ACTS OF THE BRITISH TROOPS.--DISTRESS IN RHODE ISLAND.--EVACUATION
OF NEWPORT.--REPUDIATION.--END OF THE WAR.
The Americans were sorely disappointed. They had taken up their arms
with such confidence of success that they could not bear to lay them
down with so little done. Their murmurs were loud and deep. Some were
ready to lay all the blame upon their allies. Nothing but the good
sense of Greene and the good feeling and generous nature of Lafayette
could have prevented an outbreak. The old leaven of English animosity
toward France still lay deeply rooted in the colonial heart. It was an
unfortunate beginning of the alliance that was to give them victory.
For still another year the principal island of Narragansett Bay was to
remain in the hands of British soldiers, and its other islands and the
shores of its mainland lie exposed to the ravages of British cruisers.
It was a year of suffering. There was no more fighting in regular
battles, no more laying siege by regular advances, but many plundering
excursions for the wanton waste of property and the wicked waste of
life. Houses were burnt from mere wantonness; woods and orchards cut
down to serve for fire-wood, and for this the cold winter furnished a
good excuse; but when at last the enemy withdrew, little was left of
the sylvan beauty of Narragansett Bay.
The adventurous fighting was chiefly done on the water, and the hero of
it was Silas Talbot, of Providence. Talbot had already distinguished
himself early in the war, both on land and on the water. Nothing suited
his adventurous spirit so well as the leadership in enterprises which
to other men seemed hopeless, and his judgment and skill equaled his
daring. Of these bold exploits one of the boldest was the capture
of the Pigot galley, a vessel of three hundred tons, mounting eight
twelve-pounders, protected by strong boarding nettings and manned by
forty-five men. The force with which Talbot took her was a small sloop
carrying two three-pounders and manned for the occasion by sixty men.
As a recognition of his gallantry Congress sent him a commission of
lieutenant-colonel, and not long after that of captain in the navy.
Among the miseries of these years was a scarcity of food, almost
amounting to a famine. Speculation was active and remorseless,
getting control of the market and growing rich on human suffering.
An appeal was made to Connecticut for a suspension of her embargo on
provisions in favor of Rhode Island. The question how to counteract
"engrossers and forestallers," was one of the most difficult questions
which Congress and state legislatures and special conventions were
called upon to meet. Two thousand helpless poor were scattered
through the State, dependent upon public and private charity for
bread. Five hundred pounds were voted for the relief of the poor of
Newport. The appeal to Connecticut for a relaxation of her embargo
was met by permission to export seven thousand bushels of grain,
and a recommendation of a general contribution by her citizens. The
recommendation called forth gifts of four thousand three hundred
pounds in money, and five hundred bushels of grain. The recommendation
was extended through Congress to other states, and South Carolina
assumed through her delegates fifty thousand dollars of Rhode Island's
Continental quota.
It was in this year also that the storm, long known as the Hessian
storm, from the number of those wretched mercenaries who perished in
it, occurred. Sentinels froze at their posts--some were suffocated by
the whirling snow. The roads were blocked up by it. Never had such a
storm been known.
New taxes were regularly called for and voted, both for Continental
and State expenses. But the currency was deranged and the sources from
whence taxes were drawn well nigh exhausted. The treasury was empty. To
enlist a new brigade,--the term of the old one having run out,--it was
found necessary to borrow twelve thousand pounds from Connecticut for
a month. There was not time yet for constitutional reforms, although
attention was frequently called to the inequality of representation.
But the more important reforms were the reforms of the army, and the
great event of 1779 was the introduction of Steuben's Tactics.
The derangement of the currency made itself felt everywhere. Colonel
Crary, of the First State Infantry, an excellent officer, was compelled
to throw up his commission because he could not support his family on
his pay. With many others it was merely a question of time--whether
they should resign at once or wait a little longer till they were
ruined utterly. As paper depreciated taxes were increased. Confidence,
the basis of national prosperity, was gone. In June, 1778, two heavy
taxes were levied, one of two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds
for Congress, and one of sixty thousand pounds for the State. Almost
the only channel through which goods and money still continued to come
was through privateers.
The vital question was the question of finance. Congress appealed
to the states and the states to the towns. A convention met at East
Greenwich and attempted to fix upon a maximum scale of prices for
articles of consumption. The establishment of rates for labor and board
and manufactures, was left with the towns. The fatal effects of a false
system of political economy fell heavily upon both town and country.
Trading in gold and silver was discouraged and desperate efforts made
to relieve the country from the pressure of present debt; but the root
of the evil lay too deep, and bankruptcy was already at the door.
One act, however, of these days of trial, we can still dwell upon with
satisfaction. In spite of the manumission act an attempt was made
to sell some slaves to the South. The Assembly interfered for their
protection and forbade the sale.
The Greenwich Convention had left its work unfinished. A new convention
was called in September to finish it, and every effort was made
to raise the loan recommended by Congress. At the suggestion of
Massachusetts a convention of the five Eastern States was called to
meet at Hartford and take these difficult questions into consideration.
And thus the days and months passed away, monotonously sad, with
little of present enjoyment and still less of promise for the future.
Men lived like those who carry their lives in their hands and have no
hold on the morrow. At last the long looked for day came. Fifty-two
transports entered Newport harbor and immediately the work of
embarkation began. Six thousand men with their baggage and military
stores and a melancholy train of Tories were to bid goodbye to their
pleasant quarters. When all was ready the inhabitants were forbidden to
venture into the streets on pain of death, and the march to the place
of embarkation at Brenton's Point began. Then was heard for the last
time in the streets of Newport the British drum and the measured tread
of an enemy's march. All day long the boats were plying to and fro, and
at sunset the fleet set sail. Forty-six Tories, with such property as
they could carry, and a large band of liberated slaves went with it.
The last act of the troops was to burn the barracks at Brenton's Point
and the light-house at Beaver Tail. When the inhabitants began to look
about them and count their losses, they found that over five hundred
houses had been destroyed and property to the value of nearly one
hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds ruined in the Town of Newport
alone. The population had been reduced by more than half, and among the
emigrants were the Lopez, and Hays, and Riveiras, and Touros, rich and
enterprising Jews. One outrage it is difficult to explain, the robbery
of the town records, which were put on board one of the transports
and sent to New York. This alone would have been a great injury, for
they contained the history of the Colony from its foundation, and as
parts of that history the record of sales and grants of land. But to
complete the loss the vessel on board which they had been put sunk in
the passage of Hell Gate, and it was not till they had lain three years
in the water that they were recovered. Parts only were legible.
The Assembly which met on the very day of the evacuation, found much to
do. Many expenses which the presence of the enemy had made necessary,
ceased. The coast-guard was dismissed. The ferries from Newport to
South Kingstown were reöpened. The four island towns resumed their
charter administration. The non-intercourse act was repealed, and New
Shoreham restored to the exercise of her corporate rights. To meet the
embargos laid by the neighboring states, an embargo was laid upon all
articles of exportation. The militia was reörganized. In August acts
had been brought in confiscating the property of Tories, and forbidding
the sale of slaves out of the State against their will. They were
passed in October.
We come now, and reluctantly, to a disgraceful page of our annals,
the Revolutionary debt of Rhode Island. In the December session of
1779, the State acknowledging "the proved fidelity, firmness and
intrepidity in service, of its soldiers," pledged itself through its
constitutionally elected representatives, to make good at the close of
the war, "to them or their legal representatives, the wages of the
establishment of Congress, wherever they engaged." Upon the strength of
this solemn engagement many of the men and officers of the three Rhode
Island regiments of the line, whose terms of service were about to
expire, reënlisted for the war.
This pledge was broken, leaving an ineffaceable stain upon the shield
of Rhode Island. Nor does it lighten the disgrace to say that other
states also were untrue to their pledges. Other states persecuted for
opinion, but in this Rhode Island did not follow their example.
A bitter winter followed the evacuation. The bay was blocked up with
ice. Seaward the ice extended as far as eye could reach. Government had
to come to the relief of the starving and freezing poor. Corn cost four
dollars a bushel, potatoes two--famine prices, as prices ordinarily
ruled.
We have marked the first appearance of the _Newport Mercury_. During
the three years of British occupation it was published at Rehoboth, but
at the evacuation was brought back to Newport, and resumed its original
influence under the editorship of Henry Barber.
As time wore on things gradually assumed a more hopeful aspect. In
April, 1779, Lafayette returned from France with the cheering assurance
that a French fleet would soon follow him. Preparations for effective
coöperation immediately began. The militia was called out for three
months. Rhode Island's quota of men was one regiment of six hundred
and thirty men; of supplies, seventy one thousand six hundred and
seventy-five pounds of beef, thirty hogsheads of rum, and twenty-two
hundred and eighty-five bushels of forage grain; of transportation, two
hundred draft horses.
The promptness with which the little State met the heavy calls upon her
limited resources was warmly acknowledged by Washington in a letter to
Governor Greene. And at the same time one of her regiments was winning
high honor at Springfield, under the guidance of one of her best
officers, Israel Angell.
The arrival of the French fleet and army under Ternay and Rochambeau
was the signal for universal rejoicing. The hopes and confidence of the
first year of the alliance were revived. But this time the efforts of
the combined forces were to be directed against the enemy's strongest
post--New York itself. Some apprehensions were still felt from the
secret machinations of the Tories, and an act was passed banishing them.
Meanwhile preparations were made for quartering and feeding the troops.
In Providence, University Hall was set apart for a hospital. The
barracks at Tiverton and a farm near Bristol were assigned to them for
the same purpose, and Pappoosquash Point was given to them for a burial
place.
To meet the expenses imposed by these preparations new taxes were
assessed, founded upon a new estimate of taxable property, and designed
to sink the remaining portion of the State's quota of old Continental
bills and meet present and future expenses. Taken altogether the taxes
voted in the July session of 1780, reduced to a specie standard,
amounted to one hundred and twenty-six thousand three hundred and
sixty-nine dollars and fifty cents. It was a heavy burden, and the good
spirit with which the people bore it showed how thoroughly their hearts
were enlisted in the cause of their country.
But suddenly there was a new alarm. An English fleet of sixteen ships
of war appeared in the offing, staid just long enough to spread a
general apprehension of invasion, and after a second alarm took up its
station in Long Island Sound and blockaded the French from the sure
position of Gardiner's Island. Thus for a time French coöperation once
more failed.
In September the Assembly met in Newport, the first time in four years.
The State House had been used by the British for a hospital, and
all the churches except Trinity for barracks. The Assembly held its
sessions in the Redwood Library.
Money was still the primary object of attention. Congress called on the
states for three millions of dollars. For the first time Rhode Island
was unable to meet her portion. She had also a large proportion of the
French troops to provide for, whose headquarters were at Newport, where
Rochambeau established himself in the Vernon House, which still bears
his name. But the French brought hard money with them, and spent it
freely.
In December Ternay, the French admiral, died, without having had an
opportunity of doing any thing important for his allies. His tomb is
still seen in Trinity church-yard.
We enter upon 1781, the decisive year of the war--and decisive also
by its political significance. Connecticut and Virginia ceded their
western lands to the Union, and Greene's successes in the South, and
Washington's capture of Yorktown, virtually put an end to the war.
In the same year the confederation was completed by the accession of
Maryland. Rhode Island could not perform all her federate duties as
heretofore, but the presence of the French fleet made her for a while
an object of especial interest. Her daily quota of supplies was two
thousand rations of fresh beef, besides rum and other stores.
In the same year she lost by surprise two of her best soldiers, Colonel
Christopher Greene and Major Ebenezer Flagg, both distinguished by
their part in the defence of Red Bank, in 1777. Peace was at hand, and
with peace a new experiment in political life. The confederation had
been tried in war and found wanting. How would it meet the requirements
of peace?