ANTAGONISMS AND HOSTILITIES
I. BLAZING THE WAY TO WAR
Nothing illustrates better the conditions of mind in the long, bitter
turmoil, than an incident, infuriating the people of Boston, which
happened March 5, 1770. A number of young men and boys, probably fifty
or sixty of them, gathered on Boston Common to throw snowballs. A
company of militia being near, offered too tempting an object, and
they began to pelt the soldiers. The claim was that some of the
snowballs contained rocks, though no one was seriously injured. The
soldiers charged the bunch of boys, not with weapons, but with fists,
and put them to flight. This was not enough for the victors, and so
the soldiers pursued the flying enemy. Seeing this, some citizens rang
alarm bells. A mob assembled around the custom house and was ordered
away. The troops were assailed with clubs and stones. They fired into
the crowd and killed four, wounding several others. The town was
aflame with wrath and the troops were removed to the barracks outside
to prevent further bloodshed. Though it was hardly disastrous enough
to deserve the name, “Boston Massacre,” yet there was no doubt that
nothing in the early days of the revolution, had more effect in
setting the minds of the people against England. It was a sign of the
times, and was like a little word that may sometimes mean as much as a
whole discourse, especially when a social group of minds is unified in
one interest of opposition or defense.
It was during these stirring times in the North that Washington was
prevailed on by the Colonial government to visit the Indian tribes on
the Ohio for a better understanding of the right of each side under
the existing treaties. His journey to the site of old Fort Duquesne,
renamed Fort Pitt, where Pittsburg now stands, was full of romantic
memories, and was met with many assurances of friendship among the now
reconciled Indians.
Through the many interesting scenes, still somewhat perilous from the
uncertainty of Indian friendship, he arrived at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha. It was at this place where Washington was visited by an old
Indian Sachem, who approached him with great reverence as if he were
in the presence of a very superior being. Through the interpreter,
the Indian chief said that he had heard of his coming to their country
and had come a long way to see him. He explained his unusual interest
by saying that he had led his warriors against the English under
General Braddock. It was he with his band of braves who had lain in
ambush on the banks of the Monongahela and had done such deadly
slaughter to the English troops. But his reverence for Washington had
a special reason. The Indians saw Washington as one of the boldest,
riding fearlessly over the battlefield, carrying the General’s orders.
The chief and his warriors had singled Washington out as one they must
kill. They had tried their best but their bullets never found him. At
last they would not waste their bullets on him because he had a
charmed life, under the protection of the Great Spirit. And who knows
about these things! Everything may not be of inevitable physical
order! The simple Indian may have been nearer the truth than would be
any psychological or scientific explanation.
The Indians very generally believed that the Great Spirit exercised
power over bullets, and, in many instances, faced death fearlessly in
the faith raised by their “medicen-man” that the enemy’s bullets could
not harm them. Religious assurance of some kind is the consolation of
every mind.
II. THE DOUBLE-QUICK MARCH TO REVOLUTION
That Washington could be righteously indignant and unmercifully
sarcastic may be inferred from a letter written to Colonel George
Muse, who had been Washington’s military instructor at Mount Vernon in
1751. Colonel Muse had been accused of cowardice in the campaign with
Washington to the Ohio in 1754, and Washington had with difficulty
obtained for him a grant of ten thousand acres of land in the Ohio
territory, as was given to the other officers in the expedition.
Colonel Muse was dissatisfied and so wrote a letter to Washington, the
contents of which we can surmise only from Washington’s reply.
“Sir,--Your impudent letter was delivered to me yesterday,” he wrote.
“As I am not accustomed to receive such from any man, nor would have
taken the same language from you personally, without letting you feel
some marks of my resentment, I advise you to be cautious in writing me
a second of the same tenor; though I understand you were drunk when
you did it, yet give me leave to tell you that drunkenness is no
excuse for rudeness.”
After describing what had been done for the ungrateful man, Washington
closed his letter by saying, “All my concern is that I ever engaged
myself in behalf of so ungrateful and dirty a fellow as you are.”
Meanwhile, the King of England was searching for means to wear down
the opposition of the colonies to his assertion of the right to
personal rule over them through Parliament. So complete was the
refusal of the colonies to use tea, that the warehouses of the East
India Company were full of tea, and their profit dwindled. A happy
suggestion was made to the King. Let the tea go free duty, and so
cheap on account of the surplus, to the colonies, that they will buy
it and thus not only relieve the warehouses but also establish the
principle of the right to tax articles sold in the colonies. The
proposition was put into effect. The contents of the warehouses were
emptied into ships and sent to various ports in the American colonies.
The King depended on human nature as he understood it to be. Like many
another ruler who believes he can rule by juggling ideas and
manipulating minds, he deceived himself. The people were starving for
tea! They had long lived without tea like foolish children who would
play no way but their own way. Now, they would tumble over one another
to get the long desired tea. There would be a carnival carousal of tea
drinking in America! But somehow the thing didn’t work. There was
still a wonderful perverseness in the half-civilized subjects of the
King in the American wilderness. They seemed suddenly to be all alike.
No doubt there were many who would gladly have profited by the King’s
contempt for principle, but profit was timid and principle was bold.
New York and Philadelphia turned the ships around and ordered them to
set sails at once for England. In Charleston they stored the tea in
cellars where it remained untouched until it was ruined. In Boston,
upon which the King’s anger was centered, as the cause of all the
strife, the conflict of wills was more desperate. The captains found
that they could not unload the tea and when they tried to get
clearance papers to leave the harbor, they were refused. They could
not come in nor go out. But this meant, as the people soon saw, that
the tea was to be held there on the ships until the soldiers could be
used to enforce the sale of tea, and thus coerce the people into
acknowledging the claims of the King “to rule and reign over them,”
according to his will.
The two sides had now “chosen up,” as it were, and had begun to climb
the steps to war.
To forestall the landing of the tea under cover of the soldiers, a
company of Boston people assembled on the night of December 18, 1773,
disguised themselves as Indians, boarded the ships, broke open all
the chests of tea, and emptied the object of all the trouble into the
sea.
There was no excitement apparent in doing this. When all the tea in
Boston harbor was floating on the waves, the make-believe Indians
returned peacefully to their homes, and went to bed, doubtless
sleeping “the sleep of the righteous.”
All the wrath of the King and his associates were now centered
definitely on Boston. In swift retaliation the Boston Port Bill was
passed by Parliament, closing the harbor and transferring the capital
to Salem. A little later, the charter of the province was changed so
as to bring the colony directly under the control of the English
government. Then a Riot Bill was passed so that any person, if
indicted for a high crime, could be sent to England for trial. First,
it was taxing without representation, then it was quartering soldiers
upon them without their consent, and now it was a violation of the
right to be tried by a jury of their peers. The intolerable had
climbed the swift steps of war to the impossible. American freedom
could not thus be made the puppet of any king.
It was historical evidence how “one thing brings on another” in a
quarrel of wills, and how force can not control rebellious minds.
Brain-storms of feeling, whether in child or mob, are not to be
stilled by retaliation or despotism.
III. VIOLENCE AND FLATTERY AS METHODS OF MASTERY
In wide contrast to the use of force for Massachusetts, was the plan
being carried out to pacify Virginia. Lord Dunmore was sent as
governor to Virginia with the same idea of princely show as
characterized Lord Botetourt. He established a court circle with
almost kingly pomp and splendor. He began the great game of playing to
the aristocracy of the “Ancient Dominion.” All the wealthy families
were entertained at the Governor’s mansion in gorgeous style.
Washington was among the first to be so honored and entertained. It
looked as if all Virginia was at the feet of the royal governor,
rapturously “eating out of his hand.”
The House of Burgesses convened and everything seemed to be going the
King’s way, when a letter was received stating what had been done to
Boston. Then things were different. Principle, freedom and sympathy
joined hands, and court-flattery went to the scrap-heap.
The letter was read before the assembly. At once all other business
was thrown aside. A protest was adopted to be sent to England, and a
resolution was passed setting apart the first day of June (the day on
which the port of Boston was to be closed), as a day of fasting,
prayer and humiliation, in which all minds should be united firmly
opposing the contemplated suppression of American liberties, and to
avert the evils of civil war.
Repeating what his predecessor, Lord Botetourt, had done and seeming
to learn nothing from that really well-intentioned man’s experiences,
Lord Dunmore, the next morning ordered the House of Burgesses to
appear before him in the council chamber.
“Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses,” he began, “I
hold in my hand a paper, published by order of your House, conceived
in such terms, as reflect highly upon his Majesty and the Parliament
of Great Britain, which makes it necessary for me to dissolve you, and
you are dissolved accordingly.”
But as before, the assembly did not disperse. It gathered in a hall
where the members unanimously passed the most drastic resolutions of
defiance, and, what was most significant of all, ordered the Committee
of Correspondence to communicate with the various colonies on the
expediency of appointing deputies to meet annually in a General
Congress of British America.
Every word and deed of Washington, and there is abundance of them on
record, shows that he was in full and hearty sympathy with all
these sentiments against Great Britain, though he and Lord Dunmore,
and their families, mingled frequently in a social way. Washington’s
mind was not one to be swayed by particular instances of pride or
profit. The goal before him was never obscured by side issues or
temporary interests.
[Illustration: Washington and His Cabinet.]