The history of the American revolution; being a complete history of the western world from the earliest period to the establishment of the independence of the United States

Front matter

r -

A o> Xl

THE HISTORY

Preface

Next after the study of Eevealed Truth, that of history has been wisely affirmed to be the duty of every man who would discipline his understanding, enlarge his sympathies, and look over the wide domain of human affairs from the loftiest point of view which it is permitted to mortals to attain. The love of liberty to which the Eepublic of the United States owes its origin was cultivated under such circumstances of profound difficulty, and the stirring scenes of romantic adventure that attended the achievement of our national independence on the battle-field give the history of the early growth and foundation of our country an interest that does not attach to any other.

This volume narrates the discovery and colonization of the country, and the earlier and more momentous disputes regarding its possession ; the arbitrary rule of the imperial government of Great Britain, owing to which the desire and capacity for political liberty were nurtured, and the events of the war by which the Independence of the United States was effected. The materials employed in the composition of

^ PREFACE.

this history have been for the most part the letters. State papers,

and records ivhich are the original sources for the yarious periods,

and special care has been taken to authenticate them before their use.

W. H. BARTLETT.

4bIL^

^"^9

C-^y'/tC^ ' :iJC9U

Chapter I

EARLIEST DISCOTERIES IN NORTH AMERICA. — SEBASTIAN CABOT. — VEREZZANI. — CORTEREAl. — ■WILLOtTGHBY AND CHANCELOUR. — CARTIER AND THE FRENCH IN CANADA. — DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY SOTO. — THE HUGUENOTS AND CATHOLICS IN FLORIDA.

On the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the neighhouring kingdom of Portugal, arose, in the fifteenth century, that sj^irit of maritime adventure of which the first-fruits were to he the discovery of a New World. The mariners' compass, invented by a native of the little republic of Amalphi, had given an impiilse to navigation, and citizens of Genoa and Florence, the seats of reviving art, science, and literature, were the principal pioneers of daring and successful enterprise. To find a shorter path to the riches of the East, of which Marco Polo had recently given such glowing accounts, Columbus, steering boldly across the western ocean beyond the known limits of navigation, lighted upon the verge of that vast continent, of the true nature of which he died without entertaining a suspicion. To Amerigo Vespucci, the first to conjecture its real import, was destined the glory of giving to it a name As succeeding adventurers followed up the track, they were astonished at discovering in INIexico, and in Central and Southern America, states which had long subsisted in a high degree of civilization and luxury ; and the accounts of the chroniclers who accompanied them teem with expressions of surprise at the magnificence of their monuments, the remains of which have been so accurately broug'ht before us by recent travellers.

Not such was then the condition of the northern half of this great continent, which was destined to afford a lasting seat to the power and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon race. Along the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries, were scattered, indeed, at wide intervals, the vestiges of p-rior occupation, mounds, partly natural and partly improved by art, walls and fortifications, exclusively composed of earth, with arms, pottery, and other traces of the former occ^^pation of semi-civilized tribes, to which tradition but dimly pointed. But the whole sea-board, from the shores of the Northern Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, was entirely destitute even of these rude vestiges, and

3 EARLIEST EXPLORERS OF AMERICA. [1492.

tKe vast primeval foi'ests with which it was covered were exclusively occupied as hunting grounds by the roaming savages of the Red Race.

Traditions of a discovery of America long anterior to that of Columbus are contained in the ancient Chronicle of Glaus, who relates that the hardy Norwegian rovers who colonized Iceland as early as the year 874, left also settlers in Greenland, who, in A. D. 982, launched westward, and finding there a milder scat of habitation, and woody valleys overgrown with wild vines, gave to it the name of Vinland, supjDOsed to be identical with Massachusetts or Rhode Island. Danish antiquaries confidently adduce elaborate, and what they consider irrefragable, evidence of this early settlement, and of successive visits to the same coasts ; but their opinions, though not without advocates, are by no means generally received by American antiquaries, and cannot be cited as a portion of authentic history.

To England justly belongs the claim to the first indisputable discovery of the northei'n continent. Her hardy sailors had long acquired their characteristic nerve and sinew in buiFeting the stormy seas of their own coasts and the neighbouring continent, and even in trading voyages to Iceland. The country was emerging from the confusion occasioned by the wars of the Roses iinder the prudent and thrifty management of Henry VII. Yet the spirit of intellectual culture and enlightened enterprise which centred in Italy, Portugal, and the Hanse Towns had scarcely as yet penetrated to England, and thus we find that, after the success of Columbus had given the first impulse to voj^ages of discovery, they were still for some time projected and carried out by the agency of foreigners. — " I cannot," says Charlevoix, " dispense with a passing remark. It is very glorious to Italy, that the three powers which now divide between them almost the whole of America, owe their first discoveries to Italians — the Spanish to Columbus, a Genoese, the English to John Cabot and his sons, Venetians, and the French to Verezzani, a citizen of Florence." Giovanni Gaboto or Cabot, had settled in Bristol, then the second port in England; and it is a singular coincidence, that this ancient city, which sent forth the first fleet of discovery to North America, should have also equipped the famous " Great "Western " steam ship, the first expressly constructed to shorten the communication with that continent, which the lapse of three centuries had so astonishingly altered. At this sea-port the expedition " was bound and holden only to arrive." The Commission, signed at Westminster on the 5th of March, 1495, (in less than two years after the return of Columbus from America,) authorized Cabot, with his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancho, " to seeke out and discover whatsoever isles, countreys, regions, or provinces of the infidels and heathen," to set up the royal " banners and ensigns in every village, towne, castle, isle, or continent," to take possession of them, and to carry on an exclusive trade with the inhabitants, reserving a fifth part of the profits to the crown. The British merchants equipped four vessels ; another, on board of which John Cabot himself cmbarked, with his son Sebastian, born to him at Bristol, was furnished by the parsimonious monarch. Of their first voyage the records are but scanty — but it

1497.] SEBASTIAN CABOT. 3

is certain that they were the real discoverers of the continent of America. On the 24th of June/l497, about five in the morning, they fell in with that land " which no man before that time had attempted." The land they called Prima Vista, or first seen, generally regarded as part of the coast of Labrador, Shortly after they reached an island, which, as being descried upon the day of St. John the Baptist, they called St. John's Island. Thus England had the glory of the first discovery of North America, and acquired such right of preoccupation as this circumstance was supposed to confer.

The enterprise, but timidly encouraged by Henry, was now more vigorously pursued. A new patent was granted, and Sebastian Cabot undertook a second voyage, in destination and result differing little from the first, save that he is supposed to have followed the coast as far southward as Virginia. He is reputed to have made a third, but the accounts respecting it are not clear ; Robertson and other writers mention but one voyage, and the details given by Hakluyt are confused. Mr. Bancroft considers that " the main fact is indisputable," that Cabot entered Hudson's Bay, and, still bent on the great object ever present to the adventurers of that age, the discovery of a North-west passage to " Cathai," which is in the East, the China of which Marco Polo had given such glowing accounts, and the " bringing of the spiceries from India into Europe." Finding the sea still open, he continued his course until he had advanced so far toward the North Pole, that even in the month of July he found monstrous heaps of ice floating in the sea, when a fortunate mutiny of his sailors, forcing him to return, in all probability saved the intrepid adventurer from destruction. This third voyage from England of Sebastian Cabot is supposed to have taken place after he had entered into the service of Spain, as pilot major to Charles V., under whose auspices he made a vovage into South America. The discovery of a passage to the Indies still continued to be the favourite object of his hopes. He suggested to the company of merchants adventurers the disastrous enterprise in which Hugh "S^^illoughby and Chancelour perished, which, though it failed in its object, led to the discovery of Archangel. This great navigator was more fortunate than most of the early pioneers of American enterprise. He lived to escape the perils of many voyages, and he died full of years and honours. " Wearing old," he says, " I give myself to rest from my travels, because there are now many young and lustie pilots and mariners of good experience, by whose forwardnesse I doe rejoice in the fruit of my labours." Although he founded no colonies in the countries he discovered, he may thus be said to have formed a school of intrepid explorers, and by his example and instructions to have given a great impulse in England to that spirit of maritime adventure which has since become the national characteristic.

During the long reign of Henry VIII. this spirit continued to gain ground among the English, whose expeditions now extended from the sunny shores of the Mediterranean to the icy seas of the North. The monarch himself, though too much absorbed by his own selfish passions, his controversy with the see of Rome, and the struggle between Charles V. and Francis I., to

B 2

4 THE KORTH-EAST PASSAGE. [1554.

take a lively interest in the progress of discovery, was not altogether neglectful of the bold adventurers, whose courage and success had already began to pronipt the jealousy of Spain. To one expedition to the North-west, at least, he lent his " good countenance," as well as some slight assistance. This was the voyage of Hore and his conij)anions, related by Hakluyt, from the statements of a sole survivor of miseries, so extreme, that many perished with hunger ; and others, if his story be true, were reduced to the horrors of cannibalism. All attempts at settlement were as yet abortive, but the fisheries of Newfoundland, long frequented by the French mariners, were also prosecuted by the English with activity and success, so much as to lead to parliamentary regulations for their encouragement.

But the discovery of the passage to India still continued to be the object that agitated the hardiest and most sanguine spirits. Sebastian Cabot, undeterred by his own fruitless attemjDts, had, as before observed, proposed a course by the North-east, and a company of adventurers being formed, he was appointed governor, and framed a set of instructions derived from his own experience, the command of the expedition being given to Sir Hugh Willoughby. " At the first setting forth of these North-eastern discoverers," as Hakluyt well observes, " they Avere almost altogether destitute of clear lights and inducements, or if they had an inkling at all, it was misty as they found the northern seas, and so obscure and ambiguous, that it was meet rather to deter than to give them encouragement. Into what dangers and difficulties they plunged themselves,". says the old chronicler, "' animus meminisse horret,' I tremble to relate. For first they were to expose themselves unto the rigour of the stern and uncouth northern seas, and to make trial of the swelling waves and boisterous winds which there commonly do surge and blow." The " drifts of snow and mountains of ice, even in the summer, the hideous overfalls, uncertaine currents, darke mistes and fogs, and other fearful inconveniences," which the English adventurers had to encounter, he contrasts with " the milde, lightsome, and temperate Atlantick Ocean, over which the Spaniards and Portuguese have made so many pleasant, prosperous, and golden voyages, to the satisfaction oi t\\Q\v fame-lhirsiy and (jold-iliirsii/ minds, with that reputation and wealth Avhich made all misadventures seem tolerable unto them." Willoughby and Chancelour were divided by storms, and after doubling the " di-eadful and mistie North Cape," the terrors of a polar winter surprised them, but with very different issue. The former sought shelter in an obscure harbour of Laj)land, to die a fearful and a lingering death. In the following spring his retreat was discovered, the corpses of the frozen sailors lay about the ship, Willoughby was found dead in his cabin, his journal detailing the horrible sufferings to which they had been reduced. Chancelour, more fortunate, entered the White Sea, and found a secure shelter in the harbour of Archangel. Here the astonished Muscovites received their first foreign visitors with great hospitality, and Chancelour, on learning the vastness of the empire he had discovered, repaired to Moscow, and presented to the czar, John Vasolowitz, a letter with which each ship had been furnished by Edward VI. The czar

1534.] DISCOVERY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 5

dismissed Chancelour with great respect, and by an invitation to trade v/ith his subjects, opened to the English a new and promising career of commerce.

The French, as avcU as the Enghsh, had entered at an early period into the pursuit of the northern fisheries. Even in 1504, the boats of the hardy I^orman and Breton mariners were in the habit of visiting the Great Bank, and in Charlevoix's time, it was in the memory of the oldest mariners that Denys, an inhabitant of Honfleur, had even traced a map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Francis I., emulous of the additional splendour of renown and wealth which the discoveries of the Spaniards bestowed on the kingdom of his rival, Charles V., and desirous perhaps of giving the same encouragement to maritime adventure that he had bestowed on literature and art, engaged Juan Verezzani, a Florentine, to explore, on his behalf, new regions in the unknown AVest. With a single vessel, the Dolphin, this mariner left Madeira, and was the first to fall in with the middle continent of North America. The description of his discoveries given to the sovereign who had sent him forth, and the earliest ever penned, has all the freshness and vivid colouring of a first impression.

After " as sharp and terrible a tempest as ever sailors suffered, whereof with the Divine help and merciful assistance of Almighty God, and the goodness of our ship, accompanied with the good-hap of her fortrmate name, (the Dolphin,) we were delivered, and with a prosperous wind followed our course west and by north, and in other twenty-five days we made above 400 leagues more, when we discovered a new land, never before seen of any, either ancient or modern." This was the low, level coast of North Carolina, along which, illumined at night by great fires, they sailed fifty leagues in search of a harbour ; — at length they cast anchor and sent a boat on shore. The wondering natives at first fled to the woods, yet still would stand and look back, beholding the ship and sailors " with great admiration," and at the friendly signs of the latter, came down to the shore, " marvelling greatly at their apparel, shape, and whiteness." Beyond the sandy coast, intersected " with rivers and arms of the sea," they saw " the open country rising in height with many fair fields and plains, full of mightie great woods," some dense and others more open, replenished with different trees, " as pleasant and delectable to behold as it is possible to imagine. And your Majesty may not think," says the Florentine, " that these are like the woods of Hercynia, or the wild deserts of Tartary, and the northern coasts, full of fruitless trees ; but they are full of palm trees, bay trees, and high cypress trees, and many other sorts unknown in Europe, which yield most sweet savours far from the shore." The land he represents as " not void of drugs or spicery, and" (with the idea ever uppermost at that time in the minds of discoverers) " of other riches of gold, seeing that the colour of the land doth so much argue it." He dwells upon the luxury of the vegetation, the wild vines which clustered upon the ground or trailed in rich festoons from tree to tree, the tangled roses, violets, and lilies, and sweet and odoriferous flowers, difierent from those of Europe. He speaks of the wild deer in the woods,

6 FIRST DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK BAY. [1534.

and of the birds that haunt the pools and lagoons of the coast. But, after his rude tossing on the stormy Atlantic, he is beyond measure transported ' with the calmness of the sea, the gentleness of the waves, the summer beauty of the climate, the pure and wholesome and temperate air, and the serenity and purity of the blue sky, which, " if covered for a while with clouds brought by the southern wind, they are soon dissolved, and all is clear and fair again."

Desirous of taking home some of the natives, Verezzani endeavoured to carry off a young woman, " very beautiful and of tall stature," but she succeeded in making her escape. This was an ill return for the kindness of the unsuspecting Indians, who had saved from destruction a young sailor, nearly drowned, and who had given himself up for lost, even when rescued by the savaares. Sailincr alonsrthe coast to the northward, the Italian entered the noble Bay of New York, — nearly a century before Henry Hudson. He describes it as " a delightful place among certain little steep hills, from amidst which there ran down into the sea an exceeding great stream of water, M^hich within the mouth was very deep, and from the sea to the mouth, with the tide, which we found to rise eight feet, any great ship laden may pass up." He did not, however, ascend the river, his exploring boats being driven back by a sudden squall to the ships. Still sailing to the north, he next notices an island in form of a triangle " about the bigness of the Island of the Rhodes," and comes to an anchor in " a passing good haven," supposed to be that of Newport. There the Indians appeared to him the " goodliest people and of the fairest conditions that he had found in his voyage." At sight of his gallant vessel tinder full sail, the natural enthusiasm of wonder was awakened in their minds, they uttered loud cries of admiration, and fearlessly came off to the ship — prudently, however, leaving their females behind them in the canoes, a precaution which no persuasion cou.ld induce them to renounce. After Verezzani had remained some days among them, he still continued to exploi'e the northern coast of New England as far as Nova Scotia, whence he returned to France. All accounts admit that this was not his only voyage of discovery. According to Hakluyt, he was thrice on the American coast, and gave a map of it to Henry VIII. His fate, however, is uncertain ; some suppose that he perished at sea, or that he was killed in an encounter with savages, while others believe that he escaped from all his perils, and found an honourable retirement in his native country.

The discovery of America by Columbus\, in the vain quest of a shorter route to the Indies, occurred almost at the same time that Vasco de Gama, by rounding the Cape of Good Hope, had ascertained the true passage to those glowing climes, to which the attention of the Portuguese was soon afterwards almost exclusively directed. Yet one expedition they sent out to the shores of North America, commanded by Gaspar Cortereal, who in 1501 ranged the coast for several hundred miles, and carried off a considerable number of the natives to be sold as slaves, but, like his predecessors, attempted no permanent settlement.

1534] VOYAGES OF JACQUES C ARTIER. 7

The voyage of Vcrczzani was unattentled by any settlement, Francis, occupied at home in his struggle Avith Charles V., Avas little disposed to engage in fresh attempts, but at the instance of Chabot, Admiral of France, Jacques Cartier, an experienced mariner of St. Malo, a small but enterprisingfishing town on the coast of Brittany, was appointed to the command of a second expedition. Furnished with two small but well-appointed ships of 60 tons burden, on the 20th of April, 15o4, he reached Newfoundland, which he nearly circumnavigated ; then crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence, discovered the Bale des Chaleurs, so called from the intensity of the su.mmer heat, equalled only in the Canadian climate by the excessive rigour of the winter's cold. Then stretching to the N. W. to find a passage, he landed on the point of Gasp^, where, in the presence of many of the natives, he erected upon the entrance of the said haven " a faire high cross of the height of thirty feet, in the midst whereof," he says, "we hanged up a shield with three Fleur de Luces on it, and on the top, carved in anticke letters, this posic — Vive le Roy de France." Being, however, unprepared for wintering, he resolved to return, and after a swift jD^ssage, reached in September the harbour of St. Malo.

This first -voyage of Cartier, although no settlement was effected by him, seemed to open a new career of discovery, which the court of France was now more disposed to encourage. The spirit of enterprise gained ground among all ranks ; and some even of the young nobility enrolled themselves among the adventurers.

The next expedition was consecrated by the solem.nities of the Catholic Church. On Whit-Sunday, the 16th of May, 1535, the whole body confessed, and received the sacrament and the episcopal benediction in the cathedral of St. Malo. Three well-furnished ships were ready ; the Great Hermina, of 120 tons, of which Cartier was appointed commander, the Little Hermina, of 60 tons, and the Hermerillon, of but 40. They departed " with a good gale," and, proceeding to the west, they reached, as Hakluyt calls it, " the goodly great gulfe, full of islands, passages, and entrances, with every wind," which, from their opening it on the day of St. Lawrence, they named after that saint, and entered the " great river of Hochelaga, never before explored," which has since received the same appellation of St. Lawrence.

Cartier anchored awhile in a tributary stream, which still retains his name. Many devices were attempted by Donnacona, a chief of the country, prompted by jealousy of the other tribes, to prevent him from ascending the river to Hochelaga, now Montreal, and at that time a principal Indian settlement. But Cartier, penetrating his motives, continued his voyage up the river ; and passing through Lake St. Peter's, although struggling with the " fierceness and swiftness " of the downward flow, at length attained the desired Hochelaga. His arrival created a feeling of enthusiasm among the simple Indians, and his landing was a pageant which it is beautiful to realize. " As they stepped on shore, they were met by a thousand persons, men, women, and children, who ' afterwards entertained them, as a father would his child ; ' " their boats, on

8 C ARTIER AND THE NATIVES OF MONTREAL. [1535.

returning to the vessels, were loaded with millet, bread, fruit, and other provisions. The next day, Cartier, " very gorgeously apparelled," attended by five gentlemen and twenty sailors, and having obtained three guides, ascended the mountain which overhung the Indian settlement. The Avay from the shore was broad and well beaten ; and after he had proceeded some distance, he was met by one of" the chiefest lordes of the citie," arrayed in barbaric splen- . dour, in skins and plunies,who invited him to repose a while around a good fire that had been kindled, and entertained him with a discourse " in sign of mirth and amitic." In return for his good will, the French commander made him a present of hatchets and knives, and a cross which he instructed him to kiss. As Cartier advanced higher and higher, his eye reposed with delight upon the wide-spread expanse that gradually opened; he. admired the scattered groups of oak trees, and the smiling enclosures of bright green Indian corn, the noblest of cereal productions. When, at length, he gained the summit of the mountain, transported Math the extent and magnificence of the prospect, he bestowed on it, in his enthusiasm, the name of Mont Royal. From this commanding elevation he beheld the broad stream of the St. Lawrence, dotted with islands, and gay with Indian barks : a vast and level region of primeval forest occupied both shores, unbroken but by a fcAv Indian settlements ; above this great plain, at intervals, arose groups of bold and insulated mountains, extending far toward the southern horizon. It was a ?cene fitted for the seat of empire ; and proudly must the heart of its first discoverer have swelled as he gazed upon it, and indulged in visions of its future grcattiess.

At his feet, and joined to the spurs of the mountain, was the pretty Indian town of Hochelaga, enclosing in its three courses of ramparts, the fifty dwellings of the Indians, each fifty paces long by fifteen wide, neatly built of wood covered with fine bark, and having on the top store places for their corn. This beaten to powder, and made into cakes baked on hot stones, together with pottage, stores of piilse, dried fish, and fruits, especially cucumbers and melons, formed the simple but abundant food of the inhabitants. They slept on fine bark covered with skins. As Cartier descended into the open space in the midst of the town, the chief came forth to meet him, borne on the shoulders often Indians. Seating himself with the Frenchman on a fine deer skin, he took from his own head the wreath whicli served as his distinctive badge, and placed it upon that of Cartier. The Indians, who invested their visitors with supernatural attribiites, brought forward their sick in order that they might be healed. " With the simplicity of these poor people," says Charlevoix, " the Captain Avas greatly moved : he armed himself with a lively faith, and recited, as devoiitly as he was able, the beginning of the Gospel of St. John. He then made the sign of the cross over the sick, distributed to them chaplets and Agnus Dei, and made them xmderstand of how great virtue these were, for the cure of all sorts of infirmities. This done, he engaged in prayer, beseeching earnestly the Lord to leave no longer these poor idolaters in darkness, and recited with a loud voice the passion of Jesus Christ. The Indians listened with vague feelings of awe and devotion

153G.] C ARTIER' S RETURN TO FRANCE. 9

to these pious ceremonies, whicli were terminated by a burst of music, wliich set them beside themselves with wonderment and joy."

On leaving the friendly Hochelaga, Cartier returned to his old station at the river now called after his name. A tradition existed in the time of Charlevoix, that one of his vessels was wrecked upon a sunken ledge, opposite its mouth, hence called " Jacques Cartier's rock." Here he passed the long and dreary Canadian Avinter, " in ice two flithoms thick, and snow four feet higher than his ship's sides ;" and losing many of his people, of all ranks, by the ravages of the scurvy. On the approach of summer he gladly prepared to return to France ; set up a cross in sign of French occupation ; and, partly by force and partly by persuasion, having brought off Donnacona and some others with him, he in July, 1536, regained the well-known harbour of St. Malo.

The noble river which Cartier was thus the first to explore, is unique in its peculiarities, and perhaps unequalled by any other in the world. The magnificent lakes, or rather inland seas, of which it is the outlet, which maintain the even and unvarying flow of its majestic current, are assumed, upon solid grounds, to contain half the fresh water on this planet. The quantity discharged hourly by this amazing flood, is estimated at 1,672,704,000 cubic feet. Its basin is divided into three parts, the higher being occupied by Lake Superior, three hundred miles in length, and receiving more than fifty rivers. Through the falls of St. Mary, the whole of its waters pour into the Lakes of Michigan and Huron, of scarcely inferior dimensions. The almost unfathomable depth of these lakes is a highly interesting phenomenon in physical geography. Though the upper level of the two last is 618 feet above the Atlantic, their bottoms are nearly 300 feet below it. By the straits of Detroit, these upper lakes pour down into the basin of Lake Erie, which is 230 miles in length. This immense body of water rolls incessantly, in its resistless might, over the sublime clifls of Niagara, and then for several miles of swift descent, through the profound and narrow chasm which it has excavated in the course of ages, roars one continuous and terrific rapid, one whirl of foam and terror, forming a scene altogether unequalled in sublimity upon our globe. By this channel it descends to the level of Lake Ontario, the last and lowest of these inland seas, 200 miles long by 70 broad.