and velvets with their curled and powdered wigs, sat a raw country
man dressed in shabby clothes and wearing his own plain hair. This
was Patrick Henry. One day he arose and addressed that gathering of
high-bred scholarly men and presented certain resolutions to the effect
that the people of the colonies had all the rights and privileges of
the people of Great Britain,--were like them Englishmen--and that the
taxes must, according to “characteristics of British freedom” be laid
by the people themselves or by those chosen by them--that only the
general assembly of Virginia had a right to lay taxes on Virginians,
and that the people were not bound to obey any other laws.
In the heated discussion which followed, Henry protested against the
despotic action of the king. “Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles I. his
Cromwell, and George III.”--
“Treason, treason!” came the interruption.
“May profit by their example,” concluded the orator. “If that be
treason make the most of it.”
Henry’s resolutions were carried by a majority of one. These
resolutions and his speech had “started the ball of revolution
rolling.” The Stamp Act, so vigorously protested against, was repealed,
but new and hateful taxes were laid on tea, glass, paper, and other
articles.
Ten years passed during which Henry practiced his profession, served
four years in the House of Burgesses, and took an interest in all
public questions. During these ten years, the colonies had drifted
and been driven further from England, the mother-country. Patrick
Henry saw that the encroachments on the rights of the people must
be resisted--not by words now, but by arms. In the spring of 1775 a
convention of Virginia leaders met in St. John’s church in Richmond to
consider the state of the country.
Henry rose and “resolved that this colony be immediately put in a
posture of defence.” The matter was argued earnestly; many men advised
sending new petitions to the king. Then Patrick Henry made the speech,
which every schoolboy knows, urging not petition but action. “Is life
so dear,” he ended, “or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price
of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take but as for me give me liberty or give me death!”
He carried the patriots with him and his resolutions were passed; thus
Virginia announced that she would fight for her rights. A few weeks
later the English general, Gage, attacked the people in Massachusetts
and the colonies sprang to arms.
Henry served three years as governor of Virginia. After the Revolution,
he took for some time an active part in public affairs and then
withdrew to private life. In 1799, at the personal request of
Washington, he became a candidate for office and was elected to the
House of Delegates. But he did not live to take his seat, dying June 6,
1799.
Samuel Adams
A Massachusetts Patriot
Samuel Adams is often called “the father of the Revolution.” He was the
great-grandson of one of the Puritan settlers who came to Massachusetts
in the seventeenth century, and was born at Boston, Massachusetts, in
1722.
Adams was not a typical thrifty New Englander. His private life was
a series of business failures and hardships that remind us of the
early career of Patrick Henry. Adams, however, unlike Henry, was
college bred, having been educated at Harvard. He tried law as a
profession, but did not like it well enough to continue its practice.
Then he became, first a clerk and then a merchant, and as both he
was a failure. Next he became a brewer, and in this trade, also, he
was unsuccessful. The truth is, he kept too busy attending to public
business to pay proper attention to his private affairs. Perhaps his
attention was first called to public matters by a private grievance.
A law passed by Parliament against certain stock-companies made
it necessary to close a banking company with which his father was
connected and swept away his fortune.
[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS]
Unsuccessful as Samuel Adams was as a business man, it was known
that he was a good citizen, with wise and patriotic views about
public matters. He ably voiced colonists’ objections to the arbitrary
taxation of the British government. “If taxes are laid upon us,” he
said, in a paper in 1764, “in any shape without our having a legal
representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the
character of Free Subjects to the miserable state of tributary Slaves?
We claim British rights not by charter only. We are born to them!”
Adams was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1765 and the
famous “Massachusetts Resolves” were his work. They expressed loyalty
to the king, but refused to aid to execute the Stamp Act. It was not
against England as yet but against the unjust laws of the despotic king
and ministry that there was hostility.
Hutchinson, who was the royal governor, informed the home government
that its course was unwise. “It cannot be good policy,” he said, “to
tax the Americans; it will prove prejudicial to the national interests.
You will lose more than you will gain. Britain reaps the profit of all
their trade and of the increase of their substance.” But his warning
was unheeded, and it devolved upon him to execute the unpopular acts.
He suffered as the instrument of British oppression. His house was
attacked and destroyed, and he and his family were driven away.
The first of November came--the day on which the Stamp Act was to go
into effect. Boston church bells tolled and minute guns were fired.
The stamps lay untouched; business stopped, because people would
not buy and use them as required by law. The Stamp Act was repealed,
but Parliament at the same time took occasion to assert “that it was
competent to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.” Other
unjust taxes were laid and protest followed protest from the colonies.
In order to uphold the king’s authority, British soldiers were sent
to Boston. On a March day in 1770 occurred one of the many quarrels
between the soldiers and the citizens. A company of soldiers was sent
out to disperse the mob; it refused to disperse, and the soldiers
fired, killing three people and wounding several others. This was the
famous “Boston massacre.”
The infuriated people would have attacked the soldiers but Samuel Adams
persuaded them to refrain from disorder and bloodshed; he advised
them to demand from the governor the withdrawal of the two regiments
stationed in Boston. This was agreed to and the next day a committee,
of which Samuel Adams was the spokesman, went to Governor Hutchinson to
make this demand. The governor said at first that he had no authority
to remove the troops; after talking with the commander, however, he
promised to send one regiment away.
“Sir,” said Samuel Adams, “if you have authority to remove one regiment
you have authority to remove two; and nothing short of the departure of
the troops will satisfy the public mind or restore the peace of the
province.”
The governor finally had to yield to the demand of the people that he
withdraw “both regiments or none” and the soldiers were sent to the
castle.
As time passed, Adams ceased to hope for reconciliation between the
colonies and England. He realized that it was important for the
colonies to make common cause in defence of their rights. On his motion
in the Massachusetts legislature in 1772 citizens were appointed as
Committees of Correspondence to “state, communicate, and publish the
rights of the colonies.” From this beginning grew the union of the
colonies.
Matters came to a crisis in Boston when the tea on which a tax was laid
was sent to the port. It had been sent to New York and Philadelphia,
and there the people refused to allow it to be landed and it was
returned to England. In South Carolina it was landed and left to mold
in cellars because the people would not purchase it. In December, 1773,
Samuel Adams, so often the spokesman of the people, went to ask the
governor to send the tea back to England, instead of having it landed
in Boston. In old South Church were assembled seven thousand people, to
hear the result of his embassy. The governor refused.
“This meeting can do nothing more to save the country,” said Samuel
Adams when he announced the fact. But another scheme was on foot which
was probably known to Adams if not inspired by him. Some men disguised
as Indians went to the harbor and threw overboard the three hundred and
forty chests of tea. The next morning the patriots drank a decoction
of native herbs while the Chinese tea floated on the salt waters of
the bay. The Boston Tea Party, as it was called, by its disregard of
the rights of property and its defiance of his authority, made the
king very angry. There was passed the Boston Port Bill, which forbade
vessels to enter or leave that port.
General Gage was sent to Boston with soldiers to enforce the king’s
laws. General Gage realized that Samuel Adams, “the Cromwell of New
England,” was the ringleader of the rebellion. An attempt was made to
bribe Adams, who was very poor, with money or with position. But Adams
was proof against the British offers. “I trust I have long since made
my peace with the King of kings,” he said. “No personal consideration
shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country.”
In June Gage dissolved the general court, and the patriots organized
a government of their own. Largely through the influence of Samuel
Adams, it was resolved that representatives of the colonies should
meet in Philadelphia to discuss affairs. He went as the representative
of Massachusetts, which was suffering most from British oppression,
having her port closed and an army stationed on her soil. We are told
that Adams rode to Philadelphia on a borrowed horse, wearing a coat
presented to him “to enable him to make a decent appearance.”
Delegates from eleven colonies met in this Congress in September,
1774, and discussed their situation. Among the delegates was a traitor
who gave the royalists a full account of the meetings. This man said,
“Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, and thinks
much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in the pursuit of his
object. He is the man who, by his superior application, manages at once
the factions in Philadelphia and the factions of New England.”
The people were now getting ready to fight. Minute men were being
drilled, firearms and powder and ball were being collected. Samuel
Adams encouraged all these preparations.
One night lights in the belfry of the North Church at Boston--a system
of signals agreed upon--informed the patriots that British troops
were leaving the city. They were going to seize the military stores
collected at Concord and Worcester by the patriots. Longfellow’s poem,
“Paul Revere,” tells in stirring phrase how the patriot-messenger
galloped forth to give the alarm. In Medford he roused John Hancock and
Samuel Adams, two leaders whom Gage was anxious to capture. The minute
men sprang to arms. When the British soldiers, eight hundred in number,
reached the village of Lexington about four o’clock on the morning of
April 19, 1775, they found sixty or seventy men collected on the green.
“Disperse, you rebels!” said the English officer. “Lay down your arms.”
The men stood firm. Captain Parker had already given his orders: “Stand
your ground! Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean war let it
begin here.”
The British fired and the shots of the Americans rang out in answer;
eight Americans lay dead on the green. The War of the Revolution was
begun. Adams and Hancock heard the shots as they galloped from Medford.
“Oh, what a glorious morning for America this is,” said Adams.
At Concord the minute men assembled and put the British to flight. From
there to Boston, sixteen miles away, they fired on the British from
behind trees and stone walls. Finally, the British broke and ran.
On the northwest Boston was commanded by Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill.
A force of Americans under Colonel Prescott occupied Breed’s Hill one
night and threw up earthworks to protect the city. The British soldiers
marched forth to attack them and the American troops formed behind the
earthworks and on the edge of Bunker Hill.
“Wait till you can see the whites of their eyes,” said the American
leader, wishing to use the small supply of ammunition with deadly
results. Twice the British attacked and twice they were driven back.
Then the ammunition of the patriots was exhausted and they had to
retreat. The news of the battle between the patriots and the king’s
troops was borne to the other colonists; they came to the aid of
Massachusetts.
Samuel Adams, who had done so much to inspire resistance to oppression,
did not serve the patriot’s cause on the battle-field. His work was
in Congress, and his position as a leader was so well recognized
that the English excluded from the offer of pardon to the rebels two
men--Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, and
“one Samuel Adams.”
After the war was over, Adams served as governor of Massachusetts.
He aided to draft the state constitution, the only one of the old
constitutions adopted immediately after the Revolution which is still
in force. He died, October 2, 1803, and was buried in Boston. In the
busy business heart of the city, there is a metal disc bearing the
inscription, “This marks the grave of Samuel Adams.”
George Washington
The Leader of the Revolution
The story of Washington, the personal history of the man who was
identified with the independence of our country, has been told over
and over and yet it never fails to find interested listeners and one
can well believe that it never will. He was born, February 22, 1732,
on a plantation, or large farm, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His
father, Augustine Washington, was master of many broad acres but lacked
what seem to us the very comforts of life. There was a houseful of
children, too--four by the first wife, and six (of whom George was the
eldest), by the second wife Mary Ball.
Mary Washington was kept busy with household cares. She superintended
not only the cooking and washing and housework, but the spinning of
thread, the weaving of cloth, the making of clothes, and other tasks
which were then a part of home routine.
When George was three years old, the family moved to Washington, the
place afterwards named Mount Vernon, and there they lived about four
years.
When George was about seven, the family moved to a farm on the
Rappahannock, across the river from what was then the little village
of Fredericksburg. George was sent to an old field school where he was
taught “to read and write and cipher.” He was fond of writing and he
wrote a clear, careful hand. His early copy books have been kept and we
can read on the yellowed pages the moral precepts which he copied down
with great care when he was twelve years old.
George early learned to ride and swim and excelled at outdoor sports
and games, thanks to a strong body and determined, energetic spirit.
An early biographer, Weems, tells many stories of his childhood which
are widely known. Of their truth or falsehood we cannot be sure. One is
the famous story that George cut down a valuable cherry tree belonging
to his father, and promptly confessed his misdeed, choosing punishment
rather than falsehood. Another is that he undertook in boyish bravado
to subdue his mother’s favorite colt and continued the struggle until
the animal burst a blood-vessel and died. This, also, he immediately
confessed, and his mother while grieved over the death of her colt
“rejoiced that her son was brave and truthful.”
Mr. Washington died when George was only ten years old, and on the
mother devolved the early training of the children. After his early
childhood, George was with her but little. He was sent, soon after
his father’s death, to live with one of his older brothers to attend
school. When he was fourteen, it was planned that he should go as a
sailor, but the plan was given up and he returned to school and took up
the study of surveying.
His half-brother Lawrence, fourteen years older than he, was a soldier;
perhaps as a boy George, who admired and loved this brother, wished and
planned to be a soldier, too. If so, he no doubt thought that he would
wear a British uniform and fight for the king as did his brother, for
the colonists then were contented and loyal subjects of England.
Lawrence Washington after his father’s death inherited the estate
of Washington and changed its name to Mount Vernon, in honor of an
English admiral under whom he had served. Lawrence Washington, who was
a fine, manly fellow, married a Miss Fairfax whose home was near Mount
Vernon. She was a cousin of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, an English gentleman
who came to America to look after land which he had inherited from
his grandfather. This was a royal grant of all the land between the
Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. Lord Fairfax did not even know how
many thousands of acres were in this great estate. So he employed young
George Washington to explore and survey his lands.
George Washington was sixteen years old when he set out, March, 1748,
with one companion, to explore and survey Lord Fairfax’s land. He had
a good horse and a gun as well as his surveyor’s instruments, and the
two youths spent several weeks on the trip. Sometimes they met Indians
and sat beside their camp fires and watched their war dances. Sometimes
they slept outdoors, sometimes they spent the night in the rude huts of
the settlers. “I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed,”
George Washington wrote, “but after walking a good deal all the day,
I have lain down before the fire on a little straw, or fodder, or a
bearskin, whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like
dogs and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire.”
On his return Washington gave such a glowing description of the
beautiful and fertile country he had visited, that Lord Fairfax
determined to move there and make his home at Greenway Court. He
employed young Washington to make a careful survey of his lands and
got him appointed public surveyor. During the next three years when
Washington was not at work in the field he stayed at Greenway Court
with Lord Fairfax. This gentleman was a scholar and a courtier and
from intercourse with him the young surveyor gained breadth of mind
and polished manners, while his outdoor life was making him strong and
robust.
At twenty he was a picture of stalwart manhood--over six feet in
height, straight as an Indian, and with dignified manners. About this
time his brother Lawrence died, leaving Mount Vernon to his little
daughter; George, his favorite brother, was to manage the estate and in
case of the child’s death was to inherit it.
He went home to take charge of the fine old estate, but he did not
long remain there. France and England were beginning their contest for
supremacy in the country along the Ohio. When only twenty-one, George
Washington was appointed to bear a protest to the French against their
occupancy of the land. He set out the very day that he received his
appointment, accompanied by some white woodsmen and Indian hunters.
His was a long, difficult journey through the untraveled forest to a
fort hundreds of miles away near Lake Erie, and it was a vain one. He
was received courteously by the commander but was informed that the
French were ordered to hold the country and would do so. The return
journey was even more difficult than the journey to the fort. It was
the depth of winter; the ground was covered with snow and the streams
blocked with ice. Leaving the remainder of the party to follow later
on horseback, Washington set out on foot with a woodsman named Gist.
The two men made their way through the country inhabited by hostile
Indians and fierce beasts. Once an Indian shot at young Washington,
once he fell into an ice-blocked stream and came near losing his
life; he accomplished the dangerous journey in safety and hurried to
Williamsburg to inform the governor of the result of his expedition.
It was resolved to defend the frontiers, and some men were sent out
to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio River near Pittsburg. But
these men were attacked and defeated by the French who finished and
occupied the fort. This they called Fort Du Quesne. The French soldiers
marched forth in the spring of 1754 to meet the little band commanded
by Washington. Washington, having defeated a small body of the French,
stopped at a place called Great Meadows, and defended his troops by
an earthwork which he called Fort Necessity. Here he and his soldiers
fought bravely against a French force of far superior numbers to which
they had to yield at last.
The next year, Washington, in charge of the Virginia troops, went with
General Braddock, commanding the English forces, to attack the French
and take Fort Du Quesne. Braddock was brave but stubborn and ignorant
of the methods of Indian warfare. Washington wished the Virginia
rangers to march in front in order to guard the army against surprise.
“What!” said Braddock, “a Virginia colonel teach a British general how
to fight!”
Off he marched with flags flying, drums beating, and men in close
ranks. Before they reached Fort Du Quesne, the French and Indians
attacked them and inflicted a terrible defeat. Braddock paid the
penalty of his folly with his life. Washington made a gallant effort to
redeem the day. He said, “I had four bullets through my coat and two
horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho’ death was levelling
my companions on every side of me.” On him devolved the difficult task
of leading the shattered remnant of the army back home, protecting it
against the unfriendly Indians and the hostile French.
After this campaign he was tendered a vote of thanks in the House of
Burgesses. When he rose to reply, he blushed and faltered so that the
Speaker said, “Sit down, Colonel Washington, sit down. Your modesty
equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I
possess.”
Two years later, as commander of the troops raised in Virginia to
defend the frontier he marched against Fort Du Quesne. The French,
unable to hold it, set fire to it and retreated; on the spot, the
English built a new fort which they called Fort Pitt in honor of an
English statesman, and on the site of this fort stands now the city of
Pittsburg. The English were victors now and as most of the fighting was
in New York and Canada instead of the Ohio country, Washington resigned
his commission and went home to Virginia.
In January, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a widow with a fine
estate and two children. Washington had no children of his own and his
step-children, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, were like his
own children. In the lists of goods he ordered from England we find
such items as “One fashionable dress Doll to cost a guinea” and “A
box of Gingerbread Toys and Sugar Images or Comfits.” “Patsy,” as the
little girl was called, died in early girlhood, but the boy lived to
become a man and married, leaving at his death four children of whom
two, George Washington Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis, made
their home at Mount Vernon as Washington’s adopted children.
Probably the happiest and most carefree years of Washington’s life
were those after his marriage which were spent at Mount Vernon which
he had inherited at the death of his niece. Farming was his “most
favorite pursuit,” and he devoted himself with characteristic energy to
improving his land by manures and rotation of crops, and his stock of
sheep, cattle, and horses by selection and breeding. He was a member
of the House of Burgesses, took an interest in public affairs, and was
regarded as one of the leading men in the colony.
Not long after the French and Indian War, trouble arose between
the colonies and England about taxation without representation. As
you know, the trouble in Boston finally led to the passage of the
Boston Port Bill. Virginia and the other colonies sympathized with
Massachusetts. In a speech in the House of Burgesses Washington said,
“I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march
with them, at their head, for the relief of Boston.”