Chapter XVII
EVENTS OF 1771, 1772, 1773--THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S TEA REJECTED IN EVERY PROVINCE OF AMERICA--RESOLUTIONS OF A PUBLIC MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA THE MODEL FOR THOSE OF OTHER COLONIES.
By this unprecedented and unjustifiable combination between the British Ministry and East India Company to supersede the ordinary channels of trade, and to force the sale of their tea in America, the returning peace and confidence between Great Britain and the colonies was arrested, the colonial merchants of both England and America were roused and united in opposition to the scheme, meetings were held, associations were formed, and hostility throughout all the colonies became so general and intense, that not a chest of the East India Company's tea was sold from New Hampshire to Georgia, and only landed in one instance, and then to rot in locked warehouses. In all cases, except in Boston, the consignees were prevailed upon to resign; and in all cases except two, Boston and Charleston, the tea was sent back to England without having been landed. At Charleston, South Carolina, they allowed the tea to be landed, but not sold; and it rotted in the cellars of the store-houses. At Philadelphia, the consignees were forced to resign and send the tea back to England.[318] At New York they did the same. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, they sent the tea away to Halifax. At Boston the consignees were the sons of Hutchinson, the Governor, and he determined that it should be landed and sold; while the mass of the people, led by committees of the "Sons of Liberty," were equally determined that the tea should not be landed or sold.
As this Boston tea affair resulted in the passing of two Acts of Parliament--the Bill for closing the port of Boston, and the Bill for suspending the Charter and establishing a new constitution of government for Massachusetts--and these were followed by an American Congress and a civil war, I will state the transactions as narrated by three American historians, agreeing in the main facts, but differing in regard to incidental circumstances.
Dr. Ramsay narrates the general opposition to the scheme of the East India Company, and that at Boston in particular, in the following words:
"As the time approached when the arrival of the tea ships might be soon expected, such measures were adopted as seemed most likely to prevent the landing of their cargoes. The tea consignees appointed by the East India Company were in several places compelled to relinquish their appointments, and no others could be found hardy enough to act in their stead. The pilots in the River Delaware were warned not to conduct any of the tea ships into their harbour. In New York, popular vengeance was denounced against all who would contribute in any measure to forward the views of the East India Company. The captains of the New York and Philadelphia ships, being apprised of the resolution of the people, and fearing the consequence of landing a commodity charged with an odious duty, in violation of their declared public sentiments, concluded to return directly to Great Britain without making any entry at the Custom-house.
"It was otherwise in Massachusetts. The tea ships designed for the supply of Boston were consigned to the sons, cousins, and particular friends of Governor Hutchinson. When they were called upon to resign, they answered that 'it was out of their power.' The Collector refused to give a clearance unless the vessels were discharged of dutiable articles. The Governor refused to give a pass for the vessels unless properly qualified for the Custom-house. The Governor likewise requested Admiral Montague to guard the passages out of the harbour, and gave orders to suffer no vessels, coasters excepted, to pass the fortress from the town without a pass signed by himself. From a combination of these circumstances the return of the tea vessels from Boston was rendered impossible. The inhabitants then had no option but to prevent the landing of the tea, to suffer it to be landed and depend on the unanimity of the people not to purchase it; to destroy the tea, or to suffer a deep-laid scheme against their sacred liberties to take effect. The first would have required incessant watching, by night as well as by day, for a period of time the duration of which no one could compute. The second would have been visionary to childishness, by suspending the liberties of a growing country on the self-denial and discretion of every tea-drinker in the province. They viewed the tea as the vehicle of an unconstitutional tax, and as inseparably associated with it. To avoid the one, they resolved to destroy the other. About seventeen persons, dressed as Indians, repaired to the tea ships, broke open 342 chests of tea, and, without doing any other damage, discharged their contents into the water.
"Thus, by the inflexibility of the Governor, the issue of this business was different at Boston from what it was elsewhere. The whole cargoes of tea were returned from New York and Philadelphia; that which was sent to Charleston was landed and stored, but not offered for sale. Mr. Hutchinson had repeatedly urged Government to be firm and persevering. He could not, therefore, consistently with his honour, depart from a line of conduct he had so often and so strongly recommended to his superiors. He also believed that the inhabitants would not dare to perfect their engagements, and flattered himself that they would desist when the critical moment arrived.
"Admitting the rectitude of the American claims of exemption from parliamentary taxation, the destruction of the tea by the Bostonians was warranted by the great law of self-preservation; for it was not possible for them by any other means to discharge the duty they owed to their country.
"The event of this business was very different from what had been expected in England. The colonists acted with so much union and system, that there was not a single chest of any of the cargoes sent out by the East India Company sold for their benefit."[319]
The Rev. Dr. Holmes, in his Annals of America, says:
"The crisis now approached when the colonies were to decide whether they would submit to be taxed by the British Parliament, or practically support their own principles and meet the consequences. One sentiment seems to have pervaded the entire continent. The new Ministerial plan was universally considered as a direct attack on the liberties of the colonists, which it was the duty of all to oppose. A violent ferment was everywhere excited; the Corresponding Committees were extremely active; and it was very generally declared that whoever should, directly or indirectly, countenance this dangerous invasion of their rights, is an enemy to his country. The East India Company, confident of finding a market for their tea, reduced as it now was in its price, freighted several ships to the colonies with that article, and appointed agents for the disposal of it. Some cargoes were sent to New York, some to Philadelphia, some to Charleston (South Carolina), and three to Boston. The inhabitants of New York and Philadelphia sent the ships back to London, 'and they sailed up the Thames to proclaim to all the nation that New York and Pennsylvania would not be enslaved.' The inhabitants of Charleston unloaded the tea and stored it in cellars, where it could not be used, and where it finally perished.
"The inhabitants of Boston tried every measure to send back the three tea ships which had arrived there, but without success. The captains of the ships had consented, if permitted, to return with their cargoes to England; but the consignees refused to discharge them from their obligations, the Custom-house to give them a clearance for their return, and the Governor refused to grant them a passport for clearing the fort. It was easily seen that the tea would be gradually landed from the ships lying so near the town, and that if landed it would be disposed of, and the purpose of establishing the monopoly and raising a revenue effected. To prevent this dreaded consequence, a number of armed men, disguised like Indians, boarded the ships and threw their whole cargoes of tea into the dock."[320]
A more circumstantial and graphic account of this affair is given by Mr. J.S. Barry, in his History of Massachusetts, in the following words:
"On Sunday, November 28, 1773, one of the ships arrived, bringing one hundred and fourteen chests of tea. Immediately the Select Men held a meeting; and the Committee of Correspondence obtained from Rotch, the owner of the vessel, a promise not to enter it until Tuesday. The towns around Boston were summoned to meet on Monday; 'and every friend to his country, to himself, and to posterity,' was desired to attend, 'to make a united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration.'
"At an early hour (Monday, November 29) the people gathered, and by nine o'clock the concourse was so great that Faneuil Hall was filled to overflowing. A motion to adjourn to the Old South Meeting-house, the 'Sanctuary of Freedom,' was made and carried; and on reaching that place, Jonathan Williams was chosen Moderator, and Hancock, Adams, Young, Molineux, and Warren, fearlessly conducted the business of the meeting. At least five thousand persons were in and around the building, and but one spirit animated all. Samuel Adams offered a resolution, which was unanimously adopted, 'That the tea should be sent back to the place from whence it came, at all events, and that no duty should be paid on it.' The consignees asked time for consideration, and 'out of great tenderness' their request was granted. To prevent any surprise, however, a watch of twenty-five persons, under Edward Proctor, was appointed to guard the ship during the night.
"The answer of the consignees was given in the morning (November 30); and after declaring that it was out of their power to send back the teas, they expressed their readiness to store them until otherwise advised. In the midst of the meeting the Sheriff of Suffolk entered, with a proclamation from the Governor, warning the people to disperse; but the message was received with derision and hisses, and a unanimous vote not to disperse. The master and owner of the ship which had lately arrived were then required to attend; and a promise was extorted from them that the teas should be returned without landing or paying a duty. The factors of two other vessels which were daily expected were next summoned, and similar promises were given by them; upon which the meeting, after voting to carry into effect, 'at the risk of their lives and properties,' their former resolves, quietly dissolved.
"After this dissolution, the Committee of Correspondence of Boston and its vicinity held meetings daily, and gave such directions as circumstances required. The other ships, on their arrival, anchored beside the Dartmouth (Rotch's vessel), that one guard might serve for all; and the inhabitants of a number of towns, at meetings convened for the purpose, promised to aid Boston whenever their services should be needed. At the end of twenty days the question must be decided, and if the teas were landed all was lost. As the crisis drew near the excitement increased. Hutchinson was confident that no violent measures would be taken. The wealth of Hancock and others seemed sufficient security against such measures. But the people had counted the cost, and had determined to risk all rather than be slaves.
"The eventful day (December 16) at last dawned; and two thousand from the country, besides the citizens of Boston, assembled in the Old South Meeting-house at ten o'clock, to decide what should be done. It was reported that Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, had been refused a clearance; and he was immediately instructed to 'protest against the Custom-house, and apply to the Governor for his pass.' But the Governor had stolen to his residence at Milton, and at three o'clock in the afternoon Rotch had not returned. What should be done? 'Shall we abide by our resolutions?' it was asked. Adams and Young were in favour of that course; Quincy, distinguished as a statesman and patriot, advised discretion; but the people cried, 'Our hands have been put to the plough; we must not look back;' and the whole assemblage of seven thousand persons voted unanimously that the tea should not be landed.
"Darkness in the meantime had settled upon the town, and in the dimly-lighted church the audience awaited the return of Rotch. At a quarter before six he made his appearance, and reported that the Governor had refused him his pass. 'We can do no more to save the country,' said Samuel Adams; and a momentary silence ensued. The next instant a shout was heard at the door; the war-whoop sounded; and forty or fifty men, disguised as Indians, hurried along to Griffin's Wharf, posted guards to prevent intrusion, boarded the ships, and in three hours' time had broken and emptied into the sea three hundred and forty-two chests of tea. So great was the stillness, that the blows of the hatchets as the chests were split open were distinctly heard. When the deed was done, every one retired, and the town was as quiet as if nothing had occurred."[321]
The foregoing threefold narrative presents substantially the American case of destroying the East India Company's tea by the inhabitants of Boston. The account by Mr. Bancroft is more elaborate, digressive, dramatic, and declamatory, but not so consecutive or concise as the preceding. Governor Hutchinson, who had advised the very policy which now recoiled upon himself, corroborates in all essential points the narrative given above. He states, however, what is slightly intimated above by Dr. Ramsay, that the opposition commenced by the merchants against the monopoly of the East India Company, rather than against the tax itself, which had been paid without murmuring for two years, and that the parliamentary tax on tea was seized upon, at the suggestion of merchants in England, to defeat the monopoly of the East India Company, and to revive and perpetuate the excitement against the British Parliament which had been created by the Stamp Act, and which was rapidly subsiding. Governor Hutchinson says:
"When the intelligence first came to Boston it caused no alarm. The threepenny duty had been paid the last two years without any stir, and some of the great friends to liberty had been importers of tea. The body of the people were pleased with the prospect of drinking tea at less expense than ever. The only apparent discontent was among the importers of tea, as well those who had been legal importers from England, as others who had illegally imported from Holland; and the complaint was against the East India Company for monopolizing a branch of commerce which had been beneficial to a great number of individual merchants. And the first suggestion of a design in the Ministry to enlarge the revenue, and to habituate the colonies to parliamentary taxes, was made from England; and opposition to the measure was recommended, with an intimation that it was expected that the tea would not be suffered to be landed."[322]
The Committees of Correspondence in the several colonies soon availed themselves of so favourable an opportunity for promoting their great purpose. It soon appeared to be their general determination, that at all events the tea should be sent back to England in the same ships which brought it. The first motions were at Philadelphia (Oct. 18th), where, at a meeting of the people, every man who should be concerned in unlading, receiving, or vending the tea, was pronounced an enemy to his country. This was one of the eight resolves passed at the meeting. The example was followed by Boston, November 3rd.[323]
Then follows Governor Hutchinson's account of the meetings and gatherings in Boston: the messages and answers between their Committees and the consignees, Custom-house officers, and the ultimate throwing of the tea into the dock, substantially as narrated in the preceding pages, together with his consultations with his Council, and his remarks upon the motives and conduct of the parties opposed to him. He admits that his Council was opposed to the measures which he proposed to suppress the meetings of the people; he admits the universal hostility of the people of Boston and of the neighbouring towns to the landing of the tea; that "while the Governor and Council were sitting on the Monday, in the Council Chamber, and known to be consulting upon means for preserving the peace of the town, several thousands of inhabitants of Boston and other towns were assembled in a public meeting-house at a small distance, in direct opposition and defiance." He says he "sent the Sheriff with a proclamation, to be read in the meeting, bearing testimony against it as an unlawful assembly, and requiring the Moderator and the people present forthwith to separate at their peril. Being read, a general hiss followed, and then a question whether they would surcease further proceedings, as the Governor required, which was determined in the negative, nemine contradicente."
It may be asked upon what legal or even reasonable ground had Governor Hutchinson the right to denounce a popular meeting which happened at the same time that he was holding a council, or because such meeting might entertain and express views differing from or in defiance of those which he was proposing to his Council?
Or, what authority had Governor Hutchinson to issue a proclamation and send a Sheriff to forbid a public meeting which the Charter and laws authorized to be called and held, as much as the Governor was authorized to call and hold his Council, or as any town or township council or meeting may be called and held in any province of the Dominion of Canada? It is not surprising that a public meeting "hissed" a command which was as lawless as it was powerless. The King himself would not have ventured to do what Governor Hutchinson did, in like circumstances; and British subjects in Massachusetts had equal civil rights with British subjects in England.
Governor Hutchinson admits that the public meeting was not only numerous, but composed of all classes of inhabitants, and was held in legal form; and his objection to the legality of the meeting merely because persons from other towns were allowed to be present, while he confesses that the inhabitants of Boston at the meeting were unanimous in their votes, is the most trivial that can be conceived. He says:
"A more determined spirit was conspicuous in this body than in any former assemblies of the people. It was composed of the lowest, as well, and probably in as great proportion, as of the superior ranks and orders, and all had an equal voice. No eccentric or irregular motions, however, were suffered to take place--all seemed to have been the plan of but a few--it may be, of a single person. The 'form' of town meeting was assumed, the Select Men of Boston, town clerks, etc., taking their usual places; but the inhabitants of any other town being admitted, it could not assume the name of a 'legal meeting of any town.'" (A trivial technical objection.)
Referring to another meeting--the last held before the day on which the tea was thrown into the sea--Governor Hutchinson states:
"The people came into Boston from the adjacent towns within twenty miles, from some more, from others less, as they were affected; and, as soon as they were assembled (November 14th, 1773), enjoined the owner of the ship, at his peril, to demand of the Collector of Customs a clearance for the ship, and appointed ten of their number a committee to accompany him, and adjourned for two days to receive the report. Being reassembled (at the end of the two days), and informed by the owner that a clearance was refused, he was enjoined immediately to apply to the Governor for a pass by the Castle. He made an apology to the Governor for coming upon such an errand, having been compelled to it, and received an answer that no pass ever had been, or lawfully could be, given to any vessel which had not first been cleared at the Custom-house, and that upon his producing a clearance, such pass would immediately be given by the naval officer."
Governor Hutchinson knew that the Custom-house could not give the clearance without the landing of the tea and payment of the duty provided for; he knew that the Custom-house had been applied to in vain to obtain a clearance. His reference of the owner to the Custom-house was a mere evasion and pretext to gain time and prevent any decisive action on the part of the town meeting until the night of the 16th, when the 20 days after the entry of the ships would have expired, and the Collector could seize the cargoes for non-payment of duties, place it in charge of the Admiral at the Castle, and sell it under pretence of paying the duties. He says: "The body of the people remained in the meeting-house until they had received the Governor's answer; and then, after it had been observed to them that, everything else in their power having been done, it now remained to proceed in the only way left, and that the owner of the ship having behaved like a man of honour, no injury ought to be offered to his person or property, the meeting was declared to be dissolved, and the body of the people repaired to the wharf and surrounded the immediate actors (who were 'covered with blankets, and making the appearance of Indians') as a guard and security until they had finished their work. In two or three hours they hoisted out of the holds of the ships three hundred and forty-two chests of tea, and emptied them into the sea. The Governor was unjustly censured by many people in the province, and much abused by the pamphlet and newspaper writers in England, for refusing his pass, which it is said would have saved the property thus destroyed; but he would have been justly censured if he had granted it. He was bound, as all the Governors were, by oath, faithfully to observe the Acts of Trade, and to do his endeavour that the statute of King William, which established a Custom-house, and is particularly mentioned in the Act, be carried into execution."
In Governor Hutchinson's own statement and vindication of his conduct, he admits that the meetings of the people were lawfully called and regularly conducted; that they were attended by the higher as well as lower classes of the people; that they exhausted every means in their power, deliberately and during successive days, to have the tea returned to England without damage, as was done from the ports of New York and Philadelphia; and that by his own acts, different from those of New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, whose Governors were subject to the same oaths as himself, the opposers of taxation by the British Parliament were reduced to the alternative of defeat, or of throwing the tea in question into the sea, as the Governor had effectually blocked up every possible way to their having the tea returned to England. Governor Hutchinson does not pretend to the technical scrupulousness of his oath, applicable to ordinary cases, binding him to write to the Admiral to guard the tea by an increased number of armed vessels in the channel of the harbour, and to prevent any vessel from passing out of the harbour for sea, without his own permit; nor does he intimate that he himself was the principal partner in the firm, nominally in the name of his sons, to whom the East India Company had principally consigned as agents the sale of the tea in question; much less does he say that in his letters to England, which had been mysteriously obtained by Dr. Franklin, and of the publication of which he so strongly and justly complained, he had urged the virtual deprivation of his country of its constitution of free government by having the Executive Councillors appointed and the salaries of the governor, judges, secretary, and attorney and solicitor-generals paid by the Crown out of the taxes of the people of the colony, imposed by the Imperial Parliament. Governor Hutchinson had rendered great service to his country by his History, and as a public representative, for many years in its Legislature and Councils, and was long regarded as its chief leader; but he had at length yielded to the seductions of ambition and avarice, and became an object of popular hatred instead of being, as he had many years been, a popular idol. He had sown the seed of which he was now reaping the fruits.
It is not surprising that, under such circumstances, Governor Hutchinson's health should become impaired and his spirits depressed, and that he should seek relief from his burdens and vexations by a visit to England, for which he applied and obtained permission, and which proved to be the end of his government of Massachusetts; for General Gage was appointed to succeed him as Governor, as well as Commander-in-Chief of the King's forces in America.
In reviewing the last few months of Mr. Hutchinson's government of Massachusetts, it is obvious that his ill-advised policy and mode of proceeding--arising, no doubt, in a great measure, from his personal and family interest in speculation in the new system of tea trade--was the primary and chief cause of those proceedings in which Boston differed from New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston in preventing the landing of the East India Company's tea. Had the authorities in the provinces of New York and Pennsylvania acted in the same way as did the Governor of Massachusetts, it cannot be doubted that the same scenes would have been witnessed at Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York as transpired at Boston. The eight resolutions which were adopted by the inhabitants of Philadelphia, in a public town meeting, on the 8th of October, as the basis of their proceedings against the taxation of the colonies by the Imperial Parliament, and against the landing of the East India Company's tea, were adopted by the inhabitants of Boston in a public town meeting the 3rd of November. The tea was as effectually prevented from being landed at the ports of New York and Philadelphia as it was at the port of Boston, and was as completely destroyed in the damp cellars at Charleston as in the sea water at Boston.[324]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 318: The resolutions adopted by a meeting of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, on the 18th of October, 1773, afford a specimen of the spirit of all the colonies, and the model of resolutions adopted in several of them, even Boston. They were as follows:
"1. That the disposal of their own property is the inherent right of freemen; that there can be no property in that which another can, of right, take from us without our consent; that the claim of Parliament to tax America is, in other words, a claim of right to levy contributions on us at pleasure.
"2. That the duty imposed by Parliament upon tea landed in America is a tax on the Americans, or levying contributions on them without their consent.
"3. That the express purpose for which the tax is levied on the Americans, namely, for the support of government, administration of justice, and defence of his Majesty's dominions in America, has a direct tendency to render Assemblies useless, and to introduce arbitrary government and slavery.
"4. That a virtuous and steady opposition to this Ministerial plan of governing America is absolutely necessary to preserve even the shadow of liberty, and is a duty which every freeman in America owes to his country, to himself, and to his posterity.
"5. That the resolution lately entered into by the East India Company, to send out their tea to America, subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce this Ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America.
"6. That it is the duty of every American to oppose this attempt.
"7. That whosoever shall, directly or indirectly, countenance this attempt, or in anywise aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company, while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here, is an enemy to his country.
"8. That a Committee be immediately chosen to wait on those gentlemen who it is reported are appointed by the East India Company to receive and sell said tea, and request them, from a regard to their own character, and the peace and good order of the city and province, immediately to resign their appointments." (Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., pp. 372, 373.)]
[Footnote 319: Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. 1., Chap. iii., pp. 373-375.]
[Footnote 320: Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 181, 182.]
[Footnote 321: Barry's History of Massachusetts, Second Period, Chap. xiv., pp. 470-473.
The historian adds: "The Governor was in a forlorn state, and was unable to keep up even a show of authority. Every one was against him. The Houses were against him. 'The superior judges were intimidated from acting,' and 'there was not a justice of the peace, sheriff, constable, or peace-officer in the province who would venture to take cognizance of any breach of law against the general bent of the people.'"--Ib., 473, 474.]
[Footnote 322: Governor Hutchinson, in a note, referring to the mercantile English letters which contained the suggestion not to allow the landing of the tea of the East India Company, says:
"These letters were dated in England the beginning of August, and were received in America the latter end of September and the beginning of October."
Mr. Bancroft states as follows the causes and circumstances of this disastrous tea agreement between the British Ministry and East India Company:
"The continued refusal of North America to receive tea from England had brought distress upon the East India Company, which had on hand, wanting a market, great quantities imported in the faith that that agreement (in the colonies, not to purchase tea imported from England) could not hold. They were able to pay neither their dividends nor their debts; their stock depreciated nearly one-half; and the Government must lose their annual payment of four hundred thousand pounds.
"The bankruptcies, brought on partly by this means, gave such a shock to credit as had not been experienced since the South Sea year, and the great manufacturers were sufferers. The directors came to Parliament with an ample confession of their humbled state, together with entreaties for assistance and relief, and particularly praying that leave might be given to export tea free of all duties to America and to foreign ports. Had such leave been granted in respect of America, it would have been an excellent commercial regulation, as well as have restored a good understanding to every part of the empire. Instead of this, Lord North proposed to give to the Company itself the right of exporting its teas. The existing law granted on their exportation to America a drawback of three-fifths only of the duties paid on importation. Lord North now offered to the East India Company a drawback of the whole. Trecothick, in the committee, also advised to take off the import duty in America of threepence the pound, as it produced no income to the revenue; but the Ministry would not listen to the thought of relieving America from taxation. 'Then,' added Trecothick in behalf of the East India Company, 'as much or more may be brought into revenue by not allowing a full exemption from the duties paid here.' But Lord North refused to discuss the right of Parliament to tax America, insisting that no difficulty could arise; that under the new regulation America would be able to buy tea from the Company at a lower price than from any other European nation, and that men will always go to the cheapest market.
"The Ministry was still in its halcyon days; no opposition was made even by the Whigs; and the measure, which was the King's own, and was designed to put America to the test, took effect as law from the 10th day of May, 1773. It was immediately followed by a most carefully prepared answer from the King to petitions from Massachusetts, announcing that he 'considered his authority to make laws in Parliament of sufficient force and validity to bind his subjects in America, in all cases whatsoever, as essential to the dignity of the Crown, and a right appertaining to the State, which it was his duty to preserve entire and inviolate;' that he therefore 'could not but be greatly displeased with the petitions and remonstrance in which that right was drawn into question,' but that he 'imputed the unwarrantable doctrines held forth in the said petitions and remonstrance to the artifices of a few.' All this while Lord Dartmouth (the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, successor to Lord Hillsborough) 'had a true desire to see lenient measures adopted towards the colonies,' not being in the least aware that he was drifting with the Cabinet towards the very system of coercion against which he gave the most public and the most explicit pledges." (History of the United States, Vol. VI., pp. 458-460.)]
[Footnote 323: See these resolutions, in a note on pp. 374, 375.]
[Footnote 324: "In South Carolina, some of the tea was thrown into the river as at Boston." (English Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., p. 50.)]
Chapter XVIII
EVENTS OF 1774--ALL CLASSES IN THE COLONIES DISCONTENTED--ALL CLASSES AND ALL THE PROVINCES REJECT THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S TEA.
The year 1774 commenced, among other legacies of 1773, with that of the discontent of all the colonies,[325] their unanimous rejection of the East India tea, stamped with the threepenny duty of parliamentary tax, as the symbol of the absolutism of King and Parliament over the colonies. The manner of its rejection, by being thrown into the sea at Boston, was universally denounced by all parties in England. The accounts of all the proceedings in America against the admission of the East India tea to the colonial ports, were coloured by the mediums through which they were transmitted--the royal governors and their executive officers, who expected large advantages from being assigned and paid their salaries by the Crown, independent of the local Legislatures; and the consignees of the East India Company, who anticipated large profits from their monopoly of its sale. Opposition to the tea duty was represented as "rebellion"--the assertors of colonial freedom from imperial taxation without representation were designated "rebels" and "traitors," notwithstanding their professed loyalty to the Throne and to the unity of the empire, and that their utmost wishes were limited to be replaced in the position they occupied after the peace of Paris, in 1763, and after their unanimous and admitted loyalty, and even heroism, in defence and support of British supremacy in America.
"Intelligence," says Dr. Holmes, "of the destruction of the tea at Boston was communicated on the 7th of March (1774), in a message from the Throne, to both Houses of Parliament. In this communication the conduct of the colonists was represented as not merely obstructing the commerce of Great Britain, but as subversive of the British Constitution. Although the papers accompanying the Royal message rendered it evident that the opposition to the sale of the tea was common to all the colonies; yet the Parliament, enraged at the violence of Boston, selected that town as the object of its legislative vengeance. Without giving the opportunity of a hearing, a Bill was passed by which the port of Boston was legally precluded from the privilege of landing and discharging, or of lading or shipping goods, wares, and merchandise; and every vessel within the points Aldeston and Nahant was required to depart within six hours, unless laden with food or fuel.
"This Act, which shut up the harbour of Boston, was speedily followed by another, entitled 'An Act for Better Regulating the Government of Massachusetts,' which provided that the Council, heretofore elected by the General Assembly, was to be appointed by the Crown; the Royal Governor was invested with the power of appointing and removing all Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas, Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, the Attorney-General, Provost-Marshal, Justices, Sheriffs, etc.; town meetings, which were sanctioned by the Charter, were, with few exceptions, expressly forbidden, without leave previously obtained of the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, expressing the special business of said meeting, and with a further restriction that no matters should be treated of at these meetings except the electing of public officers and the business expressed in the Governor's permission; jurymen, who had been elected before by the freeholders and inhabitants of the several towns, were to be all summoned and returned by the sheriffs of the respective counties; the whole executive government was taken out of the hands of the people, and the nomination of all important officers invested in the King or his Governor.
"In the apprehension that in the execution of these Acts riots would take place, and that trials or murders committed in suppressing them would be partially decided by the colonists, it was provided by another Act, that if any persons were indicted for murder, or any capital offence, committed in aiding the magistracy, the Governor might send the person so indicted to another county, or to Great Britain, to be tried.
"These three Acts were passed in such quick succession as to produce the most inflammatory effects in America, where they were considered as forming a complete system of tyranny. 'By the first,' said the colonists, 'the property of unoffending thousands is arbitrarily taken away for the act of a few individuals; by the second, our chartered liberties are annihilated; and by the third, our lives may be destroyed with impunity.'"[326]
The passing of these three Bills through Parliament was attended in each case with protracted and animated debates.
The first debate or discussion of American affairs took place on the 7th of March, in proposing an address of thanks to the King for the message and the communication of the American papers, with an assurance that the House would not fail to exert every means in their power of effectually providing for objects so important to the general welfare as maintaining the due execution of the laws, and for securing the just dependence of the colonies upon the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain.
In moving this address to pledge Parliament to the exertion of every means in its power, Mr. Rice said: "The question now brought to issue is, whether the colonies are or are not the colonies of Great Britain." Lord North said, "Nothing can be done to re-establish peace, without additional powers from Parliament." Nugent, now Lord Clare (who had advocated the Stamp Act, if the revenue from it should not exceed a peppercorn, as a symbol of parliamentary power), entreated that there might be no divided counsels. Dowdeswill said: "On the repeal of the Stamp Act, all America was quiet; but in the following year you would go in pursuit of your peppercorn--you would collect from peppercorn to peppercorn--you would establish taxes as tests of obedience. Unravel the whole conduct of America; you will find out the fault is at home." Pownall, former Governor of Massachusetts and earnest advocate of American rights, said: "The dependence of the colonies is a part of the British Constitution. I hope, for the sake of this country, for the sake of America, for the sake of general liberty, that this address will pass with a unanimous vote." Colonel Barré even applauded the good temper with which the subject had been discussed, and refused to make any opposition. William Burke, brother of Edmund Burke, said: "I speak as an Englishman. We applaud ourselves for the struggles we have had for our constitution; the colonists are our fellow-subjects; they will not lose theirs without a struggle." Wedderburn, the Solicitor-General, who bore the principal part in the debate, said: "The leading question is the dependence or independence of America." The address was adopted without a division.[327]
On the 14th of March, Lord North explained at large his American policy, and opened the first part of his plan by asking leave to bring in a Bill for the instant punishment of Boston. He stated, says the Annual Register, "that the opposition to the authority of Parliament had always originated in the colony of Massachusetts, and that colony had been always instigated to such conduct by the irregular and seditious proceedings of the town of Boston; that, therefore, for the purpose of a thorough reformation, it became necessary to begin with that town, which by a late unpardonable outrage had led the way to the destruction of the freedom of commerce in all parts of America: that if a severe and exemplary punishment were not inflicted on this heinous act, Great Britain would be wanting in the protection she owed to her most peaceable and meritorious subjects: that had such an insult been offered to British property in a foreign port, the nation would have been called upon to demand satisfaction for it.
"He would therefore propose that the town of Boston should be obliged to pay for the tea which had been destroyed in their port: that the injury was indeed offered by persons unknown and in disguise, but that the town magistracy had taken no notice of it, had never made any search for the offenders, and therefore, by a neglect of manifest duty, became accomplices in the guilt: that the fining of communities for their neglect in punishing offences committed within their limits was justified by several examples. In King Charles the Second's time, the city of London was fined when Dr. Lamb was killed by unknown persons. The city of Edinburgh was fined and otherwise punished for the affair of Captain Porteous. A part of the revenue of the town of Glasgow had been sequestered until satisfaction was made for the pulling down of Mr. Campbell's house. These examples were strong in point for such punishments. The case of Boston was far worse. It was not a single act of violence; it was a series of seditious practices of every kind, and carried on for several years.
"He was of opinion, therefore, that it would not be sufficient to punish the town of Boston by obliging her to make a pecuniary satisfaction for the injury which, by not endeavouring to prevent or punish, she has, in fact, encouraged; security must be given in future that trade may be safely carried on, property protected, laws obeyed, and duties regularly paid. Otherwise the punishment of a single illegal act is no reformation. It would be therefore proper to take away from Boston the privilege of a port until his Majesty should be satisfied in these particulars, and publicly declare in Council, on a proper certificate of the good behaviour of the town, that he was so satisfied. Until this should happen, the Custom-house officers, who were now not safe in Boston, or safe no longer than while they neglected their duty, should be removed to Salem, where they might exercise their functions."[328]
The Bill passed the first reading without discussion. At the second reading, Mr. Byng alone voted no, though there was considerable discussion. "Mr. Bollan, the agent for the Council of Massachusetts Bay, presented a petition, desiring to be heard in behalf of said Council and other inhabitants of Boston; but the House refused to receive the petition."[329]
At the third reading, the Lord Mayor of London presented a petition in behalf of several natives and inhabitants of North America then in London. "It was drawn," says the Annual Register, "with remarkable ability." The petitioners alleged that "the proceedings were repugnant to every principle of law and justice, and under such a precedent no man in America could enjoy a moment's security; for if judgment be immediately to follow on accusation against the people of America, supported by persons notoriously at enmity with them, the accused unacquainted with the charges, and from the nature of their situation utterly incapable of answering and defending themselves, every fence against false accusation will be pulled down.
"They asserted that law is executed with as much impartiality in America as in any part of his Majesty's dominions. They appealed for proof of this to the fair trial and favourable verdict in the case of Captain Preston and his soldiers.
"That in such a case the interposition of parliamentary power was full of danger and without precedent. The persons committing the injury were unknown. If discovered, the law ought first to be tried. If unknown, what rule of justice can punish the town for a civil injury committed by persons not known to them?
"That the instances of the cities of London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow were wholly dissimilar. All these towns were regularly heard in their own defence. Their magistrates were of their own choosing (which was not the case of Boston), and therefore they were more equitably responsible. But in Boston the King's Governor has the power, and had been advised by his Council to exert it; if it has been neglected, he alone is answerable."[330] In conclusion, the petitioners strongly insisted on the injustice of the Act, and its tendency to alienate the affections of America from the mother country.
The petition was received, but no particular proceedings took place upon it.
The Bill passed the House on the 25th of March, and was carried up to the Lords, where it was likewise warmly debated; but, as in the Commons, without a division. It received the Royal assent on the 31st of March.[331]
Dr. Ramsay remarks: "By the operation of the Boston Port Act, the preceding situation of its inhabitants and that of the East India Company was reversed. The former had more reason to complain of the disproportionate penalty to which they were indiscriminately subjected, than the latter of that outrage on their property, for which punishment had been inflicted. Hitherto the East India Company were the injured party; but from the passing of this Act the balance of injury was on the opposite side. If wrongs received entitled the former to reparation, the latter had a much stronger title on the same ground. For the act of seventeen or eighteen individuals, as many thousands were involved in one general calamity."[332]
Shortly after the passing of the Boston Port Bill, the second Bill was brought into Parliament, entitled "An Act for the Better Regulating of the Government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay." This Bill was brought in on the 28th of March, three days before the Royal assent was given to the Boston Port Bill. As the town of Boston had received no notice of the Bill which closed its port, and had therefore no opportunity to vindicate its conduct or rights; so the Province received no notice of the Bill which changed its system of government, which abrogated so much of its Charter as gave to its Legislative Assembly the choice of the Council; abolished town meetings, except for the choice of town officers, or on the special permission of the Governor, which gave to the Crown the appointment and removal of the sheriffs, and to the sheriffs the selection of the juries, which had hitherto been elected by the people. After an animated debate, led by Dunning in opposition, the Bill passed the Commons by a vote of more than three to one.
The third penal Bill brought in and passed was said to have been specially recommended by the King himself. It authorized, at the discretion of the Governor, the removal for trial to Nova Scotia or Great Britain of all magistrates, revenue officers, or soldiers indicted for murder or other capital offence. Mr. Bancroft says: "As Lord North brought forward this wholesale Bill of indemnity to the Governor and soldiers, if they should trample upon the people of Boston and be charged with murder, it was noticed that he trembled and faltered at every word; showing that he was the vassal of a stronger will than his own, and vainly struggled to wrestle down the feelings which his nature refused to disavow."[333]
Colonel Barré, who had supported the Boston Port Bill, said: "I execrate the present measure; you have had one meeting of the colonies in Congress. You may soon have another. The Americans will not abandon their principles; for if they submit they are slaves." The Bill passed the Commons by a vote of more than four to one.
The fourth Bill legalized the quartering of troops within the town of Boston.
The question now arises, What were the effects of these measures upon the colonies? We answer, the effects of these measures were the very reverse of what had been anticipated and predicted by their advocates in England, both in and out of Parliament. The general expectation in England was that they would not be resisted in America; that Boston and Massachusetts would submit; that if they should not submit, they would be isolated from the other provinces, who would not identify themselves with or countenance the extreme proceedings of Boston and of Massachusetts. These measures had been adopted by the Government and Parliament of Great Britain in the months of March and April, and were to take effect the 1st of June. In the two following months of May and June, America spoke, and twelve colonies out of thirteen (Georgia alone excepted) protested against the measures of the British Parliament, and expressed their sympathy with Boston and Massachusetts. Boston itself spoke first, and instead of submitting, as had been predicted by Lords Mansfield and others, held a town meeting as soon as they received intelligence of the passing of the Boston Port Bill, at which resolutions were passed expressing their opinion of the impolicy, injustice, inhumanity and cruelty of this Act, from which they appealed to God and to the world; also inviting other colonies to join with them in an agreement to stop all imports and exports to and from Great Britain and Ireland and the West Indies until the Act should be repealed.[334]
Mr. Bancroft, remarks:
"The merchants of Newburyport were the first who agreed to suspend all commerce with Britain and Ireland. Salem, also, the place marked out as the new seat of government, in a very full town meeting, and after unimpassioned debates, decided almost unanimously to stop trade, not with Britain only, but even with the West Indies. If in Boston a few cravens proposed to purchase a relaxation of the blockade by quailing before power, the majority were beset by no temptation so strong as that of routing at once the insignificant number of troops who had come to overawe them. But Samuel Adams, while he compared their spirit to that of Sparta or Rome, was ever inculcating patience as the characteristic of a true patriot; and the people having sent forth their cry to the continent, waited self-possessed for voices of consolation."[335]
In the meantime, according to the provisions of the Charter, the Legislature of Massachusetts, the last Wednesday in May, proceeded to nominate the twenty-eight councillors. Of these, General Gage negatived the unprecedented number of thirteen, including all the popular leaders nominated. He laid nothing before the General Assembly but the ordinary business of the province; but gave notice that the seat of government would be removed to Salem the 1st of June, in pursuance of the Act for Closing the Port of Boston.
The Legislature reassembled, according to adjournment, at Salem the 7th day of June,[336] after ten days' prorogation, and on the 9th the Council replied to the Governor's speech at the opening of the session. Their answer was respectful, but firmly and loyally expressive of their views and feelings. They declared their readiness "on all occasions cheerfully to co-operate with his Excellency" in every step tending to "restore harmony" and "extricate the province from their present embarrassments," which, in their estimation, were attributable to the conduct of his "two immediate predecessors." They at the same time affirmed that "the inhabitants of the colony claimed no more than the rights of Englishmen, without diminution or abridgment;" and that these, "as it was their indispensable duty, so would it be their constant endeavour to maintain to the utmost of their power, in perfect consistence with the truest loyalty to the Crown, the just prerogatives of which they should ever be zealous to support." To this address the Governor replied in the following bitter words: "I cannot receive this address, which contains indecent reflections on my predecessors, who have been tried and honourably acquitted by the Lords of the Privy Council, and their conduct approved by the King. I consider this address as an insult upon his Majesty and the Lords of the Privy Council, and an affront to myself."
The answer of the Assembly was very courteous, but equally decided with that of the Council. They congratulated his Excellency on his safe arrival, and declared that they "honoured him in the most exalted station of the province, and confided in him to make the known Constitution and Charter the rule of his administration;" they "deprecated the removal of the Court to Salem," but expressed a hope that "the true state of the province, and the character of his Majesty's subjects in it, their loyalty to their Sovereign and their affection for the parent country,[337] as well as their invincible attachment to their just rights and liberties, would be laid before his Majesty, and that he would be the happy instrument of removing his Majesty's displeasure, and restoring harmony, which had been long interrupted by the artifices of interested and designing men."
The House of Representatives, after much private consultation among its leading members, proceeded with closed doors to the consideration and adoption, by a majority of 92 to 12, of resolutions declaring the necessity of a general meeting of all the colonies in Congress, "in order to consult together upon the present state of the colonies, and the miseries to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America; and to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures to be by them recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently to be desired by all good men." They elected five gentlemen to represent Massachusetts to the proposed Congress.
The House also proceeded with all expedition to draw up a declaration of their sentiments, to be published as a rule for the conduct of the people of Massachusetts. "This declaration," says Dr. Andrews, "contained a repetition of grievances; the necessity they were now under of struggling against lawless power; the disregard of their petitions, though founded on the clearest and most equitable reasons; the evident intention of Great Britain to destroy the Constitution transmitted to them from their ancestors, and to erect upon its ruins a system of absolute sway, incompatible with their disposition and subversive of the rights they had uninterruptedly enjoyed during the space of more than a century and a half. Impelled by these motives, they thought it their duty to advise the inhabitants of Massachusetts to throw every obstruction in their power in the way of such evil designs, and recommended as one of the most effectual, a total disuse of all importations from Great Britain until an entire redress had been obtained of every grievance.
"Notwithstanding the secrecy with which this business was carried on," continues Dr. Andrews, "the Governor was apprized of it; and on the very day it was completed, and the report of it made to the House (and adopted), he dissolved the Assembly, which was the last that was held in that colony agreeably to the tenor of the Charter."[338]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 325: "The discontents and disorders continue to prevail in a greater or less degree through all the old colonies on the continent. The same spirit pervades the whole. Even those colonies which depended most upon the mother country for the consumption of their productions entered into similar associations with the others; and nothing was to be heard of but resolutions for the encouragement of their own manufactures, the consumption of home products, the discouragement of foreign articles, and the retrenchment of all superfluities." (English Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., p. 45.)]
[Footnote 326: Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 185, 186. These three Bills were followed by a fourth, legalizing the quartering of the troops on the inhabitants in the town of Boston.]
[Footnote 327: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VI., Chap. lii, pp. 503-510. Mr. Bancroft says:
"The next day letters arrived from America, manifesting no change in the conduct of the colonies. Calumny, with its hundred tongues, exaggerated the turbulence of the people, and invented wild tales of violence. It was said at the palace, and the King believed, that there was in Boston a regular committee for tarring and feathering; and that they were next, to use the King's expression, 'to pitch and feather' Governor Hutchinson himself. The press was also employed to rouse the national pride, till the zeal of the English people for maintaining English supremacy became equal to the passions of the Ministry. Even the merchants and manufacturers were made to believe that their command of the American market depended on the enforcement of the British claim of authority."--Ib., p. 511.]
[Footnote 328: Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., pp. 62, 63. "At the first introduction, the Bill was received with very general applause. The cry raised against the Americans, partly the natural effect of their own acts, and partly of the operations of Government, was so strong as nearly to overbear the most resolute and determined in the opposition. Several of those who had been the most sanguine favourers of the colonies now condemned their behaviour and applauded the measure as not only just but lenient (even Colonel Barré). He said: 'After having weighed the noble lord's proposition well, I cannot help giving it my hearty and determined approval.' Others, indeed (as Dowdeswill and Edmund Burke), stood firmly by their old ground. They contented themselves, in that stage of the business, with deprecating the Bill; predicting the most fatal consequences from it, and lamenting the spirit of the House, which drove on or was driving on to the most violent measures, by the mischiefs produced by injudicious counsels; one seeming to render the other necessary. They declared that they would enter little into a debate which they saw would be fruitless, and only spoke to clear themselves from having any share in such fatal proceedings."--Ib., pp. 164, 165.]
[Footnote 329: Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., p. 65, which adds: "This vote of rejection was heavily censured. The opposition cried out at the inconsistency of the House, who but a few days ago received a petition from this very man, in this very character; and now, only because they chose to exert their power in acts of injustice and contradiction, totally refuse to receive anything from him, as not duly qualified. But what, they asserted, made this conduct the more unnecessary and outrageous was, that at that time the House of Lords were actually hearing Mr. Bollan on his petition, as a person duly qualified, at their bar. 'Thus,' said they, 'this House is at once in contradiction to the other and to itself.' As to the reasons given against his qualifications, they are equally applicable to all American agents; none of whom are appointed as the Minister now requires they should be, and thus this House cuts off communication between them and the colonies whom they are assisting by their acts."]
[Footnote 330: Annual Register for 1774, Vol. XVII., pp. 65, 66.]
[Footnote 331: Ib., p. 67.
The Bill underwent a more full and fair discussion in the House of Lords than in the House of Commons. The amiable Lord Dartmouth, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, "a man that prayed," desired lenient measures, called what passed in Boston "commotion," not open "rebellion." But Lord Mansfield said, "What passed in Boston is the last overt act of high treason, proceeding from our own lenity and want of foresight. It is, however, the luckiest event that could befall this country, for all may now be recovered. Compensation to the East India Company I regard as no object of the Bill. The sword is drawn, and you must throw away the scabbard. Pass this Act, and you will be past the Rubicon. The Americans will then know that we shall not temporize any longer; if it passes with a tolerable unanimity, Boston will submit, and all will end in victory without carnage." The Marquis of Rockingham and the Duke of Richmond warmly opposed the measure, as did Lords Camden and Shelburne, the latter of whom proved the tranquil and loyal condition in which he had left the colonies on giving up their administration.]
[Footnote 332: Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. iv., p. 379.
"The inhabitants of Boston, distinguished for politeness and hospitality no less than for industry and opulence, were sentenced, on the short notice of twenty days, to a deprivation of the means of subsistence. The rents of landholders ceased, or were greatly diminished. The immense property in stores and wharves was rendered in a great measure useless. Labourers and artificers, and many others employed in the numerous occupations created by an extensive trade, shared the general calamity. Those of the people who depended on a regular income, and those who earned their subsistence by daily labour, were equally deprived of the means of support. Animated, however, by the spirit of freedom, they endured their privations with inflexible fortitude. Their sufferings were soon mitigated by the sympathy and relieved by the charity of the other colonists. Contributions were everywhere raised for their relief. Corporate bodies, town meetings, and provincial conventions sent them letters and addresses applauding their conduct and exhorting them to perseverance. The inhabitants of Marblehead (which was to be the seaport instead of Boston) generously offered the Boston merchants the use of their harbour, wharves, warehouses, and their personal attendance, on the lading or unlading of their goods, free of all expense. The inhabitants of Salem (the newly appointed capital) concluded an address to Governor Gage in a manner that reflected great honour on their virtue and patriotism. 'By shutting up the port of Boston,' they said, 'some imagine that the course of trade might be turned hither, and to our benefit; but nature, in the formation of our harbour, forbids our becoming rivals in commerce with that convenient mart; and were it otherwise, we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could we indulge one thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruins of our suffering neighbours.'" (Holmes' Annals, etc., Vol. II., pp. 187, 188.)]
[Footnote 333: History of the United States, Vol. VI., Chap. lii., pp. 525, 526.]
[Footnote 334: Marshall's Colonial History, Chap. xiv., p. 405.
"As soon as the Act was received, the Boston Committee of Correspondence, by the hand of Joseph Warren, invited eight neighbouring towns to a conference 'on the critical state of public affairs.' On the 12th, at noon, Metcalf Bowler, the Speaker of the Assembly of Rhode Island, came before them with the cheering news that, in answer to a recent circular letter from the body over which he presided, all the thirteen Governments were pledged to union. Punctually at the hour of three in the afternoon of that day, the committees from the eight villages joined them in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, where for ten years the freemen of the town had debated the great question of justifiable resistance. Placing Samuel Adams at their head, and guided by a report prepared by Joseph Warren of Boston, Gardener of Cambridge, and others, they agreed unanimously on the injustice and cruelty of the Act by which Parliament, without competent jurisdiction, and contrary as well to natural right as to the laws of all civilized states, had, without a hearing, set apart, accused, tried and condemmed the town of Boston." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap, i., pp. 35, 36.)]
[Footnote 335: History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap, x., pp. 38, 39.
Referring to General Gage's arrival at Boston, as Commander-in-Chief of the continent as well as successor to Hutchinson as Governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Bancroft says:
"On the 17th of May, Gage, who had remained four days with Hutchinson at Castle William, landed at Long Wharf amidst salutes from ships and batteries. Received by the Council and civil officers, he was escorted by the Boston cadets, under Hancock, to the State House, where the Council presented a loyal address, and his commission was proclaimed with three volleys of musketry and as many cheers. He then partook of a public dinner in Faneuil Hall. A hope still lingered that relief might come through his intercession. But Gage was neither fit to reconcile nor to subdue. By his mild temper and love of society, he gained the good-will of his boon companions, and escaped personal enmities; but in earnest business he inspired neither confidence nor fear. Though his disposition was far from being malignant, he was so poor in spirit and so weak of will, so dull in his perceptions and so unsettled in his opinions, that he was sure to follow the worst advice, and vacillate between smooth words of concession and merciless severity. He had promised the King that with four regiments he would play the lion, and troops beyond his requisition were hourly expected. His instructions enjoined upon him the seizure and condign punishment of Samuel Adams, Hancock, Joseph Warren, and other leading patriots; but he stood in such dread of them that he never so much as attempted their arrest."--Ib., pp. 37, 38.]
[Footnote 336: But before the prorogation, which took place the 28th of May, the Assembly desired the Governor to appoint the 1st day of June as a day of fasting and prayer; but he refused, assigning as a reason, in a letter to Lord Dartmouth, that "the request was only to give an opportunity for sedition to flow from the pulpit."]
[Footnote 337: "The people of Massachusetts were almost exclusively of English origin. Beyond any other colony they loved the land of their ancestors; but their fond attachment made them only the more sensitive to its tyranny. To subject them to taxation without their consent was robbing them of their birthright; they scorned the British Parliament as a 'Junta of the servants of the Crown rather than the representatives of England.' Not disguising to themselves their danger, but confident of victory, they were resolved to stand together as brothers for a life of liberty." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. i., p. 38).]
[Footnote 338: History of the War with America, France and Spain, and Holland, commencing in 1775, and ending in 1783. By John Andrews, LL.D., in four volumes, with Maps and Charts. London: Published by his Majesty's Royal Licence and Authority, 1788. Vol. I., pp. 137, 138.
A more minute and graphic account of the close of this session of the Massachusetts Court or Legislature is as follows:
"On the appointed day the doors were closed and the subject was broached; but before any action could be taken in the premises, a loyalist member obtained leave of absence and immediately dispatched a messenger to Gage, to inform him of what was passing. The Governor, in great haste, sent the Secretary to dissolve the Court. Finding the door locked, he knocked for admission, but was answered, that 'The House was upon very important business, which when they had finished, they would let him in.' Failing to obtain an entrance, he stood upon the steps and read the proclamation in the hearing of several members and others, and after reading it in the Council Chamber, returned. The House took no notice of this message, but proceeded with their business; and, by a vote of 117 to 12, having determined that a Committee should be appointed to meet, as soon as may be, the Committees that are or shall be appointed by the several colonies on this continent to consult together upon the present state of the colonies, James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine were selected for that purpose, and funds were provided for defraying their expenses." (Barry's History of Massachusetts, Second Period, Chap. xiv., pp. 484, 485.)]
Chapter XIX
1774, UNTIL THE MEETING OF THE FIRST GENERAL CONGRESS IN SEPTEMBER.
The responses to the appeals of Boston and the proposals of the Assembly of Massachusetts, for a meeting of Congress of all the colonies, were prompt and general and sympathetic beyond what had been anticipated; and in some colonies the expressions of approval and offers of co-operation and assistance preceded any knowledge of what was doing, or had been done, in Massachusetts.
In Virginia the House of Burgesses were in session when the news arrived from England announcing the passing by the British Parliament of the Boston Port Bill; and on the 26th of May the House resolved that the 1st of June, the day on which that Bill was to go into effect, should be set apart by the members as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, "devoutly to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy calamities which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of a civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." On the publication of this resolution, the Governor (the Earl of Dunmore) dissolved the House. But the members, before separating, entered into an association and signed an agreement, to the number of 87, in which, among other things, they declared "that an attack made on one of their sister colonies, to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, was an attack made on all British America, and threatened ruin to the civil rights of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied in prevention." They therefore recommended to their Committee of Correspondence to communicate with the several Committees of the other provinces, on the expediency of appointing deputies from the different colonies, to meet annually in Congress, and to deliberate on the common interests of America. This measure had already been proposed in town meetings, both in New York and Boston. The colonies, from New Hampshire to South Carolina inclusive, adopted this measure; and where the Legislatures were not in session, elections were made by the people.[339]
While there was a general agreement of sentiment throughout the colonies in favour of a Congress or Convention of all the colonies to consult on common rights and interests, and to devise the best means of securing them, there was also a corresponding sympathy and liberality for the relief of the inhabitants of Boston, who were considered as suffering for the maintenance of rights sacred to the liberties of all the colonies, as all had resisted successfully the landing of the tea, the badge of their enslavement, though all had not been driven by the Governor, as in the case of Massachusetts, to destroy it in order to prevent its being landed. Yet even this had been done to some extent both in South Carolina and New York.
The town of Boston became an object of interest, and its inhabitants subjects of sympathy throughout the colonies of America. All the histories of those times agree "that as soon as the true character of the Boston Port Act became known in America, every colony, every city, every village, and, as it were, the inmates of every farm-house, felt it as a wound of their affections. The towns of Massachusetts abounded in kind offices. The colonies vied with each other in liberality. The record kept at Boston shows that 'the patriotic and generous people' of South Carolina were the first to minister to the sufferers, sending early in June two hundred barrels of rice, and promising eight hundred more. At Wilmington, North Carolina, the sum of two thousand pounds currency was raised in a few days; the women of the place gave liberally. Throughout all New England the towns sent rye, flour, peas, cattle, sheep, oil, fish; whatever the land or hook and line could furnish, and sometimes gifts of money. The French inhabitants of Quebec, joining with those of English origin, shipped a thousand and forty bushels of wheat. Delaware was so much in earnest that it devised plans for sending relief annually. All Maryland and all Virginia were contributing liberally and cheerfully, being resolved that the men of Boston, who were deprived of their daily labour, should not lose their daily bread, nor be compelled to change their residence for want. In Fairfax county, Washington presided at a spirited meeting, and headed a subscription paper with his own gift of fifty pounds. A special chronicle could hardly enumerate all the generous deeds. Cheered by the universal sympathy, the inhabitants of Boston 'were determined to hold out and appeal to the justice of the colonies and of the world;' trusting in God that 'these things should be overruled for the establishment of liberty, virtue and happiness in America.'"[340]
It is worthy of inquiry, as to how information could be so rapidly circulated throughout colonies sparsely settled over a territory larger than that of Europe, and expressions of sentiment and feeling elicited from their remotest settlements? For, as Dr. Ramsay says, "in the three first months which followed the shutting up of the port of Boston, the inhabitants of the colonies, in hundreds of small circles as well as in their Provincial Assemblies and Congresses, expressed their abhorrence of the late proceedings of the British Parliament against Massachusetts; their concurrence in the proposed measure of appointing deputies for a General Congress; and their willingness to do and suffer whatever should be judged conducive to the establishment of their liberties."[341] "In order to understand," says the same author, "the mode by which this flame was spread with such rapidity over so great an extent of country, it is necessary to observe that the several colonies were divided into counties, and these again subdivided into districts, distinguished by the names of towns, townships, precincts, hundreds, or parishes. In New England, the subdivisions which are called towns were, by law, bodies corporate; had their regular meetings, and might be occasionally convened by their officers. The advantages derived from these meetings, by uniting the whole body of the people in the measures taken to oppose the Stamp Act, induced other provinces to follow the example. Accordingly, under the Association which was formed to oppose the Revenue Act of 1767, Committees were established, not only in the capital of every province, but in most of the subordinate districts. Great Britain, without designing it, had, by her two preceding attempts at American revenue, taught her colonies not only the advantage but the means of union. The system of Committees which prevailed in 1765, and also in 1767, was revived in 1774. By them there was a quick transmission of intelligence from the capital towns through the subordinate districts to the whole body of the people; a union of counsels and measures was effected, among widely disseminated inhabitants."[342]
It will be observed that the three Acts passed by Parliament in respect to Massachusetts, and the fourth, for quartering soldiers in towns, changed the Charter of the province, and multiplied the causes of difference between Great Britain and the colonies. To the causes of dissatisfaction in the colonies arising from the taxing of them assumed by Parliament (now only threepence a pound on tea), the arrangement with the East India Company and the Courts of Admiralty, depriving the colonists of the right of trial by jury, were now added the Boston Port Bill, the Regulating Act, the Act which essentially changed the chartered Constitution of Massachusetts, and the Act which transferred Government officers accused of murder, to be removed to England. Mr. Bancroft justly observes that "the Regulating Act complicated the question between America and Great Britain. The country, under the advice of Pennsylvania, might have indemnified the East India Company, might have obtained by importunity the repeal of the tax on tea, or might have borne the duty, as it had borne that on wine; but Parliament, after ten years of premeditation, had exercised the power to abrogate the laws and to change the Charter of a province without its consent; and on this arose the conflict of the American Revolution."[343]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 339: Marshall's History of the American Colonies, Chap. xiv., pp. 406, 407.
"Resolutions were passed in every colony in which Legislatures were convened, or delegates assembled in Convention, manifesting different degrees of resentment, but concurring in the same great principles. All declared that the cause of Boston was the cause of British America; that the late Acts respecting that devoted town were tyrannical and unconstitutional; that the opposition to this unministerial system of oppression ought to be universally and perseveringly maintained; that all intercourse with the parent country ought to be suspended, and domestic manufactures encouraged; and that a General Congress should be formed for the purpose of uniting and guiding the Councils and directing the efforts of North America.
"The Committees of Correspondence selected Philadelphia for the place, and the beginning of September as the time, for the meeting of this important Council."--Ib., pp. 409, 410.]
[Footnote 340: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., pp. 72-75.]
[Footnote 341: Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. v., p. 398.]
[Footnote 342: Ib., pp. 395, 396.
"It is, perhaps, impossible for human wisdom to contrive any system more subservient to these purposes than such a reciprocal exchange of intelligence by Committees of Correspondence. From want of such a communication with each other, and consequently of union among themselves, many States have lost their liberties, and more have been unsuccessful in their attempts to regain them after they were lost.
"What the eloquence and talents of Demosthenes could not effect among the States of Greece, might have been effected by the simple device of Committees of Correspondence. The few have been enabled to keep the many in subjection in every age from the want of union among the latter. Several of the provinces of Spain complained of oppression under Charles the Fifth, and in transports of rage took arms against him; but they never consulted or communicated with each other. They resisted separately, and were, therefore, separately subdued."--Ib., p. 396.]
[Footnote 343: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. viii., p. 97.
The authority of this new Act was never acknowledged in Massachusetts. Of the 36 Legislative Councillors nominated by the Crown, one-third of them declined to accept the appointment, and nearly all who did accept were soon compelled, by the remonstrances and threats of their neighbours, to resign. So alarmed was Governor Gage, that after he had summoned the new Legislature to meet him at Salem, he countermanded his summons by proclamation; but which was considered unlawful, and the Assembly met, organized itself, and passed resolutions on grievances, and adopted other proceedings to further the opposition to the new Act and other Acts complained of.
Even the Courts could not be held. At Boston the judges took their seats, and the usual proclamations were made; when the men who had been returned as jurors, one and all, refused to take the oath. Being asked why they refused, Thomas Chase, one of the petit jury, gave as his reason, "that the Chief Justice of the Court stood impeached by the late representatives of the province." In a paper offered by the jury, the judges found their authority disputed for further reasons, that the Charter of the province had been changed with no warrant but an Act of Parliament, and that three of the judges, in violation of the Constitution, had accepted seats in the new Council. The Chief Justice and his colleagues repairing in a body to the Governor represented the impossibility of exercising their office in Boston or in any other part of the province; the army was too small for their protection; and besides, none would act as jurors. Thus the authority of the new Government, as established by Act of Parliament, perished in the presence of the Governor, the judges and the army.--Ib., pp. 111, 112.
The English historian, Dr. Andrews, remarks on this subject:
"The list of the new (Legislative) Council appointed by the Crown consisted of thirty-six members. But twelve of the number declined their commissions, and most of those who accepted were speedily obliged to resign them in order to save their property and persons from the fury of the multitude. The judges newly appointed experienced much the same treatment. All the inferior officers of the Courts of Judicature, the clerks, the juries, and all others concerned, explicitly refused to act under the new laws. In some places the populace shut up the avenues to the court-houses; and upon being required to make way for the judges and officers of the court, they declared that they knew of no court nor establishment in the province contrary to the ancient usages and forms, and would recognize none.
"The former Constitution being thus destroyed by the British Legislature, and the people refusing to acknowledge that which was substituted in its room, a dissolution of all government necessarily ensued. The resolution to oppose the designs of Great Britain produced occasionally some commotions; but no other consequences followed this defect of government. Peace and good order remained everywhere throughout the province, and the people demeaned themselves with as much regularity as if the laws still continued in their full and formal rigour." (Andrews' History of the War, Vol. I., pp. 145, 146.)]
Chapter XX
THE GENERAL CONGRESS OR CONVENTION AT PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 1774.
The word Congress, in relation to the United States, is synonymous with the word Parliament in Great Britain, signifying the Legislature of the nation at large; but before the revolution the word Congress was used, for the most part, as synonymous with Convention--a voluntary meeting of delegates elected by towns or counties for certain purposes. A meeting of delegates from the several towns of a county was called a Congress, or Convention of such county; a meeting of delegates of the several towns of a province was called a Provincial Congress, or Convention; and a meeting of delegates of the several County Conventions in the several provinces was called a General or Continental Congress, though they possessed no legal power, and their resolutions and addresses were the mere expressions of opinion or advice.
Such was the Continental Congress that assembled in Philadelphia the 5th of September, 1774--not a legislative or executive body possessing or assuming any legislative or executive power--a body consisting of fifty-five delegates elected by the representatives of twelve out of the thirteen provinces--Georgia, the youngest and smallest province, not having elected delegates. The sittings of this body, or Congress, as it was called, continued about eight weeks, and its proceedings were conducted with all the forms of a Legislative Assembly, but with closed doors, and under the pledge of secrecy, until dissolved by the authority of the Congress itself.
Each day's proceedings was commenced with prayer by some minister. Mr. Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, was elected President, and Mr. Charles Thompson, of Pennsylvania, was chosen Secretary.
After deciding upon the mode of conducting the business, it was resolved, after lengthened discussion, that each colony should be equal in voting--each colony having one vote, whatever might be the number of its delegates.
This Congress consisted of the assembled representatives of the American colonies, and truly expressed their grievances, opinions, and feelings. As the proceedings were with closed doors, the utterances of individuals were not reported; but in the reported results of their deliberations there is not an opinion or wish expressed which does not savour of affection to the mother country and loyalty to the British Constitution. Down to this ninth or last year of the agitation which commenced with the passing of the Stamp Act, before bloody conflicts took place between British soldiers and inhabitants of Massachusetts, there was not a resolution or petition or address adopted by any Congress, or Convention, or public meeting in the colonies, that contained a principle or sentiment which has not been professed by the loyal inhabitants of British America, and which is not recognized at this day by the British Government and enjoyed by the people in all the provinces of the Dominion of Canada.
The correctness of these remarks will appear from a summary of the proceedings of this Continental Congress, and extracts from its addresses, which will show that the colonies, without exception, were as loyal to their constitutional sovereign as they were to their constitutional rights,[344] though in royal messages and ministerial speeches in Parliament their petitions and remonstrances were called treason, and the authors of them were termed rebels and traitors. The principal acts of this Congress were a Declaration of Rights; an address to the King; an address to the people of Great Britain; a memorial to the Americans; a letter to the people of Canada. Non-importation and non-exportation agreements were adopted and signed by all the members; and Committees of Vigilance were appointed.
"Then on the 26th of October, the 'fifty-five' separated and returned to their homes, determined, as they expressed it, 'that they were themselves to stand or fall with the liberties of America.'"[345]
Among the first important acts of this Congress was the declaration of colonial rights, grievances, and policy. As this part of their proceedings contains the whole case of the colonies as stated by their own representatives, I will give it, though long, in their own words, in a note.[346] This elaborate and ably written paper does not appear to contain a sentiment of treason, nor anything which the members of the Congress had not a right to express and complain of as British subjects; while they explicitly recognized in Parliament all the authority which could be constitutionally claimed for it, and which was requisite for British supremacy over the colonies, or which had ever been exercised before 1764.
On the 1st of October, the Congress, after long consideration, unanimously resolved--
"That a loyal address to his Majesty be prepared, dutifully requesting the Royal attention to the grievances which alarm and distress his Majesty's faithful subjects in North America, and entreating his Majesty's gracious interposition to remove such grievances, and thereby to restore to Great Britain and the colonies that harmony so necessary to the happiness of the British empire, and so ardently desired by all America."
This address or petition, like all the papers emanating from this Congress, was written with consummate ability.[347] In this petition to the King, the Congress begged leave to lay their grievances before the Throne. After a particular enumeration of these, they observed that they wholly arose from a destructive system of colony administration adopted since the conclusion of the last war. They assured his Majesty that they had made such provision for defraying the charges of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government, as had been judged just, and suitable to their respective circumstances; and that for the defence, protection, and security of the colonies, their militia would be fully sufficient in time of peace; and in case of war, they were ready and willing, when constitutionally required, to exert their most strenuous efforts in granting supplies and raising forces. They said, "We ask but for peace, liberty, and safety. We wish not a diminution of the prerogative; nor do we solicit the grant of any new right in our favour. Your royal authority over us, and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always carefully and zealously endeavour to support and maintain."[348] They concluded their masterly and touching address in the following words:
"Permit us, then, most gracious Sovereign, in the name of all your faithful people in America, with the utmost humility, to implore you, for the honour of Almighty God, whose pure religion our enemies are undermining; for your glory, which can be advanced only by rendering your subjects happy and keeping them united; for the interest of your family, depending on an adherence to the principles that enthroned it; for the safety and welfare of your kingdom and dominions, threatened with almost unavoidable dangers and distresses, that your Majesty, as the loving Father of your whole people, connected by the same bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood, though dwelling in various countries, will not suffer the transcendent relation formed by these ties to be farther violated in certain expectation of efforts that, if attained, never can compensate for the calamities through which they must be gained."[349]
Their address to the people of Great Britain is equally earnest and statesmanlike. Two or three passages, as samples, must suffice. After stating the serious condition of America, and the oppressions and misrepresentations of their conduct, and their claim to be as free as their fellow-subjects in Great Britain, they say:
"Are not the proprietors of the soil of Great Britain lords of their own property? Can it be taken from them without their consent? Will they yield it to the arbitrary disposal of any men or number of men whatsoever? You know they will not.
"Why then are the proprietors of the soil of America less lords of their property than you are of yours; or why should they submit it to the disposal of your Parliament, or any other Parliament or Council in the world, not of their election? Can the intervention of the sea that divides us cause disparity of rights; or can any reason be given why English subjects who live three thousand miles distant from the royal palace should enjoy less liberty than those who are three hundred miles distant from it? Reason looks with indignation on such distinctions, and freemen can never perceive their propriety."
They conclude their address to their fellow-subjects in Great Britain in the following words:
"We believe there is yet much virtue, much justice, and much public spirit in the English nation. To that justice we now appeal. You have been told that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous of independence. Be assured that these are not facts, but calumnies. Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness; and we shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the empire. We shall consider your enemies as our enemies, and your interest as our own.
"But if you are determined that your Ministers shall wantonly sport with the rights of mankind; if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of law, the principles of the Constitution, nor the suggestions of humanity can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you that we will never submit to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to any Ministry or nation in the world.
"Place us in the same situation that we were at the close of the late war, and our former harmony will be restored."
The address of the members of this Congress to their constituents is a lucid exposition of the several causes which had led to the then existing state of things, and is replete with earnest but temperate argument to prove that their liberties must be destroyed, and the security of their persons and property annihilated, by submission to the pretensions of the British Ministry and Parliament. They state that the first object of the Congress was to unite the people of America, by demonstrating the sincerity and earnestness with which reconciliation had been sought with Great Britain upon terms compatible with British liberty. After expressing their confidence in the efficacy of the passive commercial resistance which had been adopted, they conclude their address thus:
"Your own salvation and that of your posterity now depend upon yourselves. You have already shown that you entertain a proper sense of the blessings you are striving to retain. Against the temporary inconveniences you may suffer from a stoppage of trade, you will weigh in the opposite balance the endless miseries you and your descendants must endure from an established arbitrary power." ...
"Motives thus cogent, arising from the emergency of your unhappy condition, must excite your utmost diligence and zeal to give all possible strength and energy to pacific measures calculated for your relief. But we think ourselves bound in duty to observe to you, that the schemes agitated against the colonies have been so conducted as to render it prudent that you should extend your views to mournful events, and be in all respects prepared for every contingency. Above all things, we earnestly entreat you, with devotion of spirit, penitence of heart, and amendment of life, to humble yourselves, and implore the favour of Almighty God; and we fervently beseech His Divine goodness to take you into His gracious protection."
The letters addressed to the other colonies not represented in the Congress require no special reference or remark.
After completing the business before them, this first General Congress in America recommended that another Congress should be held in the same place on the tenth day of the succeeding May, 1775, "unless redress of their grievances should be previously obtained," and recommending to all the colonies "to choose deputies as soon as possible, to be ready to attend at that time and place, should events make their meeting necessary."
I have presented an embodiment of the complaints, sentiments, and wishes of the American colonies in the words of their elected representatives in their first General Congress. I have done so for two reasons: First, to correct as far as I can the erroneous impression of thousands of English and Canadian readers, that during the ten years' conflict of words, before the conflict of arms, between the British Ministry and Parliament and Colonies, the colonists entertained opinions and views incompatible with subordination to the mother country, and were preparing the way for separation from it. Such an opinion is utterly erroneous. Whatever solitary individuals may have thought or wished, the petitions and resolutions adopted by the complaining colonists during these ten years of agitation breathe as pure a spirit of loyalty as they do of liberty; and in no instance did they ask for more, or as much, as the inhabitants of the provinces of the Canadian Dominion this day enjoy.
My second reason for thus quoting the very words of the declarations and petitions of the colonists is to show the injustice with which they were represented and treated by the British Ministry, Parliament, and press in England.
It was hoped by the Congress that their address to the people of England would have a happy influence in favour of the colonies upon the public mind, and tell favourably on the English elections, which took place the latter part of the year 1774; but the elections were suddenly ordered before the proceedings of the Congress could be published in England. The elections, of course, resulted adversely to the colonies; and the new Parliament was more subservient to the Ministry against the colonies than the preceding Parliament.[350]
This new Parliament met the 30th day of November, when the King was advised to inform them, among other things, "that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the laws unhappily prevailed in the province of Massachusetts, and had broken forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature; that these proceedings had been countenanced and encouraged in his other colonies; that unwarrantable attempts had been made to obstruct the commerce of his kingdom by unlawful combinations; and that he had taken such measures and given such orders as he judged most proper and effectual for carrying into execution the laws which were passed in the last session of the late Parliament relative to the province of Massachusetts."[351]
Answers were adopted in both Houses of Parliament re-echoing the sentiments of the Royal Speech, but not without vehement debates. There was a considerable minority in both Lords and Commons that sympathised with the colonies, and condemned the Ministerial policy and the Acts of the previous Parliament complained of. In the Commons, the Minister was reminded of the great effects he had predicted from the American acts. "They were to humble that whole continent without further trouble; and the punishment of Boston was to strike so universal a panic in all the colonies that it would be totally abandoned, and instead of obtaining relief, a dread of the same fate would awe the other provinces to a most respectful submission."[352] But the address, re-echoing the Royal Speech for coercion, was adopted by a majority of two to one.
In the Lords a similar address was passed by a large majority; but the Lords Richmond, Portland, Rockingham, Stamford, Torrington, Ponsonby, Wycombe, and Camden entered upon the journals a protest against it, which concluded in the following memorable words:
"Whatever may be the mischievous designs or the inconsiderate temerity, we wish to be known as persons who have disapproved of measures so injurious in their past effects and future tendency, and who are not in haste, without inquiry or information, to commit ourselves in declarations which may precipitate our country into all the calamities of civil war."[353]
Before the adjournment of the new Parliament for the Christmas holidays, the papers containing the proceedings of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia reached England. The first impression made by them is said to have been in favour of America. The Ministry seemed staggered, and their opposers triumphed in the fulfilment of their own predictions as to the effects of Ministerial acts and policy in America. The Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies, after a day's perusal of these papers, said that the petition of the Congress to the King (of which extracts have been given above) was a decent and proper one. He cheerfully undertook to present it to the King; and reported afterwards that his Majesty was pleased to receive it very graciously, and would lay it before his two Houses of Parliament. From these favourable circumstances, the friends of conciliation anticipated that the petition of the Colonial Congress would be made the basis of a change of measures and policy in regard to the colonies. But these hopes were of short duration.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 344: The royal historian, Andrews, states:
"The delegates were enjoined, by the instructions they had received from their constituents, solemnly to acknowledge the sovereignty of Great Britain over them, and their willingness to pay her the fullest obedience, as far as the constitution authorized her to demand it; they were to disclaim all notions of separating from her; and to declare it was with the deepest regret they beheld a suspension of that confidence and affection which had so long, and so happily for both, subsisted between Great Britain and her colonies.
"But they were no less carefully directed at the same time to assert the rights transmitted to them by their ancestors. These rights they would never surrender, and would maintain them at all perils. They were entitled to all the privileges of British subjects, and would not yield to the unjust pretensions of Parliament, which, in the present treatment of the colonies, had violated the principles of the constitution and given them just occasion to be dissatisfied and to rise in opposition. Parliament might depend this opposition would never cease until those Acts were wholly repealed that had been the radical cause of the present disturbances." (Andrews' History of the War with America, Spain and Holland, from 1775 to 1783, pp. 156, 157.)]
[Footnote 345: Elliott's New England History, Vol. II., Chap. xvi., p. 289.
"Washington and Lee believed the non-importation and exportation agreements would open the eyes of England; but Patrick Henry agreed with John and Samuel Adams in believing that force must decide it, and, like them, was ready to meet any emergency."--Ib.
"The New York Legislature at once repudiated the doings of the Congress; but elsewhere it met with a hearty response."--Ib., p. 290.]
[Footnote 346: "Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British Parliament, claiming a power, of right, to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath in some Acts expressly imposed taxes on them; and in others, under various pretences, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties payable in these colonies, established a Board of Commissioners with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of Courts of Admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within the body of a county:
"And whereas, in consequence of other statutes, judges, who before held only estates at will in their offices, have been made dependent on the Crown alone for their salaries, and standing armies kept in times of peace:
"And whereas it has lately been resolved in Parliament, that by force of a statute made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry VIII., colonists may be transported to England and tried there upon accusations for treasons, and misprisions and concealments of treasons committed in the colonies, and by a late statute such trials have been directed in cases therein mentioned:
"And whereas, in the last session of Parliament, three statutes were made--one entitled, 'An Act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America;' another entitled, 'An Act for the better regulating the Government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England;' and another Act entitled, 'An Act for the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any act done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England;' and another statute was then made, 'for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec,' etc.--all which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous and destructive of American rights:
"And whereas assemblies have been frequently dissolved, contrary to the rights of the people, when they attempted to deliberate on grievances; and their dutiful, humble, loyal, and reasonable petitions to the Crown for redress have been repeatedly treated with contempt by his Majesty's Ministers of State; the good people of the several colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Castle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, justly alarmed at the arbitrary proceedings of Parliament and Administration, have severally elected, constituted, and appointed deputies to meet and sit in General Congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such establishment as that their religion, laws, and liberties may not be subverted; whereupon the deputies so appointed being now assembled, in a full and free representation of these colonies, taking into their most serious consideration the best means of attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place, as Englishmen, what their ancestors in like cases have usually done, for asserting and vindicating their rights and liberties, DECLARE, that the inhabitants of the English colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English Constitution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following rights:
"Resolved, N. C. D. 1st, That they are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either without their consent.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 2nd, That our ancestors, who first settled these colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 3rd, That by such emigration they by no means forfeited, surrendered, or lost any of those rights, but that they were, and their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them as their local and other circumstances enabled them to exercise and enjoy.
"Resolved, 4th, That the foundation of English liberty and of all free government is a right in their people to participate in their Legislative Council; and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances cannot properly be represented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several Provincial Legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their Sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. But from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such Acts of the British Parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America without their consent.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 5th, That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law.
"Resolved, 6th, That they are entitled to the benefit of such of the English statutes as existed at the time of their colonization; and which they have, by experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several local and other circumstances.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 7th, That these his Majesty's colonies are likewise entitled to all the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them by Royal Charters, or secured by their several codes of Provincial laws.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 8th, That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the King; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 9th, That the keeping a standing army in these colonies, in times of peace, without the consent of the Legislature of the colony in which such army is kept, is against law.
"Resolved, N. C. D. 10th, It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the Legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several colonies, by a Council appointed, during pleasure, by the Crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous, and destructive to the freedom of American legislation.
"All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in behalf of themselves and their constituents, do claim, demand, and insist on, as their indubitable rights and liberties; which cannot be legally taken from them, altered or abridged by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several Provincial Legislatures.
"In the course of our inquiry, we find many infringements and violations of the foregoing rights, which, from an ardent desire that harmony and mutual intercourse of affection and interest may be restored, we pass over for the present, and proceed to state such Acts and measures as have been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate a system formed to enslave America.
"Resolved, N. C. D., That the following Acts of Parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonies; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary, in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies, viz.:
"The several Acts of 4 Geo. III. chaps. 15 and 34--5 Geo. III. chap. 25--6 Geo. III. chap. 52--7 Geo. III. chap. 41 and chap. 46--8 Geo. III. chap. 22, which imposed duties for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, extend the power of the Admiralty Courts beyond their ancient limits; deprive the American subject of trial by jury; authorize the judge's certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages that he might otherwise be liable to; requiring oppressive security from a claimant of ships and goods seized, before he shall be allowed to defend his property, and are subversive of American rights.
"Also 12 Geo. III. chap. 24, intituled 'An Act for the better securing his Majesty's dockyards, magazines, ships, ammunition, and stores,' which declares a new offence in America, and deprives the American subject of a constitutional trial by a jury of the vicinage, by authorizing the trial of any person charged with the committing of any offence described in the said Act, out of the realm, to be indicted and tried for the same in any shire or county within the realm.
"Also the three Acts passed in the last session of Parliament, for stopping the port and blocking up the harbour of Boston, for altering the Charter and Government of Massachusetts Bay, and that which is intituled 'An Act for the better administration of justice,' etc.
"Also, the Act passed in the same session for establishing the Roman Catholic religion in the province of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of religion, law, and government) of the neighbouring British colonies, by the assistance of whose blood and treasure the said country was conquered from France.
"Also, the Act passed in the same session for the better providing suitable quarters for officers and soldiers in his Majesty's service in North America.
"Also, that the keeping a standing army in several of these colonies, in time of peace, without the consent of the Legislature of that colony in which such army is kept, is against law.
"To these grievous Acts and measures, Americans cannot submit; but in hopes their fellow-subjects in Great Britain will, on a revision of them, restore us to that state in which both countries found happiness and prosperity, we have for the present only resolved to pursue the following peaceable measures: 1. To enter into a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement or association; 2. To prepare an address to the people of Great Britain, and a memorial to the inhabitants of British America; and 3. To prepare a loyal address to his Majesty, agreeable to resolutions already entered into." (Marshall's American Colonial History. Appendix IX., pp. 481-485.)]
[Footnote 347: See the Earl of Chatham's remarks on page 423.]
[Footnote 348: Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., p. 418.]
[Footnote 349: "The Committee which brought in this admirably well-drawn and truly conciliatory address were Mr. Lee, Mr. John Adams, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Henry, Mr. Rutledge, and Mr. Dickenson. The original composition has been generally attributed to Mr. Dickenson." (Marshall's American Colonial History, Chap. xiv., p. 419, in a note.)]
[Footnote 350: "Some time before the proceedings of Congress reached England, it was justly apprehended that the non-importation agreement would be one of the measures they would adopt. The Ministry, apprehending that this event, by distressing the trading and manufacturing towns, might influence votes against the Court in the election of a new Parliament, which was, of course, to come on in the succeeding year, suddenly dissolved the Parliament and immediately ordered a new one to be chosen. It was their design to have the whole business of elections over before the inconveniences of non-importation could be felt. The nation was thus surprised into an election. Without knowing that the late American acts had driven the colonies into a firm combination to support and make common cause with the people of Massachusetts, a new Parliament was returned, which met thirty-four days after the proceedings of Congress were first published in Philadelphia, and before they were known in Great Britain. This, for the most part, consisted either of the former members, or of those who held similar sentiments." (Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. vi., p. 424.)]
[Footnote 351: Ramsay's Colonial History, Vol. I., Chap. vi., pp. 424, 425.]
[Footnote 352: Ib., p. 425.]
[Footnote 353: Ib., p. 425.]
Chapter XXI
THE RE-ASSEMBLING OF PARLIAMENT--LETTERS FROM COLONIAL GOVERNORS, REVENUE AND MILITARY OFFICERS, AGAINST THE COLONISTS OPPOSED TO THE MINISTERIAL POLICY--THE MINISTRY, SUPPORTED BY PARLIAMENT, DETERMINE UPON CONTINUING AND STRENGTHENING THE COERCIVE POLICY AGAINST THE COLONIES.
On the re-assembling of Parliament in January, 1775, a number of papers were produced from governors, and revenue and military officers in America, which contained various statements adverse to the proceedings and members of the Congress, and the opposition to the coercive Acts of Parliament.
Ministers and their supporters were pleased with these papers, which abetted their policy, lauded and caressed their authors, and decided to concede nothing, and continue and strengthen the policy of coercion.
On the 20th of January, the first day of the re-assembling of the Lords, Lord Dartmouth laid the papers received from America before the House. The Earl of Chatham, after an absence of two years, appeared again in the House with restored health, and with all his former energy and eloquence. He moved:
"That a humble address be presented to his Majesty, most humbly to advise and beseech him that, in order to open the way toward a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America, by beginning to allay ferments and soften animosities there, and above all for preventing, in the meantime, any sudden catastrophe at Boston, now suffering under daily irritation of an army before their eyes, posted in their town, it may graciously please his Majesty that immediate orders may be despatched to General Gage for removing his Majesty's forces from the town of Boston as soon as the rigours of the season and other circumstances indispensable to the safety and accommodation of said troops may render the same practicable."
Lord Chatham advocated his motion in a very pathetic speech, and was supported by speeches by the Marquis of Rockingham, Lords Shelburne and Camden, and petitions from merchants and manufacturers throughout the kingdom, and most prominently by those of London and Bristol. But the motion was negatived by a majority of 63 to 13.
In the course of his speech Lord Chatham said:
"Resistance to your acts was as necessary as it was just; and your imperious doctrine of the omnipotence of Parliament and the necessity of submission will be found equally impotent to convince or to enslave.
"The means of enforcing the thraldom are as weak in practice as they are unjust in principle. General Gage and the troops under his command are penned up, pining in inglorious inactivity. You may call them an army of safety and of guard, but they are in truth an army of impotence; and to make the folly equal to the disgrace, they are an army of irritation.
"But this tameness, however contemptible, cannot be censured; for the first drop of blood shed in civil and unnatural war will make a wound that years, perhaps ages, may not heal.... The indiscriminate hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilty; with all the formalities of hostility, has blocked up the town of Boston, and reduced to beggary and famine thirty thousand inhabitants....
"When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America--when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that in all my reading--and I have read Thucydides, and have studied the master-states of the world--for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress of Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it, and all attempts to impose servitude upon such a mighty continental nation must be vain. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. These violent Acts must be repealed; you will repeal them; I pledge myself for it, I stake my reputation upon it, that you will in the end repeal them. Avoid, then, this humiliating necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted station, make the first advance towards concord, peace, and happiness; for that is your true dignity. Concession comes with better grace from superior power, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. Be the first to spare; throw down the weapons in your hand.
"Every motive of justice and policy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America by a removal of your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your Acts of Parliament, and by demonstrating amiable dispositions towards your colonies.... If the Ministers persevere in thus misadvising and misleading the King, I will not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone; I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from his Crown, but I will affirm that, the American jewel out of it, they will make the Crown not worth his wearing."[354]
The Earl of Suffolk, with whining vehemence, assured the House that, in spite of Lord Chatham's prophecy, the Government was resolved to repeal not one of the Acts, but to use all possible means to bring the Americans to obedience; and after declaiming violently against their conduct, boasted as "having been one of the first to advise coercive measures."
Ex-Lord Chancellor Camden excelled every other speaker, except Lord Chatham, in the discussion; he declared in the course of his speech:
"This I will say, not only as a statesman, politician, and philosopher, but as a common lawyer: My lords, you have no right to tax America; the natural rights of man, and the immutable laws of nature, are all with that people. King, Lords, and Commons are fine-sounding names, but King, Lords, and Commons may become tyrants as well as others. It is as lawful to resist the tyranny of many as of one. Somebody once asked the great Selden in what book you might find the law for resisting tyranny. 'It has always been the custom of England,' answered Selden, 'and the custom of England is the law of the land.'"
After several other speeches and much recrimination, and a characteristic reply from Lord Chatham, his motion was rejected by a majority of sixty-eight to eighteen; but the Duke of Cumberland, the King's own brother, was one of the minority. The King triumphed in what he called "the very handsome majority," and said he was sure "nothing could be more calculated to bring the Americans to submission." The King's prediction of "submission" was followed by more united and energetic resistance in the colonies.
But Lord Chatham, persevering in his efforts of conciliation, notwithstanding the large majority against him, brought in, the 1st of February, a Bill entitled "A Provisional Act for Settling the Troubles in America, and for Asserting the Supreme Legislative Authority and Superintending Power of Great Britain over the Colonies." The Bill, however, was not allowed to be read the first time, or even to lie on the table, but was rejected by a majority of sixty-four to thirty-two--a contempt of the colonists and a discourtesy to the noble mover of the Bill without example in the House of Lords.
In the meantime, petitions were presented to the Commons from various towns in England, Scotland, and Ireland, by manufacturers and merchants connected with the colonial trade. On the 23rd of January, Alderman Hayley presented a petition from the merchants of the City of London trading to America, stating at great length the nature and extent of the trade, direct and indirect, between Great Britain and America, and the immense injury to it by the recent Acts of Parliament, and praying for relief; but this petition was conveyed to the "Committee of Oblivion," as were petitions from the merchants of Glasgow, Liverpool, Norwich and other towns, on American affairs. These petitions, together with their advocates in both Houses of Parliament, showed that the oppressive policy and abuse of the Americans were the acts of the Ministry of the day, and not properly of the English people.
On the 26th of January, Sir George Saville offered to present a petition from Dr. Franklin, Mr. Bollan, and Mr. Lee, stating that they had been authorized by the American Continental Congress to present a petition from the Congress to the King, which his Majesty had referred to that House, and that they were able to throw great light upon the subject; they therefore prayed to be heard at the bar in support of the petition. After a violent debate the petition was rejected by a majority of 218 to 68.[355]
Lord North on the 2nd of February, moved that the House resolve itself into Committee on an address to his Majesty, thanking him for having communicated to the House the several papers relating to the present state of the British colonies, and from which "we find that a part of his Majesty's subjects in the province of Massachusetts Bay have proceeded so far as to resist the authority of the Supreme Legislature; that a rebellion at this time actually exists within the said province; and we see, with the utmost concern, that they have been countenanced and encouraged by unlawful combinations and engagements entered into by his Majesty's subjects in several other colonies, to the injury and oppression of many of their innocent fellow-subjects resident within the kingdom of Great Britain and the rest of his Majesty's dominions. This conduct on their part appears to us the more inexcusable when we consider with how much temper his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament have acted in support of the laws and constitution of Great Britain; to declare that we can never so far desert the trust reposed in us as to relinquish any part of the sovereign authority over all his Majesty's dominions which by law is invested in his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament, and that the conduct of many persons, in several of the colonies, during the late disturbances, is alone sufficient to convince us how necessary this power is for the protection of the lives and fortunes of all his Majesty's subjects; that we ever have been and always shall be ready to pay attention and regard to any real grievances of any of his Majesty's subjects, which shall, in a dutiful and constitutional manner, be laid before us; and whenever any of the colonies shall make proper application to us, we shall be ready to afford them every just and reasonable indulgence; but that, at the same time, we consider it our indispensable duty humbly to beseech his Majesty to take the most effectual measures to enforce due obedience to the laws and authority of the Supreme Legislature; and that we beg leave, in the most solemn manner, to assure his Majesty that it is our fixed resolution, at the hazard of our lives and properties, to stand by his Majesty against all rebellious attempts, in the maintenance of the just rights of his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament."[356]
I have given Lord North's proposed address to the King at length, in order that the reader may understand fully the policy of the Government at that eventful moment, and the statements on which that policy was founded.
In relation to this address several things may be observed: 1. There is not the slightest recognition in it that the American colonists have any constitutional rights whatever; they are claimed as the absolute property of King and Parliament, irrespective of local Charters or Legislatures. 2. It is alleged that Parliament always had been and would be "ready to pay attention to any real grievances of any of his Majesty's subjects which shall, in a dutiful and constitutional manner, be laid before us," when "we shall be ready to afford them every just and reasonable indulgence." Yet every one of the hundreds of petitions which had been sent from the colonies to England for the previous ten years, complaining of grievances, was rejected, under one pretext or another, as not having been adopted or transmitted in "a dutiful and constitutional manner." If a Legislative Assembly proceeded to prepare a petition of grievances to the King, the King's Governor immediately dissolved the Assembly; and when its members afterwards met in their private capacity and embodied their complaints, their proceedings were pronounced unlawful and seditious. When township, county, and provincial conventions met and expressed their complaints and grievances in resolutions and petitions, their proceedings were denounced by the Royal representatives as unlawful and rebellious; and when elected representatives from all the provinces (but Georgia) assembled in Philadelphia to express the complaints and wishes of all the provinces, their meeting was declared unlawful, and their petition to the King a collection of fictitious statements and rebellious sentiments, though more loyal sentiments to the King, and more full recognition of his constitutional prerogatives were never expressed in any document presented to his Majesty. When that petition of the Continental congregation was presented to the Earl of Dartmouth, the head of the Colonial Department, he said it was a decent and proper document, and he would have pleasure in laying it before the King, who referred it to the House of Commons; yet Lord North himself and a majority of his colleagues, backed by a majority of the House of Commons, rejected that petition, refused to consider its statements and prayers, but instead thereof proposed an address which declared one of the colonies in a state of rebellion, abetted by many in other colonies, advised military force against the colonies, and assured the King that they would stand by his Majesty "at the hazard of their lives and properties, against all rebellious attempts" to maintain the assumed rights of his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament over the colonies. Yet not one of them ever afterwards risked a hair of his head in the war which they advised to maintain such rights. 3. It was also as insulting and provoking to the colonists as it was unjust, impolitic, and untrue, to assert that a rebellion "existed in one province of America, and was encouraged by many persons in other colonies;" when not an act of rebellion existed in any colony, but dissatisfaction, meetings to express sentiments and adopt petitions founded upon their declining and agreeing not to buy or drink tea, or buy or wear clothes of English manufacture, until English justice should be done to them--all which they had a right as British subjects to do, and for doing which those were responsible who compelled them to such self-denying acts in the maintenance of constitutional rights which are now recognised as such, at this day, throughout all the colonies of the British empire.
It is not surprising that Lord North's motion and statements were severely canvassed in the House of Commons. Mr. Dunning, in reply to Lord North, "insisted that America was not in rebellion, and that every appearance of riot, disorder, tumult, and sedition the noble lord had so carefully recounted arose not from disobedience, treason, or rebellion, but was created by the conduct of those whose views were to establish despotism." The Attorney-General (Thurlow) argued strongly against Mr. Dunning's position that the Americans were not in rebellion, and affirmed the contrary. General Grant said "he had served in America, knew the Americans well, and was certain they would not fight; they would never dare to fight an English army; they did not possess any of the qualifications necessary to make good soldiers; and that a very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete reduction. He repeated many of their commonplace expressions, ridiculed their enthusiasm in religion, and drew a disagreeable picture of their manners and ways of living."
Mr. Fox entered fully into the question; pointed out the injustice, the inexpediency, the folly of the motion; prophesied defeat on one side of the water, and ruin and punishment on the other. He said, among other things, "The reason why the colonies objected to taxes by Parliament for revenue was, that such revenue, in the hands of Government, took out of the hands of the people that were to be governed that control which every Englishman thinks he ought to have over the Government to which his rights and interests are entrusted." He moved an amendment to omit all the motion but the three first lines, and to substitute: "But deploring that the information which they (the papers) had afforded served only to convince the House that the measures taken by his Majesty's servants tended rather to widen than to heal the unhappy differences which had so long subsisted between Great Britain and America, and praying a speedy alteration of the same."
A long debate ensued; after which the House divided on Mr. Fox's amendment, which was lost by a majority of 304 to 105. Lord North's motion was then adopted by a majority of 296 to 106.
Thus was war virtually proclaimed by the British Ministry of the day and the Parliament (not by the people) of Great Britain against the colonies.
On the 6th of February the report of Lord North's address was made to the House, when Lord John Cavendish moved to recommit the proposed address agreed to in the Committee. He strongly recommended the reconsideration of a measure which he deemed fraught with much mischief. He commented on the proposed address; thought it improper to assert that rebellion exists; mentioned the insecurity created by the Act changing the Government of Massachusetts Bay; said the inhabitants knew not for a moment under what Government they lived.
A long discussion ensued. On the side of absolute prerogative, and of subduing the colonies to it by military force, spoke Mr. Grenville, Captain Harvey, Sir William Mayne, Mr. Stanley, Mr. Adam, Mr. Scott, the Solicitor-General (Wedderburn, who grossly insulted Dr. Franklin before the Privy Council), Mr. Mackworth, and Mr. Sawbridge. For the recommitting the address, and in favour of a conciliatory policy towards the colonies, spoke, besides Lord John Cavendish, the mover, Mr. Lumley, the Lord Mayor of London, Rt. Hon. T. Townshend, Mr. Jolyffe, Lord Truham, Governor Johnstone, Mr. Burke, and Colonel Barré.
A conference was held between the Lords and Commons, and the address was made the joint address of both Houses of Parliament and presented to the King the 9th of February; to which the King replied as follows:
"My Lords and Gentlemen,--I thank you for this very dutiful address, and for the affectionate and solemn assurances you give me of your support in maintaining the just rights of my crown and of the two Houses of Parliament; and you may depend on my taking the most speedy and effectual measures for enforcing due obedience to the laws and authority of the Supreme Legislature. When any of my colonies shall make a proper and dutiful application, I shall be ready to concur with you in affording them every just and reasonable indulgence; and it is my ardent wish that this disposition on our part may have a happy effect on the temper and conduct of my subjects in America."
The "disposition" of "indulgence," shown by Parliament was simply the enforcement of its declaratory Act of absolute power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever, and "the proper and dutiful application of any colony" was simply a renunciation of all they had claimed as their constitutional rights--a penitent prayer of forgiveness for having avowed and maintained those rights, and of submitting all their rights and interests to the absolute and merciful consideration of the King and his Parliament, and that in the presence of the parliamentary enactments and royal institutions of the previous ten years. During those years, the Parliament, with royal consent, had passed acts to tax the colonies without representation, ignoring their own representative Legislatures; had imposed duties on goods imported to be enforced by Courts which deprived the colonists of the privilege of trial by jury; had made by Act of Parliament, without trial, the city of Boston not only responsible for tea destroyed by seventeen individuals, but blocked up its port not only until the money was paid, but until the city authorities should give guarantee satisfactory to the King that the tea and other revenue Acts should be enforced--a proceeding unprecedented and unparalleled in the annals of British history. Even in more arbitrary times, when the cities of London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh were made responsible for property lawlessly destroyed within their limit, it was only until after trial in each case, in which those cities had an opportunity of defence, and in neither case was the trade of the city prohibited and destroyed. But the British Ministry and Parliament proceeded still further by superseding the most essential provisions of the Charter of the Province of Massachusetts, and changing its whole constitution of government--a high-handed act of arbitrary government which had not been attempted by either Charles the First or Charles the Second in regard to the same colony; for when charges were brought, in 1632, against the Massachusetts authorities, for having violated the Charter, Charles the First appointed a commission, gave the accused a trial, which resulted in their acquittal and promised support by the King; and when they were accused again in 1634, the King did not forthwith cancel their Charter, but issued a second commission, which, however, never reported, in consequence of the commencement of the civil war in England, which resulted in the death of the King. Then, in the restoration, when charges were preferred, by parties without as well as within the province, against the Government of Massachusetts, King Charles the Second appointed a commission to examine into the complaints, and at length tested their acts by trial in the highest courts of law, and by whose decision their first Charter was cancelled for repeated and even habitual violations of it. But without a trial, or even commission of inquiry, the King and Parliament changed the constitution of the province as well as extinguished the trade of its metropolis.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 354: When the words of Lord Chatham were reported to the King, his Majesty was "stung to the heart," and was greatly enraged, denouncing Lord Chatham as an "abandoned politician," "the trumpet of sedition," and classified him with Temple and Grenville as "void of gratitude." The King repelled and hated every statesman who advised him to conciliate the colonists by recognising them as having the rights of British subjects. He was the prompter of the most violent measures against them, and seemed to think that their only rights and duties were to obey whatever he might command and the Parliament declare.]
[Footnote 355: Dr. Franklin had been Postmaster-General for America. When he assumed the office the expenditure exceeded the receipts by £3,000 a year; under his administration the receipts gradually increased so as to become a source of revenue. The day after his advocacy of the American petitions before the Privy Council, he was dismissed from office. Referring to the manner in which American petitions and their agents were treated by the British Government, Dr. Franklin expressed himself as follows, in a letter to the Hon. Thomas Cushing, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts:
"When I see that all petitions and complaints of grievances are so odious to Government that even the mere pipe which conveys them becomes obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and union is to be maintained or restored between the different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be redressed unless they are known; and they cannot be known but through complaints and petitions. If these are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as offenders, who will henceforth send petitions? and who will deliver them? It has been thought a dangerous thing in any State to stop up the vent of griefs. Wise governments have therefore generally received petitions with some indulgence even when but slightly founded. Those who think themselves injured by their rulers are sometimes, by a mild and prudent answer, convinced of their error. But where complaining is a crime, hope becomes despair." (Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society.)
(Yet the Government of Massachusetts, under the first Charter, pronounced petitions a crime, and punished as criminals those who petitioned against the governmental acts which denied them the right of worship or elective franchise because they were non-Congregationalists.)]
[Footnote 356: Parliamentary Register for 1775, p. 134.]
Chapter XXII
1775 CONTINUED--PARLIAMENT PROCEEDS TO PASS AN ACT TO PUNISH ALL THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES FOR SYMPATHISING WITH MASSACHUSETTS, BY RESTRICTING THEIR TRADE TO ENGLAND AND DEPRIVING THEM OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES.
The British Ministry and both Houses of Parliament do not seem to have been satisfied with having charged Massachusetts and its abettors with rebellion, and determined to punish the recusant province and its metropolis accordingly, but they proceeded, during the same session, even to punish the other New England provinces for alleged sympathy with the town of Boston and the province of Massachusetts. The very day after the two Houses of Parliament had presented their joint address to the King, declaring the existence of "rebellion" in the province of Massachusetts, abetted by many persons in the other provinces, Lord North introduced a Bill into the Commons to restrain the trade and commerce of the provinces of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, to Great Britain and Ireland and the British Islands in the West Indies, and to prohibit those provinces from carrying on any fishery on the banks of Newfoundland. Lord North assigned as the reason for this Bill that the three other New England colonies "had aided and abetted their offending neighbours, and were so near them that the intentions of Parliament would be frustrated unless they were in like manner comprehended in the proposed restraints." The Bill encountered much opposition in both Houses, but was passed by large majorities.
Shortly after passing this Bill to restrain the trade of the New England colonies and to prohibit them the fisheries of Newfoundland, as well as from trading with foreign countries, intelligence reached England that the middle and southern colonies were countenancing and encouraging the opposition of their New England brethren, and a second Bill was brought into Parliament and passed for imposing similar restraints on the colonies of East and West Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and the counties on the Delaware. It is singular to note in this Bill the omission of New York, Delaware, and North Carolina. It was probably thought that the omission of these colonies would cause dissension among the colonies; but the three exempted provinces declined the distinction, and submitted to the restraints imposed upon the other colonies.
Much was expected by Lord North and his colleagues from the General Assembly of New York, which had not endorsed the proceedings of the first Continental Congress, held in Philadelphia the previous September and October; but at the very time that the British Parliament was passing the Act which exempted New York from the disabilities and punishments inflicted on its neighbouring colonies, north and south, the Legislative Assembly of New York was preparing a petition and remonstrance to the British Parliament on the grievances of all the colonies, not omitting the province of Massachusetts. This petition and remonstrance of the General Assembly of New York was substantially a United Empire document, and expressed the sentiments of all classes in the colonies, except the Royal governors and some office-holders, as late as May, 1775. The following extracts from this elaborate and ably-written address will indicate its general character. The whole document is given in the Parliamentary Register, Vol. I., pp. 473-478, and is entitled "The Representation and Remonstrance of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York, to the Honourable the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled." It commences as follows:
"Impressed with the warmest sentiments of loyalty and affection to our most gracious Sovereign, and zealously attached to his person, family, and government, we, his Majesty's faithful subjects, the representatives of the ancient and loyal colony of New York, behold with the deepest concern the unhappy disputes subsisting between the mother country and her colonies. Convinced that the grandeur and strength of the British empire, the protection and opulence of his Majesty's American dominions, and the happiness and welfare of both, depend essentially on a restoration of harmony and affection between them, we feel the most ardent desire to promote a cordial reconciliation with the parent state, which can be rendered permanent and solid only by ascertaining the line of parliamentary authority and American freedom on just, equitable, and constitutional grounds. To effect these salutary purposes, and to represent the grievances under which we labour, by the innovations which have been made in the constitutional mode of government since the close of the last war, we shall proceed with that firmness which becomes the descendants of Englishmen and a people accustomed to the blessings of liberty, and at the same time with the deference and respect which is due to your august Assembly to show--
"That from the year 1683 till the above-mentioned period the colony has enjoyed a Legislature consisting of three distinct branches--a Governor, Council, and General Assembly; under which political frame the representatives of the people have uniformly exercised the right of their civil government and the administration of justice in the colony.
"It is therefore with inexpressible grief that we have of late years seen measures adopted by the British Parliament subversive of that Constitution under which the people of this colony have always enjoyed the same rights and privileges so highly and deservedly prized by their fellow-subjects in Great Britain--a Constitution in its infancy modelled after that of the parent state, in its growth more nearly assimilated to it, and tacitly implied and undeniably recognised in the requisitions made by the Crown, with the consent and approbation of Parliament.
"An exemption from internal taxation, and the exclusive right of providing for the support of our own civil government and the administration of justice in this colony, we esteem our undoubted and inalienable rights as Englishmen; but while we claim these essential rights, it is with equal pleasure and truth we can declare, that we ever have been and ever will be ready to bear our full proportion of aids to the Crown for the public service, and to make provision for the necessary purposes, in as ample and adequate a manner as the circumstances of the colony will admit. Actuated by these sentiments, while we address ourselves to a British House of Commons, which has ever been so sensible of the rights of the people, and so tenacious of preserving them from violation, can it be a matter of surprise that we should feel the most distressing apprehensions from the Act of the British Parliament declaring their right to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever?--a principle which has been actually exercised by the statutes made for the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue in America, especially for the support of Government, and other usual and ordinary services of the colonies.
"The trial by a jury of the vicinage, in causes civil and criminal arising within the colony, we consider as essential to the security of our lives and liberties, and one of the main pillars of the Constitution, and therefore view with horror the construction of the statute of the 35th of Henry the Eighth, as held up by the joint address of both Houses of Parliament in 1769, advising his Majesty to send for persons guilty of treasons and misprisions of treasons in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in order to be tried in England; and we are equally alarmed at the late Act empowering his Majesty to send persons guilty of offences in one colony to be tried in another, or within the realm of England....
"We must also complain of the Act of the 7th of George the Third, chapter 59th, requiring the Legislature of this colony to make provision for the expense of supplying troops quartered amongst us, with the necessaries prescribed by that law; and holding up by another Act a suspension of our legislative powers till we should have complied, as it would have included all the effects of a tax, and implied a distrust of our readiness to contribute to the public service.
"Nor in claiming these essential rights do we entertain the most distant desire of independence of the parent kingdom. We acknowledge the Parliament of Great Britain necessarily entitled to a supreme direction and government over the whole empire, for a wise, powerful, and lasting preservation of the great bond of union and safety among all the branches; their authority to regulate the trade of the colonies, so as to make it subservient to the interest of the mother country, and to prevent its being injurious to the other parts of his Majesty's dominions....
"Interested as we must consider ourselves in whatever may affect our sister colonies, we cannot help feeling for the distresses of our brethren in the Massachusetts Bay, from the operation of the several Acts of Parliament passed relative to that province, and of earnestly remonstrating in their behalf. At the same time, we also must express our disapprobation of the violent measures that have been pursued in some of the colonies, which can only tend to increase our misfortunes and to prevent our obtaining redress.
"We claim but a restoration of those rights which we enjoyed by general consent before the close of the last war; we desire no more than a continuation of that ancient government to which we are entitled by the principles of the British Constitution, and by which alone can be secured to us the rights of Englishmen. Attached by every tie of interest and regard to the British nation, and accustomed to behold with reverence and respect its excellent form of government, we harbour not an idea of diminishing the power and grandeur of the mother country, or lessening the lustre and dignity of Parliament. Our object is the happiness which we are convinced can only arise from the union of both countries. To render this union permanent and solid, we esteem it the undoubted right of the colonies to participate in that Constitution whose direct aim is the liberty of the subject; fully trusting that your honourable House will listen with attention to our complaints, and redress our grievances by adopting such measures as shall be found most conducive to the general welfare of the whole empire, and most likely to restore union and harmony amongst all its different branches.
"By order of the General Assembly,
"JOHN CRUGER, Speaker.
"Assembly Chamber, City of New York, the 25th day of March, 1775."
This representation and remonstrance having been presented to the House of Commons, Mr. Burke moved, the 15th of May, that it be brought up. He said "he had in his hand a paper of importance from the General Assembly of the Province of New York--a province which yielded to no part of his Majesty's dominions in its zeal for the prosperity and unity of the empire, and which had ever contributed as much as any, in its proportion, to the defence and wealth of the whole." "They never had before them so fair an opportunity of putting an end to the unhappy disputes with the colonies as at present, and he conjured them in the most earnest manner not to let it escape, as possibly the like might never return. He thought this application from America so very desirable to the House, that he could have made no sort of doubt of their entering heartily into his ideas, if Lord North, some days before, in opening the budget, had not gone out of his way to make a panegyric on the last Parliament, and in particular to commend as acts of lenity and mercy those very laws which the Remonstrance considers as intolerable grievances."
"Lord North spoke greatly in favour of New York, and said he would gladly do everything in his power to show his regard to the good behaviour of that colony; but the honour of Parliament required that no paper should be presented to that House which tended to call in question the unlimited rights of Parliament."
"Mr. Fox said the right of Parliament to tax America was not simply denied in the Remonstrance, but was coupled with the exercise of it. The exercise was the thing complained of, not the right itself. When the Declaratory Act was passed, asserting the right in the fullest extent, there were no tumults in America, no opposition to Government in any part of that country; but when the right came to be exercised in the manner we have seen, the whole country was alarmed, and there was an unanimous determination to oppose it. The right simply is not regarded; it is the exercise of it that is the object of opposition. It is this exercise that has irritated and made almost desperate several of the colonies. But the noble lord (Lord North) chooses to be consistent, and is determined to make them all alike. The only province that was moderate, and in which England had some friends, he now treats with contempt. What will be the consequence when the people of this moderate province are informed of this treatment? That representation which the cool and candid of this moderate province had framed with deliberation and caution is rejected--is not suffered to be presented--is not even to be read by the clerk. When they hear this they will be inflamed, and hereafter be as distinguished by their violence as they have hitherto been by their moderation. It is the only method they can take to regain the esteem and confidence of their brethren in the other colonies who have been offended at their moderation. Those who refused to send deputies to the Congress (at Philadelphia), and trusted to Parliament, will appear ridiculous in the eyes of all America. It will be proved that those who distrusted and defied Parliament had made a right judgment, and those who relied upon its moderation and clemency had been mistaken and duped; and the consequence of this must be, that every friend the Ministers have in America must either abandon them, or lose all credit and means of serving them in future."
"Governor Johnstone observed that when Mr. Wilkes had formerly presented a petition full of matter which the House did not think to enter into, they did not prevent the petition being brought up, but separated the matter which they thought improper from that which they thought ought to be heard. The House might make use of the same selection here. Ministers have long declared they wished for a dutiful application from one of the colonies, and now it is come they treat it with scorn and indignity. Mr. Cornwall had said it came only from twenty-six individuals. These twenty-six are the whole Assembly. When the question to adopt the measures recommended by the Congress was negatived by a majority of one only in this Assembly of twenty-six individuals, the Ministers were in high spirits, and these individuals were then represented as all America."
Lord North's amendment to reject the petition was adopted by a majority of 186 to 67.[357]
"After having been foiled in the House of Commons," says the royal historian, "it now remained to be decided whether that colony's representations would meet with a more gracious reception in the House of Lords. But here the difficulty was still greater than in the other House. The dignity of the peerage was said to be insulted by the appellation under which it had been presumed to usher those representations into that Assembly. They were styled a Memorial; such a title was only allowable in transactions between princes and states independent of each other, but was insufferable on the part of subjects. The answer was that the lowest officer in the service had a right to present a memorial, even to his Majesty, should he think himself aggrieved; with much more reason might a respectable body present one to the House of Lords. But, exclusive of the general reason that entitled so important a colony to lay such a paper before them, the particular reason of its fidelity, in spite of so many examples of defection, was alone a motive which ought to supersede all forms, and engage their most serious attention to what it had to propose.
"After sundry arguments of the same nature, the question was determined against hearing the Memorial by forty-five peers to twenty-five.
"When the rejection of these applications was announced to the public, a great part of the nation expressed the highest discontent. They now looked forward with dejection and sorrow at the prospect of mutual destruction that lay before them, and utterly gave up all other expectations."[358]
It might be supposed that such a rejection of the petition of the most loyal colony in America would end the presentation of petitions on the part of the colonies to the King and Parliament, and decide them at once either to submit to the extinction of their constitutional rights as British subjects, or defend them by force. But though they had, both separately and unitedly, declared from the beginning that they would defend their rights at all hazards, they persisted in exhausting every possible means to persuade the King and Parliament to desist from such a system of oppression, and to restore to them those rights which they enjoyed for more than a century--down to the close of the French war in 1763.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 357: Parliamentary Register, Vol. I., pp. 467-473.]
[Footnote 358: Dr. Andrews' History of the War with America, Spain, and Holland, Vol. I., pp. 275, 276.
"The Ministerial objections were that it was incompatible with the dignity of the House to suffer any paper to be presented that questioned its supreme authority. Particular notice was taken at the same time that the title of Petition did not accompany this paper; it was called a Representation and Remonstrance, which was not the usual nor the proper manner of application to Parliament. This singularity alone was sufficient to put a negative on its presentation.
"To this it was replied, that the times were so dangerous and critical that words and forms were no longer deserving of attention. The question was whether they thought the colony of New York was worthy of a hearing? No colony had behaved with so much temperateness and discretion. Notwithstanding the tempestuousness of the times, and the general wreck of British authority, it had yet preserved a steady obedience to Government. While every other colony was bidding defiance to Britain, this alone submissively applied to her for redress of grievances. Was it consistent with policy, after losing the good-will of all the other colonies, to drive this, through a needless and punctilious severity, into their confederacy against this country? Could we expect, after such a treatment, that this colony could withstand the arguments that would be drawn from our superciliousness to induce it to relinquish a conduct which was so ill requited?"--Ib., p. 274.]
Chapter XXIII
1775 CONTINUED--THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS IN AMERICA.
Six months after the General Assembly of New York adopted its Memorial, and four months after its rejection by both Houses of Parliament, the second Continental Congress met, in the month of September, at Philadelphia.
This Assembly consisted of fifty-five members, chosen by twelve colonies. The little colony of Georgia did not elect delegates, but promised to concur with the sister colonies in the effort to maintain their rights to the British Constitution. Many of the members of this Assembly were men of fortune and learning, and represented not only the general sentiments of the colonies, but their wealth and respectability.[359] "The object, as stated in the credentials of the delegates, and especially in those of the two most powerful colonies of Massachusetts and Virginia, was to obtain the redress of grievances, and to restore harmony between Great Britain and America, which, it was said, was desired by all good men. It was the conviction that this might be done through a Bill of Rights, in which the limits of the powers of the colonies and the mother country might be defined."[360]
Some three weeks after the assembling of Congress, before the end of September, a petition to the King was reported, considered, and adopted. This petition was addressed to the King, in behalf of the colonists, beseeching the interposition of the Royal authority and influence to procure them relief from their afflicting fears and jealousies, excited by the measures pursued by his Ministers, and submitting to his Majesty's consideration whether it may not be expedient for him to be pleased to direct some mode by which the united applications of his faithful colonists to the Throne may be improved into a happy and permanent reconciliation; and that in the meantime measures be taken for preventing the further destruction of the lives of his Majesty's subjects,[361] and that such statutes as more immediately distress any of his Majesty's colonies be repealed. "Attached to your Majesty's person, family, and government," concludes this address of the Congress, "with all the devotion that principle and affection can inspire, connected with Great Britain by the strongest ties that can unite societies, and deploring every event that tends in any degree to weaken them, we solemnly assure your Majesty that we not only most ardently desire that the former harmony between her and these colonies may be restored, but that a concord may be established between them upon so firm a basis as to perpetuate its blessings, uninterrupted by any future dissensions, to succeeding generations in both countries." This petition was read in Parliament the 7th of December, 1775, at the request of Mr. Hartley, with several other petitions for pacification; but they were all rejected by the House of Commons.[362] The answer of the King to the respectful and loyal constitutional petition of Congress was to proclaim the petitioners "rebels," and all that supported them "abettors of treason."[363]
The first day of November brought to the Continental Congress this proclamation, together with the intelligence that the British army and navy were to be largely increased, and that German mercenary soldiers from Hanover and Hesse had been hired, as it was found impossible to obtain soldiers in England to fight against their fellow-subjects in America.[365] On the same day the intelligence was received from General Washington, in Massachusetts, of the burning of Falmouth (now Portland).[366] The simultaneous intelligence of the treatment of the second petition of Congress, the Royal proclamation, the increase of the army and navy, the employment of seventeen thousand Hanoverians and Hessian mercenaries to subdue America, and the burning of Falmouth, produced a great sensation in Congress and throughout the colonies. Some of the New England members of the Congress, especially John and Samuel Adams, had long given up the idea of reconciliation with England, and had desired independence. This feeling was, however, cherished by very few members of the Congress; but the startling intelligence caused many members to abandon all hope of reconciliation with the mother country, and to regard independence as the only means of preserving their liberties. Yet a large majority of the Congress still refused to entertain the proposition of independence, and awaited instructions from their constituents as to what they should do in these novel and painful circumstances. In the meantime the Congress adopted energetic measures for the defence of the colonies, and the effectiveness of their union and government. In answer to applications from South Carolina and New Hampshire for advice on account of the practical suspension of their local Government, Congress "recommended" each province "to call a full and free representation of the people, and that the representatives, if they think it necessary, establish such a form of government as in their judgment will best promote the happiness of the people, and most effectually secure peace and good-will in the province during the continuance of the present dispute between Great Britain and the colonies". The province of Massachusetts had refused to acknowledge any other local Government than that which had been established by the Royal Charter of William and Mary, and which had never been cancelled by any legal proceedings; and they continued to elect their representatives, and the representatives met and appointed the Council, and acted under it, as far as possible, irrespective of General Gage and the officers of his appointment.
The colonies were a unit as to their determination to defend by force and at all hazards their constitutional rights and liberties as British subjects; but they were yet far from being a unit as to renunciation of all connection with England and the declaration of independence. The Legislature of Pennsylvania was in session when the news of the rejection of the second petition of Congress and the King's proclamation arrived, and when fresh instructions were asked from constituents of the members of Congress; and even under these circumstances, Mr. Dickenson, "The Immortal Farmer," whose masterly letters had done so much to enlighten the public mind of both England and America on the rights of the colonies and the unconstitutional acts of the British Administration and Parliament, repelled the idea of separation from England. The Legislature of Pennsylvania continued to require all its members to subscribe the old legal qualification which included the promise of allegiance to George the Third; "so that Franklin," says Bancroft, "though elected for Philadelphia, through the Irish and Presbyterians, would never take his seat. Dickenson had been returned for the county by an almost unanimous vote." The Legislature, on the 4th of November, elected nine delegates to the Continental Congress. Of these, one was too ill to serve; of the rest, "Franklin stood alone as the unhesitating champion of independence; the majority remained to the last its opponents. On the 9th, Dickenson reported and carried the following instructions to the Pennsylvania delegates: 'We direct that you exert your utmost endeavours to agree upon and recommend such measures as you shall judge to afford the best prospect of obtaining redress of American grievances, and restoring that union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies so essential to the welfare and happiness of both countries. Though the oppressive measures of the British Parliament and Administration have compelled us to resist their violence by force of arms, yet we strictly enjoin you, that you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly reject any propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead to a separation from our mother country, or a change of the form of this government.' The influence of the measure was wide. Delaware was naturally swayed by the example of its more powerful neighbour; the party of the proprietary of Maryland took courage; in a few weeks the Assembly of New Jersey, in like manner, held back the delegates of that province by an equally stringent declaration."[367] After stating that the Legislature of Pennsylvania, before its adjournment, adopted rules for the volunteer battalions, and appropriated eighty thousand pounds in provincial paper money to defray the expenses of military preparation, Mr. Bancroft adds, that "extreme discontent led the more determined to expose through the press the trimming of the Assembly; and Franklin encouraged Thomas Paine, an emigrant from England of the previous year, who was master of a singularly lucid and attractive style, to write an appeal to the people of America in favour of independence."[368] "Yet the men of that day had been born and educated as subjects of a king; to them the House of Hanover was a symbol of religious toleration, the British Constitution another word for the security of liberty and property under a representative government. They were not yet enemies of monarchy; they had as yet turned away from considering whether well-organized civil institutions could not be framed for wide territories without a king; and in the very moment of resistance they longed to escape the necessity of a revolution. Zubly, a delegate from Georgia, a Swiss by birth, declared in his place 'a republic to be little better than a government of devils;' shuddered at the idea of separation from Britain as fraught with greater evils than had yet been suffered."[369]
The exact time when the minds of the leading men in the Colonies, and the colonists, began to undergo a transition from the defence of their constitutional liberties as British subjects to their security by declaring independence of Great Britain, seems to have been the receipt of the intelligence of the scornful rejection of the second petition of Congress, and of the King's proclamation, putting the advocates of colonial rights out of the protection of the law, by declaring them rebels, and requiring all public officers, civil and military, to apprehend them with a view to their punishment as such. Some individuals of eminence in the colonies had previously despaired of reconciliation with England, and had regarded Independency as the only hope of preserving their liberties, but these were the exceptions: the leaders and colonists generally still hoped for reconciliation with England by having their liberties restored, as they were recognized and enjoyed at the close of the French war in 1763. They had regarded the King as their Father and Friend, and laid all the blame upon his Ministers and Parliament, against whose acts they appealed to the King for the protection of their rights and liberties. But it gradually transpired, from year to year, that the King himself was the real prompter of these oppressive acts and measures, and though long discredited,[370] yet when the King ostentatiously announced himself as the champion of the Parliament and its acts, his determination to enforce by the whole power of the realm, the absolute submission of the colonies; and when all this intelligence, so often repeated and doubted, was confirmed by the issue of the Royal proclamation, which it was known and admitted that the King himself had urged and hastened, the most sanguine advocates and friends of reconciliation were astounded and began to despair; and the idea of independence was now boldly advocated by the press.
In 1773, Dr. Franklin said to the Earl of Chatham, "I never heard from any person the least expression of a wish for separation." In October, 1774, Washington wrote, "I am well satisfied that no such thing as independence is desired by any thinking man in America; on the contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the warmest advocates for liberty that peace and tranquillity, on constitutional grounds, may be restored, and the horrors of civil discord prevented." Jefferson stated, "Before the 19th of April, 1775 (the day of General Gage's attack on Concord, and the Lexington affair), I never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain." And thirty-seven days before that wanton aggression of General Gage,[371] John Adams, in Boston, published:
"That there are any who pant after independence is the greatest slander on the Province." Sparks, in a note entitled "American Independence," in the second volume of the Writings of Washington, remarks: "It is not easy to determine at what precise date the idea of independence was first entertained by the principal persons in America." Samuel Adams, after the events of the 19th of April, 1775, was prepared to advocate it. Members of the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire were of the same opinion. President Dwight, of Yale College (Travels in New England and New York, Vol. I., p. 159), says: "In the month of July, 1775, I urged in conversation with several gentlemen of great respectability, firm Whigs, and my intimate friends, the importance and even necessity of a declaration of independence on the part of the colonies, but found them disposed to give me and my arguments a hostile and contemptuous, instead of a cordial reception. These gentlemen may be considered as the representatives of the great body of thinking men of this country." In the note of Sparks are embodied the recollections of Madison, Jay, and others, and the contemporary statements of Franklin and Penn. They are in harmony with the statements and quotations in the text, and sustain the judgment of Dr. Ramsay (History of South Carolina, Vol. I., p. 164), who says: "Till the rejection of the second petition of Congress, the reconciliation with the mother country was the unanimous wish of the Americans generally."[372]
When Washington heard of the affair of Concord and Lexington, April 19, 1775, he wrote, in his own quiet residence at Mount Vernon, "Unhappy is it to reflect that a brother's sword should be sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are to be either drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But, can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" Mr. Bancroft says: "The reply to Bunker Hill from England reached Washington before the end of September (1775); and the manifest determination of the Ministers to push the war by sea and land, with the utmost vigour, removed from his mind every doubt of the necessity of independence. Such also was the conclusion of Greene; and the army was impatient when any of the chaplains prayed for the King."[373]
It was thus that King George the Third, by his own acts, lost the confidence and affection of his loyal subjects in America, and hastened a catastrophe of which he had been repeatedly and faithfully warned, and which none deprecated more generally and earnestly than the leaders and inhabitants of the American colonies; but who determined, and openly declared their determination in every petition to the King and Parliament for ten years, that, if necessary, at all hazards, they would maintain and defend their constitutional rights as Englishmen.
Now, at the close of the year 1775, and before entering upon the eventful year of 1776, when the American colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, let us recapitulate the events which thus brought the mother country and her colonial offspring face to face in armed hostility.
1. No loyalty and affection could be more cordial than that of the American colonies to England at the conquest of Canada from the French, and the peace of Paris between Great Britain and France in 1763. Even the ancient and traditional disaffection of Massachusetts to England had dissolved into feelings of gratitude and respect and avowed loyalty. Indeed, loyalty and attachment to England, and pride in the British Constitution, was the universal feeling of the American colonies at the close of the war which secured North America to England, and for the triumphant termination of which the American colonies had raised and equipped no less than twenty-five thousand men, without whose services the war could not have been accomplished.
2. The first five years of the war with France in America had been disastrous to Great Britain and the colonies, under a corrupt English Administration and incompetent generals; but after the accession of the Earl of Chatham to the Premiership the tide of war in America turned in favour of Great Britain by the appointment of able generals--Amherst and Wolfe--and Admiral Boscawen and others, and by adopting constitutional methods to develop the resources of the colonies for the war; and in two years the French power was crushed and ceased to exist in America. When the Crown, through its Prime Minister, made requisition to the Colonial Legislatures for money and men, as was the usage in England, the Colonial Legislatures responded by granting large sums of money, and sending into the field more than twenty thousand soldiers, who, by their skill, courage, and knowledge of the country, and its modes of travel and warfare, constituted the pioneers, skirmishers, and often the strongest arm of the British army, and largely contributed in every instance to its most splendid victories. Their loyalty, bravery, and patriotism extracted grateful acknowledgments in both Houses of Parliament, and even from the Throne; while the colonies as cordially acknowledged the essential and successful assistance of the mother country. At no period of colonial history was there so deep-felt, enthusiastic loyalty to the British Constitution and British connection as at the close of the war between France and England in 1763. But in the meantime George the Third, after his accession to the throne in 1760, determined not only to reign over but to rule his kingdom, both at home and abroad. He ignored party government or control in Parliament; he resolved to be his own Prime Minister--in other words, to be despotic; he dismissed the able and patriotic statesmen who had wiped off the disgrace inflicted on British arms and prestige during the five years of the French and Indian war in the American colonies, and had given America to England, and called men one after another to succeed them, who, though in some instances they were men of ability, and in one or two instances were men of amiable and Christian character, were upon the whole the most unscrupulous and corrupt statesmen that ever stood at the head of public affairs in England, and the two Parliaments elected under their auspices were the most venal ever known in British history. The King regarded as a personal enemy any member of Parliament who opposed his policy, and hated any Minister of State (and dismissed him as soon as possible) who offered advice to, instead of receiving it from, his Royal master and implicitly obeying it; and the Ministers whom he selected were too subservient to the despotism and caprices of the Royal will, at the frequent sacrifice of their own convictions and the best interests of the empire.
For more than a hundred years the colonies had provided for and controlled their own civil, judicial, and military administration of government; and when the King required special appropriations of money and raising of men during the Seven Years' War, requisitions were made by his Ministers in his name, through the Governors, to the several Provincial Legislatures, which responded with a liberality and patriotism that excited surprise in England at the extent of their resources in both money and men. But this very development of colonial power excited jealousy and apprehensions in England, instead of sympathy and respect; and within a twelvemonth after the treaty of Paris, in 1763, the King and his Ministers determined to discourage and crush all military spirit and organization in the colonies, to denude the Colonial Legislatures of all the attributes of British constitutional free government, by the British Government not only appointing the Governors of the colonies, but by appointing the members of one branch of the Legislature, by appointing Judges as well as other public officers to hold office during the pleasure of the Crown, and fixing and paying their salaries out of moneys paid by colonists, but levied not by the Colonial Legislatures, but by Acts of the British Parliament, contrary to the usage of more than a century; and under the pretext of defending the colonies, but really for the purpose of ruling them; proposing an army of 20 regiments of 500 men each, to be raised and officered in England, from the penniless and often worse than penniless of the scions and relatives of Ministers and members of Parliament, and billeted upon the colonies at the estimated expense of £100,000 sterling a year, to be paid by the colonies out of the proceeds of the Stamp and other Acts of Parliament passed for the purpose of raising a revenue in the colonies for the support of its civil and military government.
No government is more odious and oppressive than that which has the mockery of the form of free government without its powers or attributes. An individual despot may be reached, terrified, or persuaded, but a despotic oligarchy has no restraint of individual responsibility, and is as intangible in its individuality as it is grasping and heartless in its acts and policy. For governors, all executive officers, judges, and legislative councillors appointed from England, together with military officers, 20 regiments all raised in England, the military commanders taking precedence of the local civil authorities, all irresponsible to the colonists, yet paid by them out of taxes imposed upon them without their consent, is the worst and most mercenary despotism that can be conceived. The colonists could indeed continue to elect representatives to one branch of their Legislatures; but the Houses of Assembly thus elected were powerless to protect the liberties or properties of their constituents, subject to abuse and dissolution in case of their remonstrating against unconstitutional acts of tyranny or advocating rights.
Such was the system passionately insisted upon by King George the Third to establish his absolute authority over his colonial subjects in America, and such were the methods devised by his venal Ministers and Parliament to provide places and emoluments for their sons, relatives, and dependents, at the expense of the colonists, to say nothing of the consequences to the virtue of colonial families from mercenary public officers and an immoral soldiery.
The American colonies merited other treatment than that which they received at the hands of the King and Parliament from 1763 to 1776; and they would have been unworthy of the name of Englishmen, and of the respect of mankind, had they yielded an iota of the constitutional rights of British subjects, for which they so lawfully and manfully contended. What the old colonies contended for during that eventful period was substantially the same as that which has been demanded and obtained during the present century by the colonies of the Canadian Dominion, under the names of "local self-government" or "responsible government," and which is now so fully enjoyed by them. Had Queen Victoria reigned in England instead of George the Third, there would have been no Declaration of Independence, no civil war in America, but the thirteen American provinces would have remained as affectionately united to the mother country, and as free as are the provinces of the Canadian Dominion at this day.
George the Third seems to me to have been, before and during the American Revolution, the worst Sovereign for the colonies that ever occupied the throne of England; but after and since that revolution he was the best of Sovereigns for the remaining British colonies of North America. He learned lessons during that revolution which essentially changed his character as the ruler of colonies, though I am not aware that he ever formally confessed the change through which he had passed. It is therefore quite reconcilable that he should be regarded by the old American colonies, now the United States, as a tyrant, while his name is revered and loved by the colonists of the Canadian Dominion as the Father of his people.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 359: "Each of the three divisions by which the colonies were usually designated--the New England, the Middle, and the Southern Colonies--had on the floor of Congress men of a positive character. New England presented in John Sullivan, vigour; in Roger Sherman, sterling sense and integrity; in Thomas Cushing, commercial knowledge; in John Adams (afterwards President of the United States), large capacity for public affairs; in Samuel Adams (no relation to John Adams), a great character with influence and power to organize. The Middle Colonies presented in Philip Livingston, the merchant prince of enterprise and liberality; in John Jay, rare public virtue, juridical learning, and classic taste; in William Livingston, progressive ideas tempered by conservatism; in John Dickenson, "The Immortal Farmer," erudition and literary ability; in Cæsar Rodney and Thomas McKean, working power; in James Duane, timid Whigism, halting, but keeping true to the cause; in Joseph Galloway, downright Toryism, seeking control, and at length going to the enemy. The Southern Colonies presented in Thomas Johnson, the grasp of a statesman; in Samuel Chase, activity and boldness; in the Rutledges, wealth and accomplishment; in Christopher Gadsden, the genuine American; and in the Virginia delegation--an illustrious group--in Richard Bland, wisdom; in Edmund Pendleton, practical talent; in Peyton Randolph, experience in legislation; in Richard Henry Lee, statesmanship in union with high culture; in Patrick Henry, genius and eloquence; in Washington, justice and patriotism. 'If,' said Patrick Henry, 'you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Washington unquestionably is the greatest man of them all.' Those others who might be named were chosen on account of their fitness for the duties which the cause required. Many had independent fortunes. They constituted a noble representation of the ability, culture, political intelligence, and wisdom of twelve of the colonies." (Frothingham's Rise of the Republic of the Twelve States, pp. 360, 361.)]
[Footnote 360: Ib., pp. 363, 364.
After preliminary proceedings, Congress decided to appoint a Committee to state the rights of the colonies, the instances in which those rights had been violated, and the most proper means to obtain their restoration; and another Committee to examine and report upon the statutes affecting the trade and manufactures of the colonies. On the same day, Samuel Adams, in answer to the objection to opening the session with prayer, grounded on the diversity of religious sentiment among the members, said he could hear prayer from any man of piety and virtue, who was a friend of the country, and moved that Mr. Duché, an Episcopalian, might be desired to read prayers for the Congress the following morning. The motion prevailed. "The Congress sat with closed doors. Nothing transpired of their proceedings except their organization and the rule of voting (each province having an equal vote). The members bound themselves to keep their doings secret until a majority should direct their publication."--Ib., pp. 364, 365.]
[Footnote 361: The battles of Lexington and Bunker's Hill had occurred some months before the adoption of this petition.]
[Footnote 362: Holmes' Annals, Vol. II., p. 232.
Richard Penn, late Governor of Pennsylvania, was chosen by Congress to go to Great Britain, with directions to deliver their petition to the King himself, and to endeavour, by his personal influence, to procure its favourable reception; but Mr. Penn, though from the city whose Congress had twice assembled, a man distinguished in the colony for moderation and loyalty, and the appointed agent of the Congress, was not asked a question, even when he presented the American petition to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, and the King refused to see him.--Ib., pp. 231, 232.
"Two days after the delivery of a copy of the petition of Congress, the King sent out a proclamation for suppressing rebellion and sedition. It set forth that many of his subjects in the colonies had proceeded to open and avowed rebellion by arraying themselves to withstand the execution of the law, and traitorously levying war against him. 'There is reason,' so ran its words, 'to apprehend that such rebellion hath been much promoted and encouraged by the traitorous correspondence, counsels, and comfort of divers wicked and desperate persons within our realm.' Not only all the officers, civil and military, but all the subjects of the realm were therefore called upon to disclose all traitorous conspiracies, and to transmit to one of the Secretaries of State 'full information of all persons who should be found carrying on correspondence with, or in any manner or degree aiding or abetting the persons now in open arms and rebellion against the Government within any of the colonies in North America, in order to bring to condign punishment the authors, perpetrators, and abettors of such traitorous designs.'
"The proclamation, aimed at Chatham, Camden, Barré, and their friends, and the boldest of the Rockingham party, even more than against the Americans, was read, but not with the customary ceremonies, at the Royal Exchange, where it was received with a general hiss."
"The irrevocable publication having been made, Penn and Arthur Lee were 'permitted' on the 1st of September to present the original of the American petition to Lord Dartmouth, who promised to deliver it to the King; but on their pressing for an answer, 'they were informed that as it was not received on the throne, no answer would be given.' Lee expressed sorrow at the refusal, which would occasion so much bloodshed; and the deluded Secretary answered: 'If I thought it would be the cause of shedding one drop of blood, I should never have concurred in it." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VIII., Chap, xlix., pp. 132, 133.)
Yet "on the 23rd of August Lord Dartmouth wrote to General Howe, who (Aug. 2, 1775) superseded General Gage as the Commander of the British army, that there was 'no room left for any other consideration but that of proceeding against the twelve associated colonies in all respects with the utmost rigour, as the open and avowed enemies of the State.'" (Frothingham's Rise of the American Republic, p. 446.)]
[Footnote 363: "In the meantime (beginning of October) Richard Penn hastened to England with the second petition. The King was now continually occupied with American affairs. He directed that General Gage should be ordered 'instantly to come' over, on account of the battle of Bunker Hill; thought Admiral Graves ought to be recalled from Boston 'for doing nothing,' and completed the arrangements for the employment of Hanoverians in America. Impatient at the delay of the Cabinet in acting upon the proclamation agreed upon, he put this in train by ordering one to be framed and submitted, August 18th, to Lord North, and fixed the day for its promulgation. He was confirmed in his extreme views by General Haldimand, fresh from America, who reported that 'nothing but force could bring the colonies to reason,' and that it would be dangerous to give ear to any proposition they might submit. The King was convinced that it would be better 'totally to abandon the colonies' than 'to admit a single shadow' of their doctrines [364]. Five days after penning these words, he issued (August 23rd) a proclamation for suppressing rebellion and sedition." (The purpose of this fatal proclamation is given in the sub-note.)
This proclamation, unlike Lord North's plan, ignored the colonies as political unities. It is levelled against individuals in rebellion, and all within the realm who should aid them. (Frothingham's Rise of the American Republic, pp. 444-446. Donne's Correspondence of Geo. III.)]
[Footnote 364: A private letter by Captain Collins, lately arrived from London, says that "on the 19th of August General Haldimand was closeted with his Majesty two hours, giving him a state of the American colonies; and that in the course of the conversation his Majesty expressed his resolution in these memorable words: 'I am unalterably determined, at every hazard, and at the risk of every consequence, to compel the colonies to absolute submission.'"]
[Footnote 365: "In the autumn of this year (1775), General Gage repaired to England, and the command of the British army devolved on Sir William Howe. The offer of this command had been first made to General Oglethorpe, his senior officer, who agreed to accept the appointment on the condition that the Ministry would authorize him to assure the colonies that justice should be done to them. This veteran and patriotic General declared at the same time that he knew the people of America well; that they never would be subdued by arms, but that their obedience would be ever secured by doing them justice." (Holmes' Annals, Vol. II., p. 235.)
"The Earl of Effingham, who in his youth had been prompted by military genius to enter the army, and had lately served as a volunteer in the war between Russia and Turkey, finding that his regiment was intended for America, renounced the profession which he loved, as the only means of escaping the obligation of fighting against the cause of freedom. This resignation gave offence to the Court, and was a severe rebuke to the officers who did not share his scruple; but at London the Common Hall, in June, thanked him publicly as 'a true Englishman;' and the guild of merchants in Dublin addressed him in the strongest terms of approbation." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap, xxxiii. pp. 343, 344.)]
[Footnote 366: "In compliance with a resolve of the Provincial Congress to prevent Tories from conveying out their effects, the inhabitants of Falmouth, in the north-eastern part of Massachusetts, had obstructed the loading of a mast ship. The destruction of the town was determined on as a vindictive punishment. Captain Mowat, detached for that purpose with armed vessels by Admiral Graves, arrived off the place on the evening of the 17th of October. He gave notice to the inhabitants that he would give them two hours 'to remove the human species,' at the end of which time a red pendant would be hoisted at the maintop-gallant mast-head; and that on the least resistance, he should be freed from all humanity dictated by his orders or his inclination. Upon being inquired of by three gentlemen who went on board his ship for that purpose respecting the reason of this extraordinary summons, he replied that he had orders to set on fire all the seaport towns from Boston to Halifax, and that he supposed New York was already in ashes. He could dispense with his orders, he said, on no terms but the compliance of the inhabitants to deliver up their arms and ammunition, and their sending on board a supply of provisions, four carriage guns, and the same number of the principal persons in the town as hostages; that they should engage not to unite with their country in any opposition to Britain; and he assured them that on a refusal of these conditions he would lay their town in ashes within three hours. Unprepared for the attack, the inhabitants by entreaty obtained the suspension of an answer until morning, and employed this interval in removing their families and effects. Considering opposition as unavailing, they made no resistance. The next day, Captain Mowat commenced a furious cannonade and bombardment; and a great number of people standing on the heights were spectators of the conflagration, which reduced many of them to penury and despair; 139 dwelling-houses and 278 stores were burnt. Other seaports were threatened with conflagration, but escaped; Newport, on Rhode Island, was compelled to stipulate for a weekly supply, to avert it." (Holmes' Annals, Vol. II., pp. 219, 220.)
Mr. Bancroft's account of this transaction is as follows: "In the previous May, Mowat, a naval officer, had been held prisoner for a few hours at Falmouth, now Portland; and we have seen Linzee, in a sloop of war, driven with loss from Gloucester. It was one of the last acts of Gage to plan with the Admiral how to wreak vengeance on the inhabitants of both those ports. The design against Gloucester was never carried out; but Mowat, in a ship of sixteen guns, attended by three other vessels, went up the harbour of Portland, and after a short parley, at half-past nine on the morning of the 16th of October, he began to fire upon the town. In five minutes several houses were in a blaze; parties of marines had landed, to spread the conflagration by hand. All sea-going vessels were burned except two, which were carried away. The cannonade was kept up till after dark. St. Paul's Church, the public buildings, and about one hundred and thirty dwelling-houses, three-fourths of the whole, were burned down; those that remained standing were shattered by balls and shells. By the English account the destruction was still greater. At the opening of a severe winter, the inhabitants were turned adrift in poverty and misery. The wrath of Washington was justly kindled as he heard of these 'savage cruelties,' this new 'exertion of despotic barbarity.'" (History of the United States, Vol. VIII., Chap. xlvii., p. 113.)]
[Footnote 367: Bancroft's History United States, Vol. VIII., Chap. xlix., pp. 138, 139.]
[Footnote 368: In this appeal of Paine's, monarchy was for the first time attacked in America, except by the rulers of the Massachusetts colony, under the first Charter. Some of Paine's words were, that "In the early ages of the world, mankind were equals in the order of creation; the heathen introduced the government of kings, which the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproved. To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a lessening of ourselves, so the second might put posterity under the government of a rogue or a fool. Nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule. England since the Conquest hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones." "In short, monarchy and succession have laid not England only, but the world, in blood and ashes." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VIII., Chap. xlix., pp. 236, 237.)]
[Footnote 369: But though Mr. Dickenson had done more than any other man in America to vindicate colonial rights and expose the unconstitutional character of the acts of the British Ministry and Parliament, he was opposed to a declaration of independence, like a majority of the colonists; yet he advocated resistance by force against submission to the Boston Port Bill, and the suspension of the Massachusetts Charter, and both without a trial, as in similar cases even under the despotic reigns of Charles the First and Second. Mr. Bancroft blames Mr. Dickenson severely for the instructions of the Pennsylvania Legislature to its nine delegates in the Continental Congress in October, 1775; but, writing under the date of the previous May, Mr. Bancroft says: "Now that the Charter of Massachusetts had been impaired, Dickenson did not ask merely relief from parliamentary taxation; he required security against the encroachments of Parliament on charters and laws. The distinctness with which he spoke satisfied Samuel Adams himself, who has left on record that the Farmer was a thorough Bostonian." (History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. xxxvi., p. 377.)]
[Footnote 370: As late as May, 1775, after the bloody affair of Concord and Lexington, Mr. Bancroft remarks:
"The delegates of New England, especially those from Massachusetts, could bring no remedy to the prevailing indecision (in the Continental Congress), for they suffered from insinuations that they represented a people who were republican in their principles of government and fanatics in religion, and they wisely avoided the appearance of importunity or excess in their demands.
"As the delegates from South Carolina declined the responsibility of a decision which would have implied an abandonment of every hope of peace, there could be no efficient opposition to the policy of again seeking the restoration of American liberty through the mediation of the King. This plan had the great advantage over the suggestion of an immediate separation from Britain, that it could be boldly promulgated, and was in harmony with the general wish; for the people of the continent, taken collectively, had not as yet ceased to cling to their old relations with their parent land; and so far from scheming independence, now that independence was become inevitable, they postponed the irrevocable decree and still longed that the necessity for it might pass by." (History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. xxxvi, pp. 376, 377.)]
[Footnote 371: Lord Dartmouth (the Secretary of State for the Colonies) said: "The attempts of General Gage at Concord are fatal. By that unfortunate event the happy moment of advantage is lost."
"The condemnation of Gage was universal. Many people in England were from that moment convinced that the Americans could not be reduced, and that England must concede their independence. The British force, if drawn together, could occupy but a few insulated points, while all the rest would be free; if distributed, would be continually harassed and destroyed in detail.
"These views were frequently brought before Lord North. That statesman was endowed with strong affections, and was happy in his family, in his fortune and abilities; in his public conduct, he and he alone among Ministers was sensible to the reproaches of remorse; and he cherished the sweet feelings of human kindness. Appalled at the prospect, he wished to resign. But the King would neither give him release, nor relent towards the Americans. How to subdue the rebels was the subject of consideration." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap, xxxiii, pp. 345, 346.)]
[Footnote 372: Frothingham's Rise of the American Republic, p. 453, in a note.]
[Footnote 373: History of the United States, Vol. VIII., Chap, xlvii, p. 108.
In November, 1775, Jefferson wrote to a refugee: "It is an immense misfortune to the whole empire to have a king of such a disposition at such a time. We are told, and everything proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have; his Minister is able, and that satisfies me that ignorance or wickedness somewhere controls him. Our petitions told him, that from our King there was but one appeal. After colonies have drawn the sword, there is but one step more they can take. That step is now pressed upon us by the measures adopted, as if they were afraid we would not take it. There is not in the British Empire a man who more cordially loves union with Great Britain than I do; but by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this I speak the sentiments of America."--Ib., p. 143.]