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A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ABBE RAYNAL,
ON THE
_AFFAIRS OF NORTH AMERICA_;
IN WHICH THE MISTAKES IN THE ABBE's ACCOUNT
OF THE
_REVOLUTION of AMREICA_ [_sic_]
ARE CORRECTED AND CLEARED UP.
* * * * *
BY THOMAS PAINE,
SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO CONGRESS, DURING THE AMERICAN WAR,
AND AUTHOR OF COMMON SENSE, AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN.
* * * * *
_LONDON_:
PRINTED FOR J. RIDGEWAY, NO. 1, YORK-STREET, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE.
M,DCC,XII. [_sic_, actually 1792]
INTRODUCTION.
A London translation of an original work in French, by the Abbe
Raynal, which treats of the Revolution of North America, having been
reprinted in Philadelphia and other parts of the continent, and as the
distance at which the Abbe is placed from the American theatre of war
and politics, has occasioned him to mistake several facts, or
misconceive the causes or principles by which they were produced; the
following tract, therefore, is published with a view to rectify them,
and prevent even accidental errors intermixing with history, under the
sanction of time and silence.
The Editor of the London edition has entitled it, "The Revolution of
America, by the Abbe Raynal," and the American printers have followed
the example. But I have understood, and I believe my information just,
that the piece, which is more properly reflections on the revolution,
was unfairly purloined from the printer which the Abbe employed, or
from the manuscript copy, and is only part of a larger work then in
the press, or preparing for it. The person who procured it appears to
have been an Englishman; and though, in an advertisement prefixt to
the London edition, he has endeavoured to gloss over the embezzlement
with professions of patriotism, and to soften it with high encomiums
on the author, yet the action, in any view in which it can be placed,
is illiberal and unpardonable.
"In the course of his travels," says he, "the translator happily
succeeded in obtaining a copy of this exquisite little piece, which
has not yet made its appearance from any press. He publishes a French
edition, in favour of those who will feel its eloquent reasoning more
forcibly in its native language, at the same time with the following
translation of it; in which he has been desirous, perhaps in vain,
that all the warmth, the grace, the strength, the dignity of the
original should not be lost. And he flatters himself, that the
indulgence of the illustrious historian will not be wanting to a man,
who, of his own motion, has taken the liberty to give this composition
to the public, only from a strong persuasion, that this momentous
argument will be useful, in a critical conjecture, to that country
which he loves with an ardour that can be exceeded only by the nobler
flame which burns in the bosom of the philanthropic author, for the
freedom and happiness of all the countries upon earth."
This plausibility of setting off a dishonourable action, may pass for
patriotism and sound principles with those who do not enter into its
demerits, and whose interest is not injured, nor their happiness
affected thereby. But it is more than probable, notwithstanding the
declarations it contains, that the copy was obtained for the sake of
profiting by the sale of a new and popular work, and that the
professions are but a garb to the fraud.
It may with propriety be remarked, that in all countries where
literature is protected, and it never can flourish where it is not,
the works of an author are his legal property; and to treat letters in
any other light than this, is to banish them from the country, or
strangle them in the birth.--The embezzlement from the Abbe Raynal
was, it is true, committed by one country upon another, and therefore
shews no defect in the laws of either. But it is nevertheless a breach
of civil manners and literary justice; neither can it be any apology,
that because the countries are at war, literature shall be entitled
to depredation.[1]
But the forestalling the Abbe's publication by London editions, both
in French and English, and thereby not only defrauding him, and
throwing an expensive publication on his hands, by anticipating the
sale, are only the smaller injuries which such conduct may occasion. A
man's opinions, whether written or in thought, are his own until he
pleases to publish them himself; and it is adding cruelty to injustice
to make him the author of what future reflection or better information
might occasion him to suppress or amend. There are declarations and
sentiments in the Abbe's piece, which, for my own part, I did not
expect to find, and such as himself, on a revisal, might have seen
occasion to change, but the anticipated piracy effectually prevented
him the opportunity, and precipitated him into difficulties, which,
had it not been for such ungenerous fraud, might not have happened.
This mode of making an author appear before his time, will appear
still more ungenerous, when we consider how exceedingly few men there
are in any country who can at once, and without the aid of reflection
and revisal, combine warm passions with a cool temper, and the full
expansion of imagination with the natural and necessary gravity of
judgment, so as to be rightly balanced within themselves, and to make
a reader feel, and understand justly at the same time. To call three
powers of the mind into action at once, in a manner that neither shall
interrupt, and that each shall aid and vigorate the other, is a talent
very rarely possessed.
It often happens, that the weight of an argument is lost by the wit of
setting it off, or the judgment disordered by an intemperate
irritation of the passions: yet a certain degree of animation must be
felt by the writer, and raised in the reader, in order to interest the
attention; and a sufficient scope given to the imagination, to enable
it to create in the mind a sight of the persons, characters, and
circumstances of the subject; for without these, the judgment will
feel little or no excitement to office, and its determinations will be
cold, sluggish, and imperfect. But if either or both of the two former
are raised too high, or heated too much, the judgment will be jostled
from his seat, and the whole matter, however important in itself, will
diminish into a pantomime of the mind, in which we create images that
promote no other purpose than amusement.
The Abbe's writings bear evident marks of that extension and rapidness
of thinking and quickness of sensation which of all others require
revisal, and the more particularly so when applied to the living
characters of nations or individuals in a state of war. The least
misinformation or misconception leads to some wrong conclusion and an
error believed becomes the progenitor of others. And as the Abbe has
suffered some inconveniences in France, by mistating certain
circumstances of the war and the characters of the parties therein, it
becomes some apology for him, that those errors were precipitated into
the world by the avarice of an ungenerous enemy.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The state of literature in America must one day become a subject
of legislative consideration. Hitherto it hath been a disinterested
volunteer in the service of the revolution, and no man thought of
profits: but when peace shall give time and opportunity for study, the
country will deprive itself of the honour and service of letters and
the improvement of science, unless sufficient laws are made to prevent
depredations on literary property. It is well worth remarking that
Russia, who but a few years ago was scarcely known in Europe, owes a
large share of her present greatness to the close attention she has
paid, and the wise encouragement she has given to science and
learning, and we have almost the same instance in France, in the reign
of Lewis XIV.
LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ABBE RAYNAL
To an author of such distinguished reputation as the Abbe Raynal, it
might very well become me to apologize for the present undertaking;
but as _to be right_ is the first wish of philosophy, and the first
principle of history, he will, I presume, accept from me a declaration
of my motives, which are those of doing justice, in preference to any
complimental apology, I might otherwise make. The Abbe, in the course
of his work, has, in some instances extolled, without a reason, and
wounded without a cause. He has given fame where it was not deserved,
and withheld it where it was justly due; and appears to be so
frequently in and out of temper with his subjects and parties, that
few or none of them are decisively and uniformly marked.
It is yet too soon to write the history of the revolution; and whoever
attempts it precipitately, will unavoidably mistake characters and
circumstances, and involve himself in error and difficulty. Things
like men are seldom understood rightly at first sight. But the Abbe is
wrong even in the foundation of his work; that is, he has misconceived
and misstated the causes which produced the rupture between England
and her then colonies, and which led on, step by step, unstudied and
uncontrived on the part of America, to a revolution, which has engaged
the attention, and affected the interest of Europe.
To prove this, I shall bring forward a passage, which, though placed
towards the latter part of the Abbe's work, is more intimately
connected with the beginning: and in which, speaking of the original
cause of the dispute, he declares himself in the following manner--
"None," says he, "of those energetic causes, which have produced so
many revolutions upon the globe, existed in North-America. Neither
religion nor laws had there been outraged. The blood of martyrs or
patriots had not there streamed from scaffolds. Morals had not there
been insulted. Manners, customs, habits, no object dear to nations,
had there been the sport of ridicule. Arbitrary power had not there
torn any inhabitant from the arms of his family and friends, to drag
him to a dreary dungeon. Public order had not been there inverted. The
principles of administration had not been changed there; and the
maxims of government had there always remained the same. The whole
question was reduced to the knowing whether the mother country had,
or, had not a right to lay, directly or indirectly, a slight tax upon
the colonies."
On this extraordinary passage, it may not be improper, in general
terms, to remark, that none can feel like those who suffer; and that
for a man to be a competent judge of the provocative, or, as the Abbe
styles them, the energetic causes of the revolution, he must have
resided in America.
The Abbe, in saying that the several particulars he has enumerated did
not exist in America, and neglecting to point out the particular
period in which the means they did not exist, reduces thereby his
declaration to a nullity, by taking away all meaning from the passage.
They did not exist in 1763, and they all existed before 1776;
consequently as there was a time when they did _not_, and another when
they _did_ exist, the _time when_ constitutes the essence of the fact;
and not to give it, is to withhold the only evidence which proves the
declaration right or wrong, and on which it must stand or fall. But
the declaration as it now appears, unaccompanied by time, has an
effect in holding out to the world, that there was no real cause for
the revolution, because it denied the existence of all those causes
which are supposed to be justifiable, and which the Abbe styles
energetic.
I confess myself exceedingly at a loss to find out the time to which
the Abbe alludes; because, in another part of the work, in speaking of
the stamp act, which was passed in 1764, he styles it "An _usurpation_
of the Americans' _most precious and sacred rights_." Consequently he
here admits the most energetic of all causes, that is, _an usurpation
of their most precious and sacred rights_, to have existed in America
twelve years before the declaration of independence, and ten years
before the breaking out of hostilities. The time, therefore, in which
the paragraph is true, must be antecedent to the stamp act, but as at
that time there was no revolution, nor any idea of one, it
consequently applies without a meaning; and as it cannot, on the
Abbe's own principle, be applied to any time _after_ the stamp act, it
is therefore a wandering, solitary paragraph connected with nothing,
and at variance with every thing.
The stamp act, it is true, was repealed two years after it was passed;
but it was immediately followed by one of infinitely more mischievous
magnitude, I mean the declaratory act, which asserted the right, as it
was styled, of the British Parliament, "_to bind America in all cases
whatsoever_."
If then, the stamp act was an usurpation of the Americans' most
precious and sacred rights, the declaratory Act left them no rights at
all; and contained the full grown seeds of the most despotic
government ever exercised in the world. It placed America not only in
the lowest, but in the basest state of vassalage; because it demanded
an unconditional submission in everything, or, as the act expressed
it, _in all cases whatsoever_: and what renders this act the more
offensive, is, that it appears to have been passed as an act of mercy;
truly then may it be said, that _the tender mercies of the wicked are
cruel_.
All the original charters from the Crown of England, under the faith
of which, the adventurers from the old world settled in the new, were
by this act displaced from their foundations; because, contrary to the
nature of them, which was that of a compact, they were now made
subject to repeal or alteration at the mere will of one party only.
The whole condition of America was thus put into the hands of the
Parliament or the Ministry, without leaving to her the least right in
any case whatsoever.
There is no despotism to which this iniquitous law did not extend; and
though it might have been convenient in the execution of it, to have
consulted manners and habits, the principle of the act made all
tyranny legal. It stopt no where. It went to everything. It took in
with it the whole life of a man, or, if I may so express it, an
eternity of circumstances. It is the nature of law to require
obedience, but this demanded servitude; and the condition of an
American, under the operation of it, was not that of a subject, but a
vassal. Tyranny has often been established _without_ law, and
sometimes _against_ it, but the history of mankind does not produce
another instance, in which it has been established _by_ law. It is an
audacious outrage upon civil government, and cannot be too much
exposed, in order to be sufficiently detested.
Neither could it be said after this, that the legislature of that
country any longer made laws for this, but that it gave out commands;
for wherein differed an act of Parliament constructed on this
principle, and operating in this manner, over an unrepresented people,
from the orders of a military establishment?
The Parliament of England, with respect to America, was not septennial
but _perpetual_. It appeared to the latter a body always in being. Its
election or expiration were to her the same, as if its members
succeeded by inheritance, or went out by death, or lived for ever, or
were appointed to it as a matter of office. Therefore, for the people
of England to have any just conception of the mind of America,
respecting this extraordinary act, they must suppose all election and
expiration in that country to cease forever, and the present
Parliament, its heirs, &c., to be perpetual; in this case, I ask, what
would the most clamorous of them think, were an act to be passed,
declaring the right of _such a Parliament_ to bind _them_ in all cases
whatsoever? For this word _whatsoever_ would go as effectually to
their _Magna Charta, Bill of Rights, trial by Juries_, &c. as it went
to the charters and forms of government in America.
I am persuaded, that the Gentleman to whom I address these remarks
will not, after the passing of this act, say, "That the _principles_
of administration had not been _changed_ in America, and that the
maxims of government had there been _always the same_." For here is,
in principle, a total overthrow of the whole; and not a subversion
only, but an annihilation of the foundation of liberty and absolute
dominion established in its stead.
The Abbe likewise states the case exceedingly wrong and injuriously,
when he says, "that _the whole_ question was reduced to the
knowing whether the mother country had, or had not, a right to lay,
directly or indirectly, a _slight_ tax upon the colonies." This was
_not the whole_ of the question; neither was the _quantity_ of the tax
the object, either to the Ministry, or to the Americans. It was the
principle, of which the tax made but a part, and the quantity still
less, that formed the ground on which America opposed.
The tax on tea, which is the tax here alluded to, was neither more or
less than an experiment to establish the practice of a declaratory law
upon; modelled into the more fashionable phrase _of the universal
supremacy of Parliament_. For until this time the declaratory law had
lain dormant, and the framers of it had contented themselves with
barely declaring an opinion.
Therefore the _whole_ question with America, in the opening of the
dispute, was, Shall we be bound in all cases whatsoever by the British
Parliament, or shall we not? For submission to the tea or tax act,
implied an acknowledgment of the declaratory act, or, in other words,
of the universal supremacy of Parliament, which as they never intended
to do, it was necessary they should oppose it, in its first stage of
execution.
It is probable, the Abbe has been led into this mistake by perusing
detached pieces in some of the American newspapers; for, in a case
where all were interested, everyone had a right to give his opinion;
and there were many who, with the best intentions, did not chuse the
best, nor indeed the true ground, to defend their cause upon. They
felt themselves right by a general impulse, without being able to
separate, analyze, and arrange the parts.
I am somewhat unwilling to examine too minutely into the whole of this
extraordinary passage of the Abbe, lest I should appear to treat it
with severity; otherwise I could shew, that not a single declaration
is justly founded; for instance, the reviving an obsolete act of the
reign of Henry the Eighth, and fitting it to the Americans, by
authority of which they were to be seized and brought from America to
England, and there imprisoned and tried for any supposed offenses,
was, in the worse sense of the words, _to tear them by the arbitrary
power of Parliament, from the arms of their families and friends, and
drag them not only to dreary but distant dungeons_. Yet this act was
contrived some years before the breaking out of hostilities. And
again, though the blood of martyrs and patriots had not streamed on
the scaffolds, it streamed in the streets, in the massacre of the
inhabitants of Boston, by the British soldiery in the year 1770.
Had the Abbe said that the causes which produced the revolution in
America were originally _different_ from those which produced
revolutions in other parts of the globe, he had been right. Here the
value and quality of liberty, the nature of government, and the
dignity of man, were known and understood, and the attachment of the
Americans to these principles produced the revolution, as a natural
and almost unavoidable consequence. They had no particular family to
set up or pull down. Nothing of personality was incorporated with
their cause. They started even-handed with each other, and went no
faster into the several stages of it, than they were driven by the
unrelenting and imperious conduct of Britain. Nay, in the last act,
the declaration of independence, they had nearly been too late; for
had it not been declared at the exact time it was, I saw no period in
their affairs since, in which it could have been declared with the
same effect, and probably not at all.
But the object being formed before the reverse of fortune took place,
that is, before the operations of the gloomy campaign of 1776, their
honour, their interest, their everything, called loudly on them to
maintain it; and that glow of thought and energy of heart, which even
distant prospect of independence inspires, gave confidence to their
hopes, and resolution to their conduct, which a state of dependence
could never have reached. They looked forward to happier days and
scenes of rest, and qualified the hardships of the campaign by
contemplating the establishment of their new-born system.
If, on the other hand, we take a review of what part great Britain has
acted, we shall find every thing which ought to make a nation blush.
The most vulgar abuse, accompanied by that species of haughtiness
which distinguishes the hero of a mob from the character of a
gentleman; it was equally as much from her manners as from her
injustice that she lost the colonies. By the latter she provoked their
principles, by the former she wore out their temper; and it ought to
be held out as an example to the world, to shew how necessary it is to
conduct the business of government with civility. In short, other
revolutions may have originated in caprice, or generated in ambition,
but here, the most unoffending humility was tortured into rage, and
the infancy of existence made to weep.
A union so extensive, continued and determined, suffering with
patience, and never in despair, could not have been produced by common
causes. It must be something capable of reaching the whole soul of man
and arming it with perpetual energy. In vain it is to look for
precedents among the revolutions of former ages, to find out, by
comparison, the causes of this. The spring, the progress, the object,
the consequences, nay the men, their habits of thinking, and all the
circumstances of the country, are different. Those of other nations
are, in general, little more than the history of their quarrels. They
are marked by no important character in the annals of events; mixt in
the mass of general matters, they occupy but a common page; and while
the chief of the successful partizans stept into power, the plundered
multitude sat down and sorrowed. Few, very few of them are accompanied
with reformation, either in government or manners; many of them with
the most consummate profligacy.--Triumph on the one side, and misery
on the other, were the only events. Pains, punishments, torture, and
death, were made the business of mankind, until compassion, the
fairest associate of the heart, was driven from its place; and the
eye, accustomed to continual cruelty, could behold it without offence.
But as the principles of the present resolution differed from those
which preceded it, so likewise has the conduct of America, both in
government and war. Neither the foul finger of disgrace, nor the
bloody hand of vengeance has hitherto put a blot upon her fame. Her
victories have received lustre from a greatness of lenity; and her
laws been permitted to slumber, where they might justly have awakened
to punish. War, so much the trade of the world, has here been only the
business of necessity; and when the necessity shall cease, her very
enemies must confess, that as she drew the sword in her just defence,
she used it without cruelty, and sheathed it without revenge.
As it is not my design to extend these remarks to a history, I shall
now take my leave of this passage of the Abbe, with an observation,
which, until something unfolds itself to convince me otherwise, I
cannot avoid believing to be true;--which is, that it was the fixt
determination of the British Cabinet to quarrel with America at all
events.
They (the members who compose the cabinet) had no doubt of success, if
they could once bring it to the issue of a battle; and they expected
from a conquest, what they could neither propose with decency, nor
hope for by negociation. The charters and constitutions of the
colonies were become to them matters of offence, and their rapid
progress in property and population were disgustingly beheld as the
growing and natural means of independence. They saw no way to retain
them long but by reducing them time. A conquest would at once have
made them both lords and landlords, and put them in the possession
both of the revenue and the rental. The whole trouble of government
would have ceased in a victory, and a final end put to remonstrance
and debate. The experience of the stamp act had taught them how to
quarrel with the advantages of cover and convenience, and they had
nothing to do but to renew the scene, and put contention into motion.
They hoped for a rebellion, and they made one. They expected a
declaration of independence, and they were not disappointed. But after
this, they looked for victory, and obtained a defeat.
If this be taken as the generating cause of the contest, then is every
part of the conduct of the British ministry consistent, from the
commencement of the dispute, until the signing the treaty of Paris,
after which, conquest becoming doubtful, they retreated to
negociation, and were again defeated.
Though the Abbe possesses and displays great powers of genius, and is
a master of style and language, he seems not to pay equal attention to
the office of an historian. His facts are coldly and carelessly
stated. They neither inform the reader, nor interest him. Many of them
are erroneous, and most of them defective and obscure. It is
undoubtedly both an ornament, and a useful addition to history, to
accompany it with maxims and reflections. They afford likewise an
agreeable change to the style, and a more diversified manner of
expression; but it is absolutely necessary that the root from whence
they spring, or the foundations on which they are raised, should be
well attended to, which in this work they are not. The Abbe hastens
through his narrations, as if he was glad to get from them, that he
may enter the more copious field of eloquence and imagination.
The actions of Trenton and Princeton, in New Jersey, in December 1776,
and January following, on which the fate of America stood for a while
trembling on the point of suspence, and from which the most important
consequences followed, are comprised within a single paragraph,
faintly conceived, and barren of character, circumstance and
description.
"On the 25th of December," says the Abbe, "they (the Americans)
crossed the Delaware, and fell _accidentally_ upon Trenton, which was
occupied by fifteen hundred of the twelve thousand Hessians, sold in
so base a manner by their avaricious master, to the King of Great
Britain. This corps was _massacred_, taken, or dispersed. Eight days
after, three English regiments were in like manner driven from
Princeton; but after having better supported their reputation than the
foreign troops in their pay."
This is all the account which is given of these most interesting
events. The Abbe has preceded them by two or three pages, on the
military operations of both armies, from the time of General Howe
arriving before New York from Halifax, and the vast reinforcements of
British and foreign troops with Lord Howe from England. But in these
there is so much mistake, and so many omissions, that to set them
right, must be the business of history, and not of a letter. The
action of Long Island is but barely hinted at; and the operations at
the White Plains wholly omitted: as are likewise the attack and loss
of Fort Washington, with a garrison of about two thousand five hundred
men, and the precipitate evacuation of Fort Lee, in consequence
thereof; which losses were in a great measure the cause of the retreat
through the Jersies to the Delaware, a distance of about ninety miles.
Neither is the manner of the retreat described, which, from the season
of the year, the nature of the country, the nearness of the two armies
(sometimes within sight and shot of each other for such a length of
way), the rear of the one employed in pulling down bridges, and the
van of the other in building them up, must necessarily be accompanied
with many interesting circumstances.
It was a period of distresses. A crisis rather of danger than of
hope, there is no description can do it justice; and even the actors
in it, looking back upon the scene, are surprised how they got
through; and at a loss to account for those powers of the mind and
springs of animation, by which they withstood the force of accumulated
misfortune.
It was expected, that the time for which the army was enlisted, would
carry the campaign so far into the winter, that the severity of the
season, and the consequent condition of the roads, would prevent any
material operation of the enemy, until the new army could be raised
for the next year. And I mention it, as a matter worthy of attention
by all future historians, that the movements of the American army,
until the attack upon the Hessian post at Trenton, the 26th of
December, are to be considered as operating to effect no other
principal purpose than delay, and to wear away the campaign under all
the disadvantages of an unequal force, with as little misfortune as
possible.
But the loss of the garrison at Fort Washington, on the 16th of
November, and the expiration of the time of a considerable part of the
army, so early as the 30th of the same month, and which were to be
followed by almost daily expirations afterwards, made retreat the only
final expedient. To these circumstances may be added the forlorn and
destitute condition of the few that remained; for the garrison at Fort
Lee, which composed almost the whole of the retreat, had been obliged
to abandon it so instantaneously, that every article of stores and
baggage was left behind, and in this destitute condition, without tent
or blanket, and without any other utensils to dress their provision
than what they procured by the way, they performed a march of about
ninety miles, and had the address and management to prolong it to the
space of nineteen days.
By this unexpected, or rather unthought of turn of affairs, the
country was in an instant surprised into confusion, and found an enemy
within its bowels, without any army to oppose him. There were no
succours to be had, but from the free-will offering of the
inhabitants. All was choice, and every man reasoned for himself.
It was in this situation of affairs, equally calculated to confound or
to inspire, that the gentleman, the merchant, the farmer, the
tradesman and the labourer, mutually turned out from all the
conveniencies of home, to perform the duties of private soldiers, and
undergo the severities of a winter campaign. The delay, so judiciously
contrived on the retreat, afforded time for the volunteer
reinforcements to join General Washington on the Delaware.
The Abbe is likewise wrong in saying, that the American army fell
_accidentally_ on Trenton. It was the very object for which General
Washington crossed the Delaware in the dead of night, in the midst of
snow, storms, and ice: and which he immediately re-crossed with his
prisoners, as soon as he had accomplished his purpose. Neither was the
intended enterprise a secret to the enemy, imformation [_sic_] having
been sent of it by letter, from a British Officer at Princeton, to
Colonel Rolle, who commanded the Hessians at Trenton, which letter was
afterwards found by the Americans. Nevertheless the post was
completely surprised. A small circumstance, which had the appearance
of mistake on the part of the Americans, led to a more capital and
real mistake on the part of Rolle.
The case was this: A detachment of twenty or thirty Americans had been
sent across the river from a post a few miles above, by an officer
unacquainted with the intended attack; these were met by a body of
Hessians on the night, to which the information pointed, which was
Christmas night, and repulsed. Nothing further appearing, and the
Hessians mistaking this for the advanced party, supposed the
enterprize disconcerted, which at that time was not begun, and under
this idea returned to their quarters; so that, what might have raised
an alarm, and brought the Americans into an ambuscade, served to take
off the force of an information, and promote the success of the
enterprise. Soon after day-light General Washington entered the town,
and after a little opposition made himself master of it, with upwards
of nine hundred prisoners.
This combination of equivocal circumstances, falling within what the
Abbe styles, "_the wide empire of chance_," would have afforded a fine
field for thought; and I wish, for the sake of that elegance of
reflection he is so capable of using, that he had known it.
But the action of Princeton was accompanied by a still greater
embarrassment of matters, and followed by more extraordinary
consequences. The Americans, by a happy stroke of generalship, in this
instance, not only deranged and defeated all the plans of the British,
in the intended moment of execution, but drew from their posts the
enemy they were not able to drive, and obliged them to close the
campaign. As the circumstance is a curiosity in war, and not well
understood in Europe, I shall, as concisely as I can, relate the
principal parts; they may serve to prevent future historians from
error, and recover from forgetfulness a scene of magnificent
fortitude.
Immediately after the surprise of the Hessians at Trenton, General
Washington re-crossed the Delaware, which at this place is about three
quarters of a mile over, and re-assumed his former post on the
Pennsylvania side. Trenton remained unoccupied, and the enemy were
posted at Princeton, twelve miles distant, on the road toward
New-York. The weather was now growing very severe, and as there were
very few houses near the shore where General Washington had taken his
station, the greatest part of his army remained out in the woods and
fields. These, with some other circumstances, induced the re-crossing
the Delaware and taking possession of Trenton. It was undoubtedly a
bold adventure, and carried with it the appearance of defiance,
especially when we consider the panic-struck condition of the enemy on
the loss of the Hessian post. But in order to give a just idea of the
affair, it is necessary that I should describe the place.
Trenton is situated on a rising ground, about three quarters of a mile
distant from the Delaware, on the eastern or Jersey side; and is cut
into two divisions by a small creek or rivulet, sufficient to turn a
mill which is on it, after which it empties itself at nearly right
angles into the Delaware. The upper division, which is that to the
north-east, contains about seventy or eighty houses, and the lower
about forty of fifty. The ground on each side this creek, and on which
the houses are, is likewise rising, and the two divisions present an
agreeable prospect to each other, with the creek between, on which
there is a small stone bridge of one arch.
Scarcely had General Washington taken post here, and before the
several parties of militia, out on detachments, or on their way, could
be collected, than the British, leaving behind them a strong garrison
at Princeton, marched suddenly and entered Trenton at the upper or
north-east quarter. A party of the Americans skirmished with the
advanced party of the British, to afford time for removing the stores
and baggage, and withdrawing over the bridge.
In a little time the British had possession of one half of the town,
General Washington of the other; and the creek only separated the two
armies. Nothing could be a more critical situation than this, and if
ever the fate of America depended upon the event of a day, it was now.
The Delaware was filling fast with large sheets of driving ice, and
was impassable, so that no retreat into Pennsylvania could be
effected, neither is it possible, in the face of an enemy, to pass a
river of such extent. The roads were broken and rugged with the frost,
and the main road was occupied by the enemy.
About four o'clock a party of the British approached the bridge, with
a design to gain it, but were repulsed. They made no more attempts,
though the creek itself is passable anywhere between the bridge and
the Delaware. It runs in a rugged, natural-made ditch, over which a
person may pass with little difficulty, the stream being rapid and
shallow. Evening was now coming on, and the British, believing they
had all the advantages they could wish for, and that they could use
them when they pleased, discontinued all further operations, and held
themselves prepared to make the attack next morning.
But the next morning produced a scene as elegant as it was unexpected.
The British were under arms and ready to march to action, when one of
their light-horse from Princeton came furiously down the street, with
an account that General Washington had that morning attacked and
carried the British post at that place, and was proceeding on to seize
the magazine at Brunswick; on which the British, who were then on the
point of making an assault on the evacuated camp of the Americans,
wheeled about, and in a fit of consternation marched for Princeton.
This retreat is one of those extraordinary circumstances, that in
future ages may probably pass for fable. For it will with difficulty
be believed that two armies, on which such important consequences
depended, should be crouded into so small a space as Trenton; and that
the one, on the eve of an engagement, when every ear is supposed to be
open, and every watchfulness employed, should move completely from the
ground, with all its stores, baggage and artillery, unknown and even
unsuspected by the other. And so entirely were the British deceived,
that when they heard the report of the cannon and small arms at
Princeton, they supposed it to be thunder, though in the depth of
winter.
General Washington, the better to cover and disguise his retreat from
Trenton, had ordered a line of fires to be lighted up in front of his
camp. These not only served to give an appearance of going to rest,
and continuing that deception, but they effectually concealed from the
British whatever was acting behind them, for flame can no more be seen
through than a wall, and in his situation, it may with some propriety
be said, they came a pillar of fire to the one army, and a pillar of a
cloud to the other: after this, by a circuitous march of about
eighteen miles, the Americans reached Princeton early in the morning.
The number of prisoners taken were between two and three hundred, with
which General Washington immediately set off. The van of the British
army from Trenton, entered Princeton about an hour after the Americans
had left it, who, continuing their march for the remainder of the day,
arrived in the evening at a convenient situation, wide of the main
road to Brunswick, and about sixteen miles distant from Princeton. But
so wearied and exhausted were they, with the continual and unabated
service and fatigue of two days and a night, from action to action,
without shelter and almost without refreshment, that the bare and
frozen ground, with no other covering than the sky, became to them a
place of comfortable rest. By these two events, and with but little
comparitive force to accomplish them, the Americans closed with
advantages a campaign, which but a few days before threatened the
country with destruction. The British army, apprehensive for the
safety of their magazines at Brunswick, eighteen miles distant,
marched immediately for that place, where they arrived late in the
evening, and from which they made no attempts to move for nearly five
months.
Having thus stated the principal outlines of these two most
interesting actions, I shall now quit them, to put the Abbe right in
his misstated account of the debt and paper money of America, wherein,
speaking of these matters, he says,
"These ideal riches were rejected. The more the multiplication of them
was urged by want, the greater did their appreciation grow. The
Congress was indignant at the affronts given to its money, and
declared all those to be traitors to their country, who should not
receive it as they would have received gold itself.
"Did not this body know, that possessions are no more to be controuled
than feelings are? Did it not perceive, that in the present crisis,
every rational man would be afraid of exposing his fortune? Did it not
see, that in the beginning of a Republic it permitted to itself the
exercise of such acts of despotism as are unknown even in the
countries which are moulded to, and become familiar with servitude and
oppression? Could it pretend that it did not punish a want of
confidence with the pains which would have been scarcely merited by
revolt and treason? Of all this was the Congress well aware. But it
had no choice of means. Its despised and despicable scraps of paper
were actually thirty times below their original value, when more of
them were ordered to be made. On the 13th of September 1779, there was
of this paper money, amongst the public, to the amount of
£.35,544,155. The State owed moreover £.8,305,356, without reckoning
the particular debts of single Provinces."
In the above-recited passages, the Abbe speaks as if the United States
had contracted a debt of upwards of forty million pounds sterling,
besides the debts of individual States. After which, speaking of
foreign trade with America, he says, that "those countries in Europe,
which are truly commercial ones, knowing that North America had been
reduced to contract debts at the epoch even of her greatest
prosperity, wisely thought, that in her present distress, she would be
able to pay but very little, for what might be carried to her."
I know it must be extremely difficult to make foreigners understand
the nature and circumstances of our paper money, because there are
natives who do not understand it themselves. But with us its fate is
now determined. Common consent has consigned it to rest with that kind
of regard which the long service of inanimate things insensibly
obtains from mankind. Every stone in the bridge, that has carried us
over, seems to have a claim upon our esteem. But this was a
corner-stone, and its usefulness cannot be forgotten. There is
something in a grateful mind, which extends itself even to things that
can neither be benefited by regard, nor suffer by neglect: But so it
is; and almost every man is sensible of the effect.
But to return. The paper money, though issued from Congress under the
name of dollars, did not come from that body always at that value.
Those which were issued the first year, were equal to gold and silver.
The second year less; the third still less; and so on, for nearly the
space of five years; at the end of which, I imagine, that the whole
value at which Congress might pay away the several emissions, taking
them together, was about ten or twelve millions pounds sterling.
Now, as it would have taken ten or twelve millions sterling of taxes,
to carry on the war for five years, and, as while this money was
issuing and likewise depreciating down to nothing, there were none, or
very few valuable taxes paid; consequently the event to the public was
the same, whether they sunk ten or twelve millions of expended money,
by depreciation, or paid ten or twelve millions by taxation; for as
they did not do both, and chose to do one, the matter, in a general
view, was indifferent. And therefore, what the Abbe supposes to be a
debt, has now no existence; it having been paid, by every body
consenting to reduce it, at his own expence, from the value of the
bills continually passing among themselves, a sum, equal to nearly
what the expence of the war was for five years.
Again.--The paper money having now ceased, and the depreciation with
it, and gold and silver supplied its place, the war will now be
carried on by taxation, which will draw from the public a considerable
less sum than what the depreciation drew; but as, while they pay the
former, they do not suffer the latter, and as, when they suffered the
latter, they did not pay the former, the thing will be nearly equal,
with this moral advantage, that taxation occasions frugality and
thought, and depreciation produced dissipation and carelessness.
And again.--If a man's portion of taxes comes to less than what he
lost by the depreciation, it proves the alteration is in his favour.
If it comes to more, and he is justly assessed, it shews that he did
not sustain his proper share of depreciation, because the one was as
operatively his tax as the other.
It is true, that it never was intended, neither was it foreseen, that
the debt contained in the paper currency should sink itself in this
manner; but as by the voluntary conduct of all and of everyone it has
arrived at this fate, the debt is paid by those who owed it. Perhaps
nothing was ever so much the act of a country as this. Government had
no hand in it. Every man depreciated his own money by his own consent,
for such was the effect which the raising of the nominal value of
goods produced. But as by such reduction he sustained a loss equal to
what he must have paid to sink it by taxation; therefore the line of
justice is to consider his loss by the depreciation as his tax for
that time, and not to tax him when the war is over, to make that money
good in any other person's hands, which became nothing in his own.
Again.--The paper currency was issued for the express purpose of
carrying on the war. It has performed that service, without any other
material change to the public, while it lasted. But to suppose, as
some did, that at the end of the war, it was to grow into gold and
silver, or become equal thereto, was to suppose that we were to _get_
two hundred millions of dollars by _going to war_, instead of _paying_
the cost of carrying it on.
But if any thing in the situation of America, as to her currency or
her circumstances, yet remains not understood, then let it be
remembered, that this war is the public's war; the people's war; the
country's war. It is _their_ independence that is to be supported;
_their_ property that is to be secured; _their_ country that is to be
saved. Here, government, the army, and the people, are mutually and
reciprocally one. In other wars, kings may lose their thrones and
their dominions; but here, the loss must fall on the _majesty of the
multitude_, and the property they are contending to save. Every man
being sensible of this, he goes to the field, or pays his portion of
the charge as the sovereign of his own possessions; and when he is
conquered, a monarch falls.
The remark which the Abbe, in the conclusion of the passage, has made
respecting America contracting debts in the time of her prosperity (by
which he means, before the breaking out of hostilities), serves to
shew, though he has not yet made the application, the very great
commercial difference between a dependant and an independent country.
In a state of dependence, and with a fettered commerce, though with
all the advantages of peace, her trade could not balance herself, and
she annually run into debt. But now, in a state of independence,
though involved in war, she requires no credit; her stores are full of
merchandise, and gold and silver are become the currency of the
country. How these things have established themselves, it is difficult
to account for: but they are facts, and facts are more powerful than
arguments.
As it is probable this letter will undergo a republication in Europe,
the remarks here thrown together will serve to show the extreme folly
of Britain, in resting her hopes of success on the extinction of our
paper currency. The expectation is at once so childish and forlorn,
that it places her in the laughable condition of a famished lion
watching for prey at a spider's web.