_THE REVOLUTIONIST._
The American Revolution, like most other revolutions, was the work of an
energetic minority who succeeded in committing an undecided and
fluctuating majority to courses for which they had little love; leading
them, step by step, to a position from which it was impossible to
recede. To the last, however, we find vacillation, uncertainty, half
measures, and, in large classes, a great apparent apathy. There was,
also, a great multitude, who, though they would never take up arms for
the king; though they, perhaps, agreed with the constitutional doctrines
of the revolution, dissented on grounds of principle, policy, or
interest, from the course they were adopting.
That the foregoing is a correct presentation of the case is shown by a
letter written by John Adams, when in Congress, to his wife. He says:
"I have found this congress like the last. When we first came together,
I found a strong jealousy of us from New England, and the Massachusetts
in particular--suspicions entertained of designs of independency, an
American republic, Presbyterian principles, and twenty other
things."[59]
[59] Letters of John Adams to His Wife, Vol. I., p. 45.
It was an open question with many whether a community liable to such
outbreaks of popular fury did not need a strongly repressive government;
and especially when the possibilities of a separation from the mother
country was contemplated, it was a matter of doubt whether such a people
were fit for self-government. Was it not possible that the lawless and
anarchical spirit which had of late years been steadily growing, and
which the "patriotic" party had actively encouraged, would gain the
upper hand, and the whole fabric of society would be dissolved?
In another letter of John Adams to his wife at this time, he gives us an
idea of what the opinion was of the Loyalists concerning the doctrines
taught by the disunionists, and which, he says, "Must be granted to be a
likeness." "They give rise to profaneness, intemperance, thefts,
robberies, murders, and treason; cursing, swearing, drunkenness,
gluttony, lewdness, trespassing, mains, are necessarily involved in
them. Besides they render the populace, the rabble, the scum of the
earth, insolent and disorderly, impudent and abusive. They give rise to
lying, hypocrisy, chicanery, and even perjury among the people, who are
drawn to such artifices and crime to conceal themselves and their
companions from prosecution in consequence of them. This is the picture
drawn by the Tory pencil, and it must be granted to be a likeness."[60]
[60] Letters of John Adams to His Wife, Vol. I., p. 8.
There are several passages in the writings of John Adams that seem to
indicate that he at times had doubts of the righteousness of the course
he had pursued. They were written in his later years, though one refers
to an incident alleged to have occurred during his early manhood. In a
letter to a friend in 1811, he thus moralizes: "Have I not been employed
in mischief all my days? Did not the American Revolution produce the
French Revolution? And did not the French Revolution produce all the
calamities and desolations to the human race and the whole globe ever
since?" But he justifies himself with the reflection: "I meant well,
however; my conscience was as clear as crystal glass, without a scruple
or doubt. I was borne along by an irresistible sense of duty." In his
diary Mr. Adams recalls to mind one incident which occurred in 1775. He
mentions the profound melancholy which fell upon him in one of the most
critical moments of the struggle, when a man whom he knew to be a
horse-jockey and a cheat, and whom, as an advocate, he had often
defended in the law courts, came to him and expressed the unbounded
gratitude he felt for the great things which Adams and his colleagues
had done. "We can never," he said, "be grateful enough to you. There are
now no courts of justice in this province, and I hope there will never
be another." "Is this the object," Adams continued, "for which I have
been contending?" said I to myself. "Are these the sentiments of such
people, and how many of them are there in the country? Half the nation,
for what I know; for half the nation are debtors, if not more, and these
have been in all the countries the sentiments of debtors. If the power
of the country should get into such hands--and there is great danger
that it will--to what purpose have we sacrificed our time, health and
everything else?"[61]
[61] Adams' Works, Vol. II., 420.
Misgivings of this kind must have passed through many minds. To some may
have come the warning words of Winthrop, the father of Boston, uttered
one hundred and fifty years before these events occurred, in which he
said: "Democracy is, among most civil nations, accounted the meanest and
worst of all forms of government, and histories record that it hath
always been of least continuance and fullest of trouble."[62]
[62] Life of Winthrop, Vol. II., 427.
There was a doubt in the minds of many people, which we have often heard
uttered in recent times, with reference to the French people in their
long series of revolutions, and equally so with the Spanish-American
republics with their almost annual revolutions, whether these words of
Winthrop were not correct, and that the people were really incapable of
self-government. It was a doubt which the revolution did not silence,
for the disturbing elements which had their issue in the Shay Rebellion,
The Whiskey Insurrection and the mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line, in
1781, were embers of a fire, smothered, not quenched, which rendered
state government insecure till it was welded into the Federal Union.
There was a widespread dislike to the levelling principles of New
England, to the arrogant, restless and ambitious policy of its
demagogues; to their manifest desire to invent or discover grievances,
foment quarrels and keep the wound open and festering.[63]
[63] See Adams' Works, Vol. II, pp. 350, 410.
Those who rebelled in good faith did so because they feared that the
power of Parliament to tax them moderately to raise money for their own
defence might be used sometime in the future for a less worthy purpose,
and then they would all be "slaves." Their argument led to mob rule and
anarchy, till the adaption of the Federal Constitution, after the close
of the Revolutionary War.
The opinion of such an authority as Lecky on our revolutionary movements
must be worthy of thoughtful attention; and his opinion is this: "Any
nation might be proud of the shrewd, brave, prosperous and highly
intelligent yeomen who flocked to the American camps; but they were very
different from those who defended the walls of Leyden, or immortalized
the field of Bannockburn. Few of the great pages of history are less
marked by the stamp of heroism than the American Revolution and perhaps
the most formidable of the difficulties which Washington had to
encounter were in his own camp."[64] And he concludes his survey of the
movement with these words: "In truth the American people, though in
general unbounded believers in progress, are accustomed, through a kind
of curious modesty, to do themselves a great injustice by the
extravagant manner in which they idealize their past. It has almost
become as commonplace that the great nation which in our own day has
shown such an admirable combination of courage, devotion and humanity in
its gigantic Civil War, and which since that time has so signally
falsified the prediction of its enemies and put to shame all the nations
of Europe by its unparalleled efforts in paying off its national debt,
is of far lower moral type than its ancestors at the time of the War of
Independence. This belief appears to me essentially false. The nobility
and beauty of Washington can, indeed, hardly be paralleled. Several of
the other leaders of the Revolution were men of ability and public
spirit, and few armies have ever shown a nobler self-devotion than that
which remained with Washington through the dreary winter at Valley
Forge. But the army that bore those sufferings was a very small one, and
the general aspect of the American people during the contest was far
from heroic or sublime. The future destinies and greatness of the
English race must necessarily rest mainly with the mighty nation which
has arisen beyond the Atlantic, and that nation may well afford to admit
that its attitude during the brief period of its enmity to England has
been very unduly extolled. At the same time, the historian of that
period would do the Americans a great injustice if he judged them only
by the revolutionary party, and failed to recognize how large a
proportion of their best men had no sympathy with the movement."[65]
[64] Lecky, "American Revolution," p. 230.
[65] Lecky's "American Revolution," p. 375.
Our native historians and the common run of Fourth of July orators have
treated their countrymen badly for a hundred years. They have given the
world to understand that we are the degenerate children of a race of
giants, statesmen, and moralists, who flourished for a few years about a
century ago and then passed away. An impartial examination of the
records would show that we are wiser, better, more benevolent, quite as
patriotic and brave as the standard heroes of 1776. We may give our
ancestors credit for many admirable virtues without attempting to
maintain that a multitude of unlettered colonists, scattered along the
Atlantic coast, hunting, fishing, smuggling, and tilling the soil for a
slender livelihood, and fighting Indians and wild beasts to save their
own lives, possessed a vast fund of political virtue and political
intelligence, and left but little of either to their descendants. The
public is beginning to tire of this tirade of indiscriminate eulogy, and
the public taste is beginning to reject it as a form of defamation. And
so the ripening judgment of our people is beginning to demand portraits
of our ancestors painted according to the command that Cromwell gave the
artist; to paint his features, warts, blotches, and all, and to demand
an account of our forefathers in which we shall learn to speak of them
as they were.
Sabine, in his valuable work, "Loyalists of the American Revolution,"
says: "I presume that I am of Whig descent. My father's father received
his death-wound under Washington, at Trenton; my mother's father fought
under Stark at Bennington. I do not care, of all things, to be thought
to want appreciation of those of my countrymen who broke the yoke of
colonial vassalage, nor on the other hand, do I care to imitate the
writers of a later school, and treat the great and the _successful_
actors in the world's affairs as little short of divinities, and as
exempt from criticism. Nay, this general statement will not serve my
purpose. Justice demands as severe a judgment of the Whigs as of their
opponents, and I shall here record the result of long and patient study.
At the Revolutionary period the principles of unbelief were diffused to
a considerable extent throughout the colonies. It is certain that
several of the most conspicuous personages of those days were either
avowed disbelievers in Christianity, or cared so little about it that
they were commonly regarded as disciples of the English or French school
of sceptical philosophy. Again, the Whigs were by no means exempt from
the lust of land hunger. Several of them were among the most noted land
speculators of their time, during the progress of the war, and, in a
manner hardly to be defended, we find them sequestering and
appropriating to themselves the vast estates of those who opposed them.
Avarice and rapacity were seemingly as common then as now. Indeed, the
stock-jobbing, the extortion, the fore-stalling of the law, the arts and
devices to amass wealth which were practised during the struggle, are
almost incredible. Washington mourned the want of virtue as early as
1775, and averred that he 'trembled at the prospect'--soldiers were
stripped of their miserable pittance that contractors for the army might
become rich in a single campaign. Many of the sellers of merchandise
monopolized (or 'cornered') articles of the first necessity, and would
not part with them to their suffering countrymen, and to the wives and
children of those who were absent in the field, unless at enormous
profit. The traffic carried on with the army of the king was immense.
Men of all descriptions finally engaged in it, and those who at the
beginning of the war would have shuddered at the idea of any connection
with the enemy, pursued it with increasing avidity. The public
securities were often counterfeited, official signatures forged, and
plunder and jobbery openly indulged in. Appeals to the guilty from the
pulpit, the press, and the halls of legislature were alike unheeded. The
decline of public spirit, the love of gain of those in office, the
plotting of disaffected persons, and the malevolence of factions, became
widely spread, and in parts of the country were uncontrollable. The
useful occupations of life and the legitimate pursuits of commerce were
abandoned by thousands. The basest of men enriched themselves, and many
of the most estimable sank into obscurity and indigence. There were
those who would neither pay their debts nor their taxes. The indignation
of Washington was freely expressed. 'It gives me sincere pleasure,' he
said, in a letter to Joseph Reed, 'to find the Assembly is so well
disposed to second your endeavor in bringing those murderers of our
cause to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each state,
long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests of society and the
greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. No punishment, in
my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon
his country's ruin.'"
In a letter to another, he drew this picture, which he solemnly declared
to be a true one: "From what I have seen, heard, and in part known,"
said he, "I should in one word say, that idleness, dissipation, and
extravagance seem to have laid fast hold on most; that speculation,
peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches, seem to have got the
better of every other consideration, and almost every order of men, and
that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the
day."
In other letters he laments the laxity of public morals, the "distressed
rumors, and deplorable condition of affairs," the "many melancholy
proofs of the decay of private virtue." "I am amazed," said Washington
to Colonel Stewart, "at the report you make of the quantity of provision
that goes daily into Philadelphia from the County of Bucks."
Philadelphia was occupied at that time by the British army, who paid in
hard money and not in "continental stuff." and mark you! this was
written in January of that memorable winter which the American army
passed in nakedness and starvation at Valley Forge. There was always an
army--on paper. At the close of one campaign there were not enough
troops in camp to man the lines. At the opening of another "scarce any
state in the Union," as Washington said, had an "eighth part of its
quota" in service. The bounty finally paid to soldiers was enormous. The
price for a single recruit was as high sometimes as seven hundred and
fifty, and one thousand dollars, on enlistment for the war, besides the
bounty and emoluments given by Congress. One hundred and fifty dollars
"in specie" was exacted and paid for a term of duty of only five months.
Such were the extraordinary inducements necessary to tempt some men to
serve their country when its vital interests were at issue. Making every
allowance for the effects of hunger and want, for the claims of families
at home, and for other circumstances equally imperative, desertion,
mutiny, robbery, and murder are still high crimes. There were soldiers
of the Revolution who deserted in parties of twenty and thirty at a
time, and several hundred of those who then abandoned the cause fled to
Vermont and were among the early settlers of that state. A thousand men,
the date of whose enlistment had been misplaced, perjured themselves in
a body, as fast as they could be sworn, in order to quit the ranks which
they had voluntarily entered. In smaller parties, hundreds of others
demanded dismissals from camp under false pretexts, and with lies upon
their lips. Some also added treason to desertion, and joined the various
corps of Loyalists in the capacity of spies upon their former friends,
or as guides and pioneers. Many more enlisted, deserted, and re-enlisted
under new recruiting officers for the purpose of receiving double
bounty, while others who placed their names upon the rolls were paid the
money to which they were entitled, but refused to join the army; and
others still who were sent to the hospitals returned home without leave
after their recovery, and were sheltered and secreted by friends and
neighbors, whose sense of right was as weak as their own. Another class
sold their clothing, provisions, and arms to obtain means of indulgence
in revelry and drunkenness; while some prowled about the country to rob
and kill the unoffending and defenceless. A guard was placed over the
grave of a foreigner of rank, who died in Washington's own quarters, and
who was buried in full dress, with diamond rings and buckles, "lest the
soldiers should be tempted to dig for hidden treasure." Whippings,
drummings out of the service, and even military executions were more
frequent in the Revolution than at any subsequent period of our history.
If we turn our attention to the officers we shall find that many had but
doubtful claims to respect for purity of private character, and that
some were addicted to grave vices. There were officers who were
destitute alike of honor and patriotism, who unjustly clamored for their
pay, while they drew large sums of public money under pretext of paying
their men, but applied them to the support of their own extravagance;
who went home on furlough and never returned to the army; and who,
regardless of their word as gentlemen, violated their paroles, and were
threatened by Washington with exposure in every newspaper in the land as
men who had disgraced themselves and were heedless of their associates
in captivity, whose restraints were increased by their misconduct. At
times, courts-martial were continually sitting, and so numerous were the
convictions that the names of those who were cashiered were sent to
Congress in long lists. "Many of the surgeons"--are the words of
Washington--"are very great rascals, countenancing the men to sham
complaints to exempt them from duty, and often receiving bribes to
certify indisposition with a view to procure discharge or furlough"; and
still further, they drew as for the public "medicines and stores in the
most profuse and extravagant manner for private purposes." In a letter
to the governor of a state, he affirmed that the officers who had been
sent him therefrom were "generally of the lowest class of the people,"
that they "led their soldiers to plunder the inhabitants and into every
kind of mischief." To his brother, John Augustine Washington, he
declared that the different states were nominating such officers as were
"not fit to be shoe-blacks." Resignations occurred upon discreditable
pretexts, and became alarmingly prevalent. Some resigned at critical
moments, and others combined together in considerable number for
purposes of intimidation, and threatened to retire from the service at a
specified time unless certain terms were complied with. Many of those
who abandoned Washington were guilty of a crime which, when committed by
private soldiers, is called "desertion," and punished with death.
Eighteen of the generals retired during the struggle, one for
drunkenness, one to avoid disgrace for receiving double pay, some from
declining health, others from weight of advancing years; but several
from private resentments and real or imagined wrongs inflicted by
Congress or associates in the service.
John Adams wrote in 1777: "I am worried to death with the wrangles
between military officers, high and low. They quarrel like cats and
dogs. They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay
like apes for nuts."[66]
[66] Sabine, Vol. I, pp. 139-150.
"The abandoned and profligate part of our army," wrote Washington, "lost
to every sense of honor or virtue as well as their country's good, are
by rapine and plunder spreading ruin and terror wherever they go,
thereby making themselves infinitely more to be dreaded than the common
enemy they are come to oppose. Under the idea of Tory property, or
property that may fall into the hands of the enemy, no man is secure in
his effects, and scarcely in his person."[67] American soldiers were
constantly driving innocent persons out of their homes by an alarm of
fire, or by actual incendiarism, in order more easily to plunder the
contents, and all attempts to check this atrocious practice had proved
abortive. The burning of New York was generally attributed to New
England soldiers. The efforts of the British soldiers to save the city
were remembered with gratitude, and there is little doubt that in the
city, and in the country around it, the British were looked upon not as
invaders, but as deliverers.
[67] Washington's Works, IV., 118, 119, Lecky, 257.
"Wherever the men of war have approached, our militia have most manfully
turned their backs and run away, officers and men, like sturdy fellows,
and these panics have sometimes seized the regular regiments.
"....You are told that a regiment of Yorkers behaved ill, and it may be
true; but I can tell you that several regiments of Massachusetts men
behaved ill, too. The spirit of venality you mention is the most
dreadful and alarming enemy America has to oppose. It is as rapacious
and insatiable as the grave. This predominant avarice will ruin America.
If God Almighty does not interfere by His grace to control this
universal idolatry to the mammon of unrighteousness, we shall be given
up to the chastisement of His judgments. I am ashamed of the age I live
in."[68]
[68] Letter of John Adams to His Wife, Vol. I., p. 171.
Nor was the public life of the country at that time more creditable. In
the course of the war, persons of small claims to notice or regard
obtained seats in Congress. By force of party disruptions, as was
bitterly remarked by one of the leaders, men were brought into the
management of affairs "who might have lived till the millennium in
silent obscurity had they depended upon their mental qualifications."
Gouverneur Morris was, no doubt, one of the shrewdest observers of
current events in his day, and the purity of the patriotism of John Jay
entitled him to stand by the side of Washington. One day, in a
conversation, thirty years after the second Continental Congress had
passed away, Morris exclaimed: "Jay, what a set of damned scoundrels we
had in that second Congress!" And Jay, as he knocked the ashes from his
pipe, replied: "Yes, we had."
Near the close of 1779, Congress, trying to dispel the fear that the
continental currency would not be redeemed, passed a resolution
declaring: "A bankrupt, faithless republic would be a novelty in the
political world. The pride of America revolts at the idea. Her citizens
know for what purpose these emissions were made, and have repeatedly
pledged their faith for the redemption of them." The rest of the
resolution is too coarse for quotation, even for the sake of emphasis.
In a little more than three months from the passage of that resolution a
bill was passed to refund the continental currency by issuing one dollar
of new paper money for forty of the old, and the new issue soon became
as worthless as the former emission. Indeed, the patriots repudiated
obligations to the amount of two hundred million dollars, and did it so
effectually that we still use the expression, "not worth a continental"
as a synonym for worthlessness.
It is a common belief that scurrilous and indecent attacks upon public
men by American journalists is an evil of modern growth; but this is an
error. A century ago such attacks exceeded in virulence anything that
would be possible today. Among the vilest of the lampooners of that age
were a quartette of literary hacks who for some years were engaged in
denouncing the federalist party and government. Philip Freneau owned
"_The National Gazette_," a journal that Hamilton declared disclosed "a
serious design to subvert the government." He was among the most
virulent assailants of Washington's administration, denouncing not only
the members of the cabinet, except Jefferson, but the chief himself.
Among other charges brought against him, Washington was accused of
"debauching the country" and "seeking a crown," "and all the while
passing himself off as an honest man." Benjamin F. Bache was a grandson
of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He inherited all his ancestor's duplicity,
love of intrigue, and vindictiveness, but none of his suavity and tact.
Sullen and malevolent of disposition, scarcely could he keep in accord
with men of his own party. He owned and edited "The Aurora," a paper
which in depth of malice and meanness exceeded the journal of Freneau.
He also made vicious attacks upon Washington, both in the "Aurora" and
other publications. Washington's "fame" he declared to be "spurious"; he
was "inefficient," "mischievous," "treacherous," and "ungrateful." His
"mazes of passion" and the "loathings of his sick mind" were held up to
the contempt of the people. "His sword," it was declared, "would have
been drawn against his country" had the British government given him
promotion in the army. He had, it was asserted, "cankered the principles
of republicanism" "and carried his designs against the public liberty so
far as to put in jeopardy its very existence."
William Duane, a man of Irish parentage, assisted Bache in the conduct
of the "Aurora," and upon his death, in 1798, assumed full control of
it. He was responsible for some of the most virulent attacks upon
Washington, published in that paper. Bache and Duane both received
severe castigations, administered in retaliation for abusive articles.
James Thompson Callender, who disgraced Scotland by his birth, was a
shameless and double-faced rascal. A professional lampooner, his pen was
at the service of any one willing to pay the price. He, too, had a fling
at the President, declaring that "Mr. Washington had been twice a
traitor," and deprecating "the vileness of the adulation" paid him.
In this quartette of scoundrels may be added the notorious Thomas Paine,
who, after exalting Washington to the seventh heaven of excellence, upon
being refused by him an office that to confer upon him would have
disgraced the nation, showered upon him the vilest denunciation. "As for
you, sir," he wrote, addressing him, "treacherous in private friendship,
and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide
whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned
good principles, or whether you ever had any." That these attacks upon
members of the government were the direct results of the teachings of
Jefferson there is no room for doubt. That he encouraged and supported
their authors has been proved beyond a doubt. He was one of the worst
detractors of Great Britain. For fifty years he employed his pen in
reviling the mother country. Then occurred one of the most remarkable
instances of political death-bed repentance that the annals of
statecraft have to show. He who had so often asserted that Great Britain
was a nation powerless, decrepit, lost to corruption, eternally hostile
to liberty, totally destitute of morality and good faith, and warned his
countrymen to avoid intercourse with her lest they become contaminated
by the touch; he who had yearned for her conquest by a military despot,
and proposed to burn the habitations of her citizens, like the nests of
noxious vermin, is suddenly found proclaiming "her mighty weight,"
lauding her as the protector of free government, and exhorting his
fellow citizens to "sedulously cherish a cordial friendship with her."
This change of heart was brought about by the announcement by Great
Britain of the so-called "Monroe Doctrine." In Jefferson's letter to
Monroe of October 24, 1823, he said: "The question presented by the
letters you have sent me (the letters of Mr. Rush, reciting Mr.
Canning's offer of British support against the attempt of the "Holy
Alliance" to forcibly restore the revolted Spanish-American colonies to
Spain), is the most momentous that has ever been offered to my
contemplation since that of Independence. And never could we embark
under circumstances more auspicious. By acceding to Great Britain's
proposition we detach her from the bonds, bring her mighty weight into
the scale of free government, and emancipate a continent at one stroke.
With her on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her then we
should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship."
Alexander Hamilton was a soldier of fortune of the highest type. He was
born on the island of Nevis, in the West Indies. He was of illegitimate
birth; his father was Scotch and his mother French. Endowed with a high
order of intellect, possessed of indomitable energy and passionate
ambition, he went forth into the world determined to win both.[69]
Chance threw him into the colonies at a time when the agitation for
independence was at its height. He landed at Boston in October, 1772;
thence he went to New York, where in his sixteenth year he entered
King's (now Columbia) College. At first he affiliated with the
Loyalists, but soon deserted to the Disunionists, which gave him greater
opportunities of realizing his ambitious dream. As a Loyalist the world
would never have heard of him, but as John Marshall informs us, he ranks
next to Washington as having rendered more conspicuous service to the
United States than any other man in the Revolution. A great orator, a
talented lawyer, a good soldier, master of every field he entered,
punctilious and haughty of temperament, he scorned to bend even to the
proud spirit of Washington. His position on Washington's staff was
literally a secretaryship more civil than military. It was "the
grovelling condition of a clerk," which his youthful genius revolted at.
This caused him to resign his staff appointment. Alexander Hamilton was
the deviser and establisher of the government of the United States. He
it was that framed the Constitution, who urged and secured its adoption
by the original thirteen states at a time when but a rope of sand bound
them together. To Hamilton, more than any other man, is due the fact
that the United States today form a nation. He lived long enough to see
the nation to which he gave political stability submitting itself in
entire respect and confidence to the declaration contained in the most
remarkable document ever written.
[69] In a letter written by Hamilton when he was but thirteen years of
age, employed as a clerk, he declared: "I condemn the grovelling
condition of a clerk to which my future condition condemns me, and would
willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station."
Like many of his contemporaries he was an _intrigaunt_, injuring his
health and impairing the sanctity of his home, and was destined to meet
his death at the hands of a man more dissolute than himself, and
destitute of his honorable traits of character.
Professor Sumner says: "It is astonishing how far writers kept from the
facts and evidence. This is so much the case that it is often impossible
to learn what was really the matter. The colonists first objected to
internal taxes, but consented to import duties. Then they distinguished
between import duties to regulate commerce, and import duties for
revenue. They seem to have changed their position and to be consistent
in one thing only, to pay no taxes and to rebel." After patiently
examining their pamphlets and discussions, Sumner concludes: "The
incidents of the trouble offer occasion at every step for reserve in
approving the proceedings of the colonists. We therefore come to the
conclusion that the Revolutionary leader made a dispute about the method
of raising a small amount of revenue a pretext for rending an empire
which, if united, might civilize and wisely govern the fairest portion
of the globe."
The foregoing statements are more than corroborated by a letter written
to Washington by Rev. Jacob Duche, a former rector of Christ Church,
Philadelphia, a man of great learning, eloquence, and piety, who was
appointed chaplain to the first Congress. His prayer at the opening of
the session was pronounced not only eloquent, but patriotic in the
extreme. While it was being uttered there was but one man in that whole
assembly who knelt, and that man was George Washington. When Washington
received the letter he immediately transmitted it to Congress. The
letter was in part as follows:--
Philadelphia, 8th October, 1777.
"Sir--If this letter should find you in council or in the field, before
you read another sentence I beg you to take the first opportunity of
retiring and weighing its important contents. You are perfectly
acquainted with the part I formerly took in the present unhappy contest.
I was, indeed, among the first to bear my public testimony against
having any recourse to threats, or indulging a thought of an armed
opposition.
"The current, however, was too strong for my feeble efforts to resist. I
wished to follow my countrymen as far only as virtue and the
righteousness of their cause would permit me. I was, however, prevailed
on, among the rest of my clerical brethren of this city, to gratify the
pressing desires of my fellow citizens by preaching a sermon, and
reluctantly consented. From a personal attachment of nearly twenty
years' standing and a high respect for your character, in private as
well as public life, I took the liberty of dedicating this sermon to
you. I had your affectionate thanks for my performance in a letter,
wherein was expressed, in the most delicate and obliging terms, your
regard for me, and your wishes for a continuance of my friendship and
approbation of your conduct. Further than this I intended not to
proceed. My sermon speaks for itself, and wholly disclaims the idea of
independence. My sentiments were well known to my friends. I
communicated them without reserve to many respectable members of
Congress, who expressed their warm approbation of it then. I persisted
to the very last moment to use the prayers for my Sovereign, though
threatened with insults from the violence of a party.
"Upon the declaration of independence I called my vestry and solemnly
put the question to them whether they thought it best for the peace and
welfare of the congregation to shut up the churches, or to continue the
service without using the prayers for the Royal Family. This was the sad
alternative. I concluded to abide by their decision, as I could not have
time to consult my spiritual superiors in England. They determined it
most expedient, under such critical circumstances, to keep open the
churches that the congregations might not be dispersed, which we had
great reason to apprehend.
"A very few days after the fatal declaration of independence I received
a letter from Mr. Hancock, sent by express to Germantown, where my
family were for the summer season, acquainting me I was appointed
Chaplain to the Congress, and desired my attendance next morning at nine
o'clock. Surprised and distressed as I was by an event I was not
prepared to expect, obliged to give an immediate attendance without the
opportunity of consulting my friends, I easily accepted the appointment.
I could have but one motive for taking this step. I thought the churches
in danger, and hoped by this means to have been instrumental in
preventing those ills I had so much reason to apprehend. I can, however,
with truth declare I then looked upon independence rather as an
expedient, and hazardous, or, indeed, thrown out in _terrorem_, in order
to procure some favorable terms, than a measure that was seriously
persisted in. My sudden change of conduct will clearly evince this to
have been my idea of the matter.
"Upon the return of the Committee of Congress appointed to confer with
Lord Howe I soon discerned their whole intentions. The different
accounts which each member gave of this conference, the time they took
to make up the matter for public view, and the amazing disagreements
between the newspaper accounts, and the relation I myself had from the
mouth of one of the Committee, convinced me there must have been some
unfair and ungenerous procedure. This determination to treat on no other
strain than that of independence, which put it out of his lordship's
power to mention any terms at all, was sufficient proof to me that
independence was the idol they had long wished to set up, and that
rather than sacrifice this they would deluge their country with blood.
From this moment I determined upon my resignation, and in the beginning
of October, 1776, sent it in form to Mr. Hancock, after having
officiated only two months and three weeks; and from that time, as far
as my safety would permit, I have been opposed to all their measures.
"This circumstantial account of my conduct I think due to the friendship
you were so obliging as to express for me, and I hope will be sufficient
to justify my seeming inconsistencies in the part I have acted.
"And now, dear sir, suffer me in the language of truth and real
affection to address myself to you. All the world must be convinced you
are engaged in the service of your country from motives perfectly
disinterested. You risked everything that was dear to you, abandoned the
sweets of domestic life which your affluent fortune can give the
uninterrupted enjoyment of. But had you, could you have had, the least
idea of matters being carried to such a dangerous extremity? Your most
intimate friends shuddered at the thought of a separation from the
mother country, and I took it for granted that your sentiments coincided
with theirs. What, then, can be the consequences of this rash and
violent measure and degeneracy of representation, confusion of councils,
blunders without number? The most respectable characters have withdrawn
themselves, and are succeeded by a great majority of illiberal and
violent men. Take an impartial view of the present Congress, and what
can you expect from them? Your feelings must be greatly hurt by the
representation of your native province. You have no longer a Randolph, a
Bland or a Braxton, men whose names will ever be revered, whose demands
never ran above the first ground on which they set out, and whose truly
glorious and virtuous sentiments I have frequently heard with rapture
from their own lips. Oh, my dear sir, what a sad contrast of characters
now presents! others whose friends can ne'er mingle with your own. Your
Harrison alone remains, and he disgusted with the unworthy associates.
"As to those of my own province, some of them are so obscure that their
very names were never in my ears before, and others have only been
distinguished for the weakness of their undertakings and the violence of
their tempers. One alone I except from the general charge; a man of
virtue, dragged reluctantly into their measures, and restrained by some
false ideas of honor from retreating after having gone too far. You
cannot be at a loss to discover whose name answers to this character.
"From the New England provinces can you find one that as a gentleman you
could wish to associate with, unless the soft and mild address of Mr.
Hancock can atone for his want of every other qualification necessary
for the seat which he fills? Bankrupts, attorneys, and men of desperate
fortunes are his colleagues. Maryland no longer sends a Tilghman and a
Carroll. Carolina has lost her Lynch, and the elder Middleton has
retired. Are the dregs of Congress, then, still to influence a mind like
yours? These are not the men you engaged to serve; these are not the men
that America has chosen to represent her. Most of them were chosen by a
little, low faction, and the few gentlemen that are among them now are
well known to lie on the balance, and looking up to your hand alone to
turn the beam. 'Tis you, sir, and you only, that supports the present
Congress; of this you must be fully sensible. Long before they left
Philadelphia their dignity and consequence were gone; what must it be
now since their precipitate retreat? I write with freedom, but without
invective. I know these things to be true, and I write to one whose own
observation must have convinced him that it is so.
"After this view of the Congress, turn to the army. The whole world
knows that its only existence depends upon you, that your death or
captivity disperses it in a moment, and that there is not a man on that
side--the question in America--capable of succeeding you. As to the army
itself, what have you to expect from them? Have they not frequently
abandoned you yourself in the hour of extremity? Can you have the least
confidence in a set of undisciplined men and officers, many of whom have
been taken from the lowliest of the people, without principle, without
courage? Take away them that surround your person, how very few there
are you can ask to sit at your table! As to your little navy, of that
little what is left? Of the Delaware fleet part are taken, and the rest
must soon surrender. Of those in the other provinces some are taken, one
or two at sea, and others lying unmanned and unrigged in your harbors.
"In America your harbors are blocked up, your cities fall one after
another; fortress after fortress, battle after battle is lost. A British
army, after having passed unmolested through a vast extent of country,
have possessed themselves of the Capital of America. How unequal the
contest! How fruitless the expense of blood! Under so many discouraging
circumstances, can virtue, can honor, can the love of your country
prompt you to proceed? Humanity itself, and sure humanity is no stranger
to your breast, calls upon you to desist. Your army must perish for want
of common necessaries or thousands of innocent families must perish to
support them; wherever they encamp, the country must be impoverished;
wherever they march, the troops of Britain will pursue, and must
complete the destruction which America herself has begun. Perhaps it may
be said, it is better to die than to be made slaves. This, indeed, is a
splendid maxim in theory, and perhaps in some instances may be found
experimentally true; but when there is the least probability of a happy
accommodation, surely, wisdom and humanity call for some sacrifices to
be made to prevent inevitable destruction. You well know there is but
one invincible bar to such an accommodation; could this be removed,
other obstacles might readily be removed. It is to you and you alone
your bleeding country looks and calls aloud for this sacrifice. Your arm
alone has strength sufficient to remove this bar. May Heaven inspire you
with this glorious resolution of exerting your strength at this crisis,
and immortalizing yourself as friend and guardian to your country! Your
penetrating eye needs not more explicit language to discern my meaning.
With that prudence and delicacy, therefore, of which I know you
possessed, represent to Congress the indispensable necessity of
rescinding the hasty and ill-advised declaration of independence.
Recommend, and you have an undoubted right to recommend, an immediate
cessation of hostilities. Let the controversy be taken up where that
declaration left it, and where Lord Howe certainly expected to find it
left. Let men of clear and impartial characters, in or out of Congress,
liberal in their sentiments, heretofore independent in their
fortunes--and some such may be found in America--be appointed to confer
with His Majesty's Commissioners. Let them, if they please, propose some
well-digested constitutional plan to lay before them at the commencement
of the negotiation. When they have gone thus far I am confident the
usual happy consequences will ensue--unanimity will immediately take
place through the different provinces, thousands who are now ardently
wishing and praying for such a measure will step forth and declare
themselves the zealous advocates for constitutional liberty, and
millions will bless the hero that left the field of war to decide this
most important contest with the weapons of wisdom and humanity.
"O sir, let no false ideas of worldly honor deter you from engaging in
so glorious a task! Whatever censure may be thrown out by mean,
illiberal minds, your character will rise in the estimation of the
virtuous and noble. It will appear with lustre in the annals of history,
and form a glorious contrast to that of those who have fought to obtain
conquest and gratify their own ambition by the destruction of their
species and the ruin of their country. Be assured, sir, that I write not
this under the eye of any British officer or person connected with the
British army or ministry. The sentiments I express are the real
sentiments of my own heart, such as I have long held, and which I should
have made known to you by letter before had I not fully expected an
opportunity of a private conference. When you passed through
Philadelphia on your way to Wilmington I was confined by a severe fit of
the gravel to my chamber; I have since continued much indisposed, and
times have been so very distressing that I had neither spirit to write a
letter nor an opportunity to convey it when written, nor do I yet know
by what means I shall get these sheets to your hands.
"I would fain hope that I have said nothing by which your delicacy can
be in the least hurt. If I have, I assure you it has been without the
least intention, and therefore your candor will lead you to forgive me.
I have spoken freely of Congress and of the army; but what I have said
is partly from my own knowledge and partly from the information of some
respectable members of the former and some of the best officers of the
latter. I would not offend the meanest person upon earth; what I say to
you I say in confidence to answer what I cannot but deem a most
_valuable purpose_. I love my country; I love you; but to the love of
truth, the love of peace, and the love of God, I hope I should be
enabled if called upon to the trial to sacrifice every other inferior
love.
"If the arguments made use of in this letter should have so much
influence as to engage you in the glorious work which I have warmly
recommended, I shall ever deem my success the highest temporal favor
that Providence could grant me. Your interposition and advice I am
confident would meet with a favorable reception from the authority under
which you act.
"If it should not, you have an infallible recourse still left--negotiate
for your country at the head of your army. After all, it may appear
presumption as an individual to address himself to you on a subject of
such magnitude, or to say what measures would best secure the interest
and welfare of a whole continent. The friendly and favorable opinion you
have always expressed for me emboldens me to undertake it, and which has
greatly added to the weight of this motive. I have been strongly
impressed with a sense of duty upon the occasion, which left my
conscience uneasy and my heart afflicted till I fully discharged it. I
am no enthusiast; the course is new and singular to me; but I could not
enjoy one moment's peace till this letter was written. With the most
ardent prayers for your spiritual as well as temporal welfare, I am your
most obedient and humble friend and servant,
Jacob Duche."
The estimation in which Mr. Duche was held before he wrote this letter,
by John Adams, who was not particularly friendly to Episcopalians, who
as a class were Loyalists (although Washington was one), is here shown.
Adams says: "Mr. Duche is one of the most ingenuous men, and of best
character, and greatest orator in the Episcopal order upon this
continent; yet a zealous friend of liberty and his country."[70]
[70] Letters of John Adams to His Wife, Vol. I., p. 24.
In the cold light of truth it now seems quite clear that Americans took
up arms before they were in any real danger of oppression, and George
III. was persuaded to concede more than all their reasonable demands,
but yielded too late to save the integrity of the empire.
We are taught in many of our histories that George III. was a tyrant,
seeking to establish despotism, and that Washington rescued and
preserved Anglo-Saxon liberty, not only in America, but wherever it
existed in the British domains; but this is too extravagant a compliment
to the king. We may admit that he was a respectable man in private life,
that he acted on principle, as he understood it, in his public career,
and that he had some princely accomplishments, but was far from a great
man. Certainly he was not in the class of conqueror, nor was he able to
commit "a splendid crime." His mother was ever croaking in his ears:
"George, be a king!" Thackeray gives us a touching account of the king's
last years. All history, he tells us, presents no sadder picture. It is
too terrible for tears. Driven from his throne, buffeted by rude hands,
his children in revolt, his ending was as pitiful and awful as that of
King Lear. In a lucid moment the Queen entered his room and found him
singing and playing on a musical instrument. When he had finished he
knelt and prayed for her and for his family, and for the nation, and
last for himself. And then tears began to flow down his cheeks, and his
reason fled again. Caesar, Henry VIII., and Napoleon tried to establish
a dynasty of despots, and failed. As we glance at the figure of George
III. and recall the traits of his character, we see that Anglo-Saxon
civilization or liberty was in no danger of permanent injury from the
last king of England who tried to reign.
As we review the conflict we are apt to forget that the Americans were
not alone in their efforts to throw off the restraint of law and
authority of the government during the twenty years preceding the
surrender at Yorktown; Wilkes, "Junius," and Lord George Gordon
surpassed the efforts of Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, and Crispus Attucks,
to make life unpleasant for King George. Mobs surged about the streets
of London as they did in Boston, defying the law, destroying property,
and disturbing the public peace. The house of Lord Mansfield, chief
justice of England, was wrecked and burned to the ground in the same
manner as the home of Thomas Hutchinson, chief justice of Massachusetts,
was wrecked and pillaged. Both mobs claimed to act "on principle," and
there is a curious likeness in the details of these two acts of
violence. It was an age of insurrection, with no political genius able,
or in a position, to direct the storm. During the Wilkes riots, in 1768,
the civil power in England was reduced to extreme weakness. Lecky tells
us "there were great fears that all the bulwarks of order would yield to
the strain," and Franklin, then in London, said that if Wilkes had
possessed a good character and the king a bad one, Wilkes would have
driven George III. from the throne. In 1780, during the Gordon riots,
chaos came again to London, and all England was threatened with anarchy.
The time was out of joint on both continents, and George III. was not
born to set it right. We may be sure there is something more serious
than glory in all this turmoil that embittered the most beneficent of
civilizing races. Whoever examines the dispute with impartial care, will
probably perceive that the time had come for a new adjustment of the
constitutional relations of the several parts of the British Empire, but
the temper of George III. and the disorderly elements, active both in
England and America, were unfavorable to rational treatment of the great
problem.
Early in the Revolution it was considered necessary, in order to insure
its success, to obtain aid and recognition from the French.
Mr. Silas Deane, of Connecticut, and three agents, were sent to France
to feel the pulse of the king and nation upon the subject. They,
however, neither acknowledged the agents nor directed them to leave the
kingdom.
It was not so with individuals, among whom was M. Beaumarchais, who, on
his own account and credit, furnished the United States with twenty
thousand stand of arms and one thousand barrels of powder of one hundred
pounds weight each. Ten thousand of the muskets were landed at
Portsmouth, N. H., and the remainder in some southern State. The first
opportunity of testing the qualities of the new French muskets occurred
September 19, 1777, which engagement led up to the battle of Saratoga
October 7, which terminated in the convention with Burgoyne October 17,
1777. Major Caleb Stark, the eldest son of Gen. John Stark, who was
present in these actions, says: "I firmly believe that unless these arms
had been thus timely furnished to the Americans, Burgoyne would have
made an easy march to Albany. What then? My pen almost refuses to record
the fact that these arms have never been paid for to this day. When the
war ended, application was made to Congress for payment, which was
refused on the frivolous pretext that they were a present from the
French king. The claim was referred to the United States
attorney-general, who reported in substance that he could find no
evidence of their having been paid for, or that they were presented as a
gift by the court of France.
"Supposing the most favorable plea of Congress to be true, that there
was an underhand connivance by France to furnish the arms, or the king
had thought proper to deny it, is it just or magnanimous for the United
States to refuse payment? Suppose the arms were clearly a 'gift'
bestowed upon us in our poverty, ought not a high-minded people to
restore the value of that gift with ten-fold interest, when their
benevolent friend has become poor, and they have waxed wealthy and
strong?
"Congress, skulking behind their sovereignty, still refused payment. Yet
the cries of Beaumarchais, reduced to poverty by the French Revolution,
have not been heeded."[71]
[71] Memoir of Gen. John Stark, by his son Caleb Stark, pp. 356-7-8.
The action of Congress concerning the Saratoga Convention was equally
base. The whole number of prisoners surrendered by Burgoyne was 5791.
The force of the Americans was, according to a statement which Gates
furnished to Burgoyne, 13,222. The terms of the Convention was that
Burgoyne's troops were to march out of their camp with all the honors of
war, the artillery to be moved to the banks of the Hudson, and there to
be left, together with the soldiers' arms; that a free passage should be
granted the troops to Great Britain, on condition of their not serving
again during the war; that the army should march to the neighborhood of
Boston by the most expeditious and convenient route, and not delayed
when transport should arrive to receive them; that every care should be
taken for the proper subsistence of the troops till they should be
embarked. Although Congress ratified the terms of the Convention entered
into by General Burgoyne and Gates, yet they violated them in the most
perfidious manner. Many Americans now regard this as the most
disgraceful act ever perpetrated by the United States. There was not the
slightest excuse for this treachery. When the British ministry charged
Congress with positive perfidy, Congress added insult to injury by
charging the ministry with "meditated perfidy," for they "believed the
British would break their parole if released." After the arrival of the
troops at Boston they were quartered at Cambridge, where they were
subjected to the most cruel and inhuman treatment. Officers and soldiers
were shot down and bayoneted in the most cold-blooded manner without the
slightest provocation. If the officers resented any insults, they were
sent to Worcester and treated as felons. They were charged the most
exorbitant prices for food. Burgoyne alone was allowed to go home on
parole; all the other officers and men were marched into the interior of
Virginia, where they were kept in confinement for five years.[72]
[72] "Travels Through the Interior Parts of America," by Thomas Aubury.
There is probably not one American in a thousand that knows the origin
and meaning of Washington's advice to his countrymen against entering
into "entangling foreign alliances," and the often quoted phrase:
"French Spoliation Claims," and yet the two are inseparably connected,
and form a most important phase in the early history of the United
States. American historians have passed over this episode, fearing that
it would bring odium on the "Fathers of the Revolution." By the treaty
made by Franklin with France, in which she recognized the United States
and by which means American independence was secured, it was agreed that
the United States should assist France in foreign complications in which
she might be involved, and furthermore to protect her possessions in the
West Indies. This was the first treaty made by the United States. When
the time came for putting these pledges into force, the United States
refused to act.
"The expense of the war of the Revolution was as much, if not more, to
France, than to the United States, and it is a matter of historical
truth that the expenses incurred in this war by France bankrupted the
nation and hurried on the terrible events which convulsed the world from
the commencement of the French Revolution until the battle of Waterloo.
During all this distress and disaster, the Americans were chuckling in
their sleeves, and wasting the treasures of the old world to embellish
the half-fledged cities of the new world. Gratitude is a virtue often
spoken of with apparent sincerity, but not so frequently exhibited in
practice." This is the language of a well-known Revolutionary
officer.[73] Therefore, the United States acted in a most shameful and
disgraceful manner in violating the first treaty she ever entered into,
through which she secured her independence; she did not give the French
that assistance she had agreed to give by treaty, but remained neutral
and indifferent, while England seized upon the larger part of the French
colonies in the West Indies. The base ingratitude of the United States
exasperated the French, so they issued orders to seize and destroy
American property wherever found. Several naval engagements between the
late allies ensued, and 898 vessels were seized by the French government
or were destroyed by its cruisers, prior to the year 1800. Hence, when
Ellsworth, Van Murray and Davie, the commissioners appointed by the
United States to negotiate with France, and to settle the dispute, asked
for damages for the seizure and destruction of American vessels, the
French foreign minister turned upon them with the assertion that in
performing her part of the Franklin treaty of 1778, France had spent
$28,000,000, and had sacrificed the lives of thousands of her people,
simply for the purpose of gaining the independence for the United
States. All it had asked had been the friendship and assistance of the
United States in the manner provided in this treaty. Instead of meeting
these claims and requiting the generosity of France in the way such
conduct deserved, the United States had ignored its obligations, and now
came forward and advanced a petty claim for money, utterly forgetful of
how much France had sacrificed in its behalf.
[73] "Letter of Major Caleb Stark in Memoir of General John Stark," p.
364.
As might be supposed, there was no answer that could be made to this
assertion, and hence the new treaty then drawn up, in which the two
states agreed to renounce respectively whatever pretensions they might
have had to claims one against the other, was ratified by the Senate,
and promulgated by President Jefferson December 21, 1801, thus
relieving France of all responsibility for damages caused by her
cruisers prior to 1800, and throwing the responsibility of liquidating
these demands upon the United States government--a responsibility it
succeeded in avoiding for a hundred years, as it succeeded in avoiding
the demands which the French government could and did make upon it to
defend French West India possessions. These were the "entangling foreign
alliances" referred to by Washington.
Bills granting payment of these claims, which originally amounted to
$12,676,000, passed Congress twice, and were vetoed first by President
Polk and then by President Pierce. If ever there was a just claim
brought before Congress, these French spoliation claims deserve the
title, and it is a historical disgrace to the government of the United
States that the payment of them was delayed for nearly a hundred
years.[74]
[74] During Cleveland's administrations a bill was passed allowing
claimants to present claims for adjudication to the amount of their face
value. If interest was added, they would exceed $100,000,000. The owners
of the 898 vessels destroyed, who were called upon to make this
sacrifice as a means of relieving the government from a great
responsibility, in many cases were reduced to poverty by the duplicity
of the government, and even now with this scant justice, there are many
that find it very difficult to prove their claim, so long a time has
elapsed, and many are dead without legal representation.