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[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT TRENTON By John Trumbull]
THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
BY
JOHN FISKE
_With Many Illustrations_
TWO VOLUMES IN ONE
[Publisher's Logo]
_Published for_
THE EDUCATIONAL PRESS
_By_
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY JOHN FISKE
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY ABBY M. FISKE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM
TO
MRS. MARY HEMENWAY
IN RECOGNITION OF THE RARE FORESIGHT AND PUBLIC SPIRIT
WHICH SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION ONE OF THE NOBLEST
HISTORIC BUILDINGS IN AMERICA, AND MADE IT A
CENTRE FOR THE TEACHING OF AMERICAN
HISTORY AND THE PRINCIPLES OF
GOOD CITIZENSHIP
_I DEDICATE THIS BOOK_
[DECORATION]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS
PAGE
Relations between the American colonies and the British government
in the first half of the eighteenth century 1
The Lords of Trade 2
The governors' salaries 3
Sir Robert Walpole 4
Views of the Lords of Trade as to the need for a union of the
colonies 5
Weakness of the sentiment of union 6
The Albany Congress 6
Franklin's plan for a federal union (1754) 7, 8
Rejection of Franklin's plan 9
Shirley recommends a stamp act 10
The writs of assistance 11
The chief justice of New York 12
Otis's "Vindication" 13
Expenses of the French War 14
Grenville's resolves 15
Reply of the colonies 16
Passage of the Stamp Act 17
Patrick Henry and the Parsons' Cause 18
Resolutions of Virginia concerning the Stamp Act 19, 20
The Stamp Act Congress 20-22
Declaration of the Massachusetts assembly 22
Resistance to the Stamp Act in Boston 23
And in New York 24
Debate in the House of Commons 25, 26
Repeal of the Stamp Act 26, 27
The Duke of Grafton's ministry 28
Charles Townshend and his revenue acts 29-31
Attack upon the New York assembly 32
Parliament did not properly represent the British people 32, 33
Difficulty of the problem 34
Representation of Americans in Parliament 35
Mr. Gladstone and the Boers 36
Death of Townshend 37
His political legacy to George III. 37
Character of George III. 38, 39
English parties between 1760 and 1784 40, 41
George III. as a politician 42
His chief reason for quarrelling with the Americans 42, 43
CHAPTER II
THE CRISIS
Character of Lord North 44
John Dickinson and the "Farmer's Letters" 45
The Massachusetts circular letter 46, 47
Lord Hillsborough's instructions to Bernard 48
The "Illustrious Ninety-Two" 48
Impressment of citizens 49
Affair of the sloop Liberty 49-51
Statute of Henry VIII. concerning "treason committed abroad" 52
Samuel Adams makes up his mind (1768) 53-56
Arrival of troops in Boston 56, 57
Letters of "Vindex" 58
Debate in Parliament 59, 60
All the Townshend acts, except the one imposing a duty upon tea,
to be repealed 61
Recall of Governor Bernard 61
Character of Thomas Hutchinson 61, 62
Resolutions of Virginia concerning the Townshend acts 63
Conduct of the troops in Boston 64
Assault on James Otis 64
The "Boston Massacre" 65-68
Some of its lessons 69-72
Lord North becomes prime minister 72
Action of the New York merchants 73
Assemblies convened in strange places 74
Taxes in Maryland 74
The "Regulators" in North Carolina 74
Affair of the schooner Gaspee 75, 76
The salaries of the Massachusetts judges 76
Jonathan Mayhew's suggestion (1766) 77
The committees of correspondence in Massachusetts 78
Intercolonial committees of correspondence 79
Revival of the question of taxation 80
The king's ingenious scheme for tricking the Americans into
buying the East India Company's tea 81
How Boston became the battle-ground 82
Advice solemnly sought and given by the Massachusetts towns 82-84
Arrival of the tea; meeting at the Old South 84, 85
The tea-ships placed under guard 85
Rotch's dilatory man[oe]uvres 86
Great town meeting at the Old South 87, 88
The tea thrown into the harbour 88, 89
Moral grandeur of the scene 90, 91
How Parliament received the news 91-93
The Boston Port Bill 93
The Regulating Act 93-95
Act relating to the shooting of citizens 96
The quartering of troops in towns 96
The Quebec Act 96
General Gage sent to Boston 97, 98
CHAPTER III
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
Protest of the Whig Lords 99
Belief that the Americans would not fight 100
Belief that Massachusetts would not be supported by the other
colonies 101
News of the Port Bill 101, 102
Samuel Adams at Salem 103, 104
Massachusetts nullifies the Regulating Act 105
John Hancock and Joseph Warren 106, 107
The Suffolk County Resolves 108
Provincial Congress in Massachusetts 109
First meeting of the Continental Congress (September 5,
1774) 110, 111
Debates in Parliament 112, 113
William Howe appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in
America 113
Richard, Lord Howe, appointed admiral of the fleet 114
Franklin returns to America 115
State of feeling in the middle colonies 116
Lord North's mistaken hopes of securing New York 117
Affairs in Massachusetts 118
Dr. Warren's oration at the Old South 119
Attempt to corrupt Samuel Adams 120
Orders to arrest Adams and Hancock 121
Paul Revere's ride 122, 123
Pitcairn fires upon the yeomanry at Lexington 124, 125
The troops repulsed at Concord; their dangerous situation 126, 127
The retreating troops rescued by Lord Percy 128
Retreat continued from Lexington to Charlestown 129
Rising of the country; the British besieged in Boston 130
Effects of the news in England and in America 130-133
Mecklenburg County Resolves 133
Legend of the Mecklenburg "Declaration of Independence" 133-135
Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen 135
Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point 136-140
Second meeting of the Continental Congress 141
Appointment of George Washington to command the Continental
army 142-144
The siege of Boston 145
Gage's proclamation 145
The Americans occupy Bunker's and Breed's hills 146
Arrival of Putnam, Stark, and Warren 147
Gage decides to try an assault 148, 149
First assault repulsed 149
Second assault repulsed 150
Prescott's powder gives out 150
Third assault succeeds; the British take the hill 151
British and American losses 151, 152
Excessive slaughter; significance of the battle 153
Its moral effects 154
CHAPTER IV
INDEPENDENCE
Washington's arrival in Cambridge 155
Continental officers: Daniel Morgan 156
Benedict Arnold, John Stark, John Sullivan 157
Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox 158
Israel Putnam 159
Horatio Gates and Charles Lee 160
Lee's personal peculiarities 161, 162
Dr. Benjamin Church 163
Difficult work for Washington 164
Absence of governmental organization 165
New government of Massachusetts (July, 1775) 166
Congress sends a last petition to the king 167
The king issues a proclamation, and tries to hire troops
from Russia 168-170
Catherine refuses; the king hires German troops 170
Indignation in Germany 171
Burning of Falmouth (Portland) 171
Effects of all this upon Congress 172, 173
Montgomery's invasion of Canada and capture of Montreal 174, 175
Arnold's march through the wilderness of Maine 176
Assault upon Quebec (December 31, 1775) 177
Total failure of the attempt upon Canada 178
The siege of Boston 179
Washington seizes Dorchester Heights (March 4, 1776) 180, 181
The British troops evacuate Boston (March 17) 182, 183
Movement toward independence; a provisional flag (January 1,
1776) 184
Effect of the hiring of "myrmidons" 185
Thomas Paine 185
His pamphlet entitled "Common Sense" 186, 187
Fulminations and counter-fulminations 188
The Scots in North Carolina 188
Sir Henry Clinton sails for the Carolinas 189
The fight at Moore's Creek; North Carolina declares for
independence 189
Action of South Carolina and Georgia 190
Affairs in Virginia; Lord Dunmore's proclamation 190
Skirmish at the Great Bridge, and burning of Norfolk 191
Virginia declares for independence 192
Action of Rhode Island and Massachusetts 192
Resolution adopted in Congress May 15 193
Instructions from the Boston town meeting 194
Richard Henry Lee's motion in Congress 194
Debate on Lee's 195, 196
Action of the other colonies; Connecticut and New Hampshire 196
New Jersey 197
Pennsylvania and Delaware 197-199
Maryland 199
The situation in New York 200
The Tryon plot 201
Final debate on Lee's motion 202
Vote on Lee's motion 203
Form of the Declaration of Independence 204
Thomas Jefferson 204, 205
The declaration was a deliberate expression of the sober
thought of the American people 206, 207
CHAPTER V
FIRST BLOW AT THE CENTRE
Lord Cornwallis arrives upon the scene 208
Battle of Fort Moultrie (June 28, 1776) 209-211
British plan for conquering the valley of the Hudson, and
cutting the United Colonies in twain 212
Lord Howe's futile attempt to negotiate with Washington
unofficially 213, 214
The military problem at New York 214-216
Importance of Brooklyn Heights 217
Battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776) 218-220
Howe prepares to besiege the Heights 220
But Washington slips away with his army 221
And robs the British of the most golden opportunity ever
offered them 221-223
The conference at Staten Island 223, 224
General Howe takes the city of New York September 15 224
But Mrs. Lindley Murray saves the garrison 225
Attack upon Harlem Heights 225
The new problem before Howe 225, 226
He moves upon Throg's Neck, but Washington changes base 227
Baffled at White Plans, Howe tries a new plan 228
Washington's orders in view of the emergency 228
Congress meddles with the situation and muddles it 229
Howe takes Fort Washington by storm (November 16) 230
Washington and Greene 231
Outrageous conduct of Charles Lee 231, 232
Greene barely escapes from Fort Lee (November 20) 233
Lee intrigues against Washington 233, 234
Washington retreats into Pennsylvania 234
Reinforcements come from Schuyler 235
Fortunately for the Americans, the British capture Charles Lee
(December 13) 235-238
The times that tried men's souls 238, 239
Washington prepares to strike back 239
He crosses the Delaware, and pierces the British centre at
Trenton (December 26) 240, 241
Cornwallis comes up to retrieve the disaster 242
And thinks he has run down the "old fox" at the Assunpink
(January 2, 1777) 242
But Washington prepares a checkmate 243
And again severs the British line at Princeton (January 3) 244
General retreat of the British upon New York 245
The tables completely turned 246
Washington's superb generalship 247
Effects in England 248
And in France 249
Franklin's arrival in France 250
Secret aid from France 251
Lafayette goes to America 252
Efforts toward remodelling the Continental army 252-255
Services of Robert Morris 255
Ill feeling between the states 256
Extraordinary powers conferred upon Washington 257-258
CHAPTER VI
SECOND BLOW AT THE CENTRE
Invasion of New York by Sir Guy Carleton 259
Arnold's preparations 260
Battle of Valcour Island (October 11, 1776) 260-262
Congress promotes five junior brigadiers over Arnold (February
19, 1777) 262
Character of Philip Schuyler 263
Horatio Gates 264
Gates intrigues against Schuyler 265
His unseemly behaviour before Congress 266
Charges against Arnold 267, 268
Arnold defeats Tryon at Ridgefield (April 27, 1777) 269
Preparations for the summer campaign 269
The military centre of the United States was the state of New
York 270
A second blow was to be struck at the centre; the plan of
campaign 271
The plan was unsound; it separated the British forces too
widely, and gave the Americans the advantage of interior
lines 272-274
Germain's fatal error; he overestimated the strength of the
Tories 274
Too many unknown quantities 275
Danger from New England ignored 276
Germain's negligence; the dispatch that was never sent 277
Burgoyne advances upon Ticonderoga 277, 278
Phillips seizes Mount Defiance 279
Evacuation of Ticonderoga 279
Battle of Hubbardton (July 7) 280
One swallow does not make a summer 280-282
The king's glee; wrath of John Adams 282
Gates was chiefly to blame 282
Burgoyne's difficulties beginning 283
Schuyler wisely evacuates Fort Edward 284
Enemies gathering in Burgoyne's rear 285
Use of Indian auxiliaries 285
Burgoyne's address to the chiefs 286
Burke ridicules the address 286
The story of Jane McCrea 287, 288
The Indians desert Burgoyne 289
Importance of Bennington; Burgoyne sends a German force
against it 290
Stark prepares to receive the Germans 291
Battle of Bennington (August 16); nearly the whole German
army captured on the field 292, 293
Effect of the news; Burgoyne's enemies multiply 294
Advance of St. Leger upon Fort Stanwix 294, 295
Herkimer marches against him; Herkimer's plan 296
Failure of the plan 297
Thayendanegea prepares an ambuscade 298
Battle of Oriskany (August 6) 298-300
Colonel Willett's sortie; first hoisting of the stars and
stripes 300-301
Death of Herkimer 301
Arnold arrives at Schuyler's camp 302
And volunteers to retrieve Fort Stanwix 303
Yan Yost Cuyler and his stratagem 304
Flight of St. Leger (August 22) 305
Burgoyne's dangerous situation 306
Schuyler superseded by Gates 306
Position of the two armies (August 19-September 12) 307
CHAPTER VII
SARATOGA
Why Sir William Howe went to Chesapeake Bay 308
Charles Lee in captivity 308-310
Treason of Charles Lee 311-314
Folly of moving upon Philadelphia as the "rebel capital" 314, 315
Effect of Lee's advice 315
Washington's masterly campaign in New Jersey (June, 1777) 316, 317
Uncertainty as to Howe's next movements 317, 318
Howe's letter to Burgoyne 318
Comments of Washington and Greene 319, 320
Howe's alleged reason trumped up and worthless 320
Burgoyne's fate was practically decided when Howe arrived at
Elkton 321
Washington's reasons for offering battle 321
He chooses a very strong position 322
Battle of the Brandywine (September 11) 322-326
Washington's skill in detaining the enemy 326
The British enter Philadelphia (September 26) 326
Significance of Forts Mercer and Mifflin 327
The situation at Germantown 327, 328
Washington's audacious plan 328
Battle of Germantown (October 4) 329-332
Howe captures Forts Mercer and Mifflin 333
Burgoyne recognizes the fatal error of Germain 333
Nevertheless he crosses the Hudson River 334
First battle at Freeman's Farm (September 19) 335
Quarrel between Gates and Arnold 336-337
Burgoyne's supplies cut off 338
Second battle at Freeman's Farm (October 7); the British
totally defeated by Arnold 338-340
The British army is surrounded 341
Sir Henry Clinton comes up the river, but it is too late 342
The silver bullet 343
Burgoyne surrenders (October 17) 343, 344
Schuyler's magnanimity 345
Bad faith of Congress 346-349
The behaviour of Congress was simply inexcusable 350
What became of the captured army 350, 351
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS
[Sidenote: The Lords of Trade]
[Sidenote: The governor's salary]
During the seventy years which elapsed between the overthrow of the
Stuart dynasty and the victory of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, the
relations between the American colonies and the British government were,
on the whole, peaceful; and the history of the colonies, except for the
great and romantic struggle with New France, would have been almost
destitute of striking incidents. In view of the perpetual menace from
France, it was clearly unwise for the British government to irritate the
colonies, or do anything to weaken their loyalty; and they were
accordingly left very much to themselves. Still, they were not likely to
be treated with any great liberality,--for such was not then, as it is
hardly even yet, the way of governments,--and if their attachment to
England still continued strong, it was in spite of the general demeanour
of the mother-country. Since 1675 the general supervision of the
colonies had been in the hands of a standing committee of the Privy
Council, styled the "Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations,"
and familiarly known as the "Lords of Trade." To this board the
governors sent frequent and full reports of the proceedings in the
colonial legislatures, of the state of agriculture and trade, of the
revenues of the colonies, and of the way in which the public money was
spent. In private letters, too, the governors poured forth their
complaints into the ears of the Lords of Trade, and these complaints
were many and loud. Except in Pennsylvania and Maryland, which were like
hereditary monarchies, and in Connecticut and Rhode Island, where the
governors were elected by the people, the colonial governors were now
invariably appointed by the Crown. In most cases they were inclined to
take high views regarding the royal prerogative, and in nearly all cases
they were unable to understand the political attitude of the colonists,
who on the one hand gloried in their connection with England, and on the
other hand, precisely because they were Englishmen, were unwilling to
yield on any occasion whatsoever one jot or tittle of their ancient
liberties. Moreover, through the ubiquity of the popular assemblies and
the directness of their control over the administration of public
affairs, the political life of America was both really and ostensibly
freer than that of England was at that time; and the ancient liberties
of Englishmen, if not better preserved, were at least more conspicuously
asserted. As a natural consequence, the royal governors were continually
trying to do things which the people would not let them do, they were in
a chronic state of angry warfare with their assemblies, and they were
incessant in their complaints to the Lords of Trade. They represented
the Americans as a factious and turbulent people, with their heads
turned by queer political crotchets, unwilling to obey the laws and
eager to break off their connection with the British Empire. In this way
they did much to arouse an unfriendly feeling toward the colonies,
although eminent Englishmen were not wanting who understood American
affairs too well to let their opinions be thus lightly influenced. Upon
the Lords of Trade these misrepresentations wrought with so much effect
that now and then they would send out instructions to suspend the writ
of _habeas corpus_, or to abridge the freedom of the press. Sometimes
their acts were absurdly arbitrary. In New Hampshire, the people
maintained that as free-born Englishmen they had the right to choose
their representatives; but the governor held, on the contrary, that
this was no right, but only a privilege, which the Crown might withhold,
or grant, or revoke, all at its own good pleasure. To uphold the royal
prerogative, the governor was instructed to issue writs for elections to
some of the towns, while withholding them from others; but the
resistance of the people to this piece of tyranny was so determined that
the Lords of Trade thought it best to yield. In Massachusetts, for more
than thirty years, there went on an unceasing controversy between the
General Court and the successive royal governors, Shute, Burnet, and
Belcher, with reference to the governor's salary. The Lords of Trade
insisted that the governor should be paid a fixed salary; but lest this
should make the governor too independent, the General Court obstinately
refused to establish a salary, but made grants to the governor from year
to year, in imitation of the time-honoured usage of Parliament. This
method was, no doubt, inconvenient for the governors; but the colonists
rightly valued it as one of the safeguards of popular liberty, and to
their persistent refusal the Crown was obliged to give way. Similar
controversies, in New York and South Carolina, were attended with
similar results; while in Virginia the assembly more than once refused
to vote supplies, on the ground that the liberties of the colony were in
danger.
[Portrait: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE]
[Sidenote: Sir Robert Walpole]
Such grievances as these, reported year by year to the Lords of Trade,
and losing nothing in the manner in which they were told, went far to
create in England an opinion that America was a lawless country, and
sorely in need of a strong government. From time to time various schemes
were proposed for limiting the powers of the colonial assemblies, for
increasing the power of the governors, for introducing a titled
nobility, for taxing the colonists by act of Parliament, or for
weakening the feeling of local independence by uniting several colonies
into one. Until after the French troubles had been disposed of, little
came of any of these schemes. A plan for taxing the colonies was once
proposed to Sir Robert Walpole, but the sagacious old statesman
dismissed it with a laugh. "What!" said he. "I have half of Old England
set against me already, and do you think I will have all New England
likewise?" From time to time the liberal charters of Rhode Island and
Connecticut were threatened, but nothing came of this. But in one
direction the Lords of Trade were more active. One of their most
cherished plans was to bring about a union of all the colonies under a
single head; but this was not to be a union of the kind which the
Americans, with consummate statesmanship, afterward wrought out for
themselves. It was not to be a union based upon the idea of the
sacredness of local self-government, but it was a union to be achieved,
as far as possible, at the expense of local self-government. To bring
all the colonies together under a single viceroy would, it was thought,
diminish seriously the power of each local assembly, while at the same
time such a union would no doubt make the military strength of the
colonies much more available in case of war. In 1764, Francis Bernard,
Governor of Massachusetts, wrote that "to settle the American
governments to the greatest possible advantage, it will be necessary to
reduce the number of them; in some places to unite and consolidate; in
others to separate and transfer; and in general to divide by natural
boundaries instead of imaginary lines. If there should be but one form
of government established for the North American provinces, it would
greatly facilitate the reformation of them." As long ago as 1701, Robert
Livingston of New York had made similar suggestions; and in 1752,
Dinwiddie of Virginia recommended that the Northern and Southern
colonies be united respectively into two great confederacies.
[Signature: R Walpole]
[Sidenote: Weakness of the sentiment of union]
The desirableness of bringing about a union of the colonies was also
recognized by all the most liberal-minded American statesmen, though
from a very different point of view. They agreed with the royal
governors and with the Lords of Trade as to the urgent need for
concentrating the military strength of the colonies, and they thought
that this end could best be subserved by some kind of federal union. But
at the same time they held that the integrity of the local
self-government of each colony was of the first importance, and that no
system of federation would be practicable which should in any degree
essentially impair that integrity. To bring about a federal union on
such terms was no easy matter; it was a task fitted to tax the greatest
of statesmen at any time. At that time it was undoubtedly a hopeless
task. The need for union was not generally felt by the people. The
sympathies between the different colonies were weak and liable to be
overborne by prejudices arising from rivalry or from differences in
social structure. To the merchant of Boston, the Virginian planter was
still almost a foreigner, though both the one and the other were
pure-blooded Englishmen. Commercial jealousies were very keen. Disputes
about boundaries were not uncommon. In 1756, Georgia and South Carolina
actually came to blows over the navigation of the Savannah river.
Jeremiah Dummer, in his famous "Defence of the New England Charters,"
said that it was impossible that the colonies should ever be brought to
unite; and Burnaby thought that if the hand of Great Britain were once
taken off, there would be chronic civil war all the way from Maine to
Georgia.
[Sidenote: The Albany Congress]
In 1754, the prospect of immediate war with the French led several of
the royal governors to call for a congress of all the colonies, to be
held at Albany. The primary purpose of the meeting was to make sure of
the friendship of the Six Nations, and to organize a general scheme of
operations against the French. The secondary purpose was to prepare some
plan of confederation which all the colonies might be persuaded to
adopt. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland--only seven colonies of the
thirteen--sent commissioners to this congress. The people showed little
interest in the movement. It does not appear that any public meetings
were held in favour of it. Among the newspapers, the only one which
warmly approved of it seems to have been the "Pennsylvania Gazette,"
edited by Benjamin Franklin, which appeared with a union device and the
motto "Unite or Die!"
[Illustration: Unite or Die]
[Sidenote: Franklin's plan of union, 1754]
The circumstances of Franklin's life, no less than the wide sweep of his
intelligence, had fitted him for sounder views of the political needs of
the time than were taken by most of his contemporaries. As a native of
Massachusetts who dwelt in Pennsylvania, he may be said to have belonged
to two very different colonies; and he had spent time enough in London
to become well acquainted with British ideas. During the session of the
Albany Congress, a first attempt was made to establish a permanent union
of the thirteen colonies. It was to Franklin that the plan was chiefly
due. The legislative assembly of each colony was to choose, once in
three years, representatives to attend a federal Grand Council; which
was to meet every year at Philadelphia, a town which could be reached by
a twenty days' journey either from South Carolina or from New Hampshire.
This Grand Council was to choose its own speaker, and could neither be
dissolved nor prorogued, nor kept sitting longer than six weeks at any
one time, except by its own consent or by especial order of the Crown.
The Grand Council was to make treaties with the Indians and to regulate
the Indian trade; and it was to have sole power of legislation on all
matters concerning the colonies as a whole. To these ends, it could levy
taxes, enlist soldiers, build forts, and nominate all civil officers.
Its laws were to be submitted to the king for approval, and the royal
veto, in order to be of effect, must be exercised within three years.
To this Grand Council each colony was to send a number of
representatives, proportioned to its contributions to the continental
military service; yet no colony was to send less than two or more than
seven representatives. With the exception of such matters of general
concern as were to be managed by the Grand Council, each colony was to
retain its powers of legislation intact. On an emergency, any colony
might singly defend itself against foreign attack, and the federal
government was prohibited from impressing soldiers or seamen without the
consent of the local legislature.
The supreme executive power was to be vested in a president or
governor-general, appointed and paid by the Crown. He was to nominate
all military officers, subject to the approval of the Grand Council,
and was to have a veto on all the acts of the Grand Council. No money
could be issued save by joint order of the governor-general and the
council.
This plan, said Franklin, "is not altogether to my mind, but it is as I
could get it." It should be observed, to the credit of its author, that
this scheme, long afterward known as the "Albany Plan," contemplated the
formation of a self-sustaining federal government, and not of a mere
league. As Frothingham well says, "It designed to confer on the
representatives of the people the power of making laws acting directly
on individuals, and appointing officers to execute them, and yet not to
interfere with the execution of the laws operating on the same
individuals by the local officers." It would have erected "a public
authority as obligatory in its sphere as the local governments were in
their spheres." In this respect it was much more complete than the
scheme of confederation agreed on in Congress in 1777, and it afforded a
valuable precedent for the more elaborate and perfect Federal
Constitution of 1787. It was in its main features a noble scheme, and
the great statesman who devised it was already looking forward to the
immense growth of the American Union, though he had not yet foreseen the
separation of the colonies from the mother-country. In less than a
century, he said, the great country behind the Alleghanies must become
"a populous and powerful dominion;" and he recommended that two new
colonies should at once be founded in the West,--the one on Lake Erie,
the other in the valley of the Ohio,--with free chartered governments
like those of Rhode Island and Connecticut.
[Portrait: W Shirley]
[Sidenote: Rejection of the plan]
[Sidenote: Shirley recommends a stamp act]
But public opinion was not yet ripe for the adoption of Franklin's bold
and comprehensive ideas. Of the royal governors who were anxious to see
the colonies united on any terms, none opposed the plan except Delancey
of New York, who wished to reserve to the governors a veto upon all
elections of representatives to the Grand Council. To this it was
rightly objected that such a veto power would virtually destroy the
freedom of elections, and make the Grand Council an assembly of
creatures of the governors. On the popular side the objections were
many. The New England delegates, on the whole, were the least
disinclined to union; yet Connecticut urged that the veto power of the
governor-general might prove ruinous to the whole scheme; that the
concentration of all the military forces in his hands would be fraught
with dangers to liberty; and that even the power of taxation, lodged in
the hands of an assembly so remote from local interests, was hardly
compatible with the preservation of the ancient rights of Englishmen.
After long debate, the assembly at Albany decided to adopt Franklin's
plan, and copies of it were sent to all the colonies for their
consideration. But nowhere did it meet with approval. The mere fact that
the royal governors were all in favour of it--though their advocacy was
at present, no doubt, determined mainly by sound military reasons--was
quite enough to create an insuperable prejudice against it on the part
of the people. The Massachusetts legislature seems to have been the only
one which gave it a respectful consideration, albeit a large town
meeting in Boston denounced it as subversive of liberty. Pennsylvania
rejected it without a word of discussion. None of the assemblies
favoured it. On the other hand, when sent over to England to be
inspected by the Lords of Trade, it only irritated and disgusted them.
As they truly said, it was a scheme of union "complete in itself;" and
ever since the days of the New England confederacy the Crown had looked
with extreme jealousy upon all attempts at concerted action among the
colonies which did not originate with itself. Besides this, the Lords of
Trade were now considering a plan of their own for remodelling the
governments of the colonies, establishing a standing army, enforcing the
navigation acts, and levying taxes by authority of Parliament.
Accordingly little heed was paid to Franklin's ideas. Though the royal
governors had approved the Albany plan, in default of any scheme of
union more to their minds, they had no real sympathy with it. In 1756,
Shirley wrote to the Lords of Trade, urging upon them the paramount
necessity for a union of the American colonies, in order to withstand
the French; while at the same time he disparaged Franklin's scheme, as
containing principles of government unfit even for a single colony like
Rhode Island, and much more unfit for a great American confederacy. The
union, he urged, should be effected by act of Parliament, and by the
same authority a general fund should be raised to meet the expenses of
the war,--an end which Shirley thought might be most speedily and
quietly attained by means of a "stamp duty." As Shirley had been for
fifteen years governor of Massachusetts, and was now commander-in-chief
of all the troops in America, his opinion had great weight with the
Lords of Trade; and the same views being reiterated by Dinwiddie of
Virginia, Sharpe of Maryland, Hardy of New York, and other governors,
the notion that Parliament must tax the Americans became deeply rooted
in the British official mind.
[Sidenote: Writs of assistance]
Nothing was done, however, until the work of the French war had been
accomplished. In 1761, it was decided to enforce the Navigation Act, and
one of the revenue officers at Boston applied to the superior court for
a "writ of assistance," or general search-warrant, to enable him to
enter private houses and search for smuggled goods, but without
specifying either houses or goods. Such general warrants had been
allowed by a statute of the bad reign of Charles II., and a statute of
William III., in general terms, had granted to revenue officers in
America like powers to those they possessed in England. But James Otis
showed that the issue of such writs was contrary to the whole spirit of
the British constitution. To issue such universal warrants allowing the
menials of the custom house, on mere suspicion, and perhaps from motives
of personal enmity, to invade the home of any citizen, without being
held responsible for any rudeness they might commit there,--such, he
said, was "a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king of
England his head and another his throne;" and he plainly declared that
even an act of Parliament which should sanction so gross an infringement
of the immemorial rights of Englishmen would be treated as null and
void. Chief Justice Hutchinson granted the writs of assistance, and as
an interpreter of the law he was doubtless right in so doing; but Otis's
argument suggested the question whether Americans were bound to obey
laws which they had no share in making, and his passionate eloquence
made so great an impression upon the people that this scene in the court
room has been since remembered--and not unjustly--as the opening scene
of the American Revolution.
[Portrait: James Otis]
[Sidenote: The chief justice of New York]
In the same year the arbitrary temper of the government was exhibited in
New York. Down to this time the chief justice of the colony had held
office only during good behaviour, and had been liable to dismissal at
the hands of the colonial assembly. The chief justice was now made
removable only by the Crown, a measure which struck directly at the
independent administration of justice in the colony. The assembly tried
to protect itself by refusing to assign a fixed salary to the chief
justice, whereupon the king ordered that the salary should be paid out
of the quit-rents for the public lands. At the same time instructions
were sent to all the royal governors to grant no judicial commissions
for any other period than "during the king's pleasure;" and to show that
this was meant in earnest, the governor of New Jersey was next year
peremptorily dismissed for commissioning a judge "during good
behaviour."
[Sidenote: Otis's "Vindication"]
In 1762, a question distinctly involving the right of the people to
control the expenditure of their own money came up in Massachusetts.
Governor Bernard, without authority from the assembly, had sent a couple
of ships to the northward, to protect the fisheries against French
privateers, and an expense of some £400 had been thus incurred. The
assembly was now ordered to pay this sum, but it refused to do so. "It
would be of little consequence to the people," said Otis, in the debate
on the question, "whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king
of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbitrary, as both
would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." A cry of
"Treason!" from one of the less clear-headed members greeted this bold
statement; and Otis, being afterward taken to task for his language,
published a "Vindication," in which he maintained that the rights of a
colonial assembly, as regarded the expenditure of public money, were as
sacred as the rights of the House of Commons.
[Portrait: George Grenville]
[Sidenote: Expenses of the French war]
[Sidenote: Grenville's Resolves]
In April, 1763, just three years after the accession of George III.,
George Grenville became Prime Minister of England, while at the same
time Charles Townshend was First Lord of Trade. Townshend had paid
considerable attention to American affairs, and was supposed to know
more about them than any other man in England. But his studies had led
him to the conclusion that the colonies ought to be deprived of their
self-government, and that a standing army ought to be maintained in
America by means of taxes arbitrarily assessed upon the people by
Parliament. Grenville was far from approving of such extreme measures
as these, but he thought that a tax ought to be imposed upon the
colonies, in order to help defray the expenses of the French war. Yet in
point of fact, as Franklin truly said, the colonies had "raised, paid,
and clothed nearly twenty-five thousand men during the last war,--a
number equal to those sent from Great Britain, and far beyond their
proportion. They went deeply into debt in doing this; and all their
estates and taxes are mortgaged for many years to come for discharging
that debt." That the colonies had contributed more than an equitable
share toward the expenses of the war, that their contributions had even
been in excess of their ability, had been freely acknowledged by
Parliament, which, on several occasions between 1756 and 1763, had voted
large sums to be paid over to the colonies, in partial compensation for
their excessive outlay. Parliament was therefore clearly estopped from
making the defrayal of the war debt the occasion for imposing upon the
colonies a tax of a new and strange character, and under circumstances
which made the payment of such a tax seem equivalent to a surrender of
their rights as free English communities. In March, 1764, Grenville
introduced in the House of Commons a series of Declaratory Resolves,
announcing the intention of the government to raise a revenue in America
by requiring various commercial and legal documents, newspapers, etc.,
to bear stamps, varying in price from threepence to ten pounds. A year
was to elapse, however, before these resolutions should take effect in a
formal enactment.
It marks the inferiority of the mother-country to the colonies in
political development, at that time, that the only solicitude as yet
entertained by the British official mind, with regard to this measure,
seems to have been concerned with the question how far the Americans
would be willing to part with their money. With the Americans it was as
far as possible from being a question of pounds, shillings, and pence;
but this was by no means correctly understood in England. The good
Shirley, although he had lived so long in Massachusetts, had thought
that a revenue might be most easily and quietly raised by means of a
stamp duty. Of all kinds of direct tax, none, perhaps, is less annoying.
But the position taken by the Americans had little to do with mere
convenience; it rested from the outset upon the deepest foundations of
political justice, and from this foothold neither threatening nor
coaxing could stir it.
[Illustration: A Stamp]
[Sidenote: Reply of the colonies]
The first deliberate action with reference to the proposed Stamp Act was
taken in the Boston town meeting in May, 1764. In this memorable town
meeting Samuel Adams drew up a series of resolutions, which contained
the first formal and public denial of the right of Parliament to tax
the colonies without their consent; and while these resolutions were
adopted by the Massachusetts assembly, a circular letter was at the same
time sent to all the other colonies, setting forth the need for
concerted and harmonious action in respect of so grave a matter. In
response, the assemblies of Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia, and South Carolina joined with Massachusetts in remonstrating
against the proposed Stamp Act. All these memorials were remarkable for
clearness of argument and simple dignity of language. They all took
their stand on the principle that, as free-born Englishmen, they could
not rightfully be taxed by the House of Commons unless they were
represented in that body. But the proviso was added, that if a letter
from the secretary of state, coming in the king's name, should be
presented to the colonial assemblies, asking them to contribute
something from their general resources to the needs of the British
Empire, they would cheerfully, as heretofore, grant liberal sums of
money, in token of their loyalty and of their interest in all that
concerned the welfare of the mighty empire to which they belonged. These
able and temperate memorials were sent to England; and in order to
reinforce them by personal tact and address, Franklin went over to
London as agent for the colony of Pennsylvania.
[Portrait: Cha Thomson]
[Sidenote: The Stamp Act]
The alternative proposed by the colonies was virtually the same as the
system of requisitions already in use, and the inefficiency of which, in
securing a revenue, had been abundantly proved by the French war.
Parliament therefore rejected it, and early in 1765 the Stamp Act was
passed. It is worthy of remark that the idea that the Americans would
resist its execution did not at once occur to Franklin. Acquiescence
seemed to him, for the present, the only safe policy. In writing to his
friend Charles Thomson, he said that he could no more have hindered the
passing of the Stamp Act than he could have hindered the sun's setting.
"That," he says, "we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and
it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it
as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a
great way towards indemnifying us." But Thomson, in his answer, with
truer foresight, observed, "I much fear, instead of the candles you
mentioned being lighted, you will hear of the works of darkness!" The
news of the passage of the Stamp Act was greeted in America with a burst
of indignation. In New York, the act was reprinted with a death's-head
upon it in place of the royal arms, and it was hawked about the streets
under the title of "The Folly of England and the Ruin of America." In
Boston, the church-bells were tolled, and the flags on the shipping put
at half-mast.
[Illustration: SPEAKER'S CHAIR, HOUSE OF BURGESSES]
[Sidenote: The Parson's Cause]
But formal defiance came first from Virginia. A year and a half before,
a famous lawsuit, known as the "Parsons' Cause," had brought into public
notice a young man who was destined to take high rank among modern
orators. The lawsuit which made Patrick Henry's reputation was one of
the straws which showed how the stream of tendency in America was then
strongly setting toward independence. Tobacco had not yet ceased to be a
legal currency in Virginia, and by virtue of an old statute each
clergyman of the Established Church was entitled to sixteen thousand
pounds of tobacco as his yearly salary. In 1755 and 1758, under the
severe pressure of the French war, the assembly had passed relief acts,
allowing all public dues, including the salaries of the clergy, to be
paid either in kind or in money, at a fixed rate of twopence for a pound
of tobacco. The policy of these acts was thoroughly unsound, as they
involved a partial repudiation of debts; but the extreme distress of the
community was pleaded in excuse, and every one, clergy as well as
laymen, at first acquiesced in them. But in 1759 tobacco was worth
sixpence per pound, and the clergy became dissatisfied. Their complaints
reached the ears of Sherlock, the Bishop of London, and the act of 1758
was summarily vetoed by the king in council. The clergy brought suits to
recover the unpaid portions of their salaries; in the test case of Rev.
James Maury, the court decided the point of the law in their favour, on
the ground of the royal veto, and nothing remained but to settle before
a jury the amount of the damages. On this occasion, Henry appeared for
the first time in court, and after a few timid and awkward sentences
burst forth with an eloquent speech, in which he asserted the
indefeasible right of Virginia to make laws for herself, and declared
that in annulling a salutary ordinance at the request of a favoured
class in the community "a king, from being the father of his people,
degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to obedience." Cries
of "Treason!" were heard in the court room, but the jury immediately
returned a verdict of one penny in damages, and Henry became the popular
idol of Virginia. The clergy tried in vain to have him indicted for
treason, alleging that his crime was hardly less heinous than that which
had brought old Lord Lovat to the block. But the people of Louisa county
replied, in 1765, by choosing him to represent them in the colonial
assembly.
[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY MAKING HIS TARQUIN AND CÆSAR SPEECH]
[Sidenote: Patrick Henry's resolutions]
Hardly had Henry taken his seat in the assembly when the news of the
Stamp Act arrived. In a committee of the whole house, he drew up a
series of resolutions, declaring that the colonists were entitled to all
the liberties and privileges of natural-born subjects, and that "the
taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves
to represent them, ... is the distinguishing characteristic of British
freedom, without which the ancient constitution cannot exist." It was
further declared that any attempt to vest the power of taxation in any
other body than the colonial assembly was a menace to British no less
than to American freedom; that the people of Virginia were not bound to
obey any law enacted in disregard of these fundamental principles; and
that any one who should maintain the contrary should be regarded as a
public enemy. It was in the lively debate which ensued upon these
resolutions, that Henry uttered those memorable words commending the
example of Tarquin and Cæsar and Charles I. to the attention of George
III. Before the vote had been taken upon all the resolutions, Governor
Fauquier dissolved the assembly; but the resolutions were printed in the
newspapers, and hailed with approval all over the country.
=STAMP-OFFICE=,
_Lincoln's-Inn_, 1765.
A
=TABLE=
Of the Prices of Parchment and Paper for the Service of _America_.
Parchment.
Skins 18 Inch by 13, at Fourpence }
22 ---- by 16, at Six-pence }
26 ---- by 20, at Eight-pence } each.
28 ---- by 23, at Ten-pence }
31 ---- by 26, at Thirteen-pence }
Paper.
Horn at Seven-pence }
Fools Cap at Nine-pence }
D^o with printed Notices } at }
for Indentures } 1 s. }
Folio Post at One Shilling } each Quire.
Demy ---- at Two Shillings }
Medium at Three Shillings }
Royal ---- at Four Shillings }
Super Royal at Six Shillings }
Paper for Printing
News.
Double Crown at 14s. } each Ream
Double Demy at 19s. }
Almanacks.
Book--Crown Paper at 10s. 6d. }
Book----Fools Cap at 6s. 6d. } each Ream.
Pocket----Folio Post at 20s. }
Sheet----Demy at 13s. }
[Sidenote: The Stamp Act Congress]
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts legislature, at the suggestion of Otis, had
issued a circular letter to all the colonies, calling for a general
congress, in order to concert measures of resistance to the Stamp Act.
The first cordial response came from South Carolina, at the instance of
Christopher Gadsden, a wealthy merchant of Charleston and a scholar
learned in Oriental languages, a man of rare sagacity and most liberal
spirit. On the 7th of October, the proposed congress assembled at New
York, comprising delegates from Massachusetts, South Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey,
and New York, in all nine colonies, which are here mentioned in the
order of the dates at which they chose their delegates. In Virginia, the
governor succeeded in preventing the meeting of the legislature, so that
this great colony did not send delegates; and, for various reasons, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, and Georgia were likewise unrepresented at
the congress. But the sentiment of all the thirteen colonies was none
the less unanimous, and those which did not attend lost no time in
declaring their full concurrence with what was done at New York. At this
memorable meeting, held under the very guns of the British fleet and
hard by the headquarters of General Gage, the commander-in-chief of the
regular forces in America, a series of resolutions were adopted, echoing
the spirit of Patrick Henry's resolves, though couched in language
somewhat more conciliatory, and memorials were addressed to the king and
to both Houses of Parliament. Of all the delegates present, Gadsden took
the broadest ground, in behalf both of liberty and of united action
among the colonies. He objected to sending petitions to Parliament, lest
thereby its paramount authority should implicitly and unwittingly be
acknowledged. "A confirmation of our essential and common rights as
Englishmen," said he, "may be pleaded from charters safely enough; but
any further dependence on them may be fatal. We should stand upon the
broad common ground of those natural rights that we all feel and know as
men and as descendants of Englishmen. I wish the charters may not
ensnare us at last, by drawing different colonies to act differently in
this great cause. Whenever that is the case, all will be over with the
whole. There ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker, known on the
continent; but all of us Americans." So thought and said this
broad-minded South Carolinian.
[Sidenote: Declaration of the Massachusetts assembly]
While these things were going on at New York, the Massachusetts
assembly, under the lead of Samuel Adams, who had just taken his seat in
it, drew up a very able state paper, in which it was declared, among
other things, that "the Stamp Act wholly cancels the very conditions
upon which our ancestors, with much toil and blood and at their sole
expense, settled this country and enlarged his majesty's dominions. It
tends to destroy that mutual confidence and affection, as well as that
equality, which ought ever to subsist among all his majesty's subjects
in this wide and extended empire; and what is the worst of all evils, if
his majesty's American subjects are not to be governed according to the
known and stated rules of the constitution, their minds may in time
become disaffected." This moderate and dignified statement was applauded
by many in England and by others derided as the "raving of a parcel of
wild enthusiasts," but from the position here taken Massachusetts never
afterward receded.
[Illustration: Stamp]
[Sidenote: Resistance to the Stamp Act in Boston]
[Sidenote: and in New York]
But it was not only in these formal and decorous proceedings that the
spirit of resistance was exhibited. The first announcement of the Stamp
Act had called into existence a group of secret societies of workingmen
known as "Sons of Liberty," in allusion to a famous phrase in one of
Colonel Barré's speeches. These societies were solemnly pledged to
resist the execution of the obnoxious law. On the 14th of August, the
quiet town of Boston witnessed some extraordinary proceedings. At
daybreak, the effigy of the stamp officer, Oliver, was seen hanging from
a great elm-tree, while near it was suspended a boot, to represent the
late prime minister, Lord Bute; and from the top of the boot-leg there
issued a grotesque head, garnished with horns, to represent the devil.
At nightfall the Sons of Liberty cut down these figures, and bore them
on a bier through the streets until they reached King Street, where they
demolished the frame of a house which was supposed to be erecting for a
stamp office. Thence, carrying the beams of this frame to Fort Hill,
where Oliver lived, they made a bonfire of them in front of his house,
and in the bonfire they burned up the effigies. Twelve days after, a mob
sacked the splendid house of Chief Justice Hutchinson, threw his plate
into the street, and destroyed the valuable library which he had been
thirty years in collecting, and which contained many manuscripts, the
loss of which was quite irreparable. As usual with mobs, the vengeance
fell in the wrong place, for Hutchinson had done his best to prevent the
passage of the Stamp Act. In most of the colonies, the stamp officers
were compelled to resign their posts. Boxes of stamps arriving by ship
were burned or thrown into the sea. Leading merchants agreed to import
no more goods from England, and wealthy citizens set the example of
dressing in homespun garments. Lawyers agreed to overlook the absence of
the stamp on legal documents, while editors derisively issued their
newspapers with a death's-head in the place where the stamp was required
to be put. In New York, the presence of the troops for a moment
encouraged the lieutenant-governor, Colden, to take a bold stand in
behalf of the law. He talked of firing upon the people, but was warned
that if he did so he would be speedily hanged on a lamp-post, like
Captain Porteous of Edinburgh. A torchlight procession, carrying images
of Colden and of the devil, broke into the governor's coach-house, and,
seizing his best chariot, paraded it about town with the images upon it,
and finally burned up chariot and images on the Bowling Green, in full
sight of Colden and the garrison, who looked on from the Battery,
speechless with rage, but afraid to interfere. Gage did not dare to have
the troops used, for fear of bringing on a civil war; and the next day
the discomfited Colden was obliged to surrender all the stamps to the
common council of New York, by whom they were at once locked up in the
City Hall.
[Sidenote: Debate in the House of Commons]
[Sidenote: Repeal of the Stamp Act]
Nothing more was needed to prove the impossibility of carrying the Stamp
Act into effect. An act which could be thus rudely defied under the very
eyes of the commander-in-chief plainly could never be enforced without a
war. But nobody wanted a war, and the matter began to be reconsidered in
England. In July, the Grenville ministry had gone out of office, and the
Marquis of Rockingham was now prime minister, while Conway, who had been
one of the most energetic opponents of the Stamp Act, was secretary of
state for the colonies. The new ministry would perhaps have been glad to
let the question of taxing America remain in abeyance, but that was no
longer possible. The debate on the proposed repeal of the Stamp Act was
one of the keenest that has ever been heard in the House of Commons.
Grenville and his friends, now in opposition, maintained in all
sincerity that no demand could ever be more just, or more honourably
intended, than that which had lately been made upon the Americans. Of
the honest conviction of Grenville and his supporters that they were
entirely in the right, and that the Americans were governed by purely
sordid and vulgar motives in resisting the Stamp Act, there cannot be
the slightest doubt. To refute this gross misconception of the American
position, Pitt hastened from a sick-bed to the House of Commons, and
delivered those speeches in which he avowed that he rejoiced in the
resistance of the Americans, and declared that, had they submitted
tamely to the measures of Grenville, they would have shown themselves
only fit to be slaves. He pointed out distinctly that the Americans were
upholding those eternal principles of political justice which should be
to all Englishmen most dear, and that a victory over the colonies would
be of ill-omen for English liberty, whether in the Old World or in the
New. Beware, he said, how you persist in this ill-considered policy. "In
such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell,
would fall like the strong man with his arms around the pillars of the
Constitution." There could be no sounder political philosophy than was
contained in these burning sentences of Pitt. From all the history of
the European world since the later days of the Roman Republic, there is
no more important lesson to be learned than this,--that it is impossible
for a free people to govern a dependent people despotically without
endangering its own freedom. Pitt therefore urged that the Stamp Act
should instantly be repealed, and that the reason for the repeal should
be explicitly stated to be because the act "was founded on an erroneous
principle." At the same time he recommended the passage of a Declaratory
Act, in which the sovereign authority of Parliament over the colonies
should be strongly asserted with respect to everything except direct
taxation. Similar views were set forth in the House of Lords, with great
learning and ability, by Lord Camden; but he was vehemently opposed by
Lord Mansfield, and when the question came to a decision, the only peers
who supported Camden were Lords Shelburne, Cornwallis, Paulet, and
Torrington. The result finally reached was the unconditional repeal of
the Stamp Act, and the simultaneous passage of a Declaratory Act, in
which the views of Pitt and Camden were ignored and Parliament asserted
its right to make laws binding on the colonies "in all cases
whatsoever." By the people of London the repeal was received with
enthusiastic delight, and Pitt and Conway, as they appeared on the
street, were loudly cheered, while Grenville was greeted with a storm of
hisses. In America the effect of the news was electric. There were
bonfires in every town, while addresses of thanks to the king were voted
in all the legislatures. Little heed was paid to the Declaratory Act,
which was regarded merely as an artifice for saving the pride of the
British government. There was a unanimous outburst of loyalty all over
the country, and never did the people seem less in a mood for rebellion
than at that moment.
The quarrel had now been made up. On the question of principle, the
British had the last word. The government had got out of its dilemma
remarkably well, and the plain and obvious course for British
statesmanship was not to allow another such direct issue to come up
between the colonies and the mother-country. To force on another such
issue while the memory of this one was fresh in everybody's mind was
sheer madness. To raise the question wantonly, as Charles Townshend did
in the course of the very next year, was one of those blunders that are
worse than crimes.
[Illustration: FUNERAL PROCESSION OF THE STAMP ACT]
[Signature: Grafton]
[Portrait: CTownshend]
[Sidenote: The Duke of Grafton's ministry]
[Sidenote: The Townshend Acts]
In July, 1766,--less than six months after the repeal of the Stamp
Act,--the Rockingham ministry fell, and the formation of a new ministry
was entrusted to Pitt, the man who best appreciated the value of the
American colonies. But the state of Pitt's health was not such as to
warrant his taking upon himself the arduous duties of prime minister. He
took the great seal, and, accepting the earldom of Chatham, passed into
the House of Lords. The Duke of Grafton became prime minister, under
Pitt's guidance; Conway and Lord Shelburne were secretaries of state,
and Camden became Lord Chancellor,--all three of them warm friends of
America, and adopting the extreme American view of the constitutional
questions lately at issue; and along with these was Charles Townshend,
the evil spirit of the administration, as chancellor of the exchequer.
From such a ministry, it might at first sight seem strange that a fresh
quarrel with America should have proceeded. But Chatham's illness soon
overpowered him, so that he was kept at home suffering excruciating
pain, and could neither guide nor even pay due attention to the
proceedings of his colleagues. Of the rest of the ministry, only Conway
and Townshend were in the House of Commons, where the real direction of
affairs rested; and when Lord Chatham was out of the way, as the Duke of
Grafton counted for nothing, the strongest man in the cabinet was
unquestionably Townshend. Now when an act for raising an American
revenue was proposed by Townshend, a prejudice against it was sure to be
excited at once, simply because every American knew well what
Townshend's views were. It would have been difficult for such a man even
to assume a conciliatory attitude without having his motives suspected;
and if the question with Great Britain had been simply that of raising a
revenue on statesmanlike principles, it would have been well to entrust
the business to some one like Lord Shelburne, in whom the Americans had
confidence. In 1767, Townshend ventured to do what in any English
ministry of the present day would be impossible. In flat opposition to
the policy of Chatham and the rest of his colleagues, trusting in the
favour of the king and in his own ability to coax or browbeat the House
of Commons, he brought in a series of new measures for taxing America.
"I expect to be dismissed for my pains," he said in the House, with
flippant defiance; and indeed he came very near it. As soon as he heard
what was going on, Chatham mustered up strength enough to go to London
and insist upon Townshend's dismissal. But Lord North was the only
person that could be thought of to take Townshend's place, and Lord
North, who never liked to offend the king, declined the appointment.
Before Chatham could devise a way out of his quandary, his malady again
laid him prostrate, and Townshend was not only not turned out, but was
left practically supreme in the cabinet. The new measures for taxing
America were soon passed. In the debates on the Stamp Act, it had been
argued that while Parliament had no right to impose a direct tax upon
the Americans, it might still properly regulate American trade by port
duties. The distinction had been insisted upon by Pitt, and had been
virtually acknowledged by the Americans; who had from time to time
submitted to acts of Parliament imposing duties upon merchandise
imported into the colonies. Nay, more, when charged with inconsistency
for submitting to such acts while resisting the Stamp Act, several
leading Americans had explicitly adopted the distinction between
internal and external taxation, and declared themselves ready to submit
to the latter while determined to resist the former. Townshend was now
ready, as he declared, to take them at their word. By way of doing so,
he began by laughing to scorn the distinction between internal and
external taxation, and declaring that Parliament possessed the undoubted
right of taxing the Americans without their own consent; but since
objections had been raised to a direct tax, he was willing to resort to
port duties,--a measure to which the Americans were logically bound to
assent. Duties were accordingly imposed on wine, oil, and fruits, if
carried directly to America from Spain or Portugal; on glass, paper,
lead, and painters' colours; and lastly on tea. The revenue to be
derived from these duties was to be devoted to paying a fixed salary to
the royal governors and to the justices appointed at the king's
pleasure. The Crown was also empowered to create a general civil list in
every colony, and to grant salaries and pensions at its arbitrary will.
A board of revenue commissioners for the whole country was to be
established at Boston, armed with extraordinary powers; and general
writs of assistance were expressly legalized and permitted.
[Illustration: HOUSE OF COMMONS]
[Sidenote: Attack on the New York assembly]
Such was the way in which Townshend proceeded to take the Americans at
their word. His course was a distinct warning to the Americans that, if
they yielded now, they might expect some new Stamp Act or other measures
of direct taxation to follow; and so it simply invited resistance. That
no doubt might be left on this point, the purpose for which the revenue
was to be used showed clearly that the object of the legislation was not
to regulate trade, but to assert British supremacy over the colonies at
the expense of their political freedom. By providing for a civil list
in each colony, to be responsible only to the Crown, it aimed at
American self-government even a more deadly blow than had been aimed at
it by the Stamp Act. It meddled with the "internal police" of every
colony, and would thus have introduced a most vexatious form of tyranny
as soon as it had taken effect. A special act by which the Townshend
revenue acts were accompanied still further revealed the temper and
purposes of the British government. The colony of New York had been
required to provide certain supplies for the regular troops quartered in
the city, under command of General Gage; and the colonial assembly had
insisted upon providing these supplies in its own way, and in disregard
of special instructions from England. For this offence, Parliament now
passed an act suspending the New York assembly from its legislative
functions until it should have complied with the instructions regarding
the supplies to the army. It need not be said that the precedent
involved in this act, if once admitted, would have virtually annulled
the legislative independence of every one of the colonial assemblies.
[Illustration: HOUSE OF LORDS]
[Sidenote: Parliament did not properly represent the British people]
[Sidenote: Difficulty of the problem]
We may perhaps wonder that a British Parliament should have been
prevailed on to pass such audacious acts as these, and by large
majorities. But we must remember that in those days the English system
of representation was so imperfect, and had come to be so overgrown with
abuses, that an act of Parliament was by no means sure to represent the
average judgment of the people. The House of Commons was so far under
the corrupt influence of the aristocracy, and was so inadequately
controlled by popular opinion, that at almost any time it was possible
for an eloquent, determined, and unscrupulous minister to carry measures
through it such as could never have been carried through any of the
reformed Parliaments since 1832. It is not easy, perhaps, to say with
confidence what the popular feeling in England was in 1767 with
reference to the policy of Charles Townshend. The rural population was
much more ignorant than it is to-day, and its political opinions were
strongly influenced by the country squires,--a worthy set of men, but
not generally distinguished for the flexibility of their minds or the
breadth of their views. But as a sample of the most intelligent popular
feeling in England at that time, it will probably not be unfair to cite
that of the city of London, which was usually found arrayed on the side
of free government. No wiser advice was heard in Parliament, on the
subject of the New York dispute, than was given by Alderman Beckford,
father of the illustrious author of Vathek, when he said, "Do like the
best of physicians, and heal the disease by doing nothing." On many
other important occasions in the course of this unfortunate quarrel, the
city of London gave expression to opinions which the king and Parliament
would have done well to heed. But even if the House of Commons had
reflected popular feeling in 1767 as clearly as it has done since 1832,
it is by no means sure that it would have known how to deal successfully
with the American question. The problem was really a new one in
political history; and there was no adequate precedent to guide the
statesmen in dealing with the peculiar combination of considerations it
involved. As far as concerned the relations of Englishmen in England to
the Crown and to Parliament, the British Constitution had at last
reached a point where it worked quite smoothly. All contingencies likely
to arise seemed to have been provided for. But when it came to the
relations of Englishmen in America to the Crown and to Parliament, the
case was very different. The case had its peculiar conditions, which the
British Constitution in skilful hands would no doubt have proved elastic
enough to satisfy; but just at this time the British Constitution
happened to be in very unskilful hands, and wholly failed to meet the
exigencies of the occasion. The chief difficulty lay in the fact that
while on the one hand the American principle of no taxation without
representation was unquestionably sound and just, on the other hand the
exemption of any part of the British Empire from the jurisdiction of
Parliament seemed equivalent to destroying the political unity of the
empire. This could not but seem to any English statesman a most
lamentable result, and no English statesman felt this more strongly than
Lord Chatham.
[Sidenote: Representation of Americans in Parliament]
[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone and the Boers]
There were only two possible ways in which the difference could be
accommodated. Either the American colonies must elect representatives to
the Parliament at Westminster; or else the right of levying taxes must
be left where it already resided, in their own legislative bodies. The
first alternative was seriously considered by eminent political
thinkers, both in England and America. In England it was favourably
regarded by Adam Smith, and in America by Benjamin Franklin and James
Otis. In 1774, some of the loyalists in the first Continental Congress
recommended such a scheme. In 1778, after the overthrow of Burgoyne, the
king himself began to think favourably of such a way out of the quarrel.
But this alternative was doubtless from the first quite visionary and
unpractical. The difficulties in the way of securing anything like
equality of representation would probably have been insuperable; and
the difficulty in dividing jurisdiction fairly between the local
colonial legislature and the American contingent in the Parliament at
Westminster would far have exceeded any of the difficulties that have
arisen in the attempt to adjust the relations of the several States to
the general government in our Federal Union. Mere distance, too, which
even to-day would go far toward rendering such a scheme impracticable,
would have been a still more fatal obstacle in the days of Chatham and
Townshend. If, even with the vast enlargement of the political horizon
which our hundred years' experience of federalism has effected, the
difficulty of such a union still seems so great, we may be sure it would
have proved quite insuperable then. The only practicable solution would
have been the frank and cordial admission, by the British government, of
the essential soundness of the American position, that, in accordance
with the entire spirit of the English Constitution, the right of levying
taxes in America resided only in the colonial legislatures, in which
alone could American freemen be adequately represented. Nor was there
really any reason to fear that such a step would imperil the unity of
the empire. How mistaken this fear was, on the part of English
statesmen, is best shown by the fact that, in her liberal and
enlightened dealings with her colonies at the present day, England has
consistently adopted the very course of action which alone would have
conciliated such men as Samuel Adams in the days of the Stamp Act. By
pursuing such a policy, the British government has to-day a genuine hold
upon the affections of its pioneers in Australia and New Zealand and
Africa. If such a statesman as Gladstone could have dealt freely with
the American question during the twelve years following the Peace of
Paris, the history of that time need not have been the pitiable story of
a blind and obstinate effort to enforce submission to an ill-considered
and arbitrary policy on the part of the king and his ministers. The
feeling by which the king's party was guided, in the treatment of the
American question, was very much the same as the feeling which lately
inspired the Tory criticisms upon Gladstone's policy in South Africa.
Lord Beaconsfield, a man in some respects not unlike Charles Townshend,
bequeathed to his successor a miserable quarrel with the Dutch farmers
of the Transvaal; and Mr. Gladstone, after examining the case on its
merits, had the moral courage to acknowledge that England was wrong, and
to concede the demands of the Boers, even after serious military defeat
at their hands. Perhaps no other public act of England in the nineteenth
century has done her greater honour than this. But said the Jingoes, All
the world will now laugh at Englishmen, and call them cowards. In order
to vindicate the military prestige of England, the true policy would be,
forsooth, to prolong the war until the Boers had been once thoroughly
defeated, and then acknowledge the soundness of their position. Just as
if the whole world did not know, as well as it can possibly know
anything, that whatever qualities the English nation may lack, it
certainly does not lack courage, or the ability to win victories in a
good cause! All honour to the Christian statesman who dares to leave
England's military prestige to be vindicated by the glorious records of
a thousand years, and even in the hour of well-merited defeat sets a
higher value on political justice than on a reputation for dealing hard
blows! Such incidents as this are big with hope for the future. They
show us what sort of political morality our children's children may
expect to see, when mankind shall have come somewhat nearer toward being
truly civilized.
[Sidenote: Death of Townshend]
In the eighteenth century, no such exhibition of good sense and good
feeling, in the interest of political justice, could have been expected
from any European statesman, unless from a Turgot or a Chatham. But
Charles Townshend was not even called upon to exercise any such
self-control. Had he simply taken Alderman Beckford's advice, and done
nothing, all would have been well; but his meddling had now put the
government into a position which it was ruinous to maintain, but from
which it was difficult to retreat. American tradition rightly lays the
chief blame for the troubles which brought on the Revolutionary War to
George III.; but, in fairness, it is well to remember that he did not
suggest Townshend's measures, though he zealously adopted and cherished
them when once propounded. The blame for wantonly throwing the apple of
discord belongs to Townshend more than to any one else. After doing
this, within three months from the time his bill had passed the House of
Commons, Townshend was seized with a fever and died at the age of
forty-one. A man of extraordinary gifts, but without a trace of earnest
moral conviction, he had entered upon a splendid career; but his
insincere nature, which turned everything into jest, had stamped itself
upon his work. He bequeathed to his country nothing but the quarrel
which was soon to deprive her of the grandest part of that empire upon
which the sun shall never set.
[Illustration: George III]
[Signature: George R]
[Sidenote: His political legacy to George III.]
[Sidenote: Character of George III.]
If Townshend's immediate object in originating these measures was to
curry favour with George III., and get the lion's share in the disposal
of the king's ample corruption-fund, he had doubtless gone to work in
the right way. The king was delighted with Townshend's measures, and
after the sudden death of his minister he made them his own, and staked
his whole political career as a monarch upon their success. These
measures were the fatal legacy which the brighter political charlatan
left to the duller political fanatic. The fierce persistency with which
George now sought to force Townshend's measures upon the Americans
partook of the nature of fanaticism, and we shall not understand it
unless we bear in mind the state of political parties in England between
1760 and 1784. When George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England had
been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig families
which had been brought into the foreground by the revolution of 1688.
The Tories had been utterly discredited and cast out of political life
by reason of their willingness to conspire with the Stuart pretenders
in disturbing the peace of the country. Cabinet government, in its
modern form, had begun to grow up during the long and prosperous
administration of Sir Robert Walpole, who was the first English prime
minister in the full sense. Under Walpole's wise and powerful sway, the
first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than the shadow of
sovereignty. It was the third George's ambition to become a real king,
like the king of France or the king of Spain. From earliest babyhood,
his mother had forever been impressing upon him the precept, "George, be
king!" and this simple lesson had constituted pretty much the whole of
his education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant king
that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as general culture is
concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly correct. He used to wonder what
people could find to admire in such a wretched driveller as
Shakespeare, and he never was capable of understanding any problem which
required the slightest trace of imagination or of generalizing power.
Nevertheless, the popular American tradition undoubtedly errs in
exaggerating his stupidity and laying too little stress upon the worst
side of his character. George III. was not destitute of a certain kind
of ability, which often gets highly rated in this not too clear-sighted
world. He could see an immediate end very distinctly, and acquired
considerable power from the dogged industry with which he pursued it. In
an age when some of the noblest English statesmen drank their gallon of
strong wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in
scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in personal habits
and pure in domestic relations, and no banker's clerk in London applied
himself to the details of business more industriously than he. He had a
genuine talent for administration, and he devoted this talent most
assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human sympathy, and
almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied manner, he could be
smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an adept in gaining men's
confidence by a show of interest, and securing their aid by dint of fair
promises; and when he found them of no further use, he could turn them
adrift with wanton insult. Any one who dared to disagree with him upon
even the slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural
enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred. As a
natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and short-sighted
advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad views and independent
character he nursed the bitterest rancour. He had little faith in human
honour or rectitude, and in pursuing an end he was seldom deterred by
scruples.
[Sidenote: English parties between 1760 and 1784]
Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in 1760, had it for his
first and chiefest thought to break down the growing system of cabinet
government in England. For the moment circumstances seemed to favour
him. The ascendancy of the great Whig families was endangered on two
sides. On the one hand, the Tory party had outlived that idle, romantic
love for the Stuarts upon which it found it impossible to thrive. The
Tories began coming to court again, and they gave the new king all the
benefit of their superstitious theories of high prerogative and divine
right. On the other hand, a strong popular feeling was beginning to grow
up against parliamentary government as conducted by the old Whig
families. The House of Commons no longer fairly represented the people.
Ancient boroughs, which possessed but a handful of population, or, like
Old Sarum, had no inhabitants at all, still sent their representatives
to Parliament, while great cities of recent growth, such as Birmingham
and Leeds, were unrepresented. To a great extent, it was the most
progressive parts of the kingdom which were thus excluded from a share
in the government, while the rotten boroughs were disposed of by secret
lobbying, or even by open bargain and sale. A few Whig families, the
heads of which sat in the House of Lords, thus virtually owned a
considerable part of the House of Commons; and, under such
circumstances, it was not at all strange that Parliament should
sometimes, as in the Wilkes case, array itself in flat opposition to the
will of the people. The only wonder is that there were not more such
scandals. The party of "Old Whigs," numbering in its ranks some of the
ablest and most patriotic men in England, was contented with this state
of things, upon which it had thrived for two generations, and could not
be made to understand the iniquity of it,--any more than an old
cut-and-dried American politician in our time can be made to understand
the iniquity of the "spoils system." Of this party the Marquis of
Rockingham was the political leader, and Edmund Burke was the great
representative statesman. In strong opposition to the Old Whig policy
there had grown up the party of New Whigs, bent upon bringing about some
measure of parliamentary reform, whereby the House of Commons might
truly represent the people of Great Britain. In Parliament this party
was small in numbers, but weighty in character, and at its head was the
greatest Englishman of the eighteenth century, the elder William Pitt,
under whose guidance England had won her Indian empire and established
her dominion over the seas, while she had driven the French from
America, and enabled Frederick the Great to lay the foundations of
modern Germany.
[Portrait: Edmund Burke.]
[Sidenote: George III. as a politician]
Now when George III. came to the throne, he took advantage of this
division in the two parties in order to break down the power of the Old
Whig families, which so long had ruled the country. To this end he used
the revived Tory party with great effect, and bid against the Old Whigs
for the rotten boroughs; and in playing off one set of prejudices and
interests against another, he displayed in the highest degree the
cunning and craft of a self-seeking politician. His ordinary methods
would have aroused the envy of Tammany. While engaged in such work, he
had sense enough to see that the party from which he had most to fear
was that of the New Whigs, whose scheme of parliamentary reform, if ever
successful, would deprive him of the machinery of corruption upon which
he relied. Much as he hated the Old Whig families, he hated Pitt and his
followers still more heartily. He was perpetually denouncing Pitt as a
"trumpeter of sedition," and often vehemently declared in public, and in
the most offensive manner, that he wished that great man were dead. Such
had been his eagerness to cast discredit upon Pitt's policy that he had
utterly lost sight of the imperial interests of England, which indeed
his narrow intelligence was incapable of comprehending. One of the first
acts of his reign had been to throw away Cuba and the Philippine
Islands, which Pitt had just conquered from Spain; while at the same
time, by leaving Prussia in the lurch before the Seven Years' War had
fairly closed, he converted the great Frederick from one of England's
warmest friends into one of her bitterest enemies.
[Sidenote: His chief reason for quarrelling with the Americans]
This political attitude of George III. toward the Whigs in general, and
toward Pitt in particular, explains the fierce obstinacy with which he
took up and carried on Townshend's quarrel with the American colonies.
For if the American position, that there should be no taxation without
representation, were once to be granted, then it would straightway
become necessary to admit the principles of parliamentary reform. The
same principle that applied to such commonwealths as Massachusetts and
Virginia would be forthwith applied to such towns as Birmingham and
Leeds. The system of rotten boroughs would be swept away; the chief
engine of kingly corruption would thus be destroyed; a reformed House of
Commons, with the people at its back, would curb forever the pretensions
of the Crown; and the detested Lord Chatham would become the real ruler
of a renovated England, in which George III. would be a personage of
very little political importance.
In these considerations we find the explanation of the acts of George
III. which brought on the American Revolution, and we see why it is
historically correct to regard him as the person chiefly responsible for
the quarrel. The obstinacy with which he refused to listen to a word of
reason from America was largely due to the exigencies of the political
situation in which he found himself. For him, as well as for the
colonies, it was a desperate struggle for political existence. He was
glad to force on the issue in America rather than in England, because it
would be comparatively easy to enlist British local feeling against the
Americans as a remote set of "rebels," with whom Englishmen had no
interests in common, and thus obscure the real nature of the issue.
Herein he showed himself a cunning politician, though an ignoble
statesman. By playing off against each other the two sections of the
Whig party, he continued for a while to carry his point; and had he
succeeded in overcoming the American resistance and calling into England
a well-trained army of victorious mercenaries, the political quarrel
there could hardly have failed to develop into a civil war. A new
rebellion would perhaps have overthrown George III. as James II. had
been overthrown a century before. As it was, the victory of the
Americans put an end to the personal government of the king in 1784, so
quietly that the people scarcely realized the change.[1] A peaceful
election accomplished what otherwise could hardly have been effected
without bloodshed. So while George III. lost the fairest portion of the
British Empire, it was the sturdy Americans who, fighting the battle of
freedom at once for the Old World and for the New, ended by overwhelming
his paltry schemes for personal aggrandizement in hopeless ruin, leaving
him for posterity to contemplate as one of the most instructive examples
of short-sighted folly that modern history affords.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See my _Critical Period of American History_, chap. i.