Chapter X
```"The autumnal glories all have pass'd away!
````The forest leaves no more in hectic red
```Give glowing tokens of their brief decay,
````But scatter'd lie, or rustle to the tread,
```Like whisper'd warnings from the moldering dead.
````The naked trees stretch out their arms all day.
```And each bald hill-top lifts its reverend head
````As if for some new covering to pray."
`````Mrs. E. C. Kinney.=
HE sun was shining in its noontide glory when I crossed the great Trenton Bridge over the Delaware to Morrisville, and reined my horse to the right into the Falsington road, for Philadelphia, twenty-eight miles distant. Unlike a summer rain, the storm developed no new beauties in the fields and orchards, but "a mantle dun" continued to overspread the landscape, and a cold north wind was heralding the approach of winter. I was now in the fertile region of "old Bucks" * in Pennsylvania, and with a loose rein traversed the gentle undulating country over which the Continental battalions often marched and countermarched. It was the anniversary of the evacuation of New York by the British--the departure of the last hostile foot from [[November 25, 1783]] our free shores. The mind, laden with the associations of the place and hour, its soul-stirring thoughts kept me such entertaining company, that the sun went down, and I entered the suburban district of Kensington, in the "Northern Liberties" of Philadelphia, before I was fairly conscious that a dozen miles had been traveled. It was but little more than four hours' journey with my strong and vigorous horse.
After leaving Falsington, the traveler obtains frequent glimpses of the Delaware and its white sails, on the left. The several small villages on the way (Falsington, Hulmeville, and Frankford being the largest) bear marks, in their dwellings, of considerable antiquity, if that word may properly be applied to American edifices. Many of them are small, steep-roofed stone houses, with little windows and wide doors, built before the war of the Revolution broke out, and presenting a great contrast with the New England villages, which seem as if just finished, with the white paint scarcely dry. It was almost sunset when I arrived at Frankford, quite a large town upon the Tacony Creek, five miles northeast of
* Tradition currently reports that the renowned Indian chief Tamene, or St. Tammany, was buried near a spring about three and a half miles west of Doylestown, in this county. He was an unequaled chief among the Delawares. Heckewelder says that when Colonel George Morgan, of Princeton, visited the Western Indians, by order of Congress, in 1776, he was so beloved for his goodness, that the Delawares conferred upon him the name of their venerated chief. Morgan brought back to the whites such glowing accounts of the qualities of that ancient chief, that in the Revolutionary war he was dubbed a saint, and his name was placed on some calendars. He was called by politicians, St. Tammany, and established as the patron saint of republican America. Tammany societies were organized, and Tammany halls dedicated, and on the 1st of May (the festival of the saint), meetings of the societies were held. "On that day," says Heckewelder, "numerous societies of his votaries walked together in procession through the streets of Philadelphia, their hats decorated with bucks' tails, and proceeded to a handsome rural place out of town, which they called the wigwam, where, after a long talk, or Indian speech, had been delivered, and the calumet of peace and friendship had been duly smoked, they spent the day in festivity and mirth." The Tammany Society of New York is yet in existence. Its meetings are held regularly at Tammany Hall, on the east side of the City Hall Park.
[[[Revolutionary Events at Frankford.--Kensington.--Arrival in Philadelphia.--Christ Church and its Sounding-board.]]]
{248}Philadelphia. Here the Americans kept quite a strong picket, during the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in 1777--8, after the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Near here was stationed the fine corps of light infantry guards under Colonel Twistleton (afterward Lord Say and Sele); and here, also, the active partisan corps called the Queen's Rangers, under Lieutenant-colonel Simcoe (afterward Governor of Canada), was recruited, and disciplined by actual service.
In November, 1777, the Rangers, in concert with Major Gwyn, attempted to surprise the American post at Frankford. They approached the town cautiously, and rushing in, expected to secure prisoners and booty; but the patriots had temporarily withdrawn. Some days afterward, another attempt to take the post was made. An American officer and twenty men were made prisoners. They were raw and undisciplined militia. Each man had the countersign, Richmond, written with chalk in his hat that he might not forget it. Soon after capturing these men, a patrol of cavalry, under Major Gwyn, which had pursued a party toward Bristol, came retreating in great confusion. They had been attacked, both in front and rear, by a troop of horsemen under Count Pulaski. Thoroughly alarmed, the whole British force at Frankford crossed the Tacony, and returned in haste to Philadelphia.
Parties of the Queen's Rangers were almost every day at Frankford, where the Americans did not keep a fixed post. Simcoe had trained his men to quick and energetic movements with the bayonet, and his standing order was, "Take as many prisoners as possible, but never destroy life unless absolutely necessary." On one occasion, a patroling party of the Rangers approached Frankford undiscovered by an American sentinel at the bridge. They were so near that they might easily have killed the guard, but a boy was sent to warn him to run for his life. He did so, and no more sentinels were posted there afterward; "a matter of some consequence," says Simcoe, "to the poor people of Philadelphia, as they were not prevented from getting their flour ground at Frankford Mills." *
Passing through a portion of the Kensington suburb of Philadelphia, its mud and wretchedness, its barking dogs and squalling babies, where society seems in a transition state from filth to cleanliness, and consequently from vice to godliness, I wheeled down Second Street, amid its glowing shops, and reined up at Congress Hall, just as the last hue of daylight faded away. It was Saturday night, a season as welcome to the traveler as a "cross day" in the calendar to the faithful. I was in Philadelphia' the city of brotherly love; the quiet Sabbath near; a glorious harvest of Revolutionary reminiscences spread out around me, inviting the pen-sickle to reap for my garner; and the broad and sunny South, its chivalry and its patriotism, beckoning me onward. Busy thought kept sleep at bay until midnight.
The Sabbath morning dawned brilliant and frosty. As I went up to worship in the venerable Christ Church, around which cluster so many interesting associations of the past, I felt that it was a two-fold sanctuary--a sanctuary of religion and of patriotism. The exterior is the same as it was when the later colonial governors and officers of state--when Washington and Franklin--when Congress and the officers of the Continental army went there to worship; but the interior has been greatly changed by that iconoclast, improvement--that breaker of the images which patriotism delights to worship! One vestige of the olden time remains untouched--the pulpit sounding-board, the indispensable canopy of the old pastors.=
```"That sounding-board, to me it seem'd
````A cherub poised on high--
```A mystery I almost deem'd 1````Quite hid from vulgar eye
```And that old pastor, rapt in prayer,
```Look'd doubly awful 'neath it there."
`````--E. Oakes Smith.=
* Simcoe's Military Journal, page 28. At that time the Philadelphians were dependent chiefly upon the Frankford Mills for their flour. It was with the pretense of going thither for flour, that Lydia Darrah left Philadelphia and hastened to the American camp at Whitemarsh, apprised Washington of an intended attack upon him, and, by her patriotic vigilance, doubtless saved the American army, under the commander-in-chief, from destruction or captivity. This circumstance is noted on pages 301--302.
[[[The Grave of Dr. Franklin, and others.--His early-written Epitaph.-- Description of Christ Church]]]
{249}Within its wall-inclosed grave-yard in the rear is the dust of many of the early and distinguished citizens of Philadelphia, the most renowned of whom was Dr. Benjamin Franklin.
His grave is beside that of his wife, and daughter (Mrs. Bache), in the northwest corner of the yard. "I wish," he said in his will, "to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small molding round the upper edge, and this inscription:=
`````"Benjamin
`````and Deborah
`````Franklin.
`````178--"=
His wishes were complied with. The date on the stone is 1790. * In the same inclosure General Mercer, who was killed at Princeton, was first buried; also Major-general Charles Lee, whose aversion to burial with Dissenters has been noticed. Standing amid its graves, and overshadowed by the venerable church, the American feels that he is upon consecrated ground indeed--consecrated by something holier than the voice of man setting it apart as a resting-place for the dead.
Here, wide open, is a broad page of our national history; let us sit down this still Sabbath afternoon and peruse a portion of it preparatory to a ramble on the morrow.
On the beautiful banks of the Delaware **--the Indian's Mack-er-isk-iskan--dwelt for ages the powerful tribes of the Lenni Lenapes ***--the Original People. They claimed the broad land from the Hudson to the Poto-
* As early as 1727, when Franklin was only twenty-two years of age, he wrote the following epitaph for himself:
The Body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, Like the cover of an old Book. Its contents torn out (And stripped of its lettering and gilding), Lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be lost, For it will (as he believed) appear once more In a new and more elegant edition, Revised and corrected by The Author.
* This epitaph was first printed in a Boston newspaper (the New England Courant), established and printed by Dr. Franklin.
** This name was given to the bay and river in honor of Lord De la Ware, who was Governor of Virginia in 1611.
*** This has been sometimes used as a generic term, and applied to all the tribes of the Algonquin family.
**** This view is from Second Street, looking northwest. It was built at various periods. The first (western) end was erected in 1727; the eastern or front portion was raised in 1731; and a small steeple was reared in 1753-4. A small church edifice was built upon its site in 1695, and the later edifice was raised around the old one while worship continued in it. The bell of the old church was hung in the crotch of a tree near by. The new church was furnished with an organ in 1729. The design of the church was made by Dr. John Kearsley, an eminent physician of Philadelphia. In 1752-3 it was proposed to build a fine steeple upon the church, and, in order to raise funds lor the purpose, a lottery was established--"a scheme to raise £1012 10s. to finish the steeple to Christ Church, and to purchase a ring of bells, and a clock." The "Philadelphian Steeple Lottery" was successful, and the structure, as it now appears, was finished in 1754. A chime of bells, weighing eight thousand pounds, was purchased in England, at a cost of $4500. These bells were taken down from the steeple by the commissary general, on the approach of the British to Philadelphia in 1777. and conveyed to Trenton for safety. They were returned, and hung again after the enemy evacuated the eity. Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, says that these bells were first tolled on the occasion of the funeral of Governor Anthony Palmer's wife, the mother of twenty-one children, all of whom died of consumption. On the top of the steeple is a miter, hearing the following inscription: "The Right Reverend William White, D.D., consecrated Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Pennsylvania, February 4th, 1787." The miter is four feet in circumference at the bottom, and has thirteen holes in it, indicative of the number of the original states. Bishop White was one of the first chaplains of the Continental Congress, and the first bishop of Pennsylvania. It is related that when he was a boy, living next door to a Quaker family in Market Street, he used to play with their little daughter. She often said, when she grew up, that Billy White was born for a bishop, for she never could persuade him to play any thing but church. He would tie her apron around his neck for a gown, and stand behind a chair for a pulpit, while she, seated before him on a low bench, was to be the congregation.
[[[The Natives on the Delaware and Schuylkill.--The Delawares--Their Character portrayed by William Penn.]]]
{250}mac as their grand council-house. While they called themselves the original people, they repeated the tradition that at some remote age their ancestors came from beyond the Mississippi, conquering, on their way, the more civilized nations, whose monuments are so profusely scattered over the rich valleys westward of the Alleghany Mountains. They were divided into three principal tribes, the Turtle, the Turkey, and the Wolf. The two former occupied the northern portions of New Jersey north of the Ptaritan, extending from the Hudson across the Delaware into Pennsylvania, and are known to the whites as the Minsi division; the latter, known as the Delawares, inhabited the southern portions of New Jersey and the entire valley of the Schuylkill. * Their settlement extended up the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, and they had a local council-fire at the Minisink flats, above the Delaware Water-gap. When these tribes first became known to the English, they were tributary to the Five Nations of New York, who applied to them the scornful epithet of "women." They were forbidden to sell lands or make war without the consent-of their conquerors, and were reduced to absolute vassalage. In the course of time, however, the [[1650]] Delawares were enabled to throw off the yoke of the conquerors. At Tioga, in 1756, the great Teedyuscung extorted from the chiefs of the Six Nations an acknowledgment of the independence of his people.
When the whites first visited the Delaware with a view to settlement, the Lenni Lenapés, broken into many small tribes, were scattered along the shores of the river on either side. ** They received the whites with open-handed hospitality. "In liberality they excel," wrote William Penn. "Nothing is too good for their friend. Give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks. Light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent. The most merry creatures that live; feast and dance perpetually. They never have much, nor want much. Wealth circulates like the blood--all parts partake; and, though none shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of property." Penn drew a charming picture of their hospitality, their liberal distribution of presents when received, and the universal happiness that prevailed among them; and then, with the hand of
* The two most noted chiefs of the Delawares at the time of our Revolution, was Captain White Eyes and Captain Pipe. The former became chief sachem in 1776, and espoused the patriot cause. He was a firm friend to the missionaries, and earnestly desired the conversion of his people to Christianity, and the enjoyment of the accompanying blessings of civilization. He died of the small-pox, at Philadelphia, in 1780. Captain Pipe secretly favored the British at the opening of the Revolution, but the vigilant White Eyes frustrated all his plans for a while. The Delawares at length became divided, and most of them, under Captain Pipe, joined the British. We have met these chiefs once before (page 264, vol. i.) and shall meet them again when we consider the Indian war of the Revolution beyond the Alleghanies.
** The Assanpink Indians were at the Falls of the Delaware (Trenton); the Rankokas and Andastakas at Christina Creek, near Wilmington; the Nishaminies near Bristol; the Shackamaxons about Kensington; the Mantas, or Frogs, near Burlington; the Minseys, or Minisinks, at the Forks of the Delaware: and three or four other tribes were in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. A few Mingoes were among these.
[[[First Settlements on the Delaware by the Dutch and Swedes.--Troubles with the Indians.--Gustavus Adolphus.]]]
{251}truth, holds up this record of the curse which boasted civilization carries with it as continually as its own shadow: "Since the Europeans came into these parts, they are grown great lovers of strong liquors, rum especially, and for it exchange the richest of their skins and furs. If they are heated with liquors, they are restless till they have enough to sleep; that is their cry, 'Some more, and I will go to sleep;' but, when drunk, one of the most wretched spectacles in the world."
In 1609, Captain Henry Hudson, then in the service of the Dutch East India Company, touched near Cape May, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, but, finding shoal water, put to sea, and soon afterward sailed through the Narrows into New York Bay. The Dutch established a trading-post on Manhattan Island, now New York. The establishment increased, and in 1621 the Dutch West India Company was formed. In 1623, this company took formal possession of the country discovered by Hudson, including the Delaware, or South River, as they called it, in contradistinction to the North River, now the Hudson. The foundation of New Amsterdam was laid, and Captain Jacobus May was sent to take possession and colonize in the most southern part of New Jersey. He gave Cape May the name it still bears. Near where Gloucester, in New Jersey, now stands, he built Fort Nassau. This was the first white settlement on the shores of the Delaware, but it was not permanent. In 1631, Captain David Pieterson de Vries entered the Delaware River with two ships and about thirty colonists. He was associated with Godyn, Bloemart, and Van Rensselaer, wealthy Dutch patroons, establishing a permanent settlement on the Delaware for the purpose of cultivating tobacco and grain, and prosecuting the whale and seal fishing. He built Fort Oplandt, near Lewiston, Delaware. DeVries returned to Holland, and when he came back, in 1632, his colony was destroyed. The arms of Holland, emblazoned on a piece of tin, had been raised upon a pole. An Indian stole the metal to make a tobacco-box of it. Osset, the commander, quarreled with the Indians, and the latter fell upon the colonists, while at work in the fields, and butchered every one of them. De Vries made peace with the tribe, but, finding Fort Nassau deserted, and the whole settlement a desolation, he left the bay forever; for, before the Dutch could re-establish their power, the patent granted to Lord Baltimore, proprietor of Maryland, gave them an English competitor for the lower portions of the territory on the west side of the Delaware.
The discoveries of the Dutch in the New World soon attracted the attention of the enlightened Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. He conceived a scheme for planting a Swedish colony in America, an idea suggested and heartily seconded by William Usselinx, a wealthy and enterprising Netherlander. A commercial company was formed; the stock was open to all Europe, and Gustavus pledged four hundred thousand dollars to the enterprise. Slavery was repudiated as a disadvantage to the proposed colony. "Slaves," they said, "cost a great deal, labor with reluctance, and soon perish from hard usage. The Swedish nation is laborious and intelligent, and surely we shall gain more by a free people with wives and children." America seemed to them a paradise, and Gustavus suggested that the proposed colony might prove an advantage to all oppressed and persecuted Christians. At that moment Germany, and indeed Protestant Christendom, was menaced with a total subversion of the principles of the Reformation; and against the increasing power of the pope--a power composed of religious influence and imperial soldiers--Gustavus took the field. All other considerations were, for the moment, absorbed by this one movement; and yet the idea of planting a free colony in the New World held a conspicuous place in the mind of the Swedish monarch. At Nuremberg, only a few days before the battle of Lützen, where he lost his life, he recommended the great scheme, "the jewel of his kingdom," to the Germans. His views were warmly seconded by Oxenstiern, the eminent statesman, who controlled the political affairs of Sweden during the minority of Queen Christina.
In 1638, a colony of Swedes from Gottenburg, under the command of Peter Minuits, a former governor of New Amsterdam, arrived in the Delaware, and landed at Cape Henlo-
* See page 391, vol. i.
[[[Extension of Swedish Settlements.--Opposition of the Dutch.--Stuyvesant's Conquests.]]]
{252}pen. Charmed with the beauty of the place, they called it Paradise. They approached the Indians with kindness, and purchased from them their lands upon the Delaware from Cape Henlopen to the falls at Trenton, and named the region New Sweden. They built a church and fort on the Minquaas, or Mingoes (now Christiana) Creek, where Wilmington now stands, and there laid out a town. The Dutch claimed a title to all this region by virtue of prior discovery and settlement, and Governor Keift protested against this intrusion. Other emigrants came; some from Maryland, who settled near the Schuylkill, and others from New Haven, who established themselves on the Jersey shore. These Keift promptly expelled, but did not disturb the Swedes.
John Printz succeeded Minuits as governor in 1643. With him came John Campanius, from Stockholm, as chaplain for the colony. They came in the ship Fame, accompanied by two war vessels, the Swan and the Chantas. Governor Printz selected Tinicum Island, * at the mouth of Darby Creek, for a residence. There he built a strong fort of hemlock logs, and a church, and beautified the neighborhood with orchards and pleasure-grounds. Quite a village of fine houses, for the times, sprung up, and New Gottenburg, as it was called, was for some years the metropolis of New Sweden. Emigrants continued to arrive in considerable numbers from Old Sweden, and they scattered neat dwellings and cultivated acres all along the Delaware, from the present Wilmington to Philadelphia.
In 1651, the Dutch determined to maintain their power on the Delaware, and erected Fort Kasimer, on the south of Minquaas Creek, now the site of New Castle, in Delaware. Printz protested, and also built Fort Elsinberg on the Jersey shore, near the mouth of Salem Creek. The garrison was soon put to flight by a foe more numerous and annoying than Indians or Dutch, and the place was significantly named Mosquitoesburg.
John Claudius Rising, or Risingh, succeeded Printz in 1652. Risingh was more belligerent than his predecessor, and captured Fort Kasimer, either by storm or stratagem, in 1654, hoisted the Swedish flag over it, and called it Fort Trinity. Sven Schute, a bold Swedish warrior, was appointed to the command of its garrison. This act excited the ire of the Dutch at New Amsterdam, and in 1655 Governor Stuyvesant, with seven ships, and six or seven hundred men, went up the Delaware, took all the Swedish forts, and desolated New Gottenburg, on Tinicum Island. The Swedes obtained honorable terms of capitulation, and the settlers prospered under the Dutch rule. The Indians remained the firm friends of the Swedes; and when the Dutch attempted to prevent a Swedish ship with emigrants from passing up the Delaware in 1656, the natives interfered, and the Mercurius sailed up unmolested. The Dutch and Swedes continued to occupy the Delaware in common for nine years, the former possessing the political authority. In 1664, Charles the Second, of England, having granted a charter to his brother James, the Duke of York, for the whole of the New Netherlands, including the Dutch and Swedish settlements on the Delaware, the English conquered the whole country, and changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York. Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret obtained a grant of the province of New Jersey from the Duke of York in 1665. The latter was appointed governor, and Bergen and other portions of East Jersey began to be settled. That province was divided into East and West Jersey in 1676. 'Lord Berkeley transferred his half of West Jersey, in 1677, to John Fenwick, in trust for Edward Billinge, both of them Quakers. Becoming embarrassed, Billinge transferred his interest to trustees, for the benefit of his creditors. William Penn was one of those trustees, and thus he became interested in the settlements in the New World. Between 1676 and 1680, the eastern shore of the Delaware, from Burlington to Salem, became quite populous with Quakers, who came chiefly from Yorkshire in England.
Admiral Sir William Penn, the father of the founder of Pennsylvania, left, at his death, claims to a considerable amount against the crown, for his services. His son, with the two-
* This is the island upon which the lazaretto now stands, and is not the low, sandy island in the middle of the Delaware above.
[[[Charter granted to William Penn.--Emigrations. Arrival of Penn.--His Biography. Annexation of Delaware.]]]
{253}fold motive of settling these claims and providing an asylum for his persecuted Quaker brethren, applied to King Charles the Second for a grant of land in the New World. He was successful, and on the 4th of March, 1681, a charter was granted. The assent of the Duke of York on the north, and of Lord Baltimore on the south, was obtained to the provisions of the charter, and a province on the west side of the Delaware, three degrees of latitude in breadth by five degrees of longitude in length, was named by the kind's proclamation, as well as[[April, 1631.]] in the charter, Pennsylvania, in honor of the illustrious Admiral Penn.
The proprietor immediately published "certain conditions or concessions" to adventurers; and an association, composed principally of Quakers, was formed at London and Bristol, called "The Free Society of Traders," who emigrated to America to purchase lands in the new province. William Markham, a kinsman of Penn's, had been sent forward as his deputy to take possession of the country and prepare for the colonists.
On the 30th of August, 1682, Penn, and quite a large number of emigrants, chiefly Quakers, sailed in the Welcome, from England. They arrived at New Castle on the 7th of October. The settlers of every kind received the new proprietor with great joy, for the fame of his noble and excellent character had preceded him. At Upland (now Chester) he convened an assembly, where he made known his plans and benevolent designs. His words were heard with delight, and the people flocked around him with the affectionate feelings of children. The Swedes said, "It was the best day they ever saw." At this assembly an Act of Union was adopted, conformable to a deed which he had obtained, by which the "three lower counties," Essex, Kent, and Sussex (now the State of Delaware), were annexed to Pennsylvania. A few days afterward, Penn proceeded to Shackamaxon (now Kensington, in Philadelphia), where he entered into a treaty with the Indians, and established with them an everlasting covenant of peace and friendship. This was the memorable treaty held
* William Penn was born in London, October 14th, 1644, and in his fifteenth year entered, as a gentleman commoner, a college in Oxford. Brilliant talents and unaffected goodness characterized his early youth. While at Oxford, he heard an itinerant Quaker preach, and was so impressed with the doctrines which he taught, that he joined, with other students similarly impressed, in withdrawing from the established worship and holding meetings by themselves. He was fined for non-conformity and expelled from college when he was sixteen years of age. Parental discipline attempted to reclaim him, but in vain. He was sent to France, where he passed two years, and became a very polished young gentleman. He studied law in Lincoln's Inn until the breaking out of the plague in London in 1665. He was sent to Ireland in 1666, to manage an estate for his father, but, associating with Quakers there, he was recalled. He could not be persuaded to take off his hat in the presence of his father or the king, and for this inflexibility he was expelled from his father's house. He became an itinerant Quaker preacher, and made many proselytes. He suffered much "for conscience' sake," sometimes by revilings, sometimes by imprisonments. He wrote much, and preached with daily increasing fervor. In 1668 he wrote his No Cross, no Crown; and in 1670 he was tried at the Old Bailey, but acquitted by the jury. His father died soon afterward, leaving him a very large estate, but he continued to travel, preach, and write as usual. Having obtained a charter for a province in America, and settled his government on a sure basis, he formed a plan for a capital city, and named it Philadelphia--brotherly love. Two years after it was founded it contained two thousand inhabitants. On returning to England in 1684, he obtained the release of thirteen hundred Quakers then in prison. He resided mostly in England, but visited his colony occasionally. He was seized with a paralytic disorder in 1712, which terminated his life on the 30th of July, 1718, at the age of seventy-three. His posterity held his possessions till the Revolution. His last surviving son, Thomas Penn, died in 1775.
[[[Penn's Just Dealings with the Natives.--Effect of his Justice.--Treaty Monument.]]]
{254}beneath the wide-spread branches of a huge elm. "Under the shelter of the forest, now leafless by the frosts of autumn," says Bancroft, "Penn proclaimed to the men of the Algonquin race, from both banks of the Delaware--from the border of the Schuylkill, and, it may have been, from the Susquehanna--the same simple message of peace and love which George Fox had professed before Cromwell, and Mary Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk.
The English and the Indian should respect the same moral law, should be alike secure in their pursuits and their possessions, and adjust every difference by a peaceful tribunal, composed of an equal number of men from each race."
"We meet," said Penn, "on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only; for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and blood."
Treaty Monument. *
```"' Thou'lt find.' said the Quaker, 'in me and mine,
```But friends and brothers to thee and to thine,
```Who abuse no power and admit no line
````'Twixt the red men and the white.'
```And bright was the spot where the Quaker came
```To leave his hat, his drab, and his name,
```That will sweetly sound from the trump of Fame
````Till its final blast shall die.
```The city he rear'd from the sylvan shade.
```His beautiful monument now is made;
```And long have the rivers their pride display'd
````In the scenes that are rolling by."
`````Hannah F. Gould.=
The children of the forest were touched by the sacred doctrine which the "Quaker king" avowed. They received the presents of Penn in sincerity, and in hearty friendship they gave the belt of wampum. "'We will live,' said they, 'in love with William Penn and his children as long as the moon and the sun shall endure.'"
Thus was established the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, its foundations laid deep and broad upon the sacred rules of truth and justice, the cardinal principles of the Quakers, who formed the prime element of the new state. That sect stood out in bold relief as exemplars of moral purity in an age and among a people eminently licentious. The court, the fountain-head of example, was wholly impure in morals, skeptical in religion, and unscrupulous in politics. Unlike the other Puritan sects, which gave royalty so much trouble, the Quakers taught morality more by example than by precept; yet they were ever bold in the
* This monument stands near the intersection of Hanover and Beach Streets, Kensington, on the spot where the celebrated Treaty Tree stood. The tree was blown down in 1810, when it was ascertained to be 283 years old. When the British were in possession of Philadelphia, during the winter of 1778, their foraging parties were out in every direction for fuel. To protect this tree from the ax, Colonel Simcoe, of the Queen's Rangers, placed a sentinel under it. Of its remains, many chairs, vases, work-stands, and other articles have been made. The commemorative monument was erected by the Penn Soeiety. Upon it are the following inscriptions: North side.--"Treaty ground of William Penn and the Indian nation, 1682. Unbroken Faith." South side.--"William Penn, born 1644. Died, 1718." West side.--"Placed by the Penn Soeiety, A.D. 1827, to mark the site of the great Elm Tree." East side.--"Pennsylvania founded, 1681, by deeds of Peace."
[[[Character and Influence of the Quakers.---Founding of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, and of the City of Philadelphia.]]]
{255}avowal of their principles. Their benevolence was as extensive as the round world; their plans designed no less than the establishment of universal religion. No station was too exalted for their faithfulness to reach. George Fox spoke boldly, face to face, to the king, as did Paul before Agrippa; and he did not fail to catechise, by letter, even Pope Innocent XI. No station was too low for their paternal care, and no instrument too humble to be made useful as a preacher of righteousness. "Plowmen and milk-maids, becoming itinerant preachers, sounded the alarm throughout the world, and appealed to the consciences of Puritans and Cavaliers, of the pope and the Grand Turk, of the negro and the savage. Their apostles made their way to Rome and Jerusalem, to New England and Egypt; and some were even moved to go toward China and Japan in search of the unknown realms of Prester John." * Democracy, in its largest sense, was their political creed. "We lay a foundation," said Penn, "for after ages to understand their liberty as Christians and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage but by their own consent; for we put the power in the people." With such views he framed his government; with the simplicity of honest truth and love he made the treaty with the Indians. This treaty was not confirmed by oath, nor ratified by signatures and seals; no written records were made, "and its terms and conditions had no abiding monuments but on the heart. There they were written like the laws of God, and were never forgotten." ** Kindness was more powerful in subduing than the sword, and justice had greater weight with the Indian warrior than gunpowder. "New England had just terminated a disastrous war of extermination; the Dutch were scarcely ever at peace with the Algonquins; the laws of Maryland refer to Indian hostilities and massacres which extended as far as Richmond. Penn came without arms; he declared his purpose to abstain from violence; he had no message but peace; and not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian." *** They themselves were conscious of the power of rectitude. "We have done better," they said, in the Planter's Speech, in 1684, "than if, with the proud Spaniards, we had gained the mines of Potosi. We may make the ambitious heroes whom the world admires blush for their shameful victories. To the poor dark souls round about us we teach their rights as men."
Near the close of 1682 Penn purchased lands lying between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, at their confluence, for the purpose of founding a capital city. Already the Swedes had built a church there; **** and the situation was "not surpassed," in the estimation of Penn, "by one among all the many places he had seen in the world." With great joy and brilliant hopes they marked the boundaries of streets on the trunks of the chestnut, maple, ash, and walnut trees of the original forest, and gave them names derived from these natural landmarks. They called the city Philadelphia--brotherly love--and with unexampled rapidity the forest disappeared, and pleasant houses uprose upon the "virgin Elysian shore." In March, 1683, the second Assembly of the province convened in the infant city, and, at the suggestion of Penn, the original "form of government" was so amended, that the "charter of liberties" signed by him at that time rendered the government of Pennsylvania, [[August, 1684]] all but in name, a representative democracy. Penn soon afterward returned to England, having first appointed five commissioners, with Thomas Loyd as president, to administer his government during his absence. Every thing went on prosperously, and nothing occurred to disturb the quiet of the new state until 1691, when the "three lower
* Bancroft, ii., 337.
** Ibid., ii., 382.
*** Ibid., ii., 383.
**** Several years before the arrival of Penn, the upper Swedish settlement on the Delaware erected a blockhouse at Wicaco, now the district of Southwark. The block-house was converted into a church for the convenience of the settlement, the port-holes serving for windows. The first sermon was preached in it in 1677. This edifice stood upon a pleasant knoll sloping to the river. North of it, where Christian Street is, was an inlet, and beyond this was another knoll, on whieh was ereeted the house of three Swedish brothers, Sven, Oele, and Andries Swenson [Swanson], from whom Penn purchased the site of Philadelphia. This building was noticed by Kahn in 1748; and Mr. Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, (i., 148), says, "the original log-house was standing until the British occupied Philadelphia, when it was taken down and converted into fuel." A brick church was built upon the site of the old block-house in 1700, and is still standing on Swanson Street, a little distance from the navy yard.
[[[Secession of Delaware.--Penn's Difficulties.--His liberal Concessions.--Pennsylvania Charter.--Penn's Heirs.]]]
{256}counties on the Delaware" already mentioned, withdrew from the Union on account of some dissatisfaction with the proceedings of a majority of the council. With the reluctant consent of Penn, a deputy governor was appointed over them. Charles the Second died in 1685, and his brother James, the Duke of York, ascended the throne. The bad private character of James, his duplicity, and his known attachment to the Roman Catholics, made him detested by a majority of the people of England, and, three years after his accession, he was driven into exile. His scepter passed into the hands of his daughter Mary and her husband William, prince of Orange.
William Penn was suspected of adherence to the cause of the fallen monarch, and of secret efforts to effect his restoration. For this he was imprisoned; and in 1692 his provincial government was taken from him by Gov. Fletcher, of New York, under a royal commission. These suspicions were speedily removed, and in 1694 Penn's proprietary rights were restored to him.
Penn again visited his colony in 1699, but he did not find that prevailing peace which gladdened his heart when he left it. Discontents had arisen among the people, and they were clamorous for further popular concessions. Ever intent upon the happiness of the people, he presented them with a more liberal charter than the former ones. It conferred greater powers upon the people, and the Assembly declared, in signing it, that "they thankfully received the same from the proprietor and governor, this twenty-eighth day of October, 1701." This charter remained unaltered until the separation of the province from Great Britain, and the adoption of a constitution in 1776. The delegates from the lower counties had withdrawn from the general Assembly, and refused allegiance to the new charter of the Union with Pennsylvania. Penn labored to bind them harmoniously together, but without success, and in 1703 a total separation was agreed upon. From that period, Pennsylvania and the "three lower counties," or Delaware, had separate Legislatures, although the same governor continued to preside over both. A scheme was now elaborating in the British cabinet to abolish all of the proprietary governments in America, and Penn hastened back [[1701.]]to England to oppose it. **
He never returned to America, but died in England in 1781, leaving his interest in Pennsylvania and Delaware to his three sons, John, Thomas, and Richard Penn (then minors), who
* This is a representation of the seal and signature of William Penn attached to the Pennsylvania charter. The names of the subscribing witnesses to the instrument are James Claypoole, Francis Plumsted, Thomas Barker, Philip Ford, Edward Pritchard, Andrew Soule, Christopher Taylor, Charles Lloyd, William Gibson, U. More, George Rudyard, Harbt. Springett.
** The parting message of Governor Penn to the Assembly is a pattern of brevity, and might be studied with profit by some of our chief magistrates. It was communicated just before his departure for England, and was as follows: "10th month, 15th, 1708. "Friends,--Your union is what I desire; but your peace and accommodating one another is what I must expect from you; the reputation of it is something--the reality much more. I desire you to remember and observe what I say. Yield in circumstances to preserve essentials; and being safe in one another, you will always be so in esteem with me. Make me not sad now I am going to leave you; since it is for you, as well as for your friend, and proprietor, and governor, William Penn."
** Just before leaving, Penn granted a city charter to Philadelphia, and Edward Shippen was appointed the first mayor. He appointed Andrew Hamilton, of New Jersey, lieutenant governor of his province, and James Logan secretary.
[[[Penn's Successors hostile to the Indians.--Popular Feeling against the Proprietaries.--Dr. Franklin.]]]
{257}continued to administer the government--by deputies, most of the time--until the Revolution. The commonwealth of Pennsylvania then purchased all their interest in the province for five hundred and eighty thousand dollars. *
It would be a pleasant and profitable task to trace the history of Pennsylvania in detail, from the period of Penn's death to the commencement of the war for independence, but our plan and limits forbid it. Having taken a general view of the settlement and establishment of the province, we must be content with a consideration of leading events bearing directly upon the Revolutionary struggle.
John, a grandson of William Penn, and son of Richard, then one of the proprietors living in England, was lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania when the Stamp Act and kindred measures of government stirred up a rebellious spirit in the colonies. The province was then engaged in hostilities with the Delawares, Shawanese, and Seneca Indians, who were committing dreadful atrocities on the western frontier. It seemed necessary for Governor Penn to assume the attitude of an enemy toward the people with whom his grandfather lived so affectionately; and it is painful to contemplate the fact that he offered, by proclamation, in the city of Philadelphia, a bounty for the capture of Indians or their scalps! ** The war was successful; and in the autumn of 1764 the Hostile [[July 1764]] Indians sued for peace.
Internal commotions now became more frequent, and ominous of political disruption. For years the province had been agitated by quarrels between the Assembly and the proprietors on the subject of prerogatives. The popular mind was led by Dr. Franklin and his associates, who contended that the proprietary estates should be taxed in common with other property. The proprietors, resting upon the privileges of their charter, resisted the measure, and in John Penn they had a powerful, because interested, champion. All hope of a reconciliation through concession being at an end, Franklin and others had previously proposed to petition the king to purchase the jurisdiction of the province from the proprietors, and vest the government directly in the crown. The proposition was favorably considered by the people at large, and the petition was accordingly drawn up by Franklin. It set forth the increasing property, and, as a consequence, the increasing power of the proprietaries, and the danger to be apprehended from the influence of such a power in the state intervening between the crown and the people. This was the first great step toward revolution in Pennsylvania--an attempt to crush feudal power and remove all barriers between the supreme governor and the governed. Many leading men, whose relationship to the proprietaries, and attachment to things made reverend by age, opposed the petition; but the Quakers, whose principles had been set at naught by the successors of William Penn, were in favor of the measure. Several successive Assemblies favored the proposition, and Dr. Franklin [[November, 1764]] was appointed provincial agent to urge the measure before the king. This
* The founder of Pennsylvania, by the expenses incident to the establishment of his government, together with many acts of private benevolence, so impaired his paternal estate as to make it necessary to borrow $30,000, the most of which was secured by a mortgage on his province. This was the commencement of the state debt of Pennsylvania, now amounting to about $40,000,000.
** The bounties were as follows: "For every male above the age of ten years captured, $150; scalped, being killed, $134; for every female Indian enemy, and every male under ten years, captured, $130; for every female above the age of ten years, scalped, $50!
[[[The Stamp Act.--Spirit of the People.--Party Rancor.--Franklin Lampooned.--William Bradford.]]]
{258}was the beginning of the system of colonial agencies which so efficiently aided the progress of the Revolution.
In Philadelphia, as in other commercial towns, opposition to the Stamp Act was a prevailing sentiment. Intelligence of its enactment, and the king's assent, produced great excitement; and, as the day on which it was to go into effect approached, open hostility became more and more manifest. Party spirit, at that time, was peculiarly rancorous in Pennsylvania, and the political opposers of Dr. Franklin asserted that he was in favor of the odious act. The fact that he had procured the office of stamp-master for Philadelphia for his friend John Hughes (as he did for Ingersoll of Connecticut), gave a coloring of truth to the charge, and his family and property were menaced with injury. * He was lampooned by caricatures ** and placards; but they had little effect upon the great mass of the people, by whom he was admired and confided in.
The store-keepers of Philadelphia resolved to cease importing British goods while the Stamp Act was in force; the people resolved to abstain from mutton, so that wool for the purpose of domestic manufacture might be increased; and among other resolves concerning frugality in living, they determined to restrain the usual expenses of funerals. Benjamin Price, Esq., was buried in an oaken coffin and iron handles; and Alderman Plumstead was conveyed to the grave without a pall or mourning-dresses. When the commission for Hughes and the stamps arrived, all the bells were muffled and tolled; the colors were hoisted half mast, and signs of a popular outbreak appeared. The house of Hughes was guarded by his friends; but the current of popular feeling ran so high and menacing that he resigned his office. As in New York, the odious act was printed and hawked about the streets, headed The Folly of England, and the Ruin of America. *** The newspaper of William Bradford, **** the leading printer in Philadelphia, teemed with denunciations of the act; and on the
* His wife, in a letter written on the 22d of September! 1765, from "near Philadelphia," informs him that a mob was talked of; that several houses were indicated for destruction; and that she was advised to remove to Burlington for safety. "It is Mr. S. S." she said, "that is setting the people mad, by telling them that it was you that had planned the Stamp Act, and that you are endeavoring to get the Test Act brought over here." The courageous woman declared she would not stir from her dwelling, and she remained throughout the election (the immediate cause of excitement at that time) unharmed.
** In one of these, called The Medley, Franklin is represented among the electors, accompanied by the Devil, who is whispering in his ear, "Thee shall be agent, Ben, for all my realm." In another part of the caricature is the following verse:
"All his designs concenter in himself, For building castles and amassing pelf. The public! 'tis his wit to sell for gain, Whom private property did ne'er maintain."
*** Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, ii., 271.
**** William Bradford was a grandson of William Bradford, the first printer who settled in the colony. * He went to England in 1741, and the next year returned with printing materials and books. In December, 1742, he published the first number of the Pennsylvania Journal, which was continued until about the close of the century, when his son Thomas, who was his business partner, changed its name to the True American. While carrying on the printing business, he opened, in 1754, at the corner of Market and Front Streets, "The London Coffee-house," and in 1762 a marine insurance office, with Mr. Kydd. His republican bias was manifested during the Stamp Act excitement; and when the war of the Revolution began, he joined the Pennsylvania militia. As a major and colonel, he fought in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and was at Fort Mifflin, below Philadelphia, when it was attacked. After the British army left Philadelphia, he returned with a broken constitution and a shattered fortune. A short time before his death, a paralytic shock gave him warning of its approach. To his children he said, "Though I bequeath you no estate, I leave you in the enjoyment of liberty." He died on the 25th of September, 1791, aged seventy-two years.
* His son, Andrew, was also a printer, and carried on business in Philadelphia after his father had retired to New York on a pension from government of sixty pounds a year. In a poetic effusion printed by Keimer, the first employer of Dr. Franklin, in 1731, is the following allusion to the Bradfords:
"In Penn's wooden country type feels no disaster, The printers grow rich; one is made their postmaster. His father, a printer, is paid for his work, And wallows in plenty, just now, in New York. Though quite past his labor, and old as my gran'mum, The government pays him pounds sixty per annum."
[[[The Pennsylvania Journal.--Repeal of the Stamp Act.--Rejoicings.--Dickenson's Letters.]]]
{259}day preceding the one in which the law was to go in force, it contained the emblematic head and "doleful" communication seen in the engraving. *
The repeal of the Stamp Act the following year produced great rejoicing in Philadelphia. The intelligence of the repeal was brought by Captain Wise. He was invited to drink punch at the Coffee-house, ** where a gold-laced hat was given him, and presents were distributed among his crew. The punch was made common; and many of the "first men played hob-and-nob over their glasses with sailors and common people." The city was brilliantly illuminated at night; a large quantity of wood was given for bonfires; many barrels of beer were distributed among the populace; and the next day the governor and mayoralty gave a feast to three hundred persons at the State House gallery. At that feast it was unanimously resolved by those present to dress themselves, at the approaching birth-day of the king, in new suits of English manufacture, and to give their homespun garments to the poor. The anniversary of the king's birth-day, in June, was also celebrated with great displays of joy and loyalty; and the people, in the plenitude of their good feelings, did not heed the advice of Franklin and Richard Penn, "not to exult as at a great victory."
When the British Parliament devised other schemes for taxing the Americans, Pennsylvania, like Massachusetts and all the other colonies, was aroused, and the rights of the American people were every where freely discussed. John Dickenson sent forth his powerful "Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer," *** and the circular letter from Massachusetts, recapitu-
* This is one third the size of the original, and gives a fac simile, in appearance, of the device.
** The London Coffee-house, established, as we have seen, by William Bradford ten years before, on the corner of Front and Market Streets, was the daily resort of the governor and other public functionaries, and there vendues were generally held. John Pemberton, a Quaker, owned the house in 1780; and in his lease to Gifford Dally, he stipulated that swearing should be discouraged there, and that the house should be closed on "the first day of the week.'" This would be an excellent clause in like leases at the present day.
*** See page 476, vol. i
[[[Firmness of Pennsylvania.--Tea Ships.--Destruction of Tea at Greenwich.--Revolutionary Movements.]]]
{260}lating arguments against taxation, was received with loud acclaim. Alarmed at the progress of opposition in the colonies, Hillsborough, the colonial secretary, sent forth his countervailing circulars. Governor Penn was instructed to enjoin the Assembly to regard the Massachusetts circular as seditious and of a dangerous tendency, and to prorogue the Assembly if they should countenance it. The Assembly, firm in the right cause, practically asserted their privilege to correspond with the other colonies, and they heartily seconded the proposition of Virginia for a union of the provinces in a respectful petition to the king for a redress of grievances. Leagues, non-importation agreements, committees of correspondence, and other revolutionary machinery, such as were zealously engaged in New England, were equally active in Pennsylvania; and when the British government poured all its wrath upon Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, in word and deed, stood up as the bold champion and sympathizing friend of the New Englanders. Its course was more temperate than its sister colony, but not less firm. While a convention at Philadelphia recommended the people of Boston to try all lenient measures for relief, they assured them that "the people of Pennsylvania would continue firmly to adhere to the cause of American liberty."
In December, 1773, two of the "detested tea-ships" sailed up the Delaware as far as Gloucester Point. There they were ordered to anchor, and to proceed no further, at their peril. The authority acting on the occasion was a committee from a meeting of full eight thousand persons, then congregated in the State House yard. They allowed the captain of one of the ships (the Polly) to go up to the city and witness the manifested feelings of the people, by which he might determine which was the wiser course to pursue, to persist in landing the tea, or to weigh anchor for Europe. He chose the latter, and in the mean time the consignees of the tea were all forced to resign. In November, the following year, the brig Greyhound, bound to Philadelphia with a cargo of tea, landed at Greenwich, on the Jersey shore. There the cargo was discharged, and placed in the cellar of a house standing in front of the market grounds. On the evening of the 22d, about fifty men, disguised as Indians, took the chests from the cellar, piled them in a neighboring field, and burned them. Suits were brought against some of the leading young men who were engaged in this transaction, but the war breaking out, and courts of justice being abolished or suspended, they were abandoned. *
On the 18th of June, 1774, another meeting of at least eight thousand persons convened in Philadelphia. The governor had been requested to call a special session of the Assembly, but refused. ** John Dickenson and Thomas Willing were appointed chairmen of the meeting: the whole proceedings were revolutionary. They recommended a Continental Congress; formed a committee to correspond with the counties and with the other colonies in relation to the appointment of deputies to a general Congress, and to solicit subscriptions for the sufferers at Boston. A convention of deputies from all parts of the province was recommended, and, as peaceably as it convened, the mass meeting adjourned.
[[1774]] A meeting of deputies from the several counties was held on the 15th of July, in which the kindred sentiments of loyalty and patriotism glowed with intensity. They resolved "that they owed allegiance to George the Third; that they ardently desired the restoration of their ancient harmony with the mother country on the principles of the Constitution; that the inhabitants of the colonies were entitled to the same rights and liberties
* The following are the names of the leading young men who composed this New Jersey Tea-party: Dr. Ebenezer Elmer, Richard Howell (afterward major in the army and governor of the state), David Pierson, Stephen Pierson, Silas Whitecar, Timothy Elmer, Rev. Andrew Hunter, Rev. Philip Fithian, Alexander Moore, Jr., Clarence Parvin, John Hunt, James Hunt, Lewis Howell, Henry Starks, James Ewing, father of the late chief justice of New Jersey, Dr. Thomas Ewing, Josiah Seeley, and Joel Fithian.
** In 1771 Governor John Penn returned to England, leaving executive affairs in the hands of Andrew Hamilton, the president of the council. In the autumn of that year, Richard Penn, a younger brother of John, arrived with credentials as lieutenant governor. He held the office until September, 1773, when John Penn returned, and resumed the reins of government. It was during the latter part of the first administration of John Penn, and those of Hamilton and Richard Penn, that the hostilities in the Valley of Wyoming occurred, of which we have written in the first volume.
[[[Members of Assembly instructed.--Quakers Opposed to the Revolution.--"Testimony" of their Yearly Meeting in 1775.]]]
{261}within the colonies as subjects born in England were entitled to within that realm, and that the right of representation in the British Parliament was implied by the asserted power of the government to tax them." The convention also adopted a series of instructions for the Assembly about to convene, in which, in the strongest terms, colonial rights were asserted. These were from the pen of John Dickenson, and, though loyal in spirit, they were firm in resistance to the arm of oppression. * When the Assembly met, these instructions were regarded as binding, and were faithfully carried out. Joseph Galloway (who afterward became a Tory), the speaker of the Assembly, Samuel Rhoades, Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphries, John Morton, George R-oss, Edward Biddle, and subsequently John Dickenson, were appointed delegates to represent Pennsylvania in the Continental [[July 22, 1774]] Congress, to assemble in Philadelphia in September following.
We have seen that, from the founding of Pennsylvania, the Quakers held a commanding social and political influence in the commonwealth. Although this influence was much diminished at the commencement of the Revolution, a large influx of Germans and adventurers from New England having populated extensive districts of the province, their principles, precepts, and practices had great weight with the public mind. They had generally taken affirmative ground in the popular peaceable measures adopted to procure redress of political grievances, and warmly approved of the conduct of the first Continental Congress; but when an appeal to arms became an apparent necessity, and the tendency of action in popular conventions and legislative assemblies pointed to that dreadful alternative, their love of order, and their principles of non-resistance by force of arms, positively enjoined in their "Discipline," made them pause. They held extra and protracted meetings, even till after night, to determine what to do. There was a spirit abroad favorable to enforcing a compliance with the letter of the American Association recommended by the first Congress--an association designed to draw, in strong lines of demarcation, the separation between the friends of Congress and the friends of the king. To this spirit the Quakers were opposed, because it usurped the dearest prerogatives of conscience, and pronounced the exercise of honest opinions to be a political misdemeanor. They not only paused, but cast the weight of their influence into the scale of royalty, believing it to be the guardian of law and order.
While a Provincial Convention was in session in Philadelphia, in which the elo[[May, 1775]]quence of Thomas Mifflin, a young Quaker, was urging his countrymen to a resort to arms, his sect, not sharing his enthusiasm, were holding their yearly meeting in the same city. That meeting, swayed in its opinions and action by James Pemberton, one of the most prominent and sound men of his day, put forth its "Testimony," in which the members of the society were exhorted to withhold all countenance from every measure "tending to break off' the happy connection of the colonies with the mother country, or to interrupt their just subordination to the king." ** From that time until the close of the war, the
* "Honor, justice, and humanity," they said, "call upon us to hold, and to transmit to posterity, that liberty which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave our wealth to our children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them. No infamy, iniquity, or cruelty can exceed our own, if we, born and educated in a country of freedom, entitled to its blessings, and knowing their value, pusillanimonsly deserting the post assigned us by Divine Providence, surrender succeeding generations to a condition of wretchedness from which no human efforts, in all probability, will be sufficient to extricate them, the experience of all states mercifully demonstrating to us that, when arbitrary power has been established over them, even the wisest and bravest nations that ever flourished have, in a few years, degenerated into abject and wretched vassals. To us, therefore, it appears, at this alarming period, our duty to God, to our country, to ourselves, and to our posterity, to exert our utmost ability in promoting and establishing harmony between Great Britain and these colonies on a constitutional foundation."
** The following is a copy of that document, taken from the Pennsylvania Evening Post, No. 402: The TESTIMONY of the people called, Quakers, given forth by a meeting of the Representatives of said people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, held at Philadelphia the twenty-fourth day of the first month, 1775: Having considered, with real sorrow, the unhappy contest between the Legislature of Great Britain and the people of these colonies, and the animosities consequent thereon, we have, by repeated public advices and private admonitions, used our endeavors to dissuade the members of our religious soeiety from joining with the public resolutions promoted and entered into by some of the people, which, as we apprehended, so we now find, have increased contention, and produced great discord and confusion. The Divine Principle of grace and truth which we profess leads all who attend to its dictates to demean themselves as peaceable subjects, and to discountenance and avoid every measure tending to excite disaffection to the king as supreme magistrate, or to the legal authority of his government, to which purpose many of the late political writings and addresses to the people appearing to be calculated, we are led by a sense of duty to declare our entire disapprobation of them, their spirit and temper being not only contrary to the nature and precepts of the Gospel, but destructive of the peace and harmony of civil society, disqualifies men, in these times of difficulty, for the wise and judicious consideration and promoting of such measures as would be most effectual for reconciling differences or obtaining the redress of grievances. From our past experience of the clemency of the king and his royal ancestors, we have ground to hope and believe that decent and respectful addresses from those who are vested with legal authority, representing the prevailing dissatisfactions and the cause of them, would avail toward obtaining relief, ascertaining and establishing the just rights of the people, and restoring the public tranquillity; and we deeply lament that contrary modes of proceeding have been pursued, which have involved the colonies in confusion, appear likely to produce violence and bloodshed, and threaten the subversion of the Constitutional government, and of that liberty of conscience for the enjoyment of which our ancestors were induced to encounter the manifold dangers and difficulties of crossing the seas and of settling in the wilderness. We are therefore incited, by a sincere concern for the peace and welfare of our country, publicly to declare against every usurpation of power and authority in opposition to the laws and government, and against all combinations, insurrections, conspiracies, and illegal assemblies; and as we are restrained from them by the conscientious discharge of our duty to Almighty God, "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice," we hope, through his assistance and favor, to be enabled to maintain our testimony against any requisitions which may be made of us, inconsistent with our religious principles and the fidelity we owe to the king and his government, as by law established; earnestly desiring the restoration of that harmony and concord which have heretofore united the people of these provinces, and been attended by the Divine blessing on their labors. Signed in and on behalf of the said meeting, James Pemberton, Clerk at this time.
** This Testimony gave offense to many Friends in Philadelphia who were favorable to the patriots. Some left, and formed a separate meeting. They built themselves a brick meeting-house at the southwest corner of Fifth and Arch Streets; and others so far seceded as to form a military company, under Captain Humphreys, which they called The Quaker Company.
[[[James Pemberton and others sent to Virginia.--Arrest and Removal of Governor Penn and Chief-justice Chew.]]]
{262}Quakers, as a body, were friends of the king, though generally passive, so far as public observation could determine. But in secret, and through their "testimonies," they gave "aid and comfort to the enemy."
To such an extent did they exert their influence against the patriots, that Congress thought it proper to recommend the executives of the several states to keep a watch upon their movements. That body also earnestly recommended the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania to apprehend and secure the persons of eleven of the leading Quakers of Philadelphia. * Among these was August 23, James Pemberton, whose likeness is here given. He[[August 28, 1777]] remained two years in Virginia, where he wrote a journal, a portion of which is published in the "Friends' Miscellany," vol. vii.
Unlike other Tories, the Quakers were so passive that little positive evidence of their acting against the patriots could be
* The reason given for this measure by Congress was, "that when the enemy, in the month of December, 1776. were bending their progress toward the city of Philadelphia, a certain seditious publication, addressed "To our friends and brethren in religious profession in these and the adjacent provinces," signed John Pemberton, in and on behalf of the meeting of sufferings, held at Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the 26th of the 12th month, 1776," was published, and, as your committee is credibly informed, circulated among many members of the society called Quakers, throughout the different states." The paper originated in Philadelphia, and Joshua Fisher. Abel James, James Pemberton, Henry Drinker, Israel Pemberton. John Pemberton, John James, Samuel Pleasants, Thomas Wharton, senior, Thomas Fisher, and Samuel Fisher, of that city, leading members of the society, were banished to Fredericksburg, in Virginia. The Board of War was also instructed to remove the Honorable John Penn, the governor, and Benjamin Chew, the chief justice of Pennsylvania, thither, for safe custody.--See Journals of Congress, iii., 290. The papers and records of the yearly meeting of the Quakers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which were captured by Sullivan, in an expedition against the Loyalist regiments living on Staten Island, opposite Perth Amboy, gave Congress the first positive proof of the general disaffection of the sect.
[[[Execution of Roberta and Carlisle.--Justice of their Punishment.--Carpenters' Hall.]]]
{263}obtained; and very few of them, suffering from confiscation of property or other penalties, became refugees at the close of the war. John Egberts and Abraham Carlisle, of Philadelphia, members of this sect, suffered death at the hands of the Whigs, in November, 1778.
This act has been cited a hundred times as evidence against the claims to the exercise of uniform humanity on the part of the patriots, and magnified into a foul murder, justified by no plea of public expediency. The facts prove otherwise; for if it was ever expedient to take the life of a dangerous citizen, then Roberts and Carlisle suffered justly. While they abstained from open hostility to the Revolutionary government, and refused to bear arms for the king, they gave secret aid, far more potent to the enemies of liberty. They were employed by Joseph Galloway and his loyal friends as secret agents in detecting foes to the government. While Howe had possession of Philadelphia, Carlisle granted permissions to pass the lines, watched at the entrance of the city to point out obnoxious persons coming from the country, and many were arrested and cast into prison on his bare suggestion.. Under the meek garb and demeanor of the Quaker was a Torquemada, exercising the functions of an inquisitor general. When Howe ordered a detachment, under Lieutenant-colonel Abercrombie, to go out upon the Frankford road, and fall upon a party of American militia, who, he was informed, were lying in the woods, Egberts and Carlisle, who would not bear arms for the wealth of the Indies, acted as guides in conducting Abercrombie to the massacre of their countrymen. According to the rules of war and of state policy, their execution was expedient and salutary in effect. It was a subject for bitter vituperation on the part of the Tories, and even those who would fain have saved them from death were charged with dishonorable motives. "Governor Livingston went to Philadelphia," wrote John Potts to Joseph Galloway, "and urged his endeavors to prevail on the banditti in power there to save Roberts and Carlisle, not from any principle of honor or conscience--you know him too well--but from motives, as he thought, of policy." I think it may be safely asserted that where one Tory lost his life at the hands of the Whigs during the Revolution, fifty Whigs were slain in cold blood by the Tories. The reason is obvious--a heart warmed with love of country is benevolent and humane; its active opposers may fairly be presumed to be mercenary, and consequently cruel.
The supper-bell has rung; let us close the chronicle for to-night, and in the morning go out in search of localities made memorable by events connected with our war for independence.
On Monday morning I visited [[November 27, 1848]]Carpenters' Hall, the building in which the first Continental Congress held its brief session. Having had no intimation concerning its appearance, condition, and present use, and informed that it was situated in "Carpenters' Court," imagination had invested its exterior with dignity, its interior with solemn grandeur, and its location a spacious area, where nothing "common or unclean" was permitted to dwell. How often the hoof of Pegasus touches the leafless tree-tops of sober prose when his rider supposes him to be at his highest altitude! How often the rainbow of imagination fades, and leaves to the eye nothing but the forbidding aspect of a cloud of plain reality! So at this time. The spacious court was but a short and narrow
* This building is constructed of small imported bricks, each alternate one glazed, and darker than the other, giving it a checkered appearance. Many of the old houses of Philadelphia were built of like materials. It was originally erected for the hall of meeting for the society of house-carpenters of Philadelphia. It stands at the end of an alley leading south from Chestnut Street, between Third and Fourth Streets.
[[[Desecration of Carpenters' Hall.--Congress Hall.--Prevalence of a Desire for Union.]]]
{264}alley; and the Hall, consecrated by the holiest associations which cluster around the birthtime of our republic, was a small two-story building, of somber aspect, with a short steeple, and all of a dingy hue. I tried hard to conceive the apparition upon its front to be a classic frieze, with rich historic triglyphs; but it would not do. Vision was too "lynx-eyed," and I could make nothing more poetic of it than an array of impudent letters spelling the words=
````C. J. WOLBERT & CO., AUCTIONEERS
````FOR THE SALE OF
````Real Estate and Stocks,
````Fancy Goods,
````Horses, Vehicles, and Harness.
What a desecration! Covering the façade of the very Temple of Freedom with the placards of groveling mammon! If sensibility is shocked with this outward pollution, it is overwhelmed with indignant shame on entering the hall where that august assembly of men--the godfathers of our republic--convened to stand as sponsors at the baptism of infant American Liberty, to find it filled with every species of merchandise, and the walls which once echoed the eloquent words of Henry, Lee, and the Adamses, reverberating with the clatter of the auctioneer's voice and hammer. Is there not patriotism strong enough and bold enough in Philadelphia to enter this temple and cast out all them that buy and sell, and overthrow the table of the money-changers?"
The hall in which Congress met is upon the lower floor, and comprehends the whole area of the building. It is about forty-five feet square, with a recess in the rear twenty-five feet wide and about twelve feet deep, at the entrance of which are two pillars, eighteen feet high. The second story contains smaller apartments which were used by Congress, and occupied by the society as committee rooms. In one of these, emptied of all merchandise except a wash-tub and a rush-bottomed chair, let us sit down and consider the events connected with that first great Continental Council.
We have already, in former chapters, considered the causes which awakened a desire in the colonies for a political union, and which impelled them to resistance. For many years a strong sympathy had existed between the several colonies, and injuries done to one, either by the aggressions of the French and Indians, or the unkind hand of their common mother, touched the feelings of all the others, and drew out responsive words and acts which denoted an already strong bond of unity. Widely separated as some of them were from each other by geographical distance, and diversity of interest and pursuits, there were, nevertheless, political, social, and commercial considerations which made the Anglo-Americans really one people, having common interests and common hopes. Called upon as free subjects of Great Britain to relinquish, theoretically and practically, some of the dearest prerogatives guaranteed to them by Magna Charta and hoary custom--prerogatives, in which were enveloped the most precious kernels of civil liberty--they arose as one family to resist the insidious
[[[First Movements toward a General Congress.--Election of Delegates.--Names of the Representatives of each Colony.]]]
{265}progress of on-coming despotism, and yearned for union to give themselves strength commensurate to the task. Leading minds in every colony perceived the necessity for a general council, and in the spring of 1774, the great heart of Anglo-America seemed to beat as with one pulsation with this sublime idea. That idea found voice and expression almost simultaneously throughout the land. Rhode Island has the distinguished honor of first speaking out publicly on the subject. A general Congress was proposed at a town meeting in Providence on the 17th of May, 1774. A committee of a town meeting held in Philadelphia on the 21st, four days afterward, also recommended such a measure; and on the 23d, a town meeting in New York city uttered the same sentiment. The House of Burgesses of Virginia, dissolved by Lord Dunmore, assembled at the Raleigh Tavern, * in Williams-burgh, on the 27th, and on that day warmly recommended the assembling of a national council; and Baltimore, in county meeting, also took action in favor of it on the 31st. On the 6th of June, a town meeting at Norwich. Connecticut, proposed a general Congress; on the 11th, a county meeting at Newark, New Jersey, did the same; on the 17th, the Massachusetts Assembly, and, at the same time, a town meeting in Faneuil Hall, in Boston, strenuously recommended the measure; and a county meeting at New Castle, Delaware, approved of it on the 29th. On the 6th of July, the committee of correspondence at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, expressed its approbation of the measure. A general province meeting, held at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of that month, urged the necessity of such a Congress; and a district meeting at Wilmington, North Carolina, held on the 21st, heartily responded affirmatively. Thus we perceive that, within the space of sixty-four days, twelve of the thirteen colonies spoke out decidedly in favor of a Continental Congress, Georgia alone remaining silent. ** The Massachusetts Assembly designated the 1st of September, 1774, as the time, and Philadelphia as the place for the meeting of the Congress. *** Other colonies acquiesced, and at Philadelphia the delegates convened.=
```"Now meet the fathers of this western clime,
````Nor names more noble graced the roll of Fame.
```When Spartan firmness braved the wrecks of time.
````Or Rome's bold virtues fann'd the heroic flame.=
```"Not deeper thought th' immortal sage inspired
````On Solon's lips, when Grecian senates hung;
```Nor manlier eloquence the bosom fired,
````When genius thunder'd from the Athenian tongue."
`````Trumbull.**** =
On Monday, the 5th of September, fifty-four delegates, from twelve colonies, assembled in Carpenters' Hall. (v) It was a congregation of men, viewed in every important aspect,
* A drawing of the Raleigh Tavern, and also of the Apollo Room, in whieh the Assembly met, will be found in another part of this work.
** Connecticut elected its delegates on the 3d of June; Massachusetts on the 17th; Maryland on the 22d; New Hampshire on the 21st of July; Pennsylvania on the 22d; New Jersey on the 23d; New York on the 25th; Delaware on the 1st of August; Virginia on the same day; South Carolina on the 2d; Rhode Island on the 10th; and North Carolina on the 25th.
*** See pages 510, 511, vol. i.
**** The author of M'Fingal. These lines are from his Elegy on the Times, published while this first Congress was in session.
* (v) The following are the names of the members who composed the first Continental Congress:
New Hampshire.--John Sullivan, Nathaniel Folsom.
Massachusetts.--Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine.
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.--Stephen Hopkins, Samuel Ward.
Connecticut.--Eliphalet Dyer, Roger Sherman, Silas Deane..
New York.--James Duane, John Jay, Isaac Low, John Alsop, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Henry Wisner.
New Jersey.--James Kinsey, Stephen Crane, William Livingston, Richard Smith, John De Hart.
Pennsylvania.--Joseph Galloway, John Morton, Charles Humphreys, Thomas Mifflin, Samuel Rhodes, Edward Biddle, George Ross, John Dickenson.
Delaware.--Cæsar Rodney, Thomas M'Ivean, George Read.
Maryland.--Robert Goldsborough, Samuel Chase, Thomas Johnson, Matthew Tilghman, William Pann.
Virginia.--Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton.
North Carolina.--William Hooper, Joseph Hughes, Richard Caswell.
South Carolina.--Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, Edward Rutledge.
[[[Character of the first Continental Congress.--Its Organization.--Peyton Randolph.--Charles Thomson.]]]
{266}such as the world had never seen. "For a long time," says the eloquent Charles Botta, "no spectacle had been offered to the attention of mankind of so powerful an interest as this of the present American Congress. It was, indeed, a novel thing, and, as it were, miraculous, that a nation hitherto almost unknown to the people of Europe, or only known by the commerce it occasionally exercised in their ports, should, all at once, step forth from this state of oblivion, and, rousing as from a long slumber, should seize the reins to govern itself; that the various parts of this nation, hitherto disjointed, and almost in opposition to each other, should now be united in one body, and moved by a single will; that their long and habitual obedience should be suddenly changed for the intrepid counsels of resistance, and of open defiance to the formidable nation whence they derived their origin and laws. *
The men who composed that first Congress were possessed of the purest minds, the loftiest and most disinterested patriotism, and moral characters without spot or blemish. Instinctively the people had turned to their best men for counsel and action when the crisis arrived; and the representatives there assembled composed the flower of the American colonies. "There is in the Congress," wrote John Adams, "a collection of the greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes." The sectional factions and personal ambitions, which afterward disturbed the harmony and injured the character of the Continental Congress, ** had no tangible shape in this first Assembly. They felt, with all the solemnity of wise and virtuous men, the weight of the momentous responsibility resting upon them. They knew that toward them all eyes were turned, all hearts were drawn; that not only America, but the whole civilized world, was an interested spectator of their acts; and that for posterity, more than for cotemporaries, they held a trust of value infinitely beyond human estimation. Impressed with the consciousness of such responsibility, the delegates commenced their labors.
[[September, 1774]] Congress was organized by the choice of Peyton Randolph, *** of Virginia, as president, and Charles Thomson, **** of Pennsylvania, as secretary. The credentials of
* Otis's Botta, i 128.
** In the opinion of Charles Thomson, who was Secretary of Congress for fifteen consecutive years, no subsequent national Assembly during the war could compare with the first in point of talent and purity. He represents the Congress that sat at York, in Pennsylvania, while Washington and his army were suffering at Valley Forge, as a body of weak men compared to former delegations. It was in that Congress that a faction favored the scheme for making Gates commander-in-ehief of the army in place of Washington.
*** Peyton Randolph was a native of Virginia, descended from one of its oldest and most respected families. Like other young men of the aristocracy, he was educated in England. He chose the profession of the law, and sueh were his talents that he was appointed attorney-general of the province in 1756, at the age of twenty-seven years. In that year he engaged, with one hundred gentlemen, to band as volunteers, and march against the Indians on their Western frontiers. He was for some years a member of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and was at one time its speaker. He was one of the delegates from Virginia in the first Continental Congress, presided over that body with dignity, and was elected to the presidential chair by the second Congress, the following year. On account of ill health, he was obliged to resign his station on the 24th of May, 1775, and return to Virginia. He afterward resumed his seat in Congress. He died at Philadelphia, of apoplexy, on the 22d of October, 1775, aged fifty-two years. The accompanying likeness of Mr. Randolph I copied from a miniature by Charles Wilson Peale, in the possession of his son, Titian R. Peale, Esq., of Washington City. The original portrait from life, painted by Peale, is in the Congress library; the miniature is a copy by the same artist. Mr. Randolph was a Free-mason; the scarf seen across his breast is a part of the regalia of a grand master. The portrait was painted for a lodge of the fraternity.
**** Charles Thomson was born in Ireland, in 1730, and came to Ameriea, with his three elder brothers, in 1741. They landed at New Castle, Delaware, with no other dependence than their industry. He was educated by Dr. Allison, the tutor of several of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was afterward a teacher at the Friends' Academy, at New Castle. From thence he went to Philadelphia, where he obtained the advice and lasting friendship of Dr. Franklin. He was called to the responsible duty of keeping the minutes of the proceedings of the first Continental Congress in 1774, and from that time until he resigned his offiee, in 1789, he was the sole secretary of that body. He married Hannah Harrison, the aunt of General Harrison, late President of the United States. Mr. Thomson died at Lower Merion, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, August 16, 1824, aged ninety-four years. The likeness of Secretary Thomson here given I copied from a portrait painted from life by Charles Wilson Peale, and in the present possession of P. T. Barnum, Esq., of New York. It agrees with the description of him given by the Abbé Robin, who was attached to Rochambeau's staff. Alluding to those who paid their respects to Roehambeau when he was in Philadelphia, he says: "Among others, Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress, the soul of that political body, came also to receive and present his compliments. His meager figure, furrowed countenance, his hollow, sparkling eyes, his white, straight hair, that did not hang quite so low as his ears, fixed our thorough attention and filled us with surprise and admiration."
[[[Opening of the first Continental Congress.--Patrick Henry.--The First Prayer in Congress.]]]
{267}the various delegates were then presented, and now came a pause; who should take the lead? what measure should be first proposed?
They had come together from distant provinces, some instructed by the power that appointed them, others left free to act as circumstances should require.
There was a profound silence, and deep anxiety was depicted upon every countenance. No one seemed willing to break that silence, until a grave-looking member, in a plain, is it?" A few, who knew the stranger, answered, There was no more hesitation; he who startled the people of colonial America, nine years before, by his bold resolutions against the Stamp Act, and, a few months afterward, by the cry of "Give me liberty or give me death!" now gave the impulse to the representatives of that people in grand council assembled, and set in motion that machinery of civil power which worked so nobly while Washington and his compatriots were waging war with the enemy in the field.
Two days afterward, another im-[[September 7.]] impressive scene occurred. It was the first prayer in Congress, offered up by the Reverend Mr. Duché. ** The first day had been occupied in the reception of credentials and the arrangement of business; the second, in the adoption of rules for the regulation of the session; and now, when about to enter upon the general business for which they were convened, the delegates publicly sought Divine aid. It was a spectacle of great interest, for men of every creed dark suit of "minister's gray" and unpowdered wig, arose. "Then," said Bishop White, who was present, and related the circumstance, "I felt a regret that a seeming country parson should so far have mistaken his talents and the theater for their display."
But his voice was so musical, his words so eloquent, and his sentiments so profoundly logical, that the whole House was electrified, and the question went from lip to lip, Who is it? who It is Patrick Henry, of Virginia!" *** John Adams thus wrote:
"When the Congress met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with prayer. It was opposed by Mr. Jay", of New York, and Mr. Rutledge, of South Carolina, because we were so divided in religious sentiments--some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists--that we could not join in the same act of worship. Mr. Samuel Adams arose, and said 'that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from any gentleman of piety and virtue who was at the same time a friend to his country. He was a stranger in Philadelphia, but had heard that Mr. Duché (Dushay they pronounce it) deserved that character, and therefore he moved that Mr. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayers before the Congress to-morrow morning.' The motion was seconded, and passed in the affirmative. Mr. Randolph, our president, waited on Mr. Duché, and received for answer that, if his health would permit, he certainly would. Accordingly, next morning, he appeared with his clerk, and in pontificals, and read several prayers in the Established form, and then read the Psalter for the seventh day of September, a part of which was the 35th Psalm. You must remember this was the next morning after we had heard the rumor of the horrible cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning.
"After this, Mr. Duché, unexpectedly to every body, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such correctness, such pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, especially the town of Boston. It had an excellent effect upon every body here. I must beg you to read that Psalm. If there is any faith in the Sortes Virgillianae, or Sortes Homericæ, or especially the Sortes Biblieæ, it would be thought providential." Bishop White, who was present, says that Washington was the only member who knelt on that occasion.
* See Watson's Annals, vol. i., 422. his wife on the 8th of September, concerning that first prayer in Congress.
[[[Sessions with closed Doors.--Sympathy with Massachusetts.--Declaration of Rights.--"American Association."--Mr. Duché.]]]
{268}were there. In this service their creeds were forgotten, and the hearts of all united in the prayer which flowed from the pastor's lips; a prayer which came from a then patriot's heart, though timidity afterward lost him the esteem of his friends and countrymen. *
The Congress resolved to sit with closed doors, for enemies were around them with open eyes and busy tongues, and nothing was to be made public without special orders. Having no means at hand to ascertain the relative importance of the colonies, it was agreed "that each colony or province should have one vote in determining questions." One of their first acts was to express an opinion that the whole continent ought to support Massachusetts in [[ a September 10.]] resistance to the unconstitutional change in her government; (a) and they afterward resolved that any person accepting office under the new system ought to be held in detestation as a public enemy. (b) Merchants were advised to enter into non-importation agreements;(c) and a letter was addressed to General Gage, remonstrating against the fortifications on Boston Neck, and his arbitrary exercise of power. (d) On the 11th of October, a Declaration of Colonial Rights, prepared by a committee of two from each province, was adopted, in which was set forth the grievances complained of, and the inalienable rights of British subjects" in every part of the realm. As a means of enforcing the claim of natural and delegated rights, fourteen articles were agreed to as the basis of an American Association, pledging the associate's to an entire commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies, and the non-consumption of tea and British goods. In one clause the slave trade was specially denounced, and entire abstinence from it, and from any trade with those concerned in it, formed a part of the association. Committees were to be appointed in every county, city, and town, to detect and punish all violations of it; and all dealings [[October 20.]]
* Mr. Duché was at that time an ardent Whig, but subsequently became an enemy to his country. He was the son of a Huguenot, who eame to America with William Penn. In youth he was a good orator, and, after taking holy orders in England, he became a very popular Episcopal clergyman in Philadelphia, his native eity. He was appointed chaplain to Congress on the 9th of July, 1776, but resigned in October. When the British took possession of Philadelphia, Mr. Duché, alarmed at the gloomy aspect of affairs, forsook the patriot cause, and, in a letter to Washington, endeavored to persuade the general to do likewise, and to "represent to Congress the indispensable necessity of rescinding the hasty and ill-advised Declaration of Independence." Washington transmitted this letter to Congress, and Mr. Duché was obliged to leave the country. He became a preacher in the Lambeth Asylum, where he was greatly respected. He returned to America in 1790, and died in Philadelphia in 1794, aged about sixty years. Mr. Duché was a man of much benevolence of character. He gave the amount of his salary ($150), while chaplain of Congress, to be distributed among families whose members had been slain in battle. He married a sister of Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
** This Declaration of Rights may be found in the Appendix.
[[[State Papers issued by Congress.--Debates. Diversity of Opinion.--Dartmouth's Circular.--Joseph Galloway.]]]
{269}with such enemies of American liberty were to be immediately broken off. One hundred and fifty copies of the Articles of Association were ordered to be printed.
A memorial to the inhabitants of the several British-American colonies, written by Richard Henry Lee, and an eloquent address to the people of Great Britain, from the pen of John Jay, were adopted by Congress on the 21st. A petition to the king, drawn [[October, 1774]] by John Dickenson, was approved of on the 22d. Short letters to the colonies of St. John's Island (now Prince Edward's, Nova Scotia), Georgia, and the two Floridas, inclosing the doings of Congress, and inviting them to join the Association, were also adopted on that day; and on the 26th, the last day of the session, they approved of an elaborate address to the inhabitants of Canada. This was drawn up by Mr. Dickenson with his usual ability. Having made provision for another Congress to meet on the 10th of May following, * the first general council closed its session by adopting a second humble petition to the king, and a vote of thanks to the advocates of colonial rights in both houses of Parliament.
Congress was in actual session only thirty-one days out of the eight weeks of the term, the remainder of the time being occupied in preparatory business. It was a session of extraordinary activity, and a great amount of business of vast importance was transacted, notwithstanding many unnecessary speeches were evidently made. ** They were certainly more to the purpose than are most of the harangues in Congress at the present day, or, considering the diversity of opinion that must have existed upon the sentiments of the various state papers that were adopted, the session would have continued for several months. We have no means of knowing what harmony or what discord characterized those debates. The doors were closed to the public ear, and no reporters for the press have preserved the substance of the speeches. That every resolution adopted was far from receiving a unanimous vote, is very evident; for we find, by the subsequent declarations and acts of delegates, that some of the measures were violently opposed. Many deplored the probability of an open rupture with the mother country, and refused acquiescence in any measure that should tend to such a result. Indeed, the sentiments of a large majority of the delegates were favorable to an honorable reconciliation, and the Congress was determined not to present the least foundation for a charge of rushing madly into an unnatural contest without presenting the olive branch of peace. Such was the tenor of its petitions and addresses; and every charge of a desire on the part of Congress for a war that might lead to independence rested solely upon inference. Galloway, *** Duane, and others, even opposed the American Association;
* The following circular letter was sent to all the royal governors in America, soon after the proceedings of the Continental Congress were received in England. It was a "Bull" without horns, and did not alarm the patriots. "Whitehall, Jan. 4th, 1775. "Certain persons stiling" (sic) "themselves delegates of his majesty's colonies in America, having presumed, without his majesty's authority or consent, to assemble together, at Philadelphia, in the month of September and October last; and having thought fit, among other unwarrantable proceedings, to resolve that it will be necessary that another Congress should be held in this place on the 10th of May next, unless redress for certain pretended grievances be obtained before that time, and to recommend that all the colonies in North America should choose deputies to attend such Congress, I am commanded by the king to signify to you his majesty's pleasure, that you do use your utmost endeavors to prevent such appointment of deputies within the colony under your government; and that you do exhort all persons to desist from such unwarrantable proceedings, which can not but be highly displeasing to the king. "I am, sir, your most obedient servant, Dartmouth.
** "Every man in this assembly," wrote John Adams to his wife, "is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore every man, upon every question, must show his oratory, his criticism, his political abilities. The consequence is, that business is spun out to an immeasurable length."
*** Joseph Galloway was one of the most popular of the leaders in Pennsylvania when the war of the Revolution broke out. He was once the confidential friend of Franklin, and had worked shoulder to shoulder with him against the proprietaries. He was elected a delegate to the first Continental Congress. In that body he submitted a plan, as a measure of accommodation, which seemed quite feasible. It proposed a union of the colonies, with a grand council authorized to regulate colonial affairs jointly with the British Parliament, each to have a mutual negation on each other. * This plan was favorably received, and on the question of its adoption it was rejected by a majority of only one. The debates were very warm, and it was on this occasion that Samuel Adams, regarding the proposition as a concession to tyranny, exclaimed, "I should advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, and only one of a thousand were to survive and retain his liberty! One such freeman must possess more virtue and enjoy more happiness than a thousand slaves; and let him propagate his like, and transmit to them what he has so nobly preserved." * Before the meeting of the next Congress, Galloway manifested lukewarmness; and in 1776 he abandoned the Whigs, and became the most virulent and proscriptive Loyalist of the time. He joined the royal army in New York, where he continued until 1778, when, accompanied by his only daughter, he went to England. There he remained until his death in September, 1803, at the age of seventy-three years. His pen, for many years, was continually employed in correspondence with Loyalists in America, and upon subjects connected with the war. The prominent position which he at first held among the Whigs, and his virulence against them after his defection, made him the target for many an arrow of indignant wit. Trumbull, in his M'Fingall, gave him some hard hits; and a writer in the Pennsylvania Journal of February 5, 1777, thus castigates him with some lines, after saying to the printer,
"If you think them severe enough, print 'em, egad I'' "Gall'way has fled, and join'd the venal Howe, To prove his baseness, see him cringe and bow; A traitor to his country and its laws, A friend to tyrants and their cursed cause. Unhappy wretch! thy interest must be sold For Continental, not for polish'd gold. To sink the money thou thyself cried down, And stabb'd thy country to support the crown. Go to and fro, like Lucifer on earth, And curse the Being that first gave thee birth. Away to Scotland and thyself prepare, Coal dust and brimstone is their only fare; Fit materials for such Tory blood, Who wrong their country and deny their God. There herd with Bute, Mansfield, and his brother; Bite, twist, sting, and poison one another."
*** Galloway's estate, valued at $200,000, was confiscated by Pennsylvania. A large part of it was derived from his wife. A considerable portion was restored to his daughter.
* This plan is printed in Sabine's Lives of the Loyalists, p. 309.
[[[Opinions concerning the Adamses.--Sketch of Galloway's public Life.--Disposition of his Estate.]]]
{270}and they regarded the Adamses as men not only too much committed to violent measures by the part they had taken in Boston, but that they were desperate men, with nothing to lose, and hence unsafe guides to gentlemen who had estates to forfeit.
And yet Galloway, when he became a proscriptive Loyalist, and one of the most active enemies of the Republicans, was forced to acknowledge the stern virtues of many of the patriots of that assembly, and among them Samuel Adams. "He eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, and thinks much," he said, "and is most indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. It was this man who, by his superior application, managed at once the factions in Congress at Philadelphia, and the factions in New England." *
The proceedings of this first Congress went forth to the world with all the weight of apparent unanimity, and throughout the colonies they were hailed with general satisfaction. The American Association adopted and signed by the delegates was regarded by the people with great favor, and thousands in every province affixed their signatures to the pledge. These formed the fibers of the stronger bond of the Articles of Confederation afterward adopted, and may be considered the commencement of the American Union.
* Galloway's Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion: London, 1780. In this pamphlet the writer handles Sir William Howe and other British commanders with severity.
* Mr. Adams reiterated this sentiment when debating the resolution for independence twenty months afterward.
** Just before he left Philadelphia he discovered that his daughter was about to elope with Judge Griffin, who was afterward president of Congress. This doubtless hastened his departure.
*** Murray, confidential secretary to the Pretender, Prince Charles Edward.
[[[The State House.--Independence Hall.--Hancock's Chair.--Portraits of Penn and La Fayette.]]]
{271}
Chapter XI
```"This is the sacred fane wherein assembled
````The fearless champions on the side of Right;
```Men at whose Declaration empires trembled,
````Moved by the truth's immortal might.=
```"Here stood the patriot--one union folding
````The Eastern, Northern, Southern sage and seer,
```Within that living bond which, truth upholding,
````Proclaims each man his fellow's peer.=
```"Here rose the anthem which all nations, hearing,
````In loud response the echoes backward hurled;
```Reverberating still the ceaseless cheering,
````Our continent repeats it to the world.=
```"This is the hallowed spot where first unfurling *
````Fair Freedom spread her blazing scroll of light;
```Here, from oppression's throne the tyrant hurling,
````She stood supreme in majesty and might!"
`````George W. Dewey.=
ROM Carpenters' Hall I went up Chestnut Street to the venerable State House, situated upon its southern side, between Fifth and Sixth Streets. * Hallowed by so many patriotic associations, it has become a Caaba to every American when first visiting the city of Penn. It is cherished by the people of Pennsylvania because of the memories of colonial times, immediately antecedent to the Revolution, which embalm it; and it is cherished by the people of the whole Union as the most revered relic of the war for independence, because it contains the hall wherein the Declaration of that independence was discussed, and adopted in council, and signed, and sent forth to the world.
Being used for public business, this edifice, unlike Carpenters' Hall, is free from the desecrations of mammon, and the Hall of Independence is kept closed, except when curious visitors seek entrance, or some special occasion opens its doors to the public. **
Nothing now remains of the old furniture of the hall except two antique mahogany chairs, covered with red leather, one of which was used by Hancock as president, and the other by Charles Thomson as secretary of Congress, when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. On the walls hang two fine paintings; one a full-length portrait, life size, of William Penn, by the late Henry Inman, and the other a portrait,
* The erection of this edifice was begun in 1729, and completed, in 1734. The two wings were added in 1739-40, and it was then one of the largest and most costly edifices for civil purposes in America. Previous to its erection, the annual sessions of the Legislature of Pennsylvania were held at private houses. The first purchase of grounds for the building included only about half the depth to Walnut Street. In 1760 the other half square was purchased, and the whole space inclosed by a heavy brick wall. John Vaughan, who came from England to reside in Philadelphia, planted the grounds with elm-trees and shrubbery in 1783. Afterward the brick wall was removed, and the present neat iron railing erected in its place. The cost of the main building of the State House and its steeple was about $28,000. The style of the architecture was directed by Dr. John Kearsly, Senior, the same amateur who gave architectural character to Christ Church. The glass and lead sashes cost $850. The glazing was done by Thomas Godfrey, afterward celebrated as the inventor of the quadrant.
** It was made the hall of audience for La Fayette in 1824, when, as the "nation's guest," he visited Philadelphia. The room had been materially altered by the removal of wainscoting and other architectural ornaments, yet its general features were sufficiently preserved to awaken in the bosom of the veteran the liveliest emotions. In that hall John Hancock signed the commission of the marquis as major general in the Continental army; and there, during the struggle, the young hero was frequently greeted by the supreme legislature as a public benefactor. It was there that he shared the honors (not on the same day) with Washington, of a grateful reception by Congress, after the capture of Cornwallis; and there he took leave of that body, for the last time during the war, and returned to France. In that room the body of the late ex-president, John Quincy Adams, lay in state while on its progress to the family vault at Quincy.
[[[Picture of the Treaty Tree.--Statue of Washington.--Liberty Bell.--Its History.]]]
{272}same size, of La Fayette, taken from life by the late Thomas Sully. The former is a superb picture, and exhibits, in the back-ground, a representation of the Treaty Tree.
Upon the floor stands a statue of Washington, upon a high pedestal, wrought in wood by Mr. Rush, of Philadelphia. Near it is a piece of stone, said to be a part of the door-step of the balcony in the rear of the State House, upon which John Nixon stood and read the Declaration of Independence to the people * for the first time, on the 8th of July, 1776.
These compose the souvenirs of Independence Hall.
I ascended to the steeple, where hangs, in silent grandeur, the "Liberty Bell."
It is four feet in diameter at the lip, and three inches thick at the heaviest part. Its tone is destroyed by a crack, which extends from the lip to the crown, passing directly through the names of the persons who cast it. An attempt was made to restore the tone by sawing the crack wider, but without success; the melody of the "glory-breathed tone" that thrilled the hearts of the people on the birth-day of the nation could not be reawakened. The history of this bell is interesting. In 1752, a bell for the State House was imported from England. On the first trial-ringing, after its arrival, it was cracked. It was recast by Pass and Stow, of Philadelphia, in 1753, under the direction of Isaac Norris, Esq., the then speaker of the Colonial Assembly.
And that is the bell, "the greatest in English America," which now hangs in the old State House steeple and claims our reverence. ** Upon fillets around its crown, cast there twenty-three years before the Continental Congress met in the State House, are the words of Holy Writ, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." *** How prophetic! Beneath that very bell the representatives of the thirteen colonies "proclaimed liberty." Ay, and when the debates were ended, and the result was announced, on the 4th of July, 1776, the iron tongue of that very bell first "proclaimed liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof," by ringing out the joyful annunciation for more than two hours, its glorious melody floating clear and musical as the voice of an angel
* Watson says that Captain Hopkins, of the navy, read the Declaration on that occasion, but testimony appears to predominate in favor of the claims of John Nixon to that honor.
** When the British army approached Philadelphia, in 1777, this bell, was taken down and carried to a place of safety. Already the ancient steeple, on account of decay, had been taken down, and a simple belfry put in its place. The present steeple is quite modern.
*** Leviticus, xxv., 10.
[[[Independence not Early nor generally Desired, except by a Few.--Patrick Henry's Prediction.]]]
{273}above the discordant chorus of booming cannon, the roll of drums, and the mingled acclamations of the people.=
```"That old bell is still seen by the patriot's eye,
```And he blesses it ever, when journeying by;
```Long years have pass'd o'er it, and yet every soul
```Will thrill, in the night, to its wonderful roll;
```For it speaks in its belfry, when kiss'd by the blast,
```Like a glory-breathed tone from the mystical past.
```Long years' shall roll o'er it, and yet every chime
```Shall unceasingly tell of an era sublime;
```Oh yes! if the flame on our altars should pale,
````Let its voice but be heard, and the freemen shall start,
```To rekindle the fire, while he sees on the gale
````All the stars and the stripes of the flag of his heart."
`````William Ross Wallace.=
Here, upon this dusty beam, leaning against the old "Liberty Bell," let us sit a while, and peruse that brilliant page in our history, whereon is written the record of the Declaration of our Independence.
It is now impossible to determine the precise time when aspirations for political independence first became a prevailing sentiment among the people of the colonies. The thought, no doubt, was cherished in many minds years before it found expression; but it was not a subject for public discussion more than a few months before it was brought before Congress by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia. A few men, among whom were Dr. Franklin, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Timothy Dwight, and Thomas Paine, seem to have had an early impression that political independence was the only cure for the evils under which the colonies groaned; yet these ideas, when expressed, met with little favor, even among the most ardent patriots. * English writers declare that, from the beginning, the colonies aimed at political independence; and Chalmers asserts that there were documents among the Board of Trade to prove that such had been the desire and intent of the colonies through every administration, from the time of the Revolution in England, in 1688. As early as 1773, according to Mr. Wirt, Patrick Henry, speaking of Great Britain, said, "She will drive us to extremities; no accommodation will take place; hostilities will soon commence; and a desperate and bloody touch it will be." This, Mr. Wirt asserts, was said in the presence of Colonel Samuel Overton, who at once asked Mr. Henry if he thought the colonies sufficiently strong to oppose successfully the fleets and armies of Great Britain. "I will be candid with you," replied Mr. Henry; "I doubt whether we shall be able, alone, to cope with so powerful a nation; but," continued he, rising from his chair with great animation, "where is France? where is Spain? where is Holland? the natural enemies of Great Britain. Where will they be all this while? Do you suppose they will stand by, idle and indifferent spectators to the contest? Will Louis XVI. be asleep all this time? Believe me, no! When Louis XVI. shall be satisfied, by our serious opposition and our Declaration of Independence, that all prospect of a reconciliation is gone, then, and not till then, will he furnish us with arms, ammunition, and clothing; and not with them only, but he will send his fleets and armies to fight our battles for us; he will
* Says Dr. Dwight, "I urged, in conversation with several gentlemen of great respectability, firm Whigs, and my intimate friends, the importance, and even the necessity, of a declaration of independence on the part of the colonies, and alleged for this measure the very same arguments which afterward were generally considered as decisive, but found them disposed to give me and my arguments a hostile and contemptuous, instead of a cordial reception. Yet, at this time, all the resentment and enthusiasm awakened by the odious measures of Parliament, by the peculiarly obnoxious conduct of the British agents in this country, and by the recent battles of Lexington and Breed's Hill, were at the highest pitch. These gentlemen may be considered as representatives of the great body of the thinking men in this country. A few may perhaps, be excepted, but none of these durst at that time openly declare their opinions to the public. For myself, I regarded the die as cast, and the hopes of reconciliation as vanished, and believed that the colonists would never be able to defend themselves unless they renounced their dependence on Great Britain." Dwight's Travels in New England, i., 150.
[[[Testimony of Washington and others concerning the Loyalty of the Colonies.--Paine's Common Sense.--]]]
{274}form a treaty with us, offensive and defensive, against our unnatural mother. Spain and Holland will join the confederation! Our independence will be established! and we shall take our stand among the nations of the earth!" How literally these predictions were soon fulfilled the pen of history has already recorded.
Dr. Franklin talked of total political emancipation as early as 1774; and yet Jay, Madison, Richard Penn, and others positively assert that, until after the meeting of the second Congress in 1775, there was no serious thought of independence entertained. Washington, in a letter to his early friend, Captain Mackenzie, written in October, 1774, said, in reply to an intimation of that officer that the province of Massachusetts was seeking independency, "Give me leave to add, and I think I can announce it as a fact, that it is not the wish or interest of that government, or any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence."
Although smarting under the lash of ministerial aggressions upon their rights, the colonists, prompted by the pride of political and social birth-right, as children of Great Britain, maintained a loyal spirit, and a separation from the British empire was a proposition too startling to be readily embraced, or even favorably received by the great mass of the people, who regarded "Old England" with filial reverence. But when Britain sent fleets and armies hither to coerce submission to her injustice; "to plunder our seas, ravage our coasts, burn our towns, harass our people, and eat out their substance when king, Lords, and Commons became totally "deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity," the colonies were obliged to "acquiesce in the necessity which compelled them to dissolve the political bands which connected them with the parent state, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them."
"The lightning of the Crusades was in the people's hearts, and it needed but a single electric touch to make it blaze forth upon the world," says James, in writing of an earlier disruption of political systems. Likewise, the flame of desire for absolute independence glowed in every patriot bosom at the beginning of 1776, and the vigorous paragraphs of Common Sense, * and kindred publications, laboring with the voice of impassioned oratory
* This was the title of a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine, and published about the commencement of 1776. It is said to have been prepared at the suggestion of Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. It was the earliest and most powerful appeal in behalf of independence, and probably did more to fix that idea firmly in the public mind than any other instrumentality. After giving many and weighty reasons why the Americans should seek independence, he said, "It matters little, now, what the King of England either says or does. He hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet, and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty procured for himself a universal hatred. It is now the interest of America to provide for herself.... Independence is the only bond that will tic and keep us together. We shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well as cruel, enemy. Wc shall then, too, be on a proper footing to treat with Great Britain; for there is reason to conclude that the pride of that court will be less hurt by treating with the American States for terms of peace, than with those whom she denominates "rebellious subjects" for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war.... O ye that love mankind! ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa hath long expelled her; Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. Oh! receive the fugitive, and prepare, in time, an asylum for mankind." Such were the trumpet tones of "Common Sense" which aroused the people to action. So highly was its influence esteemed, that the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted the author $2500. Washington, writing to Joseph Reed from Cambridge, on the 31st of January, 1776, said, "A few more of such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk [two towns burned by the British], added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet "Common Sense," will not leave numbers at a loss to decide" upon the propriety of a separation. Again, writing to the same gentleman two months afterward, he said, "By private letters which I have lately received from Virginia, I find that "Common Sense" is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men."
* "Common Sense" was the signature which Paine usually affixed to his earlier political writings. Paine also wrote a series of political pamphlets called "The Crisis," which were admirably adapted to the state of the times, and which did much toward keeping alive the spirit of determined rebellion against the unjust government of Great Britain. They were put forth at different times, from the close of 1776 until the end of the war. The first number was published in December, 1776. Paine was then in Washington's camp.
* The pamphlet was read to every corporal's guard, and its strong and truthful language had a powerful effect in the army and among the people at large. * The second "Crisis" was published in January, 1777. It was addressed to Lord Howe, ** and ridiculed his proclamations, &c. The third number was published at Philadelphia on the 19th of April, 1777. This was devoted to an examination of events since the Declaration of Independence, and a reiteration of arguments in favor of that measure. In September, immediately after the battle on the Brandywine, the fourth "Crisis" was published. It was a cheering trumpet-blast for the army. In March, 1778, the fifth "Crisis" was published at Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. It consisted of a letter to Sir William Howe, and an address to the inhabitants of America. The sixth "Crisis," consisting of a letter to the British commissioners (Carlisle, Clinton, and Eden), was published at Philadelphia, in October, 1778. The seventh number was published at Philadelphia, on the 21st of November, 1778. It was addressed to the people of England. The eighth "Crisis," which was a second address to the people of England, was published in March, 1780; in June following the ninth number was published; and in October of the same year, a long discussion on the subject of taxes, called "A Crisis extraordinary," was published. *** The last three numbers were written at the instigation of Robert Morris, the financier, with the knowledge and approval of Washington. Two others were published during the war; one discussed general topics, the other, published in May, 1782, considered "The present State of News."
* When the first number of the "Crisis" reached England, it was seized and ordered to be burned near Westminster Hall by the common hangman. A large concourse of people assembled; the fire was put out by the populace, and dead dogs and cats were thrown on the ashes. Acts of Parliament were then cast upon the heap, and consumed. Sir Richard Steele wrote a political pamphlet called "The Crisis," in 1714, for which he was expelled from his seat in the House of Commons.
* A portion of North Carolina made a much earlier and very important movement toward independence, of which I shall hereafter write in detail. I refer to the Mecklenberg Convention, in May, 1775.
** Bradford, p. 104.
*** After its adoption, the Convention proceeded to the establishment of a regular independent government, a course which Congress shortly afterward recommended to all the states.
**** The Assembly directed the oath of allegiance thereafter to be in the name of the Colony of Rhode Island, instead of to the King of Great Britain.
* Among other equally strong paragraphs was the following: "I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who had so earnestly and repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I can not see on what grounds the King of Great Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker has as good a pretense as he."
** Paine also wrote a poetical Epistle to Lord Howe, of which the following is the closing stanza:
"Since, then, no hopes to civilize remain, And mild philosophy has preach'd in vain, One pray'r is left, which dreads no proud reply, That he who made you breathe will make you die."
***This was written in March, but was not published until Autumn.
[[[First public Movements favorable to Independence.--Paine's Crisis.--The Ministry order it to be Burned.--The Result.]]]
{275}at every public gathering of the people, uncapped the volcano, and its brilliant coruscations were seen and hailed with a shout throughout our broad land.
The colonial assemblies soon began to move in the matter. North Carolina was the first to take the bold progressive step toward independence. By a vote of a convention held on the 22d of April, 1776, the representatives of that state in the Continental Congress were authorized "to concur with those in the other colonies in declaring independence." * Massachusetts took a similar step. On the 10th, the General Assembly requested the people of that colony, at the then approaching election of new representatives, to give them instructions on the subject of independence. ** Pursuant to this request, the people of Boston, in town meeting assembled on the 23d, instructed their representatives to use their best endeavors to have their delegates in Congress "advised that, in case Congress should think it necessary, for the safety of the united colonies, to declare themselves independent of Great Britain, the inhabitants of that colony, with their lives and the remnants of their fortunes, would most cheerfully support them in the measure." The Convention of Virginia passed a similar resolution on the 17th of May, *** but going further, by instructing their representatives to propose a declaration of independence. So, also, did the Assembly of Rhode Island, during its session in that month. **** On the 8th of June the New York delegates asked for special instructions on that subject; but the Provincial Assembly, deeming itself incompetent to instruct without the previous sanction of the people, did no more than to recommend them to signify their sentiments at the new election just at hand. The Assembly of
[[[Timidity in the State Legislatures.--State Governments Recommended.--Lee's Resolution for Independence.]]]
{276}Connecticut, on the 14th of June, instructed the delegates from that colony to give their assent to a declaration of independence; on the 15th the New Hampshire Provincial Congress issued similar instructions, and on the 21st, the new delegates from New Jersey were instructed to act in the matter as their judgments should dictate.
In the Pennsylvania Assembly, several months previously, the subject of [[November, 1775]] independence had been hinted at. The Conservatives were alarmed, and procured the adoption of instructions to their delegates adverse to such an idea. In June these restrictions were removed, but the delegates were neither instructed nor officially permitted to concur with the other colonies in a declaration of independence. The Convention of Maryland, by a resolution adopted about the last of May, positively forbade their delegates voting for independence. Georgia, South Carolina, and Delaware took no action on the subject, and their delegates were left free to vote as they pleased.
Thus stimulated by affirmative action in various colonies, the desire for independence became a living principle in the hall of the Continental Congress, and that principle found utterance, albeit with timorous voice. Congress resolved, "That it be recommended to the several assemblies and conventions of the united colonies, where [[May 10, 1776]] no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs hath hitherto been established, to adopt such a government as shall, in the opinions of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general." * This was certainly a bold step, yet not sufficiently positive and comprehensive as a basis of energetic action in favor of independence. The hearts of a majority in Congress yearned with an irrepressible zeal for the consummation of an event which they knew to be inevitable, yet there seemed to be no one courageous enough in that assembly to step forth and take the momentous responsibility of lifting the knife that should sever the cord which bound the American colonies to the British throne. The royal government would mark that man as an arch rebel, and all its energies would be brought to bear to quench his spirit or to hang him on a gibbet.
We have seen that Virginia instructed her representatives in Congress to propose independence; she had a delegate equal to the task. In the midst of the doubt, and dread, and hesitation which for twenty days had brooded over the national assembly, Richard Henry Lee ** arose, and, with his clear, musical voice, read aloud the resolution,
"That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; and that all political connection between us and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." John Adams immediately seconded the resolution. To shield them from the royal ire, Congress directed its secretary to omit the names of its mover and seconder, in the Journals. The record says, "Certain resolutions respecting independency being moved and seconded, Resolved, that the consideration of them be deferred until to-morrow morning; and that the members he enjoined to attend punctually at ten o'clock, in order to take the same into their consideration." The resolution was not considered until three days afterward, when it was resolved to "postpone its further consideration [[June 10]] until the first day of July next; and, in the mean while, that no time be lost, in case Congress agree thereto, that a committee be appointed to prepare a declaration to that effect." This committee was appointed on the 11th, and consisted of Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia; John Adams, of Massachusetts; Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania; Roger Sherman, of Connecticut; and Robert R. Livingston, of New York.[[June 7, 1776.]] On the evening of
* John Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Richard Henry Lee were appointed a committee to prepare a preamble to this resolution. See Journals of Congress, ii., 158. In this preamble it was declared "irreconcilable to reason and a good conscience for the colonists to take the oaths required lor the support of the government under the crown of Great Britain/' It was also declared necessary that all royal power should be suppressed, and "all the powers of government exerted under the authority of the people of the colonies, for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, and good order, as well as for the defense of their lives, liberties, and properties, against the hostile invasions and civil depredations of their enemies."--Journals, ii., 166.
** A portrait of Mr. Lee will be found among those in the frontispiece to this volume, and a sketch of his life, with those of the other signers, in the Appendix.
[[[Absence of R. H. Lee.--Jefferson's Draft of the Declaration.--Reasons why he was Chosen to Write it.]]]
{277}the 10th, Mr. Lee received intelligence by express that his wife was seriously ill, and he was compelled to ask leave of absence for a short time. He left Philadelphia the next morning, and this fact accounts for the omission of his name in the formation of the committee on that day. Mr. Jefferson was appointed chairman of the committee, and to him his colleagues assigned the task of preparing the draft of a declaration to be presented to Congress. * It was drawn with care, and was unanimously adopted by the committee, after a few verbal alterations by Adams and Franklin.
On the 1st of July, pursuant to agreement, Mr. Lee's motion was brought up in the committee of the whole House, Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia (father of the late President Harrison), in the chair. The draft of a declaration of independence was reported at the same time, and for three consecutive days it was debated by paragraphs seriatim. Many alterations, omissions, and amendments were made. The following is a copy of that original draft, before any amendments were made in committee of the whole. The passages omitted by Congress are printed in italics, and the substitutions are given in notes at the bottom of the page. **
"A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable ** rights; that among these are
* Mr. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at his lodgings, in the house of Mrs. Clymer, on the southwest corner of Seventh and High Streets, Philadelphia.--See Watson's Annals, ii., 309. John Adams, in his autobiography, gives the following reasons why Mr. Jefferson was chosen to write the Declaration: "Mr. Jefferson had been now about a year a member of Congress, but had attended his duty in the House a very small part of the time, and when there had never spoken in public. During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together. "It will naturally be inquired how it happened that he was appointed on a committee of such importance. There were more reasons than one. Mr. Jefferson had the reputation of a masterly pen; he had been chosen a delegate in Virginia in consequence of a very handsome public paper which he had written for the House of Burgesses, which had given him the character of a fine writer. Another reason was, that Mr. Richard Henry Lee was not beloved by the most of his colleagues from Virginia, and Mr. Jefferson was sent up to rival and supplant him. This could be done only by the pen, for Mr. Jefferson could stand no competition with him, or any one else, in elocution and public debate. "The committee had several meetings, in which were proposed the articles of which the Declaration was to consist, and minutes made of them. The committee then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to draw them up in form, and clothe them in a proper dress. The sub-committee met, and considered the minutes, making such observations on them as then occurred, when Mr. Jefferson desired me to take them to my lodgings, and make the draft. This I declined, and gave several reasons for so doing: "1. That he was a Virginian, and I a Massachusettensian. 2. That he was a Southern man, and I a Northern one. 3. That I had been so obnoxious for my early and constant zeal in promoting the measure, that every draft of mine would undergo a more severe scrutiny and criticism in Congress than one of his composition. 4. And lastly, and that would be reason enough, if there were no other, I had a great opinion of the elegance of his pen, and none at all of my own. I therefore insisted that no hesitation should be made on his part. He accordingly took the minutes, and in a day or two produced to me his draft."
** On the 8th of July, four days after the amended Declaration was adopted, Mr. Jefferson wrote the following letter, and sent it, with the original draft, to Mr. Lee:" "Philadelphia, July 8, 1776. "Dear Sir,--For news, I refer you to your brother, who writes on that head. I inclose you a copy of the Declaration of Independence, as agreed to by the House, and also as originally framed; you will judge whether it is the better or the worse for the critics. I shall return to Virginia after the 11th of August. I wish my successor may be certain to come before that time: in that case, I shall hope to see you, and not Wythe, in convention, that the business of government, which is of everlasting concern, may receive your aid. Adieu, and believe me to be your friend and servant, Thomas Jefferson. "To Richard Henry Lee, Esq."
[[[Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Amendments.]]]
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes. And, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, begun at a distinguished period, and pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to expunge ** their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of unremitting ** injuries and usurpations; among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest; but all have-, *** in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world; for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has neglected utterly **** to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly and continually, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states: for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither; and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these states, (v) refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made our judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices by a self assumed power, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies and ships of war, without the consent of our Legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
* Altar
** Utterly neglected
*** Repeated
* (v) He has obstructed the administration of justice, by
*** Having
[[[Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Amendments.]]]
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
For depriving us * of the benefits of trial by jury;
For transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses;
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states; **
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, withdrawing his governors, and *** declaring us out of his allegiance and protection, and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy **** unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence; he has excited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property.
He has constrained others (v) taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people upon whom he obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. (vi)
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler
* In many cases
** Colonies
*** By
**** Scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
* (v) Our fellow-citizens
* (vi) It has been asserted that this paragraph was expunged because it was not palatable to those delegates who were slaveholders, and that it was stricken out lest it should cause them to cast a negative vote on the question. There is no proof that such selfish motives actuated any member of that assembly. It was a sacred regard for truth which caused it to be stricken out. No such charge as the paragraph contained could justly be made against George III., then under arraignment. The slave-trade was begun and carried on long before the reign of any of his house, and it is not known that he ever gave his assent to any thing relating to slavery, except to abolish it, and to declare the trade a piracy. By a resolution offered by Charles F. Mercer, of Virginia, and adopted by Congress in 1817, the slave-trade was declared "a piracy." Mr. Jefferson was the first American statesman, and probably the first writer of modern times, who denounced that infamous traffic as "a piratical warfare."--See Life of Richard Henry Lee, i., 176.
[[[Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Amendments.--The Debaters.]]]
{280}of a people who mean to be free.' * Future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only, to build a foundation, so broad and undisguised, for tyranny over a people fostered and fixed in principles of freedom.
Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their Legislature to extend a ** jurisdiction over these our states. *** We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension; that these were effected at the expense of our own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain; that in constituting, indeed, our severed forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity with them; but that submission to their Parliament was no part of our Constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited; and we **** appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, as well as to (v) the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which were likely to (vi) interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity; and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free election, re-established them in power. At this very time, too, they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over, not only soldiers of our common blood, but [Scotch (vii) and] foreign mercenaries to invade and destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them; we must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war; in peace, friends.
We might have been a free and great, people together; but a communication of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness and to glory is open to us too; we will climb it apart from them, and acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our eternal separation.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these states, (viii) reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the kings of Great Britain, and all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us and the Parliament or people of Great Britain; and, finally, we do assert the colonies to be free and independent states; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
Mr Lee's resolution, declaring the colonies "free and independent states," was adopted on the 2d of July, and that day, rather than the 4th, should be celebrated as our national anniversary. It was only the form of the Declaration, which accompanied the resolution, that was adopted on the latter day.
The debates on the question of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence were long and animated, for there was very little unanimity in feeling and opinion when they began in June. Richard Henry Lee, the Adamses, of Massachusetts, Dr. Witherspoon, of New Jersey, and Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, were the chief speakers in favor of the measure, and John Dickenson, of Pennsylvania, against it. Although it was evident, from
* Free people
** An unwarrantable
*** Us
**** Have
* (v) And we have conjured them by
* (vi) Would inevitably
* (vii) Doctor Witherspoon, who was a Scotchman by birth, moved the striking out of the word Scotch.
* (viii) Colonies {281}
Note. This draft is in the handwriting of Mr. Jefferson. The amendments were made by Dr. Franklin and John Adams. The alterations, by interlining, in the portion here given, are in the handwriting of Mr. Adams. It will be perceived, by a comparison, that nearly the whole of this paragraph was omitted in the Declaration adopted on the 4th of July.
[[[Action of the several Colonies on the Subject of Independence.--Adoption of the Declaration.]]]
{282}the first introduction of the resolution, that a majority of the colonies would vote for it, its friends were fearful that a unanimous vote of the colonies could not be obtained, inasmuch as the Assemblies of Maryland and Pennsylvania had refused to sanction the measure, and South Carolina, Georgia, and New York were silent. The delegates from Maryland were unanimously in favor of it, while those from Pennsylvania were divided. On the 24th of June, at a convention held in Philadelphia, the people expressed their willingness, by resolution, "to concur in a vote of Congress, declaring the united colonies free and independent states and by the unwearied exertions and great influence of Charles Carroll, William Paca, Samuel Chase, and others, the Convention of Maryland recalled their former instructions on the 28th of June, and empowered their delegates "to concur with the other colonies in a declaration of independence." The most important barriers to unanimity were now broken down. When a vote was taken in committee of the whole House, all the colonies assented to the Declaration, except Pennsylvania and Delaware; four of the seven delegates of the former voting against it, and the two delegates who were present from Delaware were divided--Thomas M'Kean favoring it, George Read opposing it. Mr. M'Kean, burning with a desire to have his state speak in favor of the great measure, immediately sent an express after Cæsar Rodney, the other delegate from Delaware, then eighty miles distant. Rodney was in the saddle within ten minutes after he received Mr. M'Kean's letter, and arrived in Philadelphia on the morning of the 4th of July, just before the final vote was taken. Thus Delaware was secured. On that day the Declaration was taken up for final decision. Robert Morris and John Dickenson, of Pennsylvania, were absent. The former was in favor of, the latter was against the measure. Of the other five who were present, Doctor Franklin, James Wilson, and John Morton were in favor of it, and Thomas Willing and Charles Humphreys were opposed to it; so the vote of Pennsylvania was also secured in favor of the Declaration. The question was taken, and on the 4th of July, 1776, a unanimous vote of the thirteen colonies * was given in favor of the great Declaration which pronounced them Free and independent states. *** The annunciation was made in the following plain manner in the journal of Congress for that day:
"Agreeably to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to take into their further consideration the Declaration; and, after some time, the president resumed the chair, *** and Mr. Harrison reported that the committee have agreed to a declaration, which they desired him to report. **** The Declaration being read, was agreed to as follows:
A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal; that they are
* Georgia was not represented in the Congress of 1774. On the 20th of July, 1775, Congress received a letter from the convention of that colony, setting forth that it had acceded to the general Association, and appointed delegates to attend Congress.--See Journals of Congress, i., 161.
** On the 9th of September, 1776, Congress resolved, "That in all Continental commissions, and other instruments, where heretofore the words 'United Colonies' have been used, the style be altered, for the future, to the 'United States.' I--Ibid., ii., 328. From that day the word colony is not known in our history.
*** John Hancock was then President of Congress. He was chosen to that post on the 19th of May, 1775, as successor to Peyton Randolph, who was called to his home in Virginia. Randolph was now dead.
**** The great importance of this event does not seem to have been realized even by many men in public life. Anderson, in his Constitutional Gazette, announced the fact thus, as a mere on dit, without commentary or further reference to the subject: "On Tuesday last the Continental Congress declared the united Colonies free and independent States."
[[[The Declaration of Independence as Adopted.]]]
{283}endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature--a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people and eat out their substance..
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
[[[The Declaration of Independence as Adopted.]]]
{284}For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. *
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. "We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind--enemies in war--in peace, friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states: that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that,, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon when the final decision was announced by Secretary Thomson to the assembled Congress in Independence Hall. It was a moment of solemn interest; and when the secretary sat down, a deep silence pervaded that august assembly.
* The undisputed records of our colonial history bear ample testimony to the truth of every charge contained in this indictment. These I have cited in a small volume containing Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration Historically Considered.
[[[Ringing of the Liberty Bell.--Signers of the Declaration.--Its Reception in New York and elsewhere.]]]
{285}Thousands of anxious citizens had gathered in the streets of Philadelphia, for it was known that the final decision was to be made on that day. From the hour when Congress convened in the morning, the old bellman had been in the steeple. He placed a boy at the door below, to give him notice when the announcement should be made. As hour succeeded hour, the gray-beard shook his head, and said, "They will never do it! they will never do it!" Suddenly a loud shout came up from below, and there stood the blue-eyed boy, clapping his hands and shouting, "Ring! ring!" Grasping the iron tongue of the old bell against which we are now leaning, backward and forward he hurled it a hundred times, its loud voice proclaiming "Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof." The excited multitude in the streets responded with loud acclamations, and with cannon-peals, bonfires, and illuminations, the patriots held a glorious carnival that night in the quiet city of Penn.
The Declaration of Independence was signed by John Hancock, the president of Congress, only, on the day of its adoption, and thus it went forth to the world. Congress ordered it to be entered at length upon the journals. It was also ordered to be engrossed upon parchment, for the delegates to sign it. This last act was performed on the second day of August following, by the fifty-four delegates then present; it was subsequently signed by two others, * making the whole number fifty-six. ** A fac simile of their signatures, carefully copied from the original at Washington City, is given on the two following pages. The Declaration was every where applauded; and in the camp, in cities, churches, and popular assemblies, it was greeted with every demonstration of joy. Washington received it at head-quarters in New York on the 9th of July, *** and caused it to be read, at six o'clock that evening, at the head of each brigade. It was heard with attention, and welcomed with loud huzzas by the troops; and on that same evening the populace pulled down the leaden equestrian statue of George III., which was erected in the Bowling Green, at the foot of Broadway, in 1770, and broke it in pieces. The material was afterward consigned to the bullet-molds. Other demonstrations of mingled joy and indignation were made in New York then, which will be more fully noticed hereafter.
The Declaration was read to a vast assemblage collected in and around Faneuil Hall, in Boston, by Colonel Crafts, at noon, on the 17th of July. When the last paragraph escaped his lips, a loud huzza shook the old "Cradle of Liberty." It was echoed from without; and soon the batteries on Fort Hill, Dorchester, Nantasket, and Long Island boomed forth their cannon acclamations in thirteen rounds. A banquet followed, and bonfires and illuminations made glad the city of the Puritans. In Philadelphia, the grand demonstration was made on the 8th of July. From the platform of an observatory, erected near the
* These were Thomas M'Kean, of Delaware, and Matthew Thornton, of New Hampshire. The former, on account of absence with a regiment of City Associators, of which he was colonel, did not sign it until October. Doctor Thornton was not a member of Congress when the Declaration was signed, but, being elected in the autumn following, he obtained permission to sign the instrument, and affixed his signature to it in November.
** The delegates represented the several states as follows: New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton. Massachusetts: John Hancock, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine. Rhode Island: Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott. New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkin-son, John Hart, Abraham Clark. Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson. George Ross. Delaware: Cæsar Rodney, George Read, Thomas M'Kean. Maryland: Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Hayward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton. Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton.
*** On the same day, the Provincial Assembly of New York, then in session at White Plains, adopted a resolution expressive of their approbation of the measure, at the same time pledging their lives and fortunes in support of it. They also, by resolution, gave their delegates in Congress liberty to act in future, upon all public measures, in accordance with their best judgments. See Journals of Congress, ii., 250. {286}
{287}
Walnut Street front of the State House, by Rittenhouse, many years before, for the purpose of observing a transit of Venus, John Nixon read the Declaration to a vast concourse of people gathered from the city and surrounding country. When the reading was finished, the king's arms over the seat of justice in the court room * were torn down and burned in the street; and at evening bonfires were lighted, the houses were illuminated, and it was not until a thunder-shower at midnight compelled the people to retire, that the sounds of gladness were hushed. Newport, New London, Williamsburgh, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, and other large towns, manifested their great joy; and from every inhabited hill and valley, town and hamlet of the old Thirteen States, arose the melodies of freedom, awakened by this great act of the people's proxies. Thousands of hearts in Europe, beating strongly with hope for the future, were deeply impressed. Bold men caught the symphony, and prolonged its glad harmony, even until it wooed sleeping slaves from their slumbers in the shadows of despot-
* The second story of the State House was occupied by the courts; and while the Continental Congress was in session below, the Provincial Assemblies met above.
[[[The Principles of the Declaration, and their Effects.--Opinions of Raynal, Mirabeau, and Napoleon.]]]
{288}ism forth to the clear light, panoplied in the armor of absolute right. France was aroused, and turning in its bed of submission, like the Titans beneath old Ætna, to look for light and shook thrones, crumbled feudal altars, whereon equality was daily sacrificed, and so rent the vail of the temple of despotism, that the people saw plainly the fetters and instruments of unholy rule, huge and terrible, within the inner court.
They pulled down royalty, overturned distinctions, and gave the first impulse to the revolutions which have since spread from that focus to purify the political atmosphere of Europe. Back to our glorious manifesto the struggling nations look, and, when they wish to arraign their tyrants, that indictment is their text and guide. * Its specific charges against George the Third of course are irrelevant, but the great truths set forth have no limit in their application and appositeness.=
```"Throughout the world its voice is sounding!
````Life and death are in its call!
```Kings and thrones in dust confounding;
````Millions rising o'er their fall!
```Brothers, on! till, bless'd as we,
```They've plenty, peace, and Liberty!"
`````Mrs. R. Balmanno.=
```"E'en now the word that rous'd our land
````Is calling o'er the waves, 'Awake!'
```And pealing on from strand to strand,
````Wherever ocean surges break.
```Up to the quicken'd car of toil
```It rises from the teeming soil,
````And bids the slave his bonds forsake.
```Hark! from the mountain to the sea,
```The Old World echoes 'Liberty!'
````Till thrones to their foundations shake."
`````Mary E. Hewitt.=
It was an easy matter to declare the colonies free and independent; it was not so easy
* "With what grandeur, with what enthusiasm, should I not speak of those generous men who erected this grand edifice by their patience, their wisdom, and their courage!" wrote the Abbé Raynal in 1781. "Hancock, Franklin, the two Adamses, were the greatest actors in this affecting scene; but they were not the only ones. Posterity shall know them all. Their honored names shall be transmitted to it by a happier pen than mine. Brass and marble shall show them to remotest ages. In beholding them, shall the friend of freedom feel his heart palpitate with joy--feel his eyes float in delicious tears. Under the bust of one of them has been written, He wrested thunder from heaven and the scepter from tyrants.* Of the last words of this eulogy shall all of them partake."--Essay on The Revolution in America.
* I ask," exclaimed Mirabeau, on the tribune of the National Assembly of France, while descanting upon our Declaration, "I ask if the powers who have formed alliances with the States have dared to read that manifesto, or to interrogate their consciences after the perusal? I ask whether there be at this day one government in Europe--the Helvetic and Batavian confederations and the British isles excepted--which, judged after the principles of the Declaration of Congress on the 4th of July, 1776, is not divested of its rights?" And Napoleon afterward, alluding to the same scene, said, "The finger of God was there!"--See Bailey's Preface to Records of Patriotism.
** This gives the appearance of the shorter steeple, which took the place of the stately one taken down in 1774. This was its appearance during the Revolution. A huge clock case was upon each gable of the main building of the State House.
* "Eripuit colo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis
* This line was the exergue of a medal which was struck in Paris in honor of Franklin, when he was the United States embassador at the court of Versailles in 1777. It was written by Turgot, the Controller-general of the Finances of France, who died four years afterward.
[[[Organization of State Governments.--Adjournment of Congress to Baltimore.--__Trip to Red Bank.]]]
{289}to maintain that declaration. The die being east, Congress put forth all its energies to secure union and harmony among the confederated states, and these, in turn, perceived the necessity of prompt action in civil affairs. The resolves in Congress in May, recommending the several states to organize governments for themselves, based upon democratic principles, were heeded, and, soon after the publication of the Declaration of Independence, most of the states took action on the subject, and formed constitutions. New Hampshire had already formed a state government. The charters of Connecticut [[January 5, 1776]] and Rhode Island, being considered sufficiently democratic, were not altered. New Jersey had adopted a constitution two days before the Declaration of Independence was voted in Congress. (a) Virginia adopted one on the 5th of July; Pennsylvania, on[[ a July 2, 1776]] the 15th; Maryland, on the 14th of August; Delaware, on the 20th of September; North Carolina, on the 18th of December; Georgia, on the 5th of February, 1777; New York, on the 20th of April; South Carolina, on the 19th of March, 1778; and Massachusetts deferred the important work until the 1st of September, 1779. In the mean while, the necessity for Federal union became apparent, and this subject occupied the thoughts and active efforts of the statesmen of America. They finally elaborated a scheme of general government; and on the 15th of November, 1777, Congress adopted Articles of Confederation, having debated the subject three times a week for nearly seven months. Copies of these articles were sent to the various state Legislatures for approval, but they did not receive the sanction of all until March, 1781, when they became the organic law of the Union, and continued such until the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1787.
During the summer and autumn of 1776, military operations were active, and that session of Congress was one of the busiest during the war. The disastrous battle of Long Island or Brooklyn occurred in August; the skirmishes at Harlem, Kingsbridge, Throg's Neck, and White Plains; the fall of Forts Washington and Lee; the retreat of the American army under Washington across the Jerseys, and the menacing approach of a large British army toward Philadelphia, all occurred in rapid succession during the autumn. Disasters, gloom, and despondency were on every side; and Congress, alarmed at the proximity of British and Hessian troops, then only awaiting the freezing of the Delaware to march to the capture of Philadelphia, withdrew to Baltimore on the 12th of December, as we have already seen, where they resumed their deliberations on the 20th.
Let us close the record, and, like the fugitive Congress, leave the old State House for a season.
Toward noon, accompanied by a friend (Mr. Samuel Agnew), I left the city [[November 27, 1848]] to visit the remains of the old forts at Red Bank, on the Jersey shore of the Delaware, a few miles below Philadelphia. Unable to gain positive information respecting a ferry, we concluded to drive down to Fort Mifflin, and obtain a passage there. We crossed the Schuylkill, and, passing through the cultivated country on its right bank, missed the proper road to Fort Mifflin, and reached the termination of the one we were traveling, at a farm-house. Here we ascertained that we could not obtain ferriage at the fort, so we crossed the Schuylkill again, upon a bateau, near its mouth, and, returning to the city suburbs, found the proper avenue to League Island, * whence we could be ferried to Red Bank. Our blunder consumed two hours, and then we had to wait almost another hour upon the dike which defends League Island from the waters of the Delaware, before a skiff, for which we telegraphed by a white handkerchief upon a ratan, came over to us. The river is there about a mile wide; and while the waterman was slowly rowing across, we dined upon bread and cheese, cold sausage, and grape jelly, which the kind consideration of my friend's wife had furnished at our departure. It was a rather uncomfortable pic-nic on that unsheltered dike in the keen November wind.
Leaving my horse in a stall at the ferry, we crossed to the great coal depot, upon Eagle
* This is a low island just below the city suburbs, and, until protected by a heavy stone dike, was formerly almost covered with water at high tide. It is now a very fertile piece of reclaimed land, and is reached from the main by a bridge, the intervening channel being quite narrow.
[[[Fort Mercer.--Donop's Grave.--Whitall's House.--De Chastellux's Visit there.]]]
{290}Point, on the Jersey shore, about half a mile above the site of Fort Mercer, at Red Bank. We met a resident gentleman on the way to the fort, who kindly turned back and pointed out the various localities.
The embankments and trenches are quite prominent, and will doubtless long remain so, for a forest of young pines now covers and protects them from the destroying hand of cultivation. The form of the fort and outworks, as denoted in the sketch, was easily distinguished, and the serried lines of the soldiers' graves were palpable along the brow of the high bank. These are the graves of those who were slain in the battle which occurred there in the autumn of 1777. They were buried in boxes, and now their remains are often exposed by the washing away of the banks.
At the southern line of the fort, close by the bank, are the remains of the hickory-tree which was used as a flag-staff during the battle; and near it are traces of the gateway of the fort. A little below, and in the path leading to the house of Mr. Whitall, is the grave of Count Donop, marked by a small, rough sandstone, about fourteen inches in height.
Vandal fingers have plucked relic-pieces from it, and so nearly was the rude inscription effaced that I could only decipher a portion of the words, Donop was lost, as seen in the sketch. **
Even his bones have not been allowed to molder in his grave, but are scattered about the country as cherished relics, his skull being in possession of a physician of New Jersey!
A few rods south of Donop's grave, close by the river bank, is the ancient residence of the Whitall family. It is a two-story house, built of brick, and is now (1851) one hundred and three years old. The date of its erection is given on the north gable, where the characters "I A W [James and Anna Whitall] 1748," are delineated by dark, glazed brick. The Whitalls were Quakers, and of course, although Whigs, took no part in the war. This fact made some suspect the old man of Toryism. *** I was informed by the present owner that, when the attack was made upon the fort, and his grandmother was urged to flee from the house, she refused, saying, "God's arm is strong, and will protect me; I may
* Red Bank, where these remains are, is in the township of Woodbury, in Gloucester county, New Jersey. The fortifications erected there were little more than earthen embankments, and a ditch covered by abatis. The arrow in the sketch denotes the direction of Fort Mifflin, on the opposite side of the Delaware.
** The Marquis de Chastellux, who visited this spot in 1781, says, in his Journal (i., 260), "We had not gone a hundred yards before we came to a small elevation, on which a stone was vertically placed, with this short epitaph: 'Here lies buried Colonel Donop'" M. de Mandait was the guide on the occasion. He acted in the double capacity of engineer and officer of artillery at the battle, and had the charge of arranging and defending the post, under Colonel Green. "He assured us," says the marquis, "we could not make a step without treading on the remains of some Hessian, for near three hundred were buried in the front of the ditch."
*** De Chastellux, in recording his visit, says: "On landing from our boat, he [Manduit] proposed conducting us to a Quaker's, whose house is half a musket-shot from the fort, or rather the ruins of the fort; for it is now destroyed, and there are scarcely any reliefs of it remaining. 'This man,' said M. de Manduit, 'is a little of a Tory; I was obliged to knock down his barn, and fell his fruit trees; but he will be glad to see M. de La Fayette, and will receive us well.' We took hint at his word; but never was expectation more completely deceived. We found our Quaker seated in the chimney corner, busied in cleaning herbs. He recollected M. de Manduit, who named M. de La Fayette to him; but he did not deign to lift his eyes, nor to answer any of our introducer's discourse, which at first was complimentary, and at length jocose. Except Dido's silence, I know nothing more severe; but we had no difficulty in accommodating ourselves to this bad reception, and made our way to the fort.--Travels, i., 259.
[[[Anecdote of Mrs. Whitall.--Old Cannon.--Distant View of Fort Mifflin.]]]
{291}do good by staying." She was left alone in the house; and while the battle was raging, and cannon-balls were driving like sleet against and around her dwelling, she calmly plied her spinning-wheel in a room in the second story. At length a twelve-pound ball, from a British vessel in the river, grazing the American flag-staff (the walnut-tree) at the fort, passed through the heavy brick wall on the north gable, and with a terrible crash perforated a partition at the head of the stairs, crossed a recess, and lodged in another partition, near where the old lady was sitting.
Conceiving Divine protection a little more certain elsewhere after this manifestation of the power of gun-powder, the industrious dame gathered up her implements, and with a step quite as agile as in youth, she retreated to the cellar, where she continued spinning until called to attend the wounded and dying who were brought into her house at the close of the battle. She did, indeed, "do good" by remaining; for, like an angel of mercy, she went among the maimed, unmindful whether they were friend or foe, and administered every relief to their sufferings, in her power. She scolded the Hessians for coming to America to butcher the people. At the same time, she bound up their wounds tenderly, and gave them food and water. The scar made by the passage of that iron ball is quite prominent in the gable; it is denoted in the engraving by the dark spot. I saw within the house where the missile cut off the wood-work in its passage, and where it lodged.
On the green, between the Whitall house and the river, lies a portion of an iron cannon which burst during the engagement. That event killed several of the Americans. The picture represents its present appearance, with its breech blown away. Beyond it is the Delaware, and in the distance, opposite, is seen Fort Mifflin, lying almost upon the water level on Fort or Great Mud Island, near the western shore. In the far distance, bounding the view, are the hills of Pennsylvania, toward Valley Forge.
In the summer of 1777, Sir William Howe, the British commander-in-chief, sailed from New York (a) with a large land force, and with a naval armament under his brother [[ a July 23]] Richard, Earl Howe, and, landing at the head of Chesapeake Bay, (b) commenced [[ b August 25.]] a victorious march toward Philadelphia. Washington, informed of the movement, went out from Philadelphia to meet him, and had proceeded beyond the Brandywine, in the neighborhood of Wilmington, when the van of the enemy appeared at Kennet Square. The battle of Brandywine occurred soon afterward, (a) in which the Americans were [[ a September 11]] defeated, and driven back toward Philadelphia. The enemy pushed steadily forward, and entered the city in triumph. (b) In anticipation of the possibility [[ b September 26.]] of such an event, the Americans had applied themselves diligently to the erection of obstructions in the Delaware, to prevent the ascent of the British fleet, and also in rearing batteries upon the shores to cover them. Upon isolated marshes, or low islands of mud,
[[[Military Works on the Delaware.--Obstructions in the River.--Their Removal by the British.--Capture of Billingsport.]]]
{292}made green by reeds, a little below the mouth of the Schuylkill, they erected a strong redoubt, with quite extensive outworks, and called it Fort Mifflin. These islands were called Great and Little Mud Islands. The former, on which the redoubt and main works were erected, has been called Fort Island ever since that time.
On the opposite shore of New Jersey, a strong redoubt, called Fort Mercer, was also erected, and well supplied with artillery. In the deep channels of the river between, and under cover of these batteries, they sunk ranges of strong frames, with iron-pointed wooden spikes, called chevaux de frise, which formed almost invulnerable stackadoes.
Three miles further down the river, at Byllinge's Point * (now Billingsport), was a redoubt with extensive outworks, covering strong stackadoes, which were sunken there in the navigable channel of the river, between the main and Billing's Island.
In addition to these works, several armed galleys and floating batteries were stationed in the river, all forming strong barriers against the fleet of the enemy. This circumstance troubled the British general, for he foresaw the consequences of having his supplies by water cut off, and the danger to which his army would be exposed in Philadelphia if unsupported by the fleet.
Immediately after the battle at Brandywine, Earl Howe sailed down the Chesapeake, and entered the lower Delaware with several light vessels, among which was the Roebuck, commanded by Captain Hammond. That officer represented to General Howe, that if a sufficient force could be sent to reduce the fortifications at Billingsport, he would take upon himself the task of opening a passage for vessels through the chevaux de frise, or stackadoes, at that point. Howe readily consented to attempt the important measure. Two regiments, under Colonel Stirling, were dispatched from Chester, in Pennsylvania, for that purpose. They crossed the river a little below Billingsport, marched in the rear of the unfinished works, and made a furious assault upon the garrison. The Americans were dismayed at this unexpected attack, and believing themselves incompetent to make a successful defense, they spiked their cannons, set fire to the barracks, and fled. The English remained long enough to demolish the works on the river front; when Hammond, by the great exertions of his men, made a passage-way seventy feet wide in the chevaux de frise, and, with six vessels, sailed through, and anchored near Hog Island. Stirling returned to Chester, and, with another detachment, proceeded to camp, as an escort of provisions, bearing to General Howe intelligence of his success.
Howe now determined to make a general sweep of all the American works on the Delaware, and, preparatory thereto, he called in his outposts and concentrated his whole army near to and within Philadelphia. Two Rhode Island regiments, belonging to General Varnum's *** brigade, under Colonel Christopher Greene, garrisoned the fort at Red Bank, and
*So called in honor of Edward Byllinge, the purchaser of Lord Berkley's moiety of the province of New Jersey. Slight remains of this redoubt, it is said, yet remain.
** This cut, copied from an old print, shows the form of the chevaux de frisé. A is a profile view, and B a plan. The spikes were made of heavy timbers, about thirty feet in length. Partially filled with heavy stone, they presented a formidable obstacle to vessels. It is said that these obstructions were mainly planned by Dr. Franklin, and constructed under the immediate supervision of M. Du Plessis Manduit, a French engineer.
*** James Mitchell Varnum was born at Dracut, Massachusetts, in 1749, and graduated in the first class at Providence College in 1769. He afterward studied law at East Greenwich, became an active politician in Rhode Island, espoused the patriot cause, and joined the army in 1775. In February, 1777, he was commissioned a brigadier in the Continental service. He served under Sullivan in the operations on Rhode Island, in 1778, and the next year resigned his commission and left the army. He was a delegate to Congress in 1786, and the following year was appointed a judge of the Northwestern Territory. He died at Marietta, Ohio, January 10, 1790, aged forty-one. His brother, Joseph Bradley Varnum, was also an officer in the Revolution; a member, from Massachusetts, of the first Congress after the adoption of the Federal Constitution; was four years speaker of the Lower House, and succeeded Timothy Pickering as United States senator in 1811. He died on the 11th of September, 1821, aged seventy-one years.
[[[The American Fleet in the Delaware.--Hessian Expedition against Fort Mercer.--Storming of the Fort.]]]
{293}about the same number of the Maryland line, under Lieutenant-colonel Samuel Smith, occupied Fort Mifflin, on Mud Island. The American fleet in the river, consisting chiefly of galleys and floating batteries, was commanded by Commodore Hazlewood. * It was quite as important to the Americans to maintain these forts and defend the river obstructions as it was to the British to destroy them. It was therefore determined to hold them to the last extremity, for it was evident that such continued possession would force Howe to evacuate Philadelphia.
Count Donop, with four battalions, consisting of twelve hundred picked Hessians, was sent by Howe to attack Fort Mercer, at Red Bank. They crossed the Delaware, and landed at Cooper's Ferry, on the 21st of October. The same evening they marched [[1777]] to Haddonsfield, in New Jersey, a little above Gloucester. As they approached Timber Creek, on their way down the river, the Americans took up the bridge, and the enemy were obliged to march four miles up the stream to a shallow ford. They arrived at the edge of a wood, within cannon-shot of Fort Mercer, on the morning of the 22d. Their appearance, full-armed for battle, was the first intimation the garrison had of their approach. Although informed that the number of Hessians was twenty-five hundred, the little garrison of four hundred men, in a feeble earth fort, and with only fourteen pieces of cannon, were not intimidated. They made immediate preparations for defense. While thus engaged, a Hessian officer, who was permitted to approach the fort with a flag and a drummer, rode up, and insolently proclaimed, "The King of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down their arms; and they are warned that, if they stand the battle, no quarters whatever will be given!" ** "We ask no quarters, nor will we give any!" was the prompt reply of Colonel Greene. The Hessian and the drummer rode hastily back to Donop, and the assailants began at once the erection of a battery within half cannon-shot of the outworks of Fort Mercer. All was activity and eagerness for combat within the fort. The outworks were unfinished, but the redoubt was a citadel upon which the garrison placed much reliance. Skill and bravery were called to combat fierceness, discipline, and overwhelming numbers.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when a brisk cannonade was opened from the Hessian battery, and at a quarter before five a battalion advanced to the attack, on the north part of the fort, near a morass that covered it. Finding the first advance post and the outworks abandoned, but not destroyed, the enemy imagined that they had frightened the Americans away. Filled with this idea, they raised the shout of victory, and, with the drummer just mentioned beating a lively march, rushed toward the redoubt, where not a man was to be seen. They were about to ascend the ramparts, to plant the flag of conquest upon a merlon, when, from the embrasures in front, and from a half-masked battery upon their left flank, formed by an angle of an old embankment, a shower of grape-shot and musket-balls poured upon them with terrible effect, driving them back to the remote intrenchments.
Another division of the enemy, under the immediate command of the brave Donop, attacked the fort on the south side at the same time, passed the abatis, traversed the fosse or ditch, and some actually leaped the pickets, and mounted the parapet of the redoubt; but the fire of the Americans was so heavy and continuous that they were soon
* The following is a list and description of the American fleet: Thirteen galleys, one bearing a thirty-two pounder; two carrying each a twenty-four pounder; ten each an eighteen pounder. Twenty-six half-galleys, each carrying a four pounder. Two xebeques, each carrying in bow two twenty-four pounders; in stern, two eighteen pounders; in waist, four nine pounders. Two floating batteries (the Arnold and Putnam), one carrying twelve eighteen pounders, one ten eighteen pounders. One provincial ship, ten eighteen pounders. Fourteen fire-ships. The brig Andre Doria, of fourteen six pounders. One schooner-galley, in bow two eighteen pounders; in stern, two nine pounders. One brig-galley, in bow two eighteen pounders; in stern, two nine pounders. There were also a number of fire-rafts.
** De Chastellux, i., 262.
[[[Repulse of the Hessians at Red Bank.--Count Donop.--Lieutenant-colonel Greene.--Monument at Red Bank.]]]
{294}forced back, and driven out with great loss. They retreated precipitately to Haddonfield, under Lieutenant-colonel Linsing, (Donop, and Mingerode, his second in command, being wounded), leaving between three and four hundred of their comrades behind. They were considerably galled, when first retreating, by the American galleys and floating batteries in the river. The conflict was short, but severe. The precise loss of the enemy is not known. Marshall estimates it at four hundred in killed and wounded. Colonel Donop, the commander of the expedition, fell, mortally wounded, at the first fire. After the engagement, while Manduit, the French engineer, who directed the American artillery on the occasion, was out with a detachment, fixing the palisades, he heard a voice among the slain, saying, "Whoever you are, draw me hence." It was the voice of Count Donop. Manduit had him conveyed into the fort, and the next day to Mr. Whitall's, where he attended him until his death, which occurred three days afterward. "It is finishing a noble career early" [he was thirty-seven], said Donop to Manduit, "but I die the victim of my ambition and of the avarice of my sovereign." * The loss of the Americans within the fort was eight men killed, twenty-nine wounded, and a captain taken prisoner while reconnoitering. The number killed by the bursting of the cannon, mentioned on a preceding page, is not known. So close was the combat at one time, that several Hessians were pierced by the gun-wads of the Americans. **
The conduct of Lieutenant-colonel Greene *** on this occasion was highly applauded, and [[November 4, 1777]] Congress ordered the Board of War to present him with an elegant sword.
This tribute was given to his family at the close of the contest, when Colonel Greene was no longer living to receive it. He had been basely murdered in his quarters, near Croton River, in Westchester county, New York, by a band of Tories, consisting of about one hundred and fifty dragoons, under Colonel Delaney, who surprised his post. Colonel Greene fell after his single arm had slain several of his assailants. They attempted to carry him off, but he died upon the road. Major Flagg, a meritorious officer, was killed at the same time; also two subalterns and twenty-seven men were killed or wounded. ****
In commemoration of the battle at Red Bank and the valor of Colonel Greene, a monument of blue veined marble, about fifteen feet high, was erected in 1829, just within the northern line of the outworks of Fort Mercer, and within a few feet of the margin of the Delaware. This tribute to the memory of valor and patriotism was made by some New Jersey and Pennsylvania volunteers. While it is a testimony of one of the most noble traits in human character, it bears an exhibition of the existence of another of the most detestable. In the inscription were the words New Jersey and Pennsylvania, in a single prominent line. Some Jersey scoundrel almost obliterated the word Pennsylvania; and afterward some Pennsylvania Vandal, in the fierceness of his retaliatory zeal for the credit of his state, disgraced it, so far as insignificance could do it, by obliterating the words New Jersey. The whole line is destroyed; and that marble shaft perpetuates a remembrance of unknown barbarians as well as of honored patriots. (v)
* De Chastellux, i., 266.
** Marshall. Ramsay. De Chastellux. Major Ward's Letter.
*** Christopher Greene, a native of Rhode Island, was a brave and accomplished soldier. When the battles at Lexington and Concord awakened the nation, he went to the field. After the battle of Bunker Hill he was appointed colonel of a Rhode Island regiment, and in that capacity accompanied Arnold through the wilderness to Quebec, and fought bravely under the walls of that city, when beleaguered by Montgomery. In the autumn of 1777, he was placed in chief command at Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, with his own and Angell's regiments, which formed a part of General Varnum's brigade. He there behaved with gallantry, and received marks of approbation from Congress. He continued in active service until his death, which occurred on the 13th of May, 1781, at the age of forty-four years. Lieutenant-colonel Greene left a widow, with three sons and four daughters. She was the child of J. Lippitt, Esq., of Warwick, Rhode Island.
**** See Heath's Memoirs. Bolton, in his History of Westchester County (ii., 391), says that the house in which Greene was quartered belonged to Richard Davenport, and is situated at the end of a narrow lane which diverges from the Pine's Bridge road, about a mile below the residence of William Smith. When he wrote (1848) the house was in the possession of Joshua Carpenter, a grandson of Davenport.
* (v) The following is a copy of the inscriptions upon the monument: South side.--"This monument was erected on the 22d Octo., 1829, to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of the Patriotism and Gallantry of Lieutenant-colonel Christopher Greene, who, with 400 men, conquered the Hessian army of 2000 troops (then in the British service), at Red Bank, on the 22d Octo., 1777. Among the slain was found their commander, Count Donop, whose body lies interred near the spot where he fell." West side.--"A number of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Volunteers, being desirous to perpetuate the memory of the distinguished officers and soldiers who fought and bled in the glorious struggle for American Independence, have erected this monument, on the 22d day of October, A.D. 1829."
[[[Attack on Fort Mifflin.--American Flotilla.--Lieutenant-colonel Smith.]]]
{295}The firing of the first gun from the Hessian battery upon Fort Mercer was the signal for the British vessels to approach and attack Fort Mifflin. They had already made their way through the lower barrier at Billingsport, and the Augusta, a sixty-four gun ship, and several smaller vessels, were anchored just above it, waiting for flood tide.
As soon as Fort Mercer was attacked, the Augusta, with the Roebuck, of forty-four guns, two frigates, the Merlin, of eighteen guns, and a galley came up, but were kept at bay by the American galleys and floating batteries. These galleys did good execution, not only upon the British vessels, but by flanking the assailants at Red Bank.
The attack upon Fort Mifflin was deferred [[October 23, 1777]] until next morning, when, the Hessians being driven from Fort Mercer, the whole power of the American flotilla was brought to bear upon the British fleet. A heavy cannonade was opened upon Fort Mifflin, and attempts were made to get floating batteries in the channel in the rear of Mud Island. Lieutenant-colonel Smith, * the commandant at Fort Mifflin, who was vigilant and brave, thwarted every attempt thus to outflank him (if the term may be used in reference to a garrison in a fort), and by a gallant defense essentially aided the American flotilla in repulsing the enemy. The fire was so fierce and incessant, that the British ships endeavored to fall down the river. A hot shot struck and set fire to the Augusta; and at noon, while lying aground upon a mud bank near the Jersey Monument at Red Bank. **
* Samuel Smith was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, July 27th, 1752. His education, commenced at Carlisle, was completed at an academy at Elkton, in Maryland, after his father made Baltimore his place of residence. He was in his father's counting-house five years, and then, in 1772, sailed for Havre in one of his father's vessels, as supercargo. Having traveled extensively in Europe, he returned home to find his countrymen in the midst of the excitements of the opening of the Revolutionary hostilities. The battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill had been fought. Fired with patriotic zeal, he sought to serve his country in the army, and in January, 1776, obtained a captain's commission in Colonel Smallwood's regiment. He was soon afterward promoted to the rank of major, and early in 1777 he received a lieutenant colonel's commission. In that capacity he served with distinction in the battles of Brandywine and Fort Mifflin, suffered at Valley Forge, and participated in the action on the plains of Monmouth. At the close of the war he was appointed a brigadier general of militia, and commanded the Maryland quota of troops in the "Whisky Insurrection" in Pennsylvania. He served as major general in the war of 1812, and commanded the troops assembled for the defense of Baltimore in 1814. During a riot in Baltimore in 1836, when the civil power was inadequate to quell the violence of the mob, the aged general, then eighty-four years old, appeared in the streets with the United States flag, placed himself at the head of peaceful citizens, and very soon restored order and tranquillity. In the autumn of that year he was elected mayor of the city, which office he held until his death on the 22d of April, 1839, at the age of eighty-seven years. General Smith was elected a representative in Congress in 1793, and served until 1803. He was again elected in 1816, and served six years longer. He was also a member of the United States Senate for a period of twenty-three years. The accompanying portrait is from an engraving by St. Memin, an artist who engraved a large number of the distinguished men of our country at about the commencement of the present century. The signature is from a frank, kindly sent to me by his son, General Smith, president of the Maryland Historical Society.
** This view includes the monument, a portion of the Delaware, and the mouth of the Schuylkill, on the western shore.
[[[Successful Defense of Fort Mifflin.--Preparations for another Attack.--Plan of the Fort.]]]
{296}shore, she blew up. The engagement continued with the other vessels until three o'clock in the afternoon, when the Merlin also took fire and blew up, near the mouth of Mud Creek. The conflict now ceased; the Roebuck dropped down the river, and passed below the chevaux de frisé * at Billingsport, and the Americans remained masters of the Delaware forts for a short season. **
It was, indeed, cut a short season that quiet possession of the river was vouchsafed the patriots. Although repulsed, his ships beaten back, and his mercenary allies decimated, Howe was not discouraged; and he labored eagerly and hopefully to dislodge the Americans from their strong posts upon the only avenue through which his army could receive food and clothing, and his magazine supplies for the winter.
A timely re-enforcement from New York enabled him to act with energy. He took possession of Province Island, lying between Fort Mifflin and the main, and at different points works were thrown up to strengthen his power and annoy the patriots. This was on the 1st of November; and from that time never, was a garrison more harassed than that at Fort Mifflin; and never was patience and courage more nobly exhibited than was then shown by Lieutenant-colonel Smith and his compatriots.
Old Fort Mifflin was upon the lower end of Mud (now Fort) Island, having its principal fortification in front, for the purpose of repelling ships that might come up the river.
On the side toward Province Island (a low mud bank, nearly covered at high water, and separated from Mud Island by a narrow channel) the fort had only a wet ditch, without ravelin or abatis. This part was flanked by a blockhouse at each of its angles. These were not strong. When the Americans saw the enemy take possession of Province Island, and begin the planting of batteries to bruise their weakest points, they were sensible that Fort Mifflin would be untenable if the British completed their works. Such, too, was the painful conviction of Washington, and from his camp at Whitemarsh he put forth all his energies to prevent the evil. But, weak in numbers, and deficient in every thing which constitutes the strength of an army, he was obliged to see the enemy, day alter day, rearing his battle-works, without being able to interpose. He had sent anxious requests to General Gates to forward re-enforcements from the North, Burgoyne's invading army being cap-
* The Merlin, like the Augusta, had got aground, and stuck so fast that it was impossible to get her off. The obstructions which the Americans had placed in the river had caused such a change in the channels, that the pilots of the British vessels were completely at fault.
** On the 4th of November, ten days after the battle, Congress honored Lieutenant-colonel Smith and Commodore Hazlewood, by voting each an elegant sword.--Journals of Congress, iii., 374.
*** Explanation.--A, the inner work or redoubt; bbb, a high, thick stone wall, built by Montressor, with indentations, where the men boiled their kettles. This wall was pierced with loop-holes for musketry. cccc block-houses, built of wood, with loop-holes, and mounting four pieces of cannon each, two on the lower platform; ddd, barracks; eee, stockadoes; fff trous de Loup; g g, ravelins. On the southeast side were two strong piers, and a battery mounting three cannons.
[[[Washington's Efforts to Re enforce his Army.--Conduct of Gates and Putnam.--Second Attack on Fort Mifflin.]]]
{297}tured, and no other formidable enemy requiring a large force in that quarter; but that officer, doubtless willing to see his rival unsuccessful, gave no heed to his orders until longer non-compliance would have been positive disobedience. * To break up the encampment at Whitemarsh, and move the army to the west side of the Schuylkill, would be to leave depositories of stores and hospitals for the sick within reach of the enemy. It would also leave the fords of the Schuylkill in the custody of the royal troops, and render a junction of the expected Northern forces with the main army difficult, if not impossible. Furthermore, it might bring on a general engagement, which, with his weakened forces, the commander-inchief knew might be fatal. Thus situated, Washington viewed the progress of the enemy in his designs upon Fort Mifflin with intense anxiety.
The British erected five batteries on Province Island, of eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty-two pounders, within five hundred yards of Fort Mifflin. They also brought up, by the new channel made between Hog Island and the main by the changing of the current by the chevaux de frise, a large floating battery, mounting twenty-two twenty-four pounders, within forty yards of an angle of the fort. They also brought to bear upon the fort four sixty-four gun ships, within nine hundred yards, and two forty gun ships. Altogether the enemy had fourteen strong redoubts, and these were well manned and furnished with heavy artillery. On the 10th of November, the enemy opened their batteries on land and water, and for six consecutive days poured a storm of bombs and round shot upon the devoted fortification. With consummate skill and courage, Lieutenant-colonel Smith directed the responses from the ordnance of the fort. The artillery, drawn chiefly from Colonel Lamb's regiment, were commanded by Lieutenant Treat, who was killed on the first day of the siege, by the bursting of a bomb. On that day the barracks alone suffered, but on the morning of the 11th the direction of the enemy's fire was changed; a dozen of the strong palisades were demolished, and a cannon in an embrasure was disabled. The firing did not cease until midnight, and many of the garrison were killed or wounded. Colonel Smith, the commander, had a narrow escape. He had just gone into the barracks to write a letter to General Varnum, when a ball passed through a chimney. He was struck by the scattered bricks, and for a time lay senseless. He was taken across to Red Bank, and the command devolved on Lieutenant-colonel Russell, of the Connecticut line. That officer was disabled by fatigue and ill health, and Major Thayer, of the Rhode Island line, volunteered to take his place. Major Henry, who sent daily reports to Washington of the progress of the siege, was also wounded on the 11th, but he continued with the garrison. On the 12th, a two-gun battery of the Americans was destroyed, the northwest block-house and laboratory were blown up, and the garrison were obliged to seek shelter within the fort. The enemy continued to throw shells at night, and fearful indeed was the scene. At
* Gates had ample stores and a formidable force; and had he acted with the energy of true patriotism, he might have re-enforced Washington, by which the Delaware forts could have been saved, and the enemy driven out of Philadelphia. But he was vainly expecting soon to supersede Washington in the chief command, and he treated his orders with indifference. So tardy were his movements, when he concluded to comply, that Washington sent Colonel Hamilton to hasten his march. When Hamilton arrived at Albany, he found Gates reluctant to part with any of his troops; but, after much persuasion, he consented to send Morgan's corps and some thin brigades to the commander-in-chief. Hamilton was indignant, and by plain speech caused Gates to send a stronger re-enforcement. These, on their march down the Hudson, encountered a check from Putnam, who, dreaming of glory to be derived from an attack on New York, had actually detained a part of the force sent forward by Gates, and had marched them to Tarrytown, while he had himself advanced to White Plains. Thus, by tardy movements in Congress, and the undutiful ambition of subordinate officers, Washington was often foiled. Hamilton, by advice of Governor Clinton, assumed the authority of issuing a peremptory order to Putnam to put the Continental troops in motion for Whitemarsh.
* I now, sir," he wrote, "in the most explicit terms, by his excellency's authority, give it as a positive order from him, that all the Continental troops under your command may be immediately marched to King's Ferry, there to cross the river, and hasten to re-enforce the army under him." The Massachusetts militia and some new recruits were to replace the Continental soldiers thus sent away. So much did Hamilton censure Putnam when he returned to head-quarters, that it was thought a court martial would arraign the veteran; but the matter was passed over without notice, obedience having followed the peremptory order of Washington's representative.
[[[Gallant Defense of Fort Mifflin.--Destructive Effects of Cannons and Bombs.--Plan of Operations on the Delaware]]]
{298}sunrise on the 13th, thirty armed boats made their appearance; and during that night the heavy floating battery was brought to bear upon the fort.
It opened with terrible effect on the morning of the 14th, yet that little garrison of only three hundred men managed to silence it before noon. Hitherto the enemy did not know the real weakness of the garrison; on that day a deserter, in a boat, carried information of the fact to the British, who were seriously thinking of abandoning the siege, for they had suffered much. Hope was revived, and preparations were made for a general and more vigorous assault. At daylight, on the 15th, the Iris and Somerset, men-of-war, passed up the east channel to attack the fort on Mud Island in front. Several frigates were brought to bear on Fort Mercer; and the Vigilant, an East Indiaman of twenty twenty-four pounders, and a hulk with three twenty-four pounders, made their way through a narrow channel on the western side, and gained a position to act in concert with the batteries on Province Island, in enfilading the American works. At ten o'clock, while all was silent, a signal-bugle sent forth its summons to action, and instantly the land batteries and the shipping poured a terrible storm of missiles upon Fort Mifflin. The little garrison sustained the shock with astonishing intrepidity, and far into the gloom of evening an incessant cannonade was kept up. Within an hour, the only two cannons in the fort which had not been dismounted shared the fate of the others. Every man who appeared upon the platform was killed by the musketeers in the tops of the ships, whose yards almost hung over the American battery. Long before night not a palisade was left; the embrasures were ruined; the whole parapet leveled; the block-houses were already destroyed. Early in the evening Major Thayer sent all the remnant of the garrison to Red Bank, excepting forty men, with whom he remained. Among those sent was the brave Captain
* Note. Explanation of the Map.--This shows the main operations upon the Delaware between the middle of October and the close of November, 1777. Fort Mifflin is seen on the lower end of Mud Island. A, B, two British transports; C, the Experiment; D, the Vigilant frigate; E, the Fury sloop; F, a passage opened through the stockadoes; G, American fleet burned at Gloucester; H. the village of Woodbury and Cornwallis's encampment on the 21st of November, 1777; I, camp on the 24th, between the branches of Timber Creek; J, a battery of two eighteen pounders and two nine pounders; K, fort at Billingsport, Colonel Stirling's corps, and Cornwallis's camp on the 18th of November; L, redoubt on Carpenter's Island; M, on Province Island, to cover the bridge in the direction of Philadelphia; N, a battery of six twenty-four pounders, one eight-inch howitzer, and one eight-inch mortar; 0, a battery with one eight-inch howitzer and one eight-inch mortar; P, a battery with one thirteen-inch mortar; n, two twelve pounders; o, one eighteen pounder; S, stockadoes in the channel in front of Fort Mifllin; a, a small vessel; b. wreck of the Merlin; c, the Liverpool: d. Cornwallis galley; e, the Pearl; f the Somerset; g, the Roebuck; h, wreck of the Augusta; i, the Iris; j. ship sunk; k, the Vigilant; l, the Fury; W, the Whitall house, just below Fort Mercer. The parallelograms around Fort Mercer denote the attack bv Donop, on the 22d of October. The small island between Red Bank Island and the Jersey shore is Woodbury Island, on which the Americans erected a small battery. The creek, just below Fort Mercer, is Woodbury Creek, a deep and sluggish stream, near the Delaware.
[[[Retreat of the Garrison.--Destruction of the Fort.--Movements in New Jersey.--Fort Mercer Abandoned.]]]
{299}(afterward Commodore) Talbot, of the Rhode Island line, who was wounded in the hip, having fought for hours with his wrist shattered by a musket ball. At midnight, every defense and every shelter being swept away, Thayer and his men set fire to the remains of the barracks, evacuated the fort, and escaped in safety to Red Bank. Altogether it was one of the most gallant and obstinate defenses made during the war. In the course of the last day, more than a thousand discharges of cannon, from twelve to thirty-two pounders, were made against the works on Mud Island. Nearly two hundred and fifty men of the garrison were killed and wounded. The loss of the British was great; the number was not certainly known. *
Fort Mercer was still in possession of the Continental troops. Howe determined to dislodge them; for, while they remained, the obstructions in the river could not, with safety, be removed. While a portion of his force was beating down Fort Mifflin, he was busy in fortifying Philadelphia. He had extended intrenchments across from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. Having received more re-enforcements from New York, he sent Cornwallis to fall upon Fort Mercer in the rear. That officer, with a detachment of about two thousand men, crossed the Delaware from Chester to Billingsport, where he was joined by some [[November 18, 1777]] troops just arrived from New York. Washington had been apprised of this movement, and had detached General Huntington's brigade to join that of Varnum in New Jersey. He also ordered Major-general Greene to proceed with his division to the relief of the garrison, and to oppose Cornwallis. That able officer, accompanied by La Fayette, who had not yet quite recovered from a wound received in the battle on the Brandywine, crossed the Delaware at Burlington, and marched with a considerable force toward Red Bank. He expected to be re-enforced by Glover's brigade, then on its march through New Jersey, but was disappointed. Ascertaining that the force of Cornwallis was greatly superior to his own in numbers, General Greene abandoned the plan of giving him battle, and filed off toward Haddonfield. Colonel Greene, deprived of all hope of succor, evacuated Fort Mercer, leaving the artillery, with a considerable quantity of cannon-balls and stores, in the hands [[November 20]] of the enemy. Cornwallis dismantled the fort and demolished the works. His army was augmented by re-enforcements, and, with about five thousand men, he took post at and fortified Gloucester Point, whence he might have a supervision of affairs in Lower Jersey. Morgan's rifle corps joined General Greene, but the Americans were not strong enough to venture a regular attack upon Cornwallis. A detachment of one hundred and fifty riflemen, under Lieutenant-colonel Butler, and an equal number of militia, under La Fayette, attacked a picket of the enemy three hundred strong, killed between twenty and thirty of them, drove the remainder quite into the camp at Gloucester, and returned without losing a man. General Greene soon afterward withdrew from New Jersey and joined Washington, and Cornwallis returned to Philadelphia. The American fleet, no longer supported by the forts, sought other places of safety. On a dark night, the galleys, one [[November 21, 1777]] brig, and two sloops, crept cautiously along the Jersey shore past Philadelphia, and escaped to Burlington. Seventeen other vessels, unable to escape, were abandoned by their crews, and burned at Gloucester. ** The American defenses on the Delaware were now scattered to the winds; the obstructions in the river were removed; the enemy had full possession of Philadelphia; Congress had fled to the interior, and the broken battalions of the patriot army sought winter quarters on the banks of the Schuylkill, at Valley Forge.
Gloomy indeed were the November twilights of 1777 to the eye and heart of the patriot, for there were no brilliant omens of a pleasant to-morrow. Not so was the bright sunset and radiant twilight of that November evening in 1848, when we left the ruins at Red Bank and sought a waterman to convey us back to League Island. There was no cloud in the heavens; an orange glow suffused the chambers of the west where the king of day had gone to his couch, and promises of a fair to-morrow were revealed in the clear sky.
* Gordon, ii., 276. Botta, ii., 51. Washington's Letters.
** See plan on the preceding page.
[[[Ancient Philadelphia.--The "Slate-roof House" and its Associations.]]]
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