CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
A vast amount of debt, as is always the case with war, was the result of
the late contests in America. With peace, the costs of the struggle
began to be reckoned. The colonies had lost, by disease or the sword,
above 30,000 men; and their debt amounted to about £4,000,000,
Massachusetts alone having been reimbursed by parliament. The popular
power had, however, grown in various ways; the colonial assemblies had
resisted the claims of the royal and proprietary governors to the
management and irresponsible expenditure of the large sums which were
raised for the war, and thus the executive influence became transferred
in considerable degree from the governors to the colonial assemblies.
Another, and still more dangerous result, was the martial spirit which
had sprung up, and the discovery of the powerful means which the
colonists held in their hands for settling any disputed points of
authority and right with the mother-country. The colonies had of late
been a military college to her citizens, in which, though they had
performed the hardest service and had been extremely offended and
annoyed by the superiority assumed by the British officers and their own
subordination, yet they had been well trained, and had learned their own
power and resources. The conquest of New France, in great measure, cost
England her colonies.
England, at the close of the war—at the close, in fact, of four wars
within seventy years—found herself burdened with a debt of £140,000,000;
and as it was necessary now to keep a standing army in her colonies, to
defend and maintain her late conquests, the scheme of colonial taxation
to provide a regular and certain revenue began again to be agitated.
Already England feared the growing power and independence of her
colonies, and even at one moment hesitated as to whether it were not
wiser to restore Canada to France, in order that the proximity of a
powerful rival might keep them in check and secure their dependence on
the mother-country. As far as the colonists themselves were concerned,
we are assured by their earlier historians that the majority had no idea
of or wish to separate themselves from England, and that the utmost
which they contemplated by the conquest of Canada, was the freedom from
French and Indian wars, and that state of tranquil prosperity which
would leave them at liberty to cultivate and avail themselves of the
productions and resources of an affluent land. The true causes which
slowly alienated the colonies from the parent state may be traced back
to the early encroachments on their civil rights and the restrictive
enactments against their commerce.
The Americans were a bold and independent people from the beginning.
They came to the shores of the New World, the greater and better part of
them, republicans in feeling and principle. “They were men who scoffed
at the right of kings, and looked upon rulers as public servants bound
to exercise their authority for the benefit of the governed, and ever
maintained that it is the inalienable right of the subject freely to
give his money to the crown or to withhold it at his discretion.” Such
were the Americans in principle, yet were they bound to the
mother-country by old ties of affection, and by no means wishful to rush
into rebellion. It was precisely the case of the son grown to years of
discretion, whom an unreasonable parent seeks still to coerce, until the
hitherto dutiful, though clear-headed and resolute son, violently breaks
the bonds of parental authority and asserts the independence of his
manhood. The human being would have been less worthy in submission; the
colonies would have belied the strong race which planted them, had they
done otherwise.
England believed that she had a right to dictate and change the
government of the colonies at her pleasure, and to regulate and restrict
their commerce; and for some time this was, if not patiently submitted
to, at least allowed. The navigation acts declared that, for the benefit
of British shipping, no merchandise from the English colonies should be
imported into England excepting by English vessels; and, for the benefit
of English manufacturers, prohibited exportation from the colonies, nor
allowed articles of domestic manufacture to be carried from one colony
to another; she forbade hats, at one time, to be made in the colony,
where beaver abounded; at another, that any hatter should have above two
apprentices at one time; she subjected sugar, rum and molasses to
exorbitant duties on importation; she forbade the erection of iron-works
and the preparation of steel; or the felling of pitch and white
pine-trees unless in enclosed lands. To some of these laws, though felt
to be an encroachment on their rights, the colonies submitted patiently;
others, as for instance, the duties on sugar and molasses, they evaded
and opposed in every possible way, and the British authorities, from the
year 1733, when these duties were first imposed, to 1761, made but
little resistance to this opposition. At this latter date, however,
George III. having then ascended the throne, and being, as Charles
Townshend described him, “a very obstinate young man,” it was determined
to enforce this law, and “writs of assistance,” in other words,
search-warrants, were issued, by means of which the royal custom-house
officers were authorised to search for goods which had been imported
without the payment of duty. The people of Boston opposed and resented
these measures; and their two most eminent lawyers, Oxenbridge Thatcher
and James Otis, expressed the public sentiment in the strongest
language. Spite of search-warrants and official vigilance, the payment
of these duties was still evaded, and smuggling increased to a great
extent, while the colonial trade with the West Indies was nearly
destroyed.
In 1764 the sugar-duties were somewhat reduced, as a boon to the
colonies, but new duties were imposed on articles which had hitherto
been imported free; at the same time, Lord Grenville proposed a new
impost in the form of a stamp-tax. All pamphlets, almanacs, newspapers;
all bonds, notes, leases, policies of insurance, together with all
papers used for legal purposes, in order to be valid, were to be drawn
on stamped paper, to be purchased only from the king’s officers
appointed for that purpose. This plan met with the entire approbation of
the British parliament, but its enactment was deferred until the
following year, in order that the colonies might have an opportunity of
expressing their feelings on the subject. Though deference was thus
apparently paid to their wishes, the intention of the British government
was no longer concealed. The preamble of the bill openly avowed the
intention of raising a revenue from “His Majesty’s dominions in
America;” the same act gave increased power to the admiralty-courts, and
provided more stringent means for enforcing the payment of duties and
punishing their evasion.
The colonies received the news of these proposed measures with strong
indignation. Massachusetts instructed her agent in London to deny the
right of parliament to impose duties and taxes on a people who were not
represented in the House of Commons. “If we are not represented,” said
they, “we are slaves.” A combination of all the colonies for the defence
of their common interests was suggested.
Otis, who had published a pamphlet on Colonial Rights, seeing the tide
of public indignation rising very high, inculcated “obedience” and “the
duty of submission,” but this was not a doctrine which the Americans
were then in a state of mind to listen to. Better suited to their
feeling was Thatcher’s pamphlet against all parliamentary taxation.
Rhode Island expressed the same; so did Maryland, by their secretary of
the province; so did Virginia, by a leading member of her House of
Burgesses.[11] Strong as the expression of resentment was in the
colonies, addresses in a much milder strain were prepared to the king
and parliament from most of them, New York alone expressing boldly and
decidedly the true nature of her feelings, the same tone being
maintained by Rhode Island.
[Illustration: STAMP ACT RIOTS.]
But the minds of the British monarch and his ministers were not to be
influenced either by the remonstrances and pleadings of the colonies or
their agents in London, or of their few friends in parliament.
Grenville, the minister, according to pre-arrangement, brought in his
bill for collecting a stamp-tax in America, and it passed the House of
Commons five to one, and in the House of Lords there was neither
division on the subject nor the slightest opposition. This act was to
come into operation on the 1st day of November of the same year. It was
on the occasion of its discussion in the House of Commons, that Colonel
Barre, who had fought with Wolfe at Louisburg and Quebec, electrified
the house with his burst of eloquence in reply to one of the ministers
who spoke of the colonists as “children planted by our care, nourished
by our indulgence, and protected by our arms.” “They planted by your
care!” retorted Barre. “No; your oppression planted them in America.
They nourished by your indulgence! They grew up by your neglect of them.
They protected by your arms! Those sons of liberty have nobly taken up
arms in your defence. I claim to know more of America than most of you,
having been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as
truly loyal subjects as the king has, but a people jealous of their
liberties, and who will vindicate them should they ever be violated.”
The day after the Stamp Act had passed the house, Benjamin Franklin,
then in London as agent for Philadelphia, wrote the news to his friend,
Charles Thompson. “The sun of liberty,” said he, “is set; you must light
up the candles of industry and economy.” “We shall light up torches of
quite another kind,” was the reply.
Anticipating opposition to this unpopular measure, a new clause was
introduced in the Mutiny Act, authorising the sending of any number of
troops into the colonies, which, by an especial enactment, were to be
found with “quarters, fire-wood, bedding, drink, soap and candles,” by
the colonists.
The news of the passage of the Stamp Act called forth a universal burst
of indignation. At Boston and Philadelphia the bells were muffled, and
rung a funeral peal; at New York the act was carried through the streets
with a death’s head affixed to it, and labelled, “The folly of England
and the ruin of America.”[12]
The House of Assembly was sitting when the news reached Virginia, and
the leading aristocratic members hesitated to express an opinion.
Several days passed, and nothing was said; but the popular sentiment
found an utterance from the lips of Patrick Henry, a young lawyer and
member of the Assembly, who introduced a series of resolutions, which
were, in fact, the key-note to all that followed. The first four
resolutions asserted the rights and privileges of the colonists; the
last denied the authority of any power whatsoever, excepting their own
provincial Assembly, to impose taxes upon them, and denounced any person
as an enemy to the colonies, who should by writing or speaking maintain
the contrary. These strong resolutions led to a hot debate, during which
Henry, carried away by the fervour of his patriotism, styled the king of
England a tyrant. “Cæsar,” said he, “had his Brutus; Charles I. his
Cromwell; and George III.——” the cry of “Treason! Treason!” interrupted
him—“and George III.,” continued the corrected orator, “may profit by
their example. If that be treason, make the most of it!” Spite of strong
opposition, the resolutions passed; the last and most emphatic, by only
the majority of one vote. The next day, in the absence of Henry, it was
rescinded. But the whole had already gone to Philadelphia in manuscript,
and soon circulating through the colonies, met with a warm response, and
gave an impetus to the popular feeling.
Before the proceedings in Virginia were known in Massachusetts, the
General Court had met, and a convention or congress of deputies from the
various colonial houses of representatives was called “to meet at New
York on the first Tuesday in October, to consult on the difficulties in
which the colonies were and must be placed by the late acts of
parliament levying duties and taxes upon them;” and further, “to
consider of a general and humble address to his majesty and the
parliament, to implore relief.”
In the meantime the popular feeling grew in intensity, and public
meetings were held throughout the colonies—a new feature in colonial
history,—and inflammatory speeches made, and associations formed, and
resolutions agreed upon, to resist to the utmost this detested
measure, which was stated to be “unconstitutional and subversive of
their dearest rights.” Nor were they contented with talking merely.
Associations, under the name of “Sons of Liberty,” a phrase taken from
Colonel Barre’s famous speech, were formed in Connecticut, New York,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who proceeded to express
the popular sentiment in a very forcible manner. The stamp-officers in
all these provinces were either compelled or persuaded to renounce
their appointments; the stamps were seized and burned, and in Boston
scenes even of disgraceful violence occurred. Public meetings were
held under a large elm-tree, in an open space in the city, which hence
took the name of the “Liberty Tree;” the effigies of such as were
considered friends of the British government were hanged in its
branches, beneath which inflammatory speeches were made. The house of
Oliver, appointed stamp-distributor of Massachusetts, was attacked,
the windows broken, and the furniture destroyed, and he compelled to
resign. A violent sermon was preached against the Stamp Act, and this
excited the mob still further; many houses of the public officers were
attacked and destroyed, together with private papers and public
records, as was particularly the case at the house of Hutchinson, the
lieutenant-governor, whose furniture was piled into bonfires, the
flames of which were fed with invaluable manuscripts, the carefully
collected historical records of thirty years. These acts of violence
were of course committed by such ignorant mobs as are the product of
all periods of popular excitement. The respectable inhabitants of
Boston expressed their “abhorrence,” and a civic guard was organised
to prevent their recurrence; nevertheless the offenders passed
unpunished, whence it may be inferred that “the respectability” of
Boston did not quarrel with the spirit of their proceedings.
And now, on October 7th, the first Colonial Congress met at New York;
twenty-eight delegates being present from nine colonies; among these
were Timothy Ruggles, president, Otis, of Massachusetts, William
Johnson, of Connecticut, Philip Livingstone, of New York, John
Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, John M‘Kean, of Delaware, Christopher
Gadsden and John Rutledge, of South Carolina—all names afterwards
distinguished in the revolution. After mature deliberation, “a
Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies” was drawn up,
in which all the rights and privileges of Englishmen were claimed as the
birthright of the colonists; one of the most important of which was an
exemption from all taxation, except such as was imposed by their own
consent and by their own representatives. A petition to the king and
parliament was also prepared, in which the cause of the colonies was
eloquently pleaded.
These proceedings were sanctioned by all the representatives, excepting
Ruggles, the president, and Ogden, of New Jersey, both of whom refused
to sign, on the plea of the approbation of their several assemblies
being first required. The petition and memorials, signed by the other
delegates, were transmitted to England, and all the other colonies gave
in their approval immediately afterwards.
On the important 1st of November, the day on which the Stamp Act came
into operation, scarcely a sheet of all the many bales of stamped paper
which had been sent out to the colonies was to be found. They had either
been destroyed or shipped back to England. The day was observed as one
of public mourning; shops were closed, vessels displayed their flags
half-mast high, processions paraded the streets, and every means was
used to show the public disapprobation. The very terms of the act
caused, in the present state of the popular mind, a suspension of the
whole machinery of the social state. Business for the time was at an
end; the courts of law were closed; marriages could not take place, nor
could the affairs of the dead be legally settled. This was a state,
however, which could not continue, and by degrees things fell into their
usual course, without any regard to the act of parliament at all.
On the 6th of November, a public meeting of the more influential
inhabitants of Boston formed a combination of retaliation on Great
Britain. The purport of this was, that no goods should be imported from
England nor used by the colonies. The women entered into the scheme with
the utmost enthusiasm. All British manufactures were foresworn, and
every kind of domestic manufacture was to be encouraged. In order to
promote the home manufacture of woollen cloths, it was determined for
the present to eat neither mutton nor lamb, that the American flocks
might thus be allowed to increase. By these means it was intended that
the trade with Great Britain should be destroyed.
England received the news with mingled alarm and displeasure.
Nevertheless, a change having taken place in the ministry, Lord
Grenville being succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham, a party more
favourable to America was in power; and it was now, therefore, evident
to all that one of two measures must be immediately taken—either the
odious Stamp Act must be repealed, or the colonies must be compelled to
obedience by force of arms. The former was the wiser course, and a
strong party now existed to advocate it. Angry debates began in the
British senate on the subject. Lord Grenville’s party opposed repeal,
which Pitt in the House of Commons, and Lord Camden in the House of
Lords, as warmly advocated. “You have no right,” said Pitt, addressing
the house, “to tax America. We are told that America is obstinate—is
almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. Three
millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as to
voluntarily submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make
slaves of all the rest. The Americans have been wronged. They have been
driven to madness by injustice. Let this country be the first to resume
its prudence and temper. I will pledge my word for the colonies, that on
their part animosity and resentment will cease!”
Franklin, summoned to the bar of the house as a witness, declared that
the act could never be enforced; and the bill for the repeal was carried
in the Commons. In the House of Lords it met with great opposition. Lord
Camden advocated the cause of the colonies with great eloquence. “My
position is this,” said he—“I repeat it, I will maintain it to my last
hour—taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is
founded on the law of nature. It is more—it is itself an eternal law of
nature; for whatever is a man’s own is absolutely his own; no man has a
right to take it from him without his consent. Whoever attempts to do it
attempts an injury; whoever does it commits a robbery.”
The bill for repeal passed, but it was accompanied by another, called
“the Declaratory Act,” which was intended to save the national honour by
avowing the principle “that parliament had a right to bind the colonies
in all cases whatever.”
The repeal of the Stamp Act caused great joy in London to the merchants,
manufacturers, and friends of America. In America it was received by a
general outburst of loyalty and gratitude. A general thanksgiving was
appointed; statues to Pitt and even to the king were voted, and erected
in various places. Pitt became more than ever the idol of the colonies;
and thanks were voted to him by most of the colonial assemblies.
The rejoicing, however, was only of short duration. The Declaratory Act
made known the principle of action which it was intended to pursue
towards the colonies, and accordingly the following year its operation
commenced. Again the ministry was changed; and though Pitt, now Earl of
Chatham, was at the head of affairs, and Lord Camden had a seat in the
cabinet, advantage was taken of Chatham’s illness, and Charles
Townshend, now Chancellor of the Exchequer and a former member of
Grenville’s ministry, brought in a bill for taxing all tea, glass, paper
and painters’ colours, imported into the colonies. This bill being
supposed less objectionable than the Stamp Act, passed the two houses
with but little opposition. Nor was this all; a standing army was to be
maintained in the colonies, and permanent salaries provided for the
governors and judges, so as to make them independent of the colonial
assemblies; while a third act empowered the naval officers to act as
custom-house officers, armed with authority to enforce the trade and
navigation acts. Punishment was also inflicted on New York and Georgia
for their disregard of the late Quartering Act; the legislative assembly
of New York was suspended until his majesty’s troops were provided with
supplies at the expense of the colony, and the troops were withdrawn
from Georgia for the same cause, leaving her exposed to the incursions
of Indians and the insurrection of negroes, which soon brought her to
submission.
The passing of these bills in such quick succession left the Americans
no longer in doubt of the line of policy which it was intended by
England to adopt towards them, and the excitement and indignation which
they occasioned equalled that produced by the Stamp Act. The colonial
assemblies met, and the strongest dissatisfaction was expressed.
Pamphlets circulated briskly, and the newspapers, now about
five-and-twenty in number, entered boldly on the subject of colonial
rights. The “Letters of a Pennsylvanian Farmer to the Inhabitants of the
British Colonies,” written by John Dickinson, flew from one end of the
colonies to the other. Franklin caused an edition to be published even
in London. The object of Dickinson’s letters was to show how dangerous
was the precedent of allowing parliamentary taxation in any form or to
any extent whatever.
Again meetings were held and associations formed for the support and
encouragement of home manufactures, and against the use and importation
of British goods. This movement, which commenced in Boston, extended
throughout the province, and the example was followed in Providence, New
York and Philadelphia. In New Hampshire the non-importation agreement
was not so warmly seconded, owing to the influence of the governor,
Wentworth, while in Connecticut, under William Pitkin, the governor and
an ardent patriot, it met with universal acceptation.
The assembly of Massachusetts invited by circular the co-operation of
the other provinces for the maintenance of colonial rights; the prime
movers in this measure being Thomas Cushing, the speaker of the House of
Assembly, James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Joseph Hawley, all
men of character and great influence. Otis was a lawyer; Cushing,
descended from an old Puritan line in the colony; Adams, a stern Puritan
likewise, educated for the ministry, but forced by circumstances to
become a merchant—he had, however, been unsuccessful as such, and after
various reverses and changes was now an active politician and patriot, a
man though poor, and whose wife by her industry supported the family,
yet who exercised an extraordinary influence upon the fate of his
country. Hancock, the youngest of this patriot band, was a wealthy
merchant, descended from a line of merchants, “young, gay, of winning
manners, with a strong love of popular approbation.” “Hancock,” says
Hildreth, “acted very much under the guidance of Adams, who saw the
policy of putting him forward as a leader.” Hawley was a member of
Northampton County, a lawyer by profession, a man of sound judgment,
religious feeling, and unimpeachable character. The leader in the House
of Representatives at this time was James Bowdoin, the grandson of a
French Huguenot, whose father from the smallest beginnings had become
the most opulent man in Boston, his immense wealth being inherited by
his son and only child at one-and-twenty; he, too, acted under the
direction of Adams.
The revenue officers no sooner began to enforce the collection of
duties, than, as might be expected in the existing state of public
feeling, they found themselves violently opposed by the merchants.
Before long, also, the sloop Liberty, belonging to Hancock, being seized
on the charge of having smuggled goods on board, the smothered fires
burst into open flame. The populace rose, and the terrified revenue
officers fled for their lives to the barracks on Castle Island, at the
mouth of the harbour.
About the same time orders were received from England that “the
Circular,” issued by the last court, and which had given great offence,
should be rescinded, and great disapprobation was expressed in his
majesty’s name of “that rash and hasty proceeding.” But the circular had
already gone forth, and by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen the House
of Assembly refused to rescind. Orders had also been received by all the
other colonies, desiring them to pay no attention to this offensive
circular; but Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, and Georgia, had
already committed themselves to it; and Maryland and New York, instead
of obedience, now put forth remonstrances of their own.
Still was New York in contention with the governor on the subject of the
quartering of the troops, when General Gage, commander-in-chief of the
British forces in America, at the request of Bernard, the governor, who
had complained to England of the tumultuous and refractory character of
the people of Boston, was ordered to establish a military force in the
city, to keep the inhabitants in order, as well as to aid the revenue
officers in performing their duties. Two additional regiments were in
consequence sent over from England. Late in September they arrived, and
with muskets charged, and fixed bayonets, marched in as to a conquered
town. The people, however, remained refractory; nor, though ships of war
were in their harbour, and 1,000 armed men in their streets, would they
submit to find them quarters. At length the discomfited governor was
compelled to yield; one regiment encamped on Boston common, and the
State-house was thrown open for the accommodation of the rest. It was
Sunday when all this happened, and as the State-house stood opposite the
great church, the inhabitants were disagreeably disturbed in their
worship by the beating of drums and the marching of the troops, only to
find themselves challenged by sentinels stationed in the street on their
way home. These were not circumstances calculated to mollify the popular
resentment; the most irritating language passed between the soldiers and
the citizens, and the public excitement increased daily.
The news of this reception given to the troops, which was transmitted to
England both by Gage and Governor Bernard, caused an equally violent
excitement in England. Parliament declared the conduct of Massachusetts
to be “illegal, unconstitutional, and derogatory to the rights of the
crown and of parliament, and urged upon the king, that the governor
should be ordered to obtain all information regarding this treason, and
to send suspected persons over to England for trial, under an old
statute of Henry VIII., for the punishment of treasons committed out of
the kingdom.” And a bill to the same effect, spite of the opposition of
Barre, Burke, and Pownall, was immediately passed.
Every new step now taken, either by the colonies or the mother-country,
increased the distance between them. The news of these instructions
called forth immediately the most decisive expression of opinion from
the colonial assemblies. The Virginian Assembly, in which Thomas
Jefferson now first distinguished himself, and which was sitting when
these tidings reached, passed a resolution denying boldly the king’s
right, either to tax the colonies without their consent, or to remove an
offender out of the country for trial. As soon as Lord Boutetout, the
governor, heard of this, he dissolved the assembly, but the members,
instead of submitting, resumed their sittings in a private house, and
choosing Peyton Randolph as their speaker, passed resolutions, drawn up
by Colonel Washington, against the use of British goods. Their example
was followed, and the “non-importation agreement” of Boston, Salem and
New York, now became general. In North Carolina the assembly was also
dissolved, as well as in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, indeed, the
military still occupying the town of Boston and the State-house, the
rupture became so violent, that when Sir Francis Bernard communicated to
the assembly his intention of going to England, to represent to
parliament the disaffected state of the province, the assembly drew up a
petition praying that he might be removed for ever from the government
of the province, and denouncing, in the strongest terms, the fact of a
standing army being maintained among them in a time of peace, and
against their express desire. Leaving the administration in the hands of
Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, Bernard departed.
In the following year, 1770, an event occurred at Boston, which caused
great excitement throughout America. An affray having taken place
between some citizens and soldiers, the populace became greatly
exasperated, and on the 5th of March, a crowd insulted the city guard
under Captain Preston, and dared them to fire. The soldiers fired, three
of the people were killed, and others seriously wounded. At once the
whole city was roused, and thousands appeared in arms. After great
difficulty, and by promise that justice should be done them on the
morrow, the lieutenant-governor succeeded in appeasing the tumult.
Captain Preston and his company were tried for murder; two of the most
distinguished American lawyers and patriots, John Adams and Josiah
Quincy, very nobly volunteering their services in their defence. Two of
the soldiers were convicted of manslaughter, the rest were acquitted;
but this circumstance only tended to increase the ill-feeling between
the citizens and the soldiers.[13]
On the very day of the outrage at Boston, Lord North, who was now at the
head of the British administration, brought in a bill for the repeal of
the detestable Quartering Act, and the removal of all the late offensive
duties, excepting those on tea. It was time, in fact, to do something,
as during the last year the amount produced by these very taxes had been
swallowed up in their collection; British trade with the colonies was
nearly at an end, and the military expenses amounted within the same
period to £170,000. But even this conciliatory measure could do little.
The Americans would accept nothing which still recognised the principle
that parliament had a right to tax the provinces, and _tea_ became now
an article especially marked out by the non-importation agreements.
The concessions of government were not, however, without their effect in
America; two parties began now to exist; those who inclined to
moderation and adherence to the mother-country, called _Tories_, and the
opponents, _Whigs_. In New York the party of Tories was strong, being
composed of wealthy merchants, and members of the Church of England.
These having power in the assembly, which now, after a suspension of two
years, was allowed to meet again, submitted to the “Quartering Act,” and
provided for the soldiers, to the extreme disgust of the patriots and
sons of Liberty, at whose head was a wealthy merchant, Alexander
M‘Dougall, a man who had raised himself by his own energy from poverty,
and who was afterwards a major-general in the revolutionary army. This
man having expressed his views very strongly, was imprisoned by the
assembly, thus glad to show their zeal and loyalty, and M‘Dougall became
at once a popular hero and martyr, and his prison the gathering-place of
patriots.
The non-importation and non-consumption agreements led to results of a
beneficial character in social life which had not been contemplated. The
senseless pomp of mourning and funeral expenses in which the colonists
had indulged was discontinued; American manufactures were stimulated,
“home-made was the fashion; and in 1770, the graduating students at
Cambridge took their degrees in home-spun suits.”
As we have before said, every successive act of Britain only served to
alienate still more the hearts of her colonies. In 1772, parliament
provided for the maintenance of the governor and judges of Massachusetts
out of the royal revenues of the province, independent of the colonial
assembly, and this was resented as an intended bribe to the governor and
an infraction of their rights. Public meetings were again held
throughout Massachusetts, and corresponding committees were formed,
whose business was to discuss and consider the rights of the colonists
and to communicate and publish the result. In the following year these
committees commenced operation in New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland, as well as in Massachusetts.
These, “the nurseries of independence,” gave again great offence in
England.
During June of the same year, the Gaspe, an armed revenue schooner,
which had been a great cause of annoyance in Narrangansett Bay, was
purposely enticed into shoal-water by a vessel to which she gave chase,
boarded and burnt by a party from Providence. This daring outrage called
forth the indignation of parliament, and an act was passed for sending
to England for trial all persons concerned in destroying his majesty’s
ships, etc. A reward of £600 was offered for the discovery of the
persons concerned in the destruction of this vessel, and powerful
machinery of examination was put in action; but though the perpetrators
were well known, so strong was public feeling in their favour, that no
legal evidence could be obtained against them.
“While ardent discussions,” says Hildreth, “on the subject of colonial
and national rights were going on in Massachusetts, some reflecting
persons were struck with the inconsistency of contending for their own
liberty and depriving other people of theirs. Hence arose a controversy
as to the justice and legality of negro slavery. This controversy led to
trials at law, in which the question was freely canvassed, and it was
proved by legal decisions ‘that the colonists, black or white, born
there, were free-born British subjects, and entitled to all the
essential rights of such.’ These were the first steps towards the
abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.”
Whilst disputes were maturing themselves into the great national contest
between the mother-country and the colonies, the colonies were not
altogether at peace among themselves; the question of boundary being
fruitful in controversy. Pennsylvania and Connecticut quarrelled
violently about the possession of the Wyoming Valley, on the Upper
Susquehanna, and blood was even shed. Virginia quarrelled with
Pennsylvania, also, about her western frontier, laying claim to
Pittsburg and the whole district west of the Laurel Mountains. The
boundary dispute which had long agitated New York and New Jersey was
happily adjusted about this time, as was also that between New York and
Massachusetts. Violent were the disputes, however, between New York and
the settlers in the infant Vermont, the territory lying west of the
Connecticut, “the Green Mountain Boys,” as they were called, and the
leaders of whom were Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, emigrants from
Connecticut to the Green Mountains. But, spite of disputes both at home
and abroad, settlers extended themselves farther and still farther, to
the north and to the west. The formidable Six Nations had now disposed
of all their vast territory south of the Ohio, as far as the Cherokee or
Tennessee River, to the British Crown, for the sum of £10,460. Settlers
were already occupying the banks of the Kenhawa River, flowing north
into the Ohio, beyond the great Allegany Range. In consequence of this
immense cession of territory, land companies started up in England for
the establishment of new colonies, but the growing troubles with the
mother-country prevented their plans being carried out.
The first settlements in the present state of Tennessee were made by
emigrants from North Carolina, who established themselves on the Wataga,
one of the head streams of the Tennessee, in the land of the Cherokees.
Like the early settlers of New England, these emigrants organised
themselves into a body politic, and drew up a code of laws to which
every individual assented by signature. About the same time that
settlers extended themselves to the Tennessee, an Indian trader,
returning to North Carolina from one of his far journeys west, induced
Daniel Boone and four other settlers on the Yadkin, in Maryland, by his
glowing accounts of the wonderfully beautiful regions which he had
discovered, to return with him for their exploration. They set out,
reached the head waters of the Kentucky, and as hunters traversed the
fertile plains and magnificent forests in pursuit of the buffalo and
other game. They had encounters with Indians, and Boone was taken
prisoner, but managed to escape, and was soon after joined by his
brother, who had come out in search of him. Boone was a second Nimrod, a
mighty hunter; and as such, explored the beautiful region between the
Upper Kentucky and the Tennessee. The country pleased him greatly, and
hastening back to the Yadkin, he sold his farm, and with his wife and
children and five other families, returned to this “New Western
Paradise,” being joined by volunteer settlers to the number of forty as
he journeyed along. All, however, did not go smoothly with them; they
were met by hostile Indians and some of their number killed; and war
having broken out between the backwoodsmen of Virginia and the Indians
on the Ohio, they were detained a year and a half by the way. While the
west was thus opened to the colonists, Georgia also acquired a large
increase of territory by the purchase of land from the Creeks and
Cherokees.
About this time Whitfield died in America, and Wesley sent over
disciples to establish the Wesleyan Church in that country; soon after
which, Mother Ann Lee also arrived, the foundress of the Shakers, whose
singular communities exist to this day, here and there, throughout the
country. About the same time, also, the sect of the Universalists began
to attract attention, under the preaching of John Murray; and though at
first few dared to avow this so-called heresy, it gained great
acceptation, and tended considerably to soften the stern, rugged heart
of puritan New England.
We now return to the great contest which cast all minor subjects into
the shade.
The British ministry intended by cunning policy to effect what open
measures had failed to do. The East India company were allowed by act of
parliament to export tea to the American colonies free from English
duties, liable only to threepence per pound, to be paid by the
colonists, and which would thus give them tea cheaper than that
purchased by the English. Tea was shipped in great quantities to
America, which the colonists, who objected as strongly as ever to the
principle involved in the measure, determined should never be permitted
to land.
The pilots, therefore, in Philadelphia harbour were ordered not to
conduct the ships into the river, and their cargoes were consequently
returned to England; at New York, the governor commanded the tea to be
landed under protection of soldiers, but the people gained possession,
and prohibited its sale. At Charleston, also, its sale was forbidden and
it was stored up in damp cellars to render it unfit for use. At Boston,
the tea being consigned to the governor and his friends, it was feared
that it would be landed spite of the public, to prevent which a number
of men, disguised as Indians, boarded the vessels at night, and threw
their cargoes overboard. Three hundred and thirty-two chests of tea were
thus broken open and destroyed.
The news of this determined and offensive procedure caused the utmost
astonishment and indignation in England, and it was resolved in
parliament “to make such provisions as should secure the just dependence
of the colonies and due obedience to the laws throughout the British
dominions and as an especial punishment of the contumacious Bostonians,
a bill passed the house in March, 1774, to oblige them to repay the
value of the destroyed article, and also interdicting all commercial
intercourse with the port of Boston, and prohibiting the landing and
shipping of any goods at that place;” and by the same act the
custom-house and its dependencies were removed from Boston to Salem,
which it was intended to raise on the ruins of its neighbour city and
port.
[Illustration: THROWING THE TAXED TEA INTO BOSTON HARBOR.]
General Gage superseded Hutchinson as governor of Massachusetts, in
consequence of the unpopularity of the latter. A number of manuscript
letters, written by him to various members of parliament, had fallen
into the hands of Benjamin Franklin, now agent in London for
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Georgia and Pennsylvania, and having been
sent by him to Boston, and circulated extensively though privately,
caused his removal from office.
When, in May, the news of the Boston Port Bill reached that city,
together with instructions to the new governor, to send to another
colony or to England, for trial, any persons indicted for murder, or any
other capital offence committed in aid of the magistrates in the
fulfilment of their duty, an astonishment of grief and anger fell upon
the citizens, and a meeting of the inhabitants declared that “the
impolicy, injustice and inhumanity of the act exceeded their powers of
expression.”
The General Assembly met, but was adjourned by the governor to Salem,
and it was then resolved that a colonial congress should be convened to
take into serious consideration the present difficult state of affairs.
James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams and Robert Treat
Paine, were therefore at once appointed as their representatives to such
a congress, and the speaker of the house was ordered to inform the other
colonies of this measure. The governor, hearing of these proceedings,
ordered the assembly to dissolve, but in vain; his officer was not
admitted, and in defiance of orders, the assembly finished its business.
The colonies sympathised warmly with Massachusetts, and Massachusetts
was true to herself. The behaviour of the inhabitants of Salem, whom it
was intended to benefit at the expense of Boston, was very noble. They
replied to the governor’s proclamation, “That nature, in forming their
harbour, had prevented their becoming rivals to Boston in trade; and
that, even if it were otherwise, they should regard themselves as lost
to every idea of justice and all feelings of humanity, if they could
indulge a thought of seizing upon the wealth of their neighbours, or
raising their fortunes upon the ruins of their countrymen.” More than
this; the inhabitants of Marblehead and Salem offered to the suffering
merchants of Boston the use of their harbour, wharfs and warehouses,
free of all charge; and in Virginia, where Lord Dunmore, now governor,
found it impossible to manage the “the refractory people,” “a day of
fast, humiliation, and prayer,” was appointed for the 1st of June, the
day on which the Boston Port Act came into effect, “that they might
beseech of God to avert the evils which threatened them, and to give
them one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper
means, every injury to the American rights.”
In September, the great congress proposed by Massachusetts met at
Philadelphia, composed of delegates from eleven of the colonies—the most
important assembly which had yet come together in America, and for the
result of whose deliberations all parties waited with extreme interest
and anxiety.
By unanimous consent, Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was chosen
president; to each province was given one vote; they proceeded in their
deliberations with closed doors; and a committee, composed of two
persons from each province, was appointed to state the rights of the
colonies in general, together with every known instance in which these
rights had been infringed by the mother-country, and the proposed means
of redress. The conduct of Massachusetts, in her “conflict with wicked
ministers,” was approved, and a continuance of supplies for her relief
was voted. A letter of remonstrance was addressed to the governor,
General Gage, who was erecting fortifications on Boston Neck, begging
him to “desist from military operations, lest a difference altogether
irreconcilable should arise between the colonies and the parent state.”
The committee appointed for that purpose drew up a document setting
forth, in a string of resolutions, the rights of the colonies, which,
being approved, was published as the well-known “Bill of Rights.” A
suspension of all commercial intercourse with Great Britain was resolved
upon, until the grievances of the colonies were redressed; an address to
the king was voted, together with others to the people of Great Britain
and British America. The non-importation agreement bound them, “under
the sacred ties of virtue, honour, and love of liberty,” not to import
or use any British goods after the 1st of December, 1774, particularly
the articles, tea and molasses. Agriculture, the arts and manufactures,
were to be promoted in America by all possible means; committees were
appointed to see this agreement entered into, and all who violated it
were to be regarded as enemies to their country. To the honour of this
assembly it must be stated, that they bound themselves also not to be in
any way concerned in the slave-trade.
The proceedings of this congress awoke, as might be expected, a still
stronger spirit of animosity in England. In vain the congress deplored
to the king “the apprehension of his colonists being degraded into a
state of servitude from the pre-eminent rank of English freemen;” in
vain they besought that “the royal indignation might fall on those
designing and dangerous men, who, by their misrepresentations of his
American subjects, had compelled them by the force of accumulated
injuries to disturb his majesty’s repose;” in vain they prayed for
“peace, liberty, and safety; wishing not the diminution of the royal
prerogative, nor soliciting the grant of any new right in their favour;”
in vain they concluded their petition by earnestly beseeching the king,
“as the father of his whole people, not to permit the ties of blood, of
law, and loyalty, to be broken.” In vain did Lord Chatham stand before
the British senate as the eloquent advocate of America, declaring that
the way must be immediately opened for reconciliation, or it would be
soon too late. “His majesty,” argued he, “may indeed wear his crown, but
the American jewel out of it, it will not be worth wearing. I say,”
continued he, taking up the argument of American wrongs, “you have no
right to tax the colonies without their consent. They say truly,
representation and taxation must go together; they are inseparable. This
wise people speak out. They do not hold the language of slaves; they
tell you what they mean. They do not ask you to repeal your laws, as a
favour; they claim it as a right—they demand it; and the acts must be
repealed. Bare repeal, however, will not satisfy this enlightened and
spirited people. You must go through with the work; you must declare
that you have no right to tax them; thus they may trust you—thus they
will have some confidence in you.”
In vain did the merchants of London and other commercial towns petition
in favour of America. Dr. Franklin and other colonial agents were
refused a hearing before the house. America was condemned. The two
houses of parliament, by a large majority, assured the king that “the
Americans had long wished to become independent, and only waited for
ability and opportunity to accomplish their design. To prevent this,
therefore, and to crush the monster in its birth, was the duty of every
Englishman; and this must be done, at any price and at every hazard.”
Such was the temper of parliament.
In the meantime, the colonies were not indifferent to the increasing
difficulties of the times. Massachusetts already assumed a military
aspect. The congress, which, spite of the opposition of the governor,
continued to hold its sittings, seeing that the military stores were
already seized by the governor, proceeded themselves to take measures
for the defence of the province. £20,000 were voted for this purpose,
and the collectors of taxes received orders no longer to forward their
moneys to the government treasurer, but to a new one of their own
appointment. Further, it was ordained that a number of the inhabitants
should be enrolled as a militia of 12,000 men, ready to march at a
minute’s notice; officers were chosen, and committees of supplies and
safety held their regular sittings. Gage denounced their proceedings,
but no notice was taken of his denunciations; “he had no support except
in his own troops and a few trembling officials, while the zealous
co-operation of an intelligent, firm, energetic, and overwhelming
majority of the people, gave to the provincial congress all the strength
of an established government.”[14]
In November, at the very time when the king and the British parliament
were resolving to keep terms no longer with the colonies, Massachusetts
sent agents to New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut, to inform
them of her measures, and to solicit their co-operation in raising an
army of 20,000 men, ready to act in case of need.
In the midst of all these growing internal excitements, and while the
colonists were deeply occupied in the maintenance of their rights, the
frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia were again visited by the
miseries of Indian warfare. It was at this time that the family of the
famous chief Logan, an old and faithful friend of the whites, was
murdered in cold blood; and this and other atrocities committed by the
explorers of Ohio and Kentucky, led to the sorrows of the present Indian
war. Daniel Boone, the hunter of the Kentucky plains, was placed in
command of a frontier fort by Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, and a
war of extermination was carried on against the Indians. At length,
negotiations of peace were entered into, and it was on this occasion
that Logan made his celebrated speech: “I appeal to any white man,”
spoke the eloquent chief of the forest, “if he ever entered the cabin of
Logan hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked,
and he clothed him not. During the last long and bloody war, Logan
remained idle in his cabin; and such was his love for the whites, that
his countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, ‘Logan is the friend of
the white men!’ I even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of
one man. Colonel Cresop, last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked,
murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing women and children.
There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature!
This called on me for revenge! I have fully glutted my vengeance! For my
people, I rejoice at the beams of peace; but mine is not the joy of
fear—Logan never felt fear. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!”
At the commencement of 1775, America very generally stood in a position
of hostility to the mother-country. The congress of Massachusetts had
held its third sitting; volunteers were in arms throughout the province,
and every town had its committees of safety, correspondence and
inspection. John Thomas, of Plymouth, and William Heath, a Roxbury
farmer, were appointed generals of the Massachusetts army.
In Rhode Island, in consequence of the royal prohibition of the
exportation of military stores to America, and the removal of armed
ships from Narrangansett Bay, the people of Providence conveyed
forty-four pieces of cannon thither from Newport; and when called upon
by the British naval commander for an explanation, Governor Wanton, a
stout patriot, bluntly replied, that they were removed to prevent their
falling into his hands, and were intended to be used against any force
which might molest the colony. In New Hampshire, John Sullivan a lawyer,
and John Langdon, a merchant of Portsmouth, headed a party who entered
the fort at that place, and possessed themselves of 100 barrels of
powder, cannon and small arms. The convention of Maryland ordered the
enrolment of militia, and voted £10,000 for the purchase of arms. In
Pennsylvania, the public spirit was less unanimous. The provincial
convention of that province expressed themselves less decidedly than
suited the temper of the ardent patriots, one of the leaders of whom was
Thomas Mifflin, a young Quaker, possessed of much energy of character,
and remarkable powers of popular eloquence. Mifflin, however, was an
exception to the general body of Quakers, who, whatever their original
opposition to established forms, have ever been loyal and obedient to
the powers that be; and now, in their yearly meeting held in
Philadelphia at the commencement of 1775, they put forth their
“testimony of abhorrence to every measure and writing tending to break
off the happy connexion of the colonies with the mother-country, or to
interrupt their just subordination to the king.” Very different was the
spirit of the sects and their ministers in New England. Everywhere it
evinced opposition to the king and the mother-country, whose attempts to
force an established episcopal church, with a bishop at its head, upon
the colonies, had only tended still more to increase that very spirit of
resistance which had first sent their forefathers to these shores. The
Presbyterians of every New England state were all staunch Whigs. The
episcopal clergy and their congregations, wherever found, were Tories;
so also were the landed proprietors and merchants, especially the more
recent settlers. The Episcopalian and Tory party was more numerous in
New York than in any other of the northern provinces. In Georgia they
were also considerable, and the influence of Governor Wright prevented
this province from joining the American Association; and in the southern
provinces, the law of primogeniture, which still considerably prevailed,
together with the institution of slavery, had given rise to a local
aristocratic class, totally opposed in sentiment to the democracy of the
north.
These were the elements upon which England depended to establish her
power in the coming contest;—nor were these all; she depended, not only
on the loyalty and attachment of the Episcopalians everywhere, but on
the peace-loving principles of the Quakers, who were an influential
portion of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and North Carolina; she
expected if not aid, at least no opposition from the numerous German
settlers, who, established in large colonies, had not yet acquired the
English language nor amalgamated with the British colonists; and at the
same time she depended for aid upon the Scotch Highlanders, who abounded
in New York and North Carolina, and who were at the same time ignorant
and loyal.
It being determined therefore to show no concession to the rebellious
spirit of the colonies, a bill was brought in in February, 1775, for
cutting off the trade of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and
New Hampshire, excepting with Great Britain and her West India
possessions, and to prohibit also their fishing on the banks of
Newfoundland, which was then a great branch of their trade and industry.
While this bill was under discussion, news reached England of the
adhesion which was given by the other colonies to the measures of the
American Congress; and all the colonies, excepting New York, North
Carolina and Georgia, were included in the bill of restriction. At the
very time that this New England Restraining Bill was agitating all
parties, Lord North proposed what he called a conciliatory plan, which
was, in fact, that Great Britain should forbear any scheme of colonial
taxation, on condition that the assembly of each province should raise a
suitable amount of money, which should be disposable by parliament. This
plan, though vehemently opposed in England, as conceding too much to the
colonies, was utterly rejected by the colonies, as compelling them to
yield that over which they claimed to have a right. In the midst of all
these attempts at coercion and conciliation, an endeavour at negotiation
also failed between Benjamin Franklin and some members of the cabinet
who were friendly to America.
The West India merchants petitioned against the restraining bill, as
interfering fatally with their commercial relationships, and foretelling
famine and ruin to the West India islands in consequence. The assembly
of Jamaica petitioned parliament on behalf of “the claim of rights set
up by the North American provinces,” and protested against the “plan
almost carried into execution for reducing the colonies into the most
abject state of slavery.” Petitions for conciliation were presented from
the British Quakers and the British settlers in Quebec, and Wilkes, as
lord mayor of London, presented a remonstrance to the king from the city
authorities, expressing “abhorrence of the measures in progress for the
oppression of their fellow subjects in the colonies.” But all was of no
avail. Nothing was to be done; and Franklin, seeing the hopeless state
of affairs, set sail for America, and almost at the same moment the
battle of Lexington was fought.