THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
=130. Our Forefathers, Men of Rare Ability and Sterling Character.=--Many
of our forefathers who had been driven from England to this country by
persecution were men of rare ability and sterling character. Some had
served their nation with credit in the army; others had won social and
political honors. Independent in their way of thinking, fearless in
speech and action, they were sternly opposed to governmental oppression.
They believed that royal power should be held within well-defined
limits. They would not tamely submit, as many did, to abuses from a bad
government and tyrannical kings.
=131. The Story of their Wrongs told to their Children.=--Now we may
safely believe that the early settlers told their children all about the
persecutions in England. The young folks learned well the sad tale of
how their fathers had been punished, and some of their neighbors hanged
or burned alive for worshiping God in what they thought the right way,
and how, for this reason, they had sought a shelter in the New World.
As the years passed, these children grew up to be men, and in their turn
they told it all to their sons. Again, when the new generation came upon
the stage of action, the fathers repeated it to their boys, and these,
when they attained manly strength, became the very heroes that fought so
bravely at Bunker Hill and King's Mountain and on many another
battlefield!
=132. A Feeling of Brotherhood among the Colonies.=--Then there was a
sense of freedom, an inspiration to liberty, in this open, unsubdued,
apparently boundless land. The free ocean, the immense forests, the
eternal mountains, all seemed to teach that here man was to be his own
master; that in this wide, new country, the people were destined to rule
themselves, and not bound to obey some stupid and obstinate king three
thousand miles away.
The colonies along the coast, having the same language, with similar
laws and customs, and having shared like sufferings from hunger and cold
and the Indians, were naturally drawn together by a feeling of
brotherhood.
=133. Cruel and Short-Sighted Policy of the Royal Governors.=--Before long
there came up real grievances. One fact that diminished the affection of
our forefathers for the mother country was the harsh treatment they
received from many of the governors sent over by the king. For the
colonies were not allowed to elect their own governors, nor could they
choose even the governor's council of advisers. These were appointed by
the monarch far away, who cared little for the Americans except to
extort money from them.
Indeed, the English king seemed to think almost anybody would do for
governor who contrived to wring money enough out of his distant
subjects. Many of the royal governors were self-conceited, arrogant, and
tyrannical. Consequently in some of the colonies there was almost
incessant quarreling between the governors and the people. By and by the
colonies came to be treated, not as a part of the home country, but as a
sort of foreign district to furnish a royal revenue.
=134. The Colonies begin to prosper.=--Notwithstanding all their
hardships, the colonies prospered. The people were wonderfully
enterprising. They built ships and made a great deal of money by trading
with the West Indies, France, Spain, and other countries. The New
Englanders alone had over five hundred vessels engaged in domestic and
foreign commerce and in profitable fisheries.
The early colonists were ingenious. They built and ran a sawmill a
hundred years before one was erected in England. They exported great
quantities of excellent lumber. They began very early to manufacture
farmer's tools, leather, boots and shoes, woolen cloth, hats, glass,
paper, salt, and gunpowder. The sale of these goods and of many other
things produced by them made a profitable trade. In return the colonists
bought in distant lands a great amount and variety of other merchandise.
=135. The British Government begins its Tyrannical Policy.=--But the
English rulers, seeing all this prosperity, became jealous and said:
"This will never do! We must stop it! Those distant colonists across the
ocean are driving a great trade; the foreign nations they deal with get
their money. We must have it; we must compel them to do all their
trading with us." And that is what the English government tried to do.
By 1750 not less than twenty-nine Acts of Parliament had been passed
with the intent to have all of the loss in trade fall on the colonies
and all the gain come to England.
In 1761 it was decided to enforce the so-called Navigation Acts,
forbidding the colonies to have any foreign commerce except in British
ships. Our colonial merchants were not allowed to export goods, nor to
import any except from England or her colonies. They must not import any
sugar or molasses without paying on it a heavy duty, which went to the
king. Under these unjust laws the British traders could fix low prices
on all they bought, and high prices on all they sold, and thus by this
double-edged method could shape their profits to suit themselves.
=136. Other Absurd and Tyrannical Laws.=--Still more odious than these
navigation laws were other absurd and tyrannical regulations made to
cripple the industries and manufactures of the colonies. The fact was,
the English Parliament meant that England's workshops should do all the
manufacturing, her merchants all the trading, and her ships all the
carrying for the colonies, that they might keep in England all the
immense profits of the colonial trade.
To bring this about, laws were passed forbidding the manufacture of all
such goods as English shops could produce. For instance, iron must not
be made from the abundant mines of our country. We must buy all our
hardware from England. It was a crime to use the wool from our own sheep
in making woolen goods, and we were forbidden to sell these articles
from one colony to another. For example, a Boston hatter could be
punished if he sold his hats in New York. Men were forbidden to cut down
trees on their own lands for staves and barrels. For wooden ware, as
chairs, tables, wheels, wagons, the raw material must be sent to
England to be worked up, and the finished goods brought back to this
country.
=137. A Bitter Feeling aroused against the Home Government.=--Now all
these laws seemed very harsh and unjust. And, indeed, they were
well-nigh intolerable. They crippled and almost ruined the business of
the colonies, and violated what our forefathers regarded as their
natural right to make what they pleased and sell where they pleased.
These laws were so unjust that our forefathers thought there was not
much wrong in evading them. They smuggled goods and carried them home.
British officers went around and searched houses from cellar to attic,
often with rudeness and insults. This conduct created much bitterness of
feeling. Pine trees of twelve inches or more in diameter were marked
with the "king's arrow," which showed that they were to be saved for use
in the navy. It was a criminal offense to cut down any such. However
much a settler might need them to build his house, he was forbidden to
touch them. In fact, before he cleared his land, he had to pay an
officer to come and make the arrow mark on the king's trees!
These unjust and absurd statutes produced a vast deal of ill-will toward
England. If they had been strictly enforced, no doubt the Revolution
would have come several years before it did. And yet there was also
much friendly feeling for the mother country. The friends and relatives
of the colonists still lived there, letters were constantly exchanged,
and hundreds of people coming and going every year kept up an affection
between the two countries. Our people in those times always called
England "home."
[Illustration: BRITISH STAMP.]
=138. The Obnoxious Stamp Act.=--There came at last one event which, of
all the troubles, hastened the Revolution. The French and Indian War had
cost both England and the colonies a great deal of money. King George
wanted to compel the colonies to pay part of this expense, and
accordingly Parliament passed in 1765 the "Stamp Act," the most
unpopular measure ever tried with the colonists. This law required that
stamped paper should be used for all bills, bonds, notes, wills, and
deeds, and even for all pamphlets, almanacs, and newspapers.
Stamps for this purpose had to be bought of stamp officers appointed by
the king. They were for the most part not unlike our revenue stamps. One
kind was a red-ink seal, made with a hand stamp; the other a seal on
blue paper, to be fastened on the article. The cost varied from one
cent to fifty dollars each. No document was legal unless stamped.
Our people at once saw that if England could levy taxes in this way, she
could in many other ways, and there would be no end to such high-handed
and tyrannical laws. Besides, there were no American representatives in
Parliament, and Americans had no voice at all in the matter. They felt
that the tax thus laid upon them was wrong. They did not object to
paying the cost of a trifling tax. They felt bound to resist the rank
injustice of the demand. It was not the amount but the principle at
stake.
=139. The Indignation of the People.=--The people were aroused. A storm of
indignation swept over the land. Violent opposition broke out along the
entire length of the colonies. They pledged themselves to stand by each
other. The cry passed through the land: "No taxation without
representation!" This became the watchword of the country. They did not
wish to avoid paying a fair assessment in a fair way; but they insisted
that, as always before, their own legislatures and not Parliament should
levy the contribution. Our forefathers declared over and over again that
they would not be taxed by a governing body three thousand miles away,
whose members had never seen America.
=140. Patrick Henry and his Bold Speech.=--One day the Virginia Assembly
was in session. Washington was there in his seat, and Jefferson, then a
young law student, stood listening at the door. Patrick Henry stoutly
argued that Virginia was not bound to obey any law which was plainly a
menace to the common freedom of Englishmen.
"Caesar had his Brutus," said the bold and eloquent orator; "Charles the
First his Cromwell, and George the Third"----
"Treason!" shouted the Speaker of the Assembly, and the cry, "Treason,
treason!" rang through the room.
[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY'S BOLD SPEECH.]
The intrepid patriot finished his sentence: "may profit by their
example. If that be treason, make the most of it!"
=141. The People combine to resist the Hated Law.=--The people combined to
resist, and a stamp-tax congress was held in New York. Lovers of liberty
would not deal in stamped goods. They refused to buy a single stamp.
Riots occurred at the stamp offices. Packages of stamps were seized, and
some were publicly burned in the streets. Boxes of stamped paper
arriving in vessels were seized and thrown overboard. Publishers of
newspapers decorated their headlines with skull and cross-bones instead
of stamps. Stamp officers were dragged out and compelled to swear they
would not sell any stamps.
[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY.]
On the day for the law to take effect, funeral bells were tolled, flags
were at half-mast, and shops were closed. New England, New York,
Virginia, and the Carolinas all felt alike and acted alike. William
Pitt, also called the Earl of Chatham, one of the greatest of
Englishmen, took his stand on the side of the colonies in a speech of
surpassing eloquence and power. The hated law was repealed in just one
year from its passage.
This happy news was received both in England and in America with
bonfires, ringing of bells, and universal rejoicings. But the joy was
short-lived. King George, "industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a
mule," and his followers in Parliament were not slow to pick a fresh
quarrel with the Americans.
The next year the English Parliament made a law requiring duties to be
paid on paper, glass, paints, and tea. Again the liberty-loving
Americans were a unit in opposing any kind of taxation that seemed to
them illegal. Some of the legislatures protested to Parliament, and King
George answered by breaking up the legislatures. The people indignantly
refused to buy any goods at all from England while these taxes were
demanded. English traders found their business going to ruin. Ships came
loaded with British goods, and had to carry them back.
=142. Bitter Hatred of the British Soldiers.=--So bitter was the
opposition in Boston that a regiment of British troops was sent there to
force the people to submit even at the point of the bayonet. But a brave
people, determined to be free, is not so easily forced.
The citizens of Boston were ordered to furnish lodging and food for the
soldiers. They would not do it--not they! Their hatred of the soldiers
grew more bitter. Brawls often occurred on the streets. The soldiers on
their part began to be insulting.
=143. Boston Boys stand up for their Rights.=--Even the children took part
in the quarrels, as an incident will show. During the winter the boys
used to build snow-slides on Boston Common and slide down upon them to
the frog pond. The English soldiers destroyed these slides, merely to
provoke the boys. The young Americans complained of the injury and set
about repairing it. However, when they returned from school, they found
the snow-slides destroyed again.
[Illustration: THE BOSTON BOYS MAKE THEIR PROTEST TO GENERAL GAGE.]
Several of the boys now waited upon one of the under-officers, and told
him of the conduct of his soldiers; but he would have nothing to say to
them; and the soldiers were more impudent than ever. At last the boys
called a meeting and sent a committee of the largest of their number to
General Gage, the commander-in-chief. He asked why so many boys had
called upon him.
"We came, sir," said the tallest, "to demand satisfaction."
"What!" said the general; "have your fathers been teaching you
rebellion, and sent you to show it here?"
"Nobody sent us, sir," he answered, while his cheek reddened and his eye
flashed. "We have never injured nor insulted your troops; but they have
trodden down our snow-slides and broken the ice on the pond. We
complained and they called us young rebels and told us to help ourselves
if we could. We told one of your officers of this, and he laughed at us.
Yesterday our slides were destroyed for the third time; and, sir, we
will bear it no longer."
General Gage was a kind-hearted and courteous gentleman. He looked at
them with admiration, and said to an officer at his side: "The very
children draw in a love of liberty with the air they breathe. You may
go, my brave boys; and be assured, if my soldiers trouble you again,
they shall be punished."
=144. The Boston Massacre.=--One night in March (1770) some soldiers
stationed in Boston got into a quarrel, and the noise increased until
the guard was called out. As the platoon of regulars drew up in line,
most of the crowd fell back.
A few remained and reviled the red-coat soldiers, shouting,
"Lobster-backs! Fire if you dare, you cowards! You don't dare to fire!"
Captain Preston, the officer in command, gave the word, "Fire!" The
regulars fired.
Five men were killed and several wounded. There was now intense
excitement in Boston. The Old South Church was crowded with an angry
town-meeting. Thousands filled the streets near by. The people demanded
that the troops be removed. The governor promised to remove one
regiment. "Both regiments or none," was the watchword.
Samuel Adams waited upon the governor, and stretching forth his long
right arm, and pointing his finger at him, he sternly demanded, in the
name of three thousand freemen, that the royal governor remove every
British soldier from Boston.
"I observed his knees to tremble," said the stern patriot in after
years; "I saw his face grow pale--and I enjoyed the sight."
Before sunset of the same day the British troops were removed from the
city and sent to a fort in the harbor. Not until then did the meeting in
the Old South break up.
This unfortunate affair was the so-called "Boston Massacre." It did more
to mould public opinion than weeks of vigorous protest and fine argument
could have done. It was one step, and an important one too, toward the
final appeal to the sword and the bayonet.
=145. The Famous Boston Tea Party.=--In view of all these troubles,
England took off the taxes from everything but tea. King George said he
must have one tax to maintain the principle of the right of taxation.
But the colonists refused to drink tea imported from China! The women
were patriotic and made their tea of raspberry leaves, sage, and other
plants, rather than use the hated foreign article.
But the government of England was determined we should buy tea, and the
merchants sent shiploads of it to our large cities. The Americans were
firm. They vowed that not an ounce of it should land. There was only a
few cents' tax on each pound. What our people disputed was the right of
the king to tax. When the tea reached New York and Philadelphia, none
dared to receive it, lest their houses should be pulled down about their
heads. In Charleston, S. C., some was taken ashore, but as no one would
buy it or pay the duty, it was hid in damp cellars, where it soon
spoiled. In Annapolis it was burned.
At Boston warning was several times given to the masters of the ships to
sail out of the harbor. On the last day before the tea must be landed or
be prevented by force from landing, a town-meeting was held in the Old
South Church. The crowd in the church, and in the streets about it,
numbered more than seven thousand people. "It was to be," says John
Fiske, "one of the most momentous days in the history of the world."
The discussion continued until dark, and candles were brought in. It was
decided that the tea should not be landed.
"Who knows," shouted one in the audience, "how tea will mix with salt
water?"
The church fairly shook with cheers.
Then up rose Samuel Adams and quickly said: "This meeting can do nothing
more to save the country."
This was the signal. A war-whoop was heard outside the door, and forty
or fifty men, disguised as Indians, went quietly aboard the three
vessels, and before the nine-o'clock bell rang three hundred and
forty-two chests of tea had been cut open and their contents emptied
into Boston Harbor. This was the famous "Boston Tea Party" we have so
often heard of, and it took place in the middle of December in 1773. A
large crowd of the friends of these men stood on shore until the deed
was done, and then, without doing any other injury to property, all
separated and went home in the clear, frosty moonlight.
The next morning there was not a chest of taxed tea in Boston, on
shipboard or on shore, and Paul Revere was riding post haste to
Philadelphia to let the good people of that city know that Boston had at
last thrown down the gauntlet.
One of the "Indians" found a handful of tea in his shoe the next
morning. He carefully saved it and sealed it in a bottle. It is still
shown as a souvenir of this informal "tea party" in Boston harbor.
One rash fellow, probably thinking that his family would like a good
drink of real tea, cut open the lining of his coat and waistcoat, and,
watching his chance, filled them with tea; but he was caught in the act
and handled pretty roughly.
=146. Attempts to punish Boston.=--"Boston shall be punished," said King
George when he heard of the "tea party." Parliament passed the "Boston
Port Bill." By this act the port of Boston was closed. No vessel could
go in or out except under the most rigid conditions. The object of
course was to frighten or force the Boston people into yielding to the
royal power.
Near-by towns and the other colonies came to their help by sending food
and other needed articles. The southern colonies sent flour and rice,
the middle furnished corn and money, and many towns sent sheep and
cattle. One town in Connecticut sent a flock of two hundred and fifty
sheep. Marblehead sent fish, and other towns grain.
Warm sympathy came from Virginia. "If need be," said Washington, "I will
raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself
at their head for the relief of Boston." In fact all the colonies took
up the cause of Boston as their own. Of course the blockade made great
hardship for the poor. There was much suffering from the scarcity of
fuel and food. Still the people, as resolute as their leaders, made
little complaint and caused no disorder.
Dr. Joseph Warren overheard some British officers boast that if a
patriot ever addressed the people again in the Old South Church, he
would surely lose his life. This was enough. Warren begged the honor.
The church was so crowded that he had to get a ladder and climb in
through a window at the back of the pulpit. Many British officers were
present who annoyed the speaker with groans and hisses. The fearless
patriot, however, made a stirring speech "on the baneful influence of
standing armies in time of peace."
=147. The Home Government adopts Stringent Measures.=--The charter of
Massachusetts was annulled, and its free government taken away. General
Gage, the commander of the British army in America, was ordered to
Boston with several regiments and was appointed military governor with
despotic power. Cannon were mounted on the heights, tents pitched on the
Common, and companies of red-coats were marching to and fro in the
streets.
The effect was exactly what the wisest men in Parliament had predicted.
They had said that the colonies would unite more firmly, and that the
American people would be driven into open rebellion. King George was
obstinate and used all his influence to push the most obnoxious Acts
through Parliament.
=148. The First Continental Congress.=--The first Continental Congress
held its first meeting at Philadelphia in September, 1774. The ablest
men of the colonies were sent as delegates. They forwarded to the king a
candid statement of their grievances. It did no good. Massachusetts was
declared in a state of rebellion. In truth, it looked like it.
Such a condition of affairs could not last long. The feeling was intense
against the king and his all-powerful friends. Arguments were useless.
The royal authority was boldly and stubbornly defied. The sword and the
bayonet must now decide whether king or people were to rule in America.
"The contest may be severe, but the end will be glorious," said the
martyr-patriot Warren, who soon after fell at Bunker Hill.