused to construct barracks for the army. Meantime, the colony desired to guard against anarchy by instituting a government of their own, for which they found historical precedents. In the days of WUliam the Dehverer 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 61 and Mary, Connecticut and Rhode Island had each resumed the charter of government which James II. had superseded ; the people of Massachusetts now wished to revive their old charter, and continue allegiance to George III. on no other terms than those which their ancestors had stipulated with Charles I. ; " otherwise," said they, " the laws of God, of nature, and of nations oblige us to cast about for safety." " If the four New England governments alone adopt the measure," said Hawley of Hampshire, " I will venture my life to carry it against the whole force of Great Britain." In the congress of Worcester county a motion was made to reassume the old charter and elect a governor. Warren, careful lest the prov ince should be thought to aim at greater advantages than the other colonies might be willing to contend for, sought first the consent of the continental congress, reminding its members that one colony of freemen would be a noble bulwark for all America. New England had surmounted its greatest difficulties ; its enemies placed their hopes on the supposed timidity of the general congress. At Philadelphia the South Carolinians greeted the delegates of Massachusetts as the heralds of freedom, and the Virginians equalled or surpassed their colleagues in resoluteness and spirit ; but, while there was great diversity of opinions respecting the proper modes of resisting the aggressions of the mother coun try, all united in desiring " the union of Great Britain and the colonies on a constitutional foundation." On Monday, the fifth of September, Galloway, the speaker of the Pennsylvania assembly, would have had congress use the state-house as the place for their deliberations, but the carpen ters of Philadelphia offered their plain but spacious hall ; and, from respect for the mechanics, it was accepted by a great ma jority. The names of the members were then called over; and Patrick Henry, Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Jay, Gadsden, John Rutledge of South Carolina, the aged Hopkins of Rhode Island, and others, rep resenting eleven colonies, answered to the call. Peyton Ran dolph, late speaker of the assembly of Virginia, was nominated for the chair by Lynch of South Carolina, and was unanimously / 62 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. iv. chosen. The body named itself " the congress," and its chair man " the president." Jay and Duane would have selected a secretary from among themselves ; but, on the motion of Lynch, Charles Thomson was appointed. Colonies differing in re ligious opinions, in commercial interests, and in everything dependent on climate and labor, in usages and manners swayed by reciprocal prejudices, and frequently quarrelhng with each other respecting boundaries, found themselves united in one representative body. Then arose the question as to the method of voting. There were fifty-five members, each colony having sent as many as it pleased. Henry, a representative of the largest state, inti mated that it would be unjust for a httle colony to weigh as much in the councils of America as a great one. " A httle colony," observed Sullivan of New Hampshire, " has its all at stake as weU as a great one." John Adams admitted that the vote by colonies was unequal, yet that an opposite course would lead to perplexing controversy; for there were no authentic records of the numbers of the people or the value of their trade. The discussion led the members to exaggerate the popu lation of their respective colonies ; and the aggregate of the estimates was made to exceed three miUions. Few of them possessed accurate materials ; Virginia and the Carolinas had never enumerated the woodsmen among the mountains and beyond them. From returns which were but in part accessible to the congress, it appears that the number of white inhabi tants in all the thirteen colonies was, in 1774, about two mill ions one hundred thousand; of blacks, about five hundred thousand ; the total population, very nearly two millions six hundred thousand. At the beginning of the next day's session a long and deep silence prevailed. The voice of Virginia was waited for, and was heard through Patrick Henry. Making a recital of the wrongs inflicted on the colonies by acts of parliament, he declared that all government was dis solved; that an entire new one must be founded ; that the con gress then assembled was but the first in a never-ending suc cession ; that their present decision would form a precedent. 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 63 Asserting the necessity of union and his own determination to submit to the opinion of the majority, he discussed the mis chiefs of an unequal representation, the advantage of a system that should give each colony its just weight. The demo- cratical part of the constitution, he insisted, must be pre served in its purity. Without refusing some regard in the adjustment of representation to the opulence of a colony as marked by its exports and imports, he spoke for a repre sentation of men. " Slaves," said he, " are to be thrown out of the question; if the freemen can be represented accord ing to their numbers, I am satisfied." To the objection that such a representation would confer an undue preponderance on the more populous states, he rephed : " British oppression has effaced the boundaries of the several colonies; the dis tinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." "A compound of numbers and prop erty," said Lynch, " should determine the weight of the colo nies ; " but he admitted that such a rule could not then be settled. In the same spirit spoke the elder Rutledge : " We have no legal authority ; and obedience to the measures we adopt wUl only follow their reasonableness, apparent utility, and necessity. We have no coercive authority. Our con stituents are bound only in honor to observe our determina tions." " I cannot see any way of voting but by colonies," said Gadsden. " Every colony," insisted Ward of Rhode Isl and, " should have an equal vote. The counties of Virginia are unequal in point of wealth and numbers, yet each has a right to send two members to its legislature. We come, if necessary, to make a sacrifice of our all, and by such a sac rifice the weakest wiU suffer as much as the greatest." Harri son of Virginia spoke strongly on the opposite side, and was " very apprehensive that, if sueh a disrespect should be put upon his countrymen as that Virginia should have no greater weight than the smallest colony, they would never be seen at another convention." For this menace of disunion he was at once rebuked by his colleagues. "Though a representation equal to the importance of each colony were ever so just," said Richard Henry Lee, " the delegates from the several colonies 64 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; ch. it. are unprepared with materials to settle that equality." Bland of Virginia saw no safety but in voting by colonies. " The question," he added, " is whether the rights and liberties of America shaU be contended for, or given up to arbitrary power." Pendleton acquiesced, yet wished the subject might be open for reconsideration when full information should have been obtained. It was resolved that, in taking questions, each colony should have one voice; but the journal adds as the reason, that "the congress was not then able to procure proper materials for ascertaining the importance of each colony." During the debate, Jay dissented in part from Henry, say ing : " I cannot yet think that we came to frame an American constitution, instead of endeavoring to correct the faults in an old one. The measure of arbitrary power is not full, and it must run over before we undertake to frame a new constitu tion." It was next voted that " the doors be kept shut during the time of business ; " and the members bound themselves by their honor to keep the proceedings secret until the majority should direct them to be made public. The treacherous Gallo way pledged his honor with the rest. To the proposal that congress the next day should be opened with prayer, Jay and Rutledge objected, on account of the great diversity of religious sentiments. " I am no bigot," said Samuel Adams, the Congregationalist ; " I can hear a prayer from a man of piety and virtue, who is at the same time a friend to his country ; " and, on his nomination, Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, was chosen for the service. Before the adjournment, Putnam's express arrived with the report that, after a bloody attack on the people by the troops at Boston, Connecticut as weU as Massachusetts was rising in arms. The next day muffled bells were toUed. At the opening of con gress, Washington was present, standing in prayer, and Henry and Randolph and Lee and Jay and Rutledge and Gadsden ; and by their side Presbyterians and Congregationahsts ; the Livingstons, Sherman, Samuel Adams, John Adams ; and others of New England, who believed that a rude soldiery were then infesting the dwellings and taking the lives of their friends. 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 65 When the psalm for the day was read, Heaven itseK seemed uttering its oracle. " Plead thou my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me ; and fight thou against them that fight against me. Lay hand upon the shield and buckler, and stand up to help me. Bring forth the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me. Let them that imagine mischief for me be as dust before the wind. Who is like unto thee, who deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him? Lord ! how long wilt thou look on ? Awake, and stand up to judge my quarrel ; avenge thou my cause, my God and my Lord." After this, the minister, with the earnestness of the best divines of New England, unexpectedly burst into an ex tempore prayer for America, for the congress, for Massachu setts, and especially for Boston. The congress that day appointed one committee on the rights of the colonies, and another on the British statutes affect ing their manufactures and trade. They received by a second express the same confused account of bloodshed near Boston. Proofs both of the sympathy and the resolution of the conti nent met the delegates of Massachusetts on every hand ; and the cry of " war " was pronounced with firmness. The next day brought more exact information, and the committee of congress on the rights of the colonies began their deliberations. The first inquiry related to the foundation of those rights. Lee of Virginia rested them on nature. " Our ancestors," he said, " found here no government, and, as a con sequence, had a right to make their own. Charters are an unsafe rehance, for the king's right to grant them has itself been denied. Besides, the right to life and the right to liberty are inalienable." Jay of New York likewise recurred to the laws of nature ; and enumerated among natural rights the right to emigrate, and the right of the emigrants to erect what gov ernment they pleased. John Rutledge, on the contrary, held that aUegiance is inaUenable ; that the first emigrants had not had the right to elect their king; that American claims were derived from the British constitution rather than from the law of nature. But Sherman of Connecticut deduced allegiance from consent, without which the colonies were not bound by the act of settlement. Duane, like Rutledge, shrunk from the 66 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. rv, appeal to the law of nature, and he founded government on property in land. Behind these views lay the question of the power of par hament over the colonies. " A right of regulating trade," said Gadsden, true to the principle of 1765, " is a right of legisla tion, and a right of legislation in one case is a right in aU." Amid varying opinions and theories, the congress, in creased to twelve colonies by delegates from North Carolina and intent upon securing absolute unanimity, moved with great deliberation ; so that GaUoway hoped " the two parties would remain on an equal balance." But in that body there was a man who knew how to bring the enthusiasm of the peo ple into connection with its representatives. " Samuel Adams," wrote GaUoway, " though by no means remarkable for brilliant abilities, is equal to most men in popular intrigue and the management of a faction. He eats little, drinks httle, sleeps httle, and thinks much, and is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his objects. He was the man who, by his superior application, managed at once the faction in congress at Philadelphia and the factions in New England." On the seventeenth of September, the delegates of Massa chusetts laid before congress the address of the Suffolk county convention to Gage, on his seizure of the province's stock of powder and his hostUe occupation of the only approach to Bos ton by land ; and the resolutions of the same convention, which declared that no obedience was due to the acts of parliament affecting their colony. As the papers were read, expressions of esteem, love, and admiration broke forth in generous and manly eloquence. " Unanimity prevailed not of provinces only, but of individual members." In language which but faintly expressed their spirit, they declared their sympathy with their suffering coun trymen in Massachusetts', most thoroughly approved the wis dom and fortitude with which opposition to ministerial meas ures had hitherto been conducted, and earnestly recommended perseverance according to the resolutions of the county of Suf folk. Knowing that a new parliament must soon be chosen, they expressed their trust " that the united efforts of North America would carry such conviction to the British nation of 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 67 the unjust and ruinous pohcy of the present administration as quickly to introduce better men and wiser measures." To this end, they ordered their own resolutions, with the communications from Suffolk county, to be printed. But their appeal to the electors of Britain was anticipated. The inflexi ble king, weighing in advance the possible influence of the American congress, overruled Lord North, and, on the last day of September suddenly dissolving parliament, brought on the new election before proposals for conciliation could be re ceived. Gage, with the forces under his command, hoped for no more than to pass the winter unmolested. At one moment a suspension of the penal acts was his favorite advice, which the king ridiculed as senseless ; at the next, he demanded an army of twenty thousand men, to be composed of Canadian recruits, Indians, and hirelings from the continent of Europe ; again, he would bring the Americans to terms by casting them off as feUow-subjects, and not suffering even a boat to go in or out of their harbors. AU the wlhle he was exerting himself to obtain payment for the tea as a prelude to reconciliation. His agents wrote to their friends in congress, urging concessions. Such was the advice of Church, in language affecting the highest patriotism ; and an officer who had served with Washington sought to persuade his old companion in arms that New Eng land was conspiring for independence. It was, moreover, in sinuated that, if Massachusetts should once resume its old charter and elect its governor, aU New England would unite with her, and become strong enough to absorb the lands of other governments ; that New Hampshire would occupy both slopes of the Green Mountains ; that Massachusetts would seize the western territory of New York ; while Connecticut would appropriate Northern Pennsylvania, and compete with Vir ginia for the West. The frugal New England people increased their frugality. " As for me," wrote the wife of John Adams, " I wiU seek wool and flax, and work willingly with my hands." Yet the poorest man in his distress would not accept employment from the British army; and the twelve nearest towns agreed to withhold from it every supply beyond what humanity required. 68 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. iv. But all the province, even to Falmouth and beyond it, shared the sorrows of Boston, and cheered its inhabitants in their suf ferings. Nor did its citizens despair. Its newly elected rep resentatives were instructed never to acknowledge the regulat ing act ; and, in case of a dissolution, to join the other mem bers in forming a provincial congress. The assembly was summoned to meet at Salem on the fifth of October, at which time the councillors who had been legally commissioned in May intended to take their seats, as their pe riod of office was a year, and they were not removable during the term for which they were chosen. Against so clear a title, the mandamus counciUors would not dare to claim their places without a larger escort than they could receive. Gage was in a dilemma. On the twenty-eighth of September, by an anoma lous proclamation, he neither dissolved nor prorogued the as sembly which he had caUed, but declined to meet it at Salem, and assumed to discharge the representatives elect from their duty of attendance. Meantime, the continental committee on the rights of the colonies, having been increased by one member from each of the three provinces — Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania — extended their searches to the statutes affecting industry and trade. But in a body whose members were coUected from re mote parts of the country, accustomed to no uniform rules, differing in their ideas and their forms of expression, distrust could be allayed only by the most patient discussions ; and, for the sake of unanimity, tedious delay was inevitable. In the first place, it was silently agreed to rest the demands of America not on considerations of natural rights, but on a historical basis. Nothing was complained of but innovations, so that every appearance of a revolution was avoided. How far the retrospect for grievances should be carried was the next inquiry. South Carolina would have included aU laws restrictive of manufactures and navigation ; in a word, all the statutes of which Great Britain had been so prodigal toward her infant colonies, for the purpose of confining their trade and crippling their domestic industry. But the Virgini ans, conforming to their instructions, narrowed the issue to the innovations during the reign of George III. ; and, as Mary- 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 69 land and North Carohna would not separate from Virginia, the acts of navigation, though condemned by Richard Henry Lee as a capital violation of American rights, were not included in the Ust of grievances. The Virginians had never meant to own the binding force of the acts of navigation : the proposal to recognise them came from Duane of New York, and encountered the strongest op position. Some wished to deny altogether the authority of parhament ; others, its power of taxation ; others, its power of internal taxation only. These discussions were drawn into great length, and seemed to promise no agreement ; tin, at last, John Adams was persuaded to shape a compromise in the spirit and very nearly in the words of Duane. His resolution ran thus : " From the necessity of the case and a regard to the mutual interest of the countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British parhament as are, oona fide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country and the commercial bene fits of its respective members ; excluding every idea of taxa tion, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America without their consent." This article was contrary to the principles of Otis at the commencement of the contest ; to the repeated declarations of Samuel Adams ; to the congress of 1765, which had put aside a similar proposition when offered by Livingston of New York. Not one of the committee was f uUy satisfied with it ; yet, as the ablest speaker from Massachusetts had given way, the concession was inevitable. It stands as a monument that the congress harbored no desire but of reconcUiation. "I would have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state before the contest began," said John Adams, at a later day. His resolution accepted that badge of servitude, the British colonial system. During these discussions, Galloway of Pennsylvania, in se cret concert with the governor of New Jersey and with Colden of New York, proposed for the government of the colonies a president-general of the king's appointment, and a grand coun cil to be chosen once in three years by the several assemblies. 70 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; en. iv. The British parhament was to have the power of revising the acts of this body, which in its turn was to have a negative on British statutes relating to the colonies. "I am as much a friend to liberty as exists," blustered Galloway, as he presented his insidious proposition, "and no man shaU go further in point of fortune or in point of blood than the man who now addresses you." His scheme held out a hope of a continental union, which was the long-cherished policy of New York ; it was seconded by Duane and supported by Jay, but opposed by Lee of Virginia. Patrick Henry objected to intrusting the power of taxation to a council to be chosen not directly by the people, but indirectly by its representatives ; and he con demned the proposal in aU its aspects. " The original consti tution of the colonies," said he, " was founded on the broadest and most generous base. The regulation of our trade compen sates aU the protection we ever experienced. We shall liberate our constituents from a corrupt house of commons, but throw them into the arms of an American legislature, that may be bribed by a nation which in the face of the world avows bri bery as a part of its system of government. *• Before we are obliged to pay taxes as they do, let us be as free as they ; let us have our trade open with all the world." " I think the plan almost perfect," said Edward Rutledge. But not one colony, unless it may have been New York, voted in its favor ; no more than a bare majority would consent that it should even he on the table ; and at a later day congress struck the pro posal from its record. With this defeat, GaUoway lost his mischievous importance. At the provincial elections in Pennsylvania, on the first day of October, Dickinson, his old opponent, was chosen almost unani mously a representative of the county. Mifflin, though op posed by some of the Quakers as too warm, was elected a bur gess of Philadelphia by eleven hundred votes out of thirteen hundred, with Charles Thomson as his coUeague. The assem bly, on the very day of its organization, added Dickinson to its delegation in congress; and he took his seat in season to draw the address of that body to the king. During the debates on the proper basis of that address, letters from Boston announced that the governor continued 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 71 seizing private mihtary stores, suffering the soldiery " to treat both town and country as declared enemies," fortifying the town and mounting cannon at its entrance, as though he would hold its inhabitants as hostages in order to compel a compliance with the new laws. As he had eluded the meeting of the gen eral court, they apphed to congress for advice ; if the congress should instruct them to quit the town, they would obey. The citizens, who coUectively had been more affluent than those of any other place of equal numbers in the world, made a formal offer to abandon their homes, and throw themselves, with their wives and clhldren, their aged and infirm, on the charity of the country people, or build huts in the woods, and never revisit their native walls until re-established in their rights and liber ties. Gadsden blazed up at the thought, and he proposed that Gage should be attacked and routed before re-enforcements could arrive ; but the congress was resolved to exhaust every means of redress before sanctioning an appeal to arms. The more impetuous people were ever inclined to break the bounds set for them. About the middle of October, the brig Peggy Stewart, from London, arrived at Annapolis with two thousand three hundred and twenty pounds of tea, on which the owner of the vessel made haste to pay the duty. The people of Maryland resented this voluntary submission to the British claim, which their delegates to the general congress were engaged in contesting. For the honor of the province a committee kept watch to prevent the landing of the tea ; suc cessive pubhc meetings drew throngs even from distant coun ties ; till the two importers and the ship-owner jointly expressed their contrition, and offered to expiate their offence by burning the " detestable article " which had caused their misconduct. When it appeared that this would not satisfy the crowd, the owner of the brig, after a httle consultation with Charles Car- roU, proposed to devote that also to the flames. The offer was accepted. The penitent importers and owner went on board the vessel with hats off and hghted torches in their hands, and, in the presence of a multitude of gazers, set fire to the pack ages of tea, all of which, together with the Peggy Stewart, her canvas and cordage, were consumed. Washington ardently wished to end civil discord and re- 72 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. iv. store tranquility upon constitutional grounds, but his indigna tion at the wrongs of Boston could be appeased only by their redress, and his purpose to resist the execution of the regulat ing act was unalterable. "Permit me," so he addressed a British officer then serving under Gage, " with the freedom of a friend, to express my sorrow that fortune should place you in a service that must fix curses to the latest posterity upon the contrivers, and, if success (which, by the by, is impossible) ac companies it, execrations upon all those who have been instru mental in the execution. The Massachusetts people are every day receiving fresh proofs of a systematic assertion of an arbi trary power, deeply planned to overturn the laws and consti tution of their country, and to violate the most essential and valuable rights of mankind. It is not the wish of that govern ment, or any other upon this continent, separately or coUec- tively, to set up for independence ; but none of them wiU ever submit to the loss of those rights and privileges without which hfe, liberty, and property are rendered totally insecure. Is it to be wondered at that men attempt to avert the impending blow in its progress, or prepare for their defence if it cannot be averted ? Give me leave to add as my opinion, that, if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity, more blood wiU be spilled on this occasion than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America." Ross, a Pennsylvanian, moved in congress that Massachu setts should be left to her own discretion with respect to gov ernment, and the administration of justice as weU as defence. The motion was seconded by GaUoway, in the hope of insulat ing her. Had it been adopted, she would have revived her first charter, under the Pine Tree flag of her forefathers, and elected her governor. From the desire of conciliation the province was suffered to continue in a state of anarchy ; but on the eighth of October it was resolved, though not unani mously, " that this congress approve the opposition of the in habitants of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of parhament, and, if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, aU America ought to support them in their opposition." This is the vote which hardened George III. to listen to no terms. Galloway and Duane de- 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 73 sired leave to enter their protests against the resolution, and, as this was refused, they gave to each other privately certificates that they had opposed it as treasonable. Two days later, con gress further " declared that every person who should accept or act under any commission or authority derived from the act of parhament which violated the charter of Massachusetts, ought to be held in detestation ; " and, in their letter to Gage, they censured his conduct as tending " to involve a free people in the horrors of war." In adopting a declaration of rights, the division which had shown itself in the committee was renewed. "Here," said Ward of Rhode Island, " no acts of parhament can bind. Giving up this point is yielding aU." Against him spoke John Adams and Duane. "A right," said Lynch, "to bind us in one case may imply a right to bind us in aU ; but we are bound in none." The resolution of concession was arrested by the vote of five colonies against five, with Massachusetts and Rhode Island divided, but at last was carried by the influence of John Adams. Duane desired next to strike the Quebec act from the Ust of grievances ; but of aU the bad acts of parha ment, Richard Henry Lee pronounced it the worst. His opin ion prevailed upon a vote which Duane's reluctant adhesion made unanimous. Thus eleven acts of parhament or parts of acts, including the Quebec act and the acts speciaUy affecting Massachusetts, were declared to be such infringements and violations of the rights of the colonies that the repeal of them was essentiaUy necessary, in order to restore harmony between the colonies and Great Britain. The congress had unanimously resolved from the first day of the coming December not to import any merchandise from Great Britain and Ireland. They could not agree upon an im mediate non-exportation ; if the redress of American grievances should be delayed beyond the tenth day 'of September of the foUowing year, a resolution to export no merchandise to Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies after that date was car ried, but against the voice of South Carohna. When the mem bers proceeded to bind themselves to these measures by an as sociation, three of the delegates of that colony refused their names. " The agreement to stop exports to Great Britain is 74 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. m. ; oh. ry. unequal," reasoned Rutledge; " New England ships httle or nothing there, but sends fish, its great staple, to Portugal or Spain ; South Carolina annually ships rice to England to the value of a million and a half of doUars. New England would be affected but httle by the prohibition ; Carohna would be ruined ; " and he and two of his colleagues withdrew from the congress. Gadsden, who never counted the cost of patriotism, ' remained in his place, and, trusting to the generosity of his constituents, declared himself ready to sign the association. All business was interrupted for several days, when congress re- caUed the seceders by aUowing the unconditional export of rice. The association further adopted without opposition the memorable covenant which inaugurated the abohtion of the slave-trade : " We will neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next, after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and wiU neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are con cerned in it." This first American congress brought forth another measure, which was without an example. It recognised the pohtical being and authority of the people. While it refused to petition parliament, it addressed the people of the provinces from Nova Scotia to Florida, the people of Canada, the people of Great Britain, making the printing press its ambassador to the rising power. To the British people whom they described as having been " led to greatness by the hand of liberty," and as " heirs to the rights of men," they said, in the language of Jay: "Know that we consider ourselves, and do insist that we are, and ought to be, as free as our feUow-subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us with out our consent. Prior to the era," of 1763, " you were con tent with wealth produced by our commerce. You restrained our trade in every way that could conduce to your emolument. You exercised unbounded sovereignty over the sea." Assent ing to these restrictions, they demonstrated that a victory over the rights of America would not only be barren of advantage 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 75 to the English nation, but increase their public debt, pensioners, and place-men, diminish their commerce, and lead to the over throw of their hberties by violence and corruption. Nor did the descendant of Huguenots fail to make for them an appeal as Protestants to Protestant Scotland and England. Finally they said : " To your justice we appeal. You have been told that we are impatient of government and desirous of indepen dency. These are calumnies. Permit us to be as free as your selves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness. But if you are de termined that your ministers shaU wantonly sport with the rights of mankind ; if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of law, the principles of the constitution, or the suggestions of humanity, can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then teU you that we wiU never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world." A second congress was appointed for May of the next year, at which aU the colonies of North America, including Nova Scotia and Canada, were invited to appear by their deputies. The ultimate decision of America was then Unbodied in a petition to the king, written by Dickinson, and imbued in every line with a desire for conciliation. In the list of griev ances, congress enumerated the statutes, and those only, which had been enacted since the year 1763 for the very purpose of changing the constitution or the administration of the colonies. They justified their discontent by historic tradition, and by the ideas of right. "So far from promoting innovations," said they truly, "we have only opposed them; and can be charged with no offence, unless it be one to receive injuries and be sensible of them." Acquiescing in the restrictions on their ships and industry, they professed a readiness on the part of the colonial legislatures to make suitable provision for the administration of justice, the support of civil government, and for defence, protection, and security in time of peace ; in case of war, they pledged the colonies to " most strenuous efforts in granting supplies and raising forces." But the privilege of thus expressing their affectionate attachment they would " never resign to any body of men upon earth." " We ask," 76 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; oh. rv. they continued, " but for peace, liberty, and safety. We wish not a diminution of the prerogative, nor the grant of any new right. Your royal authority over us, and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always support and maintain;" and they besought of the king, " as the loving father of his whole people, his interposition for their relief and a gracious answer to their petition." From complacency toward Rockingham, they passed over the declaratory act in sUence ; and they expressed their assent to the power of regulating commerce. But the best evidence of their sincerity is found in the measure which they recom mended. Had independence been their object, they would have strained every nerve to increase their exports and fiU the country in return with the manufactures and munitions which they required. The suspension of trade was the most disin terested manner of expressing to the mother country how deeply they felt their wrongs, and how earnestly they desired a peaceful restoration of reciprocal confidence. While Britain found another market for her surplus manufactures and India goods, the American merchant sacrificed nearly his whole busi ness. The exchequer might perhaps suffer some diminution in the revenue from tobacco, but the planters of Maryland and Virginia gave up the entire exchangeable produce of their es tates. The cessation of the export of provisions to the West Indies, of flaxseed to Ireland, injured the northern provinces very deeply; and yet it would touch only the British mer chants who had debts to collect in the West Indies or Ireland, or the Enghsh owners of West Indian or Irish estates. Every refusal to import was made by the colonist at the cost of per sonal comfort ; every omission to export was a waste of his re sources. Moreover, no means existed of enforcing the agree ment ; so that the truest patriots would suffer most. And yet the people so yearned for a bloodless restoration of the old relations with Britain that they cheerfully entered on the ex periment, in the hope that the extreme self-denial of the country would distress British commerce enough to bring the government to reflection. But, since the efforts to avert civil war might fail, John Adams was anxious to see New England provided with " cash 1774. THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS. 77 and gunpowder." Ward of Rhode Island foretold that Amer ica was to hght all the nations of the earth to freedom. " Were I to suffer as a rebel in the cause of American liberty, should I not be translated immediately to heaven as Enoch was of old?" wrote Hewes of North Carohna. Samuel Adams urged his friends to study the art of war, and organize re sistance. " I would advise," said he, " persisting in our strug gle, though it were revealed from heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, and only one of a thousand to Burvive and retain his liberty. One such freeman must pos sess more virtue and enjoy more happiness than a thousand slaves ; and let him propagate his hke, and transmit to them what he hath so nobly preserved." " Delightful as peace is," said Dickinson, " it wUl come more grateful by being unex pected." Washington foresaw that the measures of congress would not prove effectual. When Patrick Henry read the words of Hawley, " After all, we must fight," he raised his hand, and caUed God to witness as he cried out : " I am of that man's mind." 78 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ih.joh.v. CHAPTER V. how britain began catholic emancipation, and how vir ginia nullified the quebec act. October-November 1774. The congress of 1774 contained statesmen of the highest order of wisdom. For eloquence, Patrick Henry was unri valled; next to him in debate stood the elder Rutledge, of South Carolina ; " but, if you speak of solid information and sound judgment," said Patrick Henry, "Washington is un questionably the greatest man of them all." While the delegates of the twelve colonies were in session in Philadelphia, ninety of the members just elected to the Massachusetts assembly appeared on Wednesday, the .fifth of October, at the court-house in Salem. After waiting two days for the governor, they passed judgment on his unconstitutional proclamation against their meeting ; and, resolving themselves into a provincial congress, they adjourned to Concord. There, on the eleventh, the members, about two hundred and sixty in number, elected John Hancock their president. On the four teenth, they sent a message to the governor, that for want of a general assembly they had convened in congress ; and they remonstrated against his hostile preparations. A committee from Worcester county made to him similar representations. To the provincial congress, which had again adjourned from Concord to Cambridge, Gage made answer by recrimina tions. They were surrounded by difficulties. A committee, appointed on the twenty-fourth of October to consider the proper time to provide a stock of powder, ordnance, and ord nance stores, reported on the same day that the proper time was come. Upon the debate for raising money to prepare 1774. THE QUEBEC ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 79 for the crisis, one member proposed to appropriate a thousand pounds, another two thousand ; a committee reported a sum of less than ninety thousand dollars as a preparation against a most wealthy and warhke empire. They elected three general officers by ballot. A committee of safety, Hancock and War ren being of the number, was invested with power to alarm and muster the militia of the province, of whom one fourth were to hold themselves ready to march at a minute's notice. In Connecticut, which, from its compactness, numbers, and wealth, was second only to Massachusetts in military resources, the legislature of 1774 provided for effectively organizing the militia, prohibited the importation of slaves, and ordered the several towns to provide double the usual quantity of powder, baU, and flints. They directed the issue of fifteen thousand pounds in bills of credit of the colony, and made a smaU in crease of the taxes. This was the first issue of paper money in the colonies preparatory to war. The congress of Massachusetts, in like manner, directed the people of the province to perfect themselves in mUitary skiU, and each town to provide a full stock of arms and ammu nition. Having voted to pay no more money to the royal col lector, they chose a receiver-general of their own, and instituted a system of provincial taxation. They appointed executive committees of safety, of correspondence, and of supphes. As the continental congress would not sanction their resuming the charter from Charles I., they adhered as nearly as possible to that granted by WiUiam and Mary ; and summoned the coun- ciUors, duly elected under that charter, to give attendance on the fourth Wednesday of November, to which time they ad journed. To their next meeting they referred the considera tion of the propriety of sending agents to Canada. The troubles with, the thirteen colonies led the court of Great Britain to its first step in the emancipation of Cathohcs ; and, with no higher object in view than to strengthen the authority of the king in America, the Quebec act of 1774 began that series of concessions which at last opened the British parlia ment and the high offices of administration to " papists." In the behef that the loyalty of its possessions had been promoted by a dread of the French settlements on their north- 80 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. v. ern and western frontier, Britain sought to create under its own auspices a distinct empire, suited to restrain her original colonies from aspiring to independence. For this end, it an nexed by act of parhament to the province which was called Quebec all the territory north-west of the Ohio, as far as the Mississippi river and thence to the head of Lake Superior ; and consolidated aU authority over this boundless region in the hands of the executive power of Great Britain. The Catho lics were not displeased that the promise of a representative assembly was not kept. In 1763, they had aU been disfran chised in a land where there were few Protestants, except attendants on the army and government officials. A repre sentative assembly, to which none but Protestants could be chosen, would have subjected almost all the inhabitants to a resident oligarchy, hateful by their race and religion, their su premacy as conquerors, and their selfishness. The Quebec act authorized the crown to confer posts of honor and of business upon Catholics ; and they chose rather to depend on the clem ency of the king than to have an exclusively Protestant parha ment, like that of Ireland. This limited pohtical toleration left no room for the sentiment of patriotism. The French Canadians of that day could not persuade themselves that they had a country. They would have desired an assembly to which they should be ehgible ; but, since that was not to be obtained, they accepted their partial enfranchisement by the king, as a boon to a conquered people. The owners of estates were gratified by the restoration of the French system of law. The English emigrants might complain of the want of jury trials in civU processes; but the French Canadians were grateful for rehef from statutes which they did not comprehend, and from the chicanery of unfamiliar courts. The nobihty of New France, who had ever been accustomed to arms, were still further concihated by the proposal to enroll Canadian battaUons, in which they could hold commissions on equal terms with Enghsh officers. The capitulation of New France had guaranteed to the clergy freedom of pubhc worship ; by the Quebec ' act they were confirmed in the possession of their ancient churches and their revenues ; so that the Roman Catholic worship was as 1774. THE QUEBEC ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 81 effectuaUy established in Canada as the Presbyterian church in Scotland. When Carleton returned to his government, bear ing this great measure of conciliation of which he was known to have been the adviser, he was welcomed by the Cathohc bishop and priests of Quebec with professions of loyalty ; and the memory of Thurlow and Wedderburn, who carried the act through parhament, is gratefully embalmed in Canadian his tory. Yet the clergy were conscious that the concession of these privileges was but an act of worldly policy, mainly due to the disturbed state of the Protestant colonies. For the cause of Great Britain, Catholic Canada could not uplift the banner of the King of heaven or seek the perils of martyrdom. Such was the frame of mind of the French Canadians when the American congress sent among them its appeal. The time was come for applying the new principle of the power of the people to the old divisions in Christendom between the Catho hc and the Protestant world. The Cathohc church asserts the unity, the universality, and the unchangeableness of truth; and this principle rather demands than opposes universal eman cipation and brotherhood. Yet Protestantism, in the sphere of politics, had hitherto been the representative of that increase of popular liberty which had grown out of free inquiry, while the Cathohc church, under the early influence of Roman law and the temporal sovereignty of the Roman pontiff, had inchned to monarchical power. These relations were now to be modified. The thirteen colonies were aU Protestant ; even in Mary land the Catholics formed scarcely an eighth, perhaps not more than a twelfth part of the population ; their presence in other provinces, except Pennsylvania, was hardly perceptible. The members of congress had not wholly purged themselves of Protestant bigotry. In their address to the people of Great Britain, it was even said that the Roman Catholic religion had " dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world." But the desire of including Canada in the confederacy compelled the Protestants of America to extend the principle of rehgious equality and free dom to Catholics. In the masterly address to the inhabitants of the province of Quebec, drawn by Dickinson, all old reli gious jealousies were condemned as low-minded infirmities; VOL. IV. — 6 82 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. v. and the Swiss cantons were cited as examples of a union com posed of Catholic and Protestant states. After a clear analysis of the Quebec act, and the contrast of its provisions with English liberties, the shade of Montes quieu was evoked as saying to the Canadians : " The happiness of a people inevitably depends on their liberty, and their spirit to assert it. The value and extent of the advantages tendered to you are immense. This work is not of man ; you have been conquered into liberty, if you act as you ought. Seize the op portunity presented to you by Providence itself. You are a small people, compared to those who with open arms invite you into a fellowship. The injuries of Boston have roused and associated every colony from Nova Scotia to Georgia. Your province is the only link wanting to complete the bright and strong chain of union. Nature has joined your country to theirs ; do you join your political interests ; for their own sakes, they never will desert or betray you." Whether the unanimous mvitation of congress to the Cana dians to " accede to their confederation " should be accepted or repeUed, the old feud between members of the Roman Catholic church and the free governments which had sprung from Pro testantism was coming to an end. The attempt to extend the jurisdiction of Quebec to the Ohio river was resisted by the older colonies, especiaUy by Virginia ; and the interest of the crown officers in the adjacent provinces was at variance with the policy of parhament. Lord Dunmore had reluctantly left New York, where, dur ing his short career, he had acquired fifty thousand acres of land, and, as chanceUor, was preparing to decide in his own court, in his own favor, a large and unfounded claim which he had preferred against the lieutenant-governor. Upon entering on the government of Virginia, his passion for land and fees outweighing the proclamation of the king and reiterated and most positive instructions from the secretary of state, he sup ported the claims of the colony to the West, and was a partner in two immense purchases of land from the Indians in south ern Illinois. In 1773, his agents, the Bullets, made surveys at the falls of the Ohio ; and parts of Louisville and of the towns opposite Cincinnati are now held under his warrant. 1774. THE QUEBEC ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 83 Pittsburg formed the rallying point for western emigration and Indian trade. It was a part of the county of Westmore land, in Pennsylvania. Suddenly, and without proper notice to the councU of that province, Dunmore extended his juris diction over the weU-peopled region. He found a willing in strument in one John Connolly, a native of Pennsylvania, a physician, land-jobber, and subservient political intriguer, who had traveUed much in the Ohio vaUey both by water and land. Commissioned by Dunmore as captain-commandant of Pittsburg and its dependencies, that is to say, of aU the west ern country, ConnoUy opened the year 1774 with a proclama tion of his authority, and directed a muster of the militia. The western people, especially the emigrants from Maryland and Virginia, spurning the meek tenets of the Quakers, in clined to the usurpation. The measures of the governor and council of Pennsylvania in support of their right, Dunmore passionately resented as a personal insult, and would neither listen to irrefragable arguments, nor to candid offers of settle ment by joint commissioners, nor to the personal application of two of the council of Pennsylvania. Virginia avoided strife with her great neighbor, Pennsyl vania ; but she applauded Dunmore when he set at naught the Quebec Act, and kept possession of the government and right to grant lands on the Scioto, the Wabash, and the Ulinois. South of the Ohio river, Franklin's inchoate province of Van- daha stretched from the AUeghanies to Kentucky river ; the treaty at Fort Stanwix bounded Virginia by the Tennessee ; the treaty at Lochaber carried its limit only to the mouth of the Great Kanawha; but the king's instructions confined settle ments to the east of the mountains. There was no one, there fore, having authority to give a title to any land west of the AUeghanies, or power to restrain the restlessness of the Ameri can emigrants. With the love of wandering that fdrmed a part of their nature, the hardy backwoodsman, clad in a hunt ing-shirt and deerskin leggins, armed with a rifle, a powder- horn, and a pouch for shot and bullets, a hatchet and a hunter's knife, descended the mountains in quest of more distant lands, which he forever imagined to be richer and loveher than those which he knew. Wherever he fixed his halt, the hatchet 84 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iu. ; oh. v. hewed logs for his cabin, and blazed trees of the forest kept the record of his title-deeds ; nor did he conceive that a British government had any right to forbid the occupation of lands which were either uninhabited or only broken by a few scat tered clans of savages. The adventurer in search of a new home on the banks of the Mississippi risked his life at every step ; so that a system of independent defence and private war became the custom of the backwoods. The settler had every motive to preserve peace, yet he could not be turned from his purpose by fear, and trusted for security to his perpetual readiness for seU'-defence. Not a twelvemonth passed away without a massacre of pio neers. Near the end of 1773, Daniel Boone would have taken his wife and children to Kentucky. At PoweU's vaUey he was joined by five families and forty men. In October, as they approached Cumberland gap, the young men, who had charge of the pack-horses and cattle in the rear, were suddenly attacked by Indians; one only escaped; the remaining six, among whom was Boone's eldest son, were killed on the spot, so that the survivors of the party were forced to turn back to the settlements on Clinch river. When the Cherokees were summoned by Virginia to give up the offenders, they evaded the accusation by shifting it from one tribe to another ; but one of the emigrant party who had escaped avenged his com panions by kilhng an Indian at a horse-race on the frontier. This was the first Indian blood shed by a white man from the time of the treaty of Bouquet. In the beginning of February 1774, the Indians killed six white men and two negroes, and near the end of the same month they seized a trading canoe on the Ohio, killed the men on board, and carried their goods to the Shawnee towns. In March, Michael Cresap, after a skirmish and the loss of one man on each side, took from a party of Indians five loaded canoes. It became known that messages were passing between the tribes of the Ohio, the western Indians, and the Cherokees ; and ConnoUy, from Pittsburg, on the twenty-first of April, wrote to the inhabitants of Wheeling to be on the alert. Incensed by the succession of murders, the backwoodsmen began to form war-parties along the frontier from the Chero- 1774. THE QUEBEC ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 85 kee country to Pennsylvania. When the letter of Connolly fell into Cresap's hands, he and his party esteemed themselves authorized to engage in private war ; and, on the twenty-sixth of April, they fired upon two Indians who were with a white man in a canoe on the Ohio, and killed them both. On the thirtieth of April, five Delawares and Shawnees, with their women among whom was one at least of the same blood with Logan, happening to encamp near YeUow creek, on the site of the present town of WeUsville, were enticed across the river by a trader ; and about noon, when they had become in toxicated, were murdered in cold blood. Two others, crossing the Ohio to look after their friends, were shot down as soon as they came ashore. At this, five more, who were following, turned their course ; but, being immediately fired at, two were killed and two wounded. The next day a Shawnee was killed, and another man wounded. Thirteen Indians were kiUed be tween the twenty-first of April and the end of the month. At the tidings of this bloodshed, fleet messengers of the red men ran with the waU of war to the Muskingum and to the Shawnee villages in Ohio ; and frequent expresses from the white men reached Williamsburg, entreating assistance. The governor, foUowing an intimation from the assembly in May, ordered the militia, of the frontier counties to be imbodied for defence. Meantime, Logan's soul caUed within him for revenge. In his early hfe he had dwelt near the beautiful plain of Shamokin, which overhangs the Susquehannah and the vale of Sunbury. There Zinzendorf introduced the Cay uga chief, Logan's father, to the Moravians ; and there, three years later, Brainerd wore away hfe as a missionary among the fifty cabins of the village. Logan had grown up as the friend of white men ; but the spirits of his kindred clamored for blood. With chosen companions, he went out upon the war path, and added scalp to scalp, till their number was thirteen. "Now," said the chief, " I am satisfied for the loss of my rela tions, and wiU sit stiU." But the Shawnees, the most warlike of the tribes, prowled from the Alleghany river to what is now Sullivan county in Tennessee. One of them returned with the scalps of forty men, women, and children. On the other hand, a party of 86 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. v. white men, with Dunmore's permission, destroyed an Indian village on the Muskingum. To restrain the backwoodsmen and end the miseries which distracted the frontier, and to look after his own interests and his agents, Dunmore caUed out the militia of the South-west, and himself repaired to Pittsburg. In September he renewed peace with the Delawares and the Six Nations. Then, with about twelve hundred men, among whom was Daniel Morgan, with a company from the valley of Virginia, he descended the Ohio, and proceeded to the Shawnee towns, which he found deserted. The summons from Dunmore, borne beyond the Blue Ridge, roused the settlers on the Greenbrier, the New river, and the Holston. The Watauga repubhcans, who never owned English rule and never required English protection, heard the cry of their brethren in distress ; and a company of nearly fifty of them, under the command of Evan Shelby, with James Robertson and Valentine Sevier as sergeants, marched as vol unteers. The name of every one of them is preserved and cherished. Leaving home in August, they crossed the New river, and joined the army of western Virginia at Camp Union, on the great levels of Greenbrier. From that place, now caUed Lewisburg, to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, the distance is about one hundred and sixty mUes. At that time there was not even a trace over the rugged mountains ; but the young woodsmen who formed the advance party moved expeditiously with their pack-horses and droves of cattle through the home of the wolf, the deer, and the panther. After a fortnight's struggle, they left behind them the last rocky masses of the hill-tops ; and, passing between the gigantic growth of primeval forests, in which at that season the golden hue of the hnden, the sugar-tree, and the hickory contrasted with the glistening green of the laurel, the crimson of the sumach, and the shadows of the sombre hemlock, they descended to the widening valley of Elk river. Halting only to build canoes and receive a sec ond party, which raised their force to nearly eleven hundred men, they descended the Kanawha, and on the sixth of Octo ber encamped on Point Pleasant, near its junction with the Ohio. But no message reached them from Dunmore. 1774. THE QUEBEC ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 87 Of all the western Indians, the Shawnees were the fiercest. They made a boast of having kiUed ten times as many of the Enghsh as any other tribe. They stole through the forest with Mi n goes and Delawares, to attack the army of south western Virginia. At daybreak, on the tenth, two young men, rambhng up the Ohio in search of deer, feU on the Indians, who had crossed the river the evening before and were pre paring for battle. One of the two was instantly shot down ; the other bore the news to the camp. In two or three minutes after, Robertson and Sevier, of Shelby's company, came in and confirmed the account. Colonel Andrew Lewis, who had the command, instantly ordered out two divisions, each of one hundred and fifty men ; the Augusta troops under his brother Charles Lewis, the Botetourt troops under Fleming. Just as the sun was rising, the Indians opened a heavy fire on both par ties, wounding Charles Lewis mortally. Fleming was wounded thrice ; and the Virginians must have given way but for suc cessive re-enforcements from the camp, where Andrew Lewis himself hngered to the end of the action. " Be strong," cried Cornstalk, the chief of the red men ; and he animated them by his example. Till the hour of noon the combatants fought from behind trees, never above twenty yards apart, often within six, and sometimes near enough to strike with the tomahawk. At length the Indians, under the protection of the cl:se under wood and fallen trees, retreated, tiU they gained an advan tageous hne extending from the Ohio to the Kanawha. A desultory fire was kept up on both sides tiU after sunset, when, under the favor of night, the savages fled across the river. The victory cost forty-nine lives, and about eighty men were wounded. This battle was the most bloody and best contested in the annals of forest warfare. The heroes of the day proved them selves worthy to found states. Among them were Isaac Shel by, the first governor of Kentucky ; WUham CampbeU ; the brave George Matthews ; Fleming ; Andrew Moore, afterward a senator of the United States ; Evan Shelby ; James Robert son ; Valentine Sevier ; and Daniel Morgan. Their praise re sounded not in the backwoods only, but through all Virginia. Soon after the battle a re-enforcement of three hundred 88 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; oh. v. troops arrived from Fincastle. FoUowing orders tardily re ceived from Dunmore, the army, leaving a garrison at Point Pleasant, dashed across the Ohio to defy new battles. After a march of eighty miles through an untrodden wilderness, on the twenty-fourth of October they encamped on the banks of Congo creek. in Pickaway, near old ChiUicothe. The dis heartened Indians threw themselves on the mercy of the Eng lish ; and at Camp Charlotte, which stood on the left bank of Sippo creek, about seven mUes south-east of CircleviUe, Dun more admitted them to a conference. Before the council was brought to a close the Shawnees agreed to deliver up their prisoners without reserve ; to restore all horses and other property which they had carried off ; to hunt no more on the Kentucky side of the Ohio ; to molest no boats on the river ; to regulate their trade by the king's in structions, and to deliver up hostages. Virginia has left on record her judgment, that Dunmore's conduct in this campaign was "truly noble, wise, and spirited." The results inured exclusively to the benefit of America. The Indians desired peace ; the rancor of the white people changed to confidence. The royal governor of Virginia and the Virginian army in the valley of the Scioto nullified the act of parhament which ex tended the province of Quebec to the Ohio, and in the name of the king of Great Britain triumphantly maintained for Virginia the western and northwestern jurisdiction which she claimed as her chartered right. The western Virginians, halting at Fort Gower, on the north of the Ohio, on the fifth of November, took their part in con sidering the grievances of their country. They were " blessed with the talents " to bear all hardships of the woods ; to pass weeks comfortably without bread or salt ; to sleep under the open sky ; to march farther in a day than any men in the world ; and to use the rifle with a precision that to all but themselves was a miracle. Professing zeal for the honor of America, and especially of Virginia, they held themselves bound to publish their sentiments; they promised continued allegiance to the king, if he would but reign over them as "a brave and free people." "But," said they, "as attach ment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh 1774. THE QUEBEC ACT OF PARLIAMENT. 89 every other consideration, we resolve that we wiU exert every power within us for the defence of American hberty, when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our country men." On the ninth, the general committee of South Carolina sum moned a convention of the inhabitants of their colony by repre sentation. In the apportionment of representatives, Charles ton, on the proposal of Charles Pinckney, obtained thirty, keeping up the inequality which began in the committee ; at the desire of " the country gentlemen," six were aUowed to each of nineteen parishes, which lay along the sea and in the lowlands ; while aU the upland territory was divided into four very large districts, to each of which ten only were conceded. This is the origin of the unequal distribution of political power which long prevaUed in South Carohna ; of one hundred and eighty-four representatives, the low country elected all but forty. On the twenty-first, the Maryland convention was reassem bled, and unanimously approved the proceedings of congress- It most earnestly recommended that all former differences about reUgion or politics, the feuds of so many generations between Cathohcs and Protestants, between the friends and the foes of the proprietary government, be forever buried in oblivion ; it conjured every man, by his duty to God, his coun try, and his posterity, to unite in defence of their common rights and hberties ; and it promised, to the utmost of its power, to support Massachusetts against the attempt to carry the late act of parhament into execution by force. 90 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vi. CHAPTER VI. the fourteenth parliament of great britain. October 1774-Januart 20, 1775. " It is the united voice of America to preserve their free dom, or lose their lives in defence of it. Their resolutions are not the effect of inconsiderate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. The true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused through all ranks and orders of people in any country on the face of the earth as it now is through all North America. If the late acts of parhament are not to be repealed, the wisest step for both countries is to separate, and not to spend their blood and treasure in destroy ing each other. It is barely possible that Great Britain may depopulate North America ; she never can conquer the inhabi tants." So wrote Joseph Warren, and his words were the mirror of the passions of his countrymen. But the king never once harbored the thought of concession, and " left the choice of war or peace " to depend on the obedience of Massachusetts. At the elections to parhament the question was repre sented as though Massachusetts refused to pay a very moderate indemnity for property destroyed by a mob, and resisted an evident improvement in its administrative system from a de liberate conspiracy with other colonies to dissolve the connec tion with the mother country. Many of the members who were purchasing seats expected to reimburse themselves by selling their votes to the government. Lord Varney, who had hitherto gratuitously brought Ed mund Burke into parliament, had fallen into debt, and sold his borough for the most he could get. Burke coquetted 1774. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 91 with Wilkes for support at Westminster ; " the great patriot " preferred Lord Mahon ; but the borough elected tories. Burke fell into melancholy, and thought of renouncing public life, for which he owned himself unfit. There seemed for him no way into the house of commons except through a rotten bor ough belonging to Rockingham. This was his best hope, when, on the eleventh of October, he was invited to become a candidate at Bristol against Viscount Clare, who, in the de bates on the stamp act, had stickled for "the pepper-corn" from America. He hastened to the contest with alacrity, avowing for his principle the reconcihation of British supe riority with American hberty ; and, after a struggle of three weeks, he and Henry Cruger of New York were chosen to represent the great trading city of western England. Bristol was almost the only place which changed its repre sentation to the advantage of America. Wilkes was success ful in the county of Middlesex, and, after a ten years' struggle with the king, took his seat without opposition. William Howe was the candidate for Nottingham. To the questions of that liberal constituency he answered that the ministry had pushed matters too far ; that the whole British army would not be sufficient to conquer America ; that, if offered a command there, he would refuse it; and that he would vote for the repeal of the four penal acts of parhament. The elections were over, when, on the eighteenth of November, letters of the preceding September, received from Gage, announced that the act of parhament for regulating the government of Massachusetts could be carried into effect only after the conquest of aU the New England colonies ; that the province had warm friends throughout the continent ; that the people in Carolina were " as mad " as in Boston ; that the country people in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were exercising in arms and forming magazines of am munition and such artillery, good and bad, as they could pro cure ; that the civil officers of the British government had no asylum but Boston. In a private letter, Gage proposed that the obnoxious acts should be suspended. In an official paper he hinted that it would be well to cut the colonies adrift, and leave them to anarchy and repentance ; they had grown opu- 92 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. vi. lent through Britain, and, were they cast off and declared aliens, they must become a needy people. The king heard these suggestions with scorn, and said to North : " The New England governments are now in a state of rebellion ; blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or to be independent." Franklin warned his nearest friends that there was no safety for America but in total emancipation. The fourteenth parliament was opened on the last day of November. The speech from the throne fixed attention on the disobedience in Massachusetts. In the house of lords, Hillsborough moved an address, expressing abhorrence of the principles of that province. After a long and vehement de bate, his motion prevailed by a vote of about five to one. But Rockingham, Sheibume, Camden, Stanhope, and five other peers, entered a protest against "the inconsiderate temerity which might precipitate the country into a civil war." " The king's speech," wrote Gamier to Vergennes, "will complete the alienation of the colonies. Every day makes conciliation more difficult and more needed." On the fifth of December the new house of commons de bated the same subject. Fox, Burke, and others spoke warmly. The results of the congress had not arrived ; Lord North could therefore say that America had as yet offered no terms ; at the same time he avoided the irrevocable word rebelhon. Some caUed the Americans cowards ; some questioned their being in earnest ; Barre declared the scheme of subduing them " wild and impracticable;" the minister was sustained by a very great majority. To escape impending difficulties, Lord North wished to send out commissioners of inquiry ; but the king would not listen to it. Friends of Franklin were next employed to ascertain the extent of his demands for America ; and he wrote " hints on the terms that might produce a durable union between Great Britain and the colonies." Assuming that the tea duty act would be repealed, he offered payment for the tea that had been destroyed, support of the peace establishment and gov ernment, hberal aids in time of war on requisition by the king and parhament, and, if Britain would give up its monopoly of 1774. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 93 American commerce, a continuance of the same aids in time of peace. On the other hand, he asked the repeal of the Quebec act, and insisted on the repeal of the acts regulating the gov ernment and changing the laws of Massachusetts. " The old colonies," it was objected, " have nothing to do with the af fairs of Canada." " We assisted in its conquest," said Frank lin ; " loving hberty ourselves, we wish to have no foundation for future slavery laid in America." " The Massachusetts act," it was urged, " is an improvement of that government." " The pretended amendments are real mischiefs," answered Franklin ; " but, were it not so, charters are compacts between two par ties, the king and the people, not to be altered even for the better but by the consent of both. The parliament's claim and exercise of a power to alter charters which had been always held inviolable, and to alter laws of the colonial legislatures which, having received the royal approbation, had been deemed fixed and unchangeable but by the powers that made them, have rendered aU our constitutions uncertain. As by claiming a right to tax at wUl, you deprive us of all property, so, by this claim of altering our laws at wiU, you deprive us of all privi lege and right but what we hold at your pleasure. We must risk hfe and everything rather than submit to this." The words of Franklin were in harmony with the true voice of England. " Were I an American," said Camden in the house of lords, "I would resist to the last drop of my blood." StiU the annual estimates indicated no fear of the interruption of peace. The land-tax was continued at but three shillings in the pound ; no vote of credit was required ; the army was neither increased nor reformed ; and the naval force was reduced by four thousand seamen. "How is it pos sible," asked the partisans of authority, " that a people with out arms, ammunition, money, or navy, should dare to brave the foremost among aU the powers on earth ? " "I know," said Sandwich, now at the head of the admiralty, " the low establish ment proposed wiU be f uUy sufficient for reducing the colonies to obedience. Americans are neither disciphned nor capable of disciphne ; their numbers will only add to the facility of their defeat ; " and he made the lords merry with jests at their cowardice. 94 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vi. The congress of Massachusetts, though destitute of muni tions of war, armed vessels, mihtary stores, and money, had confidence that a small people, resolute in its convictions, out weighs an empire. On the return of Samuel Adams, they adopted all the recommendations of the continental congress. They estabhshed a secret correspondence with Canada. They entreated the ministers of the gospel in their colony " to assist in avoiding that dreadful slavery with which aU were now threatened." " You," said they to its people, " are placed by Providence in the post of honor, because it is the post of dan ger ; while struggling for the noblest objects, let nothing un becoming our character as Americans, as citizens, and Chris tians, be justly chargeable to us. Whoever considers the num ber of brave men inhabiting North America will know that a general attention to mihtary discipline must so estabhsh their rights and liberties as, under God, to render it impossible to destroy them. But we apprise you of your danger, which ap pears to us imminently great." With such words they ad journed, to keep the annual Thanksgiving which they them selves had appointed, finding occasion in their distress to rejoice at " the smiles of Divine Providence on the union in their own province and throughout the continent." As British ships of the hne successively arrived, they brought for the land service no more than six hundred re cruits, which only made good the losses by sickness and deser tion ; so that Gage had scarcely three thousand effective men. Before the middle of December it became known that the king in council had forbidden the export of arms to America ; at once men from Providence removed more than forty pieces of cannon from the colony's works near Newport; and the assembly and merchants of Rhode Island took measures to import mihtary stores. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the fourteenth of December, just after letters were received from Boston, mem bers of the town committee, with other Sons of Liberty, pre ceded by a drum and fife, paraded the streets till their number grew to four hundred, when they made their way in scows and "gondolas" to the fort at the entrance of the harbor, over powered the few invalids who formed its garrison, and carried 1774. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 95 off upward of one hundred barrels of powder that belonged to the province. The next day John Sullivan led a party to dismantle the fort, from which they brought away all the small arms, a quantity of shot, and sixteen light pieces of artillery. In Massachusetts three hundred thousand people continued their usual avocations without a legislature or executive officers. without sheriffs, judges, or justices of the peaces As the su pervision ot government disappeared, each man seemed more and more a law to himself, and order prevaUed in a province where there existed no administration but by committees, no mihtary officers but those chosen by the militia. Yet never were legal magistrates obeyed with more alacrity. The select- men continued their usual functions ; the zeal of the churches increased in fervor. Jb rom the sermons of memorable divines, who were gone to a heavenly country, leaving their names precious among the people of God on earth, a brief collection of faithful testimonies to the cause ot God and his New Eng- land people was circulated by the press, that the hearts of the rising generation might know what had been the great end of the plantations, and count it their duty and their glory to con- tinue in those right ways of the Lord wherein their fathers walked before them. Their successors in the ministry, all pupUs of Harvard or Yale, true ministers to the people, un- equallecl m metaphysical acuteness and faifliliarity with the principles of pohtical freedom, were heard as of old with rev erence by their congregations in their meeting-houses on every Lord's day, and on special occasions of fasts, thanksgivings, lectures, and mihtary musters! Elijahs mantle being caught up was a happy token that~the Lord would be with this Lgen- eration, as he had been with their fathers. Their exhaustless armory was the Bible, whose~scriptures furnished sharp words to point their appeals, apt examples of resistance, prophetic denunciations ot the enemies of God's"people, and promises of the divine blessing on the defenders of his law. But what most animated the country was the magnanimity of Boston ; " suffering amazing loss, but determined to endure poverty and death, rather than betray America and posterity." Its people, under the eyes of the general, disregarding his army, his proclamations, and the British statute against town-meet- 96 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in.; oh.vi. ings, came together according to their ancient forms, and, with Samuel Adams as moderator, elected delegates to the next provincial congress of Massachusetts. When the proceedings of congress reached England, their firmness, moderation, and unanimity took the ministry by sur prise. Frankhn invited the colonial agents to unite in present- ing the petition of congress, but he was joined only by those for Massachusetts. Dartmouth received it courteously, and laid it before the king, who promised that it should be com municated to parliament. British industry in that age made every able-bodied man of so much value that considerable enhstments at home were out of the question ; rank in the army was bestowed by favor or sold, so that even boys at school held commissions ; and not one general officer of that day had gained a great name. Aris tocratic selfishness had unfitted England for war, unless under a minister who could inspirit the nation. Barrington, the mili tary secretary, pressed upon the government the result of his observations : " The contest wiU cost more than we can gain. We have not strength to levy internal taxes on America ; many among ourselves doubt their equity ; all the troops in North America are not enough to subdue the Massachusetts ; the most successful conquest must produce the horrors of civil war. Till the factious' chiefs can be secured, judicial proceedings would confer the palm of martyrdom without the pain ; " and he urged an immediate withdrawal of the troops, the " aban donment of aU ideas of internal taxation," and such " conces sions " as could be made " with dignity." Lord North was ready to negotiate with the Americans for the right to tax themselves. Frankhn appeared to be the great agent of the continent; and, as it was stiU thought that his secret instructions might authorize him to modify the condi tions of conciliation, Lord Howe undertook to ascertain the extent of his powers. The name of Howe was dear to Americans. The elder Lord Howe had fallen near Lake George, as their companion in arms ; and Massachusetts had raised to him a monument in Westminster Abbey. His brother, WiUiam Howe, who had served with Americans in America, was selected as the new 1774. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 97 colonial commander-in-chief ; and his oldest surviving brother, now Lord Howe, was to be employed as the pacificator. "No man," said Lord Howe to Franklin at their first inter view on Christmas-day evening, 1774, " can do more toward reconcihng our differences than you. I have a particular regard for New England, which has shown an endearing respect for my family. If you wiU indulge me with your ideas, I may be a means of bringing on a good understanding." At the unexpected prospect of restoring harmony, tears of joy wet Franklin's cheeks. He had remained in London at the peril of his hberty, perhaps of his hfe, to promote reconciliation. With candor and fidelity he explained the measures by which alone tranquillity could be restored; and they included the repeal of the regulating act for Massachusetts. Lord Howe made his report of the interview to Dartmouth and North ; but they adhered to the vague and aimless plan of commissioners who should repair to America and endeavor to agree with its leading people upon some means of compos ing aU differences. Every prospect of preferment was opened to Frankhn if he would take part in such a commission. In reply he frankly pointed out, as the only basis for a cordial union, the repeal of the acts complained of ; the removal of the fleet and the troops from Boston ; and a voluntary recaU of some oppressive measures which the colonists had passed over in sUence ; leaving the questions which related to aids, gen eral commerce, and reparation tc the India company, to be ar ranged with the next general congress. The assembly of the island of Jamaica, at their session in December, disclaiming any intention of joining the American confederacy, entreated the king to recognise the title of all Americans to the benefits of the Enghsh constitution as the bond of union between them and Britain ; but their petition, though received by the king and communicated to the house of commons, had no effect whatever. " It is plain enough," so reasoned Vergennes, " the king of England is puzzled between his desire of reducing the colonies and his dread of driving them to a separation ; so that nothing could be more interesting than their affairs." As the king of France might be asked to render them assistance, the English 98 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vi. support of the Corsicans was cited as a precedent to the French embassy at London, and brought before the cabinet at Versailles. To Louis XVI., Vergennes in the same month explained that the proceedings of the continental congress con tained the germ of a rebellion; that, while the Americans reaUy desired a reconciliation with the mother country, the min istry, from their indifference, would prevent its taking place ; that Lord North was disconcerted by the unanimity and vigor of the colonies ; and that France had nothing to fear but the return of Chatham to power. The interests of Britain required Chatham's return ; for he thoroughly understood alike the policy of the French, and the disposition of the colonies. In his interview with Americans, he said, without reserve : " America, under all her oppressions and provocations, holds out to us the most fair and just open ing for restoring harmony and affectionate intercourse." No pubhc body ever gained so full and unanimous a recognition of its integrity and its wisdom as the general congress of 1774. Its pohcy sprung so necessarily out of the relations of free countries to their colonies, that within a few years it was adopted by all British statesmen, and for three quarters of a century regulated the colonial administration of every succes sive ministry, till it finally gave way to a system of navigation even far more liberal than the American congress had ven tured to propose. The day after Franklin's first conversation with Lord Howe, Chatham received him at Hayes. "The congress," said he, " is the most honorable assembly of statesmen since those of the ancient Greeks and Romans in the most virtuous times." He thought the petition to the king " decent, manly, and properly expressed." He questioned the assertion that the keeping up an army in the colonies in time of peace required their con sent ; with that exception, he admired and honored the whole of the proceedings. " The army at Boston," said Frankhn, " cannot answer any good purpose, and may be infinitely mis chievous. No accommodation can be properly entered into by the Americans while the bayonet is at their breasts. To have an agreement binding, all force should be withdrawn." The words sank deeply into the mind of Chatham, and he prom- 1774-1775. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 99 ised his utmost efforts to the American cause, as the last hope of hberty for England. " I shall be well prepared," said he, " to meet the ministry on the subject, for I think of nothing else both night and day." To unite every branch of the opposition in one line of pohcy, Chatham desired a cordial junction with the Rocking ham whigs. That party had only two friends who spoke in the house of lords, and in the house of commons was moulder ing away. And yet Rockingham was impracticable. " I look back," he said, " with very real satisfaction and content on the line which I, indeed, emphatically I, took in the year 1766 ; the stamp act was repealed, and the doubt of the right of this country was fairly faced and resisted." Burke believed that the Americans would not preserve their unanimity, and that the controversy would derive its chief importance from its aspect on parties in England. He was stiU fondly supporting the omnipotence of parhament over the colonies, and derided Chatham as the best bower anchor of the ministry. Chatham divined that peril was near, and could be averted only by limiting the assertion by parhament of its absolute power in aU cases whatever. To further that end, the aged statesman paid a visit to Rockingham. At its opening, Chat ham's countenance beamed with cordiality ; but Rockingham perversely insisted on maintaining the declaratory act. " The Americans have not called for its repeal," was his reply to all objections ; and he never could be made to comprehend that congress had restrained itself only from a reluctance to em barrass him and his friends. The opposition, thus divided, became helpless. The majority of the cabinet, instead of respecting Lord North's scruples, were mtriguing to get him turned out, and his place supplied by a thorough assertor of British supremacy. At a cabinet councU held on the twelfth of January 1775, his colleagues refused to find in the proceedings of congress any honorable basis for conciliation. | It was therefore resolved to interdict all commerce with the Americans, to protect the loyal, and to declare aU others traitors and rebels. At the meeting of parliament after the hohdays, Lord North presented papers relating to America. They reminded 100 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vl Chatham of the statesman who said to his son: "See with how httle wisdom this world of ours is governed ; " and he pictured to himself Ximenes and Cortes in the shades discuss ing the merits of the ministers of England. The twentieth of January 1775 was the first day of the session in the house of lords. It is not probable that even one of the peers had heard of the settlements beyond the AUeghanies, where the Watauga and the forks of Holston flow to the Tennessee. Yet, on the same day, the lords of that region, most of them Presbyterians of Scottish-Irish descent, met in councU near Abingdon. .Their united congregations, having suffered from sabbaths too much profaned, or wasted in melancholy silence at home, had caUed Charles Cummings to the pastoral charge of their precious and immortal souls. The men never went to pubhc worship without being armed, or without their famUies. Their minister, on sabbath morn ing, would ride to the service armed with shot-pouch and rifle. Their meeting-house was a large cabin of unhewn logs ; and, when about twice in the year the bread and cup were distrib uted, the table was spread outside of the church in the neigh boring grove. The news f rdm congress reached them slowly ; but, on receiving an account of what had been done, they assembled in convention, and the spirit of freedom swept through their minds as naturally as the ceaseless forest wind sways the firs on the sides of the Black Mountains. They ad hered unanimously to the association of congress, and named as their committee Charles Cummings their minister, Preston, Christian, Arthur CampbeU, John CampbeU, Evan Shelby, and others. Adopting the delegates of Virginia as their rep resentatives, they addressed them as men whose conduct would immortalize them in its annals. "We explored," said they, " our uncultivated wilderness, bordering on many nations of savages, and surrounded by mountains almost inaccessible to any but these savages ; but even to these remote regions the hand of power hath pursued us, to strip us of that hberty and property with which God, nature, and the rights of humanity have vested us. We are wilUng to contribute aU in our power, if apphed to constitutionaUy, but cannot think of submitting our liberty' or property to a venal British parhament or a cor- 1775. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 101 rupt ministry. We are deliberately and resolutely determined never to surrender any of our inestimable privUeges to any power upon earth but at the expense of our lives. These are our real though unpolished sentiments of hberty and loyalty, and in them we are resolved to hve and die." While they were publishing the declaration which they were sure to make good, Chatham was attempting to rouse the ministry from its indifference. By a special appointment he met Frankhn in the lobby of the house of lords, and saying to him, " Your presence at this day's debate wUl be of more ser vice to America than mine," he walked with him arm in arm, and placed him conspicuously below the bar. So soon as Dartmouth had laid- the papers before the house, Chatham, after inveighing against the dilatoriness of the com munication, moved to address the king for " immediate orders to remove the forces from the town of Boston as soon as pos sible." " My lords ! " he continued, " the way must be imme diately opened for reconciliation ; an hour now lost may pro duce years of calamity. This measure of recaUing the troops from Boston is preparatory to the restoration of your peace and the estabhshment of your prosperity. " Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just ; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equaUy impotent to convince or enslave your fellow- subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether ambi- tioned by an individual part of the legislature," so he described the king, " or by the bodies who compose it, is equally intoler able to British subjects. "The means of enforcing this thraldom are as weak in practice as they are unjust in principle. General Gage and the troops under his command are penned up, pining in inglo rious inactivity. They are an army of impotence; and, to make the foUy equal to the disgrace, they are an army of irri tation. But this tameness, however contemptible, cannot be censured; for the first drop of blood shed in civil and un natural war will make a wound that years, perhaps ages, may not heal. Their force would be most disproportionately ex- 102 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. vi. erted against a brave, generous, and united people with arms in their hands and courage in their hearts : three millions of people, the genuine descendants of a vahant and pious ances try, driven to those deserts by the narrow maxims of a super stitious tyranny. And is the spirit of persecution never to be appeased? Are the brave sons of those brave forefathers to inherit their sufferings, as they have inherited their virtues ? They have been condemned unheard. The indiscriminate hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilt ; with all the formalities of hostihty, has blocked up the town of Boston, and reduced to beggary and famine thirty thousand inhabitants. " But his majesty is advised that the union in America can not last ! I pronounce it a union, solid, permanent, and effec tual. Its real stamina are the cultivators of the land ; in their simplicity of life is found the integrity and courage of free dom. These true sons of the earth are invincible. What though you march from town to town and from province to province ! How shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you in your progress to grasp the dominion of eighteen hundred miles of continent? " The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money in England ; the same which, by the biU of rights, vindicated the English constitution; the same which estab lished the essential maxim of your liberties, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own .consent. This glorious spirit of whiggism animates three milUons in America, aided by every whig in England, to the amount, I hope, of double the American numbers. Ireland they have to a man. " Let this distinction then remain forever ascertained : tax ation is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. They say you have no right to tax them without their consent; they say truly. I recognise to the Americans their supreme, unalien able right in their property, a right which they are justified in the defence of to the last extremity. To maintain this princi ple is the great common cause of the whigs on the other side of the Atlantic, and on this. ' 'Tis hberty to liberty engaged ; ' the aUiance of God and nature, immutable and eternal. 1775. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 103 " To such united force, what force shall be opposed ? A few regiments in America, and seventeen or eighteen thousand men at home ! The idea is too ridiculous to take up a moment of your lordships' time. Unless the fatal acts are done away, the hour of danger must arrive in all its horrors, and then these boastful ministers, spite of aU their confidence, shall be forced to abandon principles which they avow, but cannot de fend ; measures which they presume to attempt, but cannot L.'-'pe to effectuate. " It is not repealing a piece of parchment that can restore America to our bosom : you must repeal her fears and her re sentments, and you may then hope for her love and gratitude. United as they are, you cannot force them to your unworthy terms of submission. " When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that in aU my reading — and I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master-states of the world — for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no body of men can stand in prefer ence to the general congress at Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it, and aU attempts to impose servitude upon such a mighty continental nation must be vain. We shaU be forced ultimately to retract ; let us retract while we can, not when we must. These violent acts must be repealed ; you will repeal them ; I stake my reputa tion on it, that you wiU in the end repeal them. Avoid, then, this humihating necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, peace, and happiness, for that is your true dignity. Concession comes with better grace from superior power, and establishes sohd confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. Be the first to spare ; throw down the weapons in your hand. "Every motive of justice and policy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America by a removal of your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your acts of parhament, and by demonstrating amicable dispositions 104 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vi. toward your colonies. On the other hand, to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures, every danger and every. hazard impend, foreign war hanging over you by a thread, France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors. " If the ministers persevere in thus misadvising and mis leading the king, I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I wUl pronounce that the kingdom is undone ; I will not say that they can ahenate the affections of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that, the American jewel out of it, they will make the crown not worth his wearing." The words of Chatham, when reported to the king, recalled his last interview with George GrenviUe, and stung him to the heart. He raved at the wise counsels of the greatest states man of his dominions, as the words of an abandoned politician, " void of gratitude " ; and months afterward was looking for the time " when decrepitude or age should put an end to him as the trumpet of sedition." With a whining delivery, of which the bad effect was heightened by violence, Suffolk, who boasted of having been one of the first to advise coercive measures, assured the house that, in spite of Lord Chatham's prophecy, the government was resolved to repeal not one of the acts, but to use aU possi ble means to bring the Americans to obedience. Sherburne gave his adhesion to the sentiments of Chatham, not from personal engagements, but solely from his conviction of their wisdom, justice, and propriety. Camden, who in the discussion surpassed every one but Chatham, returned to his old ground. " This," he declared, " I wiU say, not only as a statesman, pohtician, and philosopher, but as a common lawyer : my lords, you have no right to tax America ; the natural rights of man and the immutable laws of nature are all with that people. King, lords, and commons are fine-sounding names; but king, lords, and commons may become tyrants as weU as others ; it is as lawful to resist the tyranny of many as of one. Somebody once asked the great Selden in what book you might find the law for resisting tyranny. ' It has always been the custom of England,' answered Selden, ' and the custom of England is the law of the land.' " 1775. THE FOURTEENTH BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 105 " My lords," said Lord Gower, with contemptuous sneers, "let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights ! their rights as men and citizens ! their rights from God and nature ! I am for enforcing these measures." Rochf ord held Lord Chatham, jomtly with the Americans, responsible in his own person for disagreeable consequences. Lyttelton re proached Chatham with spreading the fire of sedition, and the Americans with designing to emancipate themselves from the act of navigation. Chatham closed the debate by insisting on the right of Great Britain to regulate the commerce of the whole empire ; but as to the right of the Americans to exemption from taxa tion, except by their imphed or express assent, they derived it from God, nature, and the British constitution. Franklin with rapt admiration listened to the man who on that day had united the highest wisdom and eloquence. " His speech," said the young William Pitt, " was the most forcible that can be imag ined ; in matter and manner far beyond what I can express ; it must have an infinite effect without doors, the bar being crowded with Americans." The statesmanship of Chatham and the close reasoning of Camden " availed no more than the whistling of the winds ; " the motion was rejected by a vote of sixty-eight against eighteen ; but the duke of Cumberland, one of the king's own brothers, was found in the minority. The king, triumphing in "the very handsome majority," was sure " nothing could be more calculated to bring the Americans to submission ; " but the debate of that day, notwithstanding Rockingham had expressed his adherence to his declaratory act, went forth to the colonies as an assurance that the inevitable war would be a war with a ministry, not with the British people. It took from the con test the character of internecine hatred, and showed that the true spirit of England, which had grown great by freedom, was on the side of America. Its independence was foreshad owed, and three of Chatham's hearers on that day — Frankhn, Shelburne, and his own son, William Pitt — never wearied in their exertions till their joint efforts established peace between Britain and the United States of America. 106 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; ch. vii CHAPTER Vn. parliament declares massachusetts in rebellion. January-February 1775. Neither the king nor his ministers believed the hearty union of so vast a region as America possible. But, at the one extreme, New Hampshire in convention unanimously ad hered to the recent congress, and elected delegates to the next. At the other, South Carohna, on the eleventh of January 1775, held a general meeting, which was soon resolved into a provincial congress, with Charles Pinckney for president. The deputies to the general congress were then caUed upon to explain why they had not included in the list of grievances the entire series of monopolies and restrictions; and they murmured at the moderation of Virginia, which had refused to look further back than 1763. But South Carohna wisely adopted the continental measures without change, completed her own internal organization, elected delegates to the general congress, encouraged her inhabitants to learn the use of arms, and asked their prayers that God would defend their just title to freedom, and " avert the impending calamities of civU war." If blood should be spilled in Massachusetts, her sons were to rise in arms. On the twelfth, the representatives of the extensive district of Darien, in Georgia, assembling in a local congress, held up the conduct of Massachusetts to the imitation of mankind, joined in the resolutions of the grand American congress, and instructed their delegates to the provincial congress accord ingly. They demanded liberal land laws to attract the dis tressed in Britain and " the poor of every nation." " To show 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. 107 the world,"' these were their words, " that we are not influenced by contracted or interested motives, but a general philan thropy for all mankind, of whatever climate, language, or com plexion, we hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of slavery in America (however the uncultivated state of our country or other specious arguments may plead for it) ; a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our hberties as weU as lives, debasing part of our feUow-creatures below men, corrupting the morals of the rest, and laying* the basis of that hberty we contend for upon a very wrong foundation. We therefore resolve at all times to use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in this colony, upon the most safe and equitable footing for the masters and themselves." The provincial congress, which was called to meet on the eighteenth at Savannah, failed of its end, since five only out of twelve parishes in the province were represented, and some of these were bound to half-way measures by their instructions. The legislature, which simultaneously assembled, was suddenly prorogued by the royal governor. But in the parish of St. John, which contained one third of the wealth of Georgia, the inhabitants, chiefly descendants of New England people, con formed to the resolutions of the continental congress, appointed Lyman HaU to represent them in Philadelphia, and set apart two hundred barrels of rice for their brethren in Boston. In December 1774, the Maryland convention had recom mended to the inhabitants of the province to form them selves into companies of sixty-eight men under officers of their own choice, and had apportioned among the several counties the sum of ten thousand pounds in currency, to be raised by subscription or voluntary offerings for the purchase of arms. Of this resolve the Virginia Fairfax county committee, whose chairman was Washington, on the seventeenth of January 1775, adopted the substance, and Washington pubhshed it signed with his own name. A company, composed of " the sons of gentlemen " in his neighborhood, elected him their commander. Every county in Virginia glowed with zeal to imbody its mi litia ; marksmen, armed with rifles, chose the costume of the painted hunting-shirt and moccasons. They pledged them- 108 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; ch. vn. selves to each other to keep a good firelock, ammunition, bul let-moulds, powder-hom, and bag for baUs. The committee of Northampton county offered a premium for the manufacture of gunpowder. As Dunmore persisted in proroguing the Vir ginia assembly, Peyton Randolph, as the organ of the people against the representative of the crown, directed the choice of deputies to a colony convention in March. The inhabitants of Maryland would hear of no opposition to the recommendations of congress. An armed organization sprung up. in Delaware. Crown officers and royalists practised every art to separate New York from the general union. The president of its chartered coUege taught that " Christians are required to be subject to the higher powers ; that an apostle enjoined submission to Nero ; " that the friends of the Amer ican congress were as certainly guilty of "an unpardonable crime as that St. Paul and St. Peter were inspired men." There the Episcopal clergy fomented a distrust of the New England people as " rebelhous repubhcans, intolerant toward the church of England and Quakers and Baptists, doubly intolerant toward the Germans and Dutch." There a cor rupting influence grew out of contracts for the British ser vice. The timid were alarmed by stories that " the undisci plined men of America could not withstand disciphned sol diers;" that "Canadians and unnumbered tribes of savages might be let loose upon them ; " and that, in case of war, " the Americans must be treated as vanquished rebels." New York, too, was the seat of a royal government which dispensed com missions, offices, and grants of land, gathered round its httle court a social circle to which loyalty gave the tone, and had for more than eight years craftily conducted the administration with the design to luU discontent. It permitted .the assembly to employ Edmund Burke as its agent. In the name of the ministry, it lavished promises of favor and indulgence; ex tended the boundaries of the province at the north to the Con necticut river; and, contrary to the sense of right of Lord Dartmouth, supported the claims of New York to Vermont lands against the populous villages which had grown up under grants from the king's governor of New Hampshire. Both Tryon and Colden professed a sincere desire to take part with 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. 109 the colony in obtaining a redress of all grievances and an im provement of its constitution ; and Dartmouth was made to utter the hope " of a happy accommodation upon some general constitutional plan." Such a union with the parent state the New York committee declared to be the object of their earnest solicitude ; and Jay " held nothing in greater abhorrence than the malignant charge of aspiring after independence." " If you find the complaints of your constituents to be weU grounded," said Colden to the New York assembly in January, " suppli cate the throne, and our most gracious sovereign wiU hear and reheve you with paternal tenderness." In this manner one colony was to be won for a separate negotiation. The royalists were persuaded of the success of their scheme ; and Gage, who had a httle before written for at ieast twenty thousand men, sent word to the secretary, in January, that, " if a respectable force is seen in the field, the most obnoxious of the leaders seized, and a pardon proclaimed for aU others, government wiU come off victorious, and with less opposition than was expected a few months ago." On the twenty-sixth of January, Abraham Ten Broeck, of the New York assembly, moved to take into consideration the proceedings of the continental congress ; but, though he was ably seconded by Nathaniel Woodhull, by PhUip Schuyler, by George Chnton, and by the larger number of the members who were of Dutch descent, the vote was lost by a majority of one. " That one vote was worth a million sterhng," said Gamier to Rochford, with an air of patronage, on hearing the news ; whUe he explained to Vergennes that the vote was to the min istry worth nothing at aU, that New York was sure to act with the rest of the continent. The assembly, now in its seventh year, had long since ceased to represent the people. In January the Quakers of Pennsylvania published an epistle, declaring that they would religiously observe the rule not to fight ; and the meeting of the Friends of Pennsylvania and New Jersey gave their " testimony against every usurpa tion of power and authority in opposition to the laws of gov ernment." In the same month the popular convention of Penn sylvania was disinclined to arm the people ; but the members pledged their constituents at every hazard to defend the rights HO AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. vii. and liberties of America, and, if necessary, to resist force by force. They recommended domestic manufactures, and led the way to a law "prohibiting the importation of slaves." The legislature of Pennsylvania had, in December, unreservedly approved the proceedings of the continental congress, and to the next congress in May had elected seven delegates. " Do not give up," wrote the town of Monmouth, in New Jersey, to the Bostonians ; " and if you should want any fur ther supply of bread, let us know." On the twenty-fourth of January the assembly of that colony, without a dissenting voice, adopted the measures of the Jast general congress, and elected delegates to the next. Three weeks later it trans mitted to the king a separate petition ; but it enumerated the American grievances without abatement. In February the assembly of New York, against the most strenuous exertions of Schuyler and Clinton, refused to send delegates to the next general congress by a vote of seventeen to nine. The people of New York were thrown back upon them selves under circumstances of difficulty that had no paraUel in other colonies. They had no legaUy constituted body to form their rallying point ; and, at a time when the continental con gress refused to sanction any revolutionary institution of gov ernment even in Massachusetts, they were compeUed to pro ceed to the methods of revolution. The colony was sure to emerge from all obstacles ; its first organ was the press. General Charles Lee denied the military capacity of Eng land, as she could with difficulty enhst recruits enough to keep her regiments full ; and he insisted that in a few months effi cient infantry might be formed of Americans. Two anonymous pamphlets, which dealt more thoroughly with the great questions at issue, are attributed to Alexander Hamilton, a gifted young man, who now shone like a star first seen above a haze, of whose rising no one had taken note. He was a West Indian, of whose existence the first written trace that has been preserved is of 1766, when his name occurs as a witness to a legal paper executed in the Danish island of Santa Cruz. Three years later, stiU a resi dent of the same island, he had learned to "contemn the 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. m grovelling condition of a clerk," fretted at the narrow bounds of his island cage, and to a friend of his own years con fessed his ambition. " I would wUhngly risk my life," wrote he, " though not my character, to exalt my station. I mean to prepare the way for futurity ; we have seen such schemes successful when the projector is constant." That way he pre pared1 by integrity of conduct, dihgence, and study. After an education as a merchant, during which he once at least conducted a voyage, and once had the charge of his employ er's business, he found himself enabled to repair to New York, of which he entered the coUege before the end of 1773. Trained from childhood to take care of himself, he possessed a manly self-rehance. His first sympathies in the contest had been on the British side against the Americans, but he had changed his opinions ; and, in February 1775, when the neces sity of the appeal to the people was become more and more urgent, the genial pUgrim from the South put forth all his ability, with a determined interest in the coming struggle, as if he had sprung from the soil whose rights he defended. Severe in youthful earnestness, he addressed the judgment, not the passions, aiming not at brilliancy of expression, but justness of thought. " I lament," .wrote Hamilton, " the unnatural quarrel between the parent state and the colonies ; and most ardently wish for a speedy reconciliation, a perpetual and mu tually beneficial union. I am a warm advocate for limited mon archy, and an unfeigned well-wisher to the present royal fam ily ; but, on the other hand, I am inviolably attached to the essential rights of mankind, to civil hberty as the greatest of terrestrial blessings." " You are quarrelhng for threepence a pound on tea, an atom on the shoulders of a giant," said the tories ; and he an swered : " The parhament claims a right to tax us in all cases whatever ; its late acts are in virtue of that claim ; it is the principle against which we contend." "You should have had recourse to remonstrance and pe tition," said the time-servers. " In the infancy of the present dispute," rejoined Hamilton, " we addressed the throne ; our address was treated with contempt and neglect. The first American congress in 1765 did the same, and met with similar 112 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; ch. vii. treatment. The exigency of the times requires vigorous reme dies ; we have no resource but in a restriction of our trade, or in a resistance by arms." " But Great Britain," it was said, " will enforce her claims by fire and sword. The Americans are without fortresses, without discipline, without military stores, without money, and cannot keep an army in the field ; nor can troops be disciplined without regular pay and government by an unquestioned legal authority. A large number of armed men might be got together near Boston, but in a week they would be obliged to disperse to avoid starving." " The courage of Americans," rephed Hamilton, " has been proved. The troops Great Brit ain could send against us would be but few ; our superiority in number would balance our inferiority in disciphne. It would be hard, if not impracticable, to subjugate us by force. An armament sufficient to enslave America wiU put her to an in supportable expense. She would be laid open to foreign ene mies. Rain like a deluge would pour in from every quarter." " Great Britain," it was said, " will seek to bring us to a com pliance by putting a stop to our whole trade." " We can hve without trade," answered Hamilton; "food and clothing we have within ourselves. With due cultivation, the southern colonies, in a couple of years, would afford cotton enough to clothe the whole continent. Our chmate produces wool, flax, and hemp. The silk-worm answers as well here as in any part of the world. If manufactures should once^ be estabhshed, they wiU pave the way stiU more to the future grandeur and glory of America, and wUl render it still securer against en croachments of tyranny." " You will raise the resentment of the united inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland," objected his adversaries. " They are our friends," he retorted ; " they know how dangerous to their liberties the loss of ours must be. The Irish wiU sympa thize with us and commend our conduct." The tories built confidently upon disunion. " A little time," replied Hamilton, " wiU awaken the colonies from their slumbers. I please myself with the flattering prospect that they will, ere long, unite in one indissoluble, chain." It was a common argument among the royalists of those 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. H3 days, that government was the creature of civil society, and therefore that an estabhshed government was not to be resisted. To this the young philosopher answered, rightly: " The Supreme Intelligence who rules the world has constituted an eternal law, which is obligatory upon aU mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. He gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence ; and invested him with an inviolable right to pursue liberty and personal safety. Natural hberty is a gift of the Creator to the whole human race. Civil hberty is only natural hberty, modi fied and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not dependent on human caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as weU as necessary to the weU-being of society." " The colony of New York," continued his antagonists, " is subject to the supreme legislative authority of Great Britain." "I deny that we are dependent on the legislature of Great Britain," he answered ; and he fortified his denial by an elabo rate discussion of colonial history and charters. It was retorted that New York had no charter. " The sacred rights of mankind," he rejoined, " are not to be rum maged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itseK ; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. Civil hberty cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifold violation of justice and the most aggravated guilt. The nations Turkey, Russia, France, Spain, and all other despotic kingdoms in the world have an inherent right, whenever they please, to shake off the yoke of servitude, though sanctioned by immemorial . usage, and to model their government upon the principles of civU hberty." So reasoned the thoughtful West Indian, as one who had power to see the divine archetype of freedom. The waves of turbulent opinion dashed around him ; cosmopolitan New York adopted the volunteer from the tropics as her son. New York still desired a constitutional union of Great Britain and Amer ica, but was resolved, at aU events, to make common cause with the continent. VOL. IV. — 8 114 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vii. The confidence of the ministry reposed more and more on the central provinces, and Dartmouth still took for granted the peaceful settlement of every question; yet six sloops-of-war and two frigates were under orders for America, and it was ostentatiously heralded that seven hundred marines from Eng land, and four regiments from Ireland, were to be prepared for embarkation ; " less to act hostilely against the Americans than to encourage the friends of government." In the house of commons the petitions in behalf of Amer ica, including those from London and Bristol, were consigned to a committee of obhvion, and ridiculed as already " dead in law." Hayley, of London, rebuked the levity of the house. " The rejection of the petitions of the trading interests," said he, on the twenty-sixth of January, " must drive on a civil war with America." "The Americans," argued Jenkinson, " ought to submit to every act of the English legislature." " England," said Burke, " is like the archer that saw his own child in the hands of the adversary, against whom he was going to draw his bow." Fox charged upon North that the country was on the point of being involved in a civil war by his inca pacity. North complained : " The gentleman blames all my administration, yet he defended and supported much of it ; nor do I know how I have deserved his reproaches." " I can tell the noble lord how," cried Fox : " by every species of false hood and treachery." Sir George Saville asked that Frankhn might be heard at the bar in support of the address of the American continental congress to the king ; and, after a vio lent debate, the house, by the usual majority, refused even to receive its petition. The demand of Gage for twenty thousand men was put aside with scorn. "The violences committed by those who have taken up arms in Massachusetts Bay," wrote Dartmouth, in the king's name, "have appeared to me as the acts of a rude rab ble, without plan, without concert, and without conduct; and therefore I think that a smaller force now, if put to the test, would be able to encounter them. The first and essential step to be taken toward re-establishing government would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors and abettors in the provincial congress, whose proceedings appear in every light to be treason 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. H5 and rebellion. If means be devised to keep the measure secret until the moment of execution, it can hardly fail of success. Even if it cannot be accomplished without bloodshed and should be a signal for hostUities, I must again repeat that any efforts of the people, unprepared to encounter with a regular force, cannot be veiy formidable. The imprisonment of those who shall be made prisoners will prevent their doing any further mischief. The charter for the province of Massachu setts Bay empowers the governor to use and exercise the law martial in time of rebellion. The attorney- and solicitor-gen eral report that the facts stated in the papers you have trans mitted are the history of an actual and open rebellion in that province, and therefore the exercise of that power upon your own discretion is strictly justifiable." " The minister must recede," wrote Gamier to Vergennes, " or lose America forever." " Your chief dependence," such were Franklin's words to Massachusetts, "must be on your Dwn virtue and unanimity, which, under God, will bring you through aU difficulties." There was nc hope in England but from Chatham, who lost not a moment in his endeavor to prevent a civil war before it should be inevitably fixed ; saying, " God's wiU be done, and let the old and new world be my judge." On the first day of February he presented his plan for " true reconcilement and national accord." It was founded substantially on the proposal of the American congress ; parhament was to repeal the statutes complained of, and to renounce the power of taxation ; America in turn was to recognise its right of regulating the commerce of the whole empire, and, by the free grants of her own assem blies, was to defray the expenses of her governments. This was the true meaning of his motion, though clauses were added to make it less unpalatable to the pride of the British legisla ture. Frankhn was persuaded that he sincerely wished to satisfy the Americans; Jefferson, on reading the bill, hoped that it might bring on a reconciliation; but Samuel Adams saw danger lurking under even a conditional recognition of the supremacy of parliament, and said : " Let us take care, lest, instead of a thorn in the foot, we have a dagger in the heart." No sooner had Chatham concisely invited the assistance of 116 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; ch. vii, the house in adapting his crude materials to the great end of an honorable and permanent adjustment, than Dartmouth spoke of the magnitude of the subject, and asked his consent that the biU should he on the table for consideration. " I expect noth ing more," was the ready answer. But Sandwich, speaking for the majority in the cabinet, intervened. " The proposed measure," he said, " deserves only contempt, and ought to be immediately rejected. I can never believe it to be the produc tion of any British peer. It appears to me rather the work of some American ; " and looking at Franklin, who stood leaning on the bar, " I fancy," he continued, " I have in my eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mis chievous enemies this country has ever known." The peers turned toward the American, when Chatham retorted : " The plan is entirely my own ; but, if I were the first minister and had the care of settling this momentous business, I should not be ashamed of publicly calling to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole of American affairs ; one whom all Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an honor not to the Enghsh nation only, but to human nature." ' Overawed by the temper of the house, Dartmouth, with his wonted weakness which made him adopt the worst measures even when he inclined to the best, wheeled round against his own candor, and declared for rejecting the plan immediately. This Gower demanded ; this even Grafton advised. Perceiving the unalterable purpose of the ministry, Chat ham poured upon them a torrent of invective. " This bill," said he, " though rejected here, will make its way to the pub lic, to the nation, to the remotest wilds of America; and, however faulty or defective, it will at least manifest how zealous I have been to avert those storms which seem ready to burst on my country. Yet I am not surprised that men who hate liberty should detest those that prize it; or that those who want virtue themselves should persecute those who possess it. The whole of your political conduct has been one continued series of weakness and temerity, despotism and the most notorious servility, incapacity and corruption. I must aUow you one merit, a strict attention to your own interests : 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. H7 in that view, who can wonder that you should put a negative on any measure which must deprive you of your places, and reduce you to that insignificance for which God and nature designed you ? " Lord Chatham's biU, though on so important a subject, offered by so great a statesman, and supported by most able and ^ learned speakers, was resisted by ignorance, prejudice, and ptuosion, by misconceptions and wilful perversion of plain truth, and was rejected on the first reading by a vote of sixty- one to thirty-two. " Hereditary legislators ! " thought Franklin. " There would be more propriety in having hereditary professors of mathematics ! But the elected house of commons is no better, nor ever wiU be while the electors receive money for their votes, and pay money wherewith ministers may bribe their representatives when chosen." Yet the wilfulness of the lords was happy for America ; for Chatham's proposition contained clauses to which it never could safely have assented, and yet breathed a spirit which must have distracted its councils. The ministers rushed on with headlong indiscretion, think ing to subdue the Americans by intimidation. Accordingly, Lord North, on the day after Chatham's defeat, proposed to the commons a joint address to the king to declare that a rebelhon existed in Massachusetts, and to pledge their lives and proper ties to its suppression. " The colonies," said Dunning, " are not in a state of re belhon, but resisting the attempt to establish despotism in America, as a prelude to the same system in the mother coun try. Opposition to arbitrary measures is warranted by the constitution, and established by precedent." "Nothing but the display of vigor," said Thurlow, " wiU prevent the Ameri can colonies becoming independent states." Grant, the same officer who had been scandalously beaten at Pittsburg and had offended South Carohna, asserted, amid the loudest cheering, that he knew the Americans very well, and was sure they would not fight ; " that they were not sol diers, and never could be made so, being naturally pusillani mous and incapable of discipline; that a very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete reduction ; " 118 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. vn. and he mimicked their peculiar expressions, and ridiculed their religious enthusiasm, manners, and ways of living, greatly to the entertainment of the house. At this stage, Fox, displaying for the first time the full extent of his abilities, entered into the history of the dispute, and stated truly that " the reason why the colonies objected to taxes for revenue was, that such revenue in the hands of gov ernment took out of the hands of the people to be governed the control, which every Englishman thinks he ought to have over the government to which his rights and interests are in trusted." The defence of the ministry rested chiefly on Wed- derburn. Gibbon was prepared to speak, but neither he nor Germain could find room for a single word. Again Lord North hesitated ; and Franklin, whose media tion was once more sohcited, received a paper containing the results of ministerial conferences on " the hints " which he had written. "We desire nothing but what is necessary to our security and well-being," said Frankhn to the agents who came to him. They declared, by authority, that the repeal of the tea act and the Boston port act would be conceded ; the Quebec act might be amended by reducing the province to its ancient hmits ; but the Massachusetts acts must be continued, both "as real amendments" of the constitution of that province, and " as a standing example of the power of parhament." Franklin's reply was brief : " While parhament claims the right of altering American constitutions at pleasure, there can be no agreement, for we are rendered unsafe in every privi lege." " An agreement is necessary for America," it was an swered ; " it is so easy for Britain to burn all your seaport towns." "My Uttle property," rejoined Franklin, "consists of houses in those towns; make bonfires of them whenever you please ; the fear of losing them wiU never alter my reso lution to resist to the last the claim of parliament." When on the sixth of February the address was reported to the house, Lord John Cavendish earnestly "deprecated civil war, necessarily involving a foreign one." " A fit and proper resistance," said WUkes, " is a revolution, not a rebel lion. Who can tell whether, in consequence of this day's vio lent and mad address, the scabbard may not be thrown away 1775. MASSACHUSETTS DECLARED IN REBELLION. H9 by the Americans as well as by us ; and, should success attend them, whether, in a few years, the Americans may not cele brate the glorious era of the revolution of 1775 as we do that of 1688? Success crowned the generous effort of our fore fathers for freedom; else they had died on the scaffold as traitors and rebels, and the period of our history "which does us the most honor would have been deemed a rebellion against lawful authority, not the expulsion of a tyrant." During the debate, which lasted till half past two in the morning, Lord North threw off the responsibility of the tax on tea, and prepared the way for its repeal as the basis for con ciliation. It was too late ; for a new question of the power of parhament over charters and laws had arisen. The dis avowal offended his colleagues, and in itself was not honest ; his vote in the cabinet had decided the measure, and it was unworthy of a minister of the crown to intimate that he had obsequiously followed a chief hke Grafton, or yielded his judgment to the king. Lord George Germain was fitly selected to dehver the mes sage of the commons at the bar of the lords. " There is in the address one paragraph which I totaUy disclaim," said Rock ingham ; " I wiU risk neither hfe nor fortune in support of the measures recommended. Four fifths of the nation are op posed to this address ; for myseK, I shall not tread in the steps of my noble but iU-fated ancestor, Lord Strafford, who first courted popular favor, and then deserted the cause he had em barked in ; as I have set out by supporting the cause of the people, so I shaU never, for any temptation whatsoever, desert or betray them." Mansfield, as K in concert with North, took the occasion to deny having advised the tea-tax; and he condemned the act as the most absurd that could be imagined. Camden, too, disclaimed having had the least hand in the measure. " It is mean," said Grafton, " for him at this time to screen himseK, and shift the blame off his own shoulders, to lay it on those of others. The measure was consented to in the cabinet. He acquiesced in it ; he presided in the house of lords when it passed through its several stages ; and he should equaUy share its censure or its merit." 120 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. va A passionate debate ensued, during which Mansfield praised the Boston port act and its attendant measures, including the regulating act for Massachusetts, as worthy to be gloried in for their wisdom, pohcy, and equity ; but he denied that they were in any degree the fruit of his influence. Now, as they were founded on his legal opinions, Shelburne insinuated that Mansfield's disclaimer was in substance not correct. Mans field retorted by charging Shelburne with uttering gross false hoods ; and Shelburne in a rejoinder gave the Ulustrious jurist the he. On the ninth of February the lord chanceUor, the speaker, and a majority of the lords and commons went in state to the palace, and, in the presence of the representatives of the great powers of Europe, presented to George IH. their joint ad dress. The king, in his reply, pledged himseK speedily and effectually to enforce " obedience to the laws and the author ity of the supreme legislature." His heart was hardened. Having just heard of the seizure of ammunition in New Hamp shire, he intended that his language should "open the eyes of the deluded Americans." " If it does not," said he to his faltering minister, " it must set every delicate man at hb erty to avow the propriety of the most coercive measures." 1775. THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 121 CHAPTER VIH. the spirit of new england. February-March 1775. On the day on which the king received the address of par hament the members of the second provincial congress of Massachusetts, about two hundred and fourteen in number, appointed eleven men as their committee of safety, and charged them to resist every attempt at executing the acts of parlia ment. For this purpose they were empowered to take posses sion of the warlike stores of the province, to make returns of the militia and minute-men, and to muster so many of the militia as they should judge necessary. General officers were appointed to command the force that should be so assembled. First of those who accepted the trust was Artemas Ward, a soldier of some experience in the French war. Next him as brigadier stood Seth Pomeroy, the still older veteran, who had served in 1745 at the siege of Louisburg. " Resistance to tyranny," thus the congress addressed the inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay, " becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. Fleets, troops, and every implement of war are sent into the province, to wrest from you that freedom which it is your duty, even at the risk of your hves, to hand inviolate to posterity. Continue steadfast, and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us." These true representatives of the inhabitants of Massachu setts were resolved never to swerve from duty. They were fragal even to parsimony, making the scantiest appropriations 122 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. viii, ever thought of by a nation threatened with war ; yet they held their property and their blood of less account than lib erty. They were startled at the hghtest rusthng of impending danger ; but they could not be moved from their purpose, and no more trembled than the granite rock which seems to quiver with the flickering shadow of the drifting cloud. " LKe and liberty shall go together," was their language. " Our existence as a free people absolutely depends on our acting with spirit and vigor," said Joseph Warren ; and he wished . ',>ngland to know that the Americans had courage enough t fight for their freedom. " The people," said Samuel Adanu " wiU defend their liberties with dignity. One regular attempt to subdue this or any other colony, whatever may be the first issue of the attempt, will open a quarrel which wiU never be closed till what some of them affect to apprehend, and we truly depre cate, shaU take effect." The second provincial congress before its adjournment ap pointed a committee to draw up in the recess rules and regula tions for the constitutional army. They dechned to levy taxes in form ; but they recommended the inhabitants to pay all their province tax to a treasurer of their appointment. They re-elected their old delegates to congress. They forbade work or supplies for the Enghsh troops, saying, " we may be driven to the hard necessity of taking up arms in our own defence." They urged one of their committees to prepare mihtary stores, and directed reviews of every company of minute-men. Aware of the design of the ministry to secure the Canadians and Indians, they authorized communications with the province of Quebec through the committee of correspondence of Bos ton. A delegation from Connecticut was received, and meas ures were concerted for corresponding with that and aU the other colonies. After appointing a day of fasting, enjoining the colony to beware of a surprise, and recommending mihtary discipline, they closed a session of sixteen days. The spies of Gage found the people everywhere intent on military exercises, or listening to confident speeches from their officers, or learning from the clergy to esteem themselves as of the tribe of Judah. " Behold," said one of the ministers who preached at a very full review of the mihtia, " God himseK is 1775. THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 123 with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm." The Enghsh he thus rebuked : " O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers ; for ye shall not prosper." On these bustling preparations of men who had no artil lery, few muskets with bayonets, and no treasury, the loyalists looked with derision, never doubting the power of Great Brit ain to crush every movement of insurrection. Daniel Leonard, of Taunto. , speaking for them aU, held up the spectres of " high treasor " " actual rebellion," and " anarchy." He ran through the history of the strife ; argued that it was reasonable for America to share in the national burden as in the national benefit ; that there was no oppressive exercise of the power of parhament ; that the tax of threepence on tea was no tyranny, since a duty of a shilling, imposed as a regulation of trade, had just been taken off ; that the bounties paid in England on American produce exceeded the American revenue more than fourfold ; that no grievance was felt or seen ; that, in the uni versal prosperity, the merchants in the colonies were rich, the yeomanry affluent, the humblest able to gain an estate ; that the population doubled in twenty-five years, building cities in the wUderness, and interspersing schools and colleges through the continent ; that the country abounded with infaUible marks of opulence and freedom ; that even James Otis had admitted the authority of parhament over the colonies, and had proved the necessity and duty of obedience to its acts ; that resistance to parhament by force would be treason; that rebels would deservedly be cut down like grass before the scythe of the mower, whUe the gibbet and the scaffold would make away with those whom the sword should spare ; that Great Britain was resolved to maintain the power of parhament, and was able to do so; that the colonies south of Pennsylvania had barely men enough to govern their numerous slaves, and defend themselves against the Indians ; that the northern colonies had no military stores, nor money to procure them, nor discipline, nor subordination, nor generals capable of opposing officers bred to arms ; that five thousand British troops would prevail against fifty thousand Americans ; that the British navy on the first day of war would be master of their trade, fisheries, navi- 124 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. viii. gation, and maritime towns ; that the Canadians and savages would prey upon the back settlements, so that a regular army could devastate the land hke a whirlwind ; that the colonies never would unite, and New England, perhaps Massachu setts, would be left to f aU alone ; that even in Massachusetts thousands among the men of property, and others, would flock to the royal standard, while the province would be drenched in the blood of rebels. Kindhng with indignation at these dastardly menaces, John Adams employed tb^frriit.H of his long study of the "r^ritjslj law, the constitution, and of natural right, to vindicate the true sentiments of New England in this wise : " My friends, human nature itseK is ejmnore an advocate for hberty. The people can understand^and feel the difference between true and false, right and^wfong, virtue and vice. To the sense of this difference tl^-friends of mankind appeal. " That aU men by nature are equal ; that kings have but a delegated authority, which the people may resume, are the revolution principles of 1688 ; are the principles of Aristotle anaPlatoj/Of Livy and Cicero, of Sidney, Harrington, and ¦Lockeyerf nature and eternal reason. If the parhament of Great Britain had aU the natural foundations of authority, wisdom, goodness, justice, power, would not an unlimited subjection of three miUions of people to that parhament, at three thousand mUes distance, be real slavery ? But, when both electors and elected are become cor rupt, you would be the most abject of slaves to the worst qf masters. " All America is united in sentiment. When a masterly statesman, to whom she has erected a statue in her heart for his integrity, fortitude, and perseverance in her cause, invented a committee of correspondence in Boston, did not every colony, nay every county, city, hundred, and town, upon the whole continent, adopt the measure as if it had been a revelation from above ? Look over the resolves of the colonies for the past year ; you will see that one understanding governs, one heart animates the whole. The mighty questions of the revolution of 1688 were determined in the convention of parliament by small majorities of two or three, and four or five only ; the 1775. THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 125 almost unanimity in the colonial assemblies, and especially in the continental congress, are the clearest demonstration of the cordial and indissoluble union of the colonies. " If Great Britain were united, she could not subdue a country a thousand leagues off. But Great Britain is not united against us. MiUions in England and Scotland think it unrighteous, impohtic, and ruinous to make war upon us ; and a minister, though he may have a marble heart, will proceed with a desponding spirit. " I would ask by what law the parhament has authority over America ? By the law in the Old and New Testament it has none ; by the law of nature and nations it has none ; by the common law of England it has none ; by statute law it has none ; the declaratory act of 1766 was made without our consent by a parliament which had no authority beyond the four seas. " H Great Britain has protected the colonies, all the profits of our trade_ centred in her lap. H she has been a nursing mother to us. we have, as nursed chUdren commonly do, been very fond of her, and rewarded her ah along tenfold for her care. " We New England men donot derive our laws from par hament, nor from common law, but from the law of nature and the compact made with the long in our charters. * It may as weU be pretended that the people of Great BritainTcan for feit their privileges, as the people of this province. ^If the contract of state is broken, the people and king of England must recur to nature. It is the Same m this province. ""[The two characteristics of this people, religion and hu- manity, are strongly marked in aU their proceedings. We are not "exciting a reDellion. Resistance by armsagainst usurpa tion and lawless violence Is not rebellion by the law of God or the land. Resistance to lawful authority makes rebellion. Hampden, ItusseU, Sidney, Holt, somers, Tillotson, were jio rebels. " This people, under great trials and dangers, have discov ered great abUities and virtues, and that nothing is so terrible to them as the loss of their hberties. They act for America and posterity. If there is no possible medium between abso- 128 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. vm. lute independence and subjection to the authority of parlia ment, all North America are convinced of their independence, and determined to defend it at all hazards." On the tenth of February, after the speaker had reported to the house of commons the answer to their address, Lord North presented a message from the king, asking the aug mentation of his forces. The minister, who still clung to the hope of reducing Massachusetts by the terrors of legislation, next proposed to restrain the commerce of New England and exclude its fishermen from the banks of Newfoundland. The best ship-builders in the world were at Boston, and their yards had been closed ; the New England fishermen were now to be restrained from a toil in which they exceUed all nations. " God and nature," said Johnston, " have given that fishery to New England and not to Old." Dunning defended the right of the Americans to fish on the banks. " If rebelhon is resistance to government," said Sir George Saville, "it must sometimes be justifiable. May not a people, taxed without their consent and their petitions against such taxation rejected, their charters taken away without a hearing, and an army let loose upon them without a possibility of obtaining justice, be said to be in justifiable rebellion ? " But the ministerial meas ure, though by keeping the New England fishermen at home it provided recruits for an insurgent army, was carried through all its stages by great majorities. Bishop New ton, in the lords, reasoned "that rebellion is the sin of witchcraft, and that one so unnatural as that of New Eng land could be ascribed to nothing less than diabohcal infat uation." The minister of France requested the most precise orders to aU British naval officers not to annoy the commerce of the French colonies. " Such orders," answered Rochford, " have been given ; and we have the greatest desire to live with you in the most perfect friendship." A letter from Lord Stor- mont, the British ambassador at Paris, was cited in the house of lords to prove that France equally wished a continuance of peace. " You can put no trust in Galhc faith," replied Rich mond, " except so long as it shall be their interest to keep their word." To this Rochford, the secretary of state, assented, 1775. THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 127 proving, however, from Raynal's History of the Two Indies, that it was not for the interest of France that the English colo nies should throw off the yoke. The next courier took to the king of France the report that neither the opposition nor the British minister put faith in his sincerity. Lord North would gladly have escaped from his embarrass ments by concession. "lama friend to holding out the olive- branch," wrote the king to his pliant minister, " yet I believe that, when once vigorous measures appear to be the only means, the colonies wiU submit. I shah never look to the right or to the left, but steadUy pursue that track which my conscience dictates to be the right one." The preparations for war were, therefore, to proceed; but he consented that the commanders of the naval and mihtary forces might be invested with commissions for the restoration of peace according to a measure to be proposed by Lord North. From Frankhn, whose aid in the scheme was earnestly desired, the minister once more sought to learn the least amount of concession that could be accepted. Franklin expressed his approbation of the proposed com mission, and of Lord Howe as one of its members ; and, to smooth the way to conciliation, he offered the payment of an indemnity to the India company, provided the Massachusetts acts should be repealed. " Without the entire repeal," said he, " the language of the proposal is, try on your fetters first, and then, if you don't like them, we will consider." On the eigh teenth of February, Lord Howe entreated Franklin "to ac company him, and co-operate with him in the great work of reconcihation ; " and he coupled his request with a promise of ample appointments and subsequent rewards. "Accepting favors," rephed the American, " would destroy the influence you propose to use ; but let me see your propositions, and, if I approve of them, I will hold myself ready to accompany you at an hour's warning." His own opinions, which he had pur posely reduced to writing and signed with his own hand, were communicated through Lord Howe to Lord North, with this last word : " They that can give up essential hberty to obtain a httle temporary safety deserve neither hberty nor safety. The Massachusetts must suffer all the hazards and mischiefs 128 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; ch. viii. of war, rather than admit the alteration of their charter and laws by parhament." The minister dreading the conflict with America, yet dread ing stUl more a conflict with his colleagues, Frankhn was in formed on the twentieth that his principles and those of parlia- ¦ ment were as yet too wide from each other for discussion ; and on the same day Lord North, armed with the king's consent in writing, astounded the house of commons by proposing a plan of concUiation formed on the principle that parhament, if the colonies would tax themselves to its satisfaction, would impose on them no duties except for the regulation of com merce. A storm of opposition ensued, which Lord North could not quell ; and for two hours he seemed in a minority. "The plan should have been signed by John Hancock and Otis," said Rigby. Welbore Ellis, and others, particularly young Acland, declared against him loudly and roughly. "Whether any colony will come in on these terms I know not," said Lord North ; " but it is just and humane to give them the option. If one consents, a link of the great chain is broken. If not, it will convince men of justice and humanity at home that in America they mean to throw off all depend ence." Jenkinson reminded the house that Lord North stood on ground chosen by Grenville ; but the Bedford party none the less threatened to vote against the minister, till Sir Gilbert Elliot, the weU-known friend of the king, came to his rescue, and secured for the motion a large majority. To recover his lost ground with the extreme supporters of authority, North joined with Suffolk and Rochford in pubhshing " a paper de claring his intention to make no concessions." "If fifty thousand men and twenty miUions of money," said David Hume, " were intrusted to such a lukewarm cow ard as Gage, they never could produce any effect." The army in Boston was to be raised to ten thousand men, and the gen eral to be superseded on account of his incapacity to direct such a force. Amherst declined the service, unless the army should be raised to twenty thousand men ; the appointment of Will iam Howe was therefore made public. He possessed no one quahty of a great general, and was selected for his name and his relationship to the king. On receiving the offer of 1775. '¦ THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 129 the command, he asked: "Is it a proposition or an order from the king?" and when told an order, he replied it was his duty to obey it. " You should have refused to go against this people," cried the voters of Nottingham, with whom he broke faith. " Your brother died there in the cause of free dom ; they have shown their gratitude to your name and fam ily by erecting a monument to him." " We cannot wish suc cess to the undertaking," said many more. Lord Howe, the admiral, was announced as commander of the naval forces and pacificator ; for it was pretended that the olive-branch and the sword were to be sent together. Of the two major-generals who attended Howe, the first in rank was Henry Clinton, son of a former governor in New York, related to the families of Newcastle and Bedford, and connected by party with the ministry. The other was John Burgoyne, who in the last war served in Portugal with spirit, and was brave even to rashness. He had a talent for vivid narrative, and wrote comedies that pleased in their day. In parhament he was taken for an opponent of the ministry ; but he had spoken and voted against the repeal of the tax on tea, and had pronounced the Americans " children spoiled by too much indulgence ; " so that, without flagrant inconsistency, he could promise Lord North "to be his steady, zealous, and active supporter." " I am confident," said he, in the house of commons, " there is not an officer or soldier in the king's ser vice who does not think the parliamentary right of Great Brit ain a cause to fight for, to bleed and die for." In reply to Burgoyne, Henry Temple Luttrell, whom curi osity once led to travel many hundreds of mUes along the flourishing and hospitable provinces of the continent, bore tes timony to their temperance, urbanity, and spirit, and predicted that, if set to the proof, they would evince the magnanimity of repubhcan Rome. While providing for a re-enforcement to its army, England enjoined the strictest watchfulness on its consuls and agents in every part of Europe to intercept all munitions of war des tined for the colonies. The British envoy in HoUand, with dictatorial menaces, required the states general of Holland to forbid their subjects from so much as transporting military vol. rv. — 9 130 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oa nn. stores to the West Indies beyond the absolute wants of thei: own colonies. Of the French government, preventive meas ures were requested in the most courteous words. An English vessel bore to the colonies news of Lord North's proposal, in the confident belief that they would be divided by the mere hint of giving up the point of taxation. "The plan," said Chatham, "wiU be spurned, and every thing but justice and reason prove vain to men like the Ameri cans." " It is impossible," said Fox, " to use the same resolu tion to make the Americans believe the right of taxing will be given up, and the mother country that it will be maintained." Franklin sent advice to Massachusetts by no means to begin war without the approval of the continental congress, unless on a sudden emergency ; " but New England alone," said he, " can hold out for ages against this country, and, if they are firm and united, in seven years will win the day." " By wis dom and courage the colonies wiU find friends everywhere ; " thus he wrote to James Bowdoin of Boston, as if predicting a French alliance. " The eyes of aU Christendom are now upon us, and our honor as a people is become a matter of the utmost consequence. If we tamely give up our rights in this contest, a century to come wiU not restore us in the opinion of the world ; .we shaU be stamped with the character of dastards, pol troons, and fools ; and be despised and trampled upon, not by this haughty, insolent nation only, but by all mankind. Pres ent inconveniences are therefore to be borne with fortitude, and better times expected." The friends of the British government in New York were found only on the surface. The Dutch Americans formed the basis of the population, and were animated by the example of their fathers, who had proved to the world that a small people under great discouragements can found a repubUc. By tem perament moderate but inflexible, little noticed by the govern ment, they kept themselves noiselessly in reserve. The set tlers in New York from New England and the mechanics of the city were almost to a man enthusiasts for resistance. The landed aristocracy was divided ; but the Dutch and the Scotch Presbyterians, especially Schuyler of Albany and the aged Livingston of Rhinebeck, never hesitated to risk their estates 1775. THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 131 in the cause of inherited freedom. In no colony did English dominion find less of the sympathy of the people than in New York. In Virginia, the Blue Ridge answered British menaces with defiance. " We cannot part with hberty but with our lives," said the inhabitants of Botetourt. " Our duty to God, our country, ourselves, and our posterity, all forbid it. We stand prepared for every contingency." The dweUers on the waters of the Shenandoah, meeting at Staunton, commended the Vir ginia delegates to the applause of succeeding ages, their exam ple to the hearts of every Virginian and every American. " For my part," said Adam Stephen, " before I would submit my hfe, liberty, and property to the arbitrary disposal of a venal aristocracy, I would sit myseK down with a few friends upon some rich and healthy spot, six hundred miles to the westward, and there form a settlement which in a short time would command respect." The vaUeys of Kentucky laughed as they heard the distant tread of clustering troops of adventurers, who, under a grant from the Cherokees, prepared to take possession of the mead ows and undulating table-land that nature had clothed with its richest grasses. Their views extended to planting companies of farmers, and erecting iron-works, a salt manufactory, grist mills, and saw-miUs ; the culture of the fertile region was to be fostered by premiums for the heaviest crop of corn, and for the emigrant who should drive out the greatest number of sheep. The men who are now to occupy " that most desirable territory " wUl carry American independence to the Wabash, the Detroit, and the Mississippi. At Charleston, South Carolina, the association was punctu ally enforced. A ship-load of near three hundred slaves was sent out of the colony by the consignee ; even household furni ture and horses, though they had been in use in England, could not be landed ; the cargo of one vessel was thrown into Hog Island creek. The winter at Boston was the mildest ever known ; and in this "the gracious interposition of heaven was recognised." All the towns in Massachusetts, nearly aU in New England, and some in every colony, ministered to the wants of Boston, 132 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; oh. viii Relief came even from England. " Call me an enthusiast," said Samuel Adams; "this union among the colonies and warmth of affection can be attributed to nothing less than the agency of the Supreme Being. If we believe that he super intends and directs the affairs of empires, we have reason to expect the restoration and estabhshment of the pubhc hber ties." On Sunday, the twenty-sixth of February, two or three hundred soldiers, under the command of Leslie, sailed from Castle William, landed clandestinely at Marblehead, and hur ried to Salem in quest of mUitary stores. Not finding them there, the officer marched toward Danvers ; but at the river he found the bridge drawn up, and was kept waiting for an hour and a half, while the stores, insignificant in amount, were re moved to a place of safety. Then, having pledged his honor not to advance more than thirty yards on the other side, he was aUowed to march his troops across the bridge. The alarm spread through the neighborhood, while Leshe hastily retraced his steps. At this time the British ministry received news of the vote in the New York assembly, refusing to consider the reso lutions of eongress. The confidence of the king reached its chmax ; and he spared no pains to win the colony. In a let ter from the secretary of state, New York was praised for its attempts toward a reconciliation with the mother country ; in a private letter, Dartmouth enjoined upon Colden to exert his address to facilitate the acceptance of Lord North's conciliatory resolutions. Like directions were sent to the governors of every colony except Connecticut and Rhode Island. How complete was the general confidence that the great majorities in parliament would overawe the colonies appeared on the sixth of March, when the bill depriving New Eng land of her fisheries was to be engrossed. Even Lord Howe spoke for it as the means of bringing the disobedient prov inces to a sense of their duty, without involving a civil war. Fox replied : " As by this act all means of acquiring a live lihood, or of receiving provisions, is cut off, no alternative is left but starving or rebelUon. If the act should not produce universal acquiescence, I defy anybody to defend the policy 1775. THE SPIRIT OF NEW ENGLAND. 133 of it. Yet America wiU not submit. New York only differs in the modes." " The act," said Dundas, the solicitor-general of Scotland, " is just, because provoked by the most criminal disobedience ; is merciful, because that disobedience would have justified the severest military execution. When it is said no alternative is left to them but to starve or rebel, this is not the fact ; for there is another way, to submit." The king, on receiving an account of " the languor of opposition " during the debate, wrote to Lord North : "I am convinced the hne adopted in American affairs wUl be crowned with success." These words f eU from George III. on the day on which Boston commemorated the " massacre " of its citizens, with Joseph Warren for its orator. His subject was the baleful effects of standing armies in time of peace ; and it was to be dehvered to the town in a town-meeting, contrary to an act of parhament which Gage was sent to Boston to enforce. In the crowd which thronged to the Old South meeting-house ap peared about forty British officers of the army and navy ; these Samuel Adams, the moderator, received with studied courtesy, placing them aU near the orator, some of them on the platform above the pulpit stairs. Conspicuously seated, they listened to a vivid picture of the night of the massacre, after which Warren proceeded : " Our streets are again filled with armed men, our harbor is crowded with ships-of-war ; but these cannot intimidate us ; our hberty must be preserved; it is far dearer than life. Should America be brought into vassalage, Britain must lose her freedom ; her hberty, as well as ours, wUl eventually be preserved by the virtue of America. The attempt of parha ment to raise a revenue from America and our denial of their right to do it have excited an almost universal inquiry into the rights of British subjects and of mankind. The mutila tion of our charter has made every other colony jealous for its own. Even the sending troops to put these acts in execu tion is not without advantages to us ; the exactness and beauty of their discipline inspire our youth with ardor in the pursuit of mihtary knowledge. "Our country is in danger; our enemies are numerous and powerful ; but we have many friends ; and, determining 134 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; ch. vhi. to be free, heaven and earth wiU aid the resolution. You are to decide the important question, on which rests the happiness and liberty of miUions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. " My fellow-citizens, I know you want not zeal or forti tude. You will maintain your rights or perish in the gener ous struggle. You wiU never decline the combat when free dom is the prize. An independence of Great Britain is not our aim, but K pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will undauntedly press forward, until tyranny is trodden under foot." At the motion for " appointing an orator for the ensuing year to commemorate the horrid massacre," the officers of the army and navy who heard the oration began to hiss. The in sult exasperated the assembly ; but Adams, with imperturbable calmness, restored order, and the vote was taken. Officers and soldiers of the maddened army longed for revenge. An honest countryman from BUlerica, inquiring for a firelock, was offered an old one by a private ; but, as soon as he had bought it, he was seized for having violated an act of parliament against trading with soldiers, and confined during the night in the guard-room. The next day he was tarred and feathered, labelled on the back " American liberty, or a speci men of democracy," and carted through the principal streets of the town, accompanied by a guard of twenty men with fixed bayonets ; by a mob of officers, among whom was Lieu tenant-Colonel Nesbit ; and by all the drums and fifes of the forty-seventh, playing Yankee Doodle. " See what indignities we suffer rather than precipitate a crisis," wrote Samuel Adams to Virginia. The soldiers seemed encouraged to provoke the people, that they might give some color for beginning hostUities. 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 135 CHAPTER IX. the king awaits news of success. March-May 1775. During this angry strife between the citizens and soldiers at Boston, Lord Howe at London broke off negotiations with Franklin, and the ministry used the pen of Samuel Johnson to inflame the pubhc mind. Johnson was a poor man's son, and had tasted the bitter cup of extreme indigence. From his father he inherited " the vile melancholy that made him mad all his hfe, at least not sober." For years he had gained a pre carious support as an author. He had escaped a prison for a trifle he owed by begging an alms of Richardson, and had known what it is from sheer want to go without a dinner, through aU his sufferings preserving a rugged independence. The name of the retired and uncourtly scholar was venerable wherever the Enghsh was spoken, by bis f uU display of that language in a dictionary, written amid inconvenience and dis traction, in sickness, sorrow, and gloomy solitude, with little assistance of the learned and no patronage of the great. When better days came, he loved and cared for the poor as few else love them. It were to have been wished that a man who com plained of his hfe as " radically wretched," and who was so tenderly sensitive to the wretchedness of others, should have been able to feel for the wrongs of an injured people ; but he consented to be employed by the ministry to defend the taxa tion of America by parhament ; and the task was congenial to his hate of the Puritans and his life-long political creed. The Bostonians had declared to the general congress their willingness to resign their opulent town, and wander into the 136 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; oh. ix. country as exUes. " Alas ! " retorted Johnson, " the heroes of Boston wiU only leave good houses to wiser men." To the complaints of their habihty to be carried out of their country for trial he answered: "We advise them not to offend." When it was urged that they were condemned unheard, he asserted : " There is no need of a trial ; no man desires to hear that which he has already seen." Franklin had remained in Great Britain for no reason but to promote conciliation ; with a ponderous effort at mirth, Johnson pointed at him as the " master of mischief." Did the Americans claim a right of resistance, " Audacious defiance ! " cried Johnson ; " acrimonious mahgnity ! The indignation of the Enghsh is like that of the Scythians, who, returning from war, found themselves excluded from their own houses by their slaves." Virginia and the Carohnas had shown impatience of oppression. " How is it," asked Johnson, "that we hear the loudest yelps for hberty among the drivers of negroes ? The slaves should be set free ; they maybe more grateful and honest than their masters." Lord North inclined to mercy : " Nothing," said the moralist, " can be more noxious to society than clemency which exacts no forfeiture ; " and he proposed to arm the savage Indians, turn out the British soldiers on free quarters among the Ameri cans, remodel aU their charters, and take away their political privUeges. Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, had insisted that the Americans complained only of innovations. " We do not put a caK into the plough," wrote Johnson ; "we wait tiU he is an ox." This, however, the ministry bade him erase, not for its ribaldry, but from unwillingness to concede that the caK had been spared ; and Johnson obeyed, comparing himseK to a mechanic for whom " the employer is to decide." He mocked at the rule of progression, which showed that America must one day exceed Europe in population. " Then," said he in derision, " in a century and a quarter let the princes of the earth tremble in their palaces." The pure-minded man, who in a sensual age was the quick- ener of religious fervor, the preacher to the poor, John Wesley, came forward to defend the system of the court with the usual arguments. He looked so steadily toward the world beyond the skies that he could not brook the interruption of devout 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 137 gratitude by bloody contests in this stage of being. The rap ture between the English and the Americans was growing wider every day, and to him the total defection of America was the evident prelude of a conspiracy against monarchy, of which the bare thought made him shudder. "No govern ments under heaven," said he, " are so despotic as the repubh can ; no subjects are governed in so arbitrary a manner as those of a commonwealth. The people never but once in all history gave the sovereign power, and that was to Masaniello of Na ples. Our sins will never be removed till we fear God and honor the king." Wesley's mental constitution was not robust enough to gaze on the future with unblenched calm. He could not foresee that the constellation of repubhcs, so soon to rise in the wilds of America, would welcome the members of the society which he was to found as the pioneers of religion ; that the breath of hberty would waft their messages to the masses of the people ; would encourage them to collect the white and the negro, slave and master, in the greenwood, for counsel on divine love and the "full assurance of grace ; and would carry their consolation and songs and prayers to the farthest cabins in the wilderness. To the gladdest of glad tidings for the pohtical regeneration of the world Wesley listened with trem bling, as to the fearful bursting of the floodgates of revolution. In the house of lords, Camden, on the sixteenth of March, took the occasion of the motion to commit the biU depriving New England of the fisheries to reply not to ministers only, but to their pensioned apologist, in a speech which was admired in England and gained applause of Vergennes. He justified the union of the Americans, and refuted the suggestion that New York could be detached from it. By the extent of Amer ica, the numbers of its people, their sohd, firm, and indissoluble agreement on the great basis of hberty and justice, and the want of men and money on the part of England, he proved that England must fail in her attempt at coercion, that the ulti mate independence of America was inevitable. " Suppose the colonies do abound in men," rephed Sandwich ; " they are raw, undisciphned, and cowardly. I wish, instead of forty or fifty thousand of jthese brave fellows, they would produce in the field at Jtency a*> hundred thousand ; the more the better ; the 138 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. iii. ; oh. ix. easier would be the conquest. At the siege of Louisburg, Sir Peter Warren found what egregious cowards they were. Be- Ueve me, my lords, the very sound of a cannon would send them off as fast as their feet could carry them." He then abused the Americans for not paying their debts, and ascribed their asso ciations to a desire to defraud their creditors. The restraint on trade and the fisheries was extended by a separate bill to the middle states except New York, and to South Carohna, with constant assurances that the Americans would not fight. When on the twenty-first the debate was renewed and the bill passed, both Rockingham and Shelburne, the old whig and the new, inserted in their protest against the act that " the people of New England are especially entitled to the fisheries." Frankhn, as he heard the invective of Sandwich, turned on his heel ; no part was left him but to go home. The French minister, who revered his supreme ability, sought with him one last interview. " I spoke to him," wrote Gamier to Ver gennes, " of the part which our president Jeannin had taken in establishing the independence and forming the government of the United Provinces ; " and the reminiscence cheered him as a prediction. " But then," subjoined Gamier, " they have neither a marine, nor allies, nor a prince of Orange." For some hours of the nineteenth, his last day in London, Frankhn was engaged with Priestley in looking over American newspapers, and directing him what to extract from them for the English ones ; in reading them he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears which were literally running down his cheeks. A large part of the same day he spent with Edmund Burke. He called up the happy years of America under the protection of England, saying : " The British em pire is the only instance of a great empire in which the most distant members have been as well governed as the metropolis ; but then the Americans are going to lose the means which se cured to them this rare and precious advantage. The question with them is, not whether they are to remain as they were be fore the troubles, for better they could not hope to be ; but whether they are to give up so happy a situation without a struggle. I lament the separation between Great. Britain and her colonies ; but it is inevitable." ,don 01 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 139 So parted the great champion of the British aristocracy and the man of the American people. Burke revered Franklin to the last, foretold the steady brightening of his fame, and drew from his integrity the hope of peace. The next morning Frankhn posted to Portsmouth; and, before his departure from London was known, he had em barked for Philadelphia. "Had I been the master," said Hutchinson, " his embarkation would have been prevented." " With his superiority," said Gamier, " and with the confidence of the Americans, he will cut out work enough for the minis ters who have persecuted him." Vergennes felt assured he would spread a general conviction that the British ministry had irrevocably chosen its part, and had left America no choice but independence. With personal friends, with merchants, with manufactu rers, with the hberal statesmen of England, with supporters of the ministry, Franklin had labored on aU occasions earnestly, disinterestedly, and long, to effect reconciliation. Its last gleam vanished on his disappearance. The administration at tributed to him an inflexible and subtle hostility to England. But nothing deceives hke jealousy ; he perseveringly endeav ored to open the eyes of the king and his servants. At the bar of the house of commons he foretold that persistence in taxation would compel independence ; it was for the use of the government that once through Strahan and then through Lord Howe he explained the American question with frankness and precision. The British ministry overreached themselves by not believing him. " Speaking the truth to them in sincerity," said Frankhn, " was my only finesse." In his intercourse with the British government he contem plated the course of events as calmly as he would have watched a process of nature. His judgment was quick and inf alhble ; his communications prompt and precise ; his frankness perfect. He never shunned responsibUity, and never assumed too much of it. His single breast contained the spirit of his nation ; and in every instance his answers to the ministry and their emis saries were those which the voice of America would have dic tated could he have taken her counsel. In him is discerned no deficiency and no excess. FuU of feehng, even to passion, 140 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. ix. he observed and reasoned and spoke serenely. Of aU men, he was the friend to peace ; but the terrors of a sanguinary civil war did not confuse his perceptions or impair his firm ness. He went home to assist in the establishment of indepen dence, and, through independence, of peace. He was sailing out of the British channel with a fair wind when, on the twenty-second of March, Edmund Burke, speak ing for the party of the old whigs, who had mistakenly ex tended the revolution principle of the absolute power of parlia ment in Britain to the external unrepresented parts of the Enghsh empire, brought forward in the house of commons resolutions for conciliation with America. He began by pro nouncing a splendid eulogy on the colonies, whose rapid growth from families to communities, from villages to nations, attended by a commerce, great out of aU proportion to their numbers, had added to England in a single hfe as much as England had been growing to in a series of seventeen hundred years. The subject before the house was the bill prohibiting New England from the fisheries, and he most skilf uUy made his way through it to his great design, saying: "As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, pray what in the world is equal to it ? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. While we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's bay and Davis's straits, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. While some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries ; no climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English en- 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 141 terprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent peo ple — a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contem plate these things ; when I know that the colonies in general owe httle or nothing to any care of ours, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection ; when I see how profitable these effects have been to us, I feel all the pride of power melt and die away within me. My rigor relents. I pardon something to the spirit of hberty. " From six capital sources : descent, form of government, rehgion in the northern provinces, manners in the southern, education, the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government — from all these causes a fierce spirit of hberty has grown up. It looks to me narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great pubhc contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. " My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of right, or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the people of our colonies into an interest in the constitution. A revenue from America ! You never can receive it, no, not a smiling. For aU service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privi leges, and equal protection. Let them always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with . your government, they wiU cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their aUegiance ; deny them this participation of freedom, and you break the unity of the empire. It is the spirit of the English constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England ? " All this, I know weU enough, wiU sound wild and chi merical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical pohticians who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material ; and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be 142 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. in. ; oh. ix. directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But these ruling and master princi ples are in truth everything, and all iu all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and httle minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our sta tion and ourselves, we ought to elevate our minds to the great ness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only hon orable conquests by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race." For three hours Burke was heard with attention ; but, after a reply by Jenkinson, his deep wisdom was scoffed away by a vote of more than three to one. Ministers anticipated even less opposition in the colonies. At the North, the state of Vermont was preparing to rise from anarchy into self -existence, peace, and order. The court of common pleas was to be opened by the royal judges in what was called the New York county of Cumberland, at Westmin ster, in the New Hampshire Grants, on the eastern side of the Green Mountains. To prevent this assertion of the jurisdic tion of New York and of the authority of the king, a body of young men from the neighboring farms on the thirteenth of March took possession of the court-house. The royal sheriff, who, against the wish of the judges, had raised sixty men armed with guns and bludgeons, demanded possession of the building ; and, after reading the riot act and refusing to con cede terms, late in the night ordered his party to fire. In this way he made his entry by force, having mortally wounded WiUiam French of Brattleborough, and Daniel Houghton of Dummerston. The act closed the supremacy of the king and of New York to the east of Lake Champlain. Armed men poured in from towns in the Grants and from the borders of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. They instituted a jury of inquest, and the royahsts implicated in the attack were sent to jail in Massachusetts for trial. They were soon released ; but the story of the first martyrs in the contest with the king 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 143 was told from village to viUage as a tale of tyranny and mur der. Just before this shedding of blood, Ethan Allen, foresee ing war with Great Britain, sent assurances to Oliver Wolcott of Connecticut, that " the regiment of Green Mountain Boys ' would assist their American brethren." On the twenty-ninth, John Brown of Pittsfield, who had passed through the dis trict on his way to Montreal, wrote to Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren at Boston, that, " should hostilities be com mitted by the king's troops, the people on New Hampshire Grants would seize the fort at Ticonderoga ; and that they were the proper persons for the job." The assembly of Delaware, which met on the day of the shedding of blood in Vermont, approved the proceedings of the congress at Phdladelphia ; but, in re-electing their deputies, they avowed their most ardent wish for an accommodation with Great Britain, for which end they were wiUing to yield claims of right that were either doubtful or " not essentially neces sary to their well-being." The session was specially impor tant, from the instruction given to their deputies in congress to urge decently but firmly the right of their province to a voice in congress equal with any other province on this con tinent. A biU was passed prohibiting the importation of slaves ; but the proprietary governor, obeying the decision of the king in councU, interposed his veto. In the neighboring county of Westchester, in Pennsylvania, a movement was made " for the manumission of slaves, especiaUy of aU infants born of black mothers within the colony." Early in March the governor of North Carohna, having returned by land from New York to his government, reported to the British secretary of state : " In Virginia the ferment has in no sort abated, as I think the advertisement of Mr. Washington and others, 'that your lordship will find inclosed, plainly discovers." The inclosure consisted of the Fairfax re solves, to which Washington had set his name. In his own government, Martin sought to neutralize the convention by holding simultaneously a meeting of the legislature ; but, on the fifth of April, the convention of North Carohna, in which Richard CasweU was the most conspicuous member, unani mously adhered to the general congress, re-elected their dele- 144 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi.; ch.ix. gates, and " invested them with such power as might make any act done by them, or any of them, or consent given in be half of the province, obligatory in honor upon every inhabi- ' tant thereof." Yet propositions to array an armed force were overruled. The members of the convention of Virginia, in which even the part of Augusta county west of the Alleghany Mountains was represented, cherished the system of limited monarchy un der which they had been born and educated. Though quick to resent aggression, they abhorred the experiment of changing their form of government by revolution without some absolute necessity. Virginia was, moreover, unprepared for war. Its late expedition against the Shawnee Indians had left a debt of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds ; its currency was of paper, and it had no efficient system of revenue. Its soil, especially in the low country, was cultivated by negro slaves, so that the laborers in the field could not furnish recruits for an army. Except a little powder in a magazine near Williams burg, it was destitute of warlike stores. Of aU the colonies, the magnificent bay of the Chesapeake, and the deep water of the James, the York, the Potomac, and other rivers, exposed it most to invasions from the sea. On the twentieth of March its second convention assem bled at Richmond, in the old church of St. John, on the hill which overlooks the town. The proceedings of the conti nental congress and the conduct of the delegates of the colony were approved with unanimity. On the twenty-third the mediating interposition of the assembly of Jamaica was recog nised as a proof of " their patriotic endeavors to fix the just claims of the colonists upon permanent constitutional princi ples ; " and assurances were renewed " that it was the most ardent wish of their colony, and of the whole continent of North America, to see a speedy return of those halcyon days when they hved a free and happy people." But, with aU their love of peace under the government of the king, the imminence of danger drove them irresistibly to the Fairfax resolves. A motion, couched in the very words to which Washington in person had set his name, was brought forward by Patrick Henry, with its logical consequences, " that 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 145 this colony be immediately put into a posture of defence, and that a committee prepare a plan for the embodying, arming, and disciphning such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose." The resolution was opposed by Bland, Har rison, and Pendleton, three of the delegates of Virginia in con gress, and by Nicholas, who had been among the most resolute in the preceding May. There was no array of party against party, but rather a conflict of f eehngs and opinions in every one's breast. " Are we ready for war ? " asked those who lin gered in the hope of reunion. "Where are our stores, our soldiers, our generals, our money ? We are defenceless ; yet we talk of war against one of the most formidable nations in the world. It wiU be time enough to resort to measures of de spair when every weU-founded hope has vanished." Henry rephed in a speech of which no exact report has come down, but aU tradition agrees that he dispeUed the Ulu- sive hope of reconcUiation, proving that, K Americans would be free, they must fight ! His transfigured features glowed as he spoke, and his words fell like a doom of fate. He was sup ported by Richard Henry Lee, who made an estimate of the force which Britain could employ against the colonies, and, after comparing it with their means of resistance, proclaimed that the auspices were good, adding that " Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just ! " The resolutions were adopted. To give them effect, a com mittee, consisting of Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Washington, Jefferson, and others, in a few days reported a plan for forming in every county one or more volunteer com panies and troops of horse, to be in constant training and readiness. Whatever doubts had been before expressed, the plan was unanimously accepted. Nicholas would even have desired the more energetic measure of organizing an army. The convention voted to encourage the manufacture of wool len, cotton, and linen ; of gunpowder ; of salt and iron and steel ; and recommended to the inhabitants to use colonial manufactures in preference to aU others. Before dissolving their body, they elected their former delegates to the general congress in May, adding to the number Thomas Jefferson, " in case of the non-attendance of Peyton Randolph." VOL. IV. — 10 146 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep. hi. ; ch. ix. To intimidate the Virginians, Dunmore issued proclama tions, and circulated a rumor that he would excite an insurrec tion of their slaves. By his orders a body of marines in the night preceding the twenty-first of April carried off the gun powder stored at Williamsburg in the colony's magazine ; but, as soon as it was known, drums were sent through the city to alarm the inhabitants ; the independent company arrayed itself in arms ; the people assembled for consultation, and at their instance the mayor and corporation peremptorily demanded of the governor that the powder should be restored. The governor at first answered evasively; but, on hearing that the citizens had reassembled under arms, he abandoned himself to passion. " The whole country," said he, " can easily be made a sohtude ; and, by the living God ! K any insult is offered to me, or those who have obeyed my orders, I will de clare freedom to the slaves, and lay the town in ashes." The offer of freedom to the negroes came very oddly from the representative of the nation which had sold them to their present masters, and of the king who had been displeased with Virginia for its desire to tolerate that inhuman traffic no longer ; and it was but a sad resource for a commercial metropolis to keep a hold on its colony by letting loose slaves against its own colonists. The seizure of the powder startled Virginia. " This first public insult is not to be tamely submitted to," wrote Hugh Mercer and others from Fredericksburg to Washington ; and they proposed, as a body of light-horsemen, to march to Will iamsburg for the honor of Virginia. Gloucester county would have the powder restored. The Henrico committee would be content with nothing less. Bedford offered a premium for the manufacture of gunpowder. The independent company of Dumfries could be depended upon for any service which respected the liberties of America. The Albemarle volunteers " were ready to resent arbitrary power, or die in the attempt." " I expect the magistrates of Williamsburg, on their allegiance," 6uch was Dunmore's message, " to stop the march of the peo ple now on their way, before they enter this city ; otherwise, it is my fixed purpose to arm aU my own negroes, and receive and declare free all others that will come to me. I do enjoin 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 147 the magistrates and all loyal subjects to repair to my assist ance, or I shall consider the whole country in rebelhon, and myseK at hberty to annoy it by every possible means ; and I shah not hesitate at reducing houses to ashes, and spreading devastation wherever I can reach." To the British ministry he wrote : " With a smaU body of troops and arms I could raise such a force from among Indians, negroes, and other persons, as would soon reduce the refractory people of this colony to obedience." On the twenty-ninth of April there were at Fredericks burg upward of six hundred weU-armed men. A council of one hundred and two weighed the moderating advice received from Washington and Peyton Randolph, and they agreed to disperse; yet not tiU they had pledged to each other their fives and fortunes to reassemble at a moment's warning, and by force of arms to defend the laws, the hberty, and rights of Virginia, or any sister colony, from unjust and wicked inva sion. The message from a sister colony was already on the wing. In New York the feebleness of its antiquated assembly was remedied by the zeal of its people. The merchants who fur nished supplies to the British army at Boston were denounced at the liberty-pole as enemies to the conntry. When Sears, who moved that every man should provide himseK with four- and-twenty rounds, was carried before the mayor and refused to give bail, he was hberated on his way to prison, and escorted in triumph to a public meeting. When the assembly, by a majority of four, refused to forbid importations, the committee laughed at its vote and enforced the association. When it re fused to choose delegates to another congress, a poU was taken throughout the city, and the decision was reversed by eight hundred and twenty-five against one hundred and sixty-three, more than five to one. The rural counties co-operated with the city, and, on the twentieth of April, forty-one delegates met in convention, chose Philip Livingston unanimously their president, re-elected to congress aU their old members except one, who was lukewarm, and unanimously added five others, among them PhUip Schuyler, George Clinton, and Robert R. Livingston, to " concert measures for the preservation of Ameri- 148 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. > ep. hi. ; oh. ix. can rights, and for the restoration of harmony between Great Britain and the colonies." On the first day of April the provincial congress of Mas sachusetts voted that, if the royal governor would issue writs in the usual form for the election of a general assembly, the towns ought to obey the precepts and elect members ; otherwise, delegates should be chosen for a third provincial congress. On the second, two vessels arrived at Marblehead, with the tidings that both houses of parliament had pledged to the king their hves and fortunes for the reduction of America, that New England was prohibited from the fisheries, and that the army of Gage was to be largely re-enforced. On the third, congress required the attendance of aU absent members, and desired the towns not yet represented to send members without delay. The most appalling danger hung over them from the In dians of the north-west, whom La Corne, Hamilton the lieu tenant-governor for Detroit, and other Canadian emissaries were seeking to influence, while Guy Johnson was remov ing the American missionaries from the Six Nations. Dart mouth college, " a new and defenceless " institution of charity on the frontier, where children of the Six Nations received Christian training, was " threatened with an army of savages." To countervail their efforts, Eleazer Wheelock, president of the coUege, sent the young New England preacher, James Dean, who was a great master of the language of the Iroquois, " to itinerate among the tribes in Canada and brighten the chain of friendship." To the Mohawks the Massachusetts congress despatched the wise and humane Samuel Kirkland, who had lived among them as a missionary, to prevail with them " at least to stand neuter, and not assist their enemies." It voted a blanket and a ribbon to each of the converted Indians who were domiciled at Stockbridge, saying : " We are all brothers," and the Stock- bridge Indians on their part promised to entreat the Six Na tions not to take part in the war. The congress of Massachusetts adopted a code for its future army, yet formed none. They enjoined every town to have its committee of correspondence ; they ordered a day of fasting and prayer for the union of the American colonies and their 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 149 direction to such measures as God would approve ; they en couraged the poor of Boston to move into the country ; they sent special envoys to each of the other New England states to concert measures for raising an army of defence ; and they urged " the mihtia and ininute-men " in the several towns to be on the alert. They forbade every act that- could be inter preted as a commencement of hostilities, but they resolved unanimously that the mihtia might act on the defensive. If the forces of the colony should be called out, the members of the congress agreed to repair instantly to Concord. Then, on the fifteenth of April, they adjourned, expecting a long and desperate war with the mighty power of Great Britain, yet with no financial preparations ; not a soldier in service ; hardly ammunition enough for a parade-day ; scarcely more than ten iron cannon, and four of brass ; with no executive but the committee of safety ; no government but by committees of cor respondence ; no visible centre of authority. Anarchy would have prevailed but for the resistless principle in the heart of the people which could unite and organize and guide. On the tenth of April, Wilkes, the lord mayor, with the aldermen and hvery of London, foUowing an ancient form, complained to the king in person that the real purpose of his ministers was "to estabhsh arbitrary power over all America," and besought him to dismiss them. The king answered : " It is with the utmost astonishment that I find any of my subjects capable of encouraging the rebellious disposition which un happily exists in some of my colonies ; " and, by a letter from the lord chamberlain, he announced his purpose never again to receive any address from the lord mayor and aldermen but in their corporate capacity. If more troops were sent, the king's standard erected, and a few of the leaders taken up, Hutchinson was ready to stake his hfe for the submission of the colonies. New York was the pivot of the policy of ministers. Like North Carolina and Georgia, it was excepted from restraints imposed on the trade and fisheries of all the rest. The defec tion of its assembly from the acts of the general congress was accepted as proof that it would adhere to the king ; and the British generals, who were on the point of saihng for America, 150 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. ix. were disputing for the command at that place. " Burgoyne would best manage a negotiation," said the king ; but Howe would not resign his right to New York as the post of confi dence. All believed that it had been won over to the royal cause, and that the other provinces could easily be detached one by one from the union, so that it would be a light task to subdue Massachusetts. On the fifteenth of April orders from Lord Dartmouth were written to Gage to take possession of every colonial fort ; to seize and secure all military stores of every kind, coUected for the rebels ; to arrest and imprison aU such as should be thought to have committed treason ; to repress rebeUion by force ; to make the public safety the first object of consideration ; to substitute more coercive measures for ordinary forms of pro ceeding, without pausing " to require the aid of a civil magis trate." Thurlow and Wedderburn had given their opinion that the Massachusetts congress was a treasonable body ; the power of pardon which was conferred on the general did not extend to the president of "that seditious meeting," nor to "its most forward members," who, as unfit subjects for the king's mercy, were to be brought " to condign punishment " either in America or in England. Four of the regiments, at first destined to Boston, received orders to proceed directly to New York, where their presence was to aid the progress of intrigue. At the same time, the Senegal carried out six packages, each containing a very large number of copies of " An Address of the People of Great Brit ain to the Inhabitants of America," written by Sir John Dal- rymple at Lord North's request. " From the late differences," said the pamphlet, with the assumption of full authority, " it is the fault of us both K we do not derive future agreement by some great act of state. Let the colonies make the first advance ; if not, parhament will do so by sending a commission to America. The first honor will belong to the party which shall first scorn punctUio in so noble a cause. We give up the disgraceful and odious privilege of taxing you. The power of taxation over you we desire to throw from us as unworthy of you to be subject to, and of us to possess. As to the judges dependent on the king's pleas- 1775. THE KING AWAITS NEWS OF SUCCESS. 151 ure, if you suspect us, appoint your own judges, pay them your own salaries. H we are wrong in thinking your charters formed by accident, not by forethought, let them stand as they are. Continue to share the liberty of England. With such sentiments of kindness in our breasts, we cannot hear without the deepest concern a charge that a system has been formed to enslave you by means of parhament." These offers, composed for Lord North and printed at the pubhc cost, were sent out by the government, to be widely distributed at the very time that the vengeful secret orders were transmitted to Boston. Yet Lord North was false only as he was weak and uncertain. He really wished to concede and conciliate, but he had not force enough to come to a clear understanding with himself. When he encountered the oppo sition in the house of commons, he sustained his administra tion by speaking confidently for vigorous measures ; when alone, his heart sank within hiin from dread of civil war. The memorial of the assembly of New York, which Burke, their agent, presented to parhament on the fifteenth of May, was rejected, because it questioned the right of parhament to tax America. Three days later, Lord North avowed the orders for raising Canadian regiments of French papists ; " however," he continued, " the dispute with America is not so alarming as some people apprehend. I have not the least doubt it will end speedily, happily, and without bloodshed." On the twenty-third of May secret advices from Philadel phia confirmed Dartmouth and the king in their confidence that North's conciliatory resolution " would remove all obsta cles to the restoration of pubhc tranquillity," through " the moderation and loyal disposition of the assembly of New York." The king, in proroguing parliament on the twenty- sixth, spoke only of " his subjects in America, whose wishes were'to be gratified and apprehensions removed as far as the constitution would allow." The court gazette was equally moderate. As yet no tidings came from the colonies of a later date than the middle of April. AU America, from Lake Champlain to the Altamaha ; cities of Europe, Madrid, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, hardly less than London, were gazing with expectation toward the little villages that lay round Boston. .152 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi.;oh.x, CHAPTER X. to lexington and concord, and back to boston. April 19, 1775. Gage, who had under his command about three thousand effective men, was informed by his spies of military stores, pitiful in their amount, collected by provincial committees at Worcester and Concord ; and he resolved on striking a blow, as the king desired. On the afternoon of the day on which the provincial congress of Massachusetts adjourned he took the light infantry and grenadiers off duty, and secretly pre pared an expedition to destroy the colony's stores at Concord. The attempt had for several weeks been expected ; and signals were concerted to announce the first movement of troops for the country. Samuel Adams and Hancock, who had not yet left Lexington for Philadelphia, received a timely message from Warren, and, in consequence, the committee of safety re moved a part of the public stores and secreted the cannon. On Tuesday, the eighteenth of April, ten or more British sergeants in disguise dispersed themselves through Cambridge and farther west to intercept all communication. In the fol lowing night the grenadiers and light infantry, not less than eight hundred in number, the flower of the army at Boston, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, crossed in the boats of the transport ships from the foot of the common to East Cambridge. There they received a day's provisions ; and near midnight, after wading through wet marshes that are now covered by a stately city, they took the road through West Cambridge to Concord. Gage directed that no one else should leave the town ; but i775.. THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL 1775. 153 Warren had, at ten o'clock, despatched William Dawes through Roxbury, and Paul Revere by way of Charlestown, to Lex ington. Revere stopped only to engage a friend to raise the con certed signals, and two friends rowed him across Charles river five minutes before the sentinels received the order to prevent it. All was stiU, as suited the hour. The Somerset man- of-war was winding with the young flood ; the waning moon just peered above a clear horizon ; while, from a couple of lan terns in the tower of the North church, the beacon streamed to the neighboring towns as fast as light could travel. A little beyond Charlestown neck, Revere was intercepted by'two British officers on horseback ; but, being weU mounted, he turned suddenly, and escaped by the road to Medford. Of that town, he waked the captain of the minute-men, and con tinued to rouse almost every house on the way to Lexington. The troops had not advanced far when the firing of guns and ringing of bells announced that their expedition had been her alded ; and Smith sent back for a re- enforcement. In the .earliest moments of the nineteenth of April the message from Warren reached Adams and Plancock, who at once divined the object of the expedition. Revere, therefore, and Dawes, joined by Samuel Prescott, " a high Son of Lib erty " from Concord, rode forward, calhng up the inhabitants as they passed along, tUl in Lincoln they fell upon a party of British officers. Revere and Dawes were seized and taken back to Lexington, where they were released; but Prescott leaped over a low stone wall, and galloped on for Concord. There, at about two hours after midnight, a peal from the bell of the meeting-house brought together the inhabitants of the place, young and old, with their firelocks, ready to make good the resolute words of their town debates. Among the most alert was Wilham Emerson, the minister, with gun in hand, his powder-hom and pouch of baUs slung over his shoul der. By his sermons and his prayers his flock learned to hold the defence of their hberties a part of their covenant with God ; his presence with arms strengthened their sense of duty. From daybreak to sunrise, the summons ran from house to house through Acton. Express messengers and the caU of 154 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE. ep.ih.;oh.x. minutenien spread widely the alarm. > How children trembled as they were scared out of sleep by rae cries! how women, with heaving breasts, bravely seconded their husbands ! how the countrymen, forced suddenly to arm, without guides or counsellors, tookihstant counsel of their courage ! impair his strength at head-quarters ; but he or dered the New Hampshire regiments of Stark, stationed at 220 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.iii.; ch. xiv. Medford, and of Reed, near Charlestown neck, to march to Prescott's support. When word was brought that the British were actually landing in Charlestown, the general regarded it as a feint, and stiU refused to change his plan. But the zeal of individuals admitted of no control. The welcome intelligence that the British had actuaUy sallied out of Boston thrilled through men who were " waiting impatiently to avenge the blood of their murdered countrymen." Owing to the want of activity in Ward, who did not leave his house during the whole day, all method was wanting ; but, while the beUs were ringing and the drams beating to arms, officers who had longed for the opportunity of meeting the British in battle, soldiers who clung to the officers of their choice with constancy, set off for the scene of battle, hardly knowing themselves whether they were countenanced by the general, or the committee of safety, or the council of war ; or moved by fie same impetuous en thusiasm which had brought them forth on the nineteenth of April, and which held "an honorable death in the field for the liberties of all America preferable to an ignominious slavery." The septuagenarian Seth Pomeroy of Northampton was roused by the continuance of the cannonade, and rode to Charlestown neck ; there^ thoughtful for his horse, which was a borrowed one, he shouldered his fowhng-piece, marched over on foot, and, amid loud cW".^ welcome, took a place at the rail-fence. ind wate Joseph Warren, after discbfng agair' duty in the commit tee of safety, resolved to takefcf re-enf«:e battle. He was en treated by Elbridge Gerry not *nd and xpose his Ufe. "It is sweet and becoming to die for o*r« \d'ountry," was his answer. Three days before, he had been elected a provincial major-gen eral. He knew the defects of the American camp, the danger of the intrenched party, and how the character of his country men and the interests of mankind hung in suspense on the conduct of that day. About two o'clock he crossed Bunker HiU unattended, and with a musket in his hand. He stood for a short time near a cannon at the rail-fence ^r. Trsation with Putnam, who was ready to receive his oi^HPl^Kut "War ren dechned to assume authority, and passed on to the redoubt, 1775. BUNKER HILL, THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE 1775. 221 where the chief attack was expected. There Prescott pro posed that he should take the command ; but he answered as he had done to Putnam : " I come as a volunteer, to learn from a soldier of experience ; " and in choosing his station he looked only for the place of danger and importance. Of the men of Essex who formed Little's regiment, full a hundred and twenty-five hastened to the aid of Prescott ; Worcester and Middlesex furnished more than seventy from Brewer's regiment, and with them the prudent and fearless Wilham Buckminster of Barre, their lieutenant-colonel. From the same counties came above fifty more, under John Nixon of Sudbury. WiUard Moore of Paxton, a man of superior endowments, led about forty of Worcester county ; from the regiment of Whitcomb of Lancaster, there appeared at least fifty privates, but with no higher officers than captains. Not more than six light field-pieces were brought upon the ground ; and these, from want of ammunition, were scarcely used. At the raU-fence there were, as yet, but the Connecticut men whom Prescott had detached. The two field-pieces had been deserted by the artillerymen. After the British had landed, and just before they advanced, a party of New Hamp shire levies arrived,, conducted by Colonel John Stark, who, next to Prescott, bitnight the large A number of men into the field. When they came to the isthmus, which was raked by cannon, Dearborn, one of; ^jiaptains who walked by his side, advised a quick step, /anies coiesh man in action is worth ten fatigued ones," repha enlisted nd he marched leisurely across Charlestown neck thrti, by untri ailing fire. The rugged trap per was as calm as the no recrtad been hunting in his native woods. At a glance uper c-Jd beach along Mystic river, " I saw there," he related, " the way so plain that the enemy could not miss it." Wlnle some of his men continued the line of defence by stiU weaving grass between the rails, others, at his bidding, leaped do\wi the bank, and, with stones from adjacent walls, threw up a breastwork to the water's edge. Behind this, and whoUy exposed on the side of the water, he posted triple ranks o^ Kc^en ; the rest knelt or lay down. The time al lowed him W opportunity of consulting with Prescott ; they fought independently ; Prescott to defend the redoubt, Knowl- 222 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xiv. ton and Stark, with Reed's regiment, to protect its flank. These are aU who arrived before the begmning of the attack ; and not more than a hundred and fifty others of various regi ments, led by different officers or driven by their own zeal, reached the battle-ground before the retreat. From first to last Putnam took an active interest in the expedition ; and the appointment of Prescott to its command was made with his concurrence. Without interfering with that command, he was now planning additional works on Bunker Hill, now mingling with the Connecticut troops at the rail-fence, now threatening officers or men who seemed to him dilatory or timid, now at Cambridge in person, or again by message, de manding re-enforcements, ever engaged in aiding and encour aging here and there, as the case required. After the first landing of the British, he sent orders by his son to the Con necticut forces at Cambridge, "that they must all meet and march immediately to Bunker Hill to oppose the enemy." Chester and his company ran for their arms and ammunition, and marched with such alacrity that they reached the battle ground before the day was decided. While the camp at Cambridge was the scene of confusion, Howe caused refreshments to be distributed abundantly among his troops. The re-enforcements which he had demanded ar rived, consisting of several more companies of hght infantry and grenadiers, the forty-seventh regiment, and a battalion of marines. " The whole," wrote Gage, " made a body of some thing above two thousand men ; " " about two thousand men and two battalions to re-enforce him," wrote Burgoyne ; " near upon three thousand," thought very accurate observers, and a corps of five regiments, one battalion, and twenty flank com panies, more than seventy companies, must, after all allow ances, be reckoned at two thousand five hundred men or more. It comprised the chief strength of the army. Not tiU the news reached Cambridge of this second land ing at Charlestown was Ward reheved from the apprehension that the main body of the British would interpose themselves between Charlestown and Cambridge. Persuaded of the se curity of the camp, and roused by the earnest entreaties of Devens of Charlestown, himseK a member of the committee 1775. BUNKER HILL, THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE 1775. 223 of safety, Ward consented to order re-enforcements, among them his own regiment ; but it was too late. The whole num ber of Americans in the battle, including all such as crossed the causeway seasonably to take part in the fight, according to the most solemn assurances of the officers who were in the action, to the testimony of eye-witnesses, to contemporary in quirers, and to the carefuUy considered judgment of Washing ton, did not exceed one thousand five hundred men. Nor should history forget to record that, as in the army at Cambridge, so also in this gaUant band, the free negroes of the colony had their representatives ; for the right of free negroes to bear arms in the pubhc defence was at that day not dis puted in New England. They took their place in the ranks with white men ; and their names may be read on the pension rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers of the revolution. Two days after the expedition to Concord, Gage had threat ened that K the Americans should occupy Charlestown heights the town should be burnt. Its inhabitants, however, had al ways been wilhng that the threat should be disregarded. The time for the holocaust was come. Pretending that his flank ing parties were annoyed from houses in the vUlage, Howe sent a boat over with a request to Chnton and Burgoyne to burn it. The order was immediately obeyed by a discharge of shells from Copp's Hill. The inflammable buildings caught in an instant, and a party of men landed and spread the fire ; but, from a sudden shifting of the wind, the movements of the British were not covered by the smoke of the conflagration. At haK past two o'clock, or a very httle later, General Howe, not confining his attack to the left wing alone, ad vanced to a simultaneous assault on the whole front from the redoubt to Mystic river. In Burgoyne's opinion, " his dispo sition was soldier-like and perfect." Of the two columns which were put in motion, the one was led by Pigot against the redoubt, the other by Howe himseK against the flank, which seemed protected by nothing but a fence of rails and hay easy to be scrambled over, so that Prescott, when his left should be turned, would find the enemy in his rear, and be forced to surrender. 224 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ih.; oh. xiv. As they began to march, the battery on Copp's HU1, from which Clinton and Burgoyne were watching every movement, kept up an incessant fire, which was seconded by the Falcon and. the Lively, the Somerset and the two floating batteries ; the town of Charlestown, consisting of five hundred edifices of wood, burst into a blaze ; and the steeple of its only church became a pyramid of fire. All the while the masts of the shipping and the heights of the British camp, the church- towers, the house-tops of a populous town, and the acclivities of the surrounding country, were crowded with spectators to watch the battle which was to take place in fuU sight on a conspicuous eminence. As soon as Prescott perceived that the enemy were in mo tion, he commanded Robinson, his lieutenant-colonel, the same who conducted himseK so bravely in the fight at Concord, and Henry Woods, his major, famed in the viUages of Middlesex for abihty and patriotism, with separate detachments to flank the enemy ; and they executed his orders with prudence and daring. He then went through the works to encourage and animate his inexperienced soldiers. " The redcoats. wiU never reach the redoubt," such were his words, as he himself used to narrate them, " if you wiU but withhold your fire till I give the order, and be careful not to shoot over their heads." After this round he took his post in the redoubt, weU satisfied that the men would do their duty. The British advanced in Une in good order, steadily and slowly, pausing on the march for their artiUery to prepare the way, and firing with muskets as they advanced. But they fired too soon and too high, doing but httle injury. Encumbered with their knapsacks, they ascended the steep hill with difficulty, covered as it was with grass reaching to their knees, and intersected with waUs and fences. Prescott waited tiU the enemy had approached within eight rods as he afterward thought, within ten or twelve rods as the committee of safety of Massachusetts wrote, when he gave the word: " Fire ! " At once, from the redoubt and breastwork, every gun was discharged. Nearly the whole front rank of the enemy f eU, and the rest, to whom this determined resistance was unexpected, were brought to a stand. For a few minutes, 1775. BUNKER HILL, THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE 1775. 225 fifteen or ten — who can count such minutes ! — each one of the Americans, completely covered while he loaded his musket, exposed only whUe he stood upon the wooden platform or steps of earth in the redoubt to take aim, fought according to his own judgment and wiU ; and a close and unremitting fire was continued and returned, till the British staggered, wavered, and then, in disordered masses, retreated precipitately to the foot of the hill, and some even to their boats. The column of the enemy, which advanced near the Mystic under the lead of Howe, moved gaUantly against the rail-fence, and, when within eighty or one hundred yards, displayed into hne with the precision of troops on parade. Here, too, the Americans, commanded by Stark and Knowlton, cheered on by Putnam, who hke Prescott bade them reserve their fire, restrained themselves as K by universal consent, tiU at the proper moment, resting their guns on the rails of the fence, they poured forth a dehberate, well-directed, fatal discharge ; here, too, the British recoUed from the voUey, and, after a short contest, were thrown into confusion, sounded a retreat, and fell back till they were covered by the ground. Then foUowed moments of joy in that unfinished redoubt, and behind the grassy rampart, where New England husband men beheld veteran battalions shrink before their arms. Their hearts bounded as they congratulated each other. The night- watches, thirst, hunger, danger whether of captivity or death, were forgotten. They promised themselves victory. As the British soldiers retreated, the officers were seen, by the spectators on the opposite shore, running down to them, using passionate gestures, and pushing them forward with their swords. After an interval of about fifteen minutes, during which Prescott moved round among his men, cheering them with praise, the British column under Pigot rallied and ad vanced, though with apparent reluctance, in the same order as before, firing as they approached within musket-shot. This time the Americans withheld their fire tiU the enemy were within six or five rods of the redoubt, when, as the order was given, it seemed more fatal than before. The enemy continued to discharge their guns, and pressed forward with spirit. " But from the whole American line there was," said Prescott, " a VOL. IV. — 15 226 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xiv. continuous stream of fire ; " and though the British officers exposed themselves fearlessly, remonstrating, threatening, and even striking the soldiers to urge them on, they could not reach the redoubt, but in a few moments gave way in greater disor der than before. The wounded and the dead covered the ground in front of the works, some lying within a few yards of them. On the flank the British light infantry again marched up its companies against the grass-fence, but could not penetrate it. " Indeed," wrote some of the survivors, " how could we penetrate it ? Most of our grenadiers and light infantry, the moment of presenting themselves, lost three fourths, and many nine tenths of their men. Some had only eight or rune men in a company left, some only three, four, or Ave." On the ground where but the day before the mowers had swung the scythe in peace, " the dead," relates Stark, " lay as thick as sheep in a fold." Howe for a few seconds was left nearly alone, so many of the officers about him having been killed or wounded ; and it required the utmost exertion of aU, from the generals down to the subalterns, to repair the rout. At intervals, the artillery from the ships and batteries was playing, while the flames were rising over the town of Charles town and laying waste the places of the graves of its fathers, and streets were falling together, and ships at the yards were crashing on the stocks, and the kindred of the Americans, from the fields and hiUs and house-tops around, watched every gal lant act of their defenders. " The whole," wrote Burgoyne, "was a complication of horror and importance beyond any thing it ever came to my lot to be witness to. It was a sight for a young soldier that the longest service may not furnish again." " If we drive them back once more," cried Prescott, " they cannot rally again." To the husbandmen about him the ter rible and appalling scene was altogether new, and not one of them shrank from duty. "We are ready for the redcoats again," they shouted, cheering their commander. In the longer interval that preceded the third attack, a council of officers disclosed the fact that the ammunition was almost exhausted. Though Prescott had sent in the morning 1775. BUNKER HILL, THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE 1775. 227 for a supply, he had received none, and there were not fifty bayonets in his party. A few artillery cartridges were dis covered, and, as the last resource, the powder in them was dis tributed, with the direction that not a kernel of it should be wasted. The royal army, exasperated at retreating before an enemy whom they had professed to despise, and by the sight of many hundreds of their men who lay dead or bleeding on the ground, prepared to renew the engagement. While the hght infantry and a part of the grenadiers were left to continue the attack at the raU-fence, Howe concentrated the rest of his forces upon the redoubt. Cannon were brought to bear in such a manner as to rake the inside of the breastwork from one end of it to the other, so that the Americans were obliged to crowd within their fort. Then the British troops, having disencumbered themselves of their knapsacks, advanced in column with fixed bayonets. Chnton, who from Copp's HiU had watched the battle, at this critical moment, without orders, pushed off in a boat and put himseK at the head of two battalions, the marines and the forty-seventh, which seemed to hesitate on the beach as if uncertain what to do. These formed the ex treme left of the British, and advanced from the south ; the fifth, the tHrty-eighth, and forty-third battahons formed the centre, and attacked from the east ; on their right was the fifty-second with grenadiers, who forced the now deserted in trenchments. The Americans within the redoubt, attacked at once on three sides by six battahons, at that time numbered less than seven hundred men. Of these, some had no more than one, none more than four rounds of ammunition left. But Pres cott's self-possession increased with danger. He directed his men to wait till the enemy were within twenty yards, when they poured upon them a deadly volley. The British wavered for an instant, and then sprang forward without returning the fire. The American fire slackened, and began to die away. The British reached the rampart on the southern side. Those who first scaled the parapet were shot down as they mounted. Pitcairn fell mortaUy wounded, just as he was entering the redoubt. A single artillery cartridge furnished powder for 228 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; oh. xiv. the last muskets which the Americans fired. The breastwork being abandoned, the ammunition expended, the redoubt half fiUed with regulars, at a little before four Prescott, on the point of being surrounded, gave the word to retreat. He him self was among the last to leave the fort, escaping unhurt, though with coat and waistcoat rent and pierced by bayonets, which he parried with his sword. The men, retiring through the sally-port or leaping over the walls, made their way through their enemies, each for himseK, without much order, and the dust which rose from the dry earth now powdered in the sun, and the smoke of the engagement, gave them some covering. The British, who had turned the north-eastern end of the breastwork, and had come round the angle of the redoubt, were too much exhausted to use the bayonet against them with vigor, and at first the parties were so closely intermingled as to interrupt the firing ; a supply of ball for the artillery, sent from Boston during the battle, was too large for the field- pieces which accompanied the detachment. The brave men of the redoubt would have been effectually cut off but for the provincials at the rail-fence and the bank of the Mystic, who had repulsed the enemy twice, and now held them in check till the main body had left the lull. Not till then did the Connecticut companies under Knowlton, and the New Hampshire soldiers under Stark, quit the station, which they had " nobly defended." The retreat was made with more regularity than could have been expected of troops who had been for so short a time under discipline, aud of whom many had never before seen an engagement. Trevett and his men drew off the only field-piece that was saved. The musket of Pomeroy was struck and marked by a baU. The redoubt, the brow of Bunker Hill, and the passage across the Charlestown causeway, were the principal places of slaughter. Putnam, at the third onset, was absent, " employed in col lecting men " for re-enforcements, and was encountered by the retreating party on the northern declivity of Bunker Hill. Acting on his own responsibility, he now for the first time during the day assumed the supreme direction. Without or ders from any person, he rallied such of the fugitives as would obey him, joined them to a detachment which had not arrived 1775. BUNKER HILL, THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE 1775. 229 in season to share in the combat, and took possession of Pros pect Hill, where he encamped that very night. Repairing to head-quarters, Prescott offered with three fresh regiments to recover his post ; but for himself he sought neither promotion nor praise, and, having performed the best service, never thought that he had done more than his duty. It is the contemporary record that during the battle " no one appeared to have any command but Colonel Prescott," and that " his bravery could never be enough acknowledged and applauded." The camp long repeated the story of his self-coUected valor ; and a historian of the war, who best knew the judgments of the army, has rightly awarded the " highest prize of glory to Prescott and his companions." The British were unable to continue the pursuit beyond the isthmus. They had already brought their best forces into the field ; more than a third of those engaged lay dead or bleed ing; and the survivors were fatigued, and overawed by the courage of their adversaries. The battle put an end to all offensive operations on the part of Gage. The number of the kiUed and wounded in his army was, by his own account, at least one thousand and fifty-four. Sev enty commissioned officers were wounded, and thirteen were slain. Of these, there were one lieutenant-colonel, two majors, and seven captains. For near half an hour there had been a continued sheet of fire from the provincials ; and the action was hot for double that period. The oldest soldiers had never seen the like. The battle of Quebec, which won haK a conti nent, did not cost the lives of so many officers as the battle of Bunker HU1, which gained nothing but a place of encamp ment. That Howe did not faU was a marvel. The praises be stowed on his apathetic valor, on the gaUantry of Pigot and Rawdon, on the conduct of Clinton, reflected honor on the un trained farmers, who, though inferior in numbers, had tasked the most strenuous exertions of their assailants before they could be dislodged from the defences which they had had but four hours to construct. The loss of the Americans amounted to one hundred and forty-five kiUed and missing, and three hundred and four 230 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xiv. wounded. The brave Moses Parker, of Chelmsford, was wounded and taken prisoner ; he died in Boston jail. Major WiUard Moore received one severe wound at the second attack, and soon after another, which he felt to be mortal ; so bidding farewell to those who would have borne him off, he insisted on their saving themselves, and remained to die for the good cause, which he had served in council and in arms. Buckmin- ster was dangerously wounded, but recovered. The injury to Nixon was so great that he suffered for many months, and narrowly escaped with his IKe. Thomas Gardner, a member of congress from Cambridge, was hastening with some part of his regiment to the redoubt ; but, as he was descending Bunker Hill, he was mortaUy wounded by a random shot. His towns men mourned for the rural statesman, in whom they had long and unanimously reposed their confidence ; and Washington gave him the funeral honors due to a gaUant officer. Andrew McClary, on that day unsurpassed in bravery, returning to reconnoitre, perished by a chance cannon-baU on the isthmus. Just at the moment of the retreat fell Joseph Warren, the last in the trenches. In him were combined swKtness of thought and resolve, courage, endurance, and manners which won universal love. He opposed the British government, not from interested motives nor from resentment. Guileless and intrepid, he was in truth a patriot. As the moment for the appeal to arms approached, he watched with joy the revival of the generous spirit of New England's ancestors ; and wher ever the peril was greatest he was present, animating not by words alone, but ever by his example. His integrity, the soundness of his judgment, his abihty to write readily and weU, his fervid eloquence, his exact acquaintance with Ameri can rights and the infringements of them, gave authority to his advice in private and in the provincial congress. Had he lived, the future seemed burdened with his honors ; he cheer fully sacrificed all for the freedom of his country and the rights of man. By his countrymen he was " most sincerely and universally lamented ; " his mother would not be consoled. His death, preceded by that of his wife, left his children altogether or phans, tUl the continent, at the motion of Samuel Adams, 1775. BUNKER HILL, THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE 1775. 231 adopted them in part at least as its own. The congress of his native state, who knew him weU, had chosen him to guide their debates, and had recently raised him to high command in their army, proclaimed their " veneration for Joseph War ren, as for one whose memory is endeared to his countrymen, and to the worthy in every part and age of the world, so long as virtue and valor shall be esteemed among men." The reports of the generals show the opinions in the two camps after the battle. " The success," wrote Gage to Dart mouth, " which was very necessary in our present condition, cost us dear. The number of killed and wounded is greater than our forces can afford. We have lost some extremely good officers. The trials we have had show the rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be ; and I find it owing to a mihtary spirit encouraged among them for a few years past, joined with uncommon zeal and enthusi asm. They intrench, and raise batteries ; they have engineers. They have fortified all the heights and passes around this town, which it is not impossible for them to annoy. The conquest of this country is not easy ; you have to cope with vast num bers. In aU their wars against the French, they never showed so much conduct, attention, and perseverance as they do now. I think it my duty to let your lordship know the true situation of affairs." On the other hand, Ward, in a general order, gave thanks to " the officers and soldiers who behaved so gaUantly at the action in Charlestown;" and, in words which expressed the conviction of his camp, he added : "We shaU finaUy come off victorious, and triumph over the enemies of freedom and America." The events of the day confirmed Washington in his habitual behef that the hberties of America would be pre served. To his Enghsh friends Franklin wrote : " Americans wiU fight ; England has lost her colonies forever." 232 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; ch. xv. CHAPTER XV. the army round boston. June 17-August 1775. During the evening and night after the engagement the air trembled with the groans of the wounded, as they were borne over the Charles and through the streets of Boston to ill- provided hospitals. To the end of the war, the courage of the insurgents in this battle of the people, and their sMU as marksmen, never went out of mind. The loss of officers was disproportionately great; and the gloom of the British was deepened by the reflection that they had fought against their own kindred. The mortally wounded, like Abercrombie, had not the consolation that their memory would be held in honor. America was, beyond any country in the world, the land of the most varied legislative experience ; but in its remote ness from danger and its abhorrence of a standing army there was not any organized force except of the people as a militia ; so that it had no choice of officers but from those of the mihtia who had chanced to see some short service in the French wars, retired Enghsh officers who had made their homes in America, or civilians. On the day of the Bunker Hill battle the continental con gress elected four major-generals. From deference to Massa chusetts, the first of these was Artemas Ward, though he had not yet received a commission from that colony, and from his broken health was unfit for the station. The Americans, with ingenuous confidence, assumed that Charles Lee, the son of an English officer and trained up from boyhood for the army, was, as he represented himseK, a sol- 1775. THE ARMY ROUND BOSTON. 233 dier of ability and large experience, and their friend from con viction of the equity of their cause. " From what I know of him," wrote Sir Joseph Yorke, then British minister at the Hague, "he is the worst present which could be made to any army." Reduced to haK pay, he had "no chance of being provided for at home," and, as an adventurer, sought " employment in any part of the world." Clinging to England all the whUe and holding it "wretchedness itseK not to be able to herd with the class to which he had been accustomed from his infancy," he looked upon the Americans as "bad company," and unworthy of independence. No position was too high for his conceit ; yet he was too petulant to persevere even in intrigues to supplant his superiors. He wrote with vi vacity and sometimes with terseness, but never with feehng ; for he had no sincerity and loved neither man nor woman. He was subject to " spleen and gloomy moods ; " excitable almost to madness ; alike violent and versatile. He passed for a brave man, but in sudden danger he quaUed. His mobility, though sometimes mistaken for activity, only disguised his inefficiency. He was poor in council ; prodigal of censure ; downcast in dis aster ; after success, claiming honor not his own ; ever ready to cavil and perplex. He professed to be a free-thinker ; but he had only learned of scoffers to deny " the God of the Jews," curse the clergy, and hate orthodox dissenters. Hl-mannered, a great sloven, wretchedly profane, always with dogs about him, his numerous eccentricities were neither exaggerations nor cari catures of anything American, and disclosed an unsound mind. Having no feUow-feeling with the common people, he would have preferred a country of slaves under a lenient master to a democratic government. His sordid soul had no passion so strong as covetousness, and he was always seeking to escape spending money even on himseK. Having been an aide-de-camp to the king of Poland, he claimed to " have passed through the higher mihtary ranks in some of the most respectable ser vices of Europe, and to be a major-general of five years' stand ing," and had waited upon congress with the thought of being chosen commander-in-chief. At the moment of accepting employment from a nation which was looking to France for sympathy, he assured his own king of his readiness to serve 234 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xv. against the natural hereditary enemies of England with the utmost alacrity and zeal. He often regretted having hazarded his "ah" in the American cause. Yet congress elected him their second major-general, so that, on the retirement of Ward, he would stand next to Washington. New York had been asked to propose the third major- general ; she had more than one citizen of superior mihtary talent ; but her provincial congress, hmiting the choice to those who possessed " the gifts of fortune," selected Philip Schuyler. Montgomery hesitated, saying : " His consequence in the prov ince makes him a fit subject for an important trust ; but has he strong nerves ? I could wish that point weU ascertained with respect to any man so employed." The vote for him in congress was not without dissent. For the fourth major-general, the choice fell upon Israel Putnam, of Connecticut. Wooster, as weU as Spencer, of the same colony, stood before him in age and rank, and equalled him in love of country and courage ; but a skirmish at East Boston, in which he took the lead, had been heralded as a great victory, and the baUot in his favor is recorded as unanimous. Of Massachusetts by birth, at the age of thirty-seven he began his career with the commission from Connecticut of a second lieutenant, and his service had been chiefly as a ranger. Horatio Gates, a retired British officer who resided in Vir ginia, came next as adjutant-general with the rank of brigadier. On the twenty-first of June, Thomas Jefferson, then thirty years of age, entered congress, preceded by a brilliant reputa tion as a vigorous writer and a far-sighted statesman. The twenty-second brought the great tidings of the battle near Bunker Hill. " A breach on our affections was needed to rouse the country to action," exclaimed Patrick Henry as he heard of the death of Warren. Congress proceeded to the election of eight brigadiers, of whom all but one were from New England. In deference to the choice of the con gress of Massachusetts, the first was Seth Pomeroy ; but he re tired before receiving his commission. The second was Rich ard Montgomery, of New York, a Scotch-Irishman by birth, a soldier by profession, weU-inf ormed as a statesman, faultless in private Ufe, a patriot from the heart. He was followed by David 1775. THE ARMY ROUND BOSTON. 235 Wooster, of Connecticut, a brave and upright man of sixty-five ; Wilham Heath, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a patriot farmer, who held high rank in the train-bands and had read books on the mihtary art ; Joseph Spencer, of Connecticut, a man past sixty, a most respectable citizen, but, from age and inexpe rience, not qualified for councils of war; John Thomas, a physician, of Kingston, Massachusetts ; and John SuUivan, an able lawyer and patriot statesman of New Hampshire. The last was Nathaniel Greene, of Rhode Island, unsurpassed in the fortitude which bears up against defeat. Washington, who at that time was affluent, took delight in his beautifuUy situated home at Mount Vernon, where he gave an example of purity of hfe, of systematic order in the management of his estate, and benevolence to those in want. To his wKe, whose miniature he wore on his breast from the day of his marriage to his death, he wrote on the eighteenth of June : " You may beheve me, I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad if my stay were to be seven times seven years. I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid this appointment, from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, but, as a kind of des tiny has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my un dertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose. I shall rely confidently on that Providence which has hitherto pre served and been bountiful to me." At a f areweU supper, the members of congress rose as they drank a health to " the commander-in-chief of the American army ; " to his thanks they hstened in stillness, for a sense of the difficulties before him suppressed every festal cheer. On the twenty-third he was escorted out of Philadelphia by the Massachusetts delegates and many others, with music, officers of mihtia, and a cavalcade of light-horse. " I, poor creature," said John Adams, as he returned from this " pride and pomp of war," " I, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown ; others to eat the bread which I have earned." To his brother, Washington wrote confidingly : " I bid adieu to every kind of domestic ease, 236 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xv. and embark on a wide ocean, boundless in its prospect, and in which perhaps no safe harbor is to be found." He went forth to hazard fame and hfe in the command of an army which had neither experienced officers, nor discipline, nor per manency, nor proper arms, nor ammunition, nor funds for its support ; encouraged only by the hope that, by seK-sacrifice, he might rescue the rights of his country. On Sunday, the twenty-fifth, aU New York was in motion. Tryon, the royal governor, and Washington were to enter the city, and both were entitled to be received with pubhc honors. As Washington, accompanied by Lee and Schuyler, under the escort of the Philadelphia light-horse, was about to cross the Hudson, the beUs were rang, the mihtia paraded in their gayest trim, and at four o'clock in the afternoon the commander-in- chief, dressed in a umform of blue and drawn in an open car riage by a pair of white horses, was escorted into the city by nine companies of infantry; and, from house-tops, windows, and the streets, was gazed at by multitudes of aU ages and both sexes. Tryon, landing at nightfall, was noiselessly escorted by one company and a few magistrates to a house in Broadway. Amazed and cast down, he masked his designs under an air of unconcern and blandness. Washington directed Schuyler to keep watch of his movements, and wrote a warning to con gress. On the twenty-sixth the provincial congress of New York, in their address to Washington, expressed their fullest as surance that, upon an accommodation, he would cheerfully resign his trust and become once more a citizen. " When we assumed the soldier we did not lay aside the citizen," answered Washington for himseK and his officers; but, having once drawn the sword, he postponed the thought of private hfe to the " estabhshment of American hberty on the most firm and solid foundations." The next day the New York congress produced its plan of accommodation. For the colonies it insisted on the repeal of obnoxious acts and the undisturbed exercise of the powers of internal legislation and taxation ; it left to Great Britain the power to regulate the trade of the whole empire ; and, on proper requisitions, promised assistance in the general defence, either 1775. THE ARMY ROUND BOSTON. 237 from the colonies severaUy, or through a Continental congress, of which the president should be appointed by the crown. While Washington was borne toward Cambridge on the affectionate confidence of the people, congress, which had as yet supported its commander-in-chief with nothing beyond a commission, was driven to issue continental bills of credit to the amount of two miUions of dollars, and to pledge "the twelve confederated colonies" for their redemption. A code for the government of the continental army was adopted. The Green Mountain Boys were allowed the choice of their own officers; and as Carleton "was making prepara tions to invade the colonies, and was instigating the Indian nations against tfjem," Schuyler was directed to repair to Ticonderoga and Crown Point with authority to occupy St. John's, Montreal, and any other parts of Canada. To the In dians, agents were sent with presents and speeches, " to prevent their taking any part in the commotions." Alliances with them were forbidden, except to counteract British emissaries. On the sixth of July congress set forth the causes and necessity of taking up arms. Recapitulating the wrongs of America, they asked, in words which Edmund Burke ridi culed as the " nonsense " of men whoUy ignorant of the state of parties in England : " Why should we enumerate our inju ries in detaU ? By one statute it is declared that parhament can of right make laws to bind us in aU cases whatsoever. What is to defend us against so unlimited a power? Not a single man of those who assume it is chosen by us ; and an American revenue would lighten their own burdens in propor tion as they increase ours." Lord North's proposal for concilia tion they condemned as insidiously designed to divide the colo nies, and leave them nothing but " the indulgence of raising the prescribed tribute in their own mode." After enumerating the hostile acts at Lexington and Concord, Boston, Charlestown, and other places, the seizure of ships, the intercepting of pro visions, the attempts to imbody Canadians, Indians, and insur gent slaves, they sum up their complaint : " These colonies now feel the compUcated calamities of fire, sword, and famine. We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to irritated ministers, or resistance by force. The 238 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xv. latter is our choice. itWe have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so >rs< sadf ul as voluntary slavery. Our cause is just, our union is perfect, our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. Before God and the world, we declare that the arms we -have been compeUed by our enemies to assume we wiU employ for the preservation of our hberties; being, vdci one mind, re solved to die free men rather than liv^rexposed Te have not raised armies with designs of separat i proofs of .'eat Britain and estabhshing independent states... on the retrea'is not yet driven us into that desperate measui. :-c--m sickne^i to man kind the spectacle of a people attacker" r n^ eSVoked ene mies, without any imputation or even si* -oi is if offence. In our own native land, in defence of the freec '•><-+ -^ 0ur birthright, for the protection of our property %\sed in a Lence actuaUy offered, we have taken C:v> arms. We shan iay them down when hostilities shaU cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shaU be removed, and not before." Of this paper, the author from the first word to the lapJ,si7as Dickinson.* The second petition to the king, written Ukew nehed him, thus proposed a negotiation to be preceded by a truce : etched beseech your majesty to direct some mode by which the united apphcations of your faithful colonists to the throne, in pursuance of their common councils, may be improved into a happy and permanent reconcihation ; and that, in the mean time, measures may be taken for preventing the further destruction of the fives of your majesty's subjects, and that such statutes as more imme diately distress any of your majesty's colonies may be repealed." The United Colonies next set forth to the inhabitants of Great Britain, as countrymen and brothers, that -the repeal of the laws of which they complained must go before the dis banding of their army, or the renewal of commerce. On the same day thanks were addressed to the lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London, for their unsolicited sympathy. Richard Penn, one of the proprietaries of Pennsylvania * Through the good offices of G. H. Moore, I have examined the original MS. It is from the first line to the last, with all the amendments, in the handwriting of Dick inson, and precludes the idea that the close was drawn by any hand but his own. 1775. THE ARMY ROUND BOSTON. 239 and recently its governor, a most loya ^Englishman, bound by the strongest motives of interest divert American in dependence, was selected to bear the second petition to the throne. He assumed the trust with alacrity, and on the tweKth of July embarked on his mission. The hope of success grew out of the readiness of the Americans, on the condition of exemption from ^Trliamentary taxation, to bear the restraints on their trar jf life at 1." alternative, to purchase a freedom of trade like t 7aj 0f miliimd by taxing themselves toward the payment o r great numb iebt. On th^e, and ''¦''¦- - W"ashington rode forth from his quar ters at CauiLls fv^e cc-rously attended, and took command of the contmenfojaidjaiViem ' A favorable opinion had gone before Mm* J^npeten^eseh^e was greater than his fame. The pro- vifirSi^artiaJ"-^ at Watertown welcomed him in a cordial address^ vjreene and the R^ide Island officers manifested affectionate confidence. Promises of mutual reliance, which were never broken, were exchanged with Trumbull, the gov- erno • of Connecticut. ^nvhe camp contained a people in arms, rather than an army. Emerf ie could teU precisely its numbers or the state of its Ler The soldiers had enhsted under different agreements, alauded what Jefferson called " the adventur- ousgenius and intrepidity of the New Englanders." The existence of the armywas a miracle ol tlie"benevolence of the New England people, and its sustenance during Jyiay, June, and July, cannot be accounted for by ordinary rules. There was nothing regularly established, and yet many thou sands of men were supplied. Touched by an aU-pervading influence, each householder esteemed himseK a sort of commis- . sary. There were no pubhc magazines, no large dealers in provisions ; but the wants of the army rung in the ears of the farmers, and, from every ceUar and barn-yard and field through out Worcester and Hampshire and even Berkshire, such articles of food as could be spared were devoted to the camp, and everybody's wagons were used to forward them. But for this the forces must have dispersed ; how it was done cannot exactly be told ; popular enthusiasm keeps httle record of its sacrifices ; only it was done, and the troops of Massachusetts, and for a longtime those of New Hampshire, were fed, without so much as a barrel of flour from the continental congress. It was time for " the confederated colonies " to interpose. On the nineteenth of July the continental congress read the first report from Washington, by which it appeared that the army was defective in discipline and in numbers; that officers for the regiments were in excess; that the order in rank of the major-generals and brigadiers had displeased the New England troops and governments ; that still another class of officers was required to bring method into the system of supphes ; that there was the most urgent need of tents, cloth ing, hospitals, and skiKul engineers ; of every kind of arms, especiaUy artillery, and above all of powder ; and that, as yet, no money had been furnished. The next day it heard the report of Schuyler that the northern army at Ticonderoga ex hibited a universal want of discipline. Yet on the side of Canada it did httle more than sanction the employment of a body of five thousand men for the protection of the border and the frontier. Washington was authorized to keep up an army of twenty-two thousand men in Massachusetts. Franklin could remain silent no longer. After consulting with others, especiaUy with Jefferson, on the twenty-first of 244 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xv. July the statesman, who, twenty-one years before, had at Al bany reported a plan of union, submitted an outline for con federating the colonies in one nation. Each colony was to re tain and amend its own laws and constitution according to its separate discretion, while the powers of the general govern ment were to include all questions of war, peace, and aUiance ; commerce, currency, and the establishment of posts ; the army, the navy, and Indian affairs ; the management of aU lands not yet ceded by the natives ; the planting of new colonies ; the settlement of aU intercolonial disputes. For the common trea sury taxes were to be collected by the several colonies in pro portion to their numbers. Congress was to consist of one body only, whose members were to be apportioned triennially according to population, to be chosen annually, and to sit in each colony in rotation. To wield the executive power, it was to select out of its own members a council of twelve, of whom one third were to be annually renewed. Every colony of Great Britain in North America, and even Ireland which was still classed with the colonies, was invited to accede to the union. The imperfections in the new consti tution, which time and experience would surely reveal, were to be amended by congress with the approbation of a majority of the colonial assembhes. Unless Britain should consent to make acceptable retractions and indemnities, the confederation was to be perpetual. The intention of Frankhn was an immediate establishment of a self-perpetuating republic, founded on the domestic power of the several states, and the limited sover eignty of the central government. Georgia " was no more the defaulting hnk in the Ameri can chain." It had resolved neither to purchase nor to em ploy any slave imported thereafter from Africa, and on the sixth of July its congress adhered to all the measures of re sistance. In the same month congress sent to Ireland a pledge of its unalterable sympathy, and its joy that the trials of America had extorted some mitigation of its Avrongs. While these addresses were in progress, Guy Johnson, act ing independently of Carleton, was lavishing promises on the Six Nations and the savages of north-west Canada. An Iro- 1775. THE ARMY ROUND BOSTON. 245 quois chief, who attended the conference at Montreal, con sented to take home a war-belt, emblazoned with the hatchet, but would engage himseK no further ; other savages, for whom a pipe of wine was broached, feasted on an ox which had been named Bostonian, and, as they drank its blood, they sang the war-song, with promises of prowess when they should be caUed " to the field. Yet still the majority of the congress would not sanction the institution of governments in the several colonies. The hesitancy incensed John Adams, who maintained that the fifty or sixty, men composing the congress should at once form a constitution for a great empire, provide for its defence, and in that safe attitude await the decision of the king. His let ters to New England, avowing these opinions, were inter cepted ; and were pubhshed by the royahsts as the surest way of destroying his influence. So hard it was to rend the tie that bound America to England ! Lord North's proposal toward conciliation had already been declared inadequate ; but, as it was founded on joint resolves of parhament, officiaUy recommended by Lord Dart mouth, and had been referred by Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to congress, a committee, composed of Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, and Richard Henry Lee, was consti tuted to report on its conditions as a basis for accommodation. Jefferson was the writer of their report, and the most decisive measure of congress was its adoption in July. The American congress had asked of the king a cessation of hostilities, and a settlement of the disputed questions by a concert between the crown and the collective colonies ; Lord North offered, as the British ultimatum, to treat separately with each assembly for grants toward the general defence and for its own civil gov ernment, with the promise that parliament would abstain from taxing the province that should offer satisfactory terms. This offer was pronounced unreasonable, because it implied a pur chase of the forbearance of parhament at an uncertain price ; invidious, as hkely to divide the colonies and leave the dis satisfied to resist alone ; unnecessary, for America had ever voluntarily contributed fuUy, when caUed upon as freemen ; insulting, since the demand for money was made with fleets and armies ; unjust, as it asked increased contributions without 246 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ih.; ch.xv. renouncing the monopoly of trade ; unwarrantable, as a wrong ful intermeddling in the colonial support of civU government ; unsatisfactory, since it left the obnoxious acts unrepealed ; in sufficient, as it did not renounce the claim of a right to alter colonial charters and laws ; insincere, as coming from a min ister who had declared " that he would never treat with Amer ica tiU he had brought her to his feet ; " and delusive, as it offered no option but of devastation or abject submission. If the king would order a truce and point out a method for treating with the colonies jointly, they would desire nothing better than a colonial constitution, to be established by a mu tual agreement. Meantime, Franklin was selected to organize a post-office ; a hospital was agreed to for the army and Benjamin Church elected its director ; the rate of pay of officers and soldiers was finally settled. For money, a third million of doUars was or dered to be struck in paper bills, and each colony was charged to sink its quota of them. Here the question arose whether the apportionment for redemption should be according to wealth or population; and, after long deliberation, it was agreed for the time that population should constitute the dis tributive rule; and that all persons, including free negroes, mulattoes, and slaves, should be counted. Of four annual in stalments, by which the continental notes were to be redeemed, the earliest was adjourned to the last day of November 1779. There was no mode of obtaining munitions of war but by throwing open the ports and inviting commerce, especiaUy with the French and Dutch colonies ; yet the last act of con gress, before its adjournment, was the renewal of the agree ment neither directly nor indirectly to export any merchandise or commodity whatever to Great Britain, Ireland, or to the British, or even to the foreign, West Indies. On the first day of August congress adjourned for five weeks, leaving the insurgent country with no representative of its unity but Washington and the army. 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 247 CHAPTER XVI. america awaits the king's decision. July-October 1775. In the absence of a continental government, and with a most imperfect one in Massachusetts, it feU on Washington to take thought for his army from its general direction to its smallest want. As commander-in-chief, he scrupulously obeyed the continental congress, which, from its inchoate character, was tardy, feeble, and uncertain. In his intercourse with the neighboring colonial governments, whose good-wiU was his main resource, he showed deference to their laws and courtesy to their magistrates. By the fourth of August the army was formed into three divisions, stationed at Roxbury, Cambridge, and Winter HiU, under Ward, Lee, and Putnam. Each division consisted of two brigades, each brigade of about six regiments ; but the powder on hand was only enough to furnish each man with nine rounds of cartridge. Between the twenty-fifth of July and the seventh of Au gust fourteen hundred riflemen arrived in the camp. A com pany from Virginia had for its captain Daniel Morgan, who, in 1774, had gained experience in war, having taken part in the expedition of Dunmore. In person he was more than six feet high and well proportioned, of an imposing presence, moving with strength and grace, of a hardy constitution that defied fatigue, hunger, and cold. His open countenance was the mirror of an ingenuous nature. He could glow with anger, but was never mastered by it ; his disposition was sweet and peaceful and his hospitable house was the home of cheerful- 248 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xvi. ness. His faculties were quickened by the approach of danger, which he was sure to be prepared to meet. An instinctive discrimination of character guided him in choosing his com panions ; and the obedience of his soldiers was but a return of his confidence. In ten days after he received his commission he attracted from the valley a company of ninety-six men. His first lieutenant was John Humphreys; his second, Wilham Heth; his sergeant, Charles Porterfield. No captain ever commanded braver soldiers, or was better supported by them and his officers ; in twenty-one days they marched from Win chester in Virginia to Cambridge. In Maryland, at the bidding of Michael Cresap, two-and- twenty of his old companions in arms came swift as the roe over the mountains ; the rest of his company he picked from volunteers on the eastern side ; and with dauntless spirit they marched to the siege of Boston under him as their friend and father. Driven by illness from the camp, Cresap died on his way home at New York, where he was buried with the honors of a martyr. The second Maryland company was commanded by Price, whose lieutenant was Otho Holland Williams. Of the eight companies from Pennsylvania, Wilham Thompson was colonel. The second in command was Edward Hand, a native of Ireland, who had come over as a surgeon's mate. One of the captains was Hendricks, long remembered for his stately person and heroic soul. In less than sixty days from the time when authority was given by congress for their enlistment, twelve companies of riflemen were in the camp. The men were strong and of great endurance, many of them more than six feet high ; they wore leggins and moccasons, and an ash-colored hunting-shirt with a double cape ; each one carried a rifle, a hatchet, a small axe, and a hunter's knife. They could subsist on a little parched corn, with game, kiUed as they went along ; at night, wrapped in their blankets, they willingly made a tree their canopy, the earth their bed. The rifle in their hands sent its ball with pre cision a distance of two or three hundred yards. Their motto was : " Liberty or Death." They were the first troops levied under the authority of the continental congress, and they formed the best corps in the camp. Accustomed to the inde- 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 249 pendence of the woods, they gave an example of subordina tion, disciphne, and vigilance. Enlisted for a year only, many of them, both officers and men, continued in the service during the war, and distinguished themselves in almost every field. Performing no one act of courage during the summer, Gage vented his ill-humor on his unhappy prisoners, throwing officers of high rank into a felon's jail, to languish of wounds and even to undergo amputation. Washington pleaded for "kindness and humanity" as the "joint rule for their treat ment of prisoners ; " but Gage scorned to promise reciprocity to rebels, " whose lives," he said, " by the laws of the land are destined to the cord ', " nor would he acknowledge rank that was not derived from the king. Washington asserted the equality of American officers by a pubhc order for retahation ; but when he sent the British officers who were his prisoners into the interior, he privately aUowed them liberty on parole. The arrival of re-enforcements could not inspirit Gage to venture outside of his lines. Presaging " a long and bloody war," he confessed to Dartmouth that nothing could justify risking an attack ; that even to quit Boston safely would re quire the greatest secrecy ; but he enjoyed the triumph of cut ting down the Boston Liberty Tree ; and, when marauding ex peditions returned with sheep and hogs and cattle captured from islands, the bells were rung as for a victory. The war graduaUy spread over the sea; the assembly of Rhode Island, in June, fitted out two armed vessels ; in July, Connecticut ordered the equipment of two more. In the same month South Carolina and Georgia sent cruisers to watch for a ship expected with gunpowder. Most of the colonies had vessels out on similar errands. Early in August, Washington proposed that Rhode Island shoiUd attempt to seize a pubhc magazine in Bermuda ; for, said he, " we are in a situation which requires us to run aU risks ; " but, before the advice could be carried out, George Ord, in a sloop despatched from Philadelphia by Robert Morris under pretence of a trading voyage to New Providence, had taken the magazine by sur prise, and, in conjunction with a schooner from South Caro lina, had brought away more than a hundred barrels of powder. On the ninth the Falcon, a British sloop-of-war, was seen from 250 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xvi. Cape Ann in chase of two schooners bound to Salem. One of these was taken ; a fair wind wafted the other into Gloucester harbor. Linzee, the captain of the Falcon, foUowed with his prize, and, after anchoring, sent his lieutenant and thirty-six men in a whale-boat and two barges to bring under his bow the schooner that had escaped. As the bargemen boarded her at her cabin windows, men from the shore fired on them, killing three and wounding the lieutenant in the thigh. Linzee sent his prize and a cutter to cannonade the town. They did httle injury ; while the Gloucester men, with the loss of but two, took both schooners, the cutter, the barges, and every man in them, Linzee losing haK his crew. On the second of Sep tember, Washington ordered Broughton, of Marblehead, as an army captain, " to take command of a detachment of the army of the United Colonies," in a schooner equipped at the conti nental expense, and to intercept all vessels laden with sup phes for the British army. Other naval officers were employed more directly under the federal authority, and with good suc cess. The hfe of Washington in Cambridge " was one continual round of vexation and fatigue." The troops of Connecticut and Rhode Island were engaged only to the first of December, those of Massachusetts only to the end of the year ; and no provision had been made for filling their places. Of the conti nental currency, the paymaster had not a doUar in hand. The commissary-general had strained his credit to the utmost for subsistence for the army ; so had Mifflin, who in August had been appointed quartermaster-general. The stated aUowance to the troops was from necessity reduced. For the coming win ter there were no adequate means of procuring blankets, shelter, and fuel. The country expected tidings of the expulsion of the British from Boston when the want of powder compeUed inactivity. The general might have shielded his good name by letting the truth be known, but the pubhc cause would have suffered ; and " braving the shafts of censure, and pledging a soldier's fame, which was dearer to him than hfe," he sub mitted in sUence to the reproach of having adopted from choice the system of inaction at which his soul revolted. In New Jersey, the popular government moved side by 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 251 side with that of the king. The provincial congress, which assembled in May and again in August, directed a general association, took cognizance of those who held back, assumed the regulation of the mUitia, apportioned a levy of ten thou sand pounds, excused the Quakers from bearing arms though not from contributing to reheve distress, and, by providing for the yearly election of its successors, severed from the colo nial legislature the appointment of future delegates to the general congress. In October, the new provincial congress, chosen by the qualified voters of each county, enroUed two regiments for the continental service. WiUiam Alexander, commonly called the earl of Stirling, a member of the royal councU, a man of courage, intelligence, and promptitude, en tered the army as colonel of the battalion of East New Jer sey. The expenses were met by a reluctant issue of thirty thousand pounds in bills of credit. Of Pennsylvania the first convention, in June 1774, aimed at no continuing pohtical organization, and referred the choice of delegates to congress to the house of representatives, in which loyalists formed the majority. At the second conven tion, held in January 1775, the president, Joseph Reed, ex erted aU his influence, in pubhc and in private, to defeat the intention of arming the province ; and desired to be known to the ministry as a person who, though opposed to parlia mentary taxation, had such weight and influence in the prov ince that the British government upon the whole might wish him to be on their side. Dickinson did not make his ap pearance in the meeting tiU the day before its dissolution, and then only to ward off the taunts of his enemies. The committee of Philadelphia was empowered to give notice, if a provincial congress should again become necessary; aU else was left to the legislature. So long as the continental congress strove to avoid a total rupture with England, the wealth and social influence of Phila delphia made common cause with the family of Penn, who, from their interests and their position, were the most sincere friends to conciliation with Britain. This pohcy received the support of Dickinson, who claimed to lead the patriot party of Pennsylvania. But the system rested on a contradiction. 252 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xvi. The proprietaries had ties of loyalty to Britain which they never would break ; and Dickinson had pledged himself not to lay down arms till the rights of America should be redeemed. His coalition with the proprietary party could last only so long as a hope remained of a reconciliation between America and the king. When this iUusion shall vanish, the proprietaries must adhere to the king, and Pennsylvania transfer the direction of its affairs to a popular convention. The house in June ap pointed a committee of safety with Dickinson at its head, and placed at its disposition thirty-five thousand pounds in bills of credit. At the adjourned session in September, energetic memorials from private meetings were laid on the table. The assembly of Delaware assented to keeping up an armed force, and unanimously assumed their share of the ex pense. Its first convention, its assembly, and its council of safety, moved onward in harmony. The people of Maryland intrusted the conduct of resist ance to a series of conventions. All parties acquiesced in the principle of deriving power from the people ; and the province, though its movement was sometimes retarded, pro ceeded in an unbroken line. In November 1774, its con vention adhered to the association adopted in the general congress. At an adjourned session in December, fifty-five members being present from sixteen counties, it resolved unanimously to resist to the utmost ahke, taxation by par hament and the enforcement of the penal acts against Mas sachusetts; and voted with equal unanimity a mihtia, to be composed of aU the freemen of the colony between fifteen and sixty. It resolved that aU former difficulties about reli gion or pohtics from henceforth should cease, and be forever buried in oblivion ; so that, with the establishment of the re public, the Cathohc had the assurance of recovering his right ful pohtical equahty in the land which a Catholic proprietary had set apart for religious freedom. Charles Carroll of Car- roUton, who had not had so much as a vote at the polls, was placed unanimously on the committee of correspondence. A leading part was taken by Samuel Chase. By profession a lawyer, in character he was downright, brave, and persever ing ; capable of error from rashness, or prejudice, or seK-will, 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 253 but not of faltering in the cause which he approved. Of a warm and impatient temperament, he did not always shun coarse invective ; but his energy, his scorn of plausible hypocrisy, his eloquence, justly won for him public confidence. In April 1775, a day or two before the arrival of news from Lexington, on oc casion of a rumor that New York city was to be fortified and garrisoned, the Maryland convention gave their delegates discre tion to proceed " even to the last extremity, K indispensably necessary for the safety and preservation of their hberties and privUeges." The proprietary at this time was an iUegitimate infant chUd of the late libertine Lord Baltimore, the last of that name ; and it might seem a shame to a commonwealth that its executive power should be transferable to such an one by testamentary disposition. Yet the proprietary party had struck deep root. The prudent lieutenant-governor, Robert Eden, acquiesced in what he could not prevent or alter ; and both he and the proprietary party were treated as neutrals. The convention which met at Annapolis on the twenty- sixth of July, seeing " no alternative but base submission or manly resistance," "approved of the opposition by arms to British troops." The temporary government which was in stituted was, in its form, a universal association of the people of Maryland, one by one. Recognising the continental con gress as invested with a general supervision, it managed internal affairs through a provincial council of safety, and subordinate executive committees, which were appointed in every county, parish, or hundred. It directed the enrolment of forty com panies of minute-men; estabhshed a mihtary code; and au thorized the emission in paper of more than a quarter of a milhon of doUars. It extended the franchise to all freemen having a visible estate of forty pounds sterhng, and Protestant and Cathohc thenceforward went to the poUs together. The government thus instituted was administered with regularity and lenity. In Virginia, the retreat of the governor from Williamsburg foreshadowed the end of the colonial system. On the twenty- fourth of July, Dunmore summoned the house before him at what he caUed " his present residence," that is, on board of a British man-of-war; unless they would come, he would not 254 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xvi. give his assent even to such of their acts as he approved. Had they appeared, the legislature might have found -themselves kept as hostages. The message could not but be voted unani mously a high breach of the rights of the house. In concur rence with the councU, the house appropriated money for the expense of ratKying the treaty with the Indians on the Ohio, and then adjourned till the tweKth of October ; but no quorum ever again assembled. In the one hundred and fifty-sixth year from the institution of legislative government in Virginia, the king, in the person of his governor, abdicated his legislative power in the oldest and most loyal of his colonies. On the seventeenth of July 1775, its people assembled at Richmond in a convention. Every procedure was marked by that mixture of courage and moderation which in times of revolution is the omen of success. The mihtary preparations had nothing in view beyond defence. Two regiments of regu lar troops in fifteen companies were caUed into being ; sixteen regiments of minute-men were to keep themselves in readi ness for actual service. To the command of the first regiment of regulars the convention elected Patrick Henry. For the relief of scrupulous consciences in the army, it was made an instruction that dissenting clergymen might act as chaplains. Delegates to serve in general congress for a year were elected, and among them once more Richard Bland. Of the same lineage with Giles Bland who ninety-nine years before had perished as a martyr to liberty, trained in the college of William and Mary, and afterward in the university of Edin burgh, he was venerable from a long career in the service of civil hberty. . In 1766 he had displayed the rights of the colonies with vigor and foresight. His deep blue eyes are now dimmed ; his step has lost its certainty ; he rises to decline the appointment, and the convention hangs on his words. " My country's approbation shaU ever animate me, as far as I am able, to support the glorious cause in which America is now engaged ; but advanced age renders me incapable of an active part in the great council of the United Colonies, and I desire that some abler person may supply my place." The conven tion, unanimously thanking him for his fidelity, released him from further service. A strong party, at the head of which 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 255 were Henry, Jefferson, and Carrington, turned for his succes sor to George Mason, a man of yet rarer virtues, now for the first time a member of a political body. He was a patriot who renounced ambition, making no quest of fame, never appearing in pubhc hfe but from a sense of duty and for a great end. " He wiU not refuse," said Jefferson and Henry, " if ordered by his country." As he pleaded an overwhelming domestic grief for his refusal, tears ran down the presiding officer's cheeks, and the convention listened to him with the sympathy of a family circle. In his stead he recommended Francis Lee, who was accordingly chosen, yet only by one vote over a candidate noted for dread of a democratic repubhc. In the election of the committee of safety Edmund Pendleton, who was known to desire " a redress of grievances and not a revolution of gov ernment," was placed at its head. To defray the charges of the late Indian war, and to provide for defence, Virginia, f oUowing the general example, directed an emission of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds in pa per currency, the smaUest bUl to be for one shilling and three pence. George Mason urged the continuance of the land-tax and the poU-tax, which would have annually sunk fifty thou sand pounds ; but taxation was suspended for a year. The convention once more declared before God and the world that they would defend their king and his government as founded on the constitution ; but that they were determined to maintain their just rights and privUeges, even at the ex- tremest hazards. Lord WUham CampbeU, the new royal governor of South Carolina, put himseK under the direction of the passionate and violent among his irresponsible subordinates. He turned away from BuU, the prudent lieutenant-governor, and would not notice the elements for conciliation, nor heed the advice of the considerate and best informed. The patriot council of safety earnestly desired to avoid the necessity of indepen dence ; but the governor wrote home that " the people of the best sense and the greatest authority, as weU as the rabble, had been gradually led into the most violent measures by a set of desperate and designing men." On the tenth of July, after intercepted letters had re- 256 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xvi. vealed the tampering of British agents with Indians, and tid ings had arrived of the battle of Bunker Hill, Campbell met his first legislature, and said to them : " I warn you of the danger you are in of drawing down inevitable ruin on this flourishing colony." The assembly hngered inactive through the summer, asking in vain to be adjourned. The residents in the low country were unanimously patri ots ; but in the districts of Camden and Ninety-Six he was as sured that thousands were animated by affection to the king. From the line of the Catawba and Wateree to the Congaree and Saluda, and aU the way to Georgia, the rude settlers were chiefly herdsmen and dissenters. A body of Germans, who oc cupied Saxe-Gotha on the Congaree, looked to the king as their landlord, and desired not to risk an ejectment ; others, recently escaped from poverty in Europe, cared mainly for subsistence and quiet. West of Orangeburg there had been no represen tation of the inhabitants, who, as a class, were newly arrived, and untrained in pubhc life. Partisans of the crown — Fletch- aU, the very active and spirited Robert Cunningham, Patrick Cunningham, and others — strove to fill the minds of these rude husbandmen with bitterness against " the gentlemen ; " the coun cil of safety sent WilUam Henry Drayton and a clergyman, WiUiam Tennent, to counteract them, and the summer was passed in indecisive struggles. Fort Augusta, in Georgia, was taken and held by the Americans. At Ninety-Six quiet was restored by a truce rather than by the submission of the royal ists. It was at this time that Andrew Pickens was first heard of as a captain in arms ; a Puritan in religion, a patriot in thought and deed. On the other hand, Moses Kirkland took down to Campbell the assurance that a British force would be joined by four thousand men, and was sent to concert with Gage an expedition against South Carohna. The discovery that a large body of savages stood ready to seize the scalping-kmfe at the king's behest set the community of South Carolina in a blaze. One of the last acts of Gage was to write to Stuart, the Indian agent for the southern depart ment: "The people of Carolina, in turning rebels to their king, have lost all faith ; when opportunity offers, make the Indians take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 257 them aU in their power. Supply them with what they want, be the expense what it wUl, as every exertion must now be made on the side of government." On receiving this order, Stuart sent by way of Pensacola to the lower Creeks and even to the Chickasas ; to the upper Creeks and their great chief ; to the Little Tallassees, and to the OverhiU Cherokees and their assembled chiefs, to lavish on them ammunition and promises of honor and favor that they might be ready " to act in the execution of any concerted plan for distressing the rebels." Cameron, the deputy agent, shrunk from the task, saying : " I pray God there may be no intention to involve the Cherokees in the dispute ; for the Indians could not be restrained from committing the most inhuman barbarities on women and clnldren. I am averse to acts of this nature, though my duty to my sovereign exceeds aU other considera tions." The councU of safety slowly admitted the need of defending the harbor of Charleston. During the summer more than twenty thousand pounds of gunpowder were taken from Brit ish vessels which were boarded off Savannah river and near St. Augustine. The export of rice was aUowed on no other terms than that it should be exchanged for arms and ammunition, which were obtained from Hispaniola and from the French and Dutch islands. AU who refused the association were disarmed, even though they were in the service of the crown. On the thirteenth of September, just after a full discovery of the intrigues of the governor with the country people, his arrest was proposed ; the motion was defeated in the general com mittee, through the opposition of Rawlins Lowndes, by a vote of twenty-three against sixteen ; but the council of safety ordered WUliam Moultrie, colonel of the second regiment, to take possession of Fort Johnson, on James Island. Aware of the design, the governor, on the fifteenth of September, having suddenly dissolved the last royal assembly ever held in South Carohna, fled for refuge to comfortless quarters on board the smaU man-of-war, the Tamer. During the pre vious night three companies dropped down with the ebb tide from Gadsden's wharf, landed on James Island, and entered the fort, in which but three or four men remained. Lord VOL. IV. — 17 258 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.iii.; oh.jivi. Wilham Campbell sent his secretary in the boat of the Tamer, to demand " by what authority they had taken possession of his majesty's fort ; " and an officer answered : " We are Ameri can troops, under Lieutenant-Colonel Motte ; we hold the fort by the express command of the council of safety." " By whom is this message given ? " Without hesitation the officer re plied : " I am Charles Cotesworth Pinckney ; " and the names of Motte and Pinckney figured in the next despatches of the governor. Moultrie gave directions for a large blue flag with a crescent in the right-hand corner. A schooner was stationed between Fort Johnson and the town, to intercept the man-of- war's boats. A post was estabhshed at Haddrell's Point, and a fort on Sullivan's island was proposed. The tents on James Island contained at least five hundred men, well armed and clad, strictly disciplined, and instructed not merely in the use of the musket, but the exercise of the great guns. The king's arsenal supphed cannon and balls. New gun-carriages were soon constructed, for the mechanics, almost to a man, were hearty in the cause, and hundreds of negro laborers were brought in from the country to assist in work. None stopped to calculate expense. In North Carohna, fourth among the thirteen colonies in importance, all classes, for the distance of a hundred miles from the sea, were penetrated with enthusiasm for hberty. Men whom royalists revered as of "the first order of people in the country," of unblemished integrity and earnest character, loyal by nature, after thoughtful consideration decided irre vocably against the right of the British parliament to tax the colonies. In Brunswick county, Robert Howe, formerly cap tain of Fort Johnston, employed himself in training the peo ple to arms. At Newbern, the capital whose name kept in memory that its founders were from Switzerland, volunteers formed themselves into independent companies. On the waters of Albemarle sound, over which the adven turous skiffs of the first settlers of Carohna had glided before the waters of the Chesapeake were known to Englishmen, the movement was assisted by the writings of young James Ire dell from England, by the letters and counsels of Joseph Hewes, and by the calm wisdom of Samuel Johnston of Eden- 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 259 ton, a native of Dundee in Scotland, a man revered for his in tegrity, thoroughly opposed to revolution K it could be avoided without yielding to oppression. Using a power with which the last provincial congress had invested him, on the tenth of July he summoned the people of North Carohna to elect their delegates. Two days later Dartmouth wrote from the king : " I hope that in North Carolina the governor may not be reduced to the disgraceful necessity of seeking protection on board the king's ships ; " and just then Martin took refuge on board a British man-of-war. Richard CasweU, hastening home from the general congress and reluctantly admitting the necessity of American resist ance, advised the most resolute conduct, and even censured the Newbern committee for suffering the governor to escape. On the twenty-first of August the people of North Caro hna assembled at Hillsborough in a convention of more than one hundred and eighty members. A spirit of moderation controUed their zeal; Caswell proposed Samuel Johnston as president, and he was unanimously elected. In a vituperative, incoherent proclamation, Martin had warned them against as sembling, as tending to unnatural rebelhon ; they voted his proclamation " a false and seditious libel," and ordered it to be burnt by the hangman. They professed allegiance to the king, and resistance to parliamentary taxation. They resolved that the people of the province, singly and coUectively, were bound by the acts of the continental congress and their pro vincial convention, because in both they were represented by persons chosen by themselves. The rehgious and pohtical scruples of the regulators were removed by a conference. Intrigues of Martin with the Highlanders were divulged by Farquhard CampbeU ; and a committee, on which were many Scots, urged them, not wholly without success, to unite with the other inhabitants of America in defence of rights derived from God and the constitution. The meditated resistance in volved a treasury which for the time was supplied by an emis sion of paper money ; the purchase of ammunition and arms ; a regular force of one thousand men ; an organization of the mihtia of the colony; an annual provincial congress to be elected by aU freeholders ; a committee of safety for each 260 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh, xvi. of the six districts into which the province was divided ; a pro vincial council, consisting of the president of the convention and two members from each of the six divisions, as the great executive power. Richard CasweU was detained for service at home, and John Penn, a Virginian by birth, became his successor in the general congress. On the twenty-fourth, Frankhn's plan of a confederacy was introduced by WiUiam Hooper, a native of Boston; trained under James Otis to the profession of the law ; now a citizen of Wilmington, "the region of pohteness and hospitality." The proposition was about to be adopted when Johnston inter posed, and, on the fourth of September, it was voted, but not unanimously, that a general confederation ought only to be adopted in the last necessity. Hooper acquiesced; and the house, in its address to the inhabitants of the British empire, unanimously disavowed the desire of independence, asking only to be restored to the state existing before 1763. On the eighteenth of October the provincial councU held its first meeting. Among its members were Samuel Johnston ; Samuel Ashe, whose name a mountain county and the fairest town in the western part of the commonwealth keep in memory ; and Abner Nash, an eminent lawyer, described by Martin as " the oracle of the committee of Newbern and a principal promoter of sedition ; " the perilous office of presi dent f eU unanimously to Cornelius Harnett of New Hanover, who was honored as " the Samuel Adams of North Carohna." Thus prepared, the people of the colony awaited the answer to the last petition of congress to the king. During the first weeks of July neither the court nor the ministers nor the people had taken a real alarm. Even Ed mund Burke believed that Gage, from his discipline and artil lery as weU as his considerable numbers, would beat " the raw American troops." An hour before noon of the twenty-fifth tidings of the Bunker Hill battle reached the cabinet, and spread rapidly through the kingdom and through Europe. " Two more such victories," said Vergennes, " and England wiU have no army left in America." Gage was recaUed. The command in America was assigned in Canada to Carleton, in the thirteen colonies to Howe. Ten 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 261 thousand pounds and an additional supply of three thousand arms were forwarded to Quebec ; and, notwithstanding a cau tion from Barrington, word was sent to Carleton that it was •'' hoped the next spring to have in North America an army of twenty thousand men, exclusive of the Canadians and Indians." The king, as elector of Hanover, in August made the first con tribution. By garrisoning Gibraltar and Minorca with five battahons of electoral infantry, he disengaged an equal number of British troops for service in America. The embarkation of the Hanoverians was courteously promoted by the senate of Hamburg. Not till the first of November did they saU. The reply to Bunker Hill from England reached Washing ton before the end of September ; and removed from his mind every doubt of the necessity of independence. So reasoned Greene ; and the army was impatient when any of the chap lains prayed for the king. The general congress, which as sembled in September, was undecided. Intercepted letters of John Adams, in which he had freely unbosomed his com plaints of its tardiness and had thrown blame on Dickinson, brought upon the New England statesman the hostility of the proprietary party and of social opinion in Philadelphia. When a "jealousy of New England" broke forth in con gress, and a member insinuated distrust of its people, "as artful and designing men, altogether pursuing selfish pur poses," Gadsden answered : " I only wish we would imitate instead of abusing them ; so far from being under any appre hensions, I bless God there is such a people in America." The prohibition by parhament of the fisheries of New England, and the restriction on the trade of the southern colo nies, went into effect on the twentieth of July : as a measure of counteraction, the ports of America should have been thrown open ; but, though secret directions were given for importing powder and arms from " the foreign West Indies," the commit tee on trade was not appointed tiU the twenty-second of Sep tember, and then hesitated to act. The roll of the army at Cambridge had, from its first for mation, borne the names of men of color, but as yet without legislative approval. On the twenty-sixth Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, moved the discharge of all the negroes in 262 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xvi. the army, and he was strongly supported by many of the southern delegates ; but the opposition was so determined that " he lost his point." From an unconfessed want of effective power, the conti nental congress shrunk from taking into consideration the " in expressibly distressing" situation of the commander-in-chief. At length a letter from him compelled attention to the critical state of his army. Powder, artillery, fuel, shelter, clothing, provisions, and the soldiers' pay were wanting; and, except the riflemen, all the troops, by the terms of their enlistment, must be disbanded on or before the end of December. For this state of things congress could provide no adequate reme dy. On the thirtieth of September they therefore appointed Frankhn, Lynch, and Harrison a committee to repair to the camp, and, with the New England colonies and Washington, to devise a method for enlisting the army anew. Gage, on the tenth 'of October, embarked for England, and, on his arrival, was dismissed into retirement with high rank and its emoluments. The instructions to Howe, the new commander-in-chief, advised the transfer of the war to New York ; but, from the advanced state of the season, and the want of sufficient transports, he decided to winter at Boston. Five days after the departure of Gage the committee from congress arrived at the camp. Frankhn brought with him the conviction that the separation from Britain was inevitable. His presence within sight of his native town was welcomed with affectionate veneration. " During the whole evening," wrote Greene, " I viewed that very great man with sUent ad miration." With Washington for the mihtary chief, with Frankhn for the leading adviser from congress, the confer ence with the New England commissioners, notwithstanding all difficulties, harmoniously devised a scheme for forming, governing, and supplying a new army of about twenty-three thousand men, whom the general was authorized to enlist with out delay, yet not as he wished, for the war, but only for the next campaign. The proposed arrangements, in all their de tails, had the aspect of an agreement between the army, the continental congress, and the New England colonies; their successful execution depended on those four colonies alone. 1775. AMERICA AWAITS THE KING'S DECISION. 263 After the conference broke up the committee remained two days, to advise with the general. On this visit Franklin confirmed the steadfast affection, confidence, and veneration of Washington. Frankhn was stiU at the camp when news from Maine justified his interpretation of the purposes of the British. In the previous May, Mowat, a naval officer, had been held pris oner for a few hours at Falmouth, now Portland ; and we have seen Linzee, in a sloop-of-war, driven with loss from Glouces ter ; it was one of the last acts of Gage to plan with the admi ral how to wreak vengeance on the inhabitants of both those ports. The design against Gloucester was never carried out ; but Mowat, in a ship of sixteen guns, attended by three other vessels, went up the harbor of Portland, and, after a short parley, at haK-past nine, on the morning of the sixteenth of October, began to fire upon the town. In five minutes several houses were in a blaze ; parties of marines landed to spread the con flagration. AU sea-going vessels were burnt except two, which were carried away. St. Paul's church, the public buUdings, and about one hundred and thirty dwelling-houses, three fourths of the whole, were burnt down ; those that remained standing were shattered by balls and shells. By the Enghsh account, the destruction was stiU greater. At the opening of a severe winter, the inhabitants were turned adrift in poverty and mis ery. The indignation of Washington was kindled at these "savage cruelties," this new "exertion of despotic barbarity." "Death and destruction mark the footsteps of the enemy," said Greene ; "fight or be slaves is the American motto." Sullivan was sent to fortify Portsmouth ; Trumbull of Connecticut took thought for the defence of New London. On the third of October one of the delegates of Rhode Island laid before congress their instructions of the preceding August to use their whole influence for buUding, equipping, and employing a continental fleet. This was the origin of our navy. The proposal met great opposition ; but John Adams pursued it unremittingly, though " for a long time against wind and tide." On the fifth, Washington was authorized to em ploy two armed vessels to intercept British store-ships bound for Quebec ; on the thirteenth, two armed vessels, of ten and 264 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xvi. of fourteen guns, were voted, and, seventeen days later, two others of thirty-six guns. But much time would pass before their equipment ; as yet congress estabhshed no court for " the condemnation of vessels taken from the enemy," nor was war waged on the high sea, nor reprisals authorized, nor the ports opened to foreign nations. On the sixteenth the new legislature of Pennsylvania was organized. AU of its members who were present subscribed the usual engagement of aUegiance to the king. In a few days the Quakers presented an address, deprecating everything " likely to widen or perpetuate the breach with their parent state." To counteract this movement, the committee for the city and liberties of Philadelphia, sixty-six in number, headed by George Clymer and Mackean, went two by two to the state- house and delivered their remonstrance. Congress, for the time, was hke a ship at sea without a rudder, rolling and tossing with every wave. One day would bring measures for the defence of New York and Hudson river, or for the invasion of Canada ; the next, nothing was to be done that could further irritate Great Britain. The con tinuance of the army around Boston depended on the efficiency of all the New England provinces ; New Hampshire remained without a government. On the eighteenth of October her delegates asked, in her behalf, that the general congress would sanction her instituting a government, as the only means of preventing the greatest confusion; yet the majority of that body let the month run out before giving an answer, for they still dreamed of conciliation through their last petition to the king. 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF THE KING TO AMERICA. 265 CHAPTER XVH. itnal answer of the king to america. August-December 1775. * The Americans, entering most reluctantly on a war with Britain, preserved an instinctive feehng that the relations of affinity were suspended rather than destroyed ; they held them selves called to maintain the hberties of the British people, as well as their own ; and never looked upon the transient minis ters who were their oppressors as the type of the parent coun try. The moment approaches when the king and parhament irreversibly rejected their last petition; to understand that decision, it is necessary to state precisely the question at issue. The adniinistration of numerous colonies, each of which had a representative government of its own, was conducted with in convenience from a want of central unity ; in war, experience showed a difficulty in obtaining proportionate aid from them all ; in peace, the crown officers were impatient of owing their support to the periodical votes of colonial legislatures. To remedy this seeming evU, James II. consohdated aU authority over the country north of the Potomac, and undertook to govern it by his own wUl. The revolution of 1688 restored to the colonies their rep resentative governments, and the colhsion between the crown officers and the colonial legislatures was renewed. Threats of parliamentary intervention were sometimes heard; but for nearly three quarters of a century no minister had been wiU- ing to gratify the pertinacious entreaties of placemen by dis turbing America in the enjoyment of her hberties. Soon after the accession of George III., the king, averse to 266 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xvii. governing so many prosperous and free and loyal colonies by consent, resolved, through the paramount power of parhament, to introduce a new colonial system, which Hahfax, Bedford, and especiaUy Charles Townshend, had matured, and which was to have sufficient vigor to control the unwilling. First, the charter governments were to be reduced to one uniform, direct dependence on the king by the abohtion of the jurisdic tion of the proprietaries in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and by the alteration or repeal of the charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Secondly, for the pay of the crown officers, the British parliament was to establish in each colony a permanent civil Ust, independent of the assembhes, so that every branch of the judicial and executive government should be whoUy of the king's appointment and dependent on his will. Thirdly, the British parhament was, by its own act of taxation, to levy on the colonies a revenue toward maintaining their mihtary establishment. Townshend, as the head of the board of trade, was unfolding the plan in the house of commons just before Bute retired. The execution of the design fell to George Grenville. Now Grenville conceived himseK to be a whig of the straitest sect, for he beheved impheitly in the supreme power of parliar ment. He was pleased with the thought of moulding the whole empire into closer unity by means of parliamentary taxation ; but his regard for vested rights forbade him to consent to a wilful abrogation of charters. The Americans complained to him that a civil Ust raised by the British parliament would reduce the colonial assemblies to a nullity ; GrenviUe saw the force of the objection, disclahnad the pur pose, dropped that part of the plan, and proposed to confine the use of the parliamentary revenue to the expenses of the mihtary establishment. The colonists again interposed with the argument that, by the theory of the British constitution, taxation and consent by representation are inseparable correla tives ; to this GrenviUe listened, and answered that in parha ment, as the common councU, the whole empire was repre sented collectively, though not distributively ; but that as in Britain some increase of the number of voters was desirable, so taxation of the colonies ought to be foUowed by a colonial 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF THE KING TO AMERICA. 267 representation ; and, with this theory of constitutional law, he passed the stamp act. When a difference at court drove GrenviUe from office, his theory lost its importance, for no party in England or America undertook its support. The new ministers by whom his colo nial pohcy was to be changed had the option between repeal ing the tax as an unwarranted exercise of power by parliament, or as an unwise exercise of a power of which the rightful pos session could not admit of dispute. The first was the choice of Pitt, and its adoption would have ended the controversy ; the second was that of Rockingham. He abolished the tax and sent over assurances of his friendship ; but his declaratory act as sumed to estabhsh as the law of the empire that the legislative power of the parhament of Britain reached to the colonies in ah cases whatsoever. In 1688, the assertion of the paramount power of parhament against a king who would have seques tered ah legislative liberty was a principle of freedom ; but, in the eighteenth century, the assertion of the absolute power of a parhament acting in concert with the king was to frame an instrument of tyranny. The colonies denied the unqualified authority of a legislature in which they were not represented ; and, when they were told that they were as much represented as nine tenths of the people of Britain, the British people, en lightened by the discussion, from that day complained unceas ingly of the inadequateness of a parhament in whose election nine tenths of them had no voice whatever. More than a generation passed away before the reform of the British House of Commons began ; the issue was precipi tated upon America. In the very next year Charles Townshend, resuming the system which he had prepared in the administra tion of Bute, proposed a tax by the British parhament to be collected in America on tea, glass, paper, and painters' colors ; and introduced the tax by a preamble, asserting that "it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in his majesty's do minions in America for defraying the charge of the adminis tration of justice and support of civil government, and toward further defraying the expenses of defending the said domin ions." GrenviUe had proposed taxes by parliament solely for the mihtary defence of the colonies; Townshend's preamble 268 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xvii. further promised an ever-increasing American civil hst, inde pendent of American assemblies, to be disposed of by ministers at their discretion for salaries, gifts, or pensions. Here lay the seeds of a grievance indefinite in its extent, taking from the colonies aU control over public officers and expenses, and in troducing a government by the absolute power of the British parliament, liable to be administered in the interest of Britain and its agents, without regard to the rights and hberties and industries and weKare of the people. Just as Townshend had intrenched the system in the stat ute-book he died, and left behind him no able statesman for its steadfast upholder ; while the colonies were unanimous in resisting the innovation, and avoided the taxes by stopping im ports of the articles which were taxed. The government gave way, and repealed all Townshend's taxes except on tea. Of that duty Lord North maintained that it was but a reduction of the ancient duty of a shilling a pound payable in England, to one of threepence only payable in America ; and that the change of the place where the duty was to be coUected was nothing more than a regulation of trade to prevent smuggling tea from HoUand. The statement, so far as the amount of the tax was concerned, was true ; but the sting of the tax act lay in its preamble : Rockingham's declaratory act affirmed the power of parhament in all cases whatsoever ; Townshend's pre amble declared the expediency of using that power to raise a large colonial revenue. Still colhsion was averted ; for the Americans, in their desire for peace, gave up the importation of tea, and no regular British trader found it prudent to brave their wiU. At this, the king, against the opinion of Lord North and of the East India company, directed that company itself to export its tea to America, and to pay in American ports the duty imposed by parhament; hoping that the low price at which the tea under the greatly diminished duty could be of fered for sale would tempt Americans to buy. But the colo nists would not suffer the tea to be exposed for sale; the crown officers yielded to their resistance everywhere except at Boston, and there the tea was thrown overboard. The king and the Bedford party seized the occasion to 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF THE KING TO AMERICA. 269 change by act of parhament the charter granted by WiUiam and Mary to Massachusetts. The change could bring no advan tage to Britain, and reaUy had nothing to recommend it ; to the people of Massachusetts and to the people of aU the colonies, submission to the change would have been an acknowledgment of the absolute power of parliament over American liberty as weU as property. The people of Massachusetts resisted ; the king answered : " Blows must decide," A congress of the colonies approved the conduct of Massachusetts; parhament pledged itseK to support the king. In 1773, a truce was pos sible; after the alteration of the charter of Massachusetts in 1774 by act of parhament, America would have been pacified by a simple repeal of the acts which were innovations ; in 1775, after blood had been shed at Lexington, security for the future was demanded. British statesmen of aU schools but Chatham's affirmed the power of parhament to tax America ; America denied that it could be rightfully taxed by a body in which it was not rep resented, for rightful taxation and consent were inseparable. British pohticians rejoined that taxation was but an act of legislation ; that, therefore, to deny to parhament the right of taxation was to deny to parhament aU right of legislation for the colonies, even to regulate trade. To this America made an swer that, in reason and truth, representation and legislation are inseparable ; that the colonies, being entitled to Enghsh free dom, were not bound by any act of a body to which they did not send members ; but, as they desired to avoid a conflict, they proposed as a fundamental act their voluntary submission to every parliamentary diminution of their hberty which existed in 1763 including the navigation acts and taxes for regulating trade, on condition of rehef from the new system of adminis tration and of security against future attempts for its introduc tion. Richard Penn was the agent of congress to bear to the king its petition for his concurrence in its endeavor to restore peace and union. Four days after the petition to the king had been adopted by congress, Richard Penn sailed from PhUadelphia on his mis sion. He arrived in Bristol on the thirteenth of August, and was the next day in London. Joint proprietary of Pennsylva- 270 AMERICA ARMS FO*R SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xvii. nia, of which he for a time was governor, long a resident in America, intimately acquainted with many of its leading states men, the chosen suppliant from its united delegates, an English man of a loyalty above impeachment or suspicion, he singularly merited the confidence of the government. But not one of the ministers waited on him, or sent for him, or even asked him, through subordinates, one single question about the state of the colonies. He could not obtain an opportunity of submitting a copy of the petition to Lord Dartmouth till the twenty-first. The king would not see him. " The king and his cabinet," said Suffolk, " are determined to listen to nothing from the iUegal congress, to treat with the colonies only one by one, and in no event to recognise them in any form of association." " The Americans," reasoned Sandwich, " will soon grow weary, and Great Britain will subject them by her arms." " Lord North," wrote Sir Gilbert EUiot, " is as fat and lazy as ever." He was, a skilful manager of a corrupt house of com mons, but was unfit for the direction of great affairs. The king "showed his determination," such were his own words, "to force the deluded Americans into submission." He chid Lord North for " the delay in framing a proclamation, declaring them rebels and forbidding all intercourse with them." On the twenty-third of August, two days after Penn had dehvered a copy of the petition of congress, he sent out a proclamation setting forth that many of his subjects in the colonies had pro ceeded to an avowed rebellion by arraying themselves to with stand the execution of the law, and traitorously levying war against him. " There is reason," so ran its words, "to appre hend that such rebellion hath been much encouraged by the traitorous correspondence, counsels, and comfort of divers wicked and desperate persons within our realm ; " and meas ures were announced "to bring to condign punishment the authors " in America, " and abettors " in England, " of such traitorous designs." This irrevocable proclamation having been made, Penn and Arthur Lee were "permitted" on the first of September to present the original of the American petition to Lord Dart mouth who promised to deliver it to the king ; but, on their pressing for an answer, " they were informed that no answer 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF THE KING TO AMERICA. 271 would be given." Lee expressed sorrow at the refusal, because it would occasion much bloodshed ; and the secretary answered : " If I thought the refusal would be the cause of shedding one drop of blood, I should never have concurred in it." The proclamation, when read at the royal exchange, was re ceived with a general hiss. Just after Perm's arrival the ambassador of France re ported : " These people appear to me in a delirium ; that there can be no conciliation we have now the certainty. Rochford even assures me once more, that it is determined to burn the town of Boston, and in the coming spring to transfer the seat of operations to New York." Vergennes could not persuade himseK that the British gov ernment should refuse concUiation, when nothing was asked for but the revocation of acts posterior to 1763 ; and in his in credulity he demanded of the ambassador a revision of his opinion. " I persist," answered De Guines, " in thinking ne gotiations impossible. The parties differ on the form and on the substance as widely as white and black. An Enghsh min istry in a case like this can yield nothing, for, according to the custom of the country, it must foUow out its plan or resign. The only sensible course would be to change the administration. The king of England is as obstinate and as feeble as Charles I., and every day he makes his task more difficult and more dan gerous." Vergennes gave up his doubts, saying : " The king's proclamation cuts off the possibility of retreat; America or the ministers must succumb." In a few weeks the proclamation reached the colonies at several ports. Men said : " While America is still on her knees, the king aims a dagger at her heart." Abigail Smith, the wKe of John Adams, was at the time in their home near the foot of Penn HiU, charged with the sole care of their brood of children ; managing their farm ; keeping house with frugality, though opening her doors to the houseless and giv ing with good-will a part of her scant portion to the poor ; seeking work for her own hands, and ever occupied, now at the spinning-wheel, now making amends for having never been sent to school by learning French, though with the aid of books alone. Since the departure of her husband for congress, 272 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xvn. the arrow of death had sped near her by day, and the pesti lence that walks in darkness had entered her humble man sion ; she was still weak after a violent illness ; her house was a hospital in every part; and, such was the distress of the neighborhood, she could hardly find a well person to assist in looking after the sick. Her youngest son had been rescued from the grave by her nursing ; her own mother had been taken away, and, after the austere manner of her forefathers, buried without prayer. Woe foUowed woe, and one affliction trod on the heels of another. Winter was hurrying on ; dur ing the day family affairs took off her attention, but her long evenings, broken by the sound of the storm on the ocean or the enemy's artillery at Boston, were lonesome and melancholy. But when, in November, she read the king's proclamation, she willingly gave up her " nearest friend " to his perilous duties, and sent him her cheering message : " This intelhgence will make a plain path for you, though a dangerous one ; I could not join to-day in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent state, but tyrant state, and these colonies. Let us separate ; they are unworthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them ; and, instead of supplications, as formerly, for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their counsels, and bring to nought aU their devices." Her voice was the voice of New England. Hawley discerned the coming government of the repubhc, even whUe it still lay far below the horizon; and he wrote from Watertown to Samuel Adams : " The eyes of aU the con tinent are fastened on your body to see whether you act with the spirit and despatch which our situation calls for ; it is time for your body to fix on periodical annual elections, nay, to form into a parliament of two houses." The legislature of Massachusetts, without waiting for further authority, in an act drawn by Elbridge Gerry, instituted courts for the condemnation of prizes taken from the British. The first day of November brought the king's proclamation to the general congress. The majority saw that the last hope of conciliation was gone ; and, while they waited for instruc tions from their several constituencies before declaring inde- 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF THE KING TO AMERICA. 273 pendence, they acted upon the petitions of the colonies that wished to institute governments of their own. On the second in committee, on the third in the house, it was " recommended to the provincial convention of New Hampshire to call a full and free representation of the people, and, K they think it necessary, establish a government." On the fourth, the same advice was extended to South Carolina. Here was the day break of revolution. The legislature of Pennsylvania continued to require its members to subscribe the old qualification appointed by law, which included the promise of allegiance to George III. ; so that Franklin, who was elected for Philadelphia through the Irish and the Presbyterians, could never take his seat. Dick inson had been returned for the county by the concurring vote of patriots who confided in his integrity, of loyalists who looked upon him as their last hope, of Quakers who trusted his regard for peace, of the proprietary party whose cause he always vin dicated. The assembly, on the fourth, elected nine delegates to the continental congress. Then, on the ninth, Dickinson, with the king's late proclamation before him, reported and car ried this instruction to the Pennsylvania delegates : " Though the oppressive measures of the British parhament and adminis tration have compeUed us to resist their violence by force of arms, yet we strictly enjoin you, that you, in behaK of this col ony, dissent from and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from our mother country, or a change of the form of this government." Nevertheless, the assembly approved the mihtary association of all who had no scruples about bearing arms, adopted rules for volunteer battahons, and appropriated eighty thousand pounds in provincial paper money to defray the expenses of a mihtary preparation. The assembly sat with closed doors, and would not aUow the names of the voters on the division to be re corded in their journal. Delaware was swayed by the example of its more powerful neighbor ; the party of the proprietary in Maryland took cour age ; in a few weeks the assembly of New Jersey restrained its delegates in congress by an equaUy stringent declaration. The majority in the continental congress were ready for in VOL. IV. — 18 274 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xvii. dependence; but acquiesced in waiting for unanimity in its adoption. They became more resolute, more thorough, and more active ; they recalled their absent members ; they wel comed trophies of victory from Canada. Without as yet open ing the commerce of the continent by a general act, they em powered a committee to export provisions or produce to the foreign West Indies at the risk of the continent, in order to purchase the materials of war. In November they adopted " rules for the government of the American navy," directed the enhstment of two battalions of marines, authorized the seizure of all ships employed as carriers for the British fleet or army, and sanctioned tribunals instituted in the separate colonies to confiscate their cargoes. The captures made under the authority of Washington they confirmed. To meet the further expenses of the war, they voted bUls of credit for three millions more. " It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire," wrote Jefferson to a refugee on the. twenty-ninth of November, " to have a king of such a disposition at such a time. We are told, and everything proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have ; his minister is able, and that satisfies me that igno- ' ranee or wickedness somewhere controls him. Our petitions told him that from our king there was but one appeal. The admonition was despised, and that appeal forced on us. After colonies have drawn the sword, there is but one step more they can take. That step is now pressed upon us by the measures adopted, as K they were afraid we would not take it. There is not in the British empire a man who more cordiaUy loves a union with Great Britain than I do; but, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British parliament propose ; and in this I speak the sentiments of America." " I know what my duty to my country makes me under take, and threats can not prevent me from doing that to the utmost extent," said George III. The parties of Rocking ham and Chatham were defied as the accomplices of rebels ; it was the fixed plan of the king and ministers to lay America waste if she could not be reduced.* Britain and Ireland could * De Gnines, 11 and 25 August 1775. MS. 1775. THE KING'S ANSWER. HE APPEALS TO RUSSIA. 275 spare few troops to execute these designs ; but the British king scrupled as httle as his ministers to engage foreign hirelings wherever they chanced to be in the market ; and had in con templation a scheme of stupendous grandeur for obtaining a subsidiary army by negotiations at Moscow with the sovereign who claimed to hold the sceptre of Constantine. From the moment when the Empress Catharine H., as a young bride, set her foot on Russian soU, it became her fixed purpose to seize on absolute power and govern alone. Though she mixed trifling pastimes with application to business, and for her recreation sought the company of the young and the gay, she far exceUed those around her in industry and knowl edge. Frederic said of her, that she had an infinity of .talent and no religion; yet, after going over to the Greek church, she played the devotee. There was in her nature a mixture of fancy and calculation. Distinguished for vivacity of thought and for the most laborious attention to affairs, capable of prompt energy and of patient waiting, very proud of the greatness and power of her empire, her intercourse with aU her subjects was marked by mUdness and grace; and she made almost incredible exertions as a monarch to be useful even to the meanest, to benefit the future as weU as the present age. She had known sorrow, and could feel for and relieve distress. She translated Marmontel's Belisarius into Russian as a lesson of toleration, reheved the poverty of Diderot by a lasting provision, and invited Alembert to superintend the education of her son, who was to be her successor. One day she proposed to the imperial academy the question of the emancipation of serfs ; and she suffered the printing of a dis sertation having for its motto, " In favorem Ubertatis omnia jura clamant," "All right clamors for freedom." Tragedy, comedy, music, wearied her ; she had no taste but to build, or to regulate her court ; no ambition but to rule and to make a great name. In the crowd of courtiers, who were aU eager for advancement, she compared herseK to a hare worried by many hounds ; and among an unscrupulous nobihty, in a land which' was not that of her birth, she was haunted by a feel ing of insecurity and an unrest of soul. But those around her were not offended at the completeness with which she 276 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xvii. belonged to a century representing the supremacy of the senses. Her first minister was Panin, and he was acknowledged to be the fittest man for the post, without whom no council was held, no decision taken in foreign or domestic affairs. He was more persistent than bold, and was guided by experience rather than comprehensive views. He had the faults of pride, inflexibility, and dilatoriness ; but he was unapproachable by corruption. At home, his political principles led him to desire some Umitation of the power of the sovereign by a council of nobles ; toward foreign states he was free from rancor. It had been the pohcy of France to save Poland by stirring up Swe den and Turkey against Russia ; yet Panin did not misjudge the relations of Russia to France. With England he wanted no treaty except with stipulations for aid in the contingency of a war of Russia with the Ottoman Porte, and, as that condition could not be obtained, he always declined her alliance. One day Panin happened to inquire of the British minister the news' from America. Gunning seized the moment to an swer that the measures in progress would shortly end the re bellion ; then, as if hurried by excess of zeal to utter an un authorized speculation of his own, he asked leave to acquaint his king that, " in case the circumstances of affairs should ren der any foreign forces necessary, he might reckon upon a body of her imperial majesty's infantry." It was the interest and pohcy of Russia to preserve the favor of the British king and his ministry. The answer of the empress, which Panin, on the morning of the eighth of August, reported to the British minister, carefuUy avoided mention of the request for subsidi ary troops, but expressed gratitude for favors received from England during her last war, and she charged Panin to repeat her very words, that " she found in herseK an innate affection for the British nation which she should always cherish." The envoy interpreted a woman's discreet reticence and lavish sen timentality as a promise of twenty thousand infantry. Gunning's despatch from Moscow was received in London on the first day of September, with elation. That very day Suffolk prepared the answer to the minister. To Catharine, George himseK with his own hand wrote : " I accept the sue- 1775. THE KING'S ANSWER. HE APPEALS TO RUSSIA. 277 cor that your majesty offers me of a part of your troops, whom the acts of rebeUion of my subjects in some of my colonies in America unhappily require ; I shall provide my minister with the necessary full powers ; nothing shall ever efface from my memory the offer your imperial majesty has made to me on this occasion." Gunning was ordered to ask for twenty thou sand disciplined men, completely equipped and prepared on the opening of the Baltic in spring to embark by way of Eng land for Canada, where they were to serve under the British general. The journey from London to Moscow required about twenty-three days ; yet they all were confident of receiving the definitive promise by the twenty-third of October, in season to announce it at the opening of parhament ; and Lord Dart mouth hurried off messages to Howe and to Carleton, that the empress of Russia had given the most ample assurances of let ting them have any number of infantry that might be wanted. On the eighth, Suffolk despatched a second courier to Gun ning, with a project of a treaty for two years, within which the king and his ministers were confident of crashing the insur rection. The levy money might be seven pounds sterhng a man, payable one haK in advance, the other on embarkation. A subsidy was not to be refused. " I will not conceal from you," wrote Suffolk to Gunning, " that, this accession of force being very earnestly desired, expense is not so much an object as in ordinary cases." Gigantic bribery was authorized. On the tenth, Gunning poured out to the empress assur ances of the most inviolable attachment of England. " Has any progress been made," she asked, with the utmost cool ness, " toward settling your dispute in America ? " and, with out waiting for an answer, she added : " For God's sake, put an end to it as soon as possible, and do not confine yourselves to one method of accomplishing this desirable end ; there are other means of doing it than force of arms, and they ought all to be tried. You know my situation has lately been full as embarrassing, and, believe me,. I did not rest my certainty of success upon one mode of acting. There are moments when we must not be too rigorous. The interest I take in every thing that concerns you makes me speak thus freely upon this subject." 278 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xvii. Gunning, who found himseK most unexpectedly put upon the defensive, answered : " Resentment has not yet found its way into his majesty's councils." But Catharine repeated her wishes for a speedy and a peaceful end to the difference, citing her own example of lenity and concession as the best mode of suppressing a rebelUon. Late on the twenty-fourth the first courier of Lord Suffolk reached Moscow a few hours after Catharine's departure for some days of rehgious seclusion in the monastery at Voskre- sensk. As no time was to be lost, Gunning hastened to Panin, who received him cordially, and consented to forward to the empress in her retirement a copy of the king's letter. He next repaired to the vice-chancellor, Ostermann, who calmly explained -to him the impossibUity of conceding the request for troops. The empress having, on the tlurtieth, returned to Moscow, Gunning waited on Panin by appointment. The autograph letter, which he wished to dehver to her in person, said posi tively that she had made him an offer of troops ; Panin insisted on an acknowledgment that no such offer had been made, and, after much expostulation, Gunning confessed : " It is true ; in your answer to me, no explicit mention was made of troops." Panin then gave the message of the empress, that she was affected by the cordiality of the king, that in return her friend ship was equally warm, but that she had much repugnance to the employment of her troops in America. " And could not his majesty," asked Panin, " make use of Hanoverians ? " Gunning, in reply, spoke at great length on the gratitude due from the empress to the British king, and desired Panin to deliver to her the autograph letter of George III. The next morning, before Panin was up, Gunning hurried to him, and, to remove objections, offered to be content with a corps of fifteen thousand men. It was the grand duke's birth day ; he repaired to court to see the empress, but she did not appear. He returned to the palace in the evening ; but the em press, feigning indisposition, excused herseK from seeing him. Meantime, the proposal was debated in council ; and objec tions without end rose up against the traffic in troops. Besides, a naked demand of twenty thousand men to serve in America 1775. THE KING'S ANSWER. HE APPEALS TO RUSSIA. 279 under British command as mercenaries, with no liberty left to herseK but to fix the price of her subjects in money, and so plunge her hand as deeply as she pleased into the British ex chequer, was an insult to her honor. She framed, accordingly, a sarcastic and unequivocal answer : "lam just beginning to enjoy peace, and your majesty knows that my empire has need of repose. There is an impropriety in employing so consid erable a body in another hemisphere, under a power almost unknown to it, and almost removed from all correspondence with its sovereign. Moreover, I should not be able to prevent myseK from reflecting on the consequences which would result for our dignity, for that of the two monarchies and the two nations, from this junction of our forces, simply to calm a re belhon which is not supported by any foreign power." The letter of the king of England to the empress was in his own hand ; her answer was purposely in that of her private secretary. The answer was so exceptionable that the British envoy was in doubt whether it was fit to be received ; but he sup pressed his discontent. His king found the manner of the empress not "genteel;" for, said he, "she has not had the civility to answer me in her own hand ; and has thrown out expressions that may be civU to a Russian ear, but certainly not to more civilized ones." The conduct of this negotiation was watched by every court from Moscow to Madrid ; but no foreign influence had any share in determining the empress. The decision was founded on her own judgment and that of her ministers. When a transient report prevaUed, that the English request was to be granted, Yergennes wrote to the French envoy at Moscow : " I cannot reconcUe Catharine's elevation of soul with the dishonorable idea of trafficking in the blood of her subjects." To the envoy Panin denied the truth of the rumor, adding : "Nor is it con sistent with the dignity of England to employ foreign troops against its own subjects." The empress continued to be profuse of courtesies to Gun ning ; and, when in December he took his leave, she renewed the assurances of her readiness to assist his king on all occa sions, adding : " But one cannot go beyond one's means." 280 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xvin. CHAPTER XVIII. final answer oe parliament to america. October-December 1775. The members of parhament, as they reached London for the session, heard rumors that the empress of Russia was to spare a large detachment from her army to aid in suppressing the rebeUion in America. " When the Russians arrive, will you go and see their camp ? " wrote Edward Gibbon, the great historian, in October, to a friend. " The worst of it is, the Baltic wiU soon be frozen up, and it must be late next year before they can get to America." Couriers from Moscow dis- peUed this confidence. Vergennes found it difficult to believe that the mistakes of the British ministers could be so great as they really were. He received hints of negotiations for Russian troops ; yet could the king of England be willing to send foreign mercenaries to make war on his own subjects ? Henry IV. of France would not have accepted the aid of foreign troops to reduce Paris ; their employment by Britain would render it impossible in any event to restore affectionate relations between the parent state and the colonies. So reasoned the guiding statesman of France, but the British government, with fierce impetuosity, turned to the many princelings of Germany, who now had the British exchequer at their mercy. Loyal addresses began to come in, to the joy of Lord North ; but the king saw danger to the royal authority in any 'appeal to popular opinion. So long as the public was under the delusion that the colonies had long premeditated independence, violent measures were acqui esced in " by a majority of individuals of aU ranks and profes- 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMERICA. 281 sions," and no effect was produced on the funds or on com merce. " I am fighting the battle of the legislature," said the king as the time of meeting parliament drew near ; " I therefore have a right to expect an almost unanimous support ; I know the uprightness of my intentions, and am ready to stand any attack of ever so dangerous a kind." The good sense of the English people reasoned very differently, and found an organ among the ministers. The duke of Grafton by letter en treated Lord North to go great lengths to bring about a durable reconcihation, giving as his reasons that " the general inclina tion of men of property in England differed from the declara tions of the congress in America httle more than in words ; that many hearty friends to government had altered their opin ions by the events of the year ; that their confidence in a strong party among the colonists, ready to second a regular military force, was at an end ; that, K the British regular force should be doubled, the Americans, whose behavior already had far surpassed every one's expectation, could and would increase theirs accordingly ; that the contest was not only hopeless, but fraught with disgrace ; that the attendant expenses would lay upon the country a burden which nothing could justify but an insult from a foreign enemy ; that, therefore, the colonies should be invited by their deputies to state to parhament their wishes and expectations, and a truce be proclaimed, until the issue should be known." Of this communication Lord North took no note whatever until within six days of the opening of parhament, and then rephed by enclosing a copy of the intended speech. Hastening to court, Grafton complained of the violent and impracticable schemes of the ministers, framed in a misconception of the re sources of the colonies ; and he added : " Deluded themselves, they are deluding your majesty." The king debated the busi ness at large ; but when he announced that a numerous body of German troops was to join the British forces, Grafton an swered : " Your majesty wiU find too late that twice the number wUl only increase the disgrace, and never effect the purpose." * On the twenty-sixth of October, two days after the failure * From the papers of the duke of Grafton, communicated to me in 1847. 282 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xviii. of the first great effort to hire Russian mercenaries became known to the government, the king met the parhament. Making no allusion to the American congress or to its peti tion for concihation and peace, he charged the colonies with levying a rebellious war for the purpose of estabhshing an in dependent empire. He professed to have received the most friendly offers of foreign assistance. He recommended an increase of the navy and the army ; at the same time, he proposed to send commissioners with power to grant pardons and receive the submission of the several colonies. In the house of commons Acland, who moved the ad dress, presented the question as between the independence of America, or her submission ? " Lyttelton, a former governor of South Carolina, in seconding him, " seemed to take pleas ure in informing the house that the negroes in the southern colony were numerous, and ready to imbrue their hands in the blood of their masters." The address was adopted by a vote of two hundred and seventy-^ight against one hundred and ten. On the report of the address, the debate was renewed. " If we suffer by the war," said Lord North, " the Americans will suffer much more. Yet," he added, "I wish to God, if it were possible, to put the colonies as they were in 1763." His seeming disinclination to the measures of his own ministry drew on him a rebuke from Fox for not resigning his place. " The present war," argued Adair at length, " took its rise from the assertion of a right, at best but doubtful in itseK ; from whence the warmest advocates for it have long been forced to admit that this country can never derive a single shilhng of advantage. The Americans say : ' Place us in the situa tion of the year sixty-three, and we wiU return to our con stitutional subjection.' Take them at their word. H they should recede from their own proposals, you may then have recourse to war, with the advantage of a united instead of a divided people at home." Sir Gilbert Elliot was unwihing " to send a large armament to America without sending at the same time terms of accommodation." "I vote for the ad dress," said Rigby, "because it sanctifies coercive measures. America must be conquered, and the present rebellion must be 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMERICA. 283 crushed ere the dispute will be ended." The commons un hesitatingly confirmed their vote of the previous night. Among the lords, Shelburne spoke of the petition of the congress as the fairest ground for an honorable and advantage ous accommodation ; and of Franklin as one whom " he had long and intimately known, and had ever found constant and earnest in the wish for concihation upon the terms of ancient connection." His words were a prophecy of peace, and of himseK and Frankhn as its mediators ; but on that night he was overborne by a majority of two to one. Some of the mi nority entered a protest, in which they said : " We conceive the calling in foreign forces to decide domestic quarrels to be a measure both disgraceful and dangerous." That same day the university of Oxford, the favored printer of the translated Bible for aU whose mother tongue was the English, the natural guardian of the principles and the ex ample of Wycliffe and Latimer and Ridley and Cranmer, the tutor of the youth of England, addressed the king against the Americans as " a people who had forfeited their Uves and for tunes to the justice of the state." On the last day of October, Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, was received at the French court. The king of France, whose sympathies were aU on the side of monarchical power, said to him : " HappUy the opposition party is now very weak." From the king, Stormont went to Vergennes, who expressed the desire to hve in perfect harmony with Eng land; "far from wishing to increase your embarrassments," said he, " we see them with some uneasiness." " The conse quences," observed Stormont, " cannot escape a man of your penetration and extensive views." " Indeed, they are very ob vious," responded Vergennes; "they are as obvious as the consequences of the cession of Canada. I was at Constanti nople when the last peace was made ; when I heard its condi tions, I told several of my friends there that England would ere long have reason to repent of having removed the only check that could keep her colonies in awe. My prediction has been but too well verified. I equally see the consequences that must foUow the independence of North America, K your colonies should carry that point, at which they now so visibly 284 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xvm. aim. They might, when they pleased, conquer both your islands and ours. I am persuaded that they would not stop there, but would in process of time advance to the southern continent of America, and either subdue its inhabitants or carry them along with them, and in the end not leave a foot of that hemisphere in the possession of any European power. All these conse quences wiU not indeed be immediate : neither you nor I shall live to see them ; but for being remote they are not less sure." On the first of November the duke of Manchester said to the lords : " The violence of the times has wrested America from the British crown, and spurned the jewel because the setting appeared uncouth ; " but the debate which he opened had no effect except that Grafton took part with him, and as a consequence resigned his place as keeper of the privy seal. On the tenth Richard Penn was called to the bar of the house of lords, where he bore witness in great detail to the sincerity of the American congress in their wish for concihation, and to the unanimity of support which they received from the people. The duke of Richmond proposed to accept the petition from that congress to the king as a ground for concihation ; he was ably supported by Shelburne ; but his motion, hke every simi lar motion in either house, was negatived by a majority of about two to one. On the same day Rochford retired on a pension, making way for Lord Weymouth, who greatly surpassed him in abihty and resolution. Dartmouth took the privy seal, but without a seat in the cabinet. The American department was transferred to Lord George Sackville Germain, who concentrated in himseK aU the pohtical patronage of the house of Dorset, and promised to carry out the measures recommended by him in the house of commons on the twenty-eighth of March 1774. The man thus selected to conduct the civil war in America stood before Eu rope as an officer cashiered for cowardice on the field of battle. George II., who was brave and a strict disciplinarian, thought the sentence just, and was inexorable toward him. His admis sion to court at the accession of George III. confirmed the rup ture between Pitt and the earl of Bute. He owed his rehabili tation to Rockingham, to whom he instantly proved false. Chat 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMERICA. 285 ham woiUd never sit with him at the council board. Haunted by corroding recollections and stupidly self-confident, he en tered on the high office, for which he was of aU men the least competent ; eager to efface his ignominy by rivalling the career of Pitt in the seven years' war. But he had not any one quah ity.that fitted him for an important mihtary office : so that his appointment was of the very best augury for the insurgent Americans. Minutely precise and formal, he had a feverish activity, punctuality to a minute, and personal application, but no sagacity, nor quick perception, nor soundness of judgment, nor that mastery over others which comes from force of charac ter and warmth of heart. He could not plan a campaign, and was a most uncomfortable chief, always proposing to the gen eral officers under his direction measures which they had not the means to execute, and always throwing upon them the fault of failure. His rancor toward those at whom he took offence was bitter and unending ; his temper petulant, and ruled by passions violent and constant, yet petty in their objects. Ap- pareUed on Sunday morning in gala, as K for the drawing- room, he constantly marched out aU his household to his parish church, where he would mark time for the singing gaUery, chide a rustic chorister for a discord, stand up during the ser mon to survey the congregation or overawe the idle, and ges ticulate approbation to the preacher, or cheer him by name. The capacity of Germain had been greatly overrated. He was restless and loved intrigue ; ambitious, opinionated, and full of envy ; when he spoke, it was arrogantly, as K to set others right ; his nature combined contemptuous haughtiness toward his inferiors and subordinates, and meanness of spirit. Without fidelity, fixed principles, or logical clearness of mind, unfit to con duct armies or affairs, he joined cowardice with love of superi ority and "malevolence" toward those who thwarted or op posed him. He was rich ; but in a period of corrupt government he was distinguished for the inordinate gratification of his own cupidity in the exercise of his powers of patronage and confis cation. Though smooth and kindly to his inferiors and de pendants, he was capable of ordering the most atrocious acts of cruelty ; could rebuke his generals for checking savages in their fury as destroyers; and at night, on coming home to 286 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xvhi. his supper and his claret, the friendless man, unloving and un loved, could, with cold, vengeful malice, plan how to lay America in ashes, since he knew not how to reduce her to sub mission. Germain's appointment shows how httle the sympathies of the Enghsh people were considered; the administration, es it was now constituted, was the weakest, the most destitute of principles, and the most unpopular of that century. The Eng land that the world revered, the England that kept ahve in Europe the vestal fire of freedom, was at this time outside of the government, though steadily gaining poUtical strength. "Chatham, while he had hfe in him, was its nerve." Had GrenviUe been Uving, it would have included GrenviUe; it retained Rockingham, GrenviUe's successor; it had now re covered Grafton, Chatham's successor. The king's pohcy was not in harmony with the England of the revolution, nor with that of the eighteenth century, nor with that of the nineteenth. The England of to-day, which receives and brightens and passes along the torch of hberty, has an honest lineage, and springs from the England of the last century ; but it had no represen tative in the ministry of Lord North or the majority of the fourteenth parhament. America would right herself within a year ; Britain and Ireland must wait more than a half-century. How completely the ministry were stumbling along with out a policy appeared from the debates. On the eighth Lord Barrington asked of the house in a committee of supply an appropriation for twenty-five thousand men to be employed in America, and said with seeming authority of a minister : " The idea of taxing America is entirely given up ; the only consid eration is how to secure the constitutional dependency of that country. The general plan adopted by administration is first to arm, and then send out commissioners." But when Lord North, on the thirteenth, in a committee of supply moved the full tax of four shillings in the pound on land, he had to en counter and overcome the rankhng discontent of the landed gentry, for whom a reduction of a shilling in the pound of the land-tax was to have been the first fruits of their support of the American measures, and he spoke in this wise : " When his majesty's ministers said that the idea of taxation was aban- 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMERICA. 287 doned, they never intended by that expression more than that taxation is but a matter of secondary consideration, when the supremacy and legislative authority of this country are at stake. Taxation is not, nor ever was out of their view. It should be insisted on and enforced, to insure your legislative authority, though no kind of advantage should arise from it." The ex planation gave satisfaction ; Lord North retained support by a sacrifice of his opinions and of America. On the sixteenth Burke brought forward a biU for compos ing the existing troubles by renouncing the pretension to an American revenue. "If we are to have no peace," rephed Germain, " unless we give up the right of taxation, the contest is brought to its fair issue. I trust we shaU draw a revenue from America ; the spirit of this country wiU go along with me in the idea to crush rebellious resistance." As he said this, the orders were already on the way to hire troops of the roytelets of Brunswick and Hesse-Cassel, and, in defiance of the laws of the empire, to raise recruits in Ger many ; for, if Britain was to crush the Americans, it could not be done by Englishmen. In Ireland the ministry controlled a majority of her legisla ture, and sought to aUay discontent by concessions in favor of her commerce and manufactures. The consent of the Irish house of commons was requested to sending four thousand of the troops on the Irish establishment to America, and receiving in their stead four thousand German Protestants. " If we give our consent," objected Ponsonby, in the debate on the twenty- fifth of November, " we shah take part against America, con trary to justice, to prudence, and to humanity." " The war is unjust," said Fitzgibbon, " and Ireland has no reason to be a party therein." Sir Edward Newenham could not agree to send more troops to butcher men who were fighting for their liberty ; and he reprobated the introduction of foreign mer cenaries as equaUy mihtating against true reason and sound pohcy. "If men must be sent to America," cried George Ogle, "send foreign mercenaries, not the sons of Ireland." Hussey Burgh condemned the American war as " a violation of the law of nations, the law of the land, the law of humanity, the law of nature ; he would not vote a single sword without 288 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xvm. an address recommending conciliatory measures ; the ministry, if victorious, would only estabhsh a right to the harvest when they had burnt the grain." Yet the troops were voted by one hundred and twenty-one against seventy-six, although the reso lution to replace them by foreign Protestants was negatived. The majority in both parliaments did not quiet Lord North. Sir George SavUle describes him " as one day for concihation ; but, as soon as the first word is out, he is checked and con trolled, and, instead of concihation, out comes confusion." On the first of December he pressed to a second reading the Ameri can biU, which consolidated the several penal acts and en larged them into a prohibition of the trade of all the thirteen colonies. American vessels and goods were made the property of their captors ; the prisoners might be compeUed to serve the king even against their own countrymen. No one American grievance was removed. The atrocity of the measure was exposed in the house of commons, but without effect; on the third reading, in the house of lords, Mansfield said : " The people of America are as much bound to obey the acts of the British parhament as the inhabitants of London and Middlesex. I have not a doubt in my mind that ever since the peace of Paris the northern colonies have been meditating a state of independence on this country. But, allowing that all their professions are genuine, are we to stand idle because we are told this is an unjust war ? The justice of the cause must give way to our present situa tion ; and the consequences which must ensue should we re cede, would, nay must, be infinitely worse than agreeing to a final separation." After these words, the bill was adopted without a division. Outside of parliament, the opinion of the mos^jnteUigent among the philosophers of Britain was divided. The luke warm Presbyterian. WihianiRobertson^would have the Brit ish •• leaders at once exert the power of the British empire In "its fulr~f orce,*' jnd station a " few regiments in each capital." Like Mansfield, he was certain that the Americans had been aiming aU~along at independence: and, Uke the Bedford party, Jie held it fortunate that matters had so soon been brought to a crisis. As a lover of msmkind, he was ready to bewail 1775. FINAL ANSWER OF PARLIAMENT TO AMERICA. 289 the check to prosperous and growing states ; but, said he, " we are past the hour of lenitives and haK exertions." On the other hand, John Millar, the professor of law in the university of Glasgow, taught the youth of Scotland who fre quented his lectures " that the repubhcan form of government is by far the best, either for a very smaU or a very extensive country." " I cannot but agree with him," said David Hume, who yet maintained that it would be " most criminal " to /disjoint the established government in Great Britain, where he relieved a repubhcjwould so certainly be the immediate forerunner of despotism that none but fools would think to augment hberty by shaking off monarchy. iSut he had no iaith m the univer- sal application of the monarchical principle. u The ancient republics^ said he, rising above the influence of his philoso phy, "were somewhat ferocious and torn by bloody factions ; but they were still much preferable to the ancient monarchies or aristocracies, which seem to have been quite intolerable" Modern manners have corrected this abuse ; and aU the repuh hes in Europe, without exception, are so weU governed th; one is at a loss to which we should give the preference. J^ am an American in my principles, and wish we would let them alone to govern or misgovern themselves, as they think proper." But one greater than "Rnherfoion andwiser thanHume_gaye the best expression to the mind of Scotland. Adam Smith, the peer and the teacher of statesmen, enrolled among the penefactors of our race, one who had closely studied the econo- my oi trance as weU as of Britain, and who in his style com bined the grace and the elea"Niess of a man of the world with profound wisdom and the sincereNsearch for truth, apphed to the crisis those principles of freedorrNand right which made Scotland, under every disadvantage of anogpressive form of feudalism and a deceitful system of representation, an efficient instrument in promoting the hberties of mankinds He would have the American colonies either fairly represented in parha ment or"mdependent7~The prohibitory laws of England toward the colonies he pronounced " a mamf est violation of the most sacred rights," " impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon VOL. IV. — 19 290 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ui.; oh. xvm. them without any sufficient reason by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers, of the mother country." " Great Britain," said he, " derives nothing but loss from the dominion she assumes over her colonies." "It is not very probable that they wiU ever voluntarily submit to us; the blood which must be shed in forcing them to do so is every drop of it the blood of those who are or of those whom we wish to have for our feUow-citizens." " They are very weak who flatter themselves that, in the state to which things are come, our colonies wiU be easily conquered by force alone." And he pointed out the vast immediate and continuing advan tages which Great Britain would derive K she " should volun tarily give up aU authority over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to enact their own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper." Josiah Tucker, an English royalist writer on political economy, had studied perseveringly the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, in their application to commerce ; and, at the risk of being rated a visionary enthusiast, he sought to convince the landed gentry that Great Britain would lose nothing K she should renounce her colonies and cultivate com merce with them as an independent nation. This he enforced with such strength of argument and perspicuity of statement that he made a proselyte of Soame Jenyns who wrote verses in his praise, and was approved by Lord Mansfield. Through the clouds of conflict and passion rose the cheer ing idea that the impending change, which had been depre cated as the rain of the empire, would bring no disaster to Britain. American statesmen had struggled to avoid a separa tion ; the measures of the British government, as one by one they were successively borne across the Atlantic — disregard of the petition of congress by the king, his speech to parhament, his avowed negotiations for mercenaries, the closure of the ports of aU the thirteen colonies and the confiscation of all their property on the ocean — forced upon them the conviction that they must protect and govern themselves. 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 291 CHAPTER XIX annexation of canada. August-December 1775. The continental congress had, on the first of June 1775, disclaimed the purpose of invading Canada; and a French version of their resolution was distributed among its inhabi tants. But on the ninth of that month the governor of the province proclaimed the American borderers to be rebeUious traitors, established martial law, summoned the French peas antry to serve under the old colonial nobility, and instigated alike the converted Indian tribes and the savages of the North west to take up the hatchet against New York and New Eng land. These movements made the occupation of Canada by America an act of self-defence ; it received the unflinching approval of Dickinson and occupied in a special manner the attention of New York. The French nobility and the Cathohc clergy acquiesced in the new form of government ; but a large part of the British residents detested their subjection to arbitrary power ; and the Canadian peasantry denied the authority of their seigniors as magistrates, resisted their claim of a right to command their mihtary services, and were wilhng to welcome an invasion. At the instance of Carleton, the Cathohc bishop sent a mandate to the several parishes, to be read by the clergy after divine service ; but the peasantry persisted in refusing to turn out. Schuyler, on taking command of the northern army, de spatched Major John Brown to learn the state of Canada. On the twenty-seventh of July the regiment of Green Moun- 292 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xix. • tain Boys elected its officers; and Seth Warner, a man of courage and good judgment, was chosen its Ueutenant-colo- nel. Preparations were made for crossing the boundary ; but Schuyler had only twelve hundred men, and, judging them insufficient for the enterprise, he waited for the orders which, on the sixth of August, he sohcited from congress. Before the middle of the month Brown returned from a perilous march of observation, and reported that now was the time to acquire Canada, where there were only about four hundred regulars, beside the garrison of three hundred at St. John's ; that the inhabitants were friends; that the militia refused to serve under the French officers lately appointed. At the same time, a new arrival at Ticonderoga changed the spirit of the camp. We have seen Richard Montgomery, who had served in the army from the age of fifteen, gain distinction in the seven years' war. Faihng after the peace in his pursuit of the pro motion to which his good service gave him a right to aspire, he sold his commission and emigrated to New York. Here, in 1773, he renewed his acquaintance with the family of Rob ert R. Livingston, and married his eldest daughter. Never intending to draw his sword again, studious in his habits, he wished for a country life at Rhinebeck ; and his wife, whose affections he entirely possessed, wiUingly conformed to his tastes. The father of his wife used to say that, " K American liberty should not be maintained, he would carry his family to Switzerland, as the only free country in the world." Her grandfather, the aged Robert Livingston, was the stanchest patriot of them all. In 1773, in his eighty-fourth year, he foretold the conflict with England ; at the news of the retreat of the British from Concord, he confidently announced Ameri can independence. After the battle of Bunker HiU, as he lay calmly on his death-bed, his last words were: "What news from Boston ? " The county of Dutchess, in April 1775, selected Montgom ery as a delegate to the first provincial convention in New York, where he distinguished himself by modesty, decision, and sound judgment. Accepting his appointment as briga dier-general, he reluctantly bade adieu to his " quiet scheme of hfe," "perhaps," he said, "forever; but the wiU of an op- 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 293 pressed people, compelled to choose between liberty and sla very, must be obeyed." On the sixth of August, from Albany, he advised that Tryon should be conducted out of the way of mischief to Hartford. He reasoned in favor of the occupation of Canada, as the means of guarding against Indian hostilities, and dis playing to the world the strength of the confederated colonies ; it was enlarging the sphere of operations, but a failure would not impair the means of keeping the command of Lake Cham plain. Summoned by Schuyler to Ticonderoga, he was attend ed as far as Saratoga by his wife, whose gloomy forebodings he soothed by cheerfulness and good humor. His last words to her at parting were : " You wiU never have cause to blush for your Montgomery." When, on the seventeenth of August, he arrived at Ticon deroga, Schuyler departed for Saratoga, promising to return on the twentieth. That day passed, and others ; and stiU he did not come. Oh the twenty-fifth, Montgomery wrote to him en- treatingly to join the army with all expedition, as the way to give it confidence in his spirit and activity. On the evening of the twenty-sixth, Schuyler, at Albany, received an express from Washington, urging the acquisition of Canada, and prom ising an auxiliary enterprise by way of the Kennebec. " I am sure," wrote the chief, " you wUl not let any difficulties, not insuperable, damp your ardor; perseverance and spirit have done wonders in aU ages. You wiU therefore, by the return of this messenger, inform me of your ultimate resolution ; not a moment's time is to be lost." In obedience to this letter, Schuyler set off for his army. Montgomery, wherever he came, looked to see what could be done, and to devise the means of doing it ; he had informed Schuyler that he should probably reach St. John's on the first day of September. Schuyler sent back no reply. " Moving without your orders," pursued Montgomery, " I do not hke ; but the prevention of the enemy is of the utmost consequence; for, K he gets his vessels into the lake, it is over with us for the present summer ; " and he went forward with a thousand or twelve hundred men. On the fourth of September he was joined at Isle La Motte by Schuyler, and they proceeded to 294 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xix. Isle-aux-Noix. The next day a declaration of friendship was dispersed among the inhabitants. On the sixth, Schuyler, with forces not exceeding a thousand, marched toward St. John's. In crossing a creek, the left of the advanced line was attacked by a party of Indians ; but, being promptly supported by Mont gomery, it beat off the assaUants, yet with a loss of nine subal terns and privates. The next day, acting on false information, Schuyler led back the troops unmolested to the Isle-aux-Noix. From that station he wrote to congress that he should retire, unless he should "receive their orders to the contrary." He further announced to them that in health he was " so low as not to be able to hold the pen ; " and, being put to bed in a covered boat, he withdrew from the conduct of the campaign. His letter was the occasion of "a large controversy" in congress ; the proposal to abandon Isle-aux-Noix was severely disapproved, and it was resolved to spare neither men nor money for his army. If the Canadians would remain neuter, no doubt was entertained of the acquisition of Canada. Schuy ler was encouraged to attend to his health, and thus the com mand of the invading army feU to Montgomery. The gallant Irishman, on the day after Schuyler left Isle- aux-Noix, began the investment of the wen-provisioned citadel of St. John's. The Indians kept quiet, and the zealous efforts of the governor, the clergy, and the French nobihty had hardly added a hundred men to the garrison. Carleton thought him seK abandoned by aU the earth, and wrote to the British com mander-in-chief at Boston : " I had hopes of holding out for this year, had the savages remained firm ; but now we are on the eve of being overrun and subdued." On the morning after Montgomery's arrival near St. John's he marched five hundred men to the north of the fortress, where he stationed them to cut off its connections. A saUy from the fortress was beaten off, and the American detachment was successfully estabhshed at the divergence of the roads to Chambly and Montreal. Additions to his force and supplies of feod were continuaUy arriving through the indefatigable at- tention of Schuyler ; and, though the siege flagged for the want of powder, the investment was soon made so close that the retreat of the garrison was impossible. 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 295 Ethan AUen had been sent to Chambly to raise a corps of Canadians. They gathered round him with spirit, and his officers advised him to lead them without delay to the army ; but, with boundless rashness, he indulged himself in a vision of surprising Montreal as he had surprised Ticonderoga. In the night preceding the twenty-fifth of September he passed over from Longueil to Long Point with about eighty Canadi ans and thirty Americans, though he had so few canoes that but a third of his party could embark at once. About two hours after sunrise he was attacked by a mixed party of regu lars, Enghsh residents of Montreal, Canadians, and Indians, in ah about five hundred men, and, after a defence of an hour and three quarters, he surrendered himseK and thirty-eight men; the rest fled to the woods. The wounded prisoners, seven in number, entered the hospital ; the rest were shackled together in pairs, and distributed among different transports in the river. AUen, the captor of Ticonderoga, was chained with heavy leg-irons and shipped to England, where he was imprisoned in Pendennis castle. The issue of this adventure daunted the Canadians for a moment; but difficulties only brought out the resources of Montgomery. Of the field officers, he esteemed Brown above others for his abihty ; Macpherson, his aide-de-camp, a very young man, of good sense and rare endowments, was univer- saUy beloved ; in John Lamb, captain of a New York com pany of artillery, he found " a restless genius, brave, active, and intelhgent, but very turbulent and troublesome." " The troops carried the spirit of freedom into the field, and thought for themselves." He wrote home : " The master of Hindostan could not recompense me for this summer's work, where no credit can be obtained. O fortunate husbandmen, would I were at my plough again ! " Yet, amid aU his vexations, he so won the affection of his army that every sick soldier, officer, or deserter, that passed home, agreed in praising him wher ever they stopped, so that his reputation rose throughout the country. Anxious to relieve St. John's, Carleton, after the capture of AUen, succeeded in assembhng about nine hundred Cana dians at Montreal ; but the inhabitants generaUy favored the 296 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ih.; oh.xix. American cause, and they disappeared by desertions, thirty or forty of a night, till he was left almost as forlorn as be fore. The Indians " were easily dejected and chose to be of the strongest side, so that when they were most wanted they vanished." In this state of mutual weakness the inhabitants of the parishes of Chambly turned the scale. Ranging themselves under James Livingston of New York, then a resident in Canada, and assisted by Major Brown, with a smaU detachment from Montgomery, they sat down before the fort in Chambly, which, on the eighteenth of October, after a siege of a day and a haK, was ingloriously surrendered by the English command ant. The colors of the seventh regiment were transmitted to congress ; the prisoners, one hundred and sixty-eight in num ber, were marched to Connecticut ; but the great gain to the Americans was seventeen cannon and six tons of powder. The army of Montgomery yielded more readUy to his guid ance ; Wooster of Connecticut had arrived, and set an example of cheerful obedience to his orders. At the north-west a bat tery was constructed on an eminence within two hundred and fifty yards of the fort ; and by the thirtieth it was in fuU ac tion. To raise the siege, Carleton, having by desperate exertions brought together about eight hundred Indians, Canadians, and regulars, on the last day of October attempted to take them across the St. Lawrence ; but, as they drew near the southern bank, Warner, with three hundred Green Mountain Boys and men of the second New York regiment, poured on them so destructive a fire that they retired with loss and in disorder. At the news of Carleton's defeat, Maclean, the command ant of St. John's, deserted by the Canadians and losing all hope of support, retired to Quebec, while the besiegers pushed on their work with unceasing diligence, keeping up a weU- directed fire by clay and night. On the third of November. after a siege of fifty days, the fort of St. John's surrendered ; and its garrison, consisting of five hundred regulars and one hundred Canadians, many of whom were of the French gentry, marched out with the honors of war. On the twelfth, unopposed, Montgomery took possession of Montreal. He came to give the Canadians the opportu- 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 297 nity of establishing their freedom and reforming their laws ; and he requested them to choose, as soon as possible, " faith ful representatives to sit in the continental congress, and make a part of that union." He earnestly urged Schuyler to pass the winter in the chief town of upper Canada. " I have courted fortune," he wrote to his brother-in-law, " and found her kind. I have one more favor to sohcit, and then I have done." Men, money, and artillery were wanting ; in the face of a Canadian winter, he nevertheless resolved to form a junc tion with the regiments sent through the wilderness by Wash ington, and attempt the hberation of the lower part of the province through the co-operation alike of its French and Eng lish inhabitants. The attempt must be made before the break ing up of the ice in the river, when the arrival of British reinforcements from Europe would render success impossible. The invasion of Canada by the Americans was the natural result of the capture of Ticonderoga. It was not in its origin the deliberate purpose of congress. An attack on the northern border of New York was formally threatened from Canada, and the opinion prevaUed that it could be best resisted by meeting it in the land of the enemy. Washington had put aside every private suggestion to divide his strength; nor could he be tempted even to take part in an expedition against Nova Scotia. But as war raged on the St. Lawrence, his duty as commander-in-chief required that he should promote its suc cess ; and, being informed of the possibility of reaching Quebec by land, he was led to take the chances of surprising its citadel by the aid of the Canadians themselves. In this wise it came about that he organized an expedition to the lower St. Law rence. For its chief officer he selected Benedict Arnold, who had taken part in the surprise of Ticonderoga, and who in former days as a trader had visited Quebec, where he stiU kept up a correspondence. The detachment from the army round Boston consisted of ten companies of New England infantry^ one of riflemen from Virginia, and two from Pennsylvania : in aU, two battahons of about eleven hundred men. The lieutenant-colonels were Roger Enos and the brave Christopher Greene of Rhode Island. The majors were Re- 298 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ht.; oh. xix. turn J. Meigs of Connecticut, and Timothy Bigelow, the early patriot of Worcester, Massachusetts. Daniel Morgan, with Humphreys and Heth, led the Virginia riflemen ; Hendricks, a Pennsylvania company ; Thayer commanded one from Rhode Island, and, like Arnold, Meigs, Dearborn, Henry, Senter, and Melvin, left a journal of the expedition. Aaron Burr, then but nineteen years old, and his friend Matthias Ogden, carry ing muskets and knapsacks, joined as volunteers. Samuel Spring attended as chaplain. The instructions given to Arnold had for their motive af fectionate co-operation with the Canadians. They enjoined respect for the rights of property and the freedom of con science, " ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to him only in this case they are answer able." " Should Chatham's son fall into your power," wrote Washington, " you cannot pay too much honor to the son of so illustrious a character, and so true a friend to America." Chatham, from his fixed opinion of the war, desired to with draw his son from the service ; and Carleton, anticipating that wish, had already sent him home as bearer of despatches. To the Canadians Washington's words were : " The cause of Amer ica and of liberty is the cause of every American whatever may be his religion or his descent. Come, then, range your selves under the standard of general hberty." Boats and provisions having been collected, the detach ment, on the evening of the nineteenth of September, sailed from Newburyport, and the next morning entered the Ken nebec. Passing above the bay where that river is met by the Androscoggin, they halted at Fort Western, which consisted of two block-houses, and one large house, enclosed with pick ets, hard by the east bank of the river, on the site of Augusta. The detachment foUowed in four divisions, in as many succes sive days. Each division took provisions for forty-five days. On the twenty-fifth, Morgan and the riflemen were sent first to clear the path ; Greene and Bigelow foUowed with three companies of musketeers ; Meigs with four more went next ; Enos with three companies closed the rear. They ascended the river slowly to Fort Hahfax, opposite WatervUle ; daily to their waists in water, hauhng their boats 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 299 against a very rapid current. On the fourth of October they passed the vestiges of an Indian chapel, a fort, and the grave of the missionary Rasles. After they took leave of settlements and houses at Norridgewock, their course lay up the swift Ken nebec, which flowed through the thickly forested and almost trackless wild; now rowing, now dragging their boats, now bearing them on their shoulders round rapids and cataracts, across morasses, over craggy highlands. On the tenth the party reached the dividing ridge between the . Kennebec and Dead river. An advance party of seven men marked the shortest carrying-place from the Kennebec to the Dead river by snagging the bushes and blazing the trees. Their way stretched through forests of pine, balsam fir, cedar, cypress, hemlock, and yeUow birch, and over three ponds, that lay hid among the trees and were full of trout. After passing them, they had no choice but to carry their boats, baggage, stores, and ammunition across a swamp, which was overgrown with bushes and white moss, often sinking knee deep in the wet turf. From Dead river, Arnold on the thirteenth wrote to the commander of the northern army, announcing his plan of co-operation. Of his friends in Quebec he inquired what ships were there, what number of troops, and what was the disposi tion of the Canadians and merchants ; and he rashly made an Indian the bearer of bis letters. FoUowing the Dead river eighty-three mUes, encountering near its source a series of smaU ponds choked with faUen trees, and afterward seventeen portages, in ten or twelve days more the main body arrived at the great carrying-place to the Chau diere. On the way they heard that Enos, who commanded the rear, had, without any justification from his orders, led back his three companies to Cambridge. The mountains had been clad in snow since September ; winter was howhng around them, and their course was stiU to the north. On the night preceding the twenty-eighth of Oc tober some of the party encamped on the summits from which the waters flow to the St. Lawrence. As they advanced, their sufferings increased. Some went barefoot for days together. Their path was shagged with thorns ; their clothes had become so torn they were almost naked ; at night they had no couch 300 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xix. or cover but branches of evergreens. Often for successive days and nights they were exposed to drenching storms, and had to cross torrents that were sweUing with the rain. Their provisions failed, so that they even eat the dogs that foUowed them. Many a man, straggling to march on, stiffened with cold and death. Here and there a helpless invalid was left behind, with perhaps a soldier to hunt for a red squirrel, a jay, or a hawk, or gather roots and plants for his food, and watch his expiring breath. On Dead river, Macleland, the lieutenant of Hendricks's company, was suffering from inflammation of the lungs ; his friends tenderly carried him on a litter across the mountain, Hendricks in his turn putting his shoulder to the burden. » The men had hauled their barges up stream nearly aU the way for one hundred and eighty miles, had carried them near ly forty miles, through hideous woods and mountains, over swamps, which they were obliged to cross three or four times to fetch their baggage ; yet starving, and with uncertainty ahead, officers and men pushed on with invincible fortitude. In the too great eagerness to descend the rocky channel of the Chaudiere, three of their boats, laden with ammunition and precious stores, which had been brought along with so much toil, were overset in the whirls of the stream. On the second of November, French Canadians came up with two horses, driving before them five oxen, at which the party fired a salute, and laughed with frantic delight. On the fourth, about an hour before noon, they descried a house at Serti- gan, twenty-five leagues from Quebec, near the fork of the Chaudiere and the Du Loup. It was the first they had seen for thirty-one days ; and never could the view of cultivated fields or flourishing cities awaken such ecstasy of gladness as this rude hovel on the edge of the wUderness. Macleland was brought down to its shelter, though he breathed his farewell to the world the day after his arrival. The party foUowed the winding river to the parish of St. Mary, stragghng through a flat and rich country, which had for its ornament low, bright, whitewashed houses, the com fortable abodes of a cheerful and hospitable people. Here and there along the road chapels met their eyes, and images 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 301 of the Virgin Mary, and rude imitations of the Saviour's sorrows. By the labor of seven weeks, Cramah6, the lieutenant-gov ernor, had put the walls of Quebec into a good posture for defence. Communications, intrusted by Arnold to friendly Indians, had been, in part at least, intercepted. A vessel from Newfoundland had brought a hundred carpenters. Colonel Allan Maclean arrived on the tweKth with a hundred and seventy men, levied chiefly among disbanded Highlanders who had settled in Canada. The Lizard and the Hunter, ships-of- war, were in the harbor ; and the masters of merchant ships with their men were detained for the defence of the town. At nine in the evening of the thirteenth Arnold began his embarkation in canoes, which were but thirty in number, and carried less than two hundred at a time ; by crossing the river three times, before daybreak on the morning of the fourteenth all of his party, except about one hundred and fifty left at Point Levi, were landed undiscovered at WoKe's Cove. The five hundred haK-armed musketeers met no resistance as they climbed the obhque path to the Plains of Abraham. " The enemy being apprised of their coming," Arnold " found it im practicable to attack them without too great risk." In the evening he sent a flag to demand the surrender of the place. The British would not receive the flag, and would not come out. The invaders had no chance of success, except their friends within the walls should rise ; and of this there were no signs. As the result, their ammunition being reduced to but five rounds to each man, on the nineteenth Arnold withdrew.: his party to Point aux Trembles, eight leagues above Quebec j where they awaited the orders of Montgomery. j^ The St. Lawrence, near the mouth of the Sorel, was guardcic]_ by continental troops under Easton. In the darkest hourJCj: the night following the sixteenth of November, Carleton, dis guised as a peasant, passed them in a small boat. On the next day Prescott, the British brigadier, from sheer cowardice, sur rendered the flotilla of eleven saU, with aU the soldiers, sailors, and stores on board, without a blow! given or received. Touch ing as a fugitive at Trois Rivieres, Carleton arrived on the nineteenth at Quebec. He had witnessed how much of the 302 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xix. success of WoKe had been due to the rashness of Montcalm in risking a battle outside of the walls. His caution and his firm ness were guarantees that the place would be pertmaciously defended. The progress of Montgomery had emboldened a party in Quebec to confess a willingness to receive him on terms of capitulation. But, on the twenty-second, Carleton ordered aU persons who would not join in the defence of the town to leave it within four days ; and after their departure he found himseK supported by more than three hundred regulars, three hundred and thirty Anglo-Canadian mihtia, five hundred and forty-three French Canadians, four hundred and eighty-five seamen and marines, beside a hundred and twenty artificers capable of bearing arms. After Montreal was taken and winter was come, Montgom ery was left with no more than eight hundred men to garrison his conquests, and to go down against Quebec. Even- most of the Green Mountain Boys had gone home. On the twenty-sixth, leaving St. John's under the com mand of Marinus WiUett of New York, intrusting the gov ernment of Montreal to Wooster of Connecticut, and in the spirit of a law-giver who was to regenerate the province, making a declaration that on his return he would caU a convention of the Canadian people, Montgomery, with artillery and provi sions, embarked three hundred men, and on the third of Decem ber made a junction with Arnold. " The famine-proof veter ans," now but six hundred and seventy-five in number, were paraded, to hear their praises from the hps of. the hero who, h animating words, did justice to their courage and superior tyle of discipline. From the public stores which he had gken they received clothing suited to the terrible chmate ; arid about noon on the fifth the army, composed of less than a thousand American troops and a volunteer regiment of about two hundred Canadians, appeared before Quebec, which had a garrison of nearly twice their number, more than two hundred cannon of heavy metal, and provisions for eight months. There could therefore be no hope of its capture but by storm, and, as the engagements of the New England men ended with the thirty-first of December, the assault must be made within 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 303 twenty-six days. Montgomery grieved for the loss of life that might ensue, but his decision was prompt and unchanging. The works of the lower town were the weakest; these he thought it possible to carry, and then the favor of the inhabi tants in the upper town, their concern for their property, the unwarhke character of the garrison, the small mUitary abUity of Carleton, offered chances of success. Montgomery demanded the surrender of the city ; but his flag of truce was not admitted ; and every effort at correspond ence with the citizens failed. Four or five mortars were placed in St. Roc's, but the smaU shells which they threw did no essential injury to the garrison. A battery was begun about seven hundred yards south-west of St. John's gate ; as the ground was frozen, the gabions and the interstices of the fascines were filled with snow ; and on this water was poured, which froze instantly in the intense cold. On the fifteenth, the day after the work was finished, a flag of truce was again sent toward the waU, but the governor would " hold no parley with rebels." Montgomery knew that Carleton could not be provoked into making a sally, and would sooner be buried under heaps of ruins than come to terms. " To the storming we must come at last," said Montgomery. On the evening of the sixteenth, at a councU of the commis sioned officers of Arnold's detachment, a large majority voted for making an assault as soon as the men could be provided with bayonets, hatchets, and hand-grenades. " In ease of suc cess," Montgomery promised to the soldiery "the effects of; those who had been most active against the united colonies.'^. Days of preparation ensued, during which he revolved h^i desperate situation. His rapid conquests had filled the woiyl with his praise ; the colonies held nothing impossible to mS» good conduct and fortune ; he had received the order of con gress to hold Quebec, K it should come into his hands ; and Howe never doubted of its surrender. Should Quebec be taken, the Canadians would enter heartily into the union and send their deputies to congress. " Fortune," said Montgom ery, " favors the brave ; and no fatal consequences are likely to attend a faUure." 304 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xix. One day the general, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, Macpherson, went out to meditate on " the spot where Wolfe had fallen, fighting for England in friendship with America." He had lost the ambition which once sweetened a military Ufe, and a sense of duty was now his only spring of action ; if the Americans should continue to prosper, he wished to return to the retired hfe in which he alone found dehght ; but, said he, " should the scene change, I shaU be always ready to con tribute to the pubhc safety." And his last message to his brother-in-law was: "Adieu, my dear Robert; may your happy talents ever be directed to the good of mankind." As the time for the assault drew near, three captains in Arnold's battalion showed mutinous disaffection. In the even ing of the twenty-third, Montgomery repaired to their quar ters, and in few words gave them leave to stand aside ; " he would compel none; he wanted with him no persons who went with reluctance." His words recalled the officers to their duty, but the incident hurried him into a resolution to attempt gaining Quebec before the first of January. At sundown of Christmas he reviewed Arnold's battalion at Morgan's quarters, and addressed them with spirit ; after which a councU of war agreed upon a night attack on the lower town. Their inten tion was revealed by a deserter, so that every preparation was made against a surprise ; two thirds of the garrison lay on their arms; in the upper town, Carleton and others not on duty slept in their clothes ; in the lower, volunteer pickets kept watch ; and they aU wished ardently that the adventurous at tempt might not be delayed. The night of the twenty-sixth was clear, and so cold that no ^an could handle his arms or scale a waU. The evening of the genty-seventh was hazy, and the troops were put in motion ; -bifc, as the sky soon cleared up, the general, who was tender of their lives, caUed them back, choosing to wait for the shelter of clouds and darkness. For the next days the air was serene, and a mUd westerly wind brightened the sky. On the thirtieth a snow-storm from the north-east set in. But a few hours more of the old year remained, and with it the engagement of many of his troops would expire. Orders were therefore given for the troops to 16. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 305 ready at two o'clock of the following morning ; and, that ey might recognise one another, each soldier wore in his cap piece of white paper, on which some of them wrote : " Lm- ;TY or death." Colonel James Livingston, with less than two hundred inadians, was to attract attention by appearing before St. hn's gate, on the south-west ; while a company of Americans Lder Brown were to feign a movement on Cape Diamond, lere the wall faces south by west, and from that high ground, the proper time, were to fire rockets, as the signal for be- nning the real attacks on the lower town, under Arnold from e west and north, under Montgomery from the south and st. H successful, both would meet in Mountain street, near •escot gate. The general, who reserved for his own party less than ree hundred Yorkers, led them in Indian file from head-quar- rs at HoUand House to WoKe's Cove, and then about two iles farther along the shore. In several places they were liged to scramble up slant rocks covered with two feet of ow, and then, with a precipice on their right, to shde down teen or twenty feet. The wind, which was at east by north, 3w furiously in their faces, with cutting haU, which the eye uld not endure ; their constant step wore the frozen snow to httle lumps of ice, so that the men were fatigued by uggles not to fall, and could not keep their arms dry. The signal from Cape Diamond being given more than K an hour too soon, the general, with his aides-de-camp, acpherson and Burr, pushed on with the front, composed of leesman's company and Mott's ; and more than half an hour fore day they arrived at the first barrier, with the guides and rpenters. The rest of the party lagged behind ; and the lad- rs were not within haK a mile. Montgomery and Cheesm0(i )re the first that entered the undefended barrier, passing .Ji tween the rock and the pickets which the carpenters be01in saw and wrench away. While a message was sent toacli to rry up the troops, Montgomery went forward to observe the th before him. It was a very narrow defile, f alhfag away to e river precipitously on the one side, and shut in by the irped rock and overhanging chff on the other, so that not vol. iv. — 20 306 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xix. more than five or six persons could walk abreast; a house, built of logs and extending on the south nearly to the river, with loopholes for musketry and a battery of two three-pound ers, intercepted the passage. It was held by a party consisting of thirty Canadians and eight British mihtia men under John Coffin, with nine seamen as cannoneers under Barnsfare, the master of a transport. The general hstened, and heard no sound ; but lights from lanterns on the Plains of Abraham, as well as the signal rockets, had given the alarm ; and in the morning twilight, through the storm, his troops were seen in full march from Wolfe's Cove. At their approach to the bar rier where Coffin commanded, the sailors stood at their guns with lighted hnstocks. Montgomery waited tiU about sixty men had joined him inside of the row of pickets ; then exclaiming, " Men of New York, you will not fear to follow where your general leads ; push on, brave boys ! Quebec is ours ! " he pressed forward at double quick time to carry the battery. As he appeared on a httle rising in the ground, at a distance of fifty yards or less from the mouths of the cannon, which were loaded with grape- shot, Barnsfare discharged them with deadly aim. Aaron Burr, who showed personal bravery and good conduct, escaped unhurt ; Montgomery, his aid Macpherson, the young and gal lant Cheesman, and ten others feU dead ; Montgomery from three wounds. With him the soul of the expedition fled. Donald Campbell, who assumed the command of the Yorkers, seeing no chance of success, ordered an immediate retreat, which was effected without further loss. On the north-western side of the lower town Arnold led ¦;wice as many troops as foUowed Montgomery. The path along the St. Charles had been narrowed by masses of ice t -own up from the river ; and the battery by which it was t„ imanded might have raked every inch of it with grape- si ' while their flank was exposed to musketry from the walls. As they reached Palace gate, the beUs of the city were rung, the drums beat a general alarm, and the cannon began to play. Tb-3 Americans ran along in single file, holding down their heads on account of the storm, and covering their guns with their coats. Lamb and his company of artillery foUowed 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 307 with a field-piece on a sled ; the field-piece was soon aban doned, but he and his men took part in the assault. The first barricade was at the Sault au Matelot, a jutting rock which left little space between the river beach and the precipice. Near this spot Arnold was wounded in the leg by a musket-baU, and carried off disabled ; but Morgan's men, who formed the van, rushed f orward to the port-holes and fired into them, whUe others, Morgan himself the first, Charles Por- terfield the second, mounted by ladders, carried the battery, and took its captain and guard prisoners. But Morgan was at tended only by his own company and a few Pennsylvanians. It was stiU very dark ; he had no guide, and he knew nothing of the defences of the town. The faces of the men were hoar with frost and icicles, their muskets useless in the storm. The glow of attack began to subside, and the danger of their posi tion to appear. They were soon joined by Greene, Bigelow, and Meigs, so that there were at least two hundred Americans in the town, who all pressed on in the narrow way to the sec ond barricade, at the eastern extremity of Sault au Matelot street, where the defences extended from the rock to the river. Under the direction of Greene, heroic efforts were made to carry them. With a voice louder than the north-east gale, Mor gan cheered on his riflemen ; but, though Heath and Porter- field and a few others in the front files ascended the scaling- ladders, it was only to see on the other side rows of troops pre pared to receive them on hedges of bayonets, if they had leaped down. Here was the greatest loss of hfe ; the assailants were exposed in the narrow street to a heavy fire from houses on both sides; some of the officers received several balls in their clothes ; others feU. The moment for retreat soon went by. Some few escaped over the shoal ice on the St. Charles. Near dayhght, about two hundred of the Americans took shelter in houses of stone, from which they could fire. It was then that Hendricks, while aiming his rifle, was shot through the heart. Carleton could now direct all his force against the party of Arnold. By his orders, Captain Laws, with two hundred men, sallied from Palace gate in their rear ; Dearborn's com pany was found divided into two parties, each of which sue- 308 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; ch. xix. cessively surrendered, leaving " the flower of the rebel army " " cooped up " within the town. Morgan proposed that they should cut their way through their enemies; but it had be come impracticable ; and, after maintaining the straggle till the last hope was gone, at ten o'clock they gave themselves up. To the captives Carleton proved a humane and generous enemy. The loss of the British was inconsiderable ; that of the Americans, in killed or wounded, was about sixty ; in pris oners, between three and four hundred. When the battle was over, thirteen bodies were found at the place now known as Pres-de-ViUe. That of Cheesman, whose career had been brief but gallant, had faUen over the rocks. In the pathway lay Macpherson, the pure-minded, youthful enthusiast for liberty, as spotless as the new-fallen snow which was his winding-sheet ; fuU of promise for war, lovely in temper, dear to the army, honored by the affection and confidence of his chief. There, too, by his side, lay Rich ard Montgomery, on the spot where he fell. At his death he was in the first month of his fortieth year. He was tall and slender, weU-limbed, of a graceful address, and a strong and active frame. He could endure fatigue, and aU changes and severities of climate. His judgment was cool, though he kin dled in action, imparting sympathetic courage. Never negli gent of duty, never avoiding danger, discriminating and en ergetic, he had the power of conducting free men by their voluntary love and esteem. An experienced soldier, he was well versed in letters and in natural science. In private hfe, he was a good husband, brother, and son, an amiable and faith ful friend. He overcame difficulties which others shunned to encounter. Foes and friends paid tribute to his worth. The governor, lieutenant-governor, and council of Quebec, and all the principal officers of the garrison, buried him and his aide- de-camp, Macpherson, with the honors of war. At the news of his death, " the city of Philadelphia was in tears ; every person seemed to have lost his nearest friend." Congress proclaimed for him "their grateful remembrance, re spect, and high veneration ; and, desiring to transmit to future ages a truly worthy example of patriotism, conduct, boldness of enterprise, insuperable perseverance, and contempt of dan- 1775. ANNEXATION OF CANADA. 309 ger and death," they reared a marble monument " to the glory of Richard Montgomery." Frederic of Prussia gave him praise as a mihtary chief. In the British parliament Barre, his veteran fellow-soldier in the late war, wept profusely as he expatiated on their fast friend ship and participation of service in the season of enterprise and glory, when Canada was conquered for Britain, and, holding up the British commanders in review, pronounced a glowing tribute to his superior merits. Edmund Burke contrasted the condition of the eight thousand men, starved, disgraced, and shut up within the single town of Boston, with the movements of the hero who in one campaign had conquered two thirds of Canada. " I," rephed North, " cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a pubhc loss. Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous ; but stiU he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel." " The term of rebel," re torted Fox, " is no certain mark of disgrace. The great assert- ors of hberty, the saviors of their country, the benefactors of mankind in aU ages, have been called rebels. We owe the constitution which enables us to sit in this house to a rebel hon." So passed away Montgomery, with the love of aU that knew him, the grief of the rising republic, and the eulogies of the world. 310 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xx. CHAPTER XX. advancing toward independence. Last Months of 1775-March 1776. A steady current drifted the country toward a closer union and independence. The British government refused to treat with the general congress. The American colonies, K they mean to make their resistance effectual, must confine their in tercourse with the British government exclusively to the rep resentatives of the colonies in union. In New Jersey the as sembly granted the usual annual support of the royal govern ment, and then considered the draft of a separate address to the king ; but, as that mode of action tended to insulate the provinces, Dickinson, Jay, and Wythe were sent by the gen eral congress to Burlington, to dissuade from the measure. Ad mitted to the assembly on the fifth of December, Dickinson invited them to wait and find an answer in the conduct of the parliament and the administration. "After Americans were put to death without cause at Lexington," said he, " had the new continental congress drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard, all lovers of liberty would have applauded. To convince Britain that we will fight, an army has been formed and Canada invaded. Success attends us everywhere ; the Ca nadians fight in our cause ; so that we have nothing to fear but from Europe, which is three thousand miles distant. Until this controversy, the strength and importance of our country were not known ; united it cannot be conquered. Should Britain be unsuccessful in the next campaign, France will not sit still. Nothing but unity and bravery wiU bring Britain to terms ; separate petitions we should avoid, for they would break our 1775-1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. Z\l union; rest, then, on your former noble petition, and on that of united America." " We have nothing to expect from the mercy or justice of Britain," argued Jay ; " vigor and unanim ity, not petitions, are our only means of safety." Wythe of Virginia spoke to the same purpose; and the weU-disposed assembly of New Jersey conformed to their advice. Under orders from the New York Convention, Isaac Sears, in the night of the twenty-fourth of August, removed cannon from the battery of the city. Captain Vandeput, of the Asia, a British man-of-war in the harbor of the city, kept up a heavy but ineffective fire on the working party, who succeeded in removing twenty-one eighteen-pounders with their carriages. It was feared that a bombardment would foUow, and famihes began to retreat into the country. Congress, on the sixth of October, under the form of a general resolution, advised the arrest of Tryon ; on the twenty- seventh, when his arrest was imminent, he fled. From a ship- of-war in the harbor, he recommended to the inhabitants of New York a separate petition. Their congress, on the motion of John Morin Scott, rejected the thought of "a separate declaration, as inconsistent with the glorious plan of American union ; " on motion of Macdougall, they confirmed the delib erative powers of the continental congress ; and they estab lished a committee of safety, with full executive powers within the colony. The general congress gave directions to Lord Stir ling to garrison fortresses on Hudson river by six companies from New Jersey, and to encamp the rest of the New Jersey troops contiguous to New York. Aided by his battahon, a party of Jersey minute-men disarmed the disaffected in Queen's county, Long Island. Under the influence of Sir John Johnson, the Indian agent among the Mohawks, disbanded Highlanders who dwelt in the vaUey of the Mohawk river prepared to raUy to the king's standard. By order of the general congress, Schuyler with mihtia from Albany, joined on the way by Herkimer and other mihtia, marched upon Johnstown, took the parole of Johnson to preserve neutrality, and, on the twen tieth of January 1776, compelled between two and three hun dred Highlanders to ground their arms in front of his forces. 312 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xx. In the two following days Herkimer completed the disarma ment of the disaffected. Schuyler and his party received the approbation of congress. British men-of-war were masters of the bay and the harbor of New York, the East river, and Hudson river below the Highlands ; neither Staten Island nor Long Island could pre vent the landing of British troops; the possession of Long Island would give the command of Manhattan Island. The colony of New York, guided by men of high abihty, courage, and purity, had pursued a system of moderation, at first from a desire to avoid a revolution, K it could be done without a surrender of American rights; and, when that hope failed, with the purpose of making it manifest to all that indepen dence was adopted from necessity. It was wise to delay the outbreak of hostUities tiU wariike stores could be imported. Under a sort of truce the British men-of-war were not fired upon ; and in return vessels laden with provisions to purchase powder in St. Eustatius went and came without question. The declaration of independence by the united colonies was prepared in the convictions of all the American people. The many are more sagacious, disinterested, and courageous than the few. Language was their creation; the science of ethics, as the word imphes, is deduced from their conscience ; law itself, as the greatest jurists have perceived, is moulded by their nature ; the poet imbodies in words their oracles and their litanies ; the philosopher draws ideal thought from the storehouse of their mind ; the national heart is the home of high, enduring designs. The people, whose spirit far outran conventions and congresses, had grown weary of atro phied institutions. Instead of continuing a superstitious rev erence for the sceptre and the throne, as the symbols of order, they yearned for a system resting directly on the eternal, un changeable rule of right. Reid, among Scottish metaphysicians, and Chatham, the foremost of British statesmen, had discovered in common sense the criterion of morals and truth ; the common sense of the people claimed its right to sit in judgment on the greatest question ever raised in the pohtical world. The people were more and more possessed with a sUent, meditative feeUng of 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 313 independence. Their old affection for England remained para mount tiU the king's proclamation declared them rebels. AU the colonies, as though they had been but one individual, felt themselves wounded to the soul when they heard and could no longer doubt that George III. was hiring foreign mercenaries, and domesticated negroes, and regiments of ruthless red men to reduce them to subjection. The new conviction demanded utterance ; and, as the de bates in congress were secret, it had no outlet but the press. In November, Franklin encouraged Thomas Paine, who was the master of a singularly lucid 6tyle, to write an appeal to the people of America in favor of an immediate declaration of in dependence. He was at that time a httle under forty years of age ; the son of a Quaker of Norfolk in England, brought up in the faith of George Fox and Penn, the only school in Eng land where he could have learned the principles which he was now to assert. He had been in America not much more than a year; but in that time he had frequented the society of Franklin, Rittenhouse, Clymer, and Samuel Adams. His essay, when finished, was shown to Frankhn, to Rittenhouse, to Sam uel Adams, and to Benjamin Rush, and Rush gave it the title of Common Sense. "In the early ages of the world," so it was reasoned, " mankind were equals ; the heathen introduced government by kings, which the wiU of the Almighty, as declared by Gid eon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproved. Heredi tary succession might put posterity under the government of a rogue or a fool. England hath known some few good mon- archs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones since the conquest, in which time there have been no less than eight civU wars and nineteen rebelhons. In short, monarchy and succession have laid not this kingdom only, but the world, in blood and ashes. " The period of debate on the straggle between England and America is closed. Arms must decide the contest ; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath ac cepted the chaUenge. " The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, 314 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xx. but of a continent, of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age ; pos terity are involved in it, even to the end of time. " Europe, and not England, is the parent country of Amer ica : this new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civU and religious hberty from every part of Europe ; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and tri umph in the generosity of the sentiment. " Much hath been said that Britain and the colonies, in conjunction, might bid defiance to the world. What have we to do with setting the world at defiance ? Our plan is com merce ; and that wiU secure us the friendship of all Europe. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she never can do whUe by her dependence on Britain she is the makeweight in the scale of British politics. " The distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other was never the design of heaven. They belong to different systems — England to Europe, Amer ica to itseK. Everything short of independence is leaving the sword to our children. " Nothing but a continental form of government can keep the peace of the continent inviolate from civil wars. The colo nies have manKested such a spirit of good order and obedi ence to continental government as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head ; if there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Let a continental conference be held, to frame a continental charter, or charter of the United Colonies. " AU men, whether in England or America, confess that a separation between the countries, will take place one time or other. To find out the very time, we need not go far, for the time hath found us. The present, likewise, is that peculiar time which never happens to a nation but once — the time of forming itseK into a government. " Nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independence. While we pro fess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, in the eyes of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. A mamfesto pub- 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE.. 315 fished and despatched to foreign courts, setting forth the mis eries we have endured and declaring that we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off aU connection with her, at the same time assuring aU such courts of our desire of entering into trade with them, would produce more good effects to this continent than a ship freighted with petitions to Britain. " A government of our own is our natural right. Ye that love mankind, stand forth ! Every spot of the Old WorldTs overrun with oppression ; freedom hath been hunted roundthe globe : EtrfSperegards her like a stranger, and England hath gjven~her warning to depart ; oh, receive the fugitive, and pre- pare an asylum for mankind T" ~The pamphlet "Common Sense" was pubhshed on the eighth of January, most opportunely, for on that day the king's speech at the opening of parliament arrived. When "Washington came to read the king's speech, he let it be known that in his opinion independence should be declared. Greene wrote to his friend Ward, a delegate from Rhode Island in con gress : "Permit me, from the sincerity of my heart, ready at aU times to bleed in my country's cause, to recommend a declara tion of independence, and caU upon the world and the great God who governs it to witness the necessity, propriety, and rectitude thereof." John Adams, who had been elected chief justice in Massachusetts, was then at home. Scorning the threats of the king, he gave his advice to the New England colonies to persevere in the war to the end, even if no other colony than New York would join with them. But in America the formation of new governments was like passing through death to hfe. The convention of New Hampshire, which was the first to frame a government of its own, disavowed the intention of separating from the parent country, and merged the executive power in the two branches of the legislature only during " the unnatural " contest with Great Britain. The legislature of Maryland voted unhesitat ingly to put the province in a state of defence, but on the eleventh of January bore their testimony to the equity of the English constitution, and forbade their delegates in congress to assent to any proposition for independence, foreign aUiance, or confederation. 316 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; ch. xx. " The tyrant ! " said the impatient Samuel Adams, as he read the proceedings at the late opening of parhament; "his speech breathes the most malevolent spirit, and determines my opinion of its author as a man of a wicked heart. I have heard that he is his own minister ; why, then, should we cast the odium of distressing mankind upon his minions ? Guilt must he at his door ; divine vengeance wiU f aU on his head ; " and, with the aid of Wythe of Virginia, the patriot set vig orously to work to bring on a confederation and independ ence. On the day after the publication of " Common Sense," Wil son came to congress with the king's speech in his hand ; and, quoting from it the words which charged the colonists with aiming at a separation, he moved the appointment of a com mittee to explain to their constituents and to the world the principles and grounds of their opposition, and their present intentions respecting independence. He was strongly sup ported. On the other hand, Samuel Adams insisted that con gress had already been exphcit enough, and rallied the bolder members, in the hope to defeat the proposal ; but, in the absence of John Adams, even his coUeagues, Cushing and Paine, sided with Wilson, and the vote of Massachusetts formed a part of his majority. When Cushing's constituents heard of his waver ing, they elected Elbridge Gerry in his place ; at the moment, Samuel Adams repaired to Franklin. In a free conversation, these two great sons of Boston agreed that confederation must be speedily brought on, even though the concurrence of every colony could not be obtained. " If none of the rest wiU join," said Samuel Adams to FrankUn, " I wiU endeavor to unite the New England colonies in confederating." " I approve your proposal," said Frankhn ; " and, K you succeed, I wiU cast in my lot among you." On the sixteenth, Franklin, who best knew the foUy of expecting peace through British commissioners, endeavored to get a day fixed for the consideration of his plan of a confed eracy ; but he was opposed by Hooper, who, contrary to his own wishes, obeyed the instructions of North Carohna, and the majority was against him. The inexorable malice of the king and his officers could alone impel the thirteen colonies to 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 317 a united assertion of independence. It soon left no option to the oldest and largest and most populous of them all. Driven from the land of Virginia, Dunmore maintained command of the water by means of a flotilla composed of three yessels-of-war, carrying altogether fifty-four guns, aided by 6hips, hght vessels, and tenders. His first outrage was on the press. Finding fault with the newspaper pubhshed by John Holt at Norfolk, he sent on shore a smaU party, who brought off two printers and the materials of a printing-office. A few months later this precedent was foUowed in New York. Isaac Sears, entering the city with a party of mounted volunteers from Connecticut, rifled the printing-house of the tory Rivington ; but the act was censured by the committee and convention of New York as an infringement of the hberty of the press, and a dangerous example to their enemies. In Virginia the war began with the defence of Hampton, a small vUlage at the end of the isthmus between York and James rivers. An armed sloop, driven on its shore in a gale, had been rifled and set on fire. Dunmore blockaded the port. Its inhabitants summoned to their aid one company of the Virginia regulars and another of minute-men, besides a body of mihtia. On the twenty-sixth of October, Dunmore sent ten ders into Hampton Roads to burn the town. The guard marched out to repel them, and George Nicholas, who com manded the Virginians, discharged his musket at one of the tenders. It was the first gun fired in Virginia against the British ; his example was foUowed by his party. The British on that day vainly attempted to land. In the following night the Culpepper riflemen were despatched to Hampton. The next day the British renewed the attack ; the fire of the rifle men kUled a few and wounded more. One of the tenders was taken, with its armament and seven seamen; the rest were towed out of the creek. The Virginians lost not a man. In England, Dunmore had been taken at his word, and Lord Dartmouth had enjoined * him, with the regulars whom he was authorized to send for, and " the men whom he had said he could raise from among Indians, negroes, and other per- • sons," to bring together " at least force enough to withstand * Dartmouth to Dunmore, 12 July 1775. MS. 318 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.ui.; ch.xx. attacks, K not to reduce the colony to obedience." He ac cordingly raised the king's flag, proclaimed martial law, re quired every person capable of bearing arms to resort to his standard under penalty of forfeiture of hfe and property, and declared freedom to " all indented servants, negroes, or others, appertaining to rebels," K they would " join for the reducing the colony to a proper sense of its duty." "I hope," said he, " it wiU oblige the rebels to disperse to take care of their fami hes and property." The men to whose passions he appealed were either convicts, bound to labor in expiation of misdeeds, or Africans, some of them freshly imported. They formed the majority of the population on tide-water, and on the lonely plantations dwelt in clusters around the homes of their owners. Dunmore further sent for the small detachment of regulars stationed in Hlinois and the North-west ; authorized John Con nolly to raise a regiment in the backwoods of Virginia and Pennsylvania ; commissioned Mackee, a deputy superintendent, to raise one of western savages ; and directed them aU to march to Alexandria. For himseK he undertook to " raise one regi ment of white people, to be caUed the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia ; the other of negroes, to be caUed Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian." Connolly was arrested in Maryland in November, and the movements at the West were prevented. The general con gress promptly invited Virginia to institute a government of her own. A thriU of indignation effaced aU differences of party. WUliam Campbell and Gibson stood ready to march from Fincastle and West Augusta with rifle companies of " as fine men as ever were seen." In the valley of the Blue Ridge the congregations of Germans, quickened by the preaching of Muhlenberg, were eager to take up arms. The Virginians could plead, and did plead, that "their assembhes had repeatedly attempted to prevent the horrid traffic in slaves, and had been frustrated by the cruelty and covetousness of English merchants, who prevailed on the king to repeal their mercKul acts." Had Dunmore been undisputed master of the country when he attempted to enroll the negroes, a social revolution might have ensued. An appeal to them from a fugitive governor could leave no permanent trace. 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 319 Norfolk, almost entirely deserted by native Virginians, became the refuge of the factors of Glasgow merchants, who were unbodied as its loyal militia. The committee of safety at Williamsburg, informed of these transactions, sent a regiment and about two hundred minute-men, under the command of Colonel Woodford, to de fend the inhabitants of the low country. With the minute- men, John Marshall, afterward chief justice of the United States, served as a lieutenant. They came down on the south side of the Ehzabeth river. Informed of their approach, Dun more, collecting volunteers and what regular troops he could muster, took a weU-chosen position on the north side of the Great Bridge, on a piece of firm ground accessible only by a long causeway over a marsh. The Virginians threw up a breastwork at the south end of the same causeway. After Borne delay, Dunmore was so rash as to risk an attempt to sur prise them. On the eighth of December, after dark, he sent about two hundred regulars, composed of aU that had arrived of the fourteenth regiment, and of officers, saUors, and gun ners from the ships, mixed with townsmen of Norfolk. After the break of day and before sunrise, Leslie planted two field- pieces between the bridge and the causeway, and gave orders for the attack ; but, at the first discharge of the cannon, the bravest of the Virginians rushed to the trenches. The advance party of regulars, about one hundred and twenty in number, led by Fordyce, a captain in the fourteenth, were met on the causeway by a well-directed fire ; whUe Stevens, with a party of the Culpepper minute-men, posted on an eminence about a hundred yards to the left, took them in flank. They wavered ; Fordyce, with a courage which was the admiration of all be holders, rallied them and led them on, tiU, struck with many rifle-balls, he feU dead within a few steps of the breastwork. The regulars then retreated, after a straggle of about fourteen minutes, losing over sixty in kiUed and wounded. Fordyce was buried by the Virginians with the honors due to his gaUantry. In the following night Leslie abandoned the fort and re treated to Norfolk. Nothing could exceed the consternation of its Scotch inhabitants: rich factors, with their wives and children, leaving their large property behind in midwinter, 320 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xx. crowded on board ships, scantily provided with even the neces saries of IKe. Poor people and runaway negroes were huddled together, without comfort or even pure air. On the fourteenth, Robert Howe, from North Carohna, assumed the command and took possession of Norfolk. Just one week later the Liverpool ship-of-war and the brig Maria were piloted into the harbor. They brought the three thou sand stand of arms, with which Dunmore had promised to im- body negroes and Indians enough to reduce Virginia. Mar tin of North Carohna obtained a third part of them. The governor sent a flag of truce on shore to inquire if he and the fleet might be supphed with fresh provisions, and was answered in the negative. Showing his instructions to Belew, the captain of the Liverpool, the two concurred in opinion that Norfolk was " a town in actual rebeUion, accessible to the king's ships ; " and they prepared to carry out the king's in structions for such " a case." On New Year's day, 1776, the Kingfisher was stationed at the upper end of Norfolk ; a little below her the Otter ; Belew, in the Liverpool, anchored near the middle of the town ; and next him lay Dunmore ; the rest of the fleet was moored in the harbor. Between three and four in the after noon a severe fire was begun from about sixty pieces of can non. When night was coming on, Dunmore ordered out sev eral boats to burn warehouses on the wharfs, and hailed to Belew to set fire to a large brig which lay in the dock. The vessels of the fleet emulated each other in sending boats on shore to spread the flames along the river ; and, as the buUd- ings were chiefly of pine wood, the conflagration, driven by the wind, spread with amazing rapidity. Mothers with httle ones in their arms were seen by the glare, running to get out of the range of cannon-balls. Several times the British attempted to land with artiUery, but were driven back. The cannonade, with but one short pause, was kept up tiU two the next morn ing. The flames raged for three days, tiU four flfths of the houses were reduced to ashes and heaps of rains. In this manner the royal governor burned the best of the towns in England's oldest and most loyal colony, to which Ehzabeth had given a name, Raleigh devoted his fortune, and 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 321 Shakespeare and Bacon and Herbert foreshadowed greatness ; a colony whose people had established the national church, and were proud that their ancestors, in the day of the British con> monwealth, had been faithful to the hne of kings. " I hope," said Washington, as he learned the fate of the rich emporium of Virginia, " I hope this and the threatened devastation of other places wiU unite the whole country in one indissoluble band against a nation which seems lost to every sense of virtue, and those feelings which distinguish a civilized people from the most barbarous savages." When the Virginia convention, which had been in session from the first of December, heard of the burning of Norfolk, the two regiments already in service were increased, and seven more were ordered to be raised. Of one of these Hugh Mercer was elected colonel; the command of another was given to the Lutheran minister, Peter Muhlenberg, who left the pulpit to form out of his several congregations one of the most perfect battahons in the army. The demand of a world-wide commerce broke forth from Virginia. On motion of Archibald Cary, her convention, on the twentieth of January 1776, instructed her delegates in favor of opening the ports of the colonies to all persons willing to trade with them, Great Britain, Ireland, and the British West Indies excepted. That this recommendation should have been left, after ten months of war, to be proposed by a provincial convention, is another evidence of the all but invincible attach ment of the colonies to England. The progress of the war brought to America independence in aU but the name ; she had her treasury, her army, the rudiments of a navy, incipient foreign relations, and a striving after free trade with the world. She must be seK-dependent, whether she would be so or not ; through no other way would the king aUow her to hope for rest. In the army round Boston, Washington for more than two months scarcely emerged from one difficulty before he was plunged into another. His best dependence for powder and flints, and in part for artillery, was on prizes made under the pine-tree flag by the brave Manly and others of New-England. The men who enhsted for the coming year were desired to bring their own arms ; those whose time expired were com- VOL. IV. — 21 322 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xx. peUed to part with theirs at a valuation ; for blankets the gen eral appealed to the famihes of New England, asking at least one from each household ; the nearer villages, in their town- meetings, encouraged the supply of wood to the camp by voting a bounty from the town treasuries. The enlistments for the new army went on slowly, for the New England men were disinclined to engagements which would take them far from home, on wages to be paid irregu larly and tardily and in a constantly depreciating currency. For want of funds to answer the accounts of the commissary and quartermaster, the troops were forced to submit to a re duced allowance. Connecticut soldiers, whose enhstment expired early in December, hastened home so soon as they became free ; but others of their colony were ready to take their places. At the call of the colonial governments, three thousand men from the militia of Massachusetts and two thousand from New Hamp shire had repaired to the camp with celerity, and cheerfully braved " the want of wood, barracks, and blankets." The forti fications were extended to Lechmere's Point, and every possi ble landing-place for a sallying party from Boston was secured by intrenchments. On the first day of January 1776, the tri-colpred Ameri can banner, not yet spangled with stars, but showing thirteen stripes of alternate red and white in the field, and the united red and white crosses of Saint George and Saint Andrew on a blue ground in the corner, was unfurled over the new con tinental army round Boston. On that day free negroes stood in the ranks by the side of white men. The first general order of Ward had re quired a return, among other things, of "the complexion" of the soldiers ; and black men, like others, were retained in' the service after the troops were adopted by the continent. We have seen Edward Rutledge defeated in his attempt to compel their discharge ; in October, the conference at the camp, with Franklin, Harrison, and Lynch, thought it proper to exclude them from the new enhstment ; but Washington, at the crisis of his distress, finding that they were very much dissatisfied at being discarded, reversed the decision, and 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 323 asked the approval of congress. That body appointed Wythe, Samuel Adams, and Wilson to deliberate on the question ; and, on their report, it was decided " that the free negroes, who had served faithfully in the army at Cambridge might be re-enlisted therein, but no others." The right of free negroes to take part in the defence of the country having thus been partially admitted by the highest power, the limitation was lost sight of, and they served in the American armies during every period of the war. The enlistments for the army of Washington were em barrassed by the want of funds ; he could neither pay off the old army nor assure the punctual payment of the mihtia. In January 1776, he was left with but about ten thousand doUars, and this smaU sum was held as a reserve. The Massachusetts councU was authorized to lend him fifty thousand pounds; and it was left to Massachusetts, with the aid of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, to keep up the numbers of the army whUe it remained on her soU. The troops before Boston were a mixture of recruits and transient mihtia, requiring a constant renewal of elementary instruction. There was a dearth of bayonets, a want of at least two thousand muskets ; the artillery was poor, and was chiefly a gathering from accidental sources. There was no sufficient store of powder ; for members of congress, eager to give profitable occupation to ship-builders among their con stituents reserved what httle was obtained for the use of ves sels which could not be prepared for sea before more ample stores would arrive ; and Washington, anxious as he was " to keep above water in the esteem of mankind," was compeUed to conceal his want from the pubhc, from his friends, and even from most of his officers. At the moment when he was left with not haK so many serviceable troops as the army which he besieged, the chimney- corner heroes in congress, on the twenty-second of December 1775, after a long and most serious debate " authorized him to attack Boston, notwithstanding the town might thereby be de stroyed." Repelling the insinuation of inactivity, he answered the superior civil power: "It is not perhaps in the pages of his- 324 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xx. tory to furnish a case like ours : to maintain a post within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together without powder, and at the same time to disband one army and recruit another within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is more, probably, than ever was attempted." On the ninth of February he wrote to the president of congress, in words of dignity and wisdom : " The purport of this letter wiU be directed to a single object. Through you I mean to lay it before congress, and at the same time that I beg their serious attention to the subject, to ask pardon for intruding an opinion, not only unasked, but repugnant to their resolves. The disadvantages attending the limited en listment of troops are too apparent to those who are eye witnesses of them to render any animadversions necessary; but to gentlemen at a distance whose attention is engrossed by a thousand important objects, the case may be otherwise. This cause precipitated the fate of the brave Montgomery and brought on the defeat which foUowed. That we were not at one time obhged to dispute these hnes from the troops disbanding of themselves before the militia could be got in, proves that General Howe was either unacquainted with our situation or restrained by his instructions. Since the first of December we never have been able to act upon the offen sive, and at times were not in a condition to defend ; yet the cost of marching home one set of men and bringing in another amounts to near as much as the keeping up a respectable body of troops the whole time, ready for any emergency. To this may be added that you never can have a well-disciplined army. To make men weU acquainted with the duties of a soldier, un der proper discipline and subordination, requires time, and in this army, where there is so httle distinction between the offi cers and soldiers, requires an uncommon degree of attention. To expect the same service from raw recruits as from veteran soldiers is to expect what never did, and perhaps never will, happen. Men familiarized to danger meet it without shrink ing ; troops unused to service apprehend danger where no dan ger is. Men of a day's standing grow careless of their arms, ammunition, and camp utensils, and lay us under fresh expense for every fresh set. To this may be added the seasoning which 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 325 new recruits must have to a camp, and the loss consequent thereupon. With all due deference, I take the freedom to give it as my opinion that, if congress have any reason to believe that there wUl be occasion for troops another year, and, conse quently, for another enhstment, they would save money and have infinitely better troops K they were, even at a bounty of twenty, thirty, or more dollars, to engage men for and during the war. It wUl never do to let the matter alone, as it was last year, until the time of service was near expiring. The hazard is too great, in the first place ; in the next, the trouble and perplexity of disbanding one army and raising another at the same instant and in such a critical situation as the last was, are scarcely in the power of words to describe, and such as no man who has experienced them once wiU ever undergo again. If congress should differ from me, I beg that they wiU beheve that I have nothing more in view than the pubhc weal." The state of his army gave him many an uneasy hour when ah around him were wrapped in sleep ; and he often considered how much happier would have been his lot if, instead of ac cepting the chief command, he had taken his musket on his shoulder and entered the ranks. . " The means used to conceal his weakness from the enemy concealed it also from his friends, and added to their wonder." But the order of congress was never out of his mind ; and when in February his army was reorganized, and the shaUow bay west of Boston was frozen over, he was ready to lead a general assault on the town, had not the council of war almost unanimously disapproved the proposaL As soon as he had in reserve one hundred barrels of powder, he proceeded in his own way to break up the "nest" of the British. The army in that town consisted of nearly eight thousand rank and file, beside officers and the complements of the ships- of-war. The young officers were full of ingenious devices to amuse the common soldiers, and to reheve their own wearisome hours. The Old South meeting-house was turned into a riding- school ; FaneuU HaU became a play-house, where the officers appeared as actors ; they even attempted balls and planned a masquerade. The winter was mild; provisions arrived in abundance from Ireland and England, from Barbados and An- 326 AMERICA ARMS FOR -SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xx. tigua. The time was whiled away in comfortable quarters, without a thought of danger. To obtain heavy ordnance, Washington, in November 1775, had despatched General Knox to Ticonderoga. In obedience to his minute orders, forty-three cannon, among which one was of twenty-four pounds and eleven of eighteen pounds, with mortars, lead, and flints, were laden upon forty-two exceedingly strong sleds and drawn by eighty yoke of oxen to Cambridge. With a community of thought and purpose and secrecy that made of the army one mind and one wiU, Washington prepared first to take possession of Dorchester Heights which would give the command of a great part of Boston, and next of Nook Hill in immediate contiguity to the town. The time chosen for the erection of the works was the eve of the anniversary of " the Boston massacre." The superintending engineer was Rufus Putnam. The council of Massachusetts, at Washing ton's request, called in five regiments of minute-men from the nearest towns, and almost as many more, well armed, came as volunteers. To divert the attention of the British, a heavy cannonade and bombardment of the town was kept up during two nights. Soon after candle-hght on the fourth of March the firing was renewed, and was returned with such zeal that a continued roar of camion and mortars was heard tiU day- hght. As it began, everything was ready. Every man knew his place, and the need of acting with celerity and -silence. Eight hundred went in advance as a guard, one haK of them taking post on the height nearest Boston, the other at the easternmost point, opposite the castle. They were followed by carts with intrenching tools, and by the working party of twelve hundred, under the command of Thomas, an officer whose great merit on this occasion is the more to be re membered from the shortness of his career. The ground, for eighteen inches deep, was frozen too hard to yield earth read ily for the defences ; a train of more than three hundred carts, easily drawn by oxen over the frozen marshes, brought bun dles of screwed hay, to form a cover for Dorchester neck where it was exposed to a raking fire, and an amazing quantity of gabions and fascines and chandehers for the redoubts. The drivers, as they goaded on their cattle, suppressed their voices. 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 327 The temperature of the night was most favorable for out-door work ; the haze that denotes a softening of the air hung round the base of the ridge ; above, the moon, which that morning had become full, was shining in cloudless lustre ; hundreds of men toUed in stiUness with an assiduity that knew nothing of fatigue; the teams were all in motion, making their tour, some three, some four times ; beneath, in the town, reposed the British general without special watchfulness or fear ; the crowd of ships in the harbor kept their watches unsuspicious of peril ; the inhabitants of Boston, emaciated, pining, and as yet httle cheered by hope, trembled lest their own houses should be struck; the people that were left in the villages around, chiefly women and children, driven from their beds by the rattling of their windows, could watch from the hill-tops the flight of every shell, and anxiously waited for daybreak. At about three in the morning the first working party was reheved. The toU was continued with fresh energy, so that strong redoubts, secure against grape-shot and musket ry, crowned each of the two hills ; an abattis, constructed of trees feUed in the neighboring orchards, protected the foot of the ridge ; the top was surrounded by barrels fiUed with earth and stones, which, as the hillsides were steep and bare of trees and bushes, were, in case of an attack, to be roUed down against the assailing columns. At dawn on the fifth the batteries on both sides ceased to play, and a fearful quiet pre vailed. Howe, as he saw the new intrenchments loom in im posing strength, reported that " they must have been the em ployment of at least twelve thousand men." Some of his offi cers said : " Perhaps there never was so much work done in so short a space of time," and that their rising as at a word re called to them the stories in eastern romances of the invisible agency of fairy hands. "H they retain possession of the heights," said Admiral Shuldham, " I cannot keep a ship in the harbor." A council of war saw no choice but to dislodge the New England farmers. Had the British made a sally against the party at Dorchester, the Americans had floating batteries and boats ready to carry four thousand men into Bos ton. Howe put twenty-four hundred men under the command of Lord Percy to make the attack. When they were seen to 328 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xx. embark, the Americans on the heights, expecting an immediate conflict, kindled with joy. Washington said : " Remember, it is the fifth of March, a day never to be forgotten ; avenge the death of your brethren." But Percy took his transports no farther than the castle ; in the afternoon a gale came up from the south, and about midnight drove two or three vessels on shore; rain fell in torrents on the morning of the sixth; a movement against the American lines must have ended in the ruin of the British army. A second council of war advised the instant evacuation of Boston. There was no time even to propose a capitulation for the safety of the refugees, and the best that could be offered them was a passage in crowded transports from the cherished land of their nativity to the naked shores of Nova Scotia. The British confessed before the world their inability to protect their friends, who had risked everything in their cause. What trust could now be reposed in their promises ? On the eighth, Howe, through the selectmen of Boston, wished to come to an understanding with Washington that the town should be spared, provided he might leave it without molestation. The unauthenticated proposal could meet with no reply from the American commander-in-chief ; but, from want of ammunition, he was obliged to use his artillery sparingly, while Howe was hastening his embarkation. A chosen British army, sent at the expense of more than a milhon pounds ster ling to correct revolted subjects and assert the authority of the British parhament, after being imprisoned for many months in' the town they were to have crushed, found no safety but in flight. In these hours the ministry had heard of the safety of Quebec, and would not hearken to a doubt of speedily crush ing the rebelhon. On the morning of the fourteenth of March, the British secretary of state hstened to Thayendanegea, other wise named Joseph Brant, a Mohawk, of the Wolf tribe, the chosen chief of the confederacy of the Six Nations, who spoke thus : " Brother, we hope to see these bad children, the New England people, chastised. The Indians have always been ready to assist the king." And Germain rephed : " Continue to manifest attachment to the king, and be sure of his favor." 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 329 "Unconditional submission" was the watchword; and when on the evening of the same day the duke of Grafton attempted once more, in the house of lords, to plead for concihation, Dartmouth approved sending over " a sufficient force to awe the colonies into submission ; " Hillsborough would " listen to no accommodation short of the acknowledgment of the right of taxation and the submission of Massachusetts to the law for altering its charter;" and Mansfield, ridiculing the idea of suspending hostilities, laughed moderate counsels away. In the laying waste which was a part of the plan, New England was to be spared the least. The second night after this display in the British parlia ment to restrain the ministry had been defeated, Washington gained possession of Nook HiU, and with it the power of open ing the highway from Roxbury to Boston. At the appearance of this work, the British army and more than eleven hundred refugees began their embarkation at four in the morning, and in less than six hours were put on board one hundred and twenty transports ; before ten they were under way, and the citizens of Boston, from every height and every wharf, could see the fleet saU out of the harbor in a line extending from the castle to Nantasket road. The lives of Thacher and Mayhew and Dana and Moli- neux and Quincy and Gardner, of Warren and the martyrs of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker HiU, had not been in vain. The flight had been so precipitate that the British general was obliged to remain several days in Nantasket road, to adjust the ships for the voyage. He was still within sight of the spires of Boston, when a ship-of-war from England hailed him, and dehvered him despatches applauding the reasons which he had given for not leaving Boston, and deprecating its evacuation. Troops from Roxbury moved into Boston; others from Cambridge crossed in boats. Everywhere appeared marks of hurry in the flight of the British ; among other stores, they left behind them two hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, of which one half were serviceable; twenty-five hundred chal drons of sea-coal ; twenty-five thousand bushels of wheat ; three thousand bushels of barley and oats ; one hundred and fifty horses ; bedding and clothing for soldiers. British store-ships, 330 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xx. ignorant of the retreat, successively entered the harbor with out suspicion, and fell into the hands of the Americans ; among them a ship which, in addition to carbines, bayonets, gun-car riages, and aU sorts of tools necessary for artillery, had on board more than seven times as much powder as Washington's whole stock when his last movement was begun. On the next day Washington ordered five of his best regi ments to march under Heath to New York. On the twenti eth the main body of the army made its entry into Boston. Except one meeting-house and a few wooden buUdings which had been used for fuel, the houses were left in a good condi tion. When, two days later, the restrictions on intercourse with the town were removed and the exiles and their friends streamed in, aU hearts were touched at "witnessing the tender interviews and fond embraces of those who had been long sepa rated." For Washington, crowded welcomes and words of gratitude hung on the faltering tongues of the hberated inhabi tants ; the selectmen of Boston addressed him in their name : " Next to the Divine Power, we ascribe to your wisdom that this acquisition has been made with so httle effusion of human blood ; " and in reply he paid a just tribute to their fortitude. When the quiet of a week had revived ancient usages, Washington attended the Thursday lecture, .which had been kept up from the days of Winthrop and Wilson, and all re joiced with exceeding joy at seeing this New England Zion once more a quiet habitation ; they called it " a tabernacle of which not one of the stakes should ever be removed, nor one of the cords be broken." The Puritan ancestry of Massachu setts seemed holding out their hands to bless the deliverer of their children. On the twenty-ninth the two branches of the legislature addressed him jointly, dwelling on the respect he had ever shown to their civil constitution, as weU as on his regard for the hves and health of all under his command. " Go on," said they, " still go on, approved by heaven, revered by all good men, and dreaded by tyrants ; may future generations, in the peaceful enjoyment of that freedom which your sword shall have established, raise the most lasting monuments to the name of Washington." And in his answer he renewed his pledges 1776. ADVANCING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE. 331 of " a regard to every provincial institution." When the con tinental congress, on the motion of John Adams, voted him thanks and a commemorative medal of gold, he modestly trans ferred their praises to the men of his command, saying : " They were, indeed, at first a band of undisciplined husbandmen ; but it is, under God, to their bravery and attention to duty that I am indebted for that success which has procured me the only reward I wish to receive, the affection and esteem of my coun trymen." And never was so great a result obtained at so smaU a cost of human hfe. The putting the British army to flight was the first decisive victory of the industrious nnddling class over the most powerful representative of the mediseval aristocracy, and the whole number of New England men killed in the siege of Boston after Washington took the command was less than twenty; the liberation of New England cost less than two hundred hves in battle, and the triumphant general as he looked around enjoyed the serenest dehght, for he saw no mourners among those who greeted his entry. The men who so thoroughly represented the people of the civilized world had shown patience as weU as fortitude. How long they waited, and, when the right moment came, how bravely they rose ! How magnanimously they responded to the inward voice which bade them claim freedom as a birth right, and dread an acquiescence in its loss as a violation of the peace of the soul ! For New England the dependence on England was at an end. The next general assembly that met in Rhode Island, on the fourth day of May discharged the inhabitants of that colo ny from aUegiance to the king of Great Britain by the unani mous vote of the upper house, and in the house of deputies, where sixty were present, with but six dissentient voices. 332 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxi. CHAPTER XXL acts oe independence. February-April 1776. On the ninth day of February John Adams had resumed his seat in congress, with Elbridge Gerry for a coUeague, and with instructions from his constituents to estabhsh liberty in Amer ica upon a permanent basis. He was in the happiest mood of mind, for the independence of his country seemed to him so bound up with the welfare of mankind that Providence could not suffer its defeat. Looking into himself, he saw weaknesses enough, but neither meanness nor dishonesty nor timidity. Overweening seK- esteem was his chief blemish. Having more learning than Washington, better knowledge of freedom as grounded in law than Samuel Adams, clearer insight into the constructive ele ments of government than Franklin, more readiness in de bate than Jefferson, he could easily fancy himseK the greatest of them aU. He was capable of thinking himseK the centre of any circle to which he had been no more than a tangent ; and in age vanity sometimes bewildered bis memory ; but it did not impair the integrity of his conduct. He was humane and frank, generous and clement; if he could never sit placidly under the shade of a greater reputation than his own, his envy had hardly a tinge of mahgnity. He went to his task, sturdy and cheery and brave ; he was the hammer and not the anvil, and it was for others to shrink from his blows. His courage was unflinching in debate, and everywhere else ; he never knew what fear was. To his latest old age he saw ten times as much pleasure as pain in the world, and was ready to begin IKe anew and fight its battle over again. 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 333 In his youth he fell among skeptics, read BoUngbroke's works five times through, and esteemed himseK a profound metaphysician, but he had only skimmed the speculations of others ; though at first destined to be a minister, he became a rebel to Calvinism, and never had any fixed rehgious creed. For aU that, he was a stanch man of New England, and his fond partiality to its people, its institutions, its social condi tion, and its laws, foUowed him into congress and its commit tees, tinctured his judgment, and clinched his prepossessions ; but the elements in New England that he loved most were those which were eminently friendly to universal culture and repubhcan equality. Son of a small freeholder, bent on mak ing his way in the world, at twenty years old beginning to earn his own bread, pinched and starved as master of a " stingy " country school, he formed early habits of order and frugahty, and steadily advanced to fortune ; but there was nothing nig gardly in his thrift, and his modest hospitality was prompt and hearty. He loved homage, and to those who flattered him he gave his confidence freely, and often unwisely ; and, while he watched the general movement of affairs with comprehensive sagacity, he was never a calm observer of individual men. Of the choleric temperament and of a large and compact frame, he was singularly sensitive ; could break out into uncontrollable rage, and never learned to rule his own spirit ; but his anger did not so much drive him to do wrong as to do right ungra ciously. No man was less fitted to gain his end by arts of in direction ; he knew not how to intrigue, was indiscreetly talka tive, and almost thought aloud ; his ways of courting support were uncouth, so that he made few friends except by his weight of character and integrity ; and he was unapt as the leader of a party. Hating intolerance in aU its forms, loving civU hberty as the glory of man and the best evidence and the best result of civilization, he, of aU in congress, was incomparable as a dog matist ; essentially right-minded ; loving to teach with authori ty; pressing onward unsparingly with his argument; impa tient of contradiction ; unequalled as a positive champion of the right ; compelled to utter his convictions fearlessly by an inborn energy which forbade his acting otherwise. He was 334 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxi. now too much in earnest and too much engaged by the great ness of his work, to think of himseK ; too anxiously desiring aid to disparage those who gave it. In the fervor of his ac tivity, his faults disappeared. His inteUect and pubhc spirit, aU the noblest parts of his nature, were called into the fuUest exercise. Combining, more than any other, far-sightedness and fixedness of behef with courage and power of utterance, he was looked up to as the ablest debater in congress. He was redun dant in words and cumulative in argument ; but his warmth and sincerity kept hhn from the affectations of a pedant or a rhetorician. Forbearance was no longer in season; the irre pressible talent of persevering, peremptory assertion was want ed ; the more he was hurried along by his own vehement wUl, the better ; now his country, humanity, the age, the hour, de manded that the right should be spoken out. His sagacity rose with the approach of danger, and he dared to inquire after the system of permanent government best suited to the colonies. He looked for the essential elements of government behind its forms. He studied the principles of the British constitution not merely in the history of England, but as purified and re produced in the governments of New England, and as analyzed and reflected in the writings of Montesquieu. " A legislative, an executive, and a judicial power comprehended the whole of what he meant and understood by government ; " and, as the only secret to be discovered was how to derive these powers directly from the people, he persuaded himseK, and was fast persuading others, that, by the aid of a convention, " a single month was sufficient, -without the least convulsion or even ani mosity, to accomplish a total revolution in the government of a colony." His warmth and positiveness had not the air of passion, but appeared, as it was, the clear perception of his task. When, in the life of a statesman, were six months of more importance to the race than these six months in the career of John Adams ? On resuming his seat, he found a less able delegation from South Carolina. In zeal and decision Chase of Maryland kept always ahead of his friends. That province had wished to pre serve its proprietary system, but only so far as was consistent with the unwavering resolution to resist to the last the usurpa- 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 335 tions of parhament. The members of congress hstened with impatience to Wilson when, on the thirteenth of February, from his committee appointed the day after the pubhcation of "Common Sense," he presented a long draft of an address to their constituents, in which they were made to disclaim the idea of renouncing their aUegiance ; and its author, perceiving that the majority relished neither its style nor its counsel, al lowed it to subside without a vote. On the sixteenth the great measure of enfranchising American commerce was seriously considered. "Open your ports," said a member ; " your trade wiU then become of so much consequence that foreigners will protect you." " In war," argued Wilson, " trade should be carried on with greater vigor than ever, after the manner of the United Provinces in their struggle against Spain. The merchants themselves must judge of the risks. Our vessels and our seamen are all abroad, and, unless we open our ports, wiU not return." Sherman wished first to secure a protective treaty with a foreign power. Harrison said more exphcitly : " We have hobbled on under a fatal attachment to Great Britain ; I felt that attachment as much as any man, but I feel a stronger one to my country." George Wythe took the lead. A learned and able lawyer, he cultivated poetry and letters ; not rich, he was above want ; in his habits he was as abstemious as an ascetic ; his manners had the mirthfulness of innocence. Genial and loving, he blended gentleness with unswerving obedience to the law of duty. From 1774 his views coincided with those of Jefferson ; and Ms artless simplicity of character, his legal erudition and acuteness, added persuasion to his words : " It is too true our ships may be taken ; but we may authorize vessels to arm, and we may give letters of marque and reprisal. We may invite foreign powers to make treaties of commerce with us ; but, before this measure is adopted, it is to be considered in what character we shall treat. As subjects of Great Britain? as rebels ? No : we must declare ourselves a free people." With this explanation he moved : " That the colonies have a right to contract alliances with foreign powers." "This is inde pendence," said an objector. The question whether the reso lution should be considered was adopted by seven colonies 336 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxi. against five ; but the debate on opening the ports was prolonged through seven weeks of hesitation. On the day of this discussion the assembly of Pennsyl vania formed a quorum. It still required of its members the profession of allegiance to King George; Frankhn had therefore never taken his seat and now resigned it. Washington's advice to enlist soldiers for the war, and the solemnity with which it was enforced, arrested attention. Samuel Adams proposed to take up the question of length ening the period of enlistments. But opposition to a stand ing army had long been the watchword of hberty ; the New England colonies had from their beginning been defended by their own militia ; in the last French war, troops had been caUed out only for the season. " Enlistment for a long pe riod," said Sherman, " is a state of slavery ; a rotation of ser vice in arms is favorable to liberty." " I am in favor of the proposition to raise men for the war," said John Adams ; " but not to depend upon it, as men must be averse to it, and the war may last ten years." England was sending over, veteran armies ; and they were to be met by soldiers engaged only for a year. The debate branched off into a discussion on the pay of officers, respecting which the frugal statesmen of the North differed from those of the South ; John Adams thought the democratic tendency of New England less dangerous than the aristocratic tendency elsewhere. Danger hung visibly over every part of the country; on the twenty-seventh the five middle colonies from New York to Maryland were constituted one mihtary department ; the four south of the Potomac, an other ; and, on the first of March, six new generals of brigade were appointed. In the selection for Virginia there was diffi culty ; the prevaihng opinion recalled Patrick Henry to civU hfe ; in the judgment of Washington, " Mercer would have supplied the place weU;" but the choice fell upon Andrew Lewis, who stiU suffered from " the odium thrown upon his conduct at Kanawha," where he had hngered in his camp, while the officers and men whom he sent forth, with fearless gaUantry and a terrible loss of hfe, shed lustre over Virginia. In less than a year congress forced Lewis to resign, by pro moting an inferior officer over his head. 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 337 To meet the expenses of the war, four millions of dollars in bills were ordered to be struck ; which, with six millions already issued, would form a paper currency of ten milhons. A few days later a committee of seven, including Duane and Robert Morris, was appointed on the ways and means of raising other supphes for the year ; but they never so much as made a report. A hke committee was appointed, continued, and en larged ; and their labors were equaUy fruitless. Congress had neither credit to borrow nor power to tax. Congress was about to send commissioners to Canada, and their instructions, reported by John Adams, Wythe, and Sher man, contained this clause : " You are to declare that it is our inclination that the people of Canada may set up such a form of government as wiU be most likely in their judgment to produce their happiness." This invitation to the Canadians to form a government without any hmitation of time was, for three or four hours, resisted by Jay and others, on the ground that it " was an independency ; " but the words were adopted. Early in the month congress received the act of parhament prohibiting aU trade with the thirteen colonies, and confiscating their ships and effects as K they were the ships and effects of open enemies. The first instinct was to retaliate ; and on the eighteenth, after an able debate, privateers were authorized to cruise against ships and their cargoes, belonging to any inhabi tant of Great Britain, though not of Ireland or the West In dies, by the vote of aU New England, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina, against Pennsylvania and Maryland. On the nineteenth, Wythe, with Jay and Wilson, was ap pointed to prepare a preamble to the resolutions. Wythe found himseK in a minority in the committee ; and when, on the twenty-second, he presented their report, he moved an amendment, charging the king himseK with their grievances, inasmuch as he had " rejected their petitions with scorn and contempt." This was new ground ; hitherto congress had disclaimed the authority of parhament, not allegiance to the crown. Jay, Wilson, and Johnson opposed the amendment, as severing the king from the thirteen colonies forever; it was supported by Richard Henry Lee, who seconded it, by Chase, Sergeant of New Jersey, and Harrison. At the end VOL. IT. — 22 338 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxi. of four hours Maryland interposed and put off the decision for a day ; but on the twenty-third the language of Wythe was accepted. " From their form of government and steady attachment heretofore to royalty," wrote Washington at this time of the Virginians, " my countrymen wiU come reluctantly into the idea of independency; but time and persecution bring wonder ful things to pass." The question of opening the ports, after having been for months the chief subject of dehberation, was discussed through all the next fortnight. One kind of traffic which the European maritime powers still encouraged was ab solutely forbidden, not from pohtical reasons merely, but from a conviction of its unrighteousness and cruelty ; and, without any hmitation as to time or any reservation of a veto to the respective colonies, it was resolved " that no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen united colonies." The prohibition made, moreover, a revolution in the state of the black men already in America ; from a body of laborers, perpetually re cruited from barbarous African tribes, they were transformed into an insulated class, hving in a state of domesticity, and receiving culture and employment from a superior race. It was then hoped, especiaUy in Virginia, that the total prohibi tion of the slave-trade would, at no very distant day, be fol lowed by universal emancipation. The first who is known to have suggested that negroes might be emancipated, and a " public provision be made to transport them to Africa, where they might probably hve bet ter than in any other country," was Samuel Hopkins of New port, Rhode Island, a theologian, who taught that, " through divine interposition, sin is an advantage to the universe ; " a firm believer in the coming of the miUennium ; a theorist who held virtue to require not merely disinterested love, but a love that is willing to make a sacrifice of seK. Writing in a town which had grown rich by the slave-trade, he addressed a me morial to the members of the body representing the United States, " entreating them to be the happy instruments of pro curing and establishing universal liberty to white and black, to be transmitted down to the latest posterity." His argu ment obtained no notice from the continental congress. 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 339 The slave-trade having been denied to be a legitimate traf fic and having been branded as a crime against humanity, on the sixth of April the thirteen colonies threw open their com merce to aU the world, "not subject to the king of Great Britain." The colonial system was swept away from them for ever, and the flag of every nation invited to their harbors. On the twenty-eighth of February the committee of corre spondence of PhUadelphia, against the wish of Joseph Reed their chairman, wisely resolved to caU a convention of the people. The proprietary interest by the instinct of seK-preser- vation repelled the thought of independence, complained that to save the charter of Massachusetts they were called upon to sacrifice their own, and persuaded the committee of correspond ence to suspend its call. Dickinson urged upon every individ ual and every body of men over whom he had any influence the necessity of making terms of accommodation with Great Britain. Inglis, for a time rector of the New York Trinity church and afterward bishop of Nova Scotia, extoUed him as the Ulustrious -defender of the constitution against the siren form of independence. Robert Morris, an Englishman by birth and in part by education, a merchant of vast designs, speculative, and inde fatigable in pursuit of gain, had " no doubt that with union the colonies could at their pleasure choose between a reconcili ation and total independence ; " but, if the hberties of Amer ica could not otherwise be secured, he was ready to renounce the connection with Great Britain and fight his way ..through. To moderate opposition, the assembly, acting with the pro prietary governor, increased the popular representation by seventeen new members, of whom four were allowed to Phila delphia ; consented to raise three battahons ; extended condi tionally the period of enlistment to the end of 1777 by the casting vote of its speaker ; and ordered eighty-five thousand pounds to be strack in bills of credit. Then, on the sixth of April, after a long debate, the delegates for the province in congress were once more enjoined to dissent from and utterly reject any proposition that might lead to a separation from the mother country or a change of the proprietary gov ernment. 340 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxi. This was the result which Dickinson desired ; but Robert Morris asked, uneasily: "If these commissioners are to come, what detains them ? It is time we should be on a certainty." Duane of New York, who, like Robert Morris, was pre pared for extreme measures if the British proposition should prove oppressive or frivolous, " waited for the expected propo sitions with painful anxiety." This waiting for commissioners Samuel Adams treated with scorn. Early in April his words were : " Is not America al ready independent ? Why not, then, declare it ? Because, say some, it will forever shut the door of reconcihation. But Britain will not be reconciled, except upon our abjectly sub mitting to tyranny, and asking and receiving pardon for re sisting it. Has the king of Great Britain ever yet discovered the least degree of that princely virtue, clemency ? It is my opinion that his heart is more obdurate, and his disposition toward the people of America more unrelenting and malig nant, than was that of Pharaoh toward the Israelites in Egypt. No foreign power can consistently yield comfort to rebels, or enter into any kind of treaty with these colonies, tiU they de clare themselves independent." On the twenty-eighth of the same month John Adams wrote to his wife : " We are hastening rapidly to great events. Governments will be up everywhere before midsummer, and an end to royal style, titles, and authority. May God in his providence overrule the mighty revolution for the good of mankind." Yet Dickinson and others, among whom were WiUiam Livingston of New Jersey and the elder Laurens of South Carolina, wished to wait for an alhance with the king of France. The mariners of Marblehead reasoned better, learning the lesson of duty from the impulse of patriotism and the neces sity of action. On the seventeenth of May, James Mugf ord, a Marblehead sea-captain, in a continental cruiser of but fifty tons and four guns, captured and brought into Boston harbor the British ship Hope, which had on board fifteen hundred barrels of powder. This cargo made her the most valuable prize that had been taken. When, two days later, he prepared to go out again, he was attacked at Nantasket by thirteen boats 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 341 from a British man-of-war. His assailants suffered great loss and were beaten off, while no one of the Americans was hurt except Mugford, who fought heroically, and was mortaUy wounded. The seeming attempt of the ministry at concihation, which had for its chief object the pacification of English opinion, was suffered to drag along tiU the news that Howe had been driven from Boston precipitated their counsels. The letters-patent for the commissioners, which were issued on the sixth of May, conferred power on Lord Howe and Gen eral Howe, the commanders-in-chief of the naval and land forces in America, jointly and severally, to grant pardons to such as should give early proofs of their sincere abhorrence of their defection from loyalty, and should sue for mercy. The two points in controversy were the right of parhament to tax the colonies and its right to change their charters. Lord North used to say pubhcly that the right of taxation was abandoned ; Germain always asserted that it was not. North was wilhng to restore the charter of Massachusetts ; the king wished rather to renounce America. The instructions to the commissioners were founded upon the resolution of the twentieth of Febru ary 1775, which the colonies had declared to be insufficient. The parliamentary change in the charter of Massachusetts was to be enforced ; and secret instructions required that Con necticut and Rhode Island should be compeUed, if possible, to accept analogous changes. It was said by the authority of Lord Howe that he would not go to America unless he had powers to treat on terms of concihation ; and he required and obtained permission to act alone ; but, if his sincerity is left unimpeached, it is at the expense of his reputation for discern ment ; for the commission for restoring peace was a delusion. The ministers had provided forces sufficient, as they firmly believed, to beat down the insurrection. Edmund Burke did not beheve that the colonies, left to themselves, could offer any effective resistance to the whole power of England and its allies. The friends of hberty in England had never been so de sponding. The budget for the year included an additional duty on newspapers, which Lord North regarded as " a species 342 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxi. of luxury that ought to be taxed." Debate in the house of commons brought no result ; Fox, who began to give evidence of a genial sagacity that saw beyond parliamentary strife the reahty of general principles, vainly straggled to keep up the courage of his pohtical friends. A most ably written pam phlet by Richard Price, on " Liberty," which he defined to be a government of laws made by common consent, won for its author the freedom of the city of London, and was widely circulated through the kingdom and the continent of Europe, especially Germany. His masterly plea for America was un availing; but his tract gained pecuhar importance from his applying to the representation of his own country the princi ple on which America justified her resistance. "The time may come," said he, " when a general election in Britain will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs." Carrying the war into the heart of English politics and society, he raised the cry for the reform in parhament which was never to be hushed, and transferred English opinion to the side of Ameri ca for the sake of that hberty which was of aU things dearest to the English nation. But what hope was there of reform in England? Its ruling classes prepared reform by forcing independence on America. The day on which George III. sealed the instructions to his commissioners congress decided to adopt no measures for receiving them until they should themselves make apphcation to be received, and voted to raise ten miUions of dollars for carrying on the war during the current year. They then took into consideration the proposition of John Adams, that " each one of the united colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs had as yet been estabhshed, should adopt such government as would, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular and of America in general." This measure he had advised twelve months before, and the timid had kept it back in order still to petition and negotiate ; it was now resisted through two successive days, but on the tenth of May triumphed over aU procrasti- nators. John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Richard Henry 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 343 Lee were then appointed to prepare a preamble to the resolu tion. Lee and Adams, Massachusetts and Virginia, were of one mind ; and on the f oUowing Monday they made their report. Recalling the act of parliament which excluded the Americans from the protection of the crown, the king's neglect to return any answer whatever to their petition, the employ ment of " the whole force of the kingdom, aided by foreign mercenaries, for the destruction of the good people of these colonies," they declared that it was " absolutely irreconcilable with reason and good conscience for the people of these colo nies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain, and that it was necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted under the authority of the people of the colonies." These words, which bore the impress of John Adams, im plied the sovereignty of one continental people, a complete independence of the British parhament, crown, and nation. It was a blow dealt by the general congress against the pro prietary government of Pennsylvania. Duane sounded the alarm; before changing the government of the colonies, he wished to wait for the opinions of the inhabitants, who were to be foUowed and not driven on. He showed that the powers conferred on him by New York did not justify him in voting for the measure without a breach of trust ; and yet, if the aver ments of the preamble should be confirmed, he pledged New York to independence. Sherman argued that the adoption of the resolution was the best way to procure the harmony with Great Britain which New York desired. Mackean, who repre sented Delaware, thought the step must be taken, or liberty, property and IKe be lost. " The first object of New York," said Samuel Adams, "is the estabhshment of their rights. Our pe titions are answered only by fleets and armies and myrmidons from abroad. The king has thrown us out of his protection ; why should we support governments under his authority ? " Floyd of New York was persuaded "that there were httle or no hopes of commissioners coming to treat of peace ; that therefore America ought to be in a situation to preserve her 344 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; ch. xxi. liberties another way." "This preamble contains a reflec tion upon the conduct of some people in America," inter posed Wilson, referring to the assembly of Pennsylvania, which so late as February had required of Reed and Ritten house oaths of allegiance to the king. "H the preamble passes," he continued, "there will be an immediate dissolu tion of every kind of authority in this province ; the people will be instantly in a state of nature. Before we are prepared to build the new house, why should we pull down the old one?" The delegates of Pennsylvania declined to vote on the question ; those of Maryland announced that, under their instructions, they should consider their colony as unrepre sented, until they should receive the directions of their prin cipals, who were then sitting at Annapohs. Overruling the hesitation of the moderate men, the majori ty adopted the preamble, and ordered it to be published. The colonies never existed separately as independent states or peoples. As they rose, they united. The unity symbolized by the crown passed to the good people of the colonies, who collectively spoke the word for totally suppressing aU authority under the king, giving the law to Pennsylvania by proscrib ing its proprietary government, and investing all the several colonies with authority to institute governments of their own. The measure proved " a piece of mechanism to work out inde pendence." " The Gordian knot is cut," said John Adams as he meditated in sohtude upon the lead which he had assumed in summoning so many populous and opulent colonies to rise from the state of subjection into that of independent repub lics. Many of those who were to take part in framing consti tutions for future mUlions turned to him for instruction. He recalled the first principles of pohtical morals, the lessons incul cated by American experience, and the example of England. Familiar with the wise and eloquent writings of those of her sons who had treated of liberty, and combining with them the results of his own reflections, he did not shrink from offering his advice. - He declared the only moral foundation of govern ment to be the consent of the people ; yet he counseUed re spect for existing rules, and, to avoid opening a fruitful source of controversy, he refused to promote for the present any 1776. ACTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 345 alteration, at least in Massachusetts, in the qualifications of voters. " There is no good government," he said, " but what is repubhcan ; for a repubhc is an empire of laws, and not of men ; " and, to constitute the best of republics, he enforced the necessity of separating the executive, legislative, and judicial powers. The iU use which the royal governors had made of the veto power did not confuse his judgment ; he upheld the principle that the chief executive magistrate ought to be in vested with a negative upon the legislature. To judges he wished to assign commissions during good behavior, and to establish their salaries by law, but to make them hable to im peachment and removal by the grand inquest of the colony. The republics of the ancient world had grown out of cities, so that their governments were originaUy municipalities ; to make a repubhc possible in the large territories embraced in the several American colonies, where the whole society could never be assembled, power was to be deputed by the many to a few, who were to be elected by suffrage, and were in theory to be a faithful miniature portrait of the people. Nor yet should aU power be intrusted to one representative assembly. John Adams taught, what an analysis of the human mind and the examples of history through thousands of years unite to confirm, that a single assembly is hable to the frailties of a sin gle individual, to passionate caprices, and to a selfish eagerness for the increase of its own importance. "If the legislative power," such were his words just as the American constitu tions were forming, " if the legislative power is whoUy in one assembly, and the executive in another or in a single person, these two powers will oppose and encroach upon each other, until the contest shaU end in war, and the whole power, legis lative and executive, be usurped by the strongest." These are words to be inscribed on the memory and heart of every nation that would constitute a repubhc ; yet at that time there was not one member of the continental congress who apphed the principle to the continental congress itseK. Hawley of Northampton had advised an American parlia ment with two houses of legislature ; but John Adams as yet saw no occasion for any continental constitution except a con gress, which should contain a fair representation of the colo- 346 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxi. nies, and confine its authority sacredly to war, trade, disputes between colony and colony, the post-office, and the unappropri ated pubhc lands. In the separate colonies, he urged that aU the youth should be hberally educated, and all men be required to keep arms and to be trained to their use. A country having a constitu tion founded on these principles, diffusing knowledge among the people, and inspiring them with the conscious dignity be coming free men, would, " when compared with the regions of monarchical or aristocratical domination, seem an Arcadia or an Elysium." 1775. BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 347 CHAPTER XXLL BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 1775-1776. Could the king have employed none but British troops, the war by land against the colonies must have been of short duration. Sir Joseph Yorke, the British ambassador at the Hague, proposed the transfer of a brigade from the service of the Netherlands to* that of his sovereign. The young stad- holder made reply directly to his cousin, the king of England, declining the request. King George renewed his solicitation. In 1599, the Low Countries pledged to Queen Ehzabeth as security for a loan three important fortresses, which she gar risoned with her own troops ; in 1616 the Dutch discharged the debt, and the garrisons were withdrawn from the caution ary towns, except an English and a Scottish brigade which passed into the service of the United Provinces. WUham III. recalled the English brigade, and in 1749 the privUege of re cruiting in Scotland was withdrawn from the other, so that its rank and file, consisting of more than twenty-one hundred men, were of all nations, though its officers were stiU Scotch men by birth or descent. In favor of the loan of these troops, it was urged that the officers already owed allegiance to the British king; that common interests connected the two countries ; that the present occasion offered to the prince of Orange "the unique advantage and particular honor" of strengthening the bonds of close friendship which had been "more or less enfeebled" by the neutrahty of the United Provinces during the last French war. In the 6tates general Zealand and Utrecht consented ; the 348 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxh. province of Holland objected that a commercial state should never but from necessity become involved in any quarrel. Baron van der Capellen tot den Pol, one of the nobles of Overyssel, reasoned in this wise : Furnishing the troops would be a departure from the true pohcy of the strictest neutrality ; the country has fruitlessly sacrificed her prosperity to advance the greatness of England ; she has shed rivers of blood under pretence of establishing a balance of power, and has only strengthened an empire which is now assuming a more dread ful monarchy over the seas than ever had been known ; she wiU find herseK, as formerly, engaged in a baleful war With France, her most powerful neighbor and her natural aUy in the defence of the hberty of commerce ; a rupture between Britain and France wiU bring advantage to the navigation of the repubhc K she would but maintain her neutrahty ; in the war of succession which gave to Britain the key to the Medi terranean, she had nothing for her share but the total waste of her forces and her treasure ; she has religiously observed her treaties, and yet England denies her the stipulated safety of merchandise in free bottoms, and searches and arbitrarily confiscates her ships. Besides, janizaries rather than the troops of a free state should be hired to subdue the colonists. Why should a nation of men, who have borne the title of rebels and freed themselves from oppression by their swords, employ their troops in crushing the Americans, who yet are worthy of the esteem of the whole world as defending with moderation and with intrepidity the rights which God and not the British legislature has given them as men ! These ideas, once set in motion, were sure to win the day ; but the states of Overyssel suppressed aU expUcit declarations against England ; and the states general disguised their refusal under the form of a consent to lend the brigade, on the condi tion that it never should be used out of Europe. During the tardy course of the discussion Britain had ob tained supplies of men from Germany. The electors and landgraves and reigning dukes of that empire were so ac customed to hire out their troops for their personal profit, that German troops had been engaged in every great con test which raged from Poland to Lisbon, from the North 1775. BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 349 Sea to Naples, and were sometimes arrayed in the same battle on opposite sides. So soon as it became known that the king of England de sired recruits from Germany, crowds of adventurers volun teered their aid. He had scruples about accepting their offers, saying : " The giving commissions to German officers to get men, in plain Enghsh, amounts to making me a kidnapper, which I cannot think a very honorable occupation ; " but he continued a contract with a Hanoverian lieutenant-colonel for raising four thousand recruits in Germany, granting for the purpose the use of his electoral dominions and the "indis pensably necessary assistance and support of his field mar shal" A larger bounty, higher wages, and the undefined prospect of spoils in the " El Dorado " of America, attracted vagabond veterans to the British standard. The German diet had for bidden enlistments by foreign powers in any part of Germany ; the court of Vienna wrote to the free cities and several of the states of the empire, that " Great Britain had no more connec tion with the empire than Russia or Spain, neither of which powers was permitted to recruit within its limits," and ordered its ministers to obstruct the recruiting officers in the British service ; yet the king's contractor was very soon ready with an instalment of a hundred and fifty men, and promised rapid success when the enterprise should get a little better into train. The prince bishop of Liege and the elector of Cologne con sented to shut their eyes to the presence of Enghsh agents, who had recruiting stations in Neuwied and at Frankfort. The undertaking was prohibited by the law of nations and of the empire; the British ministers therefore instructed their diplomatic representative at the small courts to give all pos sible aid to the execution of the service, but not to implicate their government. In this way foreign levies were obtained to fill up British regiments. The British ministry openly sought to engage subsidiary troops in Germany. The elector of Saxony put aside the thought at its first suggestion, saying that " to send part of his army into the remote countries of the New World affected too nearly his paternal tenderness for his subjects, 350 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxh. and seemed too much in contrast with the rules of a healthy pohcy." * It was hoped that the duke of Brunswick could supply at least three thousand, and the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel five thousand ; in November 1775, Suffolk repeated to Colonel Faucitt, his agent, the instructions before given to the British minister in Russia : " Your point is to get as many men as you can ; it wiU be much to your credit to procure the most moderate terms, though expense is not so much the object in the present emergency as in ordinary cases. Great activity is necessary, as the king is extremely anxious." " I shall regard it as a favor," wrote the prince of Waldeck, " if the king will accept a regiment of six hundred men, com posed of officers and soldiers, who, hke their prince, wiU cer tainly demand nothing better than to find an opportunity of sacrificing themselves for his majesty." The offer was eagerly closed with. Charles, the reigning duke of Brunswick, was at that time about sixty-three. During the forty years of his rule the spendthrift had squandered a loan of twelve millions of thalers, beside miUions of his revenue, on his Italian opera, his corps of French dancers, his theatre, journeys, mistresses, and gam ing, his experiments in alchemy, but most of all on his httle army. Within three years a new prime minister had improved his finances, and Prince Ferdinand, the heir apparent, had been admitted as co-regent. In 1764 Ferdinand had married Augusta, a sister of George III., receiving with her a dowry of eighty thousand pounds, beside an annuity of eight thousand more, chargeable on the revenues of Ireland and Hanover. His governor had been indulgent to the vices of his youth. He adopted the skepticism of his century, with which he mixed up enough of philanthropic sentiment to pass for a liberal and humane free thinker. Stately in his appearance, a student of attitudes before the glass, he was profuse of bows and affectedly polite. His eyes were of a most beautiful blue, and their ex pression friendly and winning. He himself and those about him professed the strongest sense of the omnipotence of legiti- * Count Sacken, the Saxon minister, to Count Moritz von Briihl, Saxon envoy at London, 22 October 1775. From the archives of Saxony. MS. 1775. BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 351 mate princes ; he loved to rule, and required obedience. He had courage, and just too much ability to be called insignificant ; it was his pride to do his day's work properly ; and he intro duced economy into the public administration. Indifferent to bis Enghsh wife, abandoned to sensual pleasure, yet indefatiga ble in labor, neither prodigal, nor despotic, nor ambitious, his great defect was that he had no heart, so that he was not capa ble of gratitude or love, nor true to his word, nor fixed in his principles, nor skilled in discriminating mihtary worth. He was a good secondary officer, exact in the mechanism of a regi ment, but unfit to plan a campaign or lead an army. Faucitt, on the evening of his arrival, sought a conference with the hereditary prince to whom he bore a special letter from his king. Ferdinand unreservedly approved the British proposal, and promised his interposition with his father in its favor. The reigning duke, in the distressed state of his finances, gave his concurrence with aU imaginable f acUity. It remained for Faucitt to chaffer with Feronce, the Bruns wick minister, on the price of the troops, to the number of four thousand infantry and three hundred hght dragoons. These last were not wanted, but Faucitt accepted them, " rather than appear difficult." Sixty German dollars for each man was demanded as levy money ; but thirty crowns banco, or about thirty-four and a haK of our doUars, was agreed upon. Every soldier who shotdd be killed was to be paid for at the rate of the levy money; and three wounded were to be reckoned as one killed. Brunswick demanded that the Enghsh pay should begin three months before the march of the troops, but assented to the advance of only two months' pay. The annual subsidy, after wrangling for two days, was settled at sixty-four thousand five hundred German crowns from the date of the signature of the treaty, and twice that sum for two years after the return of the troops. Riedesel, a colonel in the duke's service, was selected for the command, with the rank of a major-general. He was a man of honor and activity ; fond of his profession, of which he had spared no pains to make himseK master. During the war, Brunswick furnished altogether five thou sand seven hundred and twenty-three mercenaries, a number 352 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxn. equal to more than one sixth of the able-bodied men in the principality. It is just to inquire if conduct like that of Ferdinand was followed by a happy hfe and an honorable death. Of his sons, the eldest died two years before him ; two others were idiotic and blind ; his eldest daughter was married to the brutal prince of Wurtemberg, and perished in 1788. The intimate relations which led George III. to begin the purchase of mercenary troops with his brother-in-law made him select Ferdinand's youngest daughter, Carohne — a woman brought up in the cor rupting atmosphere of her father's palace, and environed by hcentiousness from her childhood — to become, at twenty-seven, the wife of the prince of Wales, and eventuaUy a queen of Great Britain. As to the prince himseK, in a battle where his incompetence as a commander assisted to bring upon Prussia a most disastrous defeat, his eyes were shot away; a fugitive, deserted by mistress and friends, he refused to take food, and so died. From Brunswick Faucitt hurried to Cassel, where his com ing was expected by one who knew well the strait to which the British ministry was reduced. The people of Hesse pre serve the hardy and warhke character of its ancestral tribe, which the Romans could never vanquish. It was a nation of soldiers, whose valor had been proved in all the battle-fields of Europe. In the former century the repubhc of Venice had employed them against the Turks, and they had taken part in the siege of Athens. The landgrave, Frederic II., was about fifty-six, and had ruled for nearly sixteen years. His nature was brutish and obstinate. The wife of his youth, a daughter of George H., the gentlest of her race, was forced to fly from his inhumanity to his own father for protection. At the age of fifty-three he married again, but hved with his second consort on no better terms than with his first. The landgrave had been scrupulously educated in the Re formed Church, of which the house of Hesse had ever re garded itself a bulwark ; but he piqued himself on having dis burdened his mind of the prejudices of the vulgar, courted Voltaire's esteem by doubting various narratives in the Bible, 1775. BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 353 and scoffed ahke at the Old Testament and the New. In his view, Calvinism had died out even in Geneva ; and Luther, though commendable for having loved wine and women, was but an ordinary man ; he therefore turned Catholic in 1749, from dislike to the simphcity of the estabhshed worship of his people. He had learned to favor toleration, to abolish the use of torture, and to make capital punishments exceedingly rare ; at the same time, he paraded his vices pubhcly with shameless indecorum. Having no nationality, he sought to introduce French modes of hfe ; had his opera, baUet-dancers, masquer ades during the carnival, his French playhouse, a cast-off French coquette for his principal mistress, a French superin tendent of theatres for his librarian. But nothing could be less like France than his court ; hfe in Cassel was spiritless ; " nobody here reads," said Forster ; " the different ranks are stiffly separated," said the historian MiiUer. Birth or wealth alone had influence : merit could not command respect, nor talent hope for fostering care. To this man Faucitt delivered a letter from the British king. General Schheffen, the minister with whom he was to conduct the negotiation, prepared him to acquiesce uncondi tionally in every demand of the landgrave. The first extortion of the prince was a sum of more than forty thousand pounds for hospital disbursements during the last war. The account had been hquidated, paid, and closed ; but the scandalous claim was revived and enforced. The landgrave accumulated in the new treaty every favor able stipulation that had separately found a place in any of the old ones. In the levy money agreed upon, the Hessian contract had an advantage of twenty per cent over that with Brunswick. The master stroke of Schheffen was the settlement of the subsidy. The British agent beheved that one campaign would terminate the war ; the Hessian therefore, with seeming mod eration, accepted a double subsidy, to be paid from the signa ture of the treaty to its expiration. As the engagement actu ally continued in force for about ten years, it afforded a clear profit to the landgrave of five miUions of our doUars. The taxes paid by the Hessians were sufficient to defray the vol. iv. — 23 354 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxil pay-rolls and expenses of the Hessian army. One haK of this tax was rigorously exacted for the troops in the British service. It was stipulated that the British pay, which was higher than the Hessian, should be paid into the treasury of Hesse ; and this afforded great opportunities for peculation. The pay rolls, after the first month, invariably included more persons than were in the service ; with Brunswick, the price to be paid for the kiUed and wounded was fixed; the landgrave intro duced no such covenant, and was left with the right to exact full pay for every man who had been mustered into the British service, whether in active service or dead. The British minister urged that the Hessian soldiers should be allowed as ample and extensive enjoyment of their pay as the British ; " I dare not agree to any stipulation on this head," answered Schheffen, " for fear of giving offence to the land grave." " They are my feUow-soldiers," said the landgrave ; " and do I not mean to treat them well ? " The sick and the wounded of the Brunswickers were to be taken care of in British hospitals ; for the Hessians, the land grave claimed the benefit of providing a hospital of his own. The British ministers wished to clothe the mercenary troops in British manufactures ; but the landgrave would not aUow this branch of his profits to be impaired. It had been thought in England that the landgrave could furnish no more than five thousand foot ; but the price was so high that, after contracting for twelve thousand, he further bargained to supply four hundred Hessian yagers, armed with rifled guns ; and then three hundred dismounted dragoons ; and then three corps of artiUery ; taking care for every addi tion to require the double subsidy. To escape impressment, his subjects fled into Hanover ; King George, who was elector of Hanover, was therefore called upon " to discourage the elopement of Hessian subjects into that country, when the demand for men to enable the land grave to fulfil his engagement with Great Britain was so pressing." It was thought essential to march the troops through the electorate to their place of embarkation ; for it was not doubted, " if the Hessians were to march along the left bank of the 1775-1776. BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 355 "Weser, through the territories of Prussia and perhaps haK a score of petty princes, one half of them would be lost on the way by desertion." Yet very many went wiUingly, having been made to beheve that in America they would have free license to plunder and to indulge their passions. Every point in dispute having been yielded to the categori cal demands of the landgrave, the treaty was signed on the thirty-first day of January. This would have seemed defini tive ; but, as the payment of the double subsidy was to begin from the day of the signature of the treaty, the landgrave put back the date of the instrument to January the fifteenth. His troops were among the best in Europe ; their chief commander was Lieutenant-General Heister, a brave old man of nearly sixty, cheerful in disposition, crippled with wounds, of a good understanding, but without genius for war. Next him stood Lieutenant-General Knyphausen, remarkable for taciturnity and reserve ;' one of the best officers in the land grave's service. Of the four major-generals, not one was remarkable for capacity or skiU. Of the colonels, every one praised Donop, who commanded the four battahons of grenadiers and the yagers ; RaU, Minigerode, Wurmb, Loos, and four or five others had served with distinction. The excuse of the British ministry for yielding to aU the exactions of the landgrave was their eagerness to obtain the troops early in February. " Delay," wrote Suffolk, " wiU mar the expected advantage." The landgrave consented that thir teen battahons should be prepared to march on the fifteenth of February ; but corruption was then so thoroughly a part of the British administration that they were sent in private vessels, that interested people might levy a commission on the con tractors, who did not provide transports enough at the time appointed, and even in March could not tell when they would ah be ready. The first detachment from Brunswick did not sail from England till the fourth of April, and yet reached Quebec before the first division of the Hessians cleared the British channel. The transports were very badly fitted up ; the bedding was shamefully scanty. The clothing of the Brunswick troops 356 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxh. was old, and only patched up for the present; "the person who executed the commission " for purchasing shoes for them in England sent " fine thin dancing pumps," and of these the greatest number were too smaU for use. The treaty with the hereditary prince of Hesse-Cassel, who ruled in Hanau, met with no obstacle. He went in person round the different bailiwicks to choose recruits, and accom panied his regiment as far as Frankfort on their way to Hel- voetsluys. Conscious of the merit of this devotion, he pressed for an additional special subsidy. Suffolk granted the demand under an injunction of the most absolute secrecy, and received written promises of a discretion without bounds. "My at tachment to the best of kings removes aU idea of interest in me," wrote the prince. It was doubted if the prince of Waldeck could make good his offers, for there were already three Waldeck regiments in the service of the Netherlands ; the states of the overtasked principality had complained of the loss of its subjects ; but the prince vowed so warm an attachment to the " incomparable monarch " of Britain that, on the twentieth of April, the treaty with him was closed. To raise a regiment needed force and authority, and that " he should not be too tender of his own subjects." To prevent their deserting, a corps of mounted yagers escorted them to Beverungen. The haK-crazed ruling prince of the house of Anhalt- Zerbst, brother to the empress of Russia, who hved very rarely within his own dominions but kept up sixteen recruiting- stations outside of them, wrote directly to George IH., offering a regiment of six hundred and twenty-seven men; but the letter was so strange that it was pronounced not fit to be dehvered, and during that year nothing came of his proposal. The elector of Bavaria made an overture to Elliot, the British minister at Ratisbon ; but it was not heeded, for " his court was so sold to Austria and France " that he dared not speak of it " to his own ministers." On the last day of February the treaties with Brunswick and Hesse were considered in the house of commons. Lord North said : " The troops are wanted ; the terms on which they are procured are less than we could have expected ; the 1776. BRITAIN SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 357 force wiU enable us to compel America to submission, perhaps without further effusion of blood." He was answered by Lord John Cavendish : " The measure disgraces Britain, humiliates the king, and, by its extravagance, impoverishes the country." " Our business will be effected within the year," replied Corn wall ; " so that the troops are aU had on lower terms than ever before." Lord Imham took a broader view : " The landgrave of Hesse and the duke of Brunswick render Germany vile and dishonored in the eyes of all Europe, as a nursery of men for those who have most money, making them destroy much better and nobler beings than themselves. The landgrave of Hesse has his prototype in Sancho Panza, who said that, K he were a prince, he should wish all his subjects to be blacka moors, so that he could turn them into ready money by selling them." A warning voice was raised by Hartley : " You set the American congress the example of applying to foreign powers ; when they intervene, the possibility of reconciliation is totally cut off." " The measures of ministers," said James LuttreU who had served in America, "are death-warrants to thousands of British subjects, not steps toward regaining the colonies." George GrenviUe, afterward marquis of Bucking ham, stated this as the alternative : " Shall we abandon Amer ica, or shah we recover our sovereignty over that country ? We had better make one effort more." Lord George Ger main defended the treaties on the ground of necessity; this Lord Barrington confirmed, saying British recruits could not be procured on any terms, and the bargain was the best that could be made. The ministers were sustained by their usual majority. Five days later they were equally well supported in the house of lords ; but not without a rebuke from the duke of Cumberland, one of the king's brothers, who said : " I lament to see Brunswickers, who once to their great honor were em ployed in the defence of the liberties of the subject, now sent to subjugate bis constitutional liberties in another part of this vast empire." The whole number of men furnished in the war by Bruns wick was equal to one twenty-seventh part of its collective population ; by the landgrave of Hesse, to one out of every 358 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ni. ; oh. xxii. twenty of his subjects, or one in four of the able-bodied men ; a proportionate conscription in 1776 would have shipped to America from England and Wales alone an army of more than four hxmdred thousand men. Soldiers were impressed from the plough, the workshop, the highway ; no man was safe from the inferior agents of the princes, who kidnapped without scruple. Almost every family in Hesse mourned for one of its members. i In a letter to Voltaire, the landgrave, announcing his con tribution of troops, expressed his zeal to learn "the difficult principles of the art of governing men, and of making them perceive that all which their ruler does is for their special good." He wrote a catechism for princes, in which Voltaire professed to find traces of a pupU of the king of Prussia. " Do not attribute his education to me," answered the great Frederic ; " were he a graduate of my school, he would never have turned Cathohc, and would never have sold his subjects to the English as they drive cattle to the shambles. He a pre ceptor of sovereigns ! The sordid passion for gain is the only motive of his vile, procedure." From avarice he sold the flesh of his own people while they were yet alive, depriving many of existence and himseK of honor. In the land of free cities and free thought, an em pire which spoke the language of Luther, where Kant by pro found analysis was compelhng skepticism itself to bear witness to the eternal law of duty, where Lessing inculcated faith in an ever-improving education of the race, where the heart of the best palpitated with hope for the American cause — the landgrave forced his state to act against that hberty which was the child of the German forests, aud the moral life of the Ger manic nation. And did judgment slumber ? Were the eyes of the Most High turned elsewhere ? Or, in the abyss of the divine counsels, were there in preparation for a land so divided and so full of tyrants a regeneration and union after the exam ple of America ? 1775. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 359 CHAPTER XXIII. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 1775-1776. France and the thirteen American colonies were attracted toward each other, and it is not easy to decide which of them made the first overture. "Chatham as the conciliator of America, that is the man to fear," wrote the Count De Guines * from London, in June 1775. Vergennes, with wonderful powers of penetration, analyzed the character of the British ministers and their acts, and as a courtier contrasted the seeming anarchy of England with the happiness of the French in " living peacefully under a good and virtuous king." The British secretary of state desired to draw from the French ambassador at London a written denial of Lee's assertion that the Americans had a certainty of re ceiving support from France and Spain; but "the king of France would not suffer himseK to be used as an instru ment to bend the resistance of the Americans." " The prin ciples of moderation and of justice which constantly animate the councils of the king ought," said Vergennes, "to reas sure his Britannic majesty against disquiet as to our views. Far from wishing to take advantage of the embarrassments in which England is involved by American affairs, we would rather seek to give our aid in disengaging her from them. The spirit of revolt, wherever it breaks out, is always a trou blesome example. Moral maladies become contagious ; so that we ought to be on our guard that the spirit of independence, so terrible in North America, may not be communicated to points which interest us in both hemispheres. * Letter of De Guinea to Vergennes, 16 June 1775. MS. 360 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxih. " We have seen with pain the forming of the crisis, from the presentiment that it may have wider effects than nature itseK can cause to be foreseen. We do not hide from our selves the waywardnesses which enthusiasm could encourage and upon which fanaticism could operate." * On the twenty-eighth of July 1775, Rochford, the secretary of state, conversing with De Guines, the French ambassador, remarked that " many persons of both parties were thoroughly persuaded that the way to terminate the war in America was to declare war against France." De Guines encouraged the communicativeness of the secretary, who declared it to be the English opinion that England now, as before the last peace, was a match for Spain and France united ; that, in the event of a war with those powers, America, through fear of the re covery of Canada by France, would give up her contest and side with England. Rochford repeated these remarks to the Spanish envoy. Vergennes was unable to imagine how sensi ble people could regard a war with France as a harbor of ref uge. "The Enghsh cabinet is greatly mistaken," said he, " if it thinks we regret Canada ; they may themselves repent having made its acquisition." Just as he felt the need of exact information on the state of opinion in America, acci dent offered a most trusty agent in Bonvouloir, a French gen tleman of good judgment and impenetrable secrecy. Driven from St. Domingo by the climate, he had returned by way of PhUadelphia, New York, Providence, and the neighborhood of Boston ; and he reported that in America every man was turned soldier, that all the world crowded to the camp of liberty. The proposition to send him back to America was submitted by De Guines from London through Vergennes to the king, who consented. Here is the beginning of the inter vention of Louis XVI. in the American revolution. Neither his principles nor his sentiments inclined him to aid rebel lion ; but the danger of an attack from the English was held before bis eyes, and, on the seventh of August, Vergennes could reply to De Guines: "The king very much approves the mission of Bonvouloir. His instructions should be ver bal, and confined to the two most essential objects : the one, * Vergennes to De Guines, Versailles, 23 June 1775. MS. 1775. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 361 to make to you a faithful report of events and of the pre vailing disposition of the pubhc mind ; the other, to secure the Americans against jealousy of us. Canada is for them the object of distrust : they must be made to understand that we do not think of it at ah ; and that, far from envying them the hberty and independence which they labor to se cure, we admire the nobleness and the grandeur of their efforts, have no interest to injure them, and shaU with pleasure see happy circumstances place them at hberty to frequent our ports ; the facilities that they wiU find there for their commerce will soon prove to them our esteem." With these instructions, Bonvouloir repaired to the Low Countries, and found at Ant werp an opportunity of embarking for the colonies. Beaumarchais, who was in England as an emissary from Louis XVI., encouraged the notion that England might seek to revive the ancient sympathies of her colonies by entering on a war with France. Having seen Arthur Lee, and having re ceived accurate accounts of the state of America from persons newly arrived, he left London abruptly for Paris, and through Sartine presented to the king a secret memorial in favor of taking part with the insurgents. " The Americans," said he, " are fuU of the enthusiasm of hberty, and resolve to suffer everything rather than yield ; such a people must be invincible ; ah men of sense are convinced that the Enghsh colonies are lost for the mother country, and I share their opinion." On the twenty-first of September the subject was discussed in the council of the king. The next day Sartine put a new com mission into the hands of Beaumarchais, who returned to Eng land. Yet the means of pacifying America were so obvious that Vergennes was hardly able to conceive how the Enghsh min isters could miss them. The folly imputed to them was so sure to involve the loss of their colonies that he called in question the accounts which he had received. The ambassador in England replied : " You say what you think ought to be done ; but the king of England is the most obstinate prince alive, and his ministers, from fear of compromising their places, will never adopt the policy necessary in a great crisis." A motion in Congress, by Chase of Maryland, to send en- 362 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxhl voys to France with conditional instructions did not prevaU ; but, on the twenty-ninth of November, Harrison, Franklin, Johnson, Dickinson, and Jay were appointed a secret " com mittee for the sole purpose of corresponding with friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world," and funds were set aside " for the payment of such agents as they might send on this service." Simultaneously, Dumas, a Swiss by birth, residing in Hol land, the liberal editor of Vattel's work on international law, had written to Frankhn, his personal friend, that " all Europe wished the Americans the best success in the maintenance of their hberty ; " on the twelfth of December the congressional committee of secret correspondence authorized Arthur Lee, who was then in London, to ascertain the disposition of foreign powers, and Dumas, at the Hague, was charged with a similar commission. Just then Bonvouloir, the discreet emissary of Vergennes, arrived in PhUadelphia ; and, through Francis Daymon, . a Frenchman, the trusty librarian of the Library Company in that city, was introduced to Frankhn and the other members of the secret committee, with whom he held several confer ences by night. " WUl France aid us ? and at what price ? " were the questions put to him. " France," answered he, " is well disposed to you ; if she should give you aid, as she may, it wiU be on just and equitable conditions. Make your pro posals, and I will present them." " WiU it be prudent for us to send over a plenipotentiary ? " asked the committee. " That," replied he, " would be precipitate and even hazardous, for what passes in France is known in London ; but, if you wiU give me anything in charge, I may receive answers well suited to guide your conduct, although I can guarantee nothing except that your confidence will not be betrayed." From repeated inter views, Bonvouloir obtained such just information that his report to the French minister, though confusedly written, is in substance exact. He explained that " the Americans hesitated about a declaration of independence and an appeal to France ; that the British king had not as yet done them evil enough ; that they stiU waited to have more of their towns destroyed and more of their houses burned before they would completely 1775-1776. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 363 abhor the emblems of British power; that a brig was des patched to Nantes for munitions of war, and an arrangement made for purchasing the same articles of France by way of St. Domingo; that skilful engineers were much wanted; that everybody in the colonies appeared to have turned soldier; that they had given up the English flag, and had taken for their devices a rattlesnake with thirteen rattles, and a mailed arm holding thirteen arrows." His communications were to form the subject of the most momentous deliberation which had engaged the attention of a French king for two centuries. The want of supphes, which was so urgent that two thou sand men in Washington's army were destitute of arms and unable to procure them, led to a more direct appeal ; and SUas Deane — a graduate of Yale coUege, at one time a school-mas ter, afterward a trader ; reputed in congress to be weU versed in commercial affairs ; superficial, yet able to write and speak readily and plausibly ; wanting deUberate forecast, accurate in formation, solidity of judgment, secrecy, and integrity — finding himseK left out of the delegation from Connecticut, whose con fidence he never possessed, sohcited and received from the committee of secret correspondence an appointment as- com mercial commissioner and agent to France. That country, the committee on the third of March 1776 instructed him to say, " is pitched upon for the first application, from an opinion that, K we should, as there is appearance we shaU, come to a total separation with Great Britain, France would be the power whose friendship it would be fittest for us to obtain and culti vate." The announcement was to be coupled with a request for clothing and arms for twenty-five thousand men, a hundred field-pieces, and a suitable quantity of ammunition. For a twelvemonth the problem of granting aid to the American insurgents had been debated in the cabinet of the king of France, and his ministers were irreconcilably divided. Vergennes promoted the emancipation of America with reso luteness and prudence, remaining always master of himseK, and always mindful that in point of rank he was but a subor dinate in the cabinet of which he yet was the guide. The quiet and umf orm influence of his department imperceptibly overcame the scruples' of the inexperienced prince, who never 364 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxm. comprehended the far-reaching influence of the question. Sar tine, the minister of the marine, and St. Germain, the new sec retary of war who had been caUed from retirement and pov erty to reform the abuses in the French army, sustained Ver gennes. On the other side, Maurepas, the head of the cabinet, was for peace, though his frivolity and desire to please left his opinions to the control of circumstances. Peace was the choice of Malesherbes, who had the firmness of sincerity, yet was a man of meditation and study rather than of action ; and Tur got was immovable in his opposition to a war with Britain. The faithful report from Bonvouloir, the French agent at Philadelphia, reached Vergennes in the first days of March 1776, and furnished him an occasion for bringing before the king with unusual solemnity these " considerations : " " Whether France and Spain should desire the subjection or the independence of the Enghsh colonies, is problematical ; on either hypothesis, they are menaced with danger. " The continuation of the civil war may be regarded as in finitely advantageous to France and Spain, inasmuch as it wUl exhaust the victors and the vanquished; but, on the other hand, there is room to fear, first, that the Enghsh ministry, feehng the insufficiency of its means, may stretch out the hand of concihation ; or, secondly, after conquering Enghsh Amer ica, may use it as an instrument to subjugate European Eng land ; or, thirdly, beaten on the continent of America, may seek indemnity at the expense of France and Spain ; or, fourth ly, that the colonists, on attaining independence, may from necessity become conquerors, and, by forcing their surplus produce upon Spanish America, destroy the ties which bind our colonies to their metropolis. " These different suppositions can almost equally conduct to war with France and Spain ; on the first, because England will be tempted, by the large force she has prepared, to make the too easy conquests of which the West Indies offer the oppor tunity ; on the second, because the suppression of liberty in the mother country can be effected only by flattering the national hatred and jealousy ; on the third, through the necessity of the ministry to divert the rage of the English people by a useful and brilhant acquisition. 1776. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 365 "With the exception of Havana, no one of the colonies of the two nations is in a condition to resist the smallest part of the forces which England is now sending to America. We should abuse ourselves strangely by believing the Enghsh sus ceptible of being held back by motives of pubhc faith and treaties. Experience has too weU proved that they regard as just and honorable whatever is advantageous to their own na tion or destructive to their rivals. Englishmen of aU parties are persuaded that a popular war against France or an invasion of Mexico would terminate, or at least allay, their domestic dis sensions, as weU as furnish resources for the extinguishment of their national debt. " K the king and the king of Spain were for war, it would, without doubt, be necessary to say to them that Providence has marked out this moment for the humiliation of England by striking her with the blindness which is the surest pre cursor of destruction, and that it is time to determine the moment to strike the decisive blows, which would ravish from her the empire which she claims in the four quarters of the world. But this is not the point of view chosen by the two monarchs; and their part appears under actual circum stances to hmit itseK, with one exception, to a cautious but active foresight. "The continuance of the war for at least one year is de sirable for the two crowns. To that end the British ministry must be maintained in the persuasion that France and Spain are pacific, so that it may not fear to embark in an active and costly campaign ; wlhle, on the other hand, the courage of the Americans might be kept up by secret favors and vague hopes, which would assist to develop ideas of independence. Should the mother country be victorious, she would for a long time need all her strength to keep down their spirit. " If these considerations are judged to be weU grounded, we ought to continue with dexterity to tranquillize the Enghsh ministry as to the intentions of France and Spain. It will be proper for the two monarchies to extend to the insurgents secret aid in mUitary stores and money, without seeking any return for it beyond the pohtical object of the moment ; but it would not comport with the dignity or interest of the king 366 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xxhi. to treat with the insurgents tiU the hberty of Enghsh America shall have acquired consistency. "In this moment of pubhc danger it is indispensable to raise the effective force of the two monarchies to the height of their real power; for, whatever may be the issue of the present war between England and her colonies, of aU conjec tures which circumstances authorize, the least probable is that peace can be preserved." This discussion of American affairs was simultaneous with the passionate opposition of the aristocracy of France to the reforms of Turgot. The parliament of Paris had just refused to register the royal edicts which he had wisely prepared for the relief of the peasants and the mechanics of the kingdom ; and the registration of the decrees was enforced only by the extreme exercise of his prerogative against a remonstrance of the aristocracy, who to the last resisted the measures of jus tice to the laboring classes, as " confounding the nobility and the clergy with the rest of the people." The. king directed Vergennes to communicate his memo rial on the colonies to Turgot, whose written opinion upon it was required. Vergennes obeyed, recommending to his colleague secrecy and celerity, for Spain was anxiously wait ing the determination of the court of France. Turgot took more than three weeks for dehberation, aUowed f uU course to his ideas, and on the sixth of April gave the king this ad vice: "Whatever may or ought to be the wish of the two crowns, nothing can arrest the course of events which sooner or later will certainly bring about the independence of the English colonies, and, as an inevitable consequence, a total revolution in the relations of Europe and America. The Anglo-Ameri can enthusiasts for hberty may be overwhelmed by force, but their will can never be broken. H their country is laid waste, they may disperse themselves among the boundless, inacces sible backwoods, and, from the depths of their retreats, be always ready to trouble the Enghsh estabhshments on their coasts. H their country is reduced without a universal devas tation, the courage of the colonists wiU be like a spring, which remams bent only so long as an undiminished pressure weighs 1776. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 367 it down. The project of the English ministry is the most ex travagant which can be conceived. " Should the Enghsh government, after costly efforts, fail in its plans against the colonies, it wiU hardly be disposed at once to form enterprises for compensation at the expense of France and Spain, when it wiU have lost the point of support needed for success. " The present war wUl probably end in the absolute inde pendence of the colonies, and that event wUl certainly be the epoch of the greatest revolution in the commerce and politics not of England only, but of all Europe. From the prudent conduct, the courage, and intelhgence of the Americans, we may augur that they wiU take care, above aU things, to give a sohd form to their government ; and, as a consequence, they wiU love peace and seek to preserve it. " The rising repubhc wiU have only to open its harbors to all nations. Sooner or later, with good-will or from necessity, ah European nations who have colonies wiU be obUged to leave them an entire Uberty of trade, to regard them no more as subject provinces but as friendly states, distinct and separate even K protected. This the independence of the English col onies wUl inevitably hasten. Then the iUusion which has lulled our pohticians for two centuries will be dispelled ; it will be seen that power founded on monopoly is precarious and frail, and that the restrictive system was useless and chi merical at the very time when it dazzled the most. " H this is an evil, there is no way of preventing it, and no course to be taken but resignation to absolute necessity. The powers which shaU obstinately resist wiU none the less see their colonies escape from them, to become their enemies instead of their aUies. " The yearly cost of colonies in peace, the enormous ex penditures for their defence in war, lead to the conclusion that it is more advantageous for us to grant them entire indepen dence, without waiting for the moment when events will com pel us to give them up. Wise and happy will be that nation which shall first know how to bend to the hew circumstances, and consent to' see in its colonies . allies and not subjects. When the total separation of America shall have healed the 368 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxiii. European nations of the jealousy of commerce, there will exist among men one great cause of war the less, and it is very difficult not to desire an event which is to accomphsh this good for the human race. In our colonies we shaU save many mill ions ; and, if we acquire the liberty of commerce and naviga tion with aU the northern continent, we shaU be amply com pensated. " Unhappily, Spain has less facihty than any other power to quit the route that she has foUowed for two centuries, and con form to a new order of things. She has made no prepara tions to substitute for empire over her American provinces a fraternal connection founded on the identity of origin, lan guage, and manners, without the opposition of interests; to offer them hberty as a gift, instead of yielding it to force. Nothing is more worthy of the wisdom of the king of Spain and his council than from this present time to fix their atten tion on the possibihty of this forced separation, and on the measures to be taken to prepare for it. " It is a very delicate question to know K we can, under hand, help the Americans to ammunition or money. There is no difficulty in shutting our eyes on their purchases in our ports ; our merchants are free to sell to any who wUl buy of them ; we do not distinguish the colonists from the English ; but to aid the Americans with money would excite in the Eng lish just complaints. " Combining aU circumstances, it may certainly be beheved that the English ministry does not desire war, and our prepara tions ought to tend only to the maintenance of peace. Peace is the preference of the king of France and the king of Spain. Every plan of aggression ought to be rejected, first of aU from moral reasons. To these are to be added the reasons of inter est, drawn from the situation of the two powers. Spain has not in her magazines the requirements for arming ships-of- war, and cannot in time of need assemble a due number of sailors, nor count on the ability and experience of her naval officers. Her finances could not suffice for years of extraor dinary efforts. " As for us, the king knows that, in spite of economies and amehorations since the beginning of his reign, the ex- 1776. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 369 penditure exceeds the revenue by twenty millions ; the deficit can be made good only by an increase of taxes, a partial bank ruptcy, or frugality. The king from the first has rejected the method of bankruptcy, and an increase of taxes in time of peace ; but frugality requires nothing but a firm will. At his accession, his finances were involved, his army and navy in a state of weakness that was scarcely to have been imagined. For an unavoidable war, resources could be found; but war ought to be shunned as the greatest of misfortunes, since it would render impossible, perhaps forever, a reform, absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the state and the solace of the people." Turgot had been one of the first to foretell and to desire the independence of the colonies as the means of regenerating the world; his virtues made him worthy to be the fellow- laborer of Washington ; but, as a minister of his country, he looked at passing events through the clear light of genius illu minated by integrity. The mind of France aspired to offer hberty a home. " For my part," reasoned ChasteUux, " I think there can be neither durable hberty nor happiness but for nations who have repre sentative governments." " I think so too," remarked the oc togenarian, Voltaire. " The right of self-administration," said Malesherbes to Louis XVI., as he threw up his ministry, " be longs to every community ; it is a natural right, the right of reason. The safest council for a king is the nation itseK." The pubhc mind apphed itseK to improving the condition of the common people. ChasteUux, in his work on public felicity, which was just then circulating in Paris, with the motto never despair, agreed with a Scottish writer on morals, that " the sole end of aU government and the universal aim of all phi losophy should be the greatest happiness of the greatest num ber." Turgot, by his earnest purpose to restrain profligate ex penditure and lighten the grievous burdens of the people, seemed called forth by Providence to prop the falling throne, and hold back the nobility from the fathomless chaos toward which they were drifting. Yet he could look nowhere for support but to the king, who had no fixed principle and there fore no stability of purpose. VOL. IV. — 24 370 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ni. ; ch. xxm. Turgot, who, hke Malesherbes, beheved in the imprescripti ble right of man to the free use of his powers, wished that the executive chief should profit by the counsels of the coUected wisdom of the nation ; but he stood without any support in the cabinet. Courtiers, parliaments, the guilds of tradesmen, the noble proprietors of lands, opposed him ; Count d'Artois, the king's brother, railed at him, as undermining the nobility, the bulwark and support of the throne ; the police favored the privileged classes. Turgot must either through the king be come aU-prevailing, or go into private life. Maurepas insinu ated to the king that discontent pervaded France, and that it had Turgot alone for its object; that it was not best to wait for his resignation, for he might give as his reason for the act that he was hindered in the accomplishment of good. On the tweKth of May, therefore, he was dismissed as one who was not suited to his place. Sartine had always supported the American pohcy of Ver gennes, and had pleaded with the king for the colonies and for India. " If the navy of France," said he, " were at this mo ment able to act, France never had a fairer opportunity to avenge the unceasing insults of the English. I beseech your majesty to consider that England, by its most cherished inter ests, its national character, its form of government, and its position, is and always will be the true, the only, and the eter nal enemy of France. Sire, with England no calculation is admissible but that of her interests and her caprices ; that is, of the harm that she can do us. In 1755, at a time of perfect peace, the Enghsh attacked your ships, proving that they hold nothing sacred. We have every reason to fear that, whatever may be the issue of their war with the insurgents, they will take advantage of their armament to fall upon your colonies or ports. Your minister would be chargeable with guilt K he did not represent to your majesty the necessity of adopting the most efficacious measures to parry the bad faith of your natu ral enemies." These suggestions were received with a passive acquies cence; the king neither comprehended nor heeded Turgot's advice, which was put aside by Vergennes as speculative and irrelevant. The correspondence with Madrid continued ; Gri- 1776. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 371 maldi, the Genoese adventurer who still was minister for for eign affairs, complained of England for the aid it had rendered the enemies of Spain in Morocco, in Algeria, and near the Philippine isles, approved of sending aid clandestinely to the English colonies, and, in an autograph letter, without the knowledge even of the ambassadors of the two courts, prom ised to bear a part of the expense, provided the supphes could be sent from French ports in such a manner that the partici pation of the Cathohc king could be disavowed. When, on the twenty-sixth of April, the French ministry held a confer ence with the Spanish ambassador, to consider the danger that menaced the two kingdoms and the necessity of preparing for war, neither Turgot nor Malesherbes was present. Vergennes was left to follow the precedent set by England during the troubles in Corsica. After a year's hesitation and resistance, the king of France, early in May, informed the king of Spain that he had resolved, under the name of a commercial house, to advance a million of French livres, about two hundred thousand doUars, toward the supply of the wants of the Ameri cans ; the Cathohc king, after a few weeks' delay, assigning a false reason. at his own treasury for demanding the money and admitting no man in Spain into the secret of its destination except Grimaldi, remitted to Paris a draft for a milhon livres more. To Beaumarchais, who was fretful at the long period of indecision on American affairs, Vergennes rephed : " Do not think advice rejected because it is not eagerly adopted; aU slumber is not a lethargy." The French court resolved by increasing the subsidy to encourage the insurgents to perse vere ; and, in early summer, Beaumarchais announced to Ar thur Lee that he was authorized to promise the Americans assistance to the amount of two hundred thousand louis d'ors, nearly one million of dollars. For a moment the friends of the oppressed in France had had a beautiful and a peaceful dream; but it passed away, leaving the monarchy of France to totter, and its people to awake at the example of the western world. The new min ister of finance was De Clugny,' a profligate statesman, who at once conciliated support by renouncing all measures of re form. " To what masters, ye great gods, do ye give up the 372 • AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxiii. universe ! " exclaimed Condorcet. In parting with Malesher bes, the king discarded his truest personal friend ; in Turgot, French monarchy lost its firmest support, the nobUity its only possible savior ; but no one was left in the cabinet who was able to restrain the government from yielding to the rising enthusiasm for America. So tangled is the web of history ! The retirement of the two men who were the apostles of hberty ' pushed forward the cause of human freedom, though by ir regular and disorderly movements. In the early part of the century the great philosopher Leib- thad found traces of the opinions of Epicurus and Spi- in the books that were most in vogue, and in the men e great world who were the masters of affairs ; and he >ld in consequence a general overturn in Europe. " The generous~sentiment which prefers country and the general good to hfe," he said, £ is dying out- pubhc spirit is no more in fashioii, ana has ijpi&i the suppcrt of good morals and true religion ; the ruling Motive in t te best is honor, and that is a principle which toleraTeVanythiag but baseness, does not con demn shedding a deluge x5? blofid from ambition or caprice, and might suffer a Herostr£tas or a Don Juan to pass for a hero ; patriotism is mocked atkanu the well-intentioned who speak of what will become of pferarity, are answered by say ing that posterity may see to that. If this mental epidemic goes on increasing, Providence will correct mankind by the revolution which it must cause"." Later in the eighteenth century WesleyjJikeJLeibnitz, pre dicted the approach 6i_ revolution m Europe^ Men had more and more thrown oil the importunate fear Tof an overruling Providence, and would no longer know of anything more god like than themselves. They refused to loola for anything bet ter ; the belief in the divine reason was derided like the cower ing at spectres and hobgoblins ; and the worship of humanity became the prevailing idolatry. Art was commissioned to gratify taste ; morality had for its office tfo increase pleasure ; forgetting that the highest liberty consists/ in being forced by shed sensuahsm as a courts and aristocra- right reason to choose the best, men cher system, and self-indulgence was the law oi cies. An unreasoning selfishness assume 1 that creative power 1776. AMERICA SEEKS FOREIGN AID. 373 was exhausted ; that nothing was to be done but to keep things as they are. To renounce the search for eternal truth passed for wisdom ; the notion that there can be no cognition of the immutable and the divine was extoUed as the perfection of enhghtened cult ure, the highest end of inteUeetual striving. Men cherished no wish for anything beyond appearances and vain show. The prevaihng philosophy in its arrogance was proud of its chains. It not only derided the infinite in man, but it jeered at the thought that there is an infinite with which man can commune. It scoffed at aU knowledge that transcends the senses, and lim ited itseK to the inferior lessons of experience ; dethroning the beautiful for the agreeable, the right for the useful, the true for the seeming ; knowing nothing of a universal moral gov ernment, referring everything to the seK of the individual. Hume brought this system to the test, and, applying doubt to its lessons, laid bare its corruption. His searching skepticism was the bier on which the phUosophy of materialism was laid out in state, where aU the world might come and see that it reahy was no more. But, whUe he taught the world that it led to nothingness, he taught nothing in its stead. He might oppose the war with America, because it threatened to mort gage ah the revenues of the land in England ; but, ever wel come at the Bourbon palace and acceptable to George ILL, he had professed to prove that tyrants should not be deposed, that the euthanasia of the British constitution would be abso lutism. Skepticism may strike worn-out institutions into ruins, but it cannot build UP a commonwealth ; there must be a new birth in phUosophy, or aU is lost in the world of reflection ; in political hfe there can be no renovation but through that in born faith in the right which always survives in the people. Let the skeptic aristocracies and despotisms of Europe make way for a people who have power tobuilci up the home of hu manity because they have faith in eternal, unchanging justice, and j™rf in that ovfirrhng foresight, which brings forth bet ter things out of evU and out of good. j 374 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxiv. CHAPTER XXIV. the british recover canada. north carolina declares for independence. January-July 1776. The year 1775, as it opened, found the British in the un disputed possession of all the thirteen American colonies. Before the campaign for 1776 could begin, they had been driven from New England, and every governor had abandoned his post excepting in New Jersey, where he was under arrest, and in Maryland, where he was an officer of the proprietary and was left free on parole. The British plan of campaign for the coming season was the earhest possible relief of Quebec and the recovery of Canada by an army which was to advance by way of Montreal, Lake George and Ticonderoga to. Albany, and thus insulate New England, of which the reduction was reserved to the last. At the same time Howe was to occupy the city of New York and quickly reduce the middle states. The harbor of Newport, Rhode Island, was so alluring that, with Howe's approval, it was to be occupied by a garrison. The winter months, before the campaign in the North could be undertaken, were to be employed in restoring the king's authority in the South. There remained near Quebec about four hundred Americans and as many wavering Canadians. Carleton, in the well-pro visioned and strongly fortified town, had twice as many as both. The chief command of the Americans devolved on Woos ter, a fragal New England Calvinist, bred in the hatred of popery, inexperienced in war, and aged. The Green Mountain boys he summoned to come down by fifties or even by tens, as 1776. THE BRITISH RECOVER CANADA. 375 fast as parties coidd be coUected ; of Washington he asked men, heavy cannon, and mortars; to congress and to Schuyler he wrote: "We shaU want everything" — men, ordnance, and money ; " hard cash we must have, or starve, or quit the country, or lay it under contribution." Washington, without waiting to consult congress, recom mended to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire each to raise and send forward a regiment on behaK of the continent ; and the three colonies eagerly met his call, for they strongly desired the annexation of Canada. Congress ordered one regiment from Philadelphia and another from New Jer sey, to be soon followed by four or five more, and encouraged western New Hampshire to contribute a regiment. In the first moments of sorrow at Montgomery's faU, citi zens undertook with alacrity a march of many miles, through snow and over frozen lakes, without tents, to a country in that rigorous season almost inaccessible. Their unanimity, zeal, and perseverance called forth hopes of their success. The expulsion of the British from Boston had amazed the Six Nations, and taught them not to rely on British arms for protection. James Deane was sent with a returning deputa tion to treat with them. The twenty-eighth of March was given by their great councU to acts of consolation for those lost in the war ; on the next day new trees, as they expressed it, were raised in the place of chiefs who had faUen, and their names published to the Six Nations. On the thirty-first the confed erated tribes gave each other pledges to observe a strict neu trality in the present quarrel. But to maintain a foothold in Canada, there was need of the strong support of its people. The Canadian clergy, in their zeal for Britain, refused absolution to the friends of the Americans ; the nobility thought only for the safety of their privUeges ; and, without the support of their priests or their feudal superiors, the uncertain people could not be sohdly organized. Congress had no troops except on short enlist ments. Moreover, Quebec and Montreal were reached more readUy from England by the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence than by the overland route from the colonies. For four months Wooster remained the highest officer in 376 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxrv. Canada, unequal to the station which he had never sought and from which he was impatient to be reheved. Yet he was ever ready, in case of need, to sacrifice his hfe for his country. In the early part of his command he wisely arrested Camp beU, the Indian agent of the British, and La Come Saint-Luc, and sent them out of the province. He allowed each parish to choose its own officers, thus introducing the system of seK- government in towns. He intended, through committees of safety and committees of correspondence, to lead the way to a Canadian convention which might send delegates to the American congress. With Schuyler, who was far the more testy of the two, he had constant bickerings, which divided the opinion of congress. On the first day of April, Wooster appeared near Quebec. Scattered on both sides of the river and at great distances from each other lay about two thousand Americans, of whom not many more than haK were able to do duty. How to find food for them was a great difficulty. Their batteries were in significant, their store of ammunition most scanty ; there were no engineers and few artiUerists. One haK of the troops who had wintered in Canada, and Livingston's regiment of about two hundred Canadians would be free in fourteen days, and would certainly refuse to remain. Arnold, who had been made a brigadier, withdrew to Montreal. The Canadian peasantry had been forced to furnish wood and other articles at less than the market price, or for certificates, and felt themselves outraged by the arbitrariness of the military occupation. Of the more cultivated classes, French and English, seven eighths were wilhng to assist in repelling the invaders. On the twenty-fifth of March "the congress, being of opinion that the reduction of Quebec and the general security of the province of Canada were objects of great concern," di rected Washington to detach four battahons into Canada. He received the order while yet in Boston ; having completed the arrangements for sending to New York such troops as were then under his immediate command, he reached that city on the thirteenth of April, and made it his first duty to speed four battalions to Canada. " Too much despatch," wrote congress, " cannot be used in sending the battahon to Quebec, as it fre- 1776. THE BRITISH RECOVER CANADA. 377 quently happens that a week, a day, even an hour, proves deci sive." But before this letter was received the brigade was sail ing up the Hudson. On the twenty-third of April, Congress, without even consulting the commander-in-chief, suddenly gave him the order to detach six additional battahons for service in Canada, and inquired of him if he could spare more. Late at night on the twenty-fifth he received the order by express; his effective force consisted of but eight thousand three hundred and one ; he resigned himself to the iU-consid- ered votes of congress, and detached six of his best battalions, containing more than three thousand men, at a time when the British ministry was directing against New York thirty thou sand veteran troops. The command of the brigade was given to Sullivan ; among its officers were Stark and Reed of New Hampshire, Anthony Wayne and Irvine of Pennsylvania. " At the same time," so he wrote to congress, " trusting New York and Hudson river to the handful of men remaining here is running too great a risk. The general officers now here think it absolutely necessary to increase the army at this place with at least ten thousand men." But congress, having stripped Washington of about haK his effective force, next ordered that provisions, powder of which his stock was very low, and articles of clothing for ten thousand men, should foUow, with aU the hard money which the New England states could collect. Montgomery had asked for ten thousand men; they were resolved to maintain that number on the St. Lawrence, leaving Washington very much to his own devices for the protection of New York. For Canada a general was wanted not less than an army. Schuyler, owning himseK unable to manage the men of Con necticut, proposed to himself to resign. Thomas of Massa chusetts, a man of superior abihty and culture, though of ht tle experience, was raised to the rank of major-general and ordered to Quebec. In the army with which he was to hold Canada, the smaU-pox raged ; he had never been inoculated, and his journey to the camp was a journey to meet death un attended by glory. He was closely followed by Franklin, Chase, and Charles CarroU, whom congress had commissioned to promise the clergy 378 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxiv. a guarantee of their estates ; to establish a free press ; to aUure the people of Canada by the prospect of a free trade with aU nations ; to set up a government for themselves, and join the federal union. John, the brother of Charles CarroU, a Jesuit, afterward archbishop of Baltimore, came with them in the hope of moderating the opposition of the Canadian clergy. The commissioners discovered on their arriv.al a general expecta tion that the Americans would be driven from the province ; without hard money and a large army they could not ask the people to take part in the war. Thomas arrived near Quebec on the first of May, and em ployed three days in ascertaining the condition of his com mand. He found one thousand six hundred men, including officers, beside three hundred whose enlistments had expired. The sick numbered nine hundred, chiefly of the small-pox which had raged among the Americans with extreme virulence, so that men feared to be near one another, and there were officers who advised to inoculate aU of them who were hable to infection. Of efficient men there were but seven hundred ; and of these not more than three hundred could be ralhed at any one place. In aU the magazines there remained but about one hundred and fifty pounds of powder and six days' provi sions. On the fifth a council of war agreed unanimously to pre pare for a retreat. The decision had been delayed too long. Early on the sixth, three British ships-of-war, which had forced their way up the St. Lawrence when it was almost impracticable from ice, came into the basin and landed their marines and that part of the twenty-ninth regiment which they had on board ; and not far from noon, whUe the Americans were embarking their sick and their artillery, about one thousand men, in two divisions, saUying out of the gates of St. John and St. Louis, attacked the American sentinels and main guard. Thomas at tempted to bring his men under arms ; but, unable to coUect more than two hundred and fifty on the plains, he directed a retreat to Deschambault, forty-eight miles above Quebec. The troops fled with precipitation, leaving their provisions, cannon, five hundred muskets, and about two hundred of their sick. Of these, one haK crept away to the Canadian peasants, by 1776. THE BRITISH RECOVER CANADA. 379 whom they were nursed with tenderness ; Carleton, by proc lamation, opened the general hospital to them all, with leave to return home on their recovery. At Deschambault it was ordered that the half-starved army should not attempt to make a stand below Sorel. The Eng lish in pursuit burned the houses of the French who had be friended the rebels. On the eighth the forty-seventh regiment arrived from Hahfax, and, five days later, more transports and troops from Europe, while Thomas remained fifteen leagues below Mon treal, at Sorel. That city was approached on the north-west, near the pass of the Cedars, by a party composed of forty regular troops from the station at Detroit, a hundred Cana dians, and several hundred Indians. The troops which Ar nold sent to the Cedars met with discomfitures tiU he went to their rehef ; the Indians violated capitulations by sacrificing American prisoners for their warriors who had fallen. The American commissioners, Franklin and his colleagues, observed that the invaders had lost the affections of the Cana dian people ; that, for the want of hard money, they were dis tressed for provisions ; that they were incapable of exact dis cipline, because sent for short periods of service ; that, always too few in numbers, they were wasted by the smaU-pox ; and they unanimously advised immediately to withdraw the army from Canada, fortify the passes on the lakes, and station Sul livan's brigade at Fort George. But congress insolently enjoined Thomas to " display his mihtary qualities and acquire laurels." Of hard money it sent forward aU that it had, which was sixteen hundred sixty- two pounds, one shilling and threepence ; and, unable to collect more, it resolved to supply the troops in Canada with, provi sions and clothing from the other colonies. It voted the ne cessity of keeping possession of the country and of contesting every foot of ground, especiaUy on the St. Lawrence below the mouth of the Sorel. But the campaign in Canada was decided before its votes were known. At the end of May confusion prevailed in every depart ment of the American army. Their number did not exceed four thousand men of whom three fourths had never had the 380 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; ch. xxrv. small-pox; many of their officers were incompetent. They were often without meat, and hved by levying contributions of meal. In the blindness of helpless zeal, on the first day of June congress resolved " that six thousand militia be employed to re- enforce the army in Canada, and to keep up the communication with that province ; " it called upon Massachusetts to make up haK that number, Connecticut one quarter, New Hampshire and New York the rest ; and, with a useless dereliction from sound pohcy, it authorized the employment of Indians. On that same day the first division of the Brunswick troops under Riedesel arrived with Burgoyne at Quebec, and, with the regiments from Ireland and others, put into the hands of Carleton an army of nine thousand nine hundred and eighty- four effective men. The small-pox seized Thomas, and he died just a month and a day after taking the command round Quebec. Sulhvan, ar riving with his party at Sorel on the fifth, found the retreat in safe progress, the heavy baggage and most of the artillery already removed to St. John's and Chambly. Assuming the command, he ordered all who were on the retreat to turn about and f oUow him, and the cannon to be brought back. " I assure you and the congress," he reported through Washington to congress on the sixth, " that I can in a few days reduce the army to order and put a new face to our affairs here. All our operations ought to be down the river." He sent a detach ment, under a subordinate general, with one fourth of his whole force to Three Rivers, through a country with which he was unacquainted, and in ignorance of the strength and the posi tions of the enemy. A peasant made known to the Enghsh their approach. Twenty-five newly arrived transports, laden with troops, had, by Carleton's directions, been piloted past Quebec without stopping ; and they arrived at Three Rivers just in time to take part in repelling the attack which was gallantly begun by Wayne. The Americans were driven back to Sorel, losing more than two hundred men, chiefly as prison ers, saving the rest only by Carleton's want of alertness. The remains of the American army encamped at Sorel did not exceed two thousand five hundred men ; about a thousand 1776. THE BRITISH RECOVER CANADA. 381 more were at other stations, but most of them under inocula tion. Sickness, want of food, defeat, the threefold superiority of the British in numbers and their incomparable superiority in appointments, made resistance impossible. A council of field officers aU but unanimously advised retreat ; Arnold, Antill, and Hazen, who were not present, were of the same mind. On the fourteenth the fleet with the British forces was coming up the river under full saU ; when, an hour or a httle more before their arrival, Sullivan, who was both brave and alert, broke up his camp, taking away with him everything, even to a spade. The guard at Berthier retreated by land, leaving nine boats behind. At Chambly aU the boats and baggage were brought over the rapids, except three heavy pieces of cannon. From Mon treal, Arnold, with the knowledge of the commissioners of con gress, had sent off merchandise taken from the inhabitants ; when the enemy came within twelve miles, he crossed with three hundred men to La Prairie. AU that was left of the invading army met on the seventeenth at St. John's, haK of them being sick, almost aU destitute of clothing, and having no provisions except salt pork and flour. On the eighteenth the emaciated, haK-naked men, languidly pursued by a column under Burgoyne, escaped to Isle-Aux-Noix. On the day on which Sullivan halted at Isle-aux-Noix, Gates, who had been elected a major-general, was appointed to take command of the forces in Canada. Already at Albany the question arose, whether the command would revert to Schuyler the moment the army should be found south of the Canada- line. At Isle-aux-Noix the men fit for duty remained for eight days, till the invahds could be taken to Crown Point. They made the voyage in leaky boats which had no awnings, with no food but raw pork and hard bread or unbaked flour. A physician who was an eye-witness said : " At the sight of so much privation and distress, I wept till I had no more power to weep." Early in July the fragments of the army of Canada reached Crown Point. Everything about them was infected with the pestilence. " I did not look into a tent or a hut," says Trumbull, " in which I did not find either a dead or dying 382 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; ch. xxiv. man." Of about five thousand men, housed under tents of rudely buUt sheds or huts of brush, exposed to the damp air of the night, fuU half were invalids ; more than thirty new graves were made every day. In a httle more than two months the northern army lost by desertion and death more than five thousand men. The reduction of the southern colonies was to have been finished before that of Canada. Martin, the governor of North Carohna, had repeatedly offered to raise a battalion from the Scottish Highlanders in that colony, and declared himseK sure of the allegiance of the regulators, as of men weary of insurrection and scrupulous about their oaths. Again and again he importuned to be re stored to his old rank in the army as lieutenant-colonel, prom ising the greatest consequences from such an appointment. He could not conceal that " the frenzy " had taken possession of aU classes of men around him ; yet he promised the min istry that with ten thousand stand of arms, to be sent imme diately from England, with artiUery, ammunition, money, some pairs of colors, a mihtary commission for himseK, and the aid of two regiments, he would force a connection with the interior and raise not the Highlanders alone, but the people of the upper country in such overwhelming numbers as to restore order in the two Carohnas, "hold Virginia in awe," and recover every colony south of Pennsylvania. In England his advice was hstened to, except that rank in the army was refused him. Making himself busy with the affairs of his neighbors, Martin wrote to the British ministry in midsummer 1775 : "The people of South Carohna forget entirely their own weakness and are blustering treason ; whUe Charleston, that is the head and heart of their boasted province, might be destroyed by a single frigate. In charity to them and in duty to my king and country, I give it as my sincere opinion that the rod of correction cannot be spared." A few weeks later, Lord WiUiam Campbell chimed in with him, reckoning up the many deadly perils by which they were environed: " the Indians ; " " the disaffected back-country people ; " their own social condition " where their slaves were five to one ; " and the power of Britain from the sea. 1776. NORTH CAROLINA DECLARES FOR INDEPENDENCE. 383 Allured by these assurances, an expedition against the south ern colonies was ordered, in October 1775, by the king liimseK, whose zeal and confidence were inflamed by letters which were constantly arriving. In the month in which the king took his resolution, Campbell, the governor of South Carolina, wrote in an official report : " Let it not be entirely forgot that the king has dominions in this part of America. What defence can they make? Three regiments, a proper detachment of artiUery, with a couple qf good frigates, some small craft, and a bomb- ketch, would do the whole business here, and go a great way to reduce Georgia and North Carohna to a sense of their duty. Charleston is the fountain-head from whence aU violence flows ; stop that, and the rebeUion in this part of the continent will soon be at an end." In conformity to the reports of Martin and Campbell, a force equal to seven regiments was ordered to be in readiness to saU from Cork early in December. " I am not apprised where they are going," thus Barrington, the secretary at war, expostulated with Dartmouth ; " but, if there should be an idea of such a force marching up the country, I hope it wUl not be entertained. Allow me once more to remind you of the ne cessity there is in aU mihtary matters not to stir a step without full consultation of able mihtary men, after giving them the most perfect knowledge of the whole matter under considera tion, with aU its circumstances." The warning had no influ ence, for the king would not consult those who were hkely to disagree with him. The earl of Cornwalhs, then in England, was to command the land forces of the expedition while on the way. From the army of Howe, Chnton, who was of the great family of the duke of Newcastle, was detached to reap the honor of restoring the two Carolinas to their aUegiance. Early in January 1776 the American commander-in-chief ascertained that Clinton was about to embark from Boston on a southern expedition. New York might be its object. Lee, whose claim to "the character of a military genius and the officer of experience " had not yet been disaUowed, desired a separate command in New York. After consulting John Ad ams, who was then with the provincial convention at Water- town, and who pronounced the plan to be practicable, expe- 384 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; ch. xxrv. dient and clearly authorized, Washington, uninformed of the measures already adopted, gave his consent ; yet charging Lee to " keep always in view the declared intention of congress," and to communicate with the New York committee of safety, whose co-operation he himseK solicited. Lee, who had never commanded so much as one regiment before he entered the American army, on his way to New York persuaded the governor and council of Connecticut to place two regiments under him. Straightway usurping au thority, he appointed Isaac Sears assistant adjutant-general with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The tidings that Lee, with nearly fifteen hundred men of Connecticut, was advancing upon New York without notice to its committee or its inhabitants, seemed to imply a menace. When its committee of safety wrote to request that the troops of Connecticut might not pass the border till the purpose of their coming should be explained, Lee made a jest of the letter. Both parties appealed to the general congress. On the fourth, Lee entered the city of New York, just two hours after Clinton, attended by only two companies of infan try and a few Highlanders, anchored in its harbor. Troops from the Jerseys at the same time marched into town. A general consternation ensued ; and, in spite of the dangers and sorrows attending a flight in winter, all the wagons that could be found were employed in removing women and chUdren from the city, which for seven years to come was to know no peace. The opulent knew not where to find habitations ; the poor, thrown upon the cold hands of exhausted charity in the interior towns, suffered from comphcated wants. Under the harmonizing influence of the continental com mittee, Lee and the New York committee held friendly con ferences. Men and boys of all ages toiled with zeal to raise works of defence. To control the Sound, a fortification was raised at Hellgate; on a height west of Trinity church, a battery was erected fronting the North river ; that part of the old fort which faced Broadway was torn down ; Lee and Lord Stirhng, crossing to Long Island, marked out the ground for an intrenched camp, extending from the Wallabout to Go- wanus bay; the connection between Long Island and New 1776. NORTH CAROLINA DECLARES FOR INDEPENDENCE. 385 York was secured by a battery of forty guns at the foot of Wall street and another of twenty guns a httle farther to the south. The ships-of-war without firing a gun removed to the bay, and Lee professed to repudiate a reconcihation with Britain unless " the whole ministry should be condignly punished, and the king beheaded or dethroned." Clinton, who had but touched at New York, pledged his honor that for the present no more British troops were com ing there, and on the eleventh " with his men and ships left the river." The seeming success of Lee drew toward him pub hc confidence. John Adams, who had counseUed his expedi tion to New York, wrote to him complacently " that a luckier or a happier one had never been projected ; " and added : " We want you at New York ; we want you at Cambridge ; we want you in Virginia ; but Canada seems of more importance, and therefore you are sent there. I wish you the laurels of WoKe and Montgomery with a happier fate." " When I leave this place," so Lee wrote to Washington, the " provincial congress and inhabitants will relapse into their hysterics; the "men-of- war will return to their wharfs, and the first regiments from England wiU take quiet possession of the town." On the first of March, on the motion of Edward Rutledge, congress, after a warm contest, revoked its order to send Lee to Canada, and invested him with the command of the continental forces south of the Potomac. " As a Virginian, I rejoice at the change," wrote Washington, who had, however, already discovered that the officer so much courted was both " violent and fickle." On the seventh he left New York, but not before a complete dis play of his turbulent temper. He arrested men at discretion. He deputed power to Sears to offer a test oath to a registered number of suspected persons, and, K they refused it, to send them to Connecticut as irreclaimable enemies. To the rebuke of the New York convention he answered : " When the enemy is at our door, forms must be dispensed with ; " and, on the eve of his departure, he gave Ward of Connecticut the sweeping order " to secure the whole body of professed tories on Long Island." The arbitrary orders were resented by the New York delegates as " a high encroachment upon the rights of the rep resentatives of a free people," and were reversed by congress. VOL. IV. — 25 3S6 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xxrv. After the termination of the seven years' war nearly every one of the Highland regiment, ahke soldiers and officers, settled on grants of land in America. Many of the inhabitants of northwestern Scotland, especially of the clans of Macdonald and Macleod, hstened to overtures from those who had ob tained concessions of vast domains and migrated to middle Carohna. Those who went first reported favorably of the sunny clime, where every man might have land of his own ; and from the isles of Rasay and Skye whole neighborhoods followed, sweetening their change of abode by carrying with them their costume and opinions, their Celtic language and songs. Distinguished above all was Allan Macdonald of Kings- borough, and his wife Flora Macdonald who in 1746 had res cued Prince Charles Edward from bis pursuers. They re moved to North Carolina in 1774, and made their new home in the west of Cumberland county. She was now about fifty- five, mother of many children, of middle stature, soft features, " uncommonly mild and gentle manners and elegant presence." Her husband was aged, but still with hair jet black, of a stately figure, and a countenance that expressed intelligence and stead fastness. On the third of July 1775, he came down to Fort Johnston and concerted with Martin how to raise a battalion of " the good and faithful Highlanders." Chnton on his way south called on Lord Dunmore in Vir ginia, and remained there ten days. When Lord Dunmore learned from him that Cape Fear river was the place appointed for the meeting of the seven regiments from Ireland, he broke out into angry complaints that no heed had been paid to his representations, his sufferings, and his efforts ; that Virginia, " the first on the continent for riches, power, and extent," was neglected, and the preference given to " a poor, insignificant colony," where there were no pilots, nor a harbor that could admit haK the fleet, and where the army, should it land, must wade for many mUes through a sandy pine barren before it could reach the inhabited part of the country. Martin, who was daily expecting the British army, made haste to prepare a proclamation which was to beat down all opposition. " His unwearied, persevering agent," Alexander 1776. NORTH CAROLINA DECLARES FOR INDEPENDENCE. 387 Maclean, brought written assurances from the principal per sons to whom he had been directed to apply, that between two and three thousand men, of whom about haK were weU armed, would take the field at the governor's summons. Under this encouragement a commission was made out on the tenth of January 1776, authorizing AUan Macdonald of Kingsborough, with eight other Scots of Cumberland and Anson, and seven teen persons who resided in a belt of counties in middle Caro lina and in Rowan, to raise and array and, by the fifteenth of February, march all the king's loyal subjects in a body to Brunswick, on Cape Fear river, opposite to WUmington. Don ald Macdonald, then in his sixty-fifth year, was to command the army ; next him in rank came Donald Macleod. A meeting of the newly commissioned officers was sum moned for the fifth of February at Cross creek, or, as it is now called, FayettevUle. At the appointed time all the Scots appeared, and four only of the rest. The trustworthy Scots, who promised no more than seven hundred men, advised to await the arrival of the British troops; the other royalists, boasting that they could array five thousand of whom five hun dred they said were already Unbodied, prevaUed in their de mand for an immediate rising. CoUecting the Highlanders and remnants of the old regu lators, Donald Macdonald, on the eighteenth, began his march, and at evening encamped on the Cape Fear river, four miles below FayettevUle. On that same day Moore, who at the. first menace of danger took the field at the head of his regiment and then lay in an intrenched camp at Rockfish, was joined by Iillington with one hundred and fifty minute-men from Wilmington, by Kenon with two hundred of the Duplin militia, and by Ashe with about a hundred volunteer rangers ; so that his number was increased to eleven hundred. On the nineteenth, Macdonald sent Martin's proclamation into the American camp, calling on Moore and his troops to join the king's standard, or to be considered as enemies. Moore, in his instant reply, besought Macdonald not to array the deluded people under his command against men who were resolved to hazard everything in defence of the liberties of mankmd. Macdonald promptly rejoined : " As a soldier in his 388 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxiv. majesty's service, it is my duty to conquer, if I cannot reclaim, aU those who may be hardy enough to take up arms against the best of masters ; " and he paraded his party with a view to assaU Moore in the coming night. But the camp at Rockfish was too strong to be attempted ; and, at the bare suspicion of such a project, two companies of Cotton's loyalist corps ran off with their arms. Knowing that CasweU, at the head of the minute-men of Newbern and others to the number of six or eight hundred, were marching through Duplin county to effect a junction with Moore,- Macdonald became aware of his extreme danger. Cut off from the direct road along, the Cape Fear river, he resolved, by celerity of movement and crossing streams at un expected places, to disengage himseK from the larger force at Rockfish, and encounter the party with Caswell alone. Before moving, he urged his men to fidelity, expressed bitter scorn of " the base cravens who had deserted the night before," and continued : " If any among you is so faint-hearted as not to serve with the resolution of conquering or dying, this is the time for such to declare themselves." The speech was an swered by a general huzza for the king; but from Cotton's corps about twenty men laid down their arms. The corps then proceeded to FayettevUle, crossed the Cape Fear by night, sunk their boats, and sent a party fifteen miles in advance to secure the bridge over South river. This the main body passed on the twenty-first, and took the direct route to Wil mington. On the same day Moore detached LilUngton and Ashe to re-enforce CasweU, or, K that could not be effected, to occupy Moore's Creek bridge. On the following day the Scots and regulators drew near to Caswell, who perceived their purpose, and, the more effectu ally to intercept their march, changed his own course. On the twenty-third they thought to overtake him, and were arrayed in the order of battle, eighty able-bodied Highland ers, armed with broadswords, forming the centre of the army. CasweU was already posted at Corbett's Ferry, and could not be reached for want of boats ; but, at a point six mUes higher up the Black river, a negro succeeded in raising a broad, shal low boat that had been sunk; and while Maclean and Fraser, 1776. NORTH CAROLINA DECLARES FOR INDEPENDENCE. 389 with a few men, a dram, and a pipe, were left to amuse Cas well, the main body of the loyalists crossed Black river near what is now Newkirk Bridge. On the twenty-fifth LUlington took post with his smaU party on the east side of the bridge over Moore's Creek. On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth Caswell reached its west side, and, raising a small breastwork and destroying a part of the bridge, awaited the enemy, who on that day advanced within six mUes of him. A messenger from the loyahsts, sent to his camp under the pretext of summoning him to return to his aUegiance, brought back word that he had halted upon the same side of the river with themselves, and could be attacked with advantage ; but the Carolina commander had no sooner misled his enemy than, hghting up fires and leaving them burning, he crossed the creek, took off the planks from the bridge, and placed his men behind such shght intrenchments as the night permitted to be thrown up. The loyalists, expecting an easy victory, unanimously agreed that his camp should be assaulted. His force at that time amounted to a thousand men, consisting of the Newbern minute-men, of mihtia from Craven, Johnson, Dobbs, and Wake counties, and the detachment under LUlington. At one o'clock in the morning of the twenty - seventh the army of Macdonald began their march ; but it was within an hour of dayhght before they reached the western bank of the creek, and found that CasweU and his force had taken post on the opposite side. The Scots were now within less than twenty miles of Wilmington ; orders were directly given to reduce the columns, and to form the hne of battle within the verge of the wood ; the rallying cry was, " King George and broad swords ! " the signal for the attack, three cheers, the drum to beat and the pipes to play. It was still dark; Macleod, who led the van of about forty, was challenged at the bridge by the Carolina sentinels. Of the bridge nothing had been left but the two logs, which had served as sleepers. Macleod and John Campbell rushed forward and succeeded in getting over; Highlanders foUowed with broadswords. Macleod, who was greatly esteemed, was mortaUy wounded; he was seen to rise repeatedly from the ground, encouraging his men to come on, 390 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxiv. till he received many balls. CampbeU likewise feU. In a very few minutes the assailants fled in irretrievable despair. The Americans had but three wounded, one only mortaUy ; of their opponents, more than thirty were killed or mortaUy wounded, most of them on the bridge, from which they f eU into the deep, muddy creek. The fugitives could never be ralhed ; during the f oUowing day Macdonald their general, and others of the chief men, were taken prisoners ; among the rest, Macdonald of Kings- borough and one of his sons, who were at first confined in Halifax jail, and afterward transferred to Reading in Pennsyl vania. Eight or nine hundred common soldiers were taken, disarmed, and dismissed. Thirteen wagons, with complete sets of horses, about fifteen hundred rifles . in exceUent condition, three hundred and fifty guns, one hundred and fifty swords, two medicine-chests just received from England, and a box of guineas and other gold coin, fell to the victors. As the tidings of danger to the pubhc hberty spread through the colony the patriots took up arms in untold num bers, rumored to exceed nine thousand. Moore, under orders from the council, disarmed the Highlanders and regulators of the back country, and imprisoned the ringleaders. The men aced invasion under Clinton caused no terror. Almost every man was ready to turn out at an hour's warning. North Caro hna had men enough of her own to crush domestic insurrec tions and repel enemies from abroad ; and, as they marched in triumph through their piny forests, they were persuaded that in their own groves they could win an easy victory over Brit ish regulars. The terrors of a fate hke that of Norfolk could not dismay the patriots of WUmington. North Carolina, proud of its victory over domestic ene mies, and roused to defiance by the arrival of Clinton in their great river, met in congress at Hahfax on the fourth of April ; on the eighth appointed a select committee, of which Harnett was the head, to consider the usurpations and violences of the British parliament and king ; and on the tweKth, after listening to its report, unanimously "empowered their dele gates in the continental congress to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring independency and forming 1776. NORTH CAROLINA DECLARES FOR INDEPENDENCE. 391 foreign alliances." At the same time, they reserved to their colony the sole right of forming its own constitution and laws. The people of North Carolina were the first in America to vote an exphcit sanction to independence. The border colony on the south had shown equal decision. So early as July 1775, Sir James Wright, the able governor of Georgia, had frankly written home : " God grant concihatory measures may take place ; there is not an hour to be lost ; the state of affairs wiU not admit of the least delay." The people of Georgia met in congress ; a councU of safety maintained an executive supervision ; local affairs were left to parochial com mittees ; but the crown officers were not molested. The mi htia officers were compelled to sign the association, and a ship which arrived with two hundred and four slaves was forced to go away without landing them. In September two hundred and fifty barrels of powder were taken by the " hberty " peo ple from a vessel at Tybee. "Twelve months ago," said the people of Georgia in 1776, " we were declared rebels, and yet we meet with no opposi tion ; Britain may destroy our towns, but we can retire to the back country and tire her out." On the appearance of a small squadron in the Savannah, Joseph Habersham, on the eighteenth of January, with a party of volunteers, confined Sir James Wright under a guard in his own house. The other crown officers either fled or were seized. The provincial congress, which assembled in Savannah on the second of February, elected Archibald Bulloch, John Houstoun, Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnet, and George Walton their delegates to the continental congress ; and, being so re mote from the seat of congress, they dechned to give them any other instruction than this : " Keep in view the general utihty, remembering that the great and righteous cause in which we are engaged is not provincial but continental ; and concur in all measures calculated for the common good." In this way the delegates of Georgia were left free to join in declaring inde pendence whenever it should be the choice of the continental congress. A few days after this instruction was adopted, the royal governor, taking with him the great seal of the province, 392 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxiv. escaped by night to Bonaventure, rowed through Tybee creek to the Scarborough man-of-war, and reported " Georgia to be totally under the influence of the Carohna people ; nothing but force could pave the way for the commissioners." His flight imposed upon the congress of Georgia the necessity of framing a constitution, which, on the fifteenth of April 1776, was accepted as " the groundwork of a more stable and formal gov ernment." Archibald Bulloch was elected its first president, and on the first day of May was charged by the councU of safety to enforce aU the resolutions of congress, without regard to any individual or set of men; "for," they reasoned, "no government can be said to be estabhshed while any part of the community refuses submission to its authority." Accepting the supreme command of the colony, Bulloch answered : " The appointment is derived from the free and uncorrupt suffrages of my f eUow-citizens. I shaU enforce and carry into execution every resolve and law of " the " congress " of Georgia. 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 393 CHAPTER XXV. how south carolina advanced to independence. February-July 1776. The American congress needed an impulse from the reso lute spirit of some government springing wholly from the people. On the eighth of February 1776, the convention of South Carolina, by Drayton their president, presented their thanks to John Rutledge and Henry Middleton for their ser vices in the American congress, which had made its appeal to the T^ing of kings, established a navy, treasury, and general post-office, exercised control over commerce, and granted to colonies permission to create civil institutions, independent of the regal authority. The next day arrived Gadsden, the high est officer in the army of the province, and he in hke manner received the welcome of pubhc gratitude. In return, he pre sented the standard which was to be used by the American navy, representing in a yeUow field a rattlesnake of thirteen full-grown rattles coUed to strike, with the motto : don't tread on me. When, on the tenth, the report on reforming the provincial government was considered and many hesitated, Gadsden spoke out for the absolute independence of America. The majority had thus far refused to contemplate the end toward which they were irresistibly impeUed. One member avowed bis wiUingness to ride post by day and night to Phila delphia, in order to assist in reuniting Great Britain and her colonies; the elder Laurens "bore his testimony against the principles of ' Common Sense ; ' " but the criminal laws could not be enforced for want of officers ; pubhc and private affairs were running into confusion ; the imminent danger of invasion 394 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; oh. xxv. was proved by intercepted letters ; so that necessity compeUed the adoption of some adequate system of rale. While a committee of eleven was preparing the organic law, Gadsden, on the thirteenth, began to act as senior officer of the army. Companies of mihtia were caUed down to Charleston, and the mihtary forces augmented by two regi ments of riflemen. In the early part of the year Sullivan's Island was a wilderness, thickly covered with myrtle, live-oak, and palmettos ; there, on the second of March, Wilham Moul trie was ordered to complete a fort large enough to hold a thousand men. Within five days after the convention received the act of parliament of the preceding December which authorized the capture of American vessels and property, they gave up the hope of reconcihation ; and, on the twenty-sixth of March 1776, asserting " the good of the people to be the origin and end of all government," and enumerating the unwarrantable acts of the British parhament, the implacability of the king, and the violence of his officers, they estabhshed a constitution for South Carolina. The executive power was intrusted to a president who was endowed with a veto on legislation and was com mander-in-chief ; the congress resolved itself into a general assembly, till their successors should be elected by the people in the following October. The numerous and arbitrary repre sentation, which had prevailed originally in the committee of 1774 and had been continued in the first and second congress of 1775, was confirmed by the new instrument, so that Charles ton kept the right of sending thirty members to the general assembly. The old laws prescribing the qualifications of the electors and the elected were continued in force. A legislative councU of thirteen was to be elected by the assembly out of their own body ; the assembly and the legislative councU elected jointly by ballot the president and vice-president. The privy council of seven was composed of the vice-president, three members chosen by' baUot by the assembly, and three by the legislative council. The judges were chosen by joint ballot of the two branches of the legislature, by whose address they might be removed, though otherwise they were to hold office during good behavior. 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 395 On the twenty-seventh, John Rutledge was chosen presi dent, Henry Laurens vice-president, and William Henry Dray- ton chief justice. On accepting office, Rutledge addressed tire" general assembly : " To preside over the weKare of a brave and generous people is in my opinion the highest honor any man can receive. In so perilous a season as the present, I will not withhold my best services. I assure myself of receiving the support and assistance of every good man in the colony ; and my most fervent prayer to the omnipotent Ruler of the uni verse is, that under his gracious providence the hberties of America may be forever preserved." On the next day the oaths of office were administered; then, to display the existence of the new constitution, the councU and assembly, preceded by the president and vice- president and by the sheriff bearing the sword of state, walked out in a solemn procession from the state-house to the ex change, in the presence of the troops and the mihtia of South Carohna. The people, with rapture and tears of joy, crowded round the men whom they had chosen to office from among themselves. Early in April the legislative bodies addressed the presi dent : " Conscious of our natural and unalienable rights, and deteimined to make every effort to retain them, we see your elevation from the midst of us to govern this country, as the natural consequence of unprovoked, cruel, and accumulated oppressions. Chosen by the suffrages of a free people, you wm make the constitution the great rule of your conduct ; in the discharge of your duties under that constitution we wUl support you with our hves and fortunes." In words penned by Drayton and Cotesworth Pinckney. the assembly condemned the British plan of sending commis sioners to treat with the several colonies as a fraudulent scheme for subverting their hberties by negotiations, and re solved to communicate with the court of Great Britain only through the continental congress. When, on the eleventh of April, they closed their session, " On my part," said Rutledge, " a most solemn oath has been taken for the faithful discharge of my duty ; on yours, a sol emn assurance has been given to support me therein. The 396 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; ch. xxv. constitution shall be the invariable rule of my conduct. I re pose the most perfect confidence in your engagement. If any persons in your parishes and districts are stiU strangers to the merits of the dispute between Great Britain and the colonies, you will explain it to them fuUy, and teach them their inhe rent rights. The endeavors to engage barbarous nations to imbrue their hands in the innocent blood of helpless women and children, and the attempts to make ignorant domestics subservient to the most wicked purposes, are acts at which humanity must revolt. " Seeing no alternative but unconditional submission or a defence becoming men born to freedom, no man who is worthy of hfe, hberty, or property wiU hesitate about the choice. Su perior force may lay waste our towns and ravage our country, it can never eradicate from the breasts of free men those prin ciples which are ingrafted in their very nature. " Of this colony the reputation for generosity and magna nimity is universally acknowledged. I trust that the only strife among brethren wiU be, who shaU do most to serve and to save an injured country." D"l~7'*l On the twentyjtirjrd of April/the court was opened at Charleston, andjhe chief justice after an~elaborate^xposition charged the grand jury in these words : "The law of the land authorizes me~to qecraTe", and itjs_my duty to declare the law, .that JGeorge III. Jang of Great Britain, haslibuicatecTthe gov- ernment, that henas no authority over us, and we owe no obe dience to hji " It has been the pohcy of the British authority to cramp and confine our trade so as to be subservient to their com merce, our real linterest being ever out of the question ; the new constitutionys wisely adapted to enable us to trade with foreign nations, and thereby to supply our wants at the cheap est markets in the. universe ; to extend our trade infinitely beyond what has ever been known ; to encourage manufactures among us ; and to prVmote the happiness of the people" from among whom, by virtxre and merit, the poorest man may arrive at the highest dignity. ^The Almighty createdLAmerica to be ind^ppndgnj_of Britain ; to refuse enr Inhnrs in thin divjmMYork is to refuse to be a great, a free, a pious, and a happy peopler ' 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 397 Rutledge was equal to the office which he had accepted ; order and method grew at once out of the substitution of a single executive for committees ; from him the officers of the regiments, as weU as of the mihtia, derived their commissions. To prepare for the British army and naval squadron which were known to be on the way, the mechanics and laborers of Charleston, assisted by great numbers of negroes from the country, were employed in fortifying the town. When the veteran Armstrong arrived to take the command of the army, he found httle more to do than receive the hospitahties of the inhabitants. The British fleet and transports designed to act in Carohna did not leave Cork harbor tiU February ; they were scattered by a storm soon after going to sea; they met most violent adverse gales and winds ; and not tin the third of May, after a passage of more than eighty days, did Sir Peter Parker, Corn- wahis, and such ships as kept them company, enter Cape Fear river and dehver to Chnton his instructions. These instruc tions directed him to proclaim pardon to all but " the princi pal instigators of the rebeUion, to dissolve provincial congresses and committees of safety, to restore the regular administration of justice, to arrest the persons and destroy the property of all who should refuse to give satisfactory tests of their obedience." From North Carolina he might proceed at his own choice to Virginia or to South Carolina, in hke manner " to seize the persons and destroy the property of rebels." If he proceeded to South Carolina he was to reduce Charleston, as a prelude to the faU of Savannah. All joined " to lament the fatal delays." It was too late to invade North Carohna, which had suppressed its loyal in surrection. With the formidable armament Chnton inchned to look into the Chesapeake, which would bring him nearer New York ; but Lord WiUiam CampbeU urged an attack on Charles ton ; and, as intelligence was received " that the works erected by the rebels on SuUivan's Islahd, which was the key to the harbor, were unfinished, Clinton acquiesced in the proposal of the commodore to attempt the reduction of that fortress by a sudden attack." Before leaving his government, Martin had sent a party to 398 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi.; oh. xxv. bum the house of Hooper, the noble-minded delegate in the continental congress; Cornwallis, with nine hundred men- it was his first exploit in America — landed in Brunswick county, and, with a loss of two men killed and one taken pris oner, burned and ravaged the plantation of Robert Howe. As the British retired from North Carohna, Chnton in a proclamation of the fifth of May invited the people " to ap pease the vengeance of an incensed nation," and offered par don to all who would submit, except Robert Howe and Corne lius Harnett. The peace of Charleston was undisturbed except by gather ing rumors that an English fleet and transports had arrived in Cape Fear river. Its citizens, taking courage from the effi ciency with which the government of the colony was ad ministered, toiled in the trenches ; and bands of negroes from the neighboring plantations were employed upon the works. The bloom of the magnolia was yeUowing, when, on the first day of June, expresses from Christ Church parish brought news to the president that a fleet of forty or fifty sail lay anchored about twenty miles to the north of Charleston bar. Rutledge ordered the alarm to be fired; and whUe the townsmen were looking out for horses, carriages or boats to re move their wives and children, he called down the militia from the country by expresses, and, in company with Armstrong who arrived toward the end of April, visited aU the fortifica tions. Barricades were thrown up across the principal streets ; defences were raised at the points most likely to be selected for landing ; lead, gleaned from the weights of windows, was cast into musket-balls; and a respectable force was concen tred at the capitol. The invaders of South Carolina had come only upon the most positive assurances that the friends of the British gov ernment in the province would rise at their bare appearance. At a moment when instant action was essential to their suc cess they were perplexed by uncertainty of counsel between Clinton and Sir Peter Parker, the respective commanders of the army and the naval force. On the eighth Moultrie re ceived from Chnton the proclamation, in which the British general declared the existence of "a most unprovoked and 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 399 wicked rebeUion within South Carohna," the " succession of crimes of its inhabitants," the tyranny of its congress and com mittees, the error, thus far incorrigible, of . an " infatuated and misguided multitude," the duty of "proceeding forthwith against aU bodies of men in arms, congresses, and committees, as open enemies of the state ; " but " from humanity " he con sented " to forewarn the deluded people," and to offer in the king's name " free pardon to such as should lay down their arms and submit to the laws." Having done this, he consulted CornwaUis on the best means of gaining possession of SuUi van's Island ; and both agreed that they could not more effec- tuaUy co-operate with the intended movement of the fleet than by landing on Long Island, which was said to communicate with SuUivan's Island at low water by a ford. Clinton had had four days' time to sound the ford ; but he took the story of its shahowness on trust. General Lee traveUed leisurely to the south, in March tak ing up his quarters in the palace of the British governors at Wilhamsburg. As querulous as ever, he praised the congress of New York as angels of hght compared with the Virginia committee of safety. He directed the arrest of Eden, the gov ernor of Maryland, without ceremony or delay, though that province was not within his district, and resented the interfer ence. Not till the fourth of June did he reach Charleston. On the ninth, attended by his aides-de-camp and by Robert Howe of North Carolina, he inspected HaddreU's point in the bay of Charleston. After examining its fortifications he crossed to SuUivan's Island, where he found a fort of which the front and one side were finished; and twelve hundred men encamped in its rear in booths that were roofed with palmetto leaves. Within the fort, mechanics and laborers were hfting and fitting heavy palmetto logs for its walls. He had scarce glanced at the work when he declared that " he did not hke that post ; it could not hold out haK an hour ; there was no way to retreat ; " it was but a " slaughter pen," and the garrison would be sacrificed. The battahons raised in South Carolina, although congress bore its proportion of their cost, still remained under the direc tion of the president of the colony and its officers. This cir- 400 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxv. cumstance became of the greatest importance. To Armstrong no command whatever had been conceded ; Lee was invested with the military command only through an order from Rut ledge. Weeks afterward he continued in secret to express im patience at " this complex play they were acting of Duke and no Duke ; " * but with Rutledge he took care to avoid a rupture. On that same day Clinton landed four or five himdred men on Long Island, showing that the first attack was to be made on the outpost of the city. Lee proposed to Rutledge to with draw from SuUivan's Island without a blow; but Rutledge, interposing his authority, would not suffer it ; yet on the tenth the very first order of Lee to Moultrie, except one which was re voked as soon as issued, directed that officer to construct bridges for his retreat, and he repeated and enforced the order several times that day and on almost every succeeding one. Happily Moultrie's courage was of that placid kind that could not be made anxious or uneasy ; he weighed carefully his danger and his resources ; with imperturbable confidence, formed his plan for repeUing the impending attack by sea and by land ; and never admitted the thought that he could be driven from his post. On the tenth, while the continental congress was finishing the debate on independence, the Bristol, whose guns had been previously taken out, came over the bar, attended by thirty or forty vessels, and anchored at about three miles from Fort Sullivan. In Charleston, from which this movement was dis tinctly visible, aU was action; on the wharfs, warehouses of great value were thrown down to give room for the fire of cannon and musketry from the lines along East bay ; intrench ments surrounded the town ; the barricades, in the principal streets, were continued to the water ; and arrow-headed em bankments were projected upon the landing-places. Every one without distinction "labored with alacrity" in sun and in rain. On the eleventh the two regiments from North Carolina arrived. That same day Lee, not being permitted by Rut ledge to direct the total evacuation of. the island, ordered Moul trie immediately to send four hundred of his men over to the * Charles Lee to Patrick Henry, 29 July 1776. 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 401 continent ; in his postscript he added : " Make up the detach ment to five hundred." On the thirteenth he writes : " You wiU detach another hundred of men " to strengthen the corps on the other side of the creek. But South Carohna was with Moultrie, and mechanics and negro laborers were sent down to help in the work on his fort. On the tweKth the wind blew so violently that two ships which lay outside of the bar were obhged for safety to stand out to sea, and this assisted to post pone the attack. On the fifteenth Lee stationed Armstrong, Moultrie's supe rior, at HaddreU's point ; but the brave Pennsylvanian, mani festing for Moultrie a hearty friendship, never interfered with him. On that same day Sir Peter Parker gave to the captains of his squadron his arrangement for taking the batteries on SuUivan's Island ; and on the sixteenth he communicated it to Clinton. The conduct of the British betrayed hesitation and unharmonious councils ; and the Carolinians made such use of the consequent delay that by the seventeenth they were in an exceedingly good state of preparation at every outpost and in town. To capture and garrison SuUivan's Island, Chnton, con sulting with Cornwallis, landed his army of more than three thousand men, thoroughly provided with arms, artillery, and ammunition, on Long Island, a naked sand, where nothing grew except a few bushes that harbored myriads of mosquitoes, and where the troops suffered from the burning sun, the want of good water and the bad quahty and insufficient supply of provisions. After every man had been landed it occurred to Clinton to make a trial of the ford. He waded in up to his neck; so did others of his officers; and then he announced, through Vaughan to Sir Peter Parker, that there remained seven feet of water at low tide ; and that therefore the troops could not take the share they expected in the intended attack. CompeUed to propose something, Chnton fixed on the twenty- third for the joint attack ; but it was hindered on that day by an unfavorable wind. In the following night Muhlenberg's regiment arrived.. On receiving Lee's orders, they had instantly set off from Vir ginia and marched to Charleston without tents, continuaUy ex posed to the weather. Of aU the Virginia regiments, this was vol. iv. — 26 402 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; oh. xxv. the most complete, the best armed, best clothed, and best equipped for immediate service. The confidence of Sir Peter Parker was unshaken. To make all sure, he exercised a body of marines and seamen in the art of entering a fort through its embrasures. Coming down to the island, Lee took Moultrie aside and said : " Do you think you can maintain this post % " Moultrie answered : " Yes, I think I can." Lee fretted at Moultrie's too easy dis position, and wished to remove him from the command. On the twenty-fifth the squadron was increased by the ar rival of the Experiment, a ship of sixty guns, which passed the bar on the next day. Letters of encouragement came from Tonyn, then governor of East Florida, who was impatient for an attack on Georgia ; he would have had a body of Indians raised on the back of South Carohna and a body of royalists to " terrify and distract, so that the assault at Charleston would have struck an astonishing terror and affright." He reported South Carolina to be in "a mutinous state that dehghted him ; " " the men would certainly rise on their officers ; the battery on Sullivan's Island would not discharge two rounds." This opinion was spread through the fleet, and became the belief of every sailor. With or without Chnton's aid, the commodore was persuaded that he could silence Moultrie's batteries, and that then his well-drilled seamen and marines could take and keep possession of the fort, tiU CUnton should " send as many troops as he might think proper, who might enter the fort in the same way." One day Captain Lempriere, the same who in the former year had taken more than a hundred barrels of powder from a vessel at anchor off St. Augustine, was walking with Moultrie on the platform, and, looking at the British ships-of-war, all of which had already come over the bar, addressed him : " WeU, colonel, what do you think of it now?" "We shall beat them," said Moultrie. " The men-of-war," rejoined the cap tain, " will knock your fort down in half an hour." " Then," said Moultrie, ". we wiU lie behind the ruins and prevent their men from landing." On the morning of the twenty-eighth a gentle sea-breeze summoned to the attack. Lee, from Charleston, for the tenth 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 403 or eleventh time, charged Moultrie to finish the bridge for his retreat, promised him re-ehf orcements which he never sent, and stiU meditated removing him from his command ; while Moul trie, whose faculties under the outward show of indolent calm were strained to their utmost tension, rode to visit his advanced guard on the east. Here the commander, WiUiam Thomson of Orangeburg, of Irish descent, a native of Pennsylvania, but from childhood a citizen of South Carohna, a man of rare worth, as an officer brave and intelligent, had, at the extreme point, posted fifty of the militia behind sand-hills and myrtle bushes. A few hundred yards in the rear, breastworks had been thrown up, which he guarded with three hundred riflemen of his own regiment from Orangeburg and its neighborhood, with two hundred of Clark's North Carolina regiment, two hundred more of the men of South Carohna under Horry, and the raccoon company of riflemen. On his left he was pro tected by a morass ; on his right by one eighteen-pounder and one brass six-pounder, which overlooked the spot where Clinton would wish to land. . Seeing the enemy's boats in motion on the beach of Long Island and the men-of-war loosing their topsails, Moultrie hur ried back to bis fort. He ordered the long roll to beat, and officers and men to their posts. His whole number, including himseK and officers, was four hundred and thirty-five, of whom twenty-two were of the artiUery, the rest of his own regiment — men who were bound to each other, to their officers, and to him, by personal affection and confidence. Next to him in command was Isaac Motte ; his major was the fearless and faultless Francis Marion. The fort was a square, with a bas tion at each angle ; buUt of palmetto logs, dovetailed and bolted together, and laid in parallel rows sixteen feet asunder, with sand filled in between the rows. On the eastern and northern sides the palmetto waU was only seven feet high, but it was surmounted by thick plank, so as to be tenable against a scaling party ; a traverse of sand extended from east to west. The southern and western curtains were finished with their plat forms, on which cannon were mounted. The standard, which was advanced to the south-east bastion, displayed a flag of blue with a white crescent on which was emblazoned Llbeety. 404 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xxv. The number of cannon in the fort, bastions and the two cava liers was but thirty-one, of which no more than twenty-one could at the same time be brought into use ; of ammunition, there were but twenty-eight rounds for twenty-six cannon. At Haddrell's point, across the bay, Armstrong had about fif teen hundred men. The first regular South Carolina regiment, under Christopher Gadsden, occupied Fort Johnson, which stood on the most northerly part of James Island, about three mUes from Charleston, and within point-blank shot of the chan nel. The city was protected by more than two thousand men. HaK an hour after nine in the morning the commodore gave signal to Chnton that he should proceed to the attack. An hour later the ships-of-war were under way. Gadsden, Cotesworth Pinckney, and the rest at Fort Johnson watched all their movements ; in Charleston, the wharfs and water-side along the bay were crowded with troops under arms and look ers-on. Their adversary must be foiled or their city will be sacked and burnt, and the savages on the frontier spring from their lurking-places. The Thunderbomb, covered by the Friendship, began the action by throwing shells, which it continued till more than sixty were discharged ; of these, some burst in the air ; one hghted on the magazine without doing injury ; the rest sunk in the morass- or were buried in the sand within the fort. At about a quarter to eleven the Active, of twenty-eight guns, disregarding four or five shots fired at her while under sail ; the Bristol, with fifty guns, having on board Sir Peter Parker and Lord WUliam Campbell, the royal governor of South Carolina ; the Experiment, of fifty guns ; and the Solebay, of twenty-eight — brought up within about three hundred and fifty yards of the fort, let go their anchors with springs upon their cables, and began a most furious cannonade. Every sailor expected that two broadsides would end the strife; but the soft, fibrous, spongy palmetto withstood the rapid fire, and neither spht nor splintered nor started ; and the parapet was high enough to protect the men on the platforms. When broadsides from three or four of the men-of-war struck the logs at the same instant, the shock gave the merlons a tremor, but the pile remained uninjured. Moultrie had but one tenth 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 405 as many guns as were brought to bear on him, and was, more over, obhged to stint the use of powder. His guns accordingly were fired very slowly, the officers taking aim, and waiting always for the smoke to clear away that they might point with more precision. " Mind the commodore, mind the fifty- gun ships," were the words that passed along the platform from officers and men. " Shall I send for more powder ? " asked Moultrie of Motte. " To be sure," said Motte. And Moultrie wrote to Lee : " I beheve we shaU want more powder. At the rate we go on, I think we shaU ; but you can see that. Pray send us more, if you think proper." More vessels were seen coming up, and cannon were heard from the north-east. Chnton had promised support. Not knowing what else to do, he directed the batteries on Long Island to open a cannonade ; and several shells were thrown into Thomson's intrenchments, doing no damage beyond wounding one soldier. The firing was returned by Thomson with his one eighteen-pounder ; but, from the distance, with httle effect. At twelve o'clock the hght infantry, grenadiers, and the fifteenth regiment embarked in boats, while floating batteries and armed craft got under way to cover the landing ; but the American defences were weU constructed, the approach diffi cult, Thomson vigilant, and his men sMKul sharpshooters. The detachment had hardly left Long Island before it was or dered to disembark, for it was seen that " the landing was impracticable, and would have been the destruction of many brave men, without the least probabihty of success." " It was impossible," says Clinton, "to decide positively upon any plan ; " and he did nothing. The commodore, at Clinton's request, sent three frigates to co-operate with him in an attack on HaddreU's point ; it would have been stiU more desperate, and was not attempted. The people of Charleston, as they looked from the battery with senses quickened by the nearness of danger, beheld the Sphinx, the Acteon, and the Syren, each of twenty-eight guns, saihng as K to get between HaddreU's point and the fort, so as to en filade the works, and, when the rebels should be driven from 406 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxv. them, to cut off their retreat. It was a moment of danger, for the fort on that side was unfinished; but the pUots, keeping too far to the south, ran aU the three upon a bank of sand, known as the Lower Middle Ground. Seeing the frigates thus entangled, the beholders in the town were swayed alternately by fears and hopes ; the armed inhabitants stood every one at bis post, uncertain but that they might be called to immediate action, hardly daring to believe that Moultrie's smaU and ill- furnished garrison could beat off the squadron, when behold ! his flag disappears. Fearing that his colors had been struck, they prepared to meet the invaders at the water's edge. In the fort, WilUam Jasper, a sergeant, perceived that the flag had been cut down by a baU from the enemy, and had fallen over the ramparts. "Colonel," said he to Moultrie, " don't let us fight without a flag." " What can you do ? " asked Moultrie ; " the staff is broken off." " Then," said Jasper, " I'U fix it to a halberd, and place it on the merlon of the bastion next the enemy ; " and, leaping through an embrasure, and braving the thickest fire from the ship, he took up the flag, returned with it safely, and planted it, as he had promised, on the summit of the merlon. The sea gleamed with hght; the almost vertical sun of midsummer glared from a cloudless sky ; and the intense heat was increased by the blaze from the cannon on the platform. All of the garrison were without coats during the action, and some were nearly naked ; Moultrie and several of the officers smoked their pipes as they gave their orders. They knew that their movements were observed from the house-tops of Charles ton ; by the veteran Armstrong and the little army at Had dreU's point ; by Gadsden, who at Fort Johnson was chafing with discontent at not being in the centre of danger. Exposed to an incessant cannonade, which seemed sufficient to daunt the bravest veterans, they stuck to their guns with the greatest constancy. Hit by a ball which entered through an embrasure, Mac daniel cried out to his brother soldiers: "lam dying, but don't let the cause of hberty expire with me this day." Jas per removed the mangled corpse from the sight of his com- 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 407 rades, and cried aloud: "Let us revenge that brave man's death!" The slow and skUfully directed fire against the Bristol shattered that ship, and carried wounds and death. Neither the tide nor the wind suffered the British squadron to retire. Once the springs on the cables of the Bristol were swept away ; as she swung round with her stern toward the fort, she drew upon herseK the fire of every gun that could be, brought to bear upon her. Of aU who in the beginning of the action were stationed on her quarter-deck, not one escaped being killed or wounded. For a moment, it is said, the commodore stood alone. Morris, his captain, having the fore-arm shattered by a chain-shot, and receiving a wound in the neck, was taken into the cockpit ; but, after submitting to amputation, he in sisted on being carried on the quarter-deck once more, where he resumed command tiU he was shot through the body, when, feeling dissolution near, he commended his family to the provi dence of God and the generosity of his country. Meantime, the eyes of the commodore and of aU on board his fleet were " frequently and impatiently " and vainly turned toward the army. H the troops would but co-operate, he was sure of gaining the island ; for at about one o'clock he believed that he had sUenced the guns of the rebels, and that the fort was on the point of being evacuated. But the pause was owing to the scarcity of powder, of which the httle that remained to Moul trie was reserved for the musketry, as a defence against an ex pected attack from the land forces. Lee should of himself have replenished his stock ; Moultrie had seasonably requested it, but in the heat of the action he received from Lee this an swer : " K you should unfortunately expend your ammunition without beating off the enemy or driving them on ground, spike your guns and retreat." A httle later a better message came from Rutledge, at Charleston : "I send you five hundred pounds of powder. You know our collection is not very great. Honor and victory to you and our worthy countrymen with you. Do not make too free with your cannon. Be cool and do mischief." These five hundred pounds of powder, with two hundred pounds from a schooner lying at the back of the fort, were aU the supphes 408 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxv. that Moultrie received. At three in the afternoon, Lee, on a report from his aide-de-camp, Byrd, sent Muhlenberg's Vir ginia riflemen to re-enforce Thomson. A little before five, Moultrie was able to renew his fire. At about five, the ma rines in the ships' tops, seeing a heutenant with eight or ten men remove the heavy barricade from the gateway of the fort, thought that Moultrie and his party were about to retreat ; but the gateway was unbarred to receive a visit from Lee. The officers, half naked, and begrimed with the hot day's work, respectfully laid down their pipes as he drew near. The general himseK pointed two or three guns, after which he said to Moultrie : " Colonel, I see you are doing very well here ; you have no occasion for me ; I wiU go up to town again ; " and thus he left the fort. When, at a few minutes past seven, the sun went down in a blaze of hght, the battle was still raging, though the British showed signs of weariness. The inhabitants of Charleston, whom the evening sea-breeze collected on the battery, could behold the flag of liberty stiU proudly waving ; and they con tinued gazing anxiously, till the short twilight was suddenly merged in the deep darkness of a southern night, when noth ing was seen but continual flashes, foUowed by peals as it were of thunder coming out from a heavy cloud. Many thousand shot were fired from the shipping, and hardly a hut or a tree on the island remained unhurt ; but the works were very httle dam aged, and only one gun was silenced. The firing from the fort continued slowly ; and the few shot they were able to send were heard to strike against the ships' timbers. Just after nine o'clock, a great part of his ammunition being expended in a cannonade of about ten hours, his people fatigued, the Bristol and the Ex periment made nearly wrecks, the tide of ebb almost done, with no prospect of help from the army, Sir Peter Parker resolved to withdraw. At half-past nine his ships slipped their cables, and dropped down with the tide to their previous moorings. Of the four hundred and thirty-five Americans in the fort who took part in this action, all but eleven remained aUve, and but twenty-six were wounded. At so small a cost of life had Charleston been defended, and the colony saved. When, after a cannonade of about ten hours, the firing 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 409 ceased, the inhabitants of Charleston remained in suspense, till a boat from Moultrie announced his victory. At morning's dawn the Acteon frigate was seen fast aground at about four hundred yards from the fort. The Syren had got off, and so too had the Sphinx, yet with the loss of her bowsprit. Some shots were exchanged, but the company of the Acteon soon set fire to her, and deserted her. Men from the fort boarded her while she was burning, pointed and discharged two or three of her guns at the commodore, and loaded their three boats from her stores. In one half of an hour after they abandoned her she blew up ; and, to the eyes of the Carolinians, the pillar of smoke over the vessel took the form of the palmetto. The Bristol had forty men kiUed and seventy-one wounded. Lord William CampbeU received a contusion in his left side, of which, after lingering two years, he died. Sir Peter Parker was slightly injured. About seventy baUs went through his ship ; her mizzen-mast was so much hurt that it fell early the next morning ; the main-mast was cut away about fifteen feet below the hounds ; and the broad pendant streamed from a jury-mast lower than the foremast. But for the stillness of the sea she must have gone down.' On board the Experiment twenty-three were killed and fifty-six wounded ; Scott, her cap tain, lost his left arm, and was otherwise severely wounded ; the ship was much damaged, her mizzen gaff was shot away. The loss of the British fleet, in killed and wounded, was two hundred and five. The royal governors of North and of South Carolina, as weU as Chnton and CornwaUis and seven regi ments, were witnesses of the defeat. The commodore and the general long indulged in reciprocal criminations. Nothing re mained for the army but to quit the sands of Long Island, yet three weeks more passed away before they embarked in trans ports for New York, under the single " convoy of the Solebay frigate, the rest of the fleet being under the necessity of re maining stiU longer. to refit." The success of the Carolinians saved not a post, but the state. It kept seven regiments away from New York for two months ; it gave security to Georgia, and three years' peace to Carolina ; it dispelled throughout the South the dread of Brit ish superiority ; it drove the loyalists into obscurity. To the 410 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxv. other colonies it was a message of brotherhood and union from South Carolina as a self-directing repubhc. On the morning of the twenty-ninth Charleston harbor was studded with sails and ahve with the voices of men hasten ing to congratulate the victors. They crowded round their deliverers with transports of gratitude ; they gazed on the un injured walls of the fortress ; they enjoyed the sight of the wreck of the Acteon, of the discomfited men-of-war riding at anchor at two and a haK mUes' distance ; they laughed at the commodore's broad pendant, scarcely visible on a jury main- topmast, while their own blue flag crowned the merlon. Let ters of congratulation came down from Rutledge and from Gadsden ; and Lee gave his witness that " no men ever did or could behave better." On the afternoon of the thirtieth Lee reviewed the garri son, and renewed to them the praise that was their due. WhUe they were thus drawn out the women of Charleston presented to the second regiment a pair of silken colors, one of blue, one of red, richly embroidered by their own hands ; and Susanna Smith Elliott, a scion of one of the oldest famUies of the col ony, who, being left an orphan, had been brought up by Re becca Brewton Motte, stepped forth to the front of the intrepid band in matronly beauty, young and stately, Ught-haired, with eyes of mUd expression, and a pleasant countenance, and, as she put the flags into the . hands of Moultrie and Motte, she said in a low, sweet voice : " Your gallant behavior in defence of liberty and your country entitles you to the highest honors ; accept these two standards as a reward justly due to your regi ment ; and I make not the least doubt, under heaven's protec tion, you will stand by them as long as they can wave in the air of hberty." The regiment, plighting the word which they were to keep sacredly at the cost of many of their hves, an swered : " The colors shall be honorably supported, and shall never be tarnished." On the fourth of July, Rutledge came to visit the garrison. There stood Moultrie, there Motte, there Marion, there Peter Horry, there Wilham Jasper, and all survivors of the battle. When Rutledge, in the name of South Carolina, returned thanks to the defenders, his burning words adequately ex- 1776. THE BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 411 pressed the impassioned gratitude of the people. To Jasper was offered a lieutenant's commission, which he modestly de clined, accepting only a sword. South Carolina, by her president and the common_yoice. spontaneously decreed that t.bp. pnst. r>n Sullivan's Island shnnTrl j fSfaprfuture time, be known as Fort Moultrie ; her assembly crowned her victorious sons with applause. The tidings leaped from colony to colony on their way to the North, and the con tinental congress voted their thanks to Lee, Moultrie, Thomson, and the ufficeib and men under their command. But, at the TrmeoTThat vote, congress was no more the representative of depenaent colonies ; the victory at Fort Moultrie was the bright (mormngstarjfliat harbingered American independence. £12 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxvi. CHAPTER XXVI. virginia proclaims the rights of man and proposes inde pendence. May-June 1776. On the sixth of May forty-five members of the house of burgesses of Virginia met at the capitol in WiUiamsburg pur suant to their adjournment ; but, as they were of the opinion that the ancient constitution had been subverted by the king and parliament of Great Britain, they dissolved themselves unanimously, and thus the last vestige of the king's authority passed away. The delegates of Virginia who on the same morning met in convention were a constituent and an executive body. Not less than one hundred and thirty in number, they represented the oldest of the colonies, whose institutions had been fash ioned after the model recommended by Bacon, and whose inhabitants for nearly a hundred and seventy years had main tained the church of England as the estabhshment of the do minion, and had been heartily loyal to their kings. Its people, having in their origin a perceptible but never an exclusive influence of the cavahers, had sprung mainly from adventurers, who were not fugitives for conscience' sake, or sufferers from persecution. The population had been recruited by successive infusions of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians ; Hugue nots, and the descendants of Huguenots ; men who had been so attached to CromweU or to the republic that they preferred to emigrate on the return of Charles II. ; Baptists and other dissenters ; and in the valley of Virginia there was a very large German population. 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 413 The territory for which the convention was to act com prised the great bay of the Chesapeake, with its central and southern tributaries ; the beautiful vaUeys on the head-springs of the Roanoke and along the Shenandoah ; the country be yond the mountains, including the sources of the Monongahela and the Cumberland rivers and extending indefinitely to the Tennessee and beyond it. Nor that only : Virginia insisted that its jurisdiction stretched without bounds over all the country west and north-west of a line two hundred miles north of Old Point Comfort, not granted to others by royal charters ; and there was no one to dispute a large part of this claim except the province of Quebec under an act of parhament which the continental congress had annulled. For all this vast territory — rich in soil, precious minerals, healing springs, forests, con venient marts for foreign commerce, and great pathways to the West, more fertile, more spacious than all Greece, Italy, and Great Britain, than any region which had ever proposed to estabhsh repubhcan hberty — a constitution was to be framed. The movement proceeded from the heart of Virginia her seK, and represented the magnanimity of her whole people. The Ancient Dominion had with entire unanimity approved the change of dynasty of 1688 ; with equal unanimity had, even more readily than the Enghsh, accepted the house of Hanover, and had been one of the most loyal parts of the em pire of the Georges. Driven to the choice between holding their constitutional rights on sufferance or creating a govern ment by the people, Virginia, with a unity of spirit, asked no questions about ancestry or creed, nearness to the sea or to the mountains. When it moved, it moved altogether. The story of the war commemorates the courage not of the men of the interior alone ; among the " inexorable famihes," Dunmore especiaUy reported from the low country the Lees, and the fanhly of Cary of Hampton, of whom even the sisters, mar ried to a Fairfax and a Nicholas, cheered on their connections to unrelenting opposition. Virginia rose with as much una nimity as Connecticut or Massachusetts, and with a more com manding resolution. The purpose for which the convention was assembled ap pears from the words of the county of Buckingham to Charles 414 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; ch. xxvt Patterson and John Cabell, its delegates : " We instruct you to cause a total and final separation from Great Britain to take place as soon as possible ; and a constitution to be estabUshed, with a fuU representation, and free and frequent elections; the most free, happy, and permanent government that human wisdom can contrive and the perfection of man maintain." The county of Augusta represented the necessity of mak ing the confederacy of the united colonies most perfect, inde- ¦ pendent, and lasting ; an equal, free, and liberal government, that might bear the test of all future ages. The inhabitants of Transylvania were anxious to concur with their brethren of the united colonies in every measure for the recovery of their rights and hberties. The inhabitants on the rivers Watauga and Holston set forth that " they were deeply impressed with a sense of the distresses of their American brethren, and would, when caUed upon, with their hves and fortunes, lend them every assist ance in their power ; they begged to be considered as a part of the colony, and would readily embrace every opportunity of obeying any commands from the convention." To that body were chosen more than one hundred and thirty of the ablest men of Virginia. Among them were no rash enthusiasts for hberty; no lovers of revolution for the sake of change; they were the choice of the freeholders of Virginia, and the majority were men of independent fortune, or even opulence. It was afterward remembered that of this grave assembly the members were for the most part men of large stature and robust frames, and that a very great propor tion of them hved to exceeding old age. They were now to decide whether Virginia demanded independence, and would establish a commonwealth ; and to move hke a pillar of fire in front of the whole country. When the delegates had assembled and appointed a clerk, Richard Bland recommended Edmund Pendleton for presi dent, and was seconded by Archibald Cary ; while Thomas Johnson of Louisa, and Bartholomew Dandridge, proposed Thomas LudweU Lee. For a moment there was something hke an array of parties, but it instantly subsided ; Virginia showed her greatness by her moderation, and gave new evidence that 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 415 the revolution sprung from necessity, by placing in the chair Pendleton, the most cautious and conservative among her patriots. After his election, he wrote to a friend : " Of aU others, I own I prefer the true English constitution, which consists of a proper combination of the principles of honor, virtue, and fear." On the fifteenth Archibald Cary, from a committee of the whole, reported resolutions which had been drafted by Pendle ton, offered by Nelson, and enforced by Henry. They were then twice read at the clerk's table, and, one hundred and twelve members being present, were unanimously agreed to. The preamble enumerated their chief grievances ; among others, that the king's representative in the colony was training and employing slaves against their masters ; and they say : " We have no alternative left but an abject submission or a total separation;" therefore they went on to decree "that their delegates in congress be instructed to propose to that body to declare the united colonies free and independent states, absolved from ah aUegiance or dependence upon the crown or parhament of Great Britain ; and that they give the assent of this colony to such declaration, and to measures for forming foreign aUi- ances and a confederation of the colonies : provided that the power of forming government for, and the regulation of the internal concerns of, each colony be left to the respective colo nial legislatures." This resolution was received out of doors with chimes of bells and the noise of artillery ; and the British flag, which had thus far kept its place on the state-house, was strack, to be raised no more. In the foUowing days a committee of tliirty-two was ap pointed to prepare a declaration of rights and a plan of gov ernment. Among the members were Archibald Cary ; Patrick Henry ; the aged Richard Bland ; Edmund Randolph, son of the attorney-general, who was then a refugee in England ; Nicholas ; James Madison, the youthful delegate from Orange county ; but the one who at that moment held most sway over the mind of the convention was George Mason, the successor of Washington in the representation of Fairfax county. He was a devoted member of the church of England : and, by his 416 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvl own account of himseK, " though not born within the verge of the British isle, he had been an Englishman in his principles, a zealous assertor of the act of settlement, firmly attached to the royal family upon the throne, weU affected to the king person aUy and to his government, in defence of which he would have shed the last drop of his blood ; one who adored the wisdom and happiness of the British constitution, and preferred it to any that then existed or had ever existed." For ten years he claimed nothing for his countrymen beyond the hberty and privileges of Englishmen, in the same degree as K they had stiU continued among their brethren in Great Britain ; but he said : " The ancient poets, in their elegant manner of expres sion, have made a kind of being of Necessity, and teU us that the gods themselves are obliged to yield to her ; " and he left the private hfe that he loved, to assist in the rescue of his coun try from the excesses of arbitrary power to which a seeming fatality had driven the British ministers. He was a good speaker and an able debater, the more eloquent now for being touched with sorrow; but his great strength lay in his sin cerity, which made him wise and bold, modest and unchanging, while it overawed his hearers. He was severe, but bis severity was humane, with no tinge of bitterness, though ne had a scorn for everything mean, cowardly, or low ; and he always spoke out his convictions with frank directness. He had been truly loyal ; on renouncing his king, he could stand justified to his own conscience only by an unselfish attachment to human freedom. On the twenty-seventh of May, Cary from the committee presented to the convention the declaration of rights which Mason had drafted. For the next fortnight the great truths which it proclaimed, and which were to form the ground work of American institutions, employed the thoughts of the convention. One clause only received a material amendment. Mason had written that all should enjoy the fuUest toleration in the exercise of rehgion. But toleration is the demand of the skeptic who has no fixed belief and only wishes to be let alone ; a firm faith, which is too easily tempted to estabhsh it self exclusively, can be content with nothing less than equality. A young man, then unknown to fame, of bright hazel eyes in- 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 417 clining to gray, smaU in stature, light in person, dehcate in ap pearance, a pallid, sickly scholar in an assembly of the most robust men, proposed an amendment. He was James Madi son, the son of an Orange county planter, bred in the school of Presbyterian dissenters under Witherspoon at Princeton, trained by bis own studies, by meditative rural life in the Old Dominion, by an ingenuous indignation at the persecution of the Baptists, and by the innate principles of right, to uphold the sanctity of religious freedom. He objected to the word " toleration," because it implied an estabhshed religion, which endured dissent only as a condescension ; and, as the earnest ness of his convictions overcame his modesty, he proceeded to demonstrate that " aU men are equally entitled to the free ex ercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." His motion, which did but state with better dialectics the very purpose which Mason wished to accomplish, obtained the suf frages of his coUeagues. This was the first achievement of the wisest civilian of Virginia. The declaration, having then been fairly transcribed, was on the twelfth of June read a third time, and unanimously adopted. These are the rights which they said do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of govern ment : " AU men are by nature equaUy free, and have inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity ; namely, the enjoyment of IKe and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. " AU power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people ; magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them. " Government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit and security of the people, nation, or community ; and, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or con trary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unahenable, and indefeasible right to reform, al ter, or abohsh it, in such a manner as shall be judged most con ducive to the pubhc weal. vol. iv. — 27 4-18 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvi. "Pubhc services not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary. " The legislative and executive powers of the state should be separate and distinct from the judicative : the members of the two first should, at fixed periods, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supphed by frequent, certain, and regular elections.^ " Elections of members to serve as representatives of the people in assembly ought to be free ; and aU men, having suffi cient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attach ment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for pubhc uses without their own consent or that of their representative so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in hke manner, assented for the public good. " There ought to be no arbitrary power of suspending laws, no requirement of excessive baU, no granting of general war rants. " No man ought to be deprived of hberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers ; and the ancient trial by jury ought to be held sacred. " The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, aud can never be restrained but by despotic govern ments. "A weU-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; standing armies in' time of peace should be avoided as dangerous to hberty ; and in aU cases the mihtary should be under strict subordination to the civil power. " The people have a right to uniform government ; and, therefore, no government separate from or independent of the government of Virginia ought to be erected or estabhshed within the limits thereof. " No free government can be preserved but by a firm ad herence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and vir tue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. " Rehgion can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence ; and, therefore, all men are equaUy entitled to the free exercise of it, according to the dictates of 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 419 conscience ; and it is the mutual duty of all to practice Chris tian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other." Other colonies had framed bills of rights in reference to their relations with Britain ; Virginia moved from charters and customs to primal principles ; from the altercation about facts to the contemplation of immutable truth. She summoned the eternal laws of man's being to protest against all tyranny. The Enghsh petition of right in 1688 was historic and retrospect ive ; the Virginia declaration came out of the heart of nature, and announced governing principles for aU peoples in aU time. It was the voice of reason going forth to speak a new pohtical world into being. At the bar of humanity Virginia gave the name and fame of her sons as hostages that her public hfe should show a likeness to the highest ideas of right and equal freedom among men. WhUe Virginia communicated to her sister colonies her instruction to her delegates in congress to propose indepen dence, Washington at New York freely and repeatedly delivl ered his opinion : " A reconciliation with Great Britain is im practicable, and would be in the highest degree detrimental to the true interest of America. Nothing but independence wiU save us." The preamble and the resolve of congress, adopted at PhUadelphia on the same day with the Virginia instructions at WUhamsburg, were in themselves the act of a seK-determin- ing pohtical body. The blow which proceeded from the gen eral congress feUed the proprietary authority in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Maryland, more happy than her neighbor, kept her ranks unbroken ; for she had intrusted the direction of the revolution to a convention whose decrees were received as indisputably the voice of her whole people. She had dis pensed with oaths for the support of the government under the crown ; but she resolved that it was not necessary to sup press totaUy the exercise of every kind of office derived from the king ;• and in her new instructions to her delegates in con gress she mixed with her pledges of support to the common cause a lingering wish for a reunion with Great Britain. Meanwhile, the governor was required to leave the province ; and the only powers actuaUy in being were the deputies in congress, the council of safety, and the convention. 420 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvi. In Pennsylvania, the preamble, which was pubhshed on the morning of the sixteenth, was cited by the popular party as a dissolution of the proprietary government, and a direction to institute a new one under the authority of the people. On the next day, which was kept as a national fast, George Duf field, the minister of the third Presbyterian church in Phila delphia, with John Adams for a hstener, drew a paraUel be tween George III. and Pharaoh, and inferred that the same providence of God which had rescued the Israelites designed to free the Americans. On the twenty-fourth a town-meeting of more than four thousand men was held in the state-house yard, to confront the instructions of the assembly against inde pendence with the vote of the continental congress against " oaths of aUegiance and the exercise of any kind of authority under the crown." It was called to order by John Bayard, the chairman of the committee of inspection for the county of Philadelphia ; it selected for its president Daniel Roberdeau ; and it voted unanimously that the instructions withdrew the province from the happy union with the other colonies ; that the present assembly was not elected for the purpose of form ing a new government ; and, with but one dissentient voice, it further voted that the house of assembly, not having the au thority of the people for that purpose, could not, without usurpation, proceed to form a new government. As a conse quence, the committee of the city and liberties of Philadel phia was directed to summon a conference of the commit tees .of every county in the province, to make arrangements for a constituent convention, which should be chosen by the people. Any agreement which the proprietary governor would ac cept could be no better than a collusion, for, by the very nature of his office and his interests, he could not stand out against the British ministry, however much they might be in the wrong. The members of the assembly, by taking the oath or affirmation of allegiance to the king, had incapacitated them selves for reforming the government. Besides, the resolve in congress, which dispensed in all cases with that oath, was interpreted as conferring the rights of electors on the Ger mans who had not yet been naturalized ; so that the assembly 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 421 no longer could claim to be the representative of the people of Pennsylvania. It was unhappy for the colony that Dickinson and his friends refused to lead the popular movement for a conven tion; and, at a later day, he owned "the national council," as he styled congress, " to have been right." His persistent op position left the principle of independence in Pennsylvania to be established by a pohtical party, springing spontaneously from the ranks of the people, struggling against an active social influence, a numerous religious organization, and the traditional governing classes, and rending society by angry and long enduring discord. The assembly stood adjourned to the twentieth; on the morning of the twenty-second a quorum appeared, and, as a first concession to the continental congress, the newly elected members were not required to swear aUegiance to the king. The protest of the inhabitants of the city and hberties against their powers to carry the resolve of congress into execution was presented, read, and laid on the table ; but no other notice was taken of it. The resolve itseK was set aside by the ap pointment of a committee to ask of the continental congress an explanation of its purpose. The proposal to naturalize for eigners without requiring oaths of aUegiance to the king was, in hke manner, put to sleep by a reference to a committee, composed of those who had most earnestly contested the wishes of the Germans. The assembly seemed to have no purpose, unless to gain time and wait. The constitution was the watch word of the conservative members, union that of the new party of the people who condemned the conduct of the as sembly as a withdrawal from the union. One party repre sented old estabhshed interests, another saw no hope but from independence and a firm confederation ; between these two stood Dickinson, whose central position was the hiding-place of the irresolute. On the twenty-third an address, claiming to proceed from the committee of inspection for the county of Philadelphia, and bearing the name of WilUam Hamilton as chairman, asked the assembly to " adhere rehgiously to its instructions against independence, and to oppose altering the least part of their in- 422 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxvi. valuable constitution." The next day the committee of inspec tion of the city of Philadelphia came together with Mackean as chairman, and addressed a memorial to the continental con gress, setting forth that the assembly did not possess the confi dence of the people, nor truly represent the province; that among its members were men who held offices under the crown of Great Britain, and who had been dragged into comphance with most of the recommendations of congress only from the fear of being superseded by a convention ; that measures for assembhng a convention of the people had now been taken by men whose constituents were fighting men, determined to sup port the union of the province with the other colonies at every hazard. The members of the assembly became uneasy : in the first days of June no quorum appeared. On the fifth the proceed ings of Virginia, directing her delegates to propose indepen dence, were read in the house. No answer was returned ; but a petition from Cumberland county, asking that the instruc tions to the delegates of Pennsylvania might be withdrawn, was read a second time, and a committee of seven was ap pointed to bring in new instructions. Of its members, among whom were Dickinson, Morris, Reed, Clymer, and one or two loyahsts, all but Clymer were, for the present, opposed to in dependence. The instructions of Pennsylvania, which they reported on the sixth, conceded " that all hopes of a reconcihation, on rea sonable terms, were extinguished ; " and nevertheless, with a fuU knowledge that the king would not yield, they expressed their ardent desire for an end of the civil war; while they sanctioned a confederation and " treaties with foreign king doms and states," they neither advised nor forbade a declara tion of independence, trusting to " the abihty, prudence, and integrity " of their delegates. Now the opinion of the ma jority of those delegates was notorious ; but, to remove even a possibihty of uncertainty, on the seventh of June, before the question on the new instructions was taken, Dickinson, in the assembly, pledged his word that he and the majority of the delegates would continue to vote against independence. On that same day, and perhaps while Dickinson was speak- 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 423 ing in the Pennsylvania assembly, Richard Henry Lee, in the name and with the authority of Virginia, proposed in congress : " That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states ; that they are absolved from all aUe giance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totaUy dissolved ; that it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances; and that a plan of confederation be prepared, and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation." The resolutions were seconded by John Adams. At nine in the morning of the eighth of June the assembly of Pennsylvania, after debate, adopted its new instructions by a vote of thirty-one against twelve. The disingenuous measure proved the end of that body ; never but once more could it bring together a quorum of its members ; and it entailed on their state years of bitter strife. At ten on the same day congress took up Richard Henry Lee's resolve, and the debate which ensued was the most copious and the most animated ever held on the subject. The argu ment on the part of its opponents was sustained by Robert Livingston of New York, by Wilson, Dickinson, and Edward Rutledge. They made no objection to a confederacy, and to sending a project of a treaty by proper persons to France ; but they contended that a declaration of independence would place America in the power of the British, with whom she was to negotiate ; give her enemy notice to counteract her intentions before she had taken steps to carry them into execution ; and expose her to ridicule in the eyes of foreign powers by pre mature attempts to bring them into an alliance. Edward Rut ledge said privately "that it required the impudence of a New Englander for them in their disjointed state to propose a treaty to a nation now at peace; that no reason could be assigned for pressing into this measure but the reason of every madman, a show of spirit." Wilson avowed that the removal of the restriction on his vote by the Pennsylvania assembly on that morning did not change his view of his obhgation to resist independence. On the other hand, Lee and Wythe of Virginia put forth aU their strength to show that the people 424 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvi. waited only for congress to lead the way ; that they desired an immediate declaration of independence without which no European power could give shelter to their commerce or en gage with them in a treaty of alliance. John Adams defended the proposed measures as " objects of the most stupendous magnitude, in which the lives and liberties of miUions yet un born were intimately interested ; " as the consummation " of a revolution the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of nations." The voices of aU New England and of Georgia were raised on the same side. A majority of the colonies, including North Carohna, appeared to be unalter ably fixed in favor of an immediate declaration of independ ence ; but the vote on the question was postponed tiU Monday. On the intervening day Keith, the British minister at the court of Vienna, chanced to obtain an audience of Joseph II., and afterward of the empress Maria Theresa. The emperor referred to the proclamation which the joint sovereigns had issued, most strictly prohibiting all commerce between their subjects in the Low Countries and the rebel colonies in Amer ica, and went on to say : " I am very sorry for the difficulties which have arisen to distress the king's government ; the cause in which he is engaged is in fact the cause of aU sovereigns, for they have a joint interest in the maintenance of a just subordination and obedience to law in all the monarchies which surround them ; I see with pleasure the vigorous exertions of the national strength, which he is now employing to bring his rebellious subjects to a speedy submission, and I most sincerely wish success to those measures." The empress queen, in her turn, expressed a very hearty desire for the restoration of obe dience and tranquillity to every quarter of the British domin ions. When the congress met on Monday, Edward Rutledge, without much expectation of success, moved that the question should be postponed three weeks, while in the mean time the plan of a confederation and of treaties might be matured. Again the debate was kept up until seven in the evening, when the desire of perfect unanimity, and the reasonableness of allowing the delegates of the central colonies to consult their constituents, induced seven colonies against five to assent 1776. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. INDEPENDENCE. 425 to the delay, but with the further condition that, to prevent any loss of time, a committee should in the meanwhile pre pare a declaration in harmony with the proposed resolution. On the next day Jefferson, John Adams, Frankhn, Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were chosen by ballot for that office. On the twelfth the duty of digesting the form of a con federation was assigned to one member from each colony ; and, as K the subject had not been of transcendent importance, their appointment was left to the presiding officer. Among those whom Hancock selected are found the names of Samuel Adams, Dickinson, and Edward Rutledge ; it could have been wished that the two Adamses had changed places, though probably the result would at that time have been the same ; no one man had done so much to bring about independence as the elder Adams, but his skiU in constructing governments, not his knowledge of the principles of freedom, was less remarkable than that of his younger kinsman. In the committee, Dick inson, who, as an opponent of independence, could promote only a temporary constitution, assumed the task of drafting the great charter of union. The preparation of a plan of treaties with foreign powers was intrusted by ballot to Dickinson, Franklin, John Adams, Harrison, and Robert Morris ; and between John Adams and Dickinson there was no difference of opinion, that the scheme to be proposed should be confined to commerce, without any grant of exclusive privUeges, and without any entanglement of a pohtical connection or alliance. On the thirteenth a board of war, of which Washington had explained the extreme necessity, was appointed, and John Adams was placed at its head. On the twenty-fourth congress " resolved, that aU persons abiding within any of the united colonies, and deriving pro tection from its laws, owe aUegiance to the said laws, and are members of such colony ; " and it charged the guilt of treason upon " aU members of any of the united colonies who should be adherent to the king of Great Britain, giving to him aid and comfort." The feUow-subjects of one king became feUow- lieges of one republic. They all had one law of citizenship and one law of treason. 426 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxvii. CHAPTER XXVII. the people oe every american colony demand independence. June-July 1776. AMERigAN-Uidcpcndcace was not an act of sudden passion, nortEework of one man or one assembly. It hadbeen dis cussed in everypart of the country by farmers and merchants, by mechanics and planters, by the fishermen and the back- woodsmen jin town-meetings and from the pulpit ; at social gatherings and around the camp fires ; in newspapers and* in pamphlets; in county conventions and conferences~of com mittees ; in colonial congresses'lind assemblies! Th"e^lecis"ion was put off only to ascertain the voice of the people. Virginia, Tiaving uttered her wiU, and communicated it to her sister colo nies, proceededTas though independence had been proclaimed, to form her constitution. More counsellors waited on her as sembly than they took notice of : "they were aided intheir 'deliberations by HETe teachings of the law-givers of Greecej_by thejine of magistratg~Tvhc^~ria^Eramed theRpjnan code ^y thosejvho had written best in Enghsh on government and pub lic freedom. They passed by monarchy and hereditary aris- tocracy as unesS^htialKoTms7~and looked for the beK-subsfetent elements of liberty. "" The principles of the Virginia declaration of rights re mained to her people as a perpetual possession, and a pledge of progress in more tranquil days ; but for the moment inter nal reforms were postponed. The elective franchise was not extended, nor was anything done to abolish slavery beyond the prohibition of the slave-trade. The king of England pos- 1776. EVERY COLONY DEMANDS INDEPENDENCE. 427 Sessed the crown by birth and for hfe ; the chief executive of Virginia owed his place to an election by the general assembly, and retained it for one year. The king was intrusted with a veto power, limited within Britain, extravagant and even retro spective in the colonies ; the recoUection that " by an inhuman use of his negative he had refused them permission to exclude negroes by law " misled the Virginians to withold the veto power from the governor of their own choice. The governor, hke the king, had at his side a privy coun cil ; and, in the construction of this body of eight men, the desire for some permanent element of government is conspicu ous. Braxton, in the scheme which he forwarded from con gress, would have had the governor continue in authority during good behavior, the council of state during Ufe. But Patrick Henry, Mason, and the other chief members of the convention, did not share this dread of the power of the peo ple ; and nothing more was conceded than that two only of the eight councillors should be triennially changed, so that the body would be completely renewed once in the course of twelve years. The governor, with their advice, had the appointment of mihtia officers and of justices of the peace ; but the gen eral assembly by joint baUot elected the treasurer, the judges, and the officers of the higher courts. The general assembly, hke the British parliament, consisted of two branches, an an nual house of delegates and a senate of twenty-four members, to be chosen from as many districts, and to be renewed one fourth in each year. The convention recognised the territorial rights of Mary land, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas, and the limit set by the peace of 1763 ; otherwise it claimed jurisdiction over all the region, granted by the second charter of King James I. The privilege of purchasing Indian titles was reserved to the state ; but a right of pre-emption was secured to actual settlers on un appropriated lands. In framing the constitution, George Mason was aided by Richard Henry Lee and George Wythe ; a form of govern ment, sent by Jefferson, arrived too late ; but bis draft of a preamble was adopted. Virginia became a repubhc. The con vention, having on the twenty-ninth of June unanimously 428 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep.jii. ; oh. xxvii. adopted the constitution, transformed itself into a temporary general assembly, and made choice by ballot of a governor and a privy council. Patrick Henry became the chief magistrate in the commonwealth which, he said, had just formed " a sys tem of government wisely calculated to secure equal hberty," and to take a principal part in a war " involving the lasting happiness of a great proportion of the human species." " If George III.," wrote Fox, " should for a moment compare him seK to Patrick Henry, how humUiated he must be ! " On the fourteenth of June, Connecticut, urged by the in vitation and example of Virginia, instructed its delegates in favor of independence, foreign alliances, and a permanent union of the colonies ; but the plan of confederation was not to go into effect till it should receive the assent of the several legislatures. That Puritan commonwealth, which had in fact enjoyed a republican government more than a hundred years, then first conducted its administration in its own name. On the same day and the next the Delaware assembly, at the instance of Mackean, unanimously approved the resolution of congress of the fifteenth of May, overturned the proprie tary government within her borders, substituted her own name on all occasions for that of the king, and gave to her delegates new instructions which left them at hberty to vote respecting independence according to their judgment. On the fifteenth tiie councU and assembly of New Hamp shire, in reply to a letter from Bartlett and Whipple, their delegates in congress, unanimously voted in favor of " declar ing the thirteen united colonies a free and independent state ; and solemnly pledged their faith and honor to support the measure with their hves and fortunes." On the first day of May 1776, Joseph Hawley wrote to Elbridge Gerry in congress : " There will be no abiding union without a declaration of independence and a course of conduct on that plan. My hand and heart are full of it. Will a govern ment stand on recommendations ? It is idle to suppose so. Nay, without a real continental government, people wiU, by and by, sooner than you may be aware of, call for. their old constitu tions as they did in England after CromweU's death. For God's sake let there be a full revolution, or aU has been done 1776. EVERY COLONY DEMANDS INDEPENDENCE. 429 in vain. Independence and a well-planned continental govern ment wUl save us." The assembly of Massachusetts advised the people in their town-meetings to instruct their representa tives on the question ; and a very great majority of the towns, all that were heard from, declared for it unanimously. The choice of aU New England was spontaneous and un doubted. Its extended line of sea-coast, with safe and conve nient harbors, defied the menace of a blockade ; its compara tively compact population gave it a sense of security against the return of the enemy. Far different was the position of New York, which was the first of the large central colonies to mark out irrevocably her line of conduct. Devoted to commerce, she possessed but one seaport, and, if that great mart should fall into the hands of the British, she must, for the time, resign aU maritime inter course with the world. The danger was close at hand, distinctly perceived, and inevitable. On the twenty-fourth of May the vote of the continental congress, recommending the establish ment of a new government, was referred to John Morin Scott, Haring, Remsen, Lewis, Jay, Cuyler, and Broome ; three days later Remsen reported from the committee that the right of creating civU government is, and ought to be, in the people, and that the old form of government was dissolved. On the thirty-first resolutions were proposed by Scott, Jay, and Har ing, ordering elections for deputies, with ample powers to institute a government which should continue in force until a future peace with Great Britain. But early in June the New York congress had to pass upon the Virginia proposition of independence. This was the moment that showed the firmness and the purity of Jay ; the darker the hour, the more ready he was to cheer ; the greater the danger, the more promptly he stepped forward to guide. He had insisted on a second peti tion to the king, with no latent weakness of purpose. The hope of obtaining redress was gone ; he could now, with per fect peace of mind, give free scope to his convictions and sense of duty. Beheving that the provincial congress then in session had not been vested with power to dissolve the connec tion with Great Britain, he held it necessary first to consult the people themselves. For this end, on the eleventh of June, £30 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi.; ch. xxvii. the New York congress, on his motion, called upon the free holders and electors of the colony to confer on the deputies whom they were about to choose fuU powers of administering government, framing a constitution, and deciding the great question of independence. In this manner the unanimity of New York was insured ; her decision remained no longer in doubt, though it could not be formally announced tiU after the election of its convention. It was taken in the presence of extreme danger, against which they knew that no adequate preparations could be made. Bands of savages hovered on the inland frontier of the prov ince ; the army of Canada was flying before disease and want and a vastly superior force ; an irresistible fleet was approaching the harbor of its chief city ; and a veteran army, computed by no one at less than thirty thousand men, was almost in sight. Little had been done by congress to re-enforce Washington except to pass votes ordering out large numbers of mihtia from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, and still again more mihtia under the name of the flying camps of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland; and none of these were to be engaged beyond December. Congress had not yet authorized the employment of men for three years or for the war ; nor did it do so till near the end of June, when it was too late for success in enlistments; the feeble army then under Washington's command was, by the conditions of its ex istence, to melt away in the autumn and coming winter. Moreover, Tryon, ever unscrupulous and indefatigable, from on board the Duchess of Gordon, secretly sought through the royalist mayor of the city of New York and others to prepare a body of conspirators, who should raise an insurrection in aid of Howe on his arrival, blow up the American magazines, gain possession of the guns, and seize Washington and his princi pal officers. Some of the inferior agents were suspected of having intended to procure Washington's death. There were full proofs that the plan against his army was prosecuted with the utmost diligence ; but it was discovered before it was ma tured. It is certain that two or three of his own guard were partners in the scheme of treachery ; and one of them, after conviction before a court-martial, was hanged. It was the first 1776. EVERY COLONY DEMANDS INDEPENDENCE. 431 mihtary execution of the revolution. This discovery of dan ger from hidden foes made no change in the conduct of the commander-in-chief. The provincial congress of New Jersey, which came fresh from the people with ample powers and organized itself in the evening of the eleventh of June, was opened with prayer by John Witherspoon, an eloquent Scottish minister of great abihty, learning, and Uberahty ; ready to dash into pieces all images of false gods. Born near Edinburgh, trained up at its university, in 1768 he removed to Princeton, to become the successor of Jonathan Edwards, Davis, and Finley, as president of its coUege. A combatant of skepticism and the narrow phUosophy of the materialists, he was deputed by Somerset county to take part in applying his noble theories to the con struction of a civU government. The body of which he was a member was instructed to pre pare for the defence of the colony against the powerful enemy whose arrival was hourly expected ; next, to decide the ques tion of independence ; and, lastly, to form and establish a con stitution. They promptly resolved to re-enforce the army of New York with thirty-three hundred of the mihtia. Wilham Franklin, the last royalist governor, still lingered at Perth Amboy ; and, in the hope of dividing pubhc opinion by the semblance of a regular constitutional government, he had, by proclamation, called a meeting of the general assembly for the twentieth of June. The convention, on the fourteenth, voted that his proclamation ought not to be heeded ; the next day he was arrested ; and, as he refused to give his parole, was kept under guard tiU he could be removed to Connecticut. On the twenty-second it was resolved, by a vote of fifty-four against three, " that a government be formed for regulating the inter nal police of the colony, pursuant to the recommendation of the continental congress ; " and in that congress five friends to mdependence were elected to represent New Jersey. As the constitution, drafted by a committee of which Jacob Green, Presbyterian minister of Hanover, was the chairman, was re ported before independence had been declared, a clause pro vided for the contingency of a reconciliation ; otherwise this charter from the people was to remain firm and inviolable. Its 432 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; on. xxvn. principles were : a legislative power intrusted to two separate nouses; a governor annuaUy chosen by the legislature, and possessing a casting vote in one branch of the legislature; judges to be appointed by the legislature for seven years and for five years ; the elective franchise to be exercised by all in habitants of full age who had been residents for twelve months and possessed fifty pounds proclamation money. No Protestant could be denied any rights or franchises on account of his re ligious principles ; and to every person within the colony were guaranteed the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and an immunity from aU tithes or church rates, except in conformity to his own engagements. On the eighteenth of June the committees of Philadelphia and of the several counties of Pennsylvania met at Carpenters' Hall in a provincial conference. Their duty was imperative, and yet necessarily the occasion of a bitter domestic feud. The old proprietary government, in an existence of more than ninety years, had won the admiration of the wise throughout the world by its respect for religious and civil hberty, had kept itseK free from the suspicion of having instigated or ap proved the obnoxious measures of the British ministry, and had maintained the attitude of a mediator between parhament and America. When the obstinacy of the king left no room for reconcUiation, it came naturally to its end. Such of the members of the assembly as remained in their places confessed in a formal vote their " despair" of again bringing together a quorum ; and when, according to the charter, they could only have kept their body alive by adjourning from day to day, they made an illegal adjournment to a day nearly two months later than that appointed for the vote of congress on indepen dence, leaving measures of defence unattended to. The ad journment was an abdication ; and the people prepared prompt ly and somewhat roughly to supersede the expiring system. Nor were the proposed changes restricted only to forms : a fierce demand broke out for an immediate extension of the right of suffrage to those " whom," it was held, " the resolve of congress had now rendered electors." The provincial conference was composed of men who had hitherto not been concerned in the government. Thomas 1776. EVERY COLONY DEMANDS INDEPENDENCE. 433 Mackean was chosen its president. On the nineteenth, one hundred and four members being present, the resolution of congress of the fifteenth of May was read twice, and unani mously approved ; the present government of the colony was condemned as incompetent, and a new one was ordered to be formed on the authority of the people only. Every other colony had shunned the mixture of questions of internal reform with the question of the relation to Great Britain ; but here a petition was read from Germans, praying that aU asso- ciators who were taxable might vote. In the election to the assembly, the possession of fifty pounds proclamation money had been required as the qualification of a voter both in the city under its charter and in the counties, and the foreign born must further have been naturalized under a law which required an oath of aUegiance to the British king ; the conference re viving the simple provision of " the Great Law " of December 1682 endowed every tax-payer with the right to vote for mem bers of the constituent convention. No more did poverty or place of birth disfranchise free citizens in Pennsylvania. WhUe in this manner the divisions arising from differences in national origin and in wealth were thrown down, the confer ence, at the instance of Christopher MarshaU who had been educated among the Friends and had left the society because he held it right to draw the sword in defence of civU liberty, resolved that the members elected to the convention should be required to declare their faith in God the Father, Christ his eternal Son, the Holy Spirit, and the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The pure-minded mystic did not perceive that he was justifying an inquisition by the civil authority into the free action of the soul, and a punishment for departing in behef from the estabhshed faith of the state. It had not been the intention of the conference to perform administrative acts ; yet, to repair the grievous neglect of the assembly, they ordered a flying camp of six thousand men to be cafled out, in conformity to the vote of the continental con- One thing more remained : on the afternoon of the twenty- fourth, on the report of a committee composed of Mackean, Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, and James Smith of York vol. iv. — 28 434 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvii. county, the members of the conference, giving their voices one by one with unanimity, pronounced in behaK of themselves and their constituents their wUlingness to concur in a vote of congress declaring the united colonies to be free and indepen dent states; and an authenticated copy of the vote was, by Mackean, their president, dehvered directly to congress. Wiser were the people of Maryland, for they acted with moderation and unanimity, from a sense of right, and from sympathy with their sister colonies. In May and the early part of June the people, in county meetings, renounced the hope of reconcihation ; listening to their voices, the committee of safety caUed a convention ; and that body, assembling on the twenty-first of June, placed itseK in the closest relations with its constituents. On the request of any one delegate, the yeas and nays might be taken and entered in its journal ; its debates and proceedings were pubhc. Its measures for calling militia into active service were prompt and efficient. On the afternoon of the day on which Mox#rie repelled the British squadron from Charleston it concurred with Virginia on the subject of independence, a confederation, treaties with foreign powers, and the reservation of the internal government of each colony to its own people ; and five days later, whUe the conti nental congress was still considering the form of its declaration of independence, it directed the election of a new convention, to create a government by the sole authority of its people. 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 435 CHAPTER XXVIH. the resolution and the declaration of independence. From the First to the Fourth of July 1776. On the morning of the first of July./the day set apart for considering the resolution of independence, John Adams, con fident as 11 the vote had been taken, invoked the blessing of heaven to make the new-born republic more glorious than airy which had gone before. aHis heart melted with sorrow at the sufferings of the army thaf^had been in Canada ; he knew that England, having recovered that provmceT^e^mnjanded the upper lakes and the Mississippi ; that she had a free ccmr cation with aU the tribes of Indians along the western fron tiers, and would induce them by bloodshed and fire to drive in the inhabitants upon the middle settlements, at a time when the coasts might be ravaged by the British navy and a single day might bring the army before New York. Independence could be obtained only by a great expense of IKe; but the greater the danger, the stronger was his determination, for he held that a free constitution of civU government could not be purchased at too dear a rate. He called to mind the fixed rule of the Romans, never to send or receive ambassadors to treat of peace with their enemies while their affairs were in a disas trous situation; and he was cheered by the behef that his countrymen were of the same temper and principle. At the appointed hour, the members, probably on that day fifty in number, appeared in their places ; among them, the delegates lately chosen in New Jersey. The great occasion had brought forth superior statesmen — men who joined mod eration to energy. After they had aU passed away, their Ion- 436 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvih. gevity was remarked as a proof of their calm and temperate nature ; fuU two thirds of the New England representatives lived beyond seventy years — some of them to be eighty or ninety. Every colony was found to be represented, and the delegates of all but one had received full power of action. Comprehensive instructions, reaching the question of indepen dence without explicitly using the word, had been given by Massachusetts in January, by Georgia on the fifth of February, by South Carolina in March. North Carolina, in the words of Cornelius Harnett, on the tweKth of April, led the way in expressly directing its representatives in congress to concur in a declaration of independence. On the first of May, Massa chusetts expunged the regal style from aU pubUc proceedings, and substituted the name of her " government and people ; " on the fourth, Rhode Island more exphcitly renounced aUegi ance, and made its delegates the representatives of an indepen dent repubhc ; Virginia on the fifteenth, the very day on which John Adams in congress carried his measure for insti tuting governments by the sole authority of the people, or dered her delegates at Philadelphia to propose mdependence, and by a circular letter communicated her resolve to aU her sister colonies. The movement of Virginia was seconded al most in her words by Connecticut on the fourteenth of June, New Hampshire on the fifteenth, New Jersey on the twenty- first, the conference of committees of Pennsylvania on the twenty-fourth, Maryland on the twenty-eighth. Delaware on the twenty-second of March had stiU hoped for conciliation ; but on the fifteenth of June she instructed her delegates to concur in forming further compacts between the united colo nies, concluding treaties with foreign powers, and adopting such other measures as should be deemed necessary for pro moting the hberty, safety, and interests of America. The vote of the eleventh of June showed the purpose of New York ; but, under the accumulation of dangers, her statesmen waited a few days longer, that her voice for mdependence might have the direct authority of her people. The business of the day began with reading various letters, among others one from Washington, who returned the whole number of his men, present and fit for duty, including the one 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 437 regiment of artiUery, at seven thousand seven hundred and fifty-four. Of near fourteen hundred, the firelocks were bad ; more than eight hundred had none at aU ; three thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, more than haK the whole number of infantry, had no bayonets. Of the mihtia who had been caUed for, only about a thousand had joined the camp. With this force the general was to defend extensive hnes against an army, near at hand, of thirty thousand veterans. An express from Lee made known that fifty-three ships, with Clinton, had arrived before Charleston, of which the safety was involved in doubt. A more cheering letter, which Chase had forwarded by ex press from Annapohs, brought the first news of the unanimity of the Maryland convention, whose vote for independence was produced and read. The order of the day came next, and congress resolved itseK " into a committee of the whole to take into considera tion the resolution respecting independency." For a few min utes, silence prevaUed. In the absence of the mover of the resolution, the eyes of every one turned toward its seconder, John Adams ; and the new members from New Jersey re quested that the arguments used in former debates might be recapitulated. He had made no preparation for that morning ; but for many months independence had been the chief object of his thoughts and his discourse, and the strongest arguments ranged themselves before his mind in their natural order. Of his sudden, impetuous, unpremeditated speech, no minutes ever existed, and no report was made. It is only remembered that he set forth the justice and the necessity, the seasonableness and the advantages of a separation from Great Britain; he dwelt on the neglect and insult with which their petitions had been treated by the king ; and on the vindictive spirit mani fested in the employment of German troops whose arrival was hourly expected. He concluded by urging the present time as the most suitable for resolving on mdependence, inasmuch as it had become the first wish and the last instruction of the communities they represented. Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose, not so much to reply as to justify himself before congress. He took pride in being the 438 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxviii. ardent assertor of freedom, was conscious that his writings had won him a great name, and had prepared himself with the ut most care to vindicate his opinions, which he would have held it guilt to suppress. These were his words : " I value the love of my country as I ought, but I value my country more. The first campaign will be decisive of the controversy. The declaration wiU not strengthen us by one man or by the least supply, while it may expose our soldiers to additional cruelties and outrages. Without some prelusory trials of our strength, we ought not to commit our country upon an alternative, where to recede would be infamy and to persist might be destruction. " No instance is recollected of a people, without a battle fought or an aUy gained, abrogating forever their connection with a warhke commercial empire. It might unite the differ ent parties in Great Britain against us, and it might create dis union among ourselves. " It is singularly disrespectful to France to make the decla- • ration before her sense is known, as we have sent an agent expressly to inquire whether such a declaration would be ac ceptable to her, and we have reason to believe he is now arrived at the court of VersaiUes. The door to accommodation with Great Britain ought not to be shut, until we know what terms can be obtained from some competent power. Thus to break with her before we have compacted with another is to make experiments on the hves and hberties of my countrymen. We ought to inform that power that we are determined to declare ourselves independent, and to support that declaration with our lives and fortunes, provided that power wiU approve the proceeding, acknowledge our independence, and enter into a treaty with us upon equitable and advantageous conditions. " The formation of our governments and an agreement upon the terms of our confederation ought to precede the as sumption of our station among sovereigns. A sovereignty composed of several distinct bodies of men, not subject to established constitutions and not combined together by con firmed articles of union, is such a sovereignty as has never appeared. These particulars would not be unobserved by for eign kingdoms and states, and they will wait for other proofs 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 439 of pohtical energy before they will treat us with the desired attention. " With respect to ourselves, the consideration is stiU more serious. The forming of our governments is a new and diffi cult work. When this is done and the people perceive that they and their posterity are to hve under well-regulated con stitutions, they will be encouraged to look forward to inde pendence as completing the noble system of their pohtical happiness. The objects nearest to them are now enveloped in clouds and those more distant appear confused ; the relation one citizen is to bear to another, and the connection one state is to have with another, they do not, cannot, know. " The confederation ought to be settled before the declara tion of independence. Foreigners wiU think it most regular ; the weaker states wUl not be in so much danger of having dis advantageous terms imposed upon them by the stronger. If the declaration is first made, political necessities may urge on the acceptance of conditions highly disagreeable to parts of the union. The present comparative circumstances of the colonies are now tolerably weU understood; but some have very ex traordinary claims to territory, that, K admitted, as they might be in a future confederation, the terms of it not bemg yet ad justed, all idea of the present comparison between them would be confounded. Those whose boundaries are acknowledged would sink in proportion to the elevation of their neighbors. Besides; unlocated lands, not comprehended within acknowl edged boundaries, are deemed a fund sufficient to defray a vast part, K not the whole, of the expenses of the war. These ought to be considered as the property of aU, acquired by the arms of aU. The boundaries of the colonies ought to be fixed before the declaration, and their respective rights mutually guaranteed ; and unlocated lands ought, previous to that decla ration, to be solemnly appropriated to the benefit of aU ; for it may be extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to obtain these decisions afterward. When things shaU be thus deliberately rendered firm at home and favorable abroad, then let America, bearing up her glory and the destiny of her children, advance with majestic steps and assume her station among the sov ereigns of the world." 440 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. in. ; ch. xxviii. Wilson of Pennsylvania could no longer agree with his col league. He had at an early day foreseen independence as the probable though not the intended result of the contest ; he had uniformly declared in his place that he never would vote for it contrary to his instructions, nay, that he regarded it as some thing more than presumption to take a step of such importance without express instructions and authority. " For," asked he, " ought this act to be the act of four or five individuals, or should it be the act of the people of Pennsylvania?" But, now that their authority was communicated by the conference of committees, he stood on very different ground. Before the end of the debate rose Witherspoon of New Jersey. In a short speech he remarked that though he had not heard all the discussions in that body, yet he had not wanted ample sources of information ; and that, in his judg ment, the country was not only ripe for independence, but was in danger of becoming rotten for want of it, K its declaration were longer delayed. Others spoke; among them probably Paca of Maryland, Mackean of Delaware, and, undoubtedly, Edward Rutledge of South Carohna ; but no authentic record of their remarks has been preserved. Richard Henry Lee and Wythe were both on that day at the Virginia convention in Wilhamsburg. Before the vote was taken, the delegates from New York read to the committee a letter which they had received from the provincial congress, explaining why their formal concurrence must, for a few days longer, be withheld. The resolution for independence was then sustained by nine colonies, two thirds of the whole number ; the vote of South Carolina, unanimously it would seem, was in the negative ; so was that of Pennsylvania, by the vote of Dickinson, Morris, Humphreys, and WiUing, against Franklin, Morton, and Wil son ; owing to the absence of Rodney, Delaware was divided, each member voting under the new instruction according to his former known opinion, Mackean for independence and Read against it. The committee rose, and Harrison reported the resolution ; but, at the request of Edward Rutledge, on behalf of South Carolina, the determination upon it was put off till the next day. 1776 i INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 441 A\ letter from Washington, of the twenty-ninth of June was then read, from which it appeared that Howe and forty- five ships or more, laden with troops, had arrived at Sandy Hook, and that the whole fleet was expected in a day or two. "I am hopeful," wrote the general, " that I shall get some re- enforcements before they are prepared to attack ; be that as it may, I shall make the best disposition I can of our troops." Not aU who were round him had firmness hke his own ; Reed, the new adjutant-general, quailed before the inequahty of the British and American force, saying : " Had I known the true posture of affairs, no consideration would have tempted me to have taken an active part in this scene." No one knew better than the commander-in-chief the exceedingly discouraging aspect of military affairs ; but his serene and unfaltering cour age in this hour was a support to congress. His letter was referred to the board of war which they had recently estab lished, and of which John Adams was the president. On the second day of July there were present in congress probably forty-nine members. Rodney had arrived from Dela ware, and, joining Mackean, secured that colony. Dickinson and Morris stayed away, which enabled Frankhn, Wilson, and Morton of Pennsylvania, to outvote Willing and Humphreys. The South Carolina members, stiU uncertain K Charleston had not faUen, for the sake of unanimity, came round ; so, though New York was stiU unable to vote, twelve colonies, with no dissenting one, resolved : " That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states ; that they are absolved from aU aUegiance to the British crown, and that aU pohtical connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totaUy dissolved." At the end of this 'great day the mind of John Adams heavedTjke the"ocean after a storm. "The greatest ques tion," he wrote. J_l was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be de cided among men. When I l°°k t>ac^ to 1761, an0^ ran through the series of political events, the chain of causes and effect^ T am mnrpriRftri at the suddenness as well as greatness of this revolution. Britain has been filled with foUy, and America with wisdomT" It is~~~the will of heaven that the twc^ 442 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. ih. ; oh. xxvih. countries should be sundered__forever ; it may be the will of heaven that America shaU suffer calamities stiU more wasting anoTdlstregses' yet more dreadful. H this is to be the case, the " furnace of affliction produces refinement i* gtatefi amveU _as individuals ; but I submit all my hopes and fears to an over- ruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may Be, 1 firmly beheve. "Had a declaration of independence been made seven months ago, we might before this hour have formed ahiances with foreign states; we should have mastered Quebec, and been in possession of Canada ; but, on' the other hand, the delay has many great advantages attending it. The hopes of recon cihation which were fondly entertained by multitudes of the honest and well-meaning, though weak and mistaken, have been gradually and at last totaUy extinguished. Time has been given for the whole people maturely to consider the great question of mdependence, so that in every colony of the thir teen they have now adopted it as their own act. "But the day is passed. The second day of July 1776 wiU be the most memorable epocha in the history of America ; to be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anni versary festival, commemorated as the day of dehverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore. " You wiU think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states ; yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory ; that the end is worth all the means ; that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even though we should me it, which I trust in God we shall not." The resolution of congress changed the old thirteen British colonies into free and independent states. It remained to set forth the reason for this act, and the principles which the new people would own as their guides. Of the committee ap pointed for that duty, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia had re ceived the largest number of votes, and was in that manner singled out to draft the confession of faith of the rising empire. He owed this distinction to respect for the colony which he 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 443 represented, to the consummate ability of the state papers which he had already written, and to that general favor which foUows merit, modesty, and a sweet disposition ; but the qual ity which speciaUy fitted him for the task was the sympathetic character of his nature, by which he was able with instinctive perception to read the soul of the nation, and, having coUected its best thoughts and noblest feehngs, to give them out in clear and bold words, mixed with so httle of himseK that his coun try, as it went along with him, found nothing but what it recognised as its own. Born to an independent fortune, he had from his youth been an indefatigable student. " The glow of one warm thought was worth more to him than money." Of a hopeful temperament and a tranquU, philosophic cast of mind, always temperate in his mode of hfe and decorous in his manners, he was a perfect master of his passions. He was of a dehcate organization, and fond of elegance ; his tastes were refined ; laborious in his application to business or the pursuit of knowledge, music, the most spiritual of aU pleasures of the senses, was his favorite recreation ; and he took a never- failing delight in the varied beauty of rural life, building him seK a home in the lovehest region of his native state. He was a skilful horseman, and with elastic step would roam the mountains on foot. The range of his studies was very wide ; he was not unfamiliar with the literature of Greece and Rome ; had an aptitude for mathematics and mechanics, and loved especiaUy the natural sciences; scorning nothing but meta physics. British governors and officials had introduced into Williamsburg the prevalent free-thinking of Englishmen of that century, and Jefferson had grown up in its atmosphere ; he was not only a hater of priestcraft and superstition and bigotry and intolerance, he was thought to be indifferent to religion ; yet his instincts aU inclined him to trace every fact to a general law, and to put faith in ideal truth ; the world of the senses did not bound his aspirations, and he beheved more than he himseK was aware of. He was an ideahst in his habits of thought and Ufe, and he was kept so, in spite of circum stances, by the irresistible bent of his character. He had great power in mastering detaUs as weU as in searching for general principles. His profession was that of the law, in which he 444 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxviii. was methodical, painstaking, and successful ; at the same time he pursued it as a science, and was well read in the law of nature and of nations. Whatever he had to do, it was his custom to prepare himseK for it carefuUy ; and in pubUc hfe, when others were at fault, they often found that he had already hewed out the way ; so that in councU men wiUingly gave him the lead, which he never appeared to claim, and was always able to undertake. But he rarely spoke in pubhc, and was less fit to engage in the war of debate than calmly to sum up its conclusions. It was a beautiful trait in his character that he was free from envy ; he is the constant and best witness to the greatness of John Adams as the advocate and defender of in dependence. A common object now riveted the two statesmen together. At that period Jefferson, by the general consent of Virginia, stood first among her civilians. Just thirty-three years old, married, and happy in his family, affluent, with a bright career before him, he was no rash innovator by his char acter or his position ; K his convictions drove him to demand independence, it was only because he could no longer live with honor under the British " constitution, which he still acknowl edged to be better than all that had preceded it." His enun ciation of general principles was fearless, but he was no visionary devotee of abstract theories; the nurshng of his country, the offspring of his time, he set about the work of a practical statesman, and the principles which he set forth grew so naturaUy out of previous law and the facts of the past that they struck deep root and have endured. The Dutch mamfesto of the twenty-sixth of June 1581, renounced Spanish sovereignty "according to the rights of nature." " Every man knows," it said, " that subjects are not created by God for princes, but princes for the sake of their subjects. If a prince endeavors to take from his subjects their old hberties, privileges, and customs, he must be considered not as a prince, but as a tyrant ; " adding, " and another prince may of right be chosen in his place as the head." From the fulness of his own mind, without consulting one single book, yet having in memory the example of the Swiss and the manifesto of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, Jefferson drafted the declaration, in which, after citing the 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 445 primal principles of government, he presented the complaints of the United States against England in the three classes of the iniquitous use of the royal prerogative, the usurpation of legislative power over America by the king in parhament, and the measures for enforcing the acts of the British parliament. He submitted the paper separately to Franklin and to John Adams, accepted from each of them one or two verbal, unim portant corrections, and on the twenty-eighth of June reported it to congress, which, on the second of July, immediately after adopting the resolution of independence, entered upon its con sideration. During the remainder of that day, and the next two, the language, the statements, and the principles of the paper were closely scanned. In the indictment against George III., Jefferson had writ ten: " He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, vio lating its most sacred rights of hfe and hberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative at tempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And, that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that hberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he also ob truded them ; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the Uves of another." These words expressed precisely what had happened in Virginia ; she, as well as other colonies, had perseveringly at tempted to repress the slave-trade ; the king had perseveringly used his veto to protect it ; the governor, clothed with the king's authority, had invited slaves to rise against their mas ters ; but it could not be truly said that all the colonies had been always without blame in regard to the commerce, or that 446 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. iii. ; oh. xxvm. in America it had been exclusively the guilt of the king of Great Britain ; and therefore the severe strictures on the use of the king's negative, so Jefferson wrote for the guidance of history, " were disapproved by some southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the f uU abhorrence of that traffic ; and the offensive expressions were immediately yield ed." Congress had already manifested its own sentiments by the absolute prohibition of the slave-trade ; and that prohibition was then respected in every one of the thirteen states, includ ing South Carolina and Georgia. This is the occasion when the slave-trade was first branded as a piracy. Many statesmen, among them Edmund Pendleton, president of the Virginia con vention, always regretted that the passage had been stricken out ; and the earnestness of the denunciation lost its author no friends. All other changes and omissions in Jefferson's paper were either insignificant or much for the better, rendering its lan guage more terse, more dispassionate, and more exact ; and, in the evening of the fourth day of July, New York still abstain ing from the vote, twelve states, without one negative, agreed to this "Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled : " When, in the course of human events, it becomes neces sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. " We hold these truths to be seK-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these, are IKe, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, gov ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abohsh it, and to institute a new gov ernment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organiz ing its powers in such form, as to them shaU seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 447 dictate that governments long estabhshed, should not be changed for hght and transient causes ; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, whUe evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invari ably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their fu ture security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated inju ries and usurpations, aU having, in direct object, the establish ment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world : " He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the pubhc good. " He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation tiU his assent should be obtained ; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. " He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relin quish the right of representation in the legislature ; a right in estimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. " He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. " He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for op posing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. " He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, in capable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise ; the State remaining, in the mean time, ex posed to aU the dangers of invasion from without, and convul sions within. 448 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi.; oh. xxvm. " He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners ; refusing to pass others to encourage their migra tions hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. " He has obstructed the administration of justice by refus ing his assent to laws for estabhshing judiciary powers. " He has made judges dependent on his wiU alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. " He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their sub stance. " He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislature. " He has affected to render the mihtary independent of, and superior to, the civil power. " He has combined, with others," [that is, with the lords and commons of Britain] " to subject us to a jurisdiction for eign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation : " For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ; " For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : " For cutting off our trade with aU parts of the world ; " For imposing taxes on us without our consent ; " For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial oy jury ; " For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences ; " For abohshing the free system of Enghsh laws in a neigh boring province, estabhshing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an ex ample and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies ; " For taking away our charters, abohshing our most valu able laws, and altering, fundamentaUy, the forms of our gov ernments ; 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 449 " For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring them selves invested with power to legislate for us in aU cases what soever. " He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. " He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the hves of our people. " He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and per fidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totaUy unworthy the head of a civilized nation. " He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to faU them selves by their hands. " He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the mercUess Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of aU ages, sexes, and conditions. " In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms ; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. " Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of at tempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdic tion over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends. " We, therefore, the representatives of the United States vol. rv. — 29 450 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. hi. ; oh. xxvin. of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our inten tions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly pubhsh and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde pendent states ; that they are absolved from aU aUegiance to the British crown, and that aU pohtical connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totaUy dissolved; and that, as Free -and Independent States, they havefuU power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, estabhsh commerce, and to do aU other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutuaUy pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor-"-. This immortal state papjr/was"tl!ie genuine effusion of the s^nTof thft nnnntry at that tiTrift^~tn"e revelation of its mind, when, in its youth, its enthusiasm, its subhme confronting of "danger, it rose to the highest, creatiye powers of which man is capable. j[ The biU of rights which it promulgates is of rights that areolder than human institutions, and spring from the eternal justiceTt^Twopohtical theories divided the world : one founded the conmionwe^lth-«nthe advantage of the state, the pohcy of expediency, the other ontheSmmutable principles of morals ; the new repubhc, as it took its placXamong the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reahty and unchangeableness of freedom, virtue, and rightSJThe heart of Jefferson in writigg the declaration, and of congress in adopting it," beat for aU humanity ; the assertion of right was made for ffiejntireworld of mankindjand aU conling generations£wi£h- out any exception whatever-" for the proposition which admits oTlixceptions can never be seKBvident, — As it was put forth inthe name of Ljhe_ascendent people of that time, it was lure tomake the. circiiit_o^_the~world, passing everywhere through the despotic countriesoTEurope ; and the astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, hke those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue. •• 1776. INDEPENDENCE RESOLVED ON AND DECLARED. 451 In the next place, the declaration, avoiding specious and vague generalities, grounds itseK with anxious care upon the past, and reconcUes right and fact. Of universal principles enough is repeated to prove that America chose for her own that system of politics which recognises the rule of eternal jus tice ; and independence is vindicated by the application of that rule to the grievous instructions, laws, and acts, proceeding from the king, in the exercise of his prerogative, or in concur rence with the lords and commons of Great Britain. The colonies professed to drive back innovations, and not, with roving zeal, to overturn all traditional inequalities ; they were no rebels against the past, of which they knew the present to be the child ; with aU the glad anticipations of greatness that broke forth from the prophetic soul of the youthful nation, they took their point of departure from the world as it was. They did not declare against monarchy itseK ; they sought no general overthrow of aU kings, no universal system of repub lics; nor did they cherish in their hearts a lurking hatred against princes. TiU within a few years or months, loyalty to the house of Hanover had been to them another name for the love of civil and rehgious hberty : the British constitution, the best system that had ever been devised for the security of lib erty and property by a representative government. JN either Franklin, nor Washington, nor John Adams, nor Jefferson, nor Jay, had ever expressed a preference for a republic. The voices that rose tor mdependence spoke also for alliances with kings. The sovereignty of George in. was renounced; not be cause he was a king, but because he was deemea to be " a tyrant." The insurgents, as they took up seK-gavernment, manifest ed no impatience at the recoUection Qf^naving been ruled by a royal line, no eagerness to blot aKtmemorials of their former state ; they sent forth no Hagn Peter to recommend to the mother country the abolition of monarchy, which no one seems to have proposed or ttfnave wished ; in the moment of revolu tion in America-tfaey did not counsel the Enghsh to undertake a revolution. The repubhcwas to America a godsend; it came, though unsought, because society contained the elements of no other organization! Here, and in that century here 452 AMERICA ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENCE, ep. m. ; oh. xxvhi. only, was_a people which, by its education and large and long experience, was prepared to act as the depositary and carrier of aU political power. America developed her choice from within herself; and theref/rrff it if tH+j mi1OT'"1"! f)f following an inner law, she never made herseK a propagandist of her /system,, where the conditions ol success were wanting. FinaUy, the declaration was not only the announcement of the birth of a people, but the establishment of a national gov ernment ; a mast imperfect one, it is true, but still a govern ment, in conformity with the limited constituent powers which each colony had coaf erred upon its delegates in congress. The war was no longer a civil war; Britain was become to the United States a foreign country. Every former subject of the British king in the thirteen colonies now owed primary allegi ance to the dynasty of the people, and became a citizen of the new republic ; except in this, everything remained as before ; every man retained his rights ; the colonies did not dissolve into a state of nature, nor did the new people undertake a so cial revolution. The management of the internal police and government was carefully reserved to the separate states, which could, each for itself, enter upon the career of domestic re forms. But the states which were henceforth independent of Britain were not independent of one another: the United States of America, presenting themselves to mankind as one people, assumed powers over war, peace, foreign alliances, and commerce. The declaration was not signed by the members of congress on the day on which it was agreed to ; but it was duly authen ticated by the president and secretary, and published to the world. The nation, when it made the choice of its great anni versary, selected not the day of the resolution of independence when it closed the past, but that of the declaration of the prin ciples on which it opened its new career. END OF VOLUME IV.