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ACCESSION OF GEORGE THE THIRDHIS UNFORTUNATE CHOICE OF ADVISERDESIGNS AGAINST THE AMERICAN CHARTERSWRITS OF ASSISTANCE DENOUNCED BY OTISHIS INFLUENCE AND HIS MISFORTUNESPREPARATIONS FOR CONFLICTPITT AND THE CABINET HONORS CONFERRED ON PITT'S WIFEBUTE CARICATURED AND SATIRIZEDGREENVILLE, PRIME MINISTERRIGHT TO TAX THE COLONIES AFFIRMEDOPPOSITION IN MASSACHUSETTS- -TOWNSHEND'S SCHEMESGRENVILLE PROPOSES A STAMP TAXJOHN HUSKESAMUEL ADAMS ADDRESS OF THE TOWN OF BOSTONOTIS'S PAMPHLET IN ENGLAND.
ON a bright morning late in October, 1760, the air cool and bracing, young Prince George, grandson of the reigning sovereign of England, was riding near Kew palace with his tutor and favorite companion, the Earl of Bute, when a messenger came in haste with the startling news that the king was dead. That "temperate, methodical old man," rose that morning at six o'clock, as usual, and after drinking a cup of chocolate went into a small closet. His German valet, who always kept near his person, presently heard a noise in the closet as of one falling, and going into the apartment found his master lying upon the floor dead. The ventricle of his heart had bursted, causing instantaneous death. "Full of years and glory," wrote Horace Walpole, "he died without a pang, and without a reverse. He left his family firmly established on a long-disputed throne, and was taken away in the moment that approaching extinction of sight and hearing made loss of life the only blessing that remained desirable."
Prince George remained at Kew during the day and night after the king's death. He was his grandfather's successor to the throne, and was so proclaimed. William Pitt, then at the head of the ministry, immediately repaired to Kew to condole and consult with the new monarch. On the following day the king went to St. James' palace, where Pitt again waited upon him and presented a sketch of an address to be made by the monarch at a meeting of the Privy Council. The minister was politely informed that a speech was already prepared, and that every preliminary was arranged. Pitt perceived, what many had suspected, that the Earl of Bute, who was the special favorite of the young king's mother, was to be a leading spirit in the administration. The pride of the great commoner was touched, and he left the royal presence with clouded brows. A year later he retired from public life.
The young king, who was to occupy the British throne for fifty yearsthe period in English history the most interesting to Americanswas a son of the dead Frederick Prince of Wales. His mother was the beautiful Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. He was born in London in 1738, and was regarded with special favor by the people of England, because he was a native prince. His tutor and confidential adviser, the Earl of Bute, was a gay Scottish nobleman of handsome person, pleasing address, possessed of moderate mental endowments, and was narrow in his political views. The Princess Augusta seemed fond of him, and scandalous things were suggested concerning their intimacy. Such was the mana sort of needy adventurer at the English court, at firstwithout valid claims to the character of a statesman, whom the young monarch unfortunately chose for his counsellor and guide, instead of the wise and sagacious Pitt, who had done so much to glorify England during the reign just closed. Like Rehoboam, George "for-sook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men that were brought up with him, that stood before him."
This was a mistake that led to lasting disasters to the realm. The unwise policy advised by Bute, concerning the English-American colonies, engendered much of the ill-feeling toward the mother country that led to a revolutionary war and the dismemberment of the British empire. Discontents rapidly appeared in England, when it was seen that the great Pitt was discarded, and that the young king was to be ruled by his unpopular mother and the Favorite. Murmurs of discontent soon became audible; and some-body had the boldness to fasten upon the front of the Royal Exchange in London, this placard in large letters: "No petticoat governmentno Scotch ministerno Lord George Sackville!"
Bute's idea concerning the American colonies was that they should be brought into absolute subjection to the British Parliament, by force if necessary, and to do this, he advised the employment of measures for reforming the colonial charters. Acting upon the advice of Bute, the king sent secret agents over the sea to travel in the colonies; make the acquaintance of leading men; collect information about the character and temper of the people, and bring together facts and conclusions that would enable ministers to judge what regulations and alterations might be safely made. The agents came; they made superficial observations, and returned to England with erroneous conclusions which led to trouble. They entirely mistook the character and temper of the Americans, and their reports were fallacious. The colonists saw through their thin disguise as travelers for their own pleasure, and became more watchful than ever. They knew that the Board of Trade had proposed to annual the colonial charters, and to make the people submit to royal government and taxation; and they looked with distrust upon all parliamentary legislation bearing upon the colonies.
A crisis soon came. The officers of customs asked for writs of assistance warrants to empower them to call upon the people and all officers of government in America to assist them in the collection of the revenue, and to enter the stores and houses of the citizens at pleasure, in pursuit of their vocation. These writs were granted, and the people seeing the great peril to which their liberties were thereby exposed, resolved to openly resist the measure. It was contrary to the cherished theory of English liberties, that "every man's house is his castle," when the "meanest deputy of a deputy's deputy" might enter his dwelling at will. There was also a scheme on foot for establishing the ritual of the Church of England or the state mode of worship in the colonies, and this rekindled the smouldering fires of Puritan zeal in defence of the right of conscience. In these propositions the king and the aristocracy of Great Britain were the exponents of the feudalism which still moulded the policy of rulers in Europe, but which was entirely incompatible with the more advanced and enlightened ideas of human liberty which then prevailed in America.
The writs of assistance were first issued in Massachusetts. Their legality was questioned, and the matter was brought before a court held in the old Town Hall in Boston, in February, 1761. There were calm men there, and there were fiery men there. The calm advocate of the crown (Mr. Gridley) argued that as Parliament was the supreme legislature for the whole British realm, and had authorized the writs, no subject had a right to complain. The calm Oxenbridge Thacher, an eminent lawyer, answered his arguments with keen legal reasoning, showing that the rule in English courts was, in this case, not applicable to America. The fiery James Otis, one of Gridley's pupils, in a speech full of telling logic, expressed with eloquence and impassioned manner, also replied to the attorney-general. He denounced the writs as "the worst instruments of arbitrary power; the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law." "No act of Parliament," he said, "can establish such a writ; even though made in the very language of the petition, it would be a nullity. An act of Parliament against the constitution is void." Referring to the arbitrary power of the writ, he said: "A man's house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court may inquire." "I am determined," he said, "to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life to the sacred calls of my country, in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king his head and another his throne."
These words of Otis went forth with amazing power. They stirred the hearts of the people through all the provinces. The speech and event constitute the opening scene of resistance in America to British oppression. On that day the trumpet of the Revolution was sounded; the seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown; and when the orator exclaimed, "To my dying day I will oppose, with all the power and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on one hand and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is," "the independence of the colonies," John Adams afterward said, "was proclaimed." But absolute independence was not then desired. Even Otis deprecated the idea. The colonists were proud of their political connection with Great Britain. They asked only for justice and equality, and the privilege of local self-government as British subjects. The topic of American representation in Parliament, which assumed large proportions about two years afterward, was not then discussed.
When Otis left the Town Hall that day, he was greeted by loud huzzas from the populace, who threw up their hats in token of their delight; and from the day of that remarkable event in our history, that unflinching patriot, then six-and- thirty years of age, led the van of the phalanx of revolutionists in Massachusetts for several years. His eloquence and presence were magnetic. He was the incarnation of courage and independence. He had resigned the office of advocate-general of the colony that he might, with a good conscience, wield the sword of opposition. The royalists feared and hated him. His election to a seat in the Massachusetts Assembly in the spring of 1761, alarmed them. "Out of this," wrote the tory Timothy Ruggles, "a faction will arise that will shake this province to its foundations." The Governor (Bernard), fearing the influence of his tongue, exhorted the new legislature not to heed "declamations tending to promote a suspicion of the civil rights of the people being in danger. Such harangues might well suit in the reign of Charles and James, but in the time of the Georges they are groundless and unjust," he said. At that very moment the perfidious governor was secretly promoting the scheme of the Board of Trade for taking away the colonial charters.
The public career of Mr. Otis was ended before the tempest of the Revolution which he had helped to engender, burst upon the colonies. In 1769, his bright intellect was clouded by a concussion of the brain, produced by a blow from a bludgeon in the hands of a custom-house officer whom he had offended. Ever afterward he was afflicted by periods of lunacy. At such times, thoughtless or heartless men and boys would make themselves merry in the streets, at his expense. It was a sad sight to see the great orator and scholar so shattered and exposed. His ready use of Latin was remarkably illustrated one day. He was passing a crockery store, when a young man who was familiar with that language, standing in a door of the upper story, sprinkled some water upon him from a watering-pot he was using, saying: Pluit tantum, nescic quantum. Scis ne tu? "It rains so much. I know not how much. Do you know?" Otis immediately picked up a large stone, and hurling it through the window of the crockery-store, it smashing everything in its way, exclaimed: Fregi tot nescio quot. Scis ne tu ? "I have broken so many. I know not how many. Do you know?"
After the memorable argument in the Town Hall in Boston, the triumphs of the popular will in America began. Few writs of assistance were issued, and these were ineffectual. The Americans prepared for the impending conflict with the British ministry, animated by a prophecy of success because their warfare would be just. They measured the strength of that ministry by true standards, and found them generally weak. Bute, in 1762, became Premier, with George Grenville, who prided himself on his knowledge of the science of finance, as his chancellor of the exchequer. Pitt, who had become disgusted with the ignorance and assumptions of Bute, had left public employment the previous year and retired to his country seat at Hays, in Kent. There, though tortured by gout, he watched the drift of public affairs with intense interest, and equally intense anxiety, for he trembled at the thought of the possible fate of his country, whose destinies were held by such incompetent hands
When Pitt resigned the seals of office into the hands of the king in the autumn of 1761, the public discontent was unmistakable. Bute, in a reply to a letter from Lord Melcombe congratulating the former on being delivered of a most impracticable colleague (Mr. Pitt), said: "My situation, at all times perilous, is become much more so; for I am no stranger to the language held in this great city` Our darling's resignation is owing to Lord Bute, and he must answer for all the consequences.'" The king, too, felt unpleasant forebodings concerning the future; and when the great statesman laid the seals before him, his majesty expressed his deep concern at the loss of so able a minister. The king showered kind words so profusely that Pitt, acknowledging the royal condescension, burst into tears. The king offered to confer a title of honor upon the retiring statesman, but Pitt was "too proud to receive any mark of the king's countenance and favor," he wrote to Bute, and declined it. He intimated, however, that he should be happy could he see those dearer to himself "comprehended in that monument of royal approbation and goodness" with which his majesty should condescend to distinguish him. The king acted upon this hint, and conferred upon Pitt's wife the honorary title of Baroness of Chatham, with a pension for Lady Chatham, her husband and their eldest son, of fifteen thousand dollars a year. With these marks of royal approbation, Pitt remained in retirement, maintaining his popularity and appearing in Parliament only when great questions came up, until 1766, when he was elevated to the peerage with the title of Viscount Pitt and Earl of Chatham. His acceptance of the title damaged his popularity. Chesterfield said: "Pitt has gone to the hospital for incurable statesmen"the House of Lords.
When Bute became prime minister, the opposition press attacked him without mercy, and innumerable caricatures appeared: some of the latter were coarse and indecent. Intoxicated by power, the minister lavished offices upon his countrymen in profusion, as did James the First. This called out many caricatures. One of these represents a northern witch on an enormous broomstick, conveying Scotchmen through the air to the land of promotion. Another entitled "The Royal Dupe," represents the Princess of Wales seated on a sofa, lulling the young king to sleep in her lap, while Lord Bute is stealing his sceptre, and another is picking his pockets. Caricatures and satires concerning Bute's private relations with the princess were highly libellous and sometimes obscene. In the spring of 1763, his administration, which was founded on prerogative and power, was ended. He suddenly resigned, for causes never clearly understood, and was succeeded by George Grenville, Pitt's brother-in-law.
The new minister was an honest statesman, rigid in his morals, an indefatigable worker and possessed of great political knowledge; but, according to Burke, his mind could not extend beyond the circle of official routine, and was incapable of estimating the result of untried measures. He found an empty treasury and the national debt increased by the expenses of the war then just ended, nearly seven hundred million dollars. Increased taxation was necessary. That burden upon the English people was then very great, and, viewing the temper of the public mind then, he dared not increase its weight; so he looked to the Americans for relief, and formed schemes for drawing a revenue from them. He did not doubt the right of Parliament to tax them, and he knew they were able to pay. At about the same time there was a warm debate upon the subject of an act for imposing an excise on cider, and which worked in a partial manner in England. It was odious to a large portion of the people, and especially to the country members of the House of Commons, and Pitt, who was in that House, denounced it as "intolerable." Grenville defended it, and turning toward Pitt, said: "I admit that the impost is odious, but where can you lay another tax? Let him tell me whereonly tell me where?" Pitt, who was not much given to joking, hummed in the words of a popular song:
"Gentle Shepherd, tell me where?"
The House burst into laughter, and Grenville was ever afterward called the Gentle Shepherd. At the same time Pitt, with the most contemptuous look and manner, rose from his seat, as Grenville stood to reply, and bowing to the chairman walked slowly out of the House.
The subject of the right to tax the Americans, they not being represented in Parliament, had been debated in the House of Commons in March (1763) for the first time, when it was determined in the affirmative by a unanimous vote. When the news of that debate and vote reached Massachusetts, the Assembly of that colony, then in session, immediately resolved: "That the sole right of giving and granting the money of the people of this province is vested in them, as the legal representatives; and that the imposition of taxes and duties by the Parliament of Great Britain upon a people who are not represented in the House of Commons, is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights. That no man can justly take the property of another without his consent; upon which principle the right of representation in the same body which exercises the power of making laws for levying taxes, one of the main pillars of the British Constitution, is evidently founded." These ideas were speedily formulated into the maxim Taxation without representation is tyranny; and upon that principle the Americans there after rested in opposing the taxation schemes of the mother country.
Charles Townshend, who had been Secretary of War, was made First Lord of Trade two months before Grenville became Premier. He was a thorough aristocrat and stickler for the royal prerogative, and was disposed to act with more rigor in restraining popular liberty in America than any of his predecessors. He advocated the substitution of royal authority for the colonial charters, and a new territorial arrangement of the provinces. The conclusion of peace with France, then very near, was to be the time when these vigorous measures against the Americans were to be put into operation; and as preliminary thereto, Townshend proposed making crown officers in the colonies independent of the people for their salaries, and maintaining a standing army there at the expense of the inhabitants for their own subjugation. He also proposed a stamp tax, which Bute had suggested to Parliament on the recommendation of his secretary Charles Jenkinson; and when, soon afterward, Jenkinson became Secretary of the Treasury, he proposed the measure to Grenville. The latter, at about the same time, with short-sightedness equal to Townshend's, introduced a bill for enforcing the navigation laws, which empowered every officer and seaman of the British navy to act as custom-house officers and informers, and so subjecting to search and seizure every American vessel on sea or in port. These measures for enslaving and plundering the colonists were proposed, and partially put into operation, at the moment when peace was established and the loyal colonies were rejoicing because of the honor and dominion which the war just ended had won for the British crown. Otis, at a town-meeting in Boston, expressed the feelings of the Americans, when he said: "We in America have abundant reason to rejoice. The heathen are driven out and the Canadians conquered. The British dominion now extends from sea to sea, and from the great rivers to the ends of the earth. Liberty and knowledge, civil and religious, will be co-extended, improved and preserved to the latest posterity. No constitution of government has appeared in the world so admirably adapted to these great purposes as that of Great Britain. Every British subject in America is, of common right, by act of Parliament, and by the laws of God and nature, entitled to all the essential privileges of Britons. By particular charters particular privileges are justly granted, in consideration of undertaking to begin so glorious an empire as British America. Some weak and wicked minds have endeavored to infuse jealousies with regard to the colonies; the true interests of Great Britain and her plantations are mutual, and what God in his providence has united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder." These words rebuked the Lords of Trade, who were continually assailing the royal ear with stories about the aspirations of the American colonies for absolute independence; and they were also a significant demand upon Charles Townshend to keep his hands off the American charters.
In the spring of 1764, Grenville read, in the House of Commons, a series of resolutions declaring the intention of the government to raise a tax in America by a duty on stamped paper. A stamp duty had been proposed in 1732, during Walpole's administration, but that sagacious minister said: "I will leave the taxation of America to some of my successors, who have more courage than I have." Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, proposed such a tax in 1739. Franklin thought it just, when in the convention at Albany in 1754. But when it was proposed to Pitt in 1759, he said: "I will never burn my fingers with an American stamp act." Early in 1764, Mr. Huske, a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, then residing in England, and holding a seat in Parliament, desirous of showing his excessive loyalty, arose in his place, alluded to Franklin's opinion in the Albany convention, and delighted the House of Commons with the assurance that the Americans were able to pay a liberal tax. He recommended that one should be levied that would amount annually to two and a half million dollars. Encouraged by these precedents and this assurance, Grenville, a few weeks afterward (March 9, 1764), presented his Stamp Act scheme, asking for a million dollars. On his own motion the consideration of it was postponed, and it slept for almost a year. For the part which he played in the matter, John Huske incurred the hot resentment of his countrymen, and he was hung in effigy on "Liberty Tree" in Boston, with the following inscription on his breast:
"Question. What, Brother Huske? Why this is bad! Answer. Ah, indeed! but I'm a wicked lad; My mother always thought me wild; `The gallows is thy portion, child,' She often said; behold, 'tis true, And now the dog must have his due; For idle gewgaws, wretched pelf, I sold my country, dd myself; And for my great, unequalled crime, The dI takes He before his time. But if some brethren I could name, Who shared the crime should share the shame, This glorious tree, though big and tall, Indeed would never hold 'em all."
The agents of the colonies in England remonstrated with Grenville concerning the proposed stamp tax, when he told them that if they could devise a better scheme for raising a revenue, he would be satisfied. The revenue must be raised, and he knew of no better method than the one proposed. In the House of Commons he made similar remarks, and stated that the consideration of the subject had been postponed, because there were some doubts about the right of Parliament to levy such a tax. He asserted the right, and called upon the Opposition to deny it if they thought it fitting. No one spoke but Mr. Beckford, who said: "As we are strong, I hope we shall be merciful." As the right was not denied, the matter resolved itself into a question of method.
The subject excited great feeling in the colonies. Public and private discussions ran high. Great questions that lie at the foundations of civil and natural rights were pondered thoughtfully. The people became divided in opinion, and the party names, afterward so familiar, of Whigs, Patriots, and Sons of Liberty on one side, and Loyalists and Tories on the other, now first came into vogue. Men and women, in every social condition, were found on each side in the division, and all professed loyalty to the crown and adherence to the British constitution. Thoughtful men saw in the measure prophecies of great changes in America. "If the colonist is taxed without his consent, he will, perhaps, seek a change," said Holt's New York Gazette, in May, 1764. "It is a menace of the rights of man; a challenge to a conflict for inalienable rights," said a writer in the Virginia Gazette. "The ways of Heaven are inscrutable. This step of the mother country, though intended to secure dependence, may produce fatal resentment and be subversive of that end," wrote Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, who, twelve years afterward, offered in the Continental Congress the resolution that the colonies were "free and independent States." The agent of Connecticut (Mr. Dyer), then in England, wrote: "If the colonies do not now unite, they may bid farewell to liberty, burn their charters, and make the best of thraldom." In Massachusetts, the voice of that stern Puritan and conscientious Christian gentleman, Samuel Adams, who was then a little more than forty years of age, was lifted up, with words of logic and defiance, against the measure; and he wrote the address of the citizens of Boston to the Massachusetts legislature, saying:
"There is no room for delay. Those unexpected proceedings may be preparatory to more extensive taxation; for if our trade may be taxed, why not our lands and everything we possess? If taxes are laid upon us in any shape, without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? This annihilates our charter right to govern and tax our-selves. We claim British rights, not by charter only; we are born to them. Use your endeavors that the weight of the other North American colonies may be added to that of this province, that by united application all may happily obtain redress."
So the Bostonians denied the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, and looked to the power of union for a redress of grievances. The patriots in other colonies were in accord with those of Massachusetts, and there was an universal expression of the sentiment: "If we are taxed without our consentif we are not represented in the body that taxes us, and we submit, we are slaves." The resolution to resist took deep root in the hearts of multitudes of men and women in the colonies; and when the subject of a stamp tax was again presented to Parliament, there was very little difference of opinion in America concerning its unrighteousness. The words of Otis had again gone forth to electrify the American people, and put leading men in England into a thoughtful mood. With wonderful power and clearness of language he enunciated great principles, declared the loyalty of the colonies, and defined natural rights. The following sentences from the extraordinary pamphlet that contains them, will give an idea of its character:
"There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given all men the right to be free. If every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. The administrators of legislative authority, when they verge towards tyranny, are to be resisted; if they prove incorrigible, they are to be deposed. Nor do the political and civil rights of the British colonists rest on a charter from the crown. Old Magna Charta was not the beginning of all things; nor did it rise on the borders of chaos out of the unformed mass. A time may come when Parliament shall declare every American charter void; but the natural, inherent, and inseparable rights of the colonists as men and as citizens would remain, and, whatever became of charters, can never be abolished till the general conflagration. The world is at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur that has ever been displayed to the view of mankind. Who will win the prize is with God. But human nature must and will be rescued from the general slavery that has so long triumphed over the species."
Thus spake the prophet. Lord Mansfield rebuked those in England who spoke of his utterances with contempt. They answered, "The man is mad." "What then?" answered the great jurist. "One madman often makes many. Massaniello was mad; nobody doubted it; yet, for all that, he overturned the government of Naples."
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE COLONIAL ASSEMBLIES PETITIONS AND REMOSTRANCES BOLDNESS OF THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY FRANKLIN SET TO ENGLAND HE IS CONSULTED BY LEADING MEN THE KING RECOMMENDS A STAMP TAX A STAMP ACT IN PARLIAMENT - - SPEECHES OF TOWNSHEND AND BARRE STAMP ACT PASSED FRANKLIN'S LETTER TO THOMPSON THE ACT AND BARRE'S SPEECH IN AMERICA PATRICK HENRY AND HIS RESOLUTIONS STAMP DISTRIBUTORS SCORNED AND BADLY TREATED THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS OPERATIONS OF THE ACT NONIMPORTATION AGREEMENTS.
THE Boston resolves and Otis's pamphlet, entitled "Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved," stirred the American people most profoundly, and created a burning zeal for freedom. A committee of correspondence, appointed by the Massachusetts Assembly, had sent a circular letter to the assemblies of other colonies on the subject of resistance to taxation. A like committee in Rhode Island sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly, in which it was urged that if all of the colonies would unite in an expression of views, and present them to Parliament through their agents, the end sought for might be obtained. The Pennsylvania Assembly, delighted with the suggestion, took action accordingly. So also did those of several other provinces; and petitions and remonstrances against the proposed stamp tax were soon on their way to England, bearing wise thoughts and bold assertions. They were a series of able state papers sent from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. That from New York was the boldest of all. "An exemption from ungranted and involuntary taxation," said that Assembly, "must be the grand principle of every free state. Without such a right vested in themselves, exclusive of all others, there can be no liberty, no happiness, no security, nor even the idea of property. Life itself would be intolerable. We proceed with propriety and boldness to inform the Commons of Great Britain, who, to their infinite honor, in all ages asserted the liberties of mankind, that the people of this colony nobly disdain the thought of claiming that exemption as a privilege. They found it on a basis more honorable, solid and stable; they challenge it, and glory in it, as a right."
Late in October (1764) the Pennsylvania Assembly chose Dr. Franklin (then fifty- eight years of age) agent of that province in England. He was then involved, as a leader of the popular party against the Proprietary government of Pennsylvania, in a bitter political dispute, and his appointment was vehemently opposed by his antagonists. It was made in spite of their remonstrances and protests, and he sailed on a mission the result of which powerfully affected the destinies of nations. The agents of some of the other colonies appearing lukewarm on the subject of a stamp tax, their powers were transferred to Franklin, and he became a sort of national representative of the British colonial empire in America. All had confidence in his integrity, ability, statesmanship and knowledge of the character, temper and views of the American people, and much was expected from the influence of his well-known name in England. "His appointment," afterward wrote Dr. Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia, "appears to have been a measure provided by the councils of Heaven."
Soon after Franklin's arrival in England, he was waited upon by Grenville and other politicians, and consulted about the stamp tax. Pitt, in retirement at Hayes, sent for the philosopher, and also consulted him on the subject. Franklin told everybody that it was an unwise measure; that the Americans would never submit to be taxed without their consent; and that such an act, if attempted to be enforced, would endanger the unity of the empire. But the wise counsels of Franklin, and the voices from the colonists in America protesting against being sheared by "The Gentle Shepherd," were of no avail. Grenville was determined to have a revenue from America. Unwilling to incur the whole odium of the measure, he adroitly placed it upon the general grounds of whig policy, and so committed the party to the scheme.
On the assembling of Parliament after the Christmas holidays (January 10, 1765), the king, in his speech, presented the American question as one of "obedience to the laws and respect for the legislative assembly of the kingdom." The stamp tax was to be the test. He seemed to be insensible to the danger to his realm of the storm then gathering in America. He recommended the carrying out of Grenville's scheme, and assured the Parliament that he should use every endeavor to enforce obedience in the colonies. So assured, Grenville, on the 7th of February, introduced his famous motion for a stamp act, composed of fifty-five resolutions. It provided that every skin or piece of vellum, or parchment, or sheet or piece of paper, used for legal purposes, such as bills, bonds, notes, leases, policies of insurance, marriage licenses, and a great many other documents, in order to be held valid in courts of law, was to be stamped, and sold by public officers appointed for the purpose, at prices which levied a stated tax on every such document. The bill made all offences against its provisions cognizable in the courts of admiralty. To the odiousness of the tax itself was added the provision for its collection by arbitrary power under the decrees of British judges, without any trial by jury.
When the stamp act, framed in proper order by a commissioner, came up for debate, Charles Townshend, the most eloquent man in the House in the absence of Pitt, made a speech in defence of it, which was concluded in the following words: "And now, these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence until they have grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our armies, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?"
Colonel Barre, who had shared with Wolfe the dangers and fatigues of the campaign against Quebec, and who, having lived in America, knew the people well, instantly sprang to his feet, and with eyes flashing with indignation, and with outstretched arms, delivered an unpremeditated phillippic of extraordinary power, in which most wholesome truths were uttered. He exclaimed with scorn: "They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say the most formidable, of any people on the face of God's earth; yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those who should have been their friends. They nourished up by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies of some member of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them-men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them-men promoted to the highest seats of justice; some who, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of justice in their own. They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valor amid their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emoluments. And believe me-remember I this day told you so-that the same spirit of freedom, which actuated that people at first, will accompany them still; but prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows that I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience, the respectable body of this House may be, I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated. But the subject is too delicate. I will say no more."
The House remained in silent amazement for a few moments after this impassioned utterance of truths. The members were generally too ignorant of America and its people to comprehend Barre's speech. The intelligent Horace Walpole confessed that he knew almost nothing about the colonists. The members of the House knew that Great Britain was strong and believed the colonies were weak; and without being "merciful," as Beckford had suggested, they passed the obnoxious bill on the 27th of February by a vote of two hundred and fifty against fifty. In the Lords it received very little opposition, and on the 22d of March, the king made it a law by signing it. A few days afterward the monarch was crazy. It was the first of four attacks of the dreadful malady of insanity which afflicted him during his long life, and finally deprived him of the power to rule.
So was produced the principal wedge which cleaved asunder the British empire. The infatuated ministry openly declared that it was "intended to establish the power of Great Britain to tax the colonies." On the night of the passage of the act, Dr. Franklin wrote to Charles Thompson, afterward the Secretary of the Continental Congress: "The sun of liberty is set; the Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy."
News of the passage of the stamp act, and a report of Barre's speech by Ingersoll, the half tory agent of Connecticut, reached the colonists at the same time. The former excited the hot indignation of the people; the latter was applauded, printed, and sent broadcast over the land. Barre's title of Sons of Liberty, given to the patriots, was eagerly adopted, and the name soon became familiar on the lips of Americans. Everywhere the act was denounced. The people in villages and cities gathered in excited groups and boldly expressed their indignation. The pulpit thundered condemnation and defiance in the name of a righteous God; at public gatherings the orators denounced it; the newspapers teemed with seditious essays, and the colonial assemblies rang with rebellious utterances. Among the foremost of those who boldly denounced the act in almost treasonable language was Patrick Henry, then about twenty-nine years of age. He had lately been elected a member of Virginia House of Burgesses, who were in session at that time in the old Capitol at Williamsburg. When the news was published to that body by the Speaker, a scene of wild excitement ensued. Henry calmly tore a blank leaf from an old copy of Coke upon Littleton, on which he wrote five resolutions and submitted them to the House. The first declared that the original settlers brought with them and transmitted to their posterity all the rights enjoyed by the people of Great Britain.
The second affirmed that these rights had been secured by two royal charters granted by King James. The third asserted that taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves, was the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution could not exist. The fourth maintained that the people of Virginia had always enjoyed the right of being governed by their own Assembly in the article of taxes, and that this right had been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain. The fifth resolution, in which was summed up the essentials of the preceding four, declared "That the General Assembly of this colony have the sole right and power to levy taxes and impositions upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons whatsover, other than the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."
These resolutions, so spontaneous and so bold, filled the members with astonishment. Had a thunderbolt fallen among them, they would not have been more amazed. The boldest were astounded; timid ones were alarmed, and the few royalists in the House were startled and indignant. Some, whose hearts and judgments were with Henry, and who afterward appeared in the forefront of revolution, hesitated, and even opposed the fifth resolution as being too radical and incendiary. The resolutions were seconded by George Johnson of Fairfax, and a violent debate ensued. Threats were uttered; and the royalists abused Mr. Henry without stint. He defended the resolutions, the fifth one particularly, with vigorous logic delivered in eloquent words. With pathos and denunciatory invective, he excited the sympathy, the fears and the anger of that Assembly, in a most remarkable degree. He played upon their passions as a skillful musician would touch the keys of his instrument. They were borne upon the tide of his eloquence, which was now calm, now turbulent, passive and yielding, until, in his clear bell-tones, he exclaimed, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third-" when Mr. Robinson, the Speaker, springing to his feet and striking his desk violently with his gavel, interrupted him by crying out "Treason! Treason!" This word was shouted back from all parts of the House by the royalists, and the Assembly was in the greatest confusion. Henry never faltered, but rising to a loftier altitude and fixing his flashing eyes on the Speaker, whom he knew to be a defaulter at that moment, he finished his sentence saying-"may profit by their example; if that be treason, make the most of it!"
When Henry sat down, Peyton Randolph, the king's attorney, and others arose and denounced the fifth resolution as disloyal and dangerous to the public welfare. Again Henry took the floor, and his eloquence and logic, like a rushing avalanche, swept away the sophistries of his opponents. The resolutions were carried; the fifth by a majority of only one. That evening Mr. Henry left Williamsburg for his home. Some of those who voted for the fifth resolution under excitement, became alarmed after reflection; and the next morning, in the absence of Henry, the House reconsidered and rejected it. So the vitality of the resolutions as a revolutionary agent was destroyed. Manuscript copies of them had been sent to Philadelphia and the east. News of the rejection of the fifth immediately followed. Ardent patriots somewhere, anxious to have the political voice of Virginia sounding throughout the land the sentiments of Patrick Henry, caused the four resolutions which were actually adopted to be re-written in slightly changed form, and two more to be added, which gave out trumpettones of revolution in the following manner:
"5. Resolved, That his Majesty's liege people, the inhabitants of this colony, are not bound to yield obedience to any law or ordinance whatsoever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them other than the laws and ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid.
"6. Resolved, That any person who shall, by speaking or writing, maintain that any person or persons other than the General Assembly of this colony have any right or power to lay any taxation whatsover on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to this his Majesty's colony."
These resolutions, so full of bold, revolutionary force, were first published in Boston as the actual resolves of the Virginia legislature on the 29th of May, 1765. They flew upon the wings of the press and the letters of committees of correspondence all over the provinces, and gave the first decisive impulse toward united resistance. Within a fortnight after they were published, Massachusetts, on the recommendation of Otis, sent out an invitation to all the colonies to meet her by delegates in a general Congress in New York the following autumn. In the beautiful month of June, the Virginia resolves and the Massachusetts circular reached all the colonies, and everywhere they met a hearty response. The Sons of Liberty were very active; and yet there were many wise and patriotic men, knowing that Great Britain had made provision for enforcing the stamp act by quartering troops on the colonists, if necessary, prepared not only to submit, but to profit by the measures. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, whose patriotism no man ever doubted, perceiving that the office would be very lucrative, applied for the appointment of stamp-distributor; and even Dr. Franklin, considering the colonies too weak in numbers then to resist the arms of Great Britain, advised Ingersoll, the agent for Connecticut then in England, to accept the same office, and added:"Go home and tell your countrymen to get children as fast as they can," so intimating that by increase in population the Americans might secure their liberties. It was a cunning scheme of Grenville to appoint Americans to the office of stamp-distributors. He thought they would be more acceptable to their countrymen than foreigners. He was mistaken. They were regarded as accomplices in the plot against liberty. "If the ruin of your country is decreed, are you free from blame for taking part in the plunder?" indignantly exclaimed Daggett, of New Haven; and he spurned Jared Ingersoll as a public enemy.
The stamp act was to go into effect in the colonies on the first day of November, 1765. Ingersoll arrived at Boston at the beginning of August, bearing commissions for stamp-distributors, and on the 8th of that month their names were published. They immediately became objects of public resentment and scorn. There was a general determination not to allow them to exercise the functions of their office. Manifestations of hostility to them instantly appeared. Andrew Oliver, secretary of the province of Massachusetts, who had been appointed "stamp-master" for Boston, was the first to feel resentment. A large elm tree, standing at the edge of the town, had been a shelter for the Sons of Liberty at their out-of-town meetings during the summer. It was called "Liberty Tree," and the ground under it, "Liberty Hall." At dawn on the morning of the 14th of August, an effigy of Oliver, with emblems of Bute and Grenville, was seen hanging upon that tree. Crowds went to view it. Hutchinson, chief justice of the province, ordered the sheriff to take it down. "We will remove it ourselves at evening," quickly said the populace, and the sheriff to take it down. "We will remove it ourselves at evening," quickly said the populace, and the sheriff kept his hands off the effigy.
At twilight a great multitude gathered around Liberty Tree. The effigy was taken down, laid on a bier, and was borne by the populace through the old State House directly under the Council Chamber, shouting "Liberty, Property, and no Stamps!" That multitude, at first orderly, now became a riotous mob. They tore down a building which Oliver was erecting for a stamp office, and made a bonfire of it. They shouted, "Death to the man who offers a piece of stamped paper to sell!" and rushing toward Oliver's house, they there beheaded the effigy, and would doubtless have killed him if they could have caught him. He had escaped by a back way. They broke into his house, and in brutal wantonness destroyed his furniture, trees, fences and garden; and after saluting the governor with three cheers, they dispersed. Believing his life to be in danger, Oliver resigned his office the following morning, and the town was quieted. The cowardly Bernard, after ordering a proclamation for the discovery and arrest of the rioters, fled to the castle on an island in Boston harbor. "The prisons would not hold them long," said the Rev. Jonathan Mahew of the West Church, whose voice had been heard in favor of the people more than a dozen years before. "We have sixty thousand fighting men in this colony alone," he said. Twelve days afterward, at night, another mob burned all the records of the admiralty court, ravaged the house of the comptroller of the customs, and splitting open the doors of Chief- Justice Hutchinson, whom they regarded as a secret public enemy, they broke his furniture, scattered his plate and the contents of his valuable library, and left his house a wreck. He and his family had barely time to escape. The better class of citizens frowned upon these proceedings, and the officers of the crown, terror-stricken, were very quiet.
The mob spirit was manifested in several colonies, for the people were much exasperated against those who had accepted the office of stamp-distributors. In Providence, Rhode Island, after destroying the house and furniture of an obnoxious citizen, a mob compelled the stamp-officer to resign. At New Haven, in Connecticut, Ingersoll was denounced as a traitor; and the fact that the initials of his name were those of Judas Iscariot was publicly pointed out, and he was compelled to promise that he would not sell stamps or stamped paper. He was finally forced to resign by a multitude who threatened him with personal violence.
Cadwallader Colden, a venerable Scotchman, then eighty years of age, was acting- governor of New York. He was a liberal-minded man, but duty to his sovereign and his own political convictions compelled him to oppose the popular movements. James McEvers was appointed stamp-distributor for New York. The Sons of Liberty demanded his resignation. The governor protected him. When, late in October, stamps arrived, McEvers, alarmed, refused to receive them, and they were taken to the fort at the foot of Broadway for safety. The garrison was strong, and the governor had strengthened the works. This covert menace exasperated the people. Although armed British ships were riding in the harbor, and the guns of the fort were pointed toward the town, the Sons of Liberty were not afraid. They appeared in large numbers before the fort, and demanded the stamps. A refusal was answered by defiant shouts. An orderly procession soon became a roaring mob. Half an hour after the refusal, the governor was hung in effigy on the spot where Leisler, the democrat, was executed seventy-five years before. Then the mob went back to the fort, dragged Colden's fine coach to the open space in front of it, and tearing down the wooden railing that surrounded the Bowling Green, piled it upon the vehicle, and made a bonfire of the whole. Then they rushed out of town to the beautiful dwelling-place of Major James, of the artillery (at the present intersection of Worth street and West Broadway), where they destroyed his fine library, works of art and furniture, and desolated his beautiful garden, leaving his seat, called Ranelagh, a ruin. After parading the streets with the stamp act printed on large sheets and raised upon poles, with the words, "England's Folly and America's Ruin," the populace dispersed to their homes.
In New Jersey, Coxe, the stamp-officer, fearing violence, resigned. At Annapolis, in Maryland, the excited populace pulled down a house that Zachariah Hood, a stamp-officer, was repairing for the purpose, they thought, of selling stamps in it, and the governor dared not interfere. General alarm prevailed among the officers of the crown. They saw that the Americans were thoroughly aroused and very strong. In other colonies not here named, there was equal firmness, but less violence, in preventing the sale of stamps; and when the first of November arrived, the law, so far as its enforcement was concerned, was a nullity.
The invitation of Massachusetts for the colonies to meet in a representative convention in New York was promptly responded to favorably, and the famous "Stamp Act Congress," so called, assembled at New York on the 7th of October. Twenty-seven delegates were present, representing nine colonies, namely, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina. Timothy Ruggles of Massachusetts, a rank tory at heart, was chosen to preside, and John Cotton was appointed secretary. Communications were received from the assemblies of New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, saying they would agree to whatever might be done by the Congress. That body continued in session fourteen days, and the whole subject of the rights and grievances of the colonies was fully discussed. John Cruger of New York, was deputed to write a Declaration of Rights; Robert R. Livingston of New York, prepared a Petition to the King; and James Otis of Massachusetts, wrote a Memorial to both Houses of Parliament. These were adopted, and have ever been regarded as able state papers. They embodied the principles that governed the men of the Revolution that broke out ten years afterward. The proceedings were signed by all but the President and Robert Ogden of New Jersey, both of whom thus early manifested their defection from a cause which they afterward openly opposed. Ruggles was censured for his conduct by a vote of the Massachusetts Assembly, and was reprimanded, in his place, by the Speaker. He afterward became a bitter Tory, and took up arms for the king. In Mrs. Mercy Warren's drama called The Group, Ruggles figures as Brigadier Hate- all. Ogden was also publicly censured for his conduct; was burned in effigy, and at the next meeting of the New Jersey Assembly was dismissed from the Speaker's chair, which honorable post he held at the time of the Congress. These men had insisted in that body that resistance to the act was treason, and they, in turn, were denounced as traitors to the rights of man.
On the first of November, 1765, the stamp act became a law in America. It had been ably discussed by the brightest intellects in the land, and generally denounced, sometimes with calmness, sometimes with turbulence. It was manifest to all that its enforcement was an impossibility; yet its existence was a perplexity. No legal instrument of writing was thereafter valid without a stamp, by a law of the British realm. But on that day there remained not one person commissioned to sell a stamp, for they had all resigned. The royal governors had taken an oath that they would see that the law was executed, but they were powerless. The people were their masters, and were simply holding their own power in abeyance.
The first of November was Friday. It was a "black Friday" in America. The morning was ushered by the tolling of bells. A funeral solemnity overspread the land. Minute-guns were fired as if a funeral procession was passing. Flags were hoisted at half-mast as if there had been a national bereavement. There were orations and sermons appropriate to the occasion. The press spoke out boldly. "The press is the test of truth; the bulwark of public safety; the guardian of freedom, and the people ought not to sacrifice it," said Benjamin Mecom, of New Haven, in his Connecticut Gazette, printed that morning, and filled with patriotic appeals. This was the spirit of most of the newspapers. Such, also, was the spirit of most of the Congregational pulpits. Patriots everywhere encouraged each other; and a yearning for union was universally felt. "Nothing will now save us but acting together," wrote the sturdy Gadsden of South Carolina. "The province that endeavors to act separately must fall with the rest, and be branded besides with everlasting infamy."
As none but stamped paper was legal, and as the people had determined not to use it, all business was suspended. The courts were closed; marriages ceased; vessels lay idle in the harbors, and the social and commercial operations in America were paralyzed. Few dared to think of positive rebellion. The sword of British power was ready to leap from its scabbard in wrath; and a general gloom overspread society. Yet the Americans did not despair nor even despond. They held in their hands a power which might compel the British Parliament to repeal the obnoxious act. The commerce between Great Britain and the colonies had become very important, and any measure that might interrupt its course would be keenly felt by a large and powerful class in England, whose influence was felt in Parliament. The expediency of striking a deadly blow at that trade occurred to some New York merchants, and on the 31st of October-the day before the obnoxious act went into operation-a meeting was held in that city, and an agreement entered into not to import from England certain enumerated articles after the first of January next ensuing. The merchants of Philadelphia and Boston readily entered into a similar agreement. So also did retail merchants agree not to buy or sell goods shipped from England after the first of January. In this way was begun that system of non-importation agreements which hurled back upon England, with great force, the commercial miseries she had inflicted upon the colonies.
The patriotic people co-operated with the merchants. Domestic manufactures were commenced in almost every family. Forty or fifty young ladies, calling themselves "Daughters of Liberty," met at the house of Rev. Dr. Morehead, in Boston, with their spinning-wheels, and spun two hundred and thirty-two skeins of yarn during a day and presented them to the pastor. There were upwards of one hundred spinners in Mr. Morehead's society. "Within a month," wrote a gentleman from Newport, Rhode Island, some time afterward, "four hundred and eighty-seven yards of cloth and thirty-six pairs of stockings have been spun and knit in the family of James Nixon, of this town." Other families were mentioned in which several hundred yards of cloth were made. Another from Newport said: "A lady of this town, though in the bloom of youth, and possessed of virtues and accomplishments, engaging, and sufficient to excite the most pleasing expectations of happiness in the married state, had declared that she should rather be an old maid than that the operations of the stamp act should commence in these colonies." The wealthiest vied with the middling classes in economy, and wore clothing of their own manufacture. That wool might not be scarce, the use of sheep flesh for food was discouraged. One source of British prosperity was thus dried up. When firm but respectful appeals went to the ears of the British ministry from America, the merchants and manufacturers of England seconded them, and their potential voices were heeded.
PITT ATTEMPTS TO FORM A NEW CABINETDUKE OF CUMBERLAND'S MINISTRYAMERICAN AFFAIRS IN PARLIAMENTPITT'S GREAT SPEECHREPEAL OF THE STAMP ACTTHE DECLARATORY ACTPITT CARICATUREDJOYFUL PROCEEDINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA PITT MADE A PEER AND BECOMES UNPOPULARPITT'S CABINETBRITISH TROOPS IN NEW YORKTHE LIBERTYPOLETAXATION MEASURES ADOPTED BY PARLIAMENTINDIGNATION OF THE AMERICANSHOPES OF THE FRENCHTHEY SEND AN EMISSARY TO AMERICA PREPARATIONS FOR RESISTANCE.
IN the early summer of 1765, Grenville found his administration embarrassed by conflicting political interests, and the king was dissatisfied with what his minister failed to accomplish. The monarch, influenced by men of greater minds than his own, had resolved on a change. The public were loudly clamoring for the restoration of Pitt to the premiership. The king was not unwilling, and in June he summoned that statesman to an audience. Pitt was shy; he would not commit himself until he knew what lines of policy were to be pursued. The king yielded much. Among other things he agreed to a repeal of the English cider tax and a change in the American stamp tax, and then Pitt consented to form a new ministry. He sent for his brother-in-law, Lord Temple, to whom he offered the seals of the treasury. Temple declined. He was influenced by Grenville, and Pitt was thwarted. Then the Duke of Cumberland attempted to form a ministry. He well knew the value of Pitt, and the importance of having him a leading spirit in the cabinet. To accomplish this end, he visited the great commoner in person, at Hayes, where Pitt was laid up with the gout, but he failed in his mission, and made up an incongruous cabinet. This visit to Hayes drew forth a caricature that was inspired by the ministers out of office. The Duke of Cumberland is seen as a courier riding in hot haste to consult the gouty foot of the statesman, which is seen projecting from the door of a country inn, and swathed in flannels. On a sign-board over the door is an inflated bladder inscribed "Popularity," and under it the initials of Pitt W.P.
In the new cabinet, the Marquis of Rockingham, a friend of the Americans, took the place of Grenville; General Conway, another friend, was appointed Secretary of State with the management of the House of Commons, assisted by the Duke of Grafton. This office concerned the Americans more than any other, for its incumbent dealt directly with them. These, with other members of the cabinet, formed such a motley group of men of conflicting political views, that its early dissolution seemed inevitable. Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son: "It will either require repairs or a keystone next winter; and that keystone will and must necessarily be Mr. Pitt." Such was the tendency and such was the expectation all the autumn-that memorable autumn when the tempest of opposition to the stamp tax raged in America. At the same time Mr. Pitt's health gradually improved. At the close of November, he wrote to his wife from Bath: " I have been airing in the coach to-day for the second time, nearly three hours, and come untired, wanting nothing but dinner, and the sight of my love and of my children. I can stand with the help of crutches, and hope soon to discard one of them. Who knows, in time, what may become of his companion? My left hand holds a fork at dinner with some gentilenesse, and my right, as you see, a pen." The statesman's health continued to improve, and when Parliament assembled after the Christmas holidays, he was in his place, and indulged a feeling of confidence in Rockingham.
Meanwhile public sentiment had been deeply stirred in England by events in America, while strange apathy marked the conduct of the king and Parliament. In his speech, when the latter assembled at the middle of December, and when the conduct of the Americans and their petitions and remonstrances were made known, the monarch barely alluded to unpleasant occurrences in the colonies that might demand the attention of the legislature. That body seemed quite as indifferent to the news from beyond the sea as the king, and almost immediately adjourned. But when they reassembled in January, 1766, the ministry were fully alive to the necessity of prompt and vigorous action. The king, after alluding to the disturbances in the colonies, assured the legislature that no time had been lost in issuing orders to his governors in America, and to the commander of his military forces there, "for the exertion of all the powers of government in suppressing riots and tumults, and in the effectual support of lawful authority." The rest he left to the wisdom of Parliament.
The debate on American affairs opened with a discussion of the speech of the king, which, by Grenville and others, was considered altogether too lenient toward the rebellious Americans. Pitt, who was in his place in the House, with his legs swathed in flannels, arose, and leaning upon his crutches, made one of the most remarkable speeches ever heard in the House of Commons. After a brief review of his own career as premier, he animadverted upon the tardiness of the ministry in laying an account of the disturbances in America before Parliament, and declared that, in his opinion, the government of Great Britain had no right to tax the colonists. "They are subjects of this kingdom," he said, "equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating in the constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, not the bastards of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative powers. Taxes are the voluntary gift or grant of the Commons alone. When, therefore, in this House, we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your majesty, what? Our own property? No; we give and grant to your majesty the property of your majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms.". "There is," he continued, "an idea that the colonies are virtually represented in this House. I would fain know by whom an American is represented here. Is he represented here by any knight of the shire in any county of this kingdom? Would to God that respectable representation was augmented to a greater number! Or will you tell him that he is represented by any representation of a borough-a borough which, perhaps, its own representative never saw?" Then, with a prophetic glance at future parliamentary reform, he said: "This is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. It cannot continue a century; if it does not drop, it must be amputated."
When Pitt sat down, the House, awed into silence by his brilliant declamation, remained so for a few minutes, when General Conway, of the cabinet, arose and declared that his sentiments were consonant with those of the orator. Grenville took the floor and defended his measure as right in itself. He complained of the delay of ministers in giving notice of the disturbances in America. "They began," he said, "in July, and now we are in the middle of January. Lately they were only `occurrences,' they are now grown to `disturbances,' to `tumults,' and to `riots.' I doubt they border on open rebellion; and if the doctrines of this day be confirmed, that name will be lost in revolution." Then fixing his eyes sharply on Pitt, he exclaimed with emphasis: "The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth in this House. Gentlemen are careless of the consequences of what they say, provided it answer the purpose of opposition."
This thrust from his brother-in-law brought Pitt and others to their feet. There was a cry, "Mr. Pitt! Mr. Pitt!" when all but the great orator sat down. He then fell upon Grenville, and told him that since he had challenged him to the field, he would fight him on every foot of it. "He tells us that America is obstinate America is in open rebellion," said Pitt. "I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as to voluntarily submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." Alluding to the alleged strength of Great Britain and the weakness of America, he said: "It is true that in a good cause, on a good ground, the force of this country could crush America to atoms; but on this ground, on this stamp act, many here will think it a crying injustice, and I am one who will lift up my hands against it. In such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fall, would fall like the strong man; she would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her."
Pitt then proposed an absolute, total and immediate repeal of the stamp act, at the same time declaring the absolute sovereignty of Great Britain over the colonies. His proposition was warmly seconded, and Edmund Burke, then thirty-six years of age and who was sitting in Parliament for the first time, made two remarkable speeches in favor of repeal. They were so logical and brilliant in expression, that he immediately took a front rank among the orators of the House of Commons. A repeal bill was introduced, and on the 18th of March it was passed by the House by a large majority. It was accompanied by Pitt's declaratory act, so called, which affirmed the right of Parliament "to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever"an act intended by the great statesman to soothe the feelings of some who might, by their votes, defeat the repeal bill. In the House of Lords it was stoutly opposed as a relinquishment of the sovereign power of the government. Lord Camden was favorable to repeal, but he was opposed to the declaratory act. Planting himself firmly on the maxim that taxation without representation is tyranny, "I will maintain it to the last," he said. "The position is founded in the law of nature. It is more; it is, itself, an eternal law of nature." On the day of its enactment (March 18), the repeal act became a law by receiving the reluctantly-given signature of the king.
The repeal of the stamp act produced great joy in England and America. In London the event was celebrated by bonfires and illuminations. The merchants had sweet dreams of reviving trade with the Americans. To Pitt was ascribed all the honor of the measure, and he was idolized. When he left the lobby of the House of Commons, the populace gathered around him with the most extravagant demonstrations of joy. The aristocracy, on the other hand, were offended and alarmed. "The king is made to bow to subjects," they said. "British power is set at naught; the foundation of the British empire is sapped." Pitt was lampooned and caricatured as a demagogue seeking popularity. One of the pictures entitled "The Colossus," represents Pitt raised on very lofty stilts, his gouty leg resting on the Royal Exchange in London, which is surrounded by bubbles inscribed "War," "Peace," etc. This stilt is called "Popularity." The other, called "Sedition," he stretches over the sea toward New York, seen in the distance, and fishing for popularity in the Atlantic Ocean. He rests on a long staff entitled "Pension." Above Pitt's head hangs the broad hat of the commonwealth; and in the air, on one side, is seen Lord Temple occupied in blowing bubbles which support the "great Commoner's" fame. This picture, and the lines below which accompanied it, show the spirit of that day:
"Tell to me if you are witty, Whose wooden leg is in de city, Eh bien drole, 'tis de great pity. Doodle doo.
"De broad-brim hat he thrust his nob in, De while St. Stephen's throng are throbbing. One crutch in America is bobbling. Doodle doo.
"But who be yonder odd man there, sir! Building de castle in de air, sir? Oh! 'tis de Temple one may swear, sir! Doodle doo.
"Stamp act, le diable! dat's de jot, sir, Dat stampt it in de stilt-man's nob, sir, To be America's nabob, sir. Doodle doo.
"De English dream vid leetle vit, sir; For de French dey make de Pit, sir, 'Tis a pit for dem who now are hit, sir. Doodle, noodle, doo."
Equal joy was manifested in America, when news of the repeal came over the Atlantic. Pitt, the King, and the Parliament shared in the honors of congratulatory cannon-peals, oratory, bonfires, illuminations, and great meetings of citizens. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty gathered under the Liberty- Tree and adopted the most laudatory resolutions concerning the immediate participants in the measures that brought about the repeal. A day was set apart for celebrating the event. The dawn was ushered in by the roar of artillery and the ringing of bells. John Hancock, a leading patriot and wealthy merchant of Boston, opened a pipe of wine in front of his fine mansion on Beacon street; and at the suggestion of "a fair Boston nymph," the liberal citizen raised funds and ransomed and set at liberty every prisoner for debt in the jail of the New England metropolis, that they might participate in the general joy. All the great houses were illuminated, and many feasts were given. The local government dined at the Province House, where many loyal toasts were drank. Past animosities were forgotten, and the 16th of May, 1766, was a happy day in Boston.
In New York there were equal demonstrations of joy. Pitt, the King, and Parliament were praised and honored. The news of the repeal reached that city on the 6th of May. Bells rang out a merry peal. Cannons shook the city, and placards were scattered over the town calling the people to assemble the next day to celebrate the joyous event. It was a beautiful May day, and everybody was in the open air. A long procession of citizens was formed at the Bowling Green and marched to "The Fields" (the site of the City Hall and Post-office), where a royal salute of twenty-one guns was fired. The Sons of Liberty had a great feast, whereat twenty-eight "loyal and constitutional toasts were drank." The city was illuminated at evening, and bonfires blazed on every corner. Again, on the king's birthday (June4), there was a celebration under the auspices of Governor Moore. That magistrate, the council, military officers and the clergy dined at the "King's Arms," on the west side of Broadway, opposite the Bowling Green, where General Gage had his headquarters. There were great rejoicings among the people in The Fields, where an ox was roasted whole; twenty-five barrels of beer and a hogshead of rum were opened for the populace; twenty-five pieces of cannon were ranged in a row and gave a royal salute, and in the evening twenty-five tar barrels hoisted upon poles, were burned, and gorgeous fire-works were exhibited at Bowling Green.
The Sons of Liberty also feasted together, and under the sanction of the governor they erected a tall mast in The Fields in front of Warren street, which they called a Liberty-Pole. Upon it they placed the inscription: To His Most Gracious Majesty George the Third, Mr. Pitt, and Liberty. At a meeting of citizens a fortnight later, a petition was numerously signed, praying the Assembly to erect a statue of Mr. Pitt. The Assembly complied; and on the same day that body resolved to set up an equestrian statue of the king. The former, made of marble, was placed at the intersection of Wall and Smith (now William) streets, in New York, and the latter, made of lead and gilded, was erected on a pedestal in the middle of the Bowling Green. These were set up in the year 1770. Within six years afterward, the statue of the king was pulled down and destroyed by republicans, and that of Pitt was mutilated by royalists soon afterward. In Philadelphia, Charleston, and other places, also, there were great demonstrations of joy and loyalty. That loyalty, so manifestly sincere, was developed by a single act of justice, and even that was qualified. If the British ministry had been wise, they might have easily conciliated the Americans and ushered in an era of peace and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. But they were not wise.
In the midst of the rejoicings, there were wise, thoughtful and patriotic men who shook their heads ominously, and whose voices seemed to many like the croakings of the raven. While the bells were ringing, cannons thundering and bonfires were blazing in Charleston, South Carolina, and the legislature were voting to erect the fine statue of Pitt yet standing in that southern city, Christopher Gadsden collected some of his political friends under a great live- oak tree, and warned them not to be deceived by the show of justice, for the fangs of the dragon of oppression, by Pitt's declaratory act, had been left untouched. Similar warning was given in other colonies; and very soon there was a reaction in the public mind. The liberal press of England denounced the act, and Pitt's plea of expediency could not save him from very severe censure by the Americans when they gravely considered the matter. It was perceived, by sagacious observers, that the repeal bill was only a truce in the war upon the liberty of the Americans. They watched every movement of the government party with suspicion. Within a few months, there came from the serpent's egg-the declaratory act-a brood of obnoxious measures which kindled the fiery indignation of the colonists.
When, in the summer of 1766, the popular Rockingham ministry was dissolved, and the king called Pitt to create a new ministry out of such material as he pleased, the liberal party in England watched the movement with some anxiety, for they knew how obstinately the monarch clung to the royal prerogative. When the king offered Pitt a peerage with the title of Viscount Pitt and Earl of Chatham, and he accepted the honor, his popularity fell suddenly to zero, and it never again went up to summer heat. There was a prevailing opinion that Bute and the Princess of Wales were still a power behind the throne, and fears were entertained that Pitt in his old age, eager for honors and emoluments, would be the puppet of the despised Scotch nobleman and the king's mother. In making up his cabinet, Pitt seems to have failed in sagacity. It was composed of such discordant materials that neither party knew what confidence to repose in it. It was largely composed of friends of the king, but the "colleagues whom he assorted at the same boards," wrote Burke, "stared at each other and were obliged to ask, `Sir, your name? Sir, you have the advantage of me; Mr. Such-a- one, I beg a thousand pardons.' I venture to say that it did so happen that persons had a single office divided between them who had never spoken to each other in their lives until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed." It was an administration utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand upon. Pitt's shattered health would not permit him to control the cabinet. Frequent fits of gout confined him at his country-seat much of the time, when his opposers and political enemies, whom, to please the king, he had clothed with power, devised and put into operation schemes for taxing the Americans, directly contrary to his well-known principles of action. It was during his administration of two years and four months that some of the most obnoxious acts of Parliament concerning the Americans became laws, under the fostering care of the ministry. Troops had already been sent to America, in accordance with the provisions of a military act passed when news of the stamp-act disturbances in the colonies reached Parliament. A large portion of the House of Lords, the whole bench of bishops and many of the Commons, who did not doubt the right of the government to tax the colonies, urged the ministry to use coercive measures against them. A certain number of bishops are entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, with the same political powers of the peers, and the two classes compose the "Lords spiritual and Lords temporal" of the kingdom.
Troops were sent to New York with power, under the law, to break into houses in search of deserters. The royal governor demanded of the Assembly an appropriation for the subsistence of these avowed instruments of oppression. The people were indignant. The Sons of Liberty were aroused to action, and they resolved to oppose the measure to the utmost of their ability. Angry feelings were excited between the troops and the citizens. The former, insolent and overbearing, became objects of intense dislike; and when, three months after the Liberty-Pole was erected with so much harmony and loyalty, the soldiers, to show their power, cut it down, the indignation of the people almost drove them into open armed rebellion. They set up the pole again the next evening, in defiance of the soldiery, with whom they had a fracas, when some blood was shed. A month later the troops again prostrated the pole, and again the people re-erected it, and from its top unfurled the British banner which they loved so well. They bound the pole with iron to resist the axes of the mercenaries, and set a guard to watch it. The soldiers came with loaded muskets, fired some random shots into a house where the Sons of Liberty were assembled, and tried to drive the people from the fields. Fearful retaliation would have followed this act had not the governor, alarmed by the popular indignation, ordered the troops to refrain from further aggressive acts. That was in the spring of 1767. This defence of the Liberty-Pole in New York was applauded throughout the colonies, and was a manifestation of the spirit of the people everywhere.
Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, was a ruling spirit in the cabinet in the absence of Pitt. He and Grenville coalesced in devising new schemes for taxing the Americans. The latter proposed direct taxation to a considerable amount. In June (1767), a bill, proposed by Townshend, for levying duties on tea, glass, paper, painters' colors, and other articles imported by the colonists, was adopted by Parliament. In July, another bill was passed for the establishment of a board of revenue commissioners in the colonies, with their seat at Boston, to be independent of colonial legislation; also for creating resident commissioners of customs to enforce the revenue laws. Another was adopted a few days later, forbidding the Assembly of New York to perform any legislative act whatever, until they should comply with the requirements of the mutiny act in regard to the subsistence of the troops.
These taxation schemes were properly regarded as direct blows against the liberties of the Americans, and they excited almost as violent opposition as did the stamp act. The colonial assemblies boldly protested against them. The Assembly of New York disregarded the disabling act, while the royal governors, with their numerous retainers, as blind as their masters, elated by the prospect of being independent of the colonial assemblies, eagerly promoted the schemes of the ministry and so fostered opposition among the people. A warm discussion in Parliament, concerning the rebellious acts of the colonies, revealed the fact to the world that the Americans were on the eve of open rebellion. In the course of the debate they were charged with a design to revolt and set up an independent government. They were called "rebels" and "traitors." Even the cautious Lord Mansfield drew a picture of the "folly and wickedness of the American incendiaries," and the fatal effects upon England which the deplorable event of the separation of the colonists from the mother country might produce.
The prospect of disruption delighted the French ministry. Ever since the conquest of Canada, by which the French had been shorn by the English of a vast domain in America, the pride of that nation had been humbled at the feet of British power. There was a deep-seated determination to strike a deadly retaliatory blow when opportunity should offer. From the time of the treaty of Paris in 1763, the French government, seeing disaffection in the colonies, cherished the hope that it would grow into an open rupture which would lead to the withdrawal of those colonies from the government of Great Britain. That dismemberment of the empire was looked forward to by the French as the consummation of their wishes, and they resolved to help the Americans whenever they should enter upon a struggle, with arms, for their independence. That struggle now seemed to be near, and the chief French minister, Choiseul, resolved to send an emissary to America to spy out the real intentions of the colonists, if possible. That emissary was the Baron De Kalb, a colonel from the Franco-German province of Alsace, who was afterward a general in the American army of the Revolution, and fell a martyr, near Camden, in South Carolina. He was instructed to ascertain the wants of the Americans in respect to engineers and artillery officers, and munitions of war and stores; the strength of their purpose to withdraw from Great Britain; their resources in troops and fortifications; the plan of their projected revolution, and the character of their leaders, civil and military. The French minister did not comprehend the real loyalty of the Americans, nor their power of endurance and patience under provocation. The baron performed the service, but his report did not warrant Choiseul in hoping for an immediate rupture. From that time it was the cherished policy of the French government to foster the quarrel, and to give aid to the Americans whenever they should strike a blow for freedom. They did so, as we shall observe hereafter, for the sole purpose of injuring Great Britain and restricting her power.
Meanwhile the colonists were preparing for resistance to the taxation schemes. The common danger had thoroughly united them, and a feeling of nationality was budding in their hearts. The committees of correspondence kept each colony fully acquainted with the sentiments and acts of the others. The assemblies and people took the broad view expressed by James Otis, that "taxes on trade, if designed to raise a revenue, were just as much a violation of their rights as any other tax." The colonial newspapers, then about thirty in number, were becoming tribunes of the people, and in them the principles of liberty and the rights of the colonists were ably discussed in short essays. Among the most effective of these were a dozen "Letters of a Farmer of Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies," which were published in a Philadelphia newspaper in the summer and autumn of 1767. In a style of great simplicity, vigor and animation, their author (John Dickinson, an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia) portrayed the unconstitutionality of the conduct of Great Britain, the imminent peril to liberty in America which existed, and the fatal consequences of a supine acquiescence in ministerial measures-more fatal as precedents than by the immediate calamities they were calculated to produce. Votes of thanks were given to Dickinson at public meetings; and in May, 1768, an association in Philadelphia, called the Society of Fort St. David, presented an address to him "in a box of heart of oak," with suitable inscriptions. On the top was represented the Phoenician cap of liberty on a spear, resting on a cipher of the letters "J. D." ; underneath the cipher, in a semi-circular label, were the words "Pro Patria." Around the whole, the following: "The gift of the Governor and Society of Fort St. David to the author of THE FARMER'S LETTERS, in grateful testimony to the very eminent service thereby rendered to this country, 1768." On the inside of the lid was the following inscription: "The Liberties of the British colonies in America asserted with Attic eloquence and Roman spirit, by John Dickinson, barrister-at-law."
The immediate and subsequent effects of these letters were wonderful. The colonial assemblies noticed them, and upon the broad grounds of right and justice laid down in these essays, they denounced the acts of Parliament. Non- importation associations which had been dissolved on the repeal of the stamp act were reorganized, and that powerful machinery almost destroyed the commerce with England. Dr. Franklin caused the Letters to be republished in London, with a preface written by himself, in 1768. They were also translated into French and published in Paris.
THE AMERICANS RESOLVE TO RESISTVIOLENCE DEPRECATEDVIEWS OF LEADERSFOLLY OF THE MINISTRYTHE MASSACHUSETTS CIRCULARACTS OF CROWN OFFICERSTHE ISSUE HILLSBOROUGH'S INSTRUCTIONSTEMPER OF THE OTHER COLONIESA PROPHECYA WARLIKE MENACESEIZURE OF THE "LIBERTY" EXCITING SCENES AT BOSTON FIRMNESS OF THE CITIZENS ACTION ON RESCINDING BY THE ASSEMBLY A THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY.
AT the beginning of 1768, the Americans, educated by a long series of moral and political contests with the government of Great Britain, and assured by recent experience and observation of their own sound and potent physical and moral strength derived from numbers and the justice of their acts, stood in an attitude of firm resolve not to submit to the new schemes of the ministry for their enslavement. They were determined to maintain home rule inviolate in their political affairs, yet they were willing to bear with patience the pressure upon their industrial enterprise of old acts of Parliament then unrepealed. They were still eminently loyal, and were proud of the honor of being British subjects in its broad sense of nationality. But to the eye of a superficial observer the Americans, at that time, were in a state of open revolt. Their representative assemblies, uttering the voices of the people, were defying the power of Great Britain which threatened to impose unjust and unconstitutional laws upon them, and to enforce them with ball and bayonet. The nonimportation agreements, working disastrously against British commerce, were again in full force; and the spirit of resistance was rife among the people.
But the leaders of American opinion, deprecating the spasmodic violence seen in opposition to the stamp act, counselled moderation, and condemned any but legal, just, and dignified measures. They saw that a crisis was at hand, when statesmanship of the highest order would be needed in the popular representative assemblies, and wise and judicious men were wanted as popular leaders of the people. When, in Boston, a placard appeared, calling on the "Sons of Liberty" to "rise and fight for their rights," and declaring that they "would be joined by legions," James Otis, in a town-meeting, denounced that spirit. "Were the burdens of the people ever so heavy," he said, "or their grievances ever so great, no possible circumstances, though ever so oppressive, could be supposed sufficient to justify private tumults and disorders, either to their consciences before God or legally before men; that their forefathers, in the beginning of the reign of Charles I, for fifteen years together, were continually offering up prayers to their God, and petitions to their king, for redress of grievances, before they would betake themselves to any forcible measures; and to insult and tear each other in pieces was to act like madmen." John Dickinson wrote: "Our cause is a cause of the highest dignity; it is nothing less than to maintain the liberty with which Heaven itself has made us free. I hope it will not be disgraced in any colony by a single rash step. We have constitutional methods of seeking redress, and they are the best methods." Like sentiments were expressed by other patriotic leaders; and their advice to stand in an attitude of defence and not of aggression- to make the king and his ministers the real revolutionists if revolution should occur-was heartily endorsed by the people. It was a new, a benign, and a thoroughly American method of resisting the oppressions of an imperial government- a method having its foundations on law, enlightened public opinion, and social order.
Had the king and his ministers been wise, and simply respected the natural and chartered rights of the colonists, the climax of revolution toward which events were rapidly tending might have been indefinitely postponed. But they were not wise. The pride of power would not brook resistance or even opposition to its wishes and its will. The three estates of the realm-King, Lords, and Commons- esteeming themselves collectively the absolute masters of America, resolved to teach the colonists that implicit obedience was their birthright and their natural and legal tribute to that master. Leaning upon the acknowledged power of Great Britain to execute the will of the King and Parliament in America, that government resolved to effect a thorough revolution in the colonial governments by military force; to establish a vast consolidated empire under absolute royal rule, and to lay the foundations of a great American revenue. When the suggestion was made to Charles Townshend that the troops might be safely withdrawn from America, and by so lessening the expenses might lessen the need of a revenue and causes for discontent, the imperious minister replied: "I will hear nothing on that subject; the moment a resolution shall be taken to withdraw the army, I will resign my office and have no more to do in public affairs. I insist it is absolutely necessary to keep up a large army there and here. An American army and consequently an American revenue are essential."
At that time Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, was regarded as the focus of sedition, and consequently had become the objects of the suspicion and wrath of the ministry. That Massachusetts was the "head centre" of opposition to ministerial and parliamentary injustice, cannot be truthfully denied. At the opening of the Assembly of that province at the beginning of 1768, the several obnoxious acts then recently passed were read and referred to a committee on the state of the province. That committee submitted a Letter addressed to the agent of the colony in England, but intended for the ministry. It set forth the rights of the Americans; their equality with British subjects as free citizens, and their right to local self-government. It expressed loyalty, and disclaimed a desire for independence; opposed the late acts as unconstitutional; remonstrated against the maintaining of a standing army in America as expensive, useless, altogether inadequate to compel obedience, and as dangerous to liberty. It objected to the establishment here of commissioners of customs; expressed alarm because of the attempt to annihilate the legislative authority of New York, and indicated the intention of Massachusetts to defend its rights. After much debate the Letter was adopted with other epistles to distinguished men in England; also a petition to the king couched in beautiful and touching language, in which a brief history of the settlements of the colonies was recounted; the story of their investment of rights by the revolution of 1688 was told, and the principles of the sacred right of being taxed only by representatives of their own free election were laid down. All of these documents were the production of the teeming brain and facile pen of Samuel Adams, one of the soundest, purest, most inflexible and incorruptible men of his time; poor in purse, but rich in principle; of whom Governor Hutchinson said, "He is of such an obstinate and inflexible disposition that he could never be conciliated by any office or gift whatever."
In February, a Circular Letter, also written by Samuel Adams, was sent to the several colonial assemblies, informing them of the contents of the Letter to the agent of the province, and the petition to the king, and inviting them to join the people of Massachusetts in "maintaining the liberties of America."
This Circular was fearlessly laid before Governor Bradford, for the patriots had nothing to conceal. It excited his fears and indignation. He wrote a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the colonies, in which he grossly misrepresented the temper and sentiments of the Circular, and declared that the Americans were aiming at independence. The board of commissioners of the revenue at Boston, who had lately been appointed, wrote in like manner', declaring their belief that their persons were not safe; that the seeming moderation of the Americans was illusory; that the colonists were uniting to throw off the yoke of dependence; complaining that at the town-meetings in the province "the lowest mechanics discussed the most important points of government with the utmost freedom, and said: "We have every reason to expect that we shall find it impracticable to enforce the execution of the revenue laws until the hand of government is properly strengthened. At present there is not a ship-of- war in the province, nor a company of soldiers nearer than New York." Massachusetts said to the ministry: "Touch not our local government, and relieve us of taxation without representation," and asked her sister colonies to join in the just demand. The crown officers said to the ministry: "Send us a fleet and army that we may destroy the local governments and tax the people without their consent." This was now the issue. To this complexion it had come at last; and the crown officers, wishing to have troops sent over, that the work might be speedily accomplished, wrote alarming letters home about concerted insurrections and of danger to the commissioners of customs. They pretended that the anniversary of the repeal of the stamp act was the day fixed for unlawful proceedings; and they tried to excite the people to some violent act to justify their accusations, by causing the effigies of two revenue officers to be seen hanging on Liberty-Tree on that morning. The "Sons of Liberty" quietly took them down, and celebrated the day in a temperate manner. Not even a bonfire was lighted in the streets at night; and only a few men, women and children gathered with harmless demonstrations of joy. The false Bernard wrote that there was great disposition to disorder; that "hundreds paraded the streets with yells and outcries that were quite terrible."
When, at the middle of April, the Circular and the misrepresentations of Bernard and other crown officers reached Hillsborough, he sent instructions to the governor to call upon the General Assembly of Massachusetts to rescind their resolutions, the substance of which was embodied in their Circular, and in case of refusal to dissolve them. Meanwhile responses to the Circular had come to Boston from the other assemblies, expressing cordial approbation of its sentiments. Individuals also sent approving letters, and patriots issued appeals to the people through the medium of newspapers and pamphlets. "Courage, Americans!" wrote William Livingston (it is supposed, an eminent Presbyterian lawyer in New York), in the American Whig, No. V. "Liberty, religion, and science are on the wing to these shores. The finger of God points out a mighty empire to your sons. The savages of the wilderness were never expelled to make room for idolaters and slaves. The land we possess is the gift of Heaven to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed it to our latest posterity. So legible is this munificent and celestial deed in past events, that we need not be discouraged by the bickerings between us and the parent country. The angry cloud will soon be dispersed, and America advance to felicity and glory with redoubled activity and vigor. The day dawns in which the foundations of this mighty empire is to be laid by the establishment of a regular American constitution. All that has hitherto been done seems to be little beside the collection of materials for the construction of this glorious fabric. 'Tis time to put them together. The transfer of the European part of the great family is so swift, and our growth so vast, that before seven years roll over our heads the first stone must be laid. Peace or war, famine or plenty, poverty or affluence-in a word, no circumstance, whether prosperous or adverse, can happen to our parent-nay, no conduct of hers, whether wise or imprudent-no possible temper on her part, will put a stop to this building." So ran the prophecy in 1768. At the end of seven years its fulfillment began in earnest.
With his instructions to Bernard, Hillsborough sent a letter to the other royal governors, describing the Massachusetts Circular as "of a most dangerous and factious tendency," and directing them to use their influence to induce their respective assemblies to treat it "with the contempt it deserved." The governors were also instructed, in case the assemblies gave "any countenance to the seditious paper," to immediately dissolve them. By these means the Secretary hoped to induce the other assemblies to oppose the bold measure proposed by Massachusetts, and so isolate that province. The result did not justify his hopes. By this attempt to control their action, the assemblies were irritated, and their zeal in the cause in which Massachusetts was leading was increased. Meanwhile orders had been given to General Gage at New York to hold a regiment in readiness there to send to Boston, for the assistance of the crown officers in executing the laws. The admiralty was also directed to send a frigate and four smaller vessels-of-war to Boston harbor for the same purpose, and directions were given for the repairing and occupancy of Castle William on an island in that harbor. This measure was regarded by the Americans as a virtual declaration of war, yet they resolved to keep the sword of resistance in the scabbard as long as possible.
The commissioners of customs and the master of a sloop-of-war which, at their request, had come to Boston from Halifax, now assumed the utmost insolence of manner and speech toward the people. New England men were impressed into the British naval service, and in June, the sloop Liberty, belonging to John Hancock, whom the crown officers cordially hated because of his opposition to them, was seized under peculiar circumstances. She had come into the harbor with a cargo of Madeira wine. Just at sunset, the "tide-waiter" in the employ of the commissioners went on board, and took his seat in the cabin, as usual, to drink punch with the master until the sailors should land the cargo of dutiable goods. Hancock had resolved to resist the obnoxious revenue laws; and at about nine o'clock in the evening, his captain and others in his employ entered the cabin, confined the tidewaiter, and proceeded to land the wine without entering it at the custom-house or observing any other formula. So great were the exertions of the master of the Liberty that night, that he died from their effects before morning.
The sloop was now seized by the officers of the customs for a violation of the revenue laws. A crowd of citizens quickly gathered at the wharf, and as the proceedings went on, a part of them, of the lower order, became a mob under the lead of Malcom, a bold smuggler. The collector (Harrison) and the controller (Hallowell) were there to enforce the law. The former thought the sloop might remain at Hancock's wharf with the broad arrow upon her (a mark designating her legal position); but the latter had determined to have her moored under the guns of the war-vessel (Romney, of sixty guns), and had sent for her boats to come ashore. An exciting scene now occurred, which Mr. Bancroft has described as follows:
"'You had better let the vessel be at the wharf,' said Malcom. 'I shall not,' said Hallowell, and gave directions to cut the fasts. 'Stop, at least, till the owner comes,' said the people who crowded round. 'No, damn you,' cried Hallowell, 'cast her off.' 'I'll split out the brains of any man that offers to receive a fast or stop the vessel,' said the master of the Romney; and he shouted to the marines to fire. 'What rascal is that who dares to tell the marines to fire?' cried a Bostoneer; and turning to Harrison, the collector, a well-meaning man, who disapproved the violent manner of the seizure, he added: 'The owner is sent for; you had better let her lie at the wharf till he comes down.' 'No, she shall go,' insisted the controller; 'show me the man who dares oppose it.' 'Kill the damned scoundrel,' cried the master. 'We will throw the people from the Romney overboard,' said Malcom, stung with anger. 'By God she shall go,' repeated the master, and he more than once called to the marines, 'Why don't you fire?' and bade them fire. So they cut her moorings, and with ropes in the barges the sloop was towed away to the Romney."
This act excited the hot indignation of the people. A mob, led by Malcom, followed the custom-house officers, pelted them with stones and other missiles, and broke the windows of their offices. The mob seized a pleasure-boat belonging to the collector, and after dragging it through the town, burned it on the Common. Then they quietly dispersed. The commissioners were unhurt, but greatly alarmed. They applied to the governor for protection, but he, as much frightened as they, told them he was powerless. They finally fled to the Romney, and thence to Castle William, nearly three miles southeast of the city, where a company of British artillery were stationed. They were in no real danger in the city, but they were playing a deep game to deceive the ministry.
The "Sons of Liberty" now called a meeting of the citizens at Faneuil Hall, in a large building erected by Peter Faneuil in 1742 for the use of the town. They assembled in great numbers on the 13th of June, 1768. Citizens and yeomen from the surrounding country commingled there, all animated by a spirit of patriotic defiance. James Otis was appointed chairman. A committee of twenty-one citizens were requested to convey to the governor an address adopted by the assemblage, asking him to order the Romney to leave the harbor, and to restrain further violent proceedings on the part of the crown officers. At that meeting the people plainly told the crown that its oppressions must cease. So was Faneuil Hall consecrated as The Cradle of Liberty.
In eleven chaises the committee went in procession to the governor's house in the country. Bernard received them courteously, and the next day he sent a reply to the address, in which he promised to stop impressments, and said: "I shall think myself most highly honored if I can be, in the lowest degree, an instrument in preserving a perfect conciliation between you and the parent state." At that very time, the dissimulating governor was using his utmost endeavors to get troops into Boston, either from New York or England, and had written to his superiors that the events of the 10th of June constituted "an insurrection rather than a riot." The crown officers all reported that "a general spirit of insurrection was prevailing throughout the province," hoping to induce the ministry to use vigorous measures immediately for subjugating the Americans. Meanwhile the town of Boston declared in words written by John Adams, a rising young lawyer, that "every person who shall solicit or promote the importation of troops at this time is an enemy to the town and province, and a disturber of the peace and good order of both."
While the excitement was at its height, the instructions of Hillsborough concerning the rescinding of the Massachusetts resolutions arrived. The Assembly were in session. On the 21st of June the governor delivered his message in accordance with those instructions. The House was composed of one hundred and nine members - much the largest legislative body in America. The message was received with calmness, and discussed with moderation but firmness. James Otis and Samuel Adams were the chief speakers. The latter was grave in demeanor and philosophical in his utterance. The former was fiery, and more declamatory. The friends of the king and Parliament declared that his harangue was "the most violent, insolent, abusive and treasonable declaration that perhaps ever was delivered." "When Lord Hillsborough knows," said Otis, "that we will not rescind our acts, he should apply to Parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britons rescind their measures, or they are lost forever!"
For more than an hour Otis harangued the Assembly with words similar to these in meaning and intensity of expression. Even the "Sons of Liberty" trembled lest he should tread upon the domain of treason. The House refused to rescind, passed resolutions denunciatory of this attempt to arrest free discussion and expressions of opinion, and then sent a letter to the governor informing him of their action. "If the votes of this House," they said, "are to be controlled by direction of a minister, we have left us but a vain semblance of liberty. We have now only to inform you that this House have voted not to rescind, and that, in a division on the question, there were ninety-two years and seventeen nays." The seventeen "rescinders" became objects of public contempt. The governor was irritated by the "insolent letter," and proceeded to dissolve the Assembly; but before the act was accomplished that body had prepared a list of serious accusations against him, and a petition to the king praying for his removal. Massachusetts felt strong in the assurances of sympathy and support received from the other colonies.
We have hinted that the Church and State in England worked in concert for the enslavement of the Americans. So early as 1748, Dr. Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, had proposed the establishment of Episcopacy in America, and overtures were made to several eminent Puritan divines to accept the mitre, but they all declined it. It was known that among other reforms in the colonies, proposed by the ministry at the beginning of the reign of George the Third, was the curtailment or destruction of the Puritan, or Dissenting influence in the provinces, and to make the ritual of the Anglican Church the State mode of worship. This movement was made as secretly as possible, but it could not be wholly concealed. Rev. George Whitefield said to Dr. Langdon, a Puritan divine at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, "I can't, in conscience, leave this town without acquainting you with a secret. My heart bleeds for America. O poor New England! There is a deep-laid plot against both your civil and religious liberties, and they will be lost. Your golden days are at an end. You have nothing but trouble before you. My information comes from the best authority in Great Britain. I was allowed to speak of the affair in general, but enjoined not to mention particulars. Your liberties will be lost."
Remembering the aspect of Episcopacy or rather of the Anglican Church in the early colonial days, the Americans had ever looked upon that Church as a partner of the State in its acts of oppression, and they feared its power. They well knew that if Parliament could create dioceses and appoint bishops, they would establish tithes and crush out dissent as a heresy. For years controversy on the subject was very warm and sometimes acrimonious in this country. The Anglican Church had many adherents in nearly all the colonies, and they naturally desired its ascendency. Essays by able writers appeared in pamphlets and sometimes in newspapers for and against Episcopacy. Among those of its opponents, none held a more trenchant pen than William Livingston, just mentioned. Dr. Ewer, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, had preached a sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in which he recommended the scheme for establishing Episcopacy in America, and heaped abuse upon the colonists, who were mostly Dissenters. "Upon the adventurers themselves," he said, "what reproach could be cast heavier than they deserved? Who, with their native soil abandoned their native manners and religion, and ere long were found in many parts living without remembrance or knowledge of God, without any divine worship, in dissolute wickedness and the most brutal profligacy of manners. Instead of civilizing and converting barbarious infidels, as they undertook to do, they became, themselves, infidels and barbarians." With this view of the state of religion in the colonies, the prelate concluded that the only remedy for the great evil was to be found in a church establishment. His recommendations were laid hold of with a firm grasp by churchmen in this country, and urged with zeal. Dr. Chandler of Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, published "An Appeal to the Public in behalf of the Church of England" - an able and moderate performance. Men of less note followed, and echoed the sentiments of the worthy rector.
The Dissenters were aroused. They perceived in the Bishop's sermon the spirit of the old persecuting Church, and visions of Laud and the Star Chamber troubled them. They felt that their "liberties were in danger," without a doubt. The unjust reproaches of the prelate were severely commented upon, and his erroneous assertions were met with truth. Dr. Chauncey of Boston first entered the lists against him and his abettors; and early in 1768, Mr. Livingston issued, in pamphlet form, his famous Letter to the prelate, in which, with sarcastic indignation of tone, he refuted the charges of that dignitary so completely that they were not repeated. The pamphlet was republished in London, and excited much attention in England. It was highly commended by all Dissenters in America; and in the summer of 1768, when Massachusetts was in a blaze of indignation because of the instructions of Hillsborough and the duplicity of Bernard, the consociated churches of the colony of Connecticut assembled in convention at Coventry with Noah Wells as their scribe or secretary, passed a vote of thanks to Mr. Livingston "for vindicating the New England churches and plantations against the injurious reflections and unjust aspersions cast upon them in the Bishop of Llandaff's sermon." This compliment was travestied by one of the champions of the church in a poem of fifty lines, which was published in Hugh Gaines' New York Mercury. It was entitled "A Reviving Cordial for a Fainting Hero." The following is its conclusion:
"March on, brave Will, and rear our Babel On Language so unanswerable; Give Church and State a hearty thump, And knock down Truth with Falsehoods plump; So flat shall fall their church's fair stones, Felled by another Praise-God-Bare-Bones. Signed with consent of all the Tribe, By Noh Ws our fasting scribe, The Scribe and Pharisee in meeting To William Lin send greeting."
This theological controversy ceased when the vital question of absolute resistance or submission to the encroachments of both Church and State upon the liberties of the Americans was brought to a final issue. In the war for independence which followed the ten years of discussion, appeal and remonstrance, many adherents to the republican cause were found among the members of the Anglican Church. The intimate relations of that Church with the State, however, caused many of its communion, especially of the clergy, to take the side of the crown.
A ROYAL ORDERITS EFFECT UPON THE PEOPLE AND THE ASSEMBLIESVIEWS OF PATRIOTS AND LEGISLATURESTHE COLONIES AN UNITHOPES OF THE FRENCHNUMBERS "FORTY- FIVE" AND "NINETY-TWO"JOHN WILKESPROPOSITIONS FOR PUNISHING THE LEADERS IN BOSTONPERFIDY OF THE GOVERNORINDIGNATION OF THE PEOPLENON-IMPORTATION LEAGUECOMMITTEE BEFORE THE GOVERNORCONVENTION IN BOSTONTHE PEOPLE AROUSED- -TROUBLES IN NORTH CAROLINATHE REGULATORS.
THE royal order sent by Hillsborough late in April, 1768, requiring the American assemblies to treat the Circular Letter of the Massachusetts Legislature with contempt, as "an unwarrantable combination and flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace," and threatening them with dissolution in case they should refuse compliance, created a tempest of indignation all over the land. That order was properly regarded as a direct attempt to abridge or absolutely control free discussion in the colonies, and so deprive them of their best guaranty for the preservation of their liberties. They resented the king's action in the matter in respectful and decorous words that were full of the spirit of a people determined to be free; and that order was more potential in crystallizing the colonies into a permanent union than any event in their past history. They felt that in union only would consist their strength in the great conflict that now appeared inevitable, and which thinking men believed near at hand. Franklin in England, writing to his son concerning a proffered colonial office, said: "I apprehend a breach between the two countries." Samuel Langdon of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who had been a chaplain in the provincial army at the capture of Louisburg, wrote to Ezra Stiles, then a clergyman at Newport and afterward President of Yale College: "It is best for the Americans to let the king know the utmost of their resolutions, and the danger of a violent rending of the colonies from the mother country." Stephen Hopkins, then sixty years of age, and a Son of Liberty of truest metal, wrote from his home in Rhode Island to a friend in Boston: "Persevere in the good work. We will abide with you to the end; the God of wisdom and of justice is with us." Roger Sherman, the thoughtful shoemaker, on the judicial bench of Connecticut, and afterward, with Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote: "No assembly on the continent will ever concede that Parliament has a right to tax the colonies;" and in another letter he said: "The right of unfettered discussion is inalienable, and we must maintain it." William Williams, a citizen of the same State and afterward a signer of the great Declaration, wrote from Lebanon to a friend: "We cannot believe that they [the British government] will draw the sword in their own colonies; but if they do, our blood is more at their service than our liberties." John Morin Scott, an ardent Son of Liberty in New York, and brave fellow-soldier of William Livingston, in the battle with the pen against the Church and State of Great Britain, wrote to a member of the Massachusetts Legislature: "You are right, and that is sufficient for me. We will fight the tory faction here, and the British regulars too, if necessary." When Chandler, the good rector of Elizabethtown and champion of the Church of England, wrote, "The colonies will soon experience worse things than in the late stamp act, or I am no prophet," the patriots of New Jersey smiled at the covert threat, and Richard Stockton, then a conservative member of the governor's council, but afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote to William Livingston, saying: "We must maintain the natural and chartered rights of the colonists, but by peaceful and lawful means."
The colonial assemblies everywhere took decided action, and exhibited remarkable unanimity of sentiment. New Hampshire was warmly responsive to the sentiments of Langdon's letter. The Assembly of Rhode Island highly approved of the action of Massachusetts. In Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, the same spirit was manifested. The New York Assembly adopted the Massachusetts Circular, and declared, by resolutions, the undoubted right of the people, through their representatives, to correspond and consult with any of the neighboring colonies on subjects of public importance. They chose a committee of correspondence; and the inhabitants of the city of New York, in a public letter addressed to their representatives in the Assembly, denounced the royal order "as the most daring insult that was ever offered to any free legislative body." That Assembly, which had yielded a little to the requirements of the mutiny act, now had more backbone of patriotism, and stood up manfully in support of the people's rights. The Sons of Liberty in New York were very active at the same time, and in the newspapers, hand-bills and pamphlets, they offered their sentiments with great boldness. A hand-bill, which was widely posted about the city on a dark night, bore these words:-"Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds, that we cannot be free without being secure in our property; that we cannot be secure in our property if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away; that taxes imposed by Parliament do thus take it away; that duties laid for the sole purpose of raising money are taxes; that attempts to lay such, should be instantly and firmly opposed."
The Legislature of Pennsylvania treated the royal order with decorous scorn; and a large public meeting in Philadelphia urged a cordial union of all the colonies in resistance to oppression. The Delaware Assembly boldly asserted the right of intercolonial correspondence, and declared their intention to co-operate with the other colonies. When the arrogant Governor Sharpe of Maryland laid the obnoxious royal order before the Assembly of that province, that body assured his excellency that they could not "be prevailed on to take no notice of, or treat with the least degree of contempt, a Letter so expressive of duty and loyalty to the sovereign, and so replete with just principles of liberty;" and added, "We shall not be intimidated by a few sounding expressions for doing what we think is right." They then sent their thanks to the Massachusetts Assembly. North Carolina rejected the order, and offered a respectful remonstrance; and at the same time the Massachusetts Circular was heartily approved. Virginia had already spoken out boldly in applause of the Circular, and the Assembly sent a letter of their own to all the colonial assemblies inviting their concurrence with Massachusetts. A committee of the South Carolina Legislature, composed of leading men of the colony like Gadsden, Laurens, Pinckney, Rutledge and Lynch, reported resolutions (which were adopted) declaring the Circulars of Massachusetts and Virginia to be replete with duty and loyalty to his Majesty, respect for Parliament, attachment to Great Britain, care for the preservation of the rights of British subjects, and founded upon undeniable constitutional principles. Twenty-six members voted for these resolutions. The offended royal governor immediately dissolved the Assembly, and the "Twenty-six" became as popular as the "Ninety-two" of the Massachusetts Assembly who voted not to rescind their Circular. The citizens of Charleston burnt the seventeen Massachusetts rescinders in effigy, and illumined the streets of the city by almost three hundred torches carried in procession. By their light they garlanded with flowers and evergreens an effigy of the Goddess of Liberty, which they had crowned with laurel and palmetto leaves. Georgia responded with equal but less demonstrative patriotism. In the face of the warnings of the royal governor, that their action tended to independence and would bring ruin on America, they approved the Massachusetts Circular, and rejected the royal order. Their dissolution followed.
All of the assemblies instantly sent reports of their action to that of Massachusetts; and when the Letter from North Carolina, dated November 10, 1768, reached Boston, the Evening Post of that city remarked: "It completes the answers to our Circular Letter. The colonies, no longer disconnected, form one body; a common sensation possesses the whole; the circulation is complete, and the vital fluid returns from whence it was sent out." It was so. At the beginning of 1769, there was a perfect union of the thirteen colonies in a determination to maintain their liberties at any cost; while English statesmen, infatuated by the possession of power, were adopting measures for the abridgment, if not the utter destruction, of their liberties.
It is instructive, in this connection, to consider the feelings and ideas of the French cabinet at that time, concerning the Americansa cabinet composed of changing materials which, as we have observed, played an important part in the struggle of the colonists for their independence. We have already noticed the hopes of Choiseul, the French minister, that an open rupture between the American colonies and Great Britain would speedily occur, and inflict a severe blow upon the strength of the latter. He was then supporting the decaying French empire with wisdom and energy. Ten years before, he had become the favorite and chief minister of the profligate Louis the Fifteenth through the influence of Madame Pompadour, who really ruled that monarch. Choiseul had been created a duke, and was regarded as the foremost living statesman of France. He was watching the course of political events in England and her American colonies with intense interest; and in the attitude of the latter toward the former in the summer of 1768, he saw a reason for expecting an almost immediate outbreak of rebellion in America. This expectation was confirmed by a long conversation with an intelligent American, who gave him a clear insight of the resolution of the colonies to resist oppression, and their temper. He immediately wrote to the Count du Chatelet, then the French ambassador in London, that facts and not theories must control the actions of France, and saying:
"My project, which is but a dream perhaps, is to consider the possibility of a commercial treaty, both of importation and exportation, the obvious advantages of which might attract the attention of the Americans. Will it not be possible to show them, at the moment of a rupture, an interest sufficiently powerful to detach them at once from their chief government? According to the predictions of some sensible men who have had opportunities to study the character of the Americans, and to comprehend their progress every day in the spirit of independence, this separation of the American colonies from their parent government must come sooner or later. The plan I propose will accelerate its consummation. It is the true interest of the colonies to forever secure their whole liberty, and establish their direct commerce with France and with the world. The main business will be to engage their neutrality. That will necessarily secure a treaty of alliance with France and Spain. They may not have confidence in the strength of our navy; they may suspect our fidelity to our engagements; they may fear the English ships-of-war; they may indulge a hope of success against the Spaniards and ourselves. I perceive all these difficulties, and do not hide their extent; but I perceive, also, the controlling interest of the Americans in profiting by the chance of a rupture to establish their independence. This cannot be done without risks; but he that halts at difficulties will never attempt anything. We firmly believe and hope that this government will so conduct itself as to widen the breach, not to close it up. It is true that some persons of sagacity think it not only possible but easy to reconcile the interests of the colonies and the parent country, but I can see many obstacles lying in the way. I meet too many persons who think as I do. The course pursued thus far by the British government seems to me to be completely opposed to what it ought to be to effect a reconciliation."
Choiseul had to wait full seven years for the gratification of his wish which was father to his thoughts, and then, through the operations of a faction, he had been dismissed from office.
There was a curious feature in the political circles of England and America at this time. It consisted, in Great Britain, in the use of the number Forty-five, and in America of that number and Ninety-two combined, having a similar significance. John Wilkes, an ardent politician and fearless political writer in London, published a serial work called The North Briton. In number Forty-five of that work, he made a very severe attack on the government. That was in 1763. He was prosecuted by the crown lawyer for libel and confined in the Tower, but was acquitted and received five thousand dollars as damages from the under- secretary, Wood. As Wilkes was regarded as the advocate of the people, this prosecution of their champion, by the government, was considered a malicious proceeding, and a blow at the freedom of speech and the press by the aristocracy. Violent political excitement ensued, and "Forty-five," the number of The North Briton that contained the attack, became the war-cry of the democratic party in Great Britain and the colonies. After ninety-two members of the Massachusetts Legislature voted against rescinding their resolutions embodied in their famous Circular, "Ninety-two" became a political catchword here, and its application was curious. Frothingham says:
"When the Americans in London heard of the action of the Massachusetts Assembly, their favorite toast became: `May the unrescinding Ninety-two be forever united in idea with the glorious Forty-five.' These talismanic numbers were combined in endless variety in the colonies. Ninety-two patriots at the festival would drink forty-five toasts. The representatives would have forty-five or ninety-two votes. The ball would have ninety-two jigs and forty-five minuets. The Daughters of Liberty would, at a quilting party, find their garment of forty-five pieces of calico of one color and ninety-two of another. Ninety-two Sons of Liberty would raise a flag-staff forty-five feet high. At a dedication of a Liberty Tree in Charleston, forty-five lights hung on its branches, forty-five of the company bore torches in the procession, and they joined in the march in honor to the Massachusetts Ninety-two. At the festival, forty-five candles lighted the table, and ninety-two glasses were used in drinking the toasts; and the president gave as a sentiment: May the ensuing members of the Assembly be unanimous, and never recede from the resolutions of the Massachusetts Ninety-two."
When news of these events in Massachusetts in the summer of 1768 reached England, and was soon followed by rumors that non-importation leagues were again forming, anger, deep solicitude and dismay prevailed. The exasperated ministry determined to punish the disobedient colony most severely. Lord Mansfield thought the members of the Assembly who, by their votes, had invited the union of the colonies in the assertion of their rights, ought to be summoned to England to answer for their conduct. The king, on the opening of Parliament, charged the Bostonians with a subversion of the constitution, and eagerness for independence of Great Britain. Both Houses denounced the proceedings of citizens and legislature of Massachusetts, and proposed to transport Otis, Hancock, the Adamses and other leaders to England for trial and punishment under an unrepealed act of Henry the Eighth. Exaggeration followed exaggeration as vessel after vessel reached England from America, and the friends of the colonists abroad were dumb, for awhile, for they had no available excuse to offer for the conduct of Massachusetts as misrepresented. Their silence gave a tacit sanction to the hot temper of the government and the harsh measures proposed by the ministry; and the mercantile and manufacturing interests were greatly disturbed by apprehensions of an absolute cessation of trade between them and the Americans. The colonial merchants were then owing British merchants twenty million dollars. Will this amount and the trade of the Americans be lost together? was the absorbing question of the hour in commercial circles.
Unfortunately the British ministry were so satisfied with the supposed eminent ability of the Earl of Hillsborough to manage colonial affairs, that the whole American business was left to his discretion and control. Governor Bernard was his chief source of information concerning the temper and conduct of the Americans. That officer was false to them and false to his master, giving the latter untruthful accounts of events in our country. He perceived the dangers that were gathering around the royal governments everywhere, and he exaggerated every movement, hoping to induce the ministry to send troops and war-ships to Boston to overawe the people and make his own seat more secure. He sought to keep the people there quiet until such forces might arrive, by mischievous duplicity. The council was assured that if the people would cease the discussion of the question of parliamentary power over the colonies, he would support their petition praying for relief from the recently enacted revenue laws. They consented, and Bernard showed a letter which he had written to Hillsborough in favor of the petition. Public excitement cooled, and the loyal Americans had hopes of repose. But in a secret letter of the same date, the perfidious governor gave to his master every possible form of argument in favor of not relaxing, in the least degree, the stringency and enforcement of the revenue laws. Hillsborough, equally false, encouraged the duplicity, and wrote a deceptive reply to be shown to the council. He actually used the name of his king as an abettor of the falsehood.
Already orders had been given by the Secretary to General Gage to be in readiness to furnish troops whenever Bernard should make a requisition for them. When that officer heard of the disturbance in the New England capital, he sent word to the governor that the troops were in readiness. Bernard was anxious to send for them, but he could not make a requisition without the consent of his council. That body declared that the civil power did not need the support of troops, nor was it for his majesty's service or the peace of the province that any should be required.
When the duplicity, the desires, and the acts of Bernard became known, the citizens of Boston could restrain their indignation with difficulty. Satisfied that the troops would come sooner or later, they resolved to put the engine of non-importation, which had worked so powerfully before, into vigorous operation. In August [1768] nearly all the merchants of Boston subscribed such a league, to go into operation on the first of January following, hoping, through the influence of the British merchants, to restrain the hand of the government uplifted to smite the Americans. The Sons of Liberty were active everywhere, and watched every movement of the crown officers. They soon discovered a British military officer in their city, evidently making preparations for barracks for troops. They gave the alarm. A town-meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, when James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and John Adams were appointed a committee to wait on the governor to ascertain whether the visit of the military officer was for such a purpose, and to request him to call a special session of the legislature. Bernard told them that troops were about to be quartered in Boston, and he refused to call the Assembly until he might hear from home. The governor was evidently alarmed, for he knew the great popularity of the men who stood before him. All Boston stood behind them, but its whole population was not more than sixteen thousand souls. His tone was more pacific than usual. Judging them by his own standard of morality, he had actually stooped to make some of these men his friends by bribes. He sent a commission to John Hancock, as a member of his council. That patriot tore the paper into shreds in presence of the people. He offered the lucrative office of advocate-general in the court of admiralty to John Adams, who instantly rejected it. He cautiously approached the sturdy Puritan, Samuel Adams, with honeyed words and an offer of place, but received such a rebuke that the words I have already quoted were afterward wrung from Hutchinson"He is of such an obstinate and inflexible disposition that he could never be conciliated by any office or gift whatsoever."
The governor's refusal to call the Assembly impelled the town-meeting to recommend a convention of delegates from all the towns in the province to be held in Boston, under the plausible pretext that the prevailing apprehension of war with France required a general consultation. Apprehending war with the mother country was the real cause for the movement. The convention assembled on the 22d of September, 1768, when more than a hundred delegates represented every town and district in the province but one. Thomas Cushing, Speaker of the Assembly, presided. They petitioned the governor to summon a general court. He answered by denouncing the convention as a treasonable body. They disclaimed all pretension to political authority, professed the utmost loyalty to the king, and said they had met in that "dark and distressing time to consult and advise as to the best manner of preserving peace and good order." The governor, in daily expectation of troops from Halifax, which, on his requisition, Gage had ordered to Boston, assumed a haughty tone, warned them to desist from further proceedings, and admonished them to disperse without delay. The Convention, unmoved by his words, remained in session four days, took moderate action, and stood firm in their purpose. They adopted a petition to the king, an address to the people setting forth the alarming state of the country, and advised abstinence from all violence, and submission to legal authority.
The people were now thoroughly alive to a sense of their dangers and duties. The great political questions of the hour occupied their minds. The pulpit became a sort of political forum. Patriotism and Christianity were regarded as twin sisters. Order everywhere prevailed. Excitement had given way to Reason. The other colonies were watching Massachusetts intently. Virginia sent her salutatory greetings. The good Governor Botetourt, in pursuance of his prescribed duty, had dissolved her Assembly. They reorganized in a private house, and then adopted a non-importation agreement presented by George Washington. Other colonies sent cheering words, especially after troops had landed in Boston in the early autumnal days; and at nearly every public gathering in the several colonies, the stirring Massachusetts Song of Liberty was sung. That song was so powerful in moulding the popular mind in favor of union and resistance, that I give it below, entire, with the music, as it appeared when first printed in a Boston newspaper:
"Come swallow your bumpers, ye Tories, and roar, That the Sons of fair Freedom are hamper'd once more; But know that no Cut-throats our spirits can tame, Nor a host of Oppressors shall smother the flame. "In Freedom we're born, and, like Sons of the brave, Will never surrender, But swear to defend her, And scorn to survive, if unable to save.
"Our grandsires, bless'd heroes, we'll give them a tear, Nor sully their honors by stooping to fear; Through deaths and through dangers their Trophies they won, We dare be their Rivals, nor will be outdone. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"Let tyrants and minions presume to despise, Encroach on our RIGHTS, and make FREEDOM their prize; The fruits of their rapine they never shall keep, Though vengeance may nod, yet how short is her sleep. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"The tree which proud Haman for Mordecai rear'd Stands recorded, that virtue endanger'd is spared; That rogues, whom no bounds and no laws can restrain, Must be stripp'd of their honors and humbled again. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"Our wives and our babes, still protected, shall know Those who dare to be free shall forever be so; On these arms and these hearts they may safely rely For in freedom we'll live, or like Heroes we'll die. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"Ye insolent Tyrants! who wish to enthrall; Ye Minions, ye Placemen, Pimps, Pensioners, all; How short is your triumph, how feeble your trust, Your honor must wither and nod to the dust. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"When oppress'd and reproach'd, our KING we implore, Still firmly persuaded our RIGHTS he'll restore; When our hearts beat to arms to defend a just right, Our monarch rules there, and forbids us to fight. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"Not the glitter of arms nor the dread of a fray Could make us submit to their chains for a day; Withheld by affection, on Britons we call, Prevent the fierce conflict which threatens your fall. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"All ages shall speak with amaze and applause Of the prudence we show in support of our cause: Assured of our safety, a BRUNSWICK still reigns, Whose free loyal subjects are strangers to chains. "In Freedom we're born, c.
"Then join hand in hand, brave AMERICANS all, To be free is to live, to be slaves is to fall; Has the land such a dastard as scorns not a LORD, Who dreads not a fetter much more than a sword? "In Freedom we're born," c.
While the people of Massachusetts were preparing to fight for their liberties, if necessary, those of North Carolina, far away from the seaboard, were in open insurrection because of the cruelty of oppressors. Before the stamp act excitement convulsed the northern provinces, rebellion had germinated there; and when Governor Tryon, who was sent to rule North Carolina in 1765, attempted to suppress free speech on the great question, he found that he had an obstinate people to deal with. Tryon was proud, haughty, fond of show, extravagant, extortionate, treacherous, and naturally tyrannical when in power, but cowardly when confronted by equal moral or physical forces. He tried to compel the people to take the stamps, but they compelled the stamp-officer at Wilmington to go to the market-place and publicly resign his commission. This tacit defiance of his authority by resolute men alarmed the governor, and he tried to conciliate the militia at a general muster in Hanover, by treating them to a barbecued oxan ox roasted wholeand a few barrels of beer. The insulted people cast the ox into the river, poured the liquor on the ground, and mocked Tryon.
Soon after that, the rapacity of public officers in the province, from the governor down, drove the people to the verge of rebellion. They met in small assemblies at first and petitioned for relief. Their prayers were answered by fresh extortions. Finally, they resolved to form a league for mutual protection, and to take all the power in certain inland counties into their own hands. Herman Husbands, a strong-minded and resolute Quaker, drew up a written complaint and sent it by a few bold men to the General Assembly at Hillsborough, in October, 1766, who requested the clerk to read it aloud. It asserted that the "Sons of Liberty would withstand the Lords in Parliament," and set forth that great evils existed in the province. A general convention of delegates was recommended to consider public affairs, and two were afterward held. At the one held in April, 1767, on the banks of the Eno, not far from Hillsborough, it was resolved that the people in the more inland counties should regulate public affairs there, and by resolutions they almost declared themselves independent of all external authority. From that time they were called Regulators, and were a prominent and powerful body. The pride of Tryon induced him to covet a palace "fit for the residence of a royal governor." The blandishments and liberal hospitality of the governor's beautiful wife won the good-will of the representatives of the General. Assembly, and they voted seventy-five thousand dollars of the public money to build a palace at Newbern. That sum was equal to half a million dollars now. The taxes were thereby heavily increased, and the already overburdened people were very indignant. With the increase of taxation the rapacity of public officers seemed to increase, and the industry of the province was subjected to a most onerous tribute to feed the vultures. Among the most rapacious of these was Edmund Fanning, a lawyer of ability, whom the people soon learned to detest because of his extortionate fees for legal services, but who was a favorite of the governor. The chief justice, Martin Howard, was Fanning's accomplice, and prostituted his sacred office to the base purpose of private gain.
The Regulators, goaded by oppression, met in council and resolved not to pay any but lawful taxes and just dues, but with such a judge they were almost powerless. Fanning resolved to punish their leaders, and so overawe the people. He induced the governor to issue a proclamation full of fair promises, inviting the Regulators to meet the crown officers in friendly convention to settle all differences. They were betrayed. Those plain farmers trusted the fair promises, and relaxing their vigilance were preparing to meet the governor, when the sheriff, at the instigation of Fanning, appeared with thirty horsemen and arrested Husbands and some other leading Regulators, and cast them into the Hillsborough jail. This treachery aroused the the whole country, and a large body of the people, led by Ninian Bell. Hamilton, a brave old Scotchman seventy years of age, marched upon Hillsborough with shot-guns, pikes, scythes and bludgeons, to rescue the prisoners.
Fanning was alarmed. He released the prisoners and hastened to appease the angry multitude who were assembled on the banks of the Eno, opposite Hillsborough. With a bottle of rum in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, he went down to the brink of the stream, and urging Hamilton not to march his host into the town, asked him to send a horse over that he might cross, give the people refreshments, and have a friendly talk. Hamilton would not trust the wolf in sheep's clothing. "You're nane too gude to wade, and wade ye shall if ye come over," shouted Hamilton. Fanning did wade the stream, but his words and his liquor were alike rejected. Then Tryon's secretary rode across the river, and assured the people that all their grievances should be redressed, when they marched away. They drew up a respectful petition to the governor, who, in imitation of his royal master, spurned it with disdain. He ordered the deputies who bore the petition to return to their homes, warn the people to desist from holding meetings, disband their association, and be content to pay taxes. We shall meet these Regulators and their oppressors again presently.
GOVERNOR BERNARD'S INTERFERENCEDOINGS OF A POPULAR ASSEMBLY IN BOSTONLANDING OF TROOPS THEREFIRMNESS OF THE COUNCIL AND SELECTMENPUBLIC FEELING OUTRAGED- -TRIUMPH OF THE CITIZENSACTION OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENTADVENT OF LORD NORTHNON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENTS AND THE YOUNG WOMENACTION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSEMBLYDEPARTURE OF GOVERNOR BERNARDHESITATION IN PARLIAMENT- -A CIRCULAR TO THE COLONIESEXCITEMENT IN ENGLANDFRUITS OF TAXATION POLITICAL EXCITEMENT IN NEW YORK.
GOVERNOR BERNARD had assured the Massachusetts Convention of his displeasure, and his intention to enforce the laws. He said to them, in a proclamation, when they assembled: "It is my duty to interpose this instant, before it is too late (for he declared the gathering unlawful). "I do, therefore, earnestly admonish you that instantly, and before you do any business, you break up this assembly, and separate yourselves. I speak to you now as a friend to the province and a well-wisher to the individuals of it. But if you should pay no regard to this admonition, I must, as governor, assert the prerogative of the crown in a more public manner; for, assure yourselves (I speak from instruction), the king is determined to maintain his entire sovereignty over this province, and whoever shall persist in usurping any of the rights of it will repent of his rashness." So spoke the governor bravely, when he knew that a fleet and army were near to support him. But the Convention, as we have observed, did not heed the admonition. They stayed in session six days until they had accomplished their intended business, and they had just adjourned, when the white sails of eight vessels-of-war appeared at the entrance to Boston Harbor, bearing two regiments of British soldiers, which General Gage had ordered from Halifax, commanded by Colonels Dalrymple and Carr. Gage had sent his engineer, Montressor, to assist the troops, if necessary. That officer bore an order, in accordance with the wishes of Governor Bernard, to land the troops in the settled parts of Boston. Accordingly, on Saturday morning, the 1st day of October (1768), the ships moved up to the city, anchored with springs on their cables, and in spite of the solemn remonstrances of the people, the troops were landed on the Long Wharf, under cover of the guns of the war-vessels. The cowardly governor had gone into the country to avoid the expected storm of popular indignation, leaving the military to bear the brunt of the odium and its effects.
Bernard had tried to induce his council to sanction an order for quartering the troops in the town. They refused, and he took upon himself the whole responsibility of the act. The selectmen, regarding the order as illegal, refused to provide quarters for the soldier. Dalrymple blustered and threatened, but they were firm. He had prepared for wicked work by providing each of his soldiers with sixteen rounds of ammunition. This fact he made known, and hoping to overawe the inhabitants, he marched his whole force through the town, with fixed bayonets, colors flying, drums beating, and a train of artillery following, with all the parade of a triumphant army entering a conquered city. The unarmed inhabitants looked on with sorrow but not with fear. They knew that a single act of violence on the part of the troops would cause twenty thousand men, from the hundred towns of Massachusetts, to spring up for their defence like the harvest of dragons' teeth; and that war once begun, a vast host would come from the other provinces like trailing clouds full of wrath and potency.
Dalrymple appeared before the selectmen, with one or two other officers, and haughtily demanded both food and shelter for his troops. "You will find both at the castle," said the guardians of the town, with the assurance that the law was upholding them. "And you will not furnish quarters for my soldiers?" asked the colonel. "We will not," responded the selectmen. Then Dalrymple turned away in wrath, and encamped one regiment in tents on the Common, while the other was compelled to bivouac as best they might in the chilly air of an October night. The compassion of the inhabitants was excited for the poor soldiers, whom they could not blame, and at nine o'clock the Sons of Liberty generously opened Faneuil Hall, and allowed the warriors to slumber there. The next day was the Sabbath. The unwise Dalrymple again paraded his troops through the streets when the people were engaged in public worship, disturbing them with the noise of the fife and drum. His soldiers challenged the citizens in the streets; and in various ways he tried to impress them with a sense of utter subjugation. These things only deepened their convictions of duty, and inflamed their resentment. Every strong feeling of the New Englander was violated. His Sabbath was desecrated, his worship was disturbed, and his liberty was infringed. Natural hatred of the troops, deep and abiding, was soon engendered, and the terms rebel and tyrant were freely bandied between them. The governor and the colonel used every means in their power to induce the council and the selectmen to provide for the troops. Planting themselves firmly on the law, these citizens were unmoved by entreaties or threats. Then the governor and sheriff tried to get possession of a dilapidated building belonging to the province in which to shelter the troops, but the occupants, supported by the law, successfully resisted. The governor now summoned all the acting magistrates to meet him, when he renewed the demand for quarter. "Not till the barracks are filled," was the response. The military officers could not put the soldiers into quarters, for the act might cause them to be cashiered on conviction before two justices of the peace, "the best of whom," wrote Gage, "the keeper of a paltry tavern." When the weather became so cold that tent-life could not be endured, the commanding officer was compelled to hire houses at exorbitant rates for shelter, and to furnish food for the troops at the expense of the crown. So, in this bloodless warfare with British regulars, the citizens of Boston, armed with chartered rights and statute law, were completely victorious. There was nothing for the troops to do, as the people were orderly and law-abiding. The soldiers being housed, the main guard was stationed opposite the State House, with cannon pointing toward the legislative hall. The people smiled at this covert threat, and Gage was convinced that more mischief had arisen from the follies and greed of the crown officers than from anything else; but he recommended the building of barracks and a fortification on Fort Hill, while Bernard, satisfied that the troops could not overturn the authority of the government, nor repress republicanism, again advised a forfeiture of the charter of the province. The commissioners of customs who had fled to Castle William on the Romncy now returned, and were more haughty than ever under the protection of armed men. They caused the arrest of Hancock and Malcom on false charges, claiming penalties for violations of acts of Parliament amounting to, in Hancock's case, almost half a million dollars. Hancock employed John Adams as his counsel, and "a painful drudgery I had of his case," said that advocate. Not a charge was established.
Soon after these events the British Parliament assembled, and the king, in his speech which he read from the throne, spoke of Boston as being in a "state of disobedience to all law and government," proceeding to "measures subversive of the constitution, and attended by circumstances that might manifest a disposition to throw off its dependence on Great Britain." He promised, with the support of Parliament, to "defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious persons" who had, under false pretences, too successfully deluded numbers of his subjects in America. In both Houses of Parliament great indignation, because of the conduct of the Bostonians, was expressed. The Lords, in their address to the king, said: "We shall be ever ready to hear and redress any grievances of your majesty's American subjects; but we should betray the trust reposed in us, if we did not withstand every attempt to infringe or weaken our just rights, and we shall always consider it as one of our most important duties to maintain entire and inviolate the supreme authority of the legislature of Great Britain over every part of the British Empire." In the Commons, Henry Stanley indulged in bitter denunciations of the Americans. He condemned, in unmeasured terms, the non-importation leagues, as "unwarrantable combinations among American tradesmen to cut off the commerce between the colonies and the mother country." "I contend, therefore," he said, "that men so unsusceptible of all middle terms of accommodation call loudly for our correction. What, sir, will become of this insolent town of Boston when we deprive the inhabitants of the power of sending out their rum and molasses to the coast of Africa? For they must be treated like aliens, as they have treated us upon this occasion. The difficulties in governing Massachusetts are insurmountable, unless its charter and laws shall be so changed as to give to the king the appointment of the council, and the sheriffs the sole power of returning juries."
In the upper House, Lord Barrington called the Americans "traitors, and worse than traitors, against the crowntraitors against the legislation of this country. The use of troops," he said, "was to bring rioters to justice." Even Camden, who opposed Pitt's declaratory act, now acquiesced in the harsh measures against Boston that were proposed, and was severely chastised by the tongue of Edmund Burke for his inconsistency. "My astonishment at the folly of his opinions is lost in indignation at the baseness of his conduct," said the gifted Irishman.
To gratify the prejudices of the king, Shelburne had been driven from the ministry, and Chatham, offended because of this act, had resigned. Lord North now commenced that long leadership of the ministry which continued until near the close of our struggle for independence. He took the initiative as the friend and champion of the king, by replying sharply to Alderman Beckford, who said: "Let the nation return to its good old nature and its old good humor; it were best to repeal the late acts and conciliate the colonies by moderation and kindness." To these wise words, North replied in falsification of history: "There has been no proof of any real return of friendship on the part of the Americans; they will give you no credit for affection; no credit for an attention to their commercial interests. If America is to be the judge, you must tax in no instance! You may regulate in no instance. Punishment will not be extended beyond the really guilty; and, if rewards shall be found necessary, rewards will be given. But what we do, we will do firmly. We shall go through our plan, now that we have brought it so near success. I am against repealing the last act of Parliament, securing to us a revenue out of America! I will never think of repealing it, until I see America prostrate at my feet."
The words of the King, Lords and Commons made a deep impression on the minds of the patriots of Massachusetts, and throughout the other provinces. Their liberties were more dangerously menaced than ever, and the instruments for their enslavement were seated in the New England capital and intrenched behind cannon. But the Sons of Liberty were more determined than ever to stand firmly by their rights, and at the same time to maintain a perfect adherence to the law. By this determination they conquered. Their worst enemies in Great Britain could not justly accuse them of treason for any act they had committed. They had a perfect right to cease trading with anybody. They had violated no law; and all the threats of the madmen in the government, and the presence of troops, could not alter their opinions. Their petitions, though rejected by the king with scorn, lost none of their vitality; and the official assurance that the monarch would not listen to "wicked men" who denied the supremacy of Parliament, did not move the patriots a single line from the path which they had prescribed for themselves. They felt that Colonel Barre prophetically read their hearts, when, in opposition to a resolution of Lord North, offered in March, 1769, to reject a respectful petition from New York, he said: "I predicted all that would happen on the passage of the stamp act; and I now warn ministers that, if they persist in their wretched course of oppression, the whole continent of North America will rise in arms, and these colonies perhaps be lost to England forever."
When the non-importation agreements were renewed, the young women heartily seconded the action of their fathers and brothers, by engaging in domestic manufactures. The Irish flax-wheel performed an important part in the feminine opposition to British oppression in the spinning of linen thread for summer fabrics; and the hum of the big Dutch wool-wheel was heard in many families converting the fleecy rolls from the hand-cards into yarn. In Boston, a party of fifty young women, calling themselves "Daughters of Liberty," met at the hose of the venerated pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian Church there, the Rev. John Moorehead, where they amused themselves with spinning two hundred and thirty-two skeins of linen yarn, some very fine, which were given to the worthy white- haired minister. Several of the young women were members of his congregation. Many persons came in to see the novel sight and admire the fair spinners. They were regaled with refreshing fruit, cakes, coffee and comfits, after which anthems and liberty-songs were sung by many fine voices of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. There were, at that time, more than one hundred spinners in Mr. Moorehead's society. In other colonies like zeal and industry were shown by the young women, and also by whole families. "Within eighteen months past," wrote a correspondent of the New York Mercury, from Newport, Rhode Island, "four hundred and eighty-seven yards of cloth and thirty-six pairs of stockings have been spun and knit in the family of James Nixon of this town. Another family, within four years past, hath manufactured nine hundred and eighty yards of woolen cloth, besides two coverlids and two bed-ticks, and all the stocking yarn for the family. We are credibly informed that many families in this colony within the year past have each manufactured upward of seven hundred yards of cloth of different kinds."
When the Massachusetts Assembly met at the close of May, 1769, they simply organized, and then resolved that it was incompatible with their dignity and freedom to deliberate while confronted by an armed force; and that the presence of a military and naval armament was a breach of privilege. They refused to enter upon the business of furnishing supplies of any kind, or discussing any topic excepting that of a redress of their grievances. They petitioned the governor to remove the troops from the town, but their reasonable request was met by a haughty refusal. Not only this, but the governor adjourned the Assembly to Cambridge, and informed them that he was going to England to lay a statement of the affairs of the colony before the king. The House instantly adopted a petition to his majesty, asking for the withdrawal of Bernard from the colony forever; and they also adopted a resolution declaring that the establishment of a standing army in the colony in time of peace, was not only an invasion of natural rights, but a violation of the British Constitution, highly dangerous to the people, and unprecedented. Perceiving the Assembly to be incorrigible, the governor dissolved them and sailed for England, leaving the province in the care of the Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Hutchinson. Proofs of Bernard's duplicity, greed, petty malice, mischievous exaggeration, falsehoods, and continual plottings for the destruction of the Massachusetts free government, so well known here, had been sent to England by one of his political friends, and caused his immediate recall. He never recrossed the Atlantic, and died in 1779.
Meanwhile the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis and other places had renewed their non-importation leagues with vigor; and Washington, at Mount Vernon, assisted by his neighbor, George Mason, had matured the plan for such an association which, as we have observed, he laid before the Virginia House of Burgesses when they reassembled after they had been dissolved by Governor Botetourt. That patriot afterward wrote to his correspondent in London, from whom he ordered goods: "You will perceive, in looking over the several invoices, that some of the goods there required are upon condition that the act of Parliament imposing a duty on tea, paper, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, is totally repealed; and I beg the favor of you to be governed strictly thereby, as it will not be in my power to receive any articles contrary to our non-importation agreement, which I have subscribed, and shall religiously adhere to, and should if it were, as I could wish it to be, ten times as strict." Mason wrote to Washington: "Our all is at stake; and the little conveniences and comforts of life, when set in competition with our liberty, ought to be rejected, not with reluctance, but with pleasure."
In view of the movements in America, the British Parliament hesitated. They perceived that the colonies were forming a more formidable combination against British commerce and manufactures than any before; and some of the more sensible men in Parliament urged the repeal of the tea act, and so end the controversy. "So favorable an opportunity," they said, "may never recur." But Lord North replied: "We will not consent to discuss the question because of the combinations in America. To do so would furnish a fresh instance of haste, impatience, levity, and fickleness. I see nothing uncommercial in making the Americans pay a duty on tea."
North was only the echo of the monarch, who swayed this minister with a perfect control. The king had made it an inflexible rule never to redress a grievance unless such redress was prayed for in a spirit of obedience and humility. He was also determined to assert the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, and insisted that one tax must always be laid to keep up that right. So the king and his pliant minister clung to the duty on tea. Hills-borough, under the direction of North, sent a Circular to all the colonies, in which a promise was given that no more taxes for revenue should be laid upon them, and that the duties upon paper, painters' colors and glass should be taken off by a repeal of the law levying them. It was believed that this concession would satisfy the Americans, forgetting that a principle broader and deeper and more vital than any statute law was at the bottom of the discontent in the colonies. British statesmen and publicists of the aristo-cratic party demurred at this concession. Dr. Johnson, then a pensioner of the government and afterward author of the tract entitled Taxation no Tyranny, growled out his dissatisfaction in the coarse expression: "The Americans are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." And the short-sighted Hillsborough, exaggerating the sentiments of the monarch, said: "We can grant nothing to the Americans except what they may ask with halters around their necks."
The Circular sent to the colonies was wrung from the reluctant ministry by fear of a revolt at home. The capital of the kingdom was then fearfully shaken by a violent political excitement that filled thoughtful minds with dread. John Wilkes, the irrepressible political writer already mentioned, had suddenly returned from exile, and was elected a representative in Parliament by the voters of Middlesex. The king desired to keep him out of Parliament, and the pliant House of Commons refused to give him a seat. The people were aroused by great indignation because of this interference with their rights. Wilkes was chosen to be a magistrate of London, by a large majority; and again the voters of Middlesex elected him to represent them in Parliament. Again the Commons kept him from his seat by voting the returns null and void, without the shadow of a fact to warrant the action. A third and fourth time he was elected by overwhelming majorities, and each time, the Commons, under the influence of the king, and in violation of the seminal principle of representative government, denied him a seat in the House, and gave it to his opponent at the hustings. Their plea was that Wilkes was an outlaw.
This deadly blow, as the people regarded it, at one of the dearest rights of the British subject, moved the public mind of the kingdom most powerfully, and added thousands of intelligent men to the list of friends of the Americans, the vital principle of whose resistance to the government was the sacred right of representation as an equivalent for taxation. Mobs appeared in London and various parts of the kingdom, vehemently protesting by great violence against the outrage upon popular liberty. In these demonstrations many lives were lost. The houses of crown-officers were attacked, and even the palace of Whitchall, the residence of the king, was seriously menaced by a vast concourse of people, shouting, "Wilkes and Liberty." The populace were restrained from violence, and possibly from the murder of the king, by the interference of the Royal Guards. To this political agitation was added that which was caused by the distress, real and prospective, of the merchants and manufacturers of England, created by the non-importation leagues in operation in America. These causes combined pressed the English people, at that time, to the verge of revolution. They were taught by current events to regard their king as a foe to popular liberty, and a willing usurper of the rights of the people; and attachment to the crown was greatly weakened.
Hillsborough's Circular had not the least effect upon the Americans except to stimulate them to more determined resistance. The repeal of some of the obnoxious acts would be a partial relief from taxation; but so long as the duty on tea was retained, the principle involved remained the same. While a tax for revenue in the smallest degree was imposed upon the Americans, their real grievance was not redressed, and they stood firm in their attitude of resistance. They worked the engine of non-importation with great vigor. The exports from England to America which, in 1768, had amounted to almost $12,000,000 (of which amount tea represented $660,000), in 1769 amounted to only a little over $8,000,000, the tea being only $220,000. Pownal, the immediate predecessor of Bernard as governor of Massachusetts, showed, in a speech in Parliament, that the total produce of the new taxes for the first year had been less than $80,000, and that the expenses of the new custom-house arrangements had reduced the net profits of the crown revenue in the colonies to $1,475, while the extraordinary military expenses in America amounted, for the same time, to $850,000. Yet the stubborn king and his pliant minister insisted upon retaining the duty on tea, to save the royal prerogative, and keeping up an expensive military establishment to enforce its collection! Samuel Adams was doubtless right when he publicly declared, on the arrival of the repeal of the stamp act: "The conduct of England is permitted and ordained by the unsearchable wisdom of the Almighty for hastening the independence of these colonies."
The die was now cast. The Americans almost despaired of having their grievances redressed by the oppressor. Opposition to taxation without representation was the prevailing rule in all the colonies. In Boston the people endured the presence of soldiers, with whom almost daily irritating collisions took place. In New York, late in 1769, there was much political excitement growing out of an indirect method of cheating the people into a compliance with the provisions of the mutiny act proposed by a desperate tory coalition. It was the issuing of bills of credit, on the security of the province, to the amount of $700,000, to be loaned to the people, the interest to be applied to defraying the expenses of the colonial government. It was none other than a proposition for a monster bank, without checks, for the purpose of applying the profits to defraying the expenses of keeping troops in the province. It was also a game for political power which menaced the liberties of the people. When an act for this purpose was before the Assembly, the leaders of the popular party raised a cry of alarm. Early on Sunday morning, the 16th of December, 1769, a hand-bill was found widely distributed over the city of New York, addressed, in large letters, "To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York," and was signed, "A Son of Liberty." It denounced the money scheme as a deception covering wickedness; declared that evidently the proposition to grant supplies to the troops unqualifiedly was an acknowledgment of the right to exact such subsidies, and a virtual approval of all the revenue acts; and that the scheme was intended to divide and distract the colonies. It directed the attention of the Assembly to the patriotic attitude of the other colonies, and exhorted them to imitate their example. It hinted at a corrupt coalition between the acting-governor (Colden) and the head of a powerful family (De Lancey), and called upon the Assembly to repudiate the act concocted by this combination. It closed with a summons of the inhabitants to a meeting in The Fields the next day, to express their views and to instruct their representatives in the Assembly to oppose the measure; and in case they should refuse, to send notice thereof to every Assembly in America, and to publish their names to the world.
Not less than fourteen hundred people assembled around the Liberty-Pole, on Monday, where they were harangued by John Lamb, an active Son of Liberty and afterward an efficient artillery officer in the Continental Army. He was then thirty-four years of age; a prosperous merchant, a fluent speaker, and vigorous writer. He swayed the multitude on that occasion by his eloquence and logic; and by unanimous vote they condemned the action of the Assembly in passing obnoxious bills. Their sentiments were embodied in a communication to that House, which was borne by a committee of seven leading Sons of Liberty, namely: Isaac Sears, Caspar Wistar, Alexander McDougall, Jacob Van Zandt, Samuel Broome, Erasmus Williams, and James Varick.
The leaven of toryism then permeated the New York Assembly. When the obnoxious hand-bill was read by the Speaker, Mr. De Lancey moved that the sense of the House should be taken "whether the said paper was not an infamous and scandalous libel." When the vote was taken, twenty of the pliant Assembly voted that it was so, and only one member voted No. That member was Philip Schuyler. He boldly faced the rising storm, and by his solitary vote rebuked, in a most emphatic manner, the cowardice of those of his compeers who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in former trials. The assembly then set about ferreting out the author of the hand-bill. They authorized the lieutenant governor to offer a reward of $500 for the discovery of the offender. Lamb was cited before the House, but was soon discharged. The printer of the hand-bill, when discovered, was brought to the bar, when the frightened man gave the name of Alexander McDougall as the author. He was the son of a Scotchman from the Hebrides, a sailor, an ardent Son of Liberty, and afterward a major-general in the Continental Army. He was taken before the House, where he would make no acknowledgment and refused to give bail. He was indicted for libel and cast into prison, where he remained fourteen weeks until arraigned for trial, when he pleaded not guilty, and gave bail. On that occasion "he spoke with vast propriety," William Smith wrote to Schuyler, "and awed and astonished many who wish him ill, and added, I believe, to the number of his friends." Several months afterward he was again brought before the House, when he was defended by George Clinton, an active member of that body, who became the first governor of the State of New York. To the question whether he was the author of the hand- bill signed "A Son of Liberty," McDougall replied, "That as the Grand Jury and the Assembly had declared the paper a libel, he could not answer; that as he was under prosecution in the Supreme Court, he conceived it would be an infraction of justice to punish twice for one offence; but that he would not deny the authority of the House to punish for a breach of privilege when no cognizance was taken of it, in another court." His answer was declared to be a contempt, and he was again imprisoned. In February, 1771, he was released and was never afterward molested. "I rejoice," said McDougall, when ordered to prison, "that I am the first to suffer for liberty since the commencement of our glorious struggle."
McDougall was regarded as a martyr. "The imprisoned sailor," says John C. Hamilton, in his biography of his father, General Alexander Hamilton, "was deemed the true type of imprisoned commerce. To soften the rigors of his confinement, to evince the detestation of its authors, and in his person to plead the public wrongs, became a duty of patriotism. On the anniversary of the repeal of the stamp act, his health was drank with honors, and the meeting, in procession, visited him in prison. Ladies of distinction daily thronged there. Popular songs were written, and sung under his prison bars, and emblematic swords were worn. His name was upon every lip. The character of each individual conspicuous in the great controversy became a subject of comment; and the applause which followed the name of Schuyler, gave a new value to the popularity his firmness had acquired."
McDougall was emphatically a "man of the people." He thoroughly sympathized with those classes in societythe working men and womenwho are generally weak in social and political influence where, as then in New York, an aristocratic class bears rule, because of their inability to make their voices heard by those in authority. Without any of the spirit of a demagogue, he was a popular leader, because the people saw that his whole soul was enlisted in his efforts in their behalf, and like every really earnest man, the utterances of his convictions carried with them great weight. He was a true type of what is generally known as the "common people"the great mass of citizens who carry on the chief industries of a countryits agriculture, commerce, manufactures and arts.
AMERICAN AFFAIRS IN EUROPETHE BRITISH MINISTRYTHE PARLIAMENT AND THE AMERICANSJAMES OTIS DISABLEDTROOPS IN BOSTONINTERFERENCE WITH POPULAR RIGHTS RESENTEDDISTURBANCE IN NEW YORKVIOLATION OF NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENTS AND ITS CONSEQUENCESAFFRAY WITH ROPE-MAKERSBOSTON MASSACRE AFTER-ACTION OF THE PEOPLEFUNERAL OF THE VICTIMSEFFECTS OF THE MASSACREA TRIUMPHUNWISE ACTION OF THE BRITISH MINISTRYFEELINGS OF THE AMERICANS IMPORTATIONS RENEWED.
AT the beginning of 1770, the quarrel between Great Britain and her American colonies was a chief topic for discussion and speculation in European court- circles. The French were watching the course of events with intense interest. Du Chatelet, in London, was keeping Choiseul well informed of every political movement bearing upon American affairs; and the sentiment of wise men on the continent, as well as the middling-classes of Great Britain, was rapidly drifting in favor of the really persecuted colonists. The British cabinet had not been in perfect unity for some time on the American question, and had just been recast. The Duke of Grafton, at whom "Junius" was then hurling his keenest shafts, had retired from the premiership, and Lord North had become prime minister of England, with a good working majority in Parliament. The Opposition in Parliament were bold, bitter, and defiant. Sir George Saville, in debate, charged the House of Commons with an invasion of the rights of the people; when a ministerial member said: "In times of less licentiousness, members have been sent to the Tower for words of less offence." Saville instantly replied: "The mean consideration of my own safety shall never be put in the balance against my duty to my constituents. I will own no superior but the laws; nor bend the knee to any but to Him who made me." Lord North well knew the strength of the popular will behind these brave words, and bore the reproach quietly. By adroit management he stilled the rising tempest of indignation that was agitating the majority. In the House of Lords, Chatham, whose voice had been silent a long time, spoke warmly in favor of being just toward the Americans. "Let us save the constitution, dangerously invaded at home," he said; "and let us extend its benefits to the remotest corners of the empire. Let slavery exist no-where among us; for whether it be in America, or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads by contact, and soon reaches from the extremity to the heart." These words from both houses of Parliament went over the sea as pledges of hope for the Americans, for lately they had received only frowns from the national legislature. The colonists were irritated but calm, because they were conscious of their innate strength and the righteousness of their cause. Their just anger was controlled by wise judgment and marvellous sagacity. The bond of their union was growing stronger every hour because of common danger.
Boston was then the focus of rebellious thought and action in America. Samuel Adams and his compatriots were longing for independence, and boldly prophesying the birth of a new nation in America; but his brave and fiery coadjutor, James Otis, had lately been disabled by the violence of a crown-officer, to which allusion has already been made. Mr. Robinson, one of the commissioners of customs, had misrepresented Otis in England. The latter made a severe attack upon Robinson in a Boston newspaper. For this the commissioner attempted to pull Otis's nose in a coffee-house. A fracas ensued, when Otis was so severely beaten that he never fairly recovered. His brain was disturbed by a blow on the head from a heavy cane. His great usefulness at that crisis was hopelessly impaired. John Adams in his diary for January, 1770, gives a melancholy account of the patriot's mental condition: "Otis," he wrote, "is in confusion yet; he loses himself; he rambles and wanders like a ship without a helm; attempted to tell a story which took up almost all the evening; the story may, at any time, be told in three minutes with all the graces it is capable of, but he took an hour. I fear he is not in his perfect mind. The nervous, the concise and pithy were his character till lately; now the verbose, the round-about, and rambling and long- winded. In one word, Otis will spoil the club. He talks so much and takes up so much of our time, and fills it with trash, obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense and distraction, that we have none left for rational amusements and inquiries. He mentioned his wife; said she was a good wife, too good for him; but she was a tory [she had married her daughter to a British officer], a high tory; she gave him such curtain-lectures, etc. In short, I never saw such an object of admiration, reverence, contempt, and compassion, all at once, as this. I fear, I tremble, I mourn, for the man and his country; many others mourn over him, with tears in their eyes." Poor Otis! He lived, disabled, until the great Revolution (in the earlier stages of which he had borne the most conspicuous part) was almost ended in the independence of his country. Late in May, 1782, while he was standing in the door of a friend at Andover during a thunder-shower, he was instantly killed by a stroke of lightninga method of dying for which he had often expressed an earnest desire.
The troops in Boston were a source of constant irritation. "They must be removed to the Castle," said the good citizens. "They shall remain," said the crown- officers; and Hutchinson, in obedience to an order from Hillsborough, prorogued the Massachusetts Assembly till the middle of March, while some of them were on their way from a distance to hold a session in Boston. This arbitrary act inflamed the indignation of the people, and stirred the ire of all the colonies. It was immediately followed by violations of the non-importation agreement by a few covetous Boston merchants, who coalesced with the crown-officers. Among them were Hutchinson's sons, who were his agents. They secretly sold tea. A meeting of patriotic merchants was held, and in a body they went to the lieutenant- governor's house to treat with his sons, who had violated the agreement. He treated them as incipient insurgents, and would not allow them to enter. He sent the sheriff into an adjourned meeting of merchants to order them to disperse. The troops were furnished with ball-car-tridges, and Colonel Dalrymple was ready to shed blood in defence of the royal prerogative. The meeting sent a respectful letter to the governor, written by John Hancock, telling him plainly that their assemblage was lawful, and they should not disperse. Hutchinson, made wiser by past experience with an exasperated people, submitted to circumstances, and was quiet.
Meanwhile the insolence and aggressive acts of the soldiery in New York had aroused the people there to resistance. Although it was winter, the Sons of Liberty frequently gathered around the Liberty-Pole, which had stood defiantly since it was iron-bound in 1767. At midnight in January (1770), some armed men went stealthily from the barracks with chisels and axes, cut down the pole, sawed it in pieces, and piled the fragments in front of Montague's, the rendezvous of the Sons of Liberty. The perpetrators of the act were discovered at dawn. The bell of St. George's Chapel, in Beekman street, was rung as if there were a great conflagration, and at an early hour on the 17th of January, full three thousand people stood around the stump of the consecrated pole. By resolutions they declared their rights, and contempt of the soldiers as enemies to the Constitution. The soldiers posted an insulting placard about the town. For about three days the most intense excitement prevailed. In affrays with the citizens, the soldiers were generally defeated, and on one occasion several of them were disarmed. Quiet was restored at length. The people erected another Liberty-Pole upon private ground purchased for the purpose upon Broadway, near the present Warren street; and not long afterward the soldiers departed for Boston, where bloodshed had occurred.
In spite of the threatening attitude of the citizens, four or five Boston merchants continued to import and sell tea, the specially proscribed article. The women of Boston protested against this violation of a sacred pledge. The mistresses of three hundred families subscribed their names to a league, binding themselves not to drink any tea until the revenue act was repealed. Three days afterward the maidens of Boston were gathered in convention in the home of an opulent merchant, and there signed their names to the following pledge: "We, the daughters of those patriots who have and do now appear for the public interest, and in that principally regard their posterityas such, do with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive a whole community of all that is valuable in life."
The recusant merchants were unmoved, and Theophilus Lillie announced his intention to import and sell tea in spite of public opinion. That opinion soon appeared embodied in a little mob, composed chiefly of half-grown boys, who set up a wooden post in front of Lillie's store, with a rudely carved head upon it, and a hand pointing to the merchant's door as a place to be avoided. Lillie was exasperated, but dared not interfere. A neighboring merchant of his stripe, named Richardson, a rough, stout man, having more courage, tried to get a farmer, who was passing in his cart, to knock down the post with his hub. The man was a patriot and refused, when Richardson rushed out and attempted to pull it down with his own hands. He was pelted with dirt and stones. In violent anger, he came out of Lillie's house, into which he had been driven by the mob, with a shot-gun, and discharged its contents, without aim, into the little mob. A lad named Samuel Gore was slightly wounded, and another, named Christopher Snyder, was killed. He was the son of a poor German widow. The mob seized Richardson and an associate and hurried them to Faneuil Hall, where the citizens speedily assembled to the number of two or three hundred. Richardson was tried and found guilty of murder, but Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson refused to sign the death-warrant. After he had lain in prison two years, the king pardoned the offender.
The murder of Snyder produced a profound sensation in the public mind throughout the colonies, as a prophecy of coming war. In Boston his funeral was made the occasion of a solemn pageant. His coffin was covered with inscriptions. One of these was: "Innocence itself is not safe." It was borne to Liberty Tree, where a very large concourse of citizens of every class assembled, and followed the remains to the grave. In that procession nearly five hundred children took part. The pall was carried by six of the victim's school-mates. Relatives and friends and almost fifteen hundred citizens followed. The bells of the city and of the neighboring towns tolled while the procession was moving; and in the newspapers, and by the lips of grave speakers in the pulpit and on the rostrum, little Christopher Snyder was spoken of as the first martyr to the cause of liberty in America. Dalrymple and his vicious Twenty-ninth regiment were impatient in the presence of such a popular demonstration. He wanted to be set at murderous work among the Bostonians, whom he thoroughly hated, but was restrained by the civil magistrates.
This event was a forerunner of a more serious one a few days afterward. John Gray had an extensive rope-walk in Boston, where a number of patriotic men were employed. They often bandied coarse taunts with the soldiers as they passed by. On Friday, the 2d of March (1770), a soldier who applied for work at the rope- walk was rudely ordered away. He challenged the men to a boxing-match, when he was severely beaten. Full of wrath he hastened to the barracks, and soon returned with several companions, when they beat the rope-makers and chased them through the streets. The citizens naturally espoused the cause of the rope- makers, and many of them assembled in the afternoon with a determination to avenge the wrongs of the workmen. Mr. Gray and the military authorities interfered, and prevented any further disturbance then. But vengeance only slumbered. It was resolved, by some of the more excitable of the inhabitants, to renew the contest; and at the barracks the soldiers inflamed each other's passions, and prepared bludgeons. They warned their particular friends in the city not to be abroad on Monday night, for there would be serious trouble.
Fresh wet snow had fallen, and on Monday evening, the 5th of March, frost had covered the streets of Boston with a coat of ice. The moon was in its first quarter and shed a pale light over the town, when, at twilight, both citizens and soldiers began to assemble in the streets. By seven o'clock full seven hundred persons, armed with clubs and other weapons, were on King (now State) street, and, provoked by the insolence and brutality of the lawless soldiery, shouted: "Let us drive out these rascals! They have no business heredrive them out!" At the same time parties of soldiers (whom Dalrymple had doubtless released from the barracks for the purpose of provoking the people to commit some act of violence, and so give an excuse for letting loose the dogs of war) were going about the streets boasting of their valor, insulting citizens with coarse words, and striking many of them with sticks and sheathed swords. Meanwhile the populace in the street were increasing in numbers every moment, and at about nine o'clock in the evening, they attacked some soldiers in Dock Square, and shouted: "Town-born, turn out! Down with the bloody-backs!" They tore up the stalls of a market, and used the timber for bludgeons. The soldiers scattered and ran about the streets, knocking people down and raising the fearful cry of Fire! At the barracks on Brattle street, a subaltern at the gate cried out, as the populace gathered there, "Turn out! I will stand by you; knock them down? kill them! run your bayonets through them!" The soldiers rushed out, and, leveling their muskets, threatened to make a lane paved with dead men through the crowd. Just then an officer was crossing the street, when a barber's boy cried out: "There goes a mean fellow, who will not pay my master for shaving him." A sentinel standing near the corner of the Custom-house ran out and knocked the boy down with his musket.
The cry of fire and the riotous behavior of the soldiers caused an alarm-bell to be rung. The whole city was aroused. Many men came out with canes and clubs for self-defence, to learn the occasion of the uproar. Many of the more excitable citizens formed a mob. Some of the leading citizens present tried to persuade them to disperse, and had in a degree gained their respectful attention, when a tall man, covered with a long scarlet cloak and wearing a white wig, suddenly appeared among them, and began a violent harangue against the government officers and the troops. He concluded his inflammatory speech by boldly shouting: "To the main-guard! to the mainguard! There is the nest!" It is believed that the orator in the scarlet cloak was Samuel Adams.
The populace immediately echoed the shout"To the main-guard!" with fearful vehemence, and separating into three ranks, took different routes toward the quarters of the main-guard. While one division was passing the Custom-house, the barber's boy cried out: "There's the scoundrel who knocked me down!" A score of voices shouted, "Let us knock him down! Down with the bloody-backs! Kill him! kill him!" The crowd instantly began pelting him with snow-balls and bits of ice, and pressed toward him. He raised his musket and pulled the trigger. Fortunately for him it missed fire, when the crowd tried to seize him. He ran up the Custom-house steps, but, unable to enter the building, he called to the main-guard for help. Captain Preston, the officer of the day, sent eight men, with unloaded muskets but with ball-cartridges in their cartouch boxes, to help their beleaguered comrade. At that moment the stout Boston bookseller, Henry Knox (who married the daughter of General Gage's secretary and was a major- general of artillery in the army of the Revolution), holding Preston by the coat, begged him to call the soldiers back. "If they fire," said Knox, "your life must answer for the consequences." Preston nervously answered: "I know what I am about," and followed his men.
When this detachment approached, they, too, were pelted with snow-balls and ice; and Crispus Attucks, a brawny Indian from Nantucket, at the head of some sailors, like himself (who had led the mob in the attack on the soldiers in Dock Square), gave a loud war-whoop and shouted: "Let us fall upon the nest! the main-guard! the main-guard!" The soldiers instantly loaded their guns. Then some of the multitude pressed on them with clubs, struck their muskets and cried out, "You are cowardly rascals for bringing arms against naked men." Attuck shouted: "You dare not fire!" and called upon the mob behind him: "Come on! don't be afraid! They daren't fire! Knock them down! Kill 'em!" Captain Preston came up at that moment and tried to appease the multitude. Attucks aimed a blow at his head with a club, which Preston parried with his arm. It fell upon the musket of one of the soldiers and knocked it to the ground. Attucks seized the bayonet, and a struggle between the Indian and the soldier for the possession of the gun ensued. Voices behind Preston cried out, "Why don't you fire! why don't you fire?" The struggling soldier hearing the word fire, just as he gained possession of his musket, drew up his piece and shot Attucks dead. Five other soldiers fired at short intervals, without being restrained by Preston. Three of the populace were killed, five were severely wounded (two of them mortally), and three were slightly hurt. Of the eleven, only one (Attucks) had actually taken part in the disturbance. The crowd dispersed; and when citizens came to pick up the dead, the infuriated soldiers would have shot them, if the captain had not restrained them.
News of the tragedy spread over the town in a few minutes. It was now near midnight. There was a light in every house, for few besides children had retired on that fearful night in Boston. The alarm-bells were rung. Drums beat to arms. A cry went through the streets"The soldiers are murdering the people! To arms! to arms! Turn out with your guns!" Preston also ordered his drums to beat to arms. Colonel Dalrymple, with the lieutenant-governor, were soon on the spot and promised the orderly citizens, who had taken the place of the dispersed mob, that justice should be vindicated in the morning. Order was restored, and before the dawn the streets of Boston were quiet. Meanwhile Preston had been arrested and put into prison; and the next morning the eight soldiers were committedall charged with the crime of murder.
Such is the sad story of the famous "Boston Massacre," gleaned from the conflicting evidence of witnesses at the trial of Preston and his men, and of contemporary writers. The 5th of March was celebrated as a solemn anniversary in the history of the colonies, until after the Declaration of Independence became a national holiday. The killing of citizens was undoubtedly a massacre, for the outrageous conduct of the soldiers created the mob. Their offensive acts on that night were undoubtedly approved by Dalrymple, their commander. It was his duty to keep them in the barracks at a time of popular excitement only, not an insurrection. He must have foreseen the result of their doings, and hoped for an excuse to "begin work in Boston," as he had said before. Such is the verdict of history after a lapse of more than a century.
The event produced a profound impression everywhere. The cause of Boston became the cause of the continent. The story, embellished in its course from lip to lip, became a tale of horrors that stirred the blood of patriots everywhere. It was a crisis in the history of the colonies. Some were disposed to consider the events on that night as forming the principal cause of the Revolution which soon afterward broke out. John Adams said long years afterward: "On that night the foundation of American independence was laid;" and Daniel Webster, when speaking of the event, said: "From that moment we may date the severance of the British empire." The "foundation for the independence of America" was laid long before, when the early colonists began to yearn for the privileges of local self- government; and the "severance of the British empire" was decreed when Andros was driven from New England.
On the morning after the massacre, the Sons of Liberty gathered in great numbers in Faneuil Hall. The lieutenant-governor convened his council, and that afternoon a town-meeting was held in the South Meeting-house (yet standing), then the largest building in the city. The people there resolved "that nothing could be expected to restore peace and prevent carnage, but an immediate removal of the troops." A committee of fifteen, with Samuel Adams as their chairman, were sent the next morning, with that resolution, to Hutchinson and Dalrymple. "The people," said Royal Tyler, one of the committee, "are determined to remove the troops out of the town by force, if they will not go voluntarily. They are not such people as formerly pulled down your house, that conduct these measures, but men of estatesmen of religion. The people will come in to us from all the neighboring towns; we shall have ten thousand men at our backs, and your troops will probably be destroyed by the people, be it called rebellion or what it may." Hutchinson replied: "An attack on the king's troops would be high-treason, and every man concerned in it would forfeit his life and estate." The committee renewed the demand for the removal of the troops. The officials would only promise to send one regiment away. This unsatisfactory answer the committee reported to an adjourned town-meeting that afternoon, when it was immediately resolved that it was "the unanimous opinion of the meeting, that the reply made to the vote of the inhabitants, presented to his honor this morning, is by no means satisfactory, and that nothing else will satisfy them but a total and immediate removal of all the troops." Samuel Adams, John Hancock, William Molineux, William Phillips, Joseph Warren, Joshua Henshaw and Samuel Pemberton were appointed to carry this resolution to the civil and military authorities. Adams presented the resolutions. Again the lieutenant-governor and the colonel temporized. Hutchinson said he had no power to remove the troops. Adams proved that he had, by the provisions of the charter. Still the crown-officers hesitated. Adams resolved that there should be no more trifling with the will of the people. Stretching forth his hand toward Hutchinson, and in a voice not loud but clear, he said: "If you have power to remove one regiment, you have power to remove both. It is at your peril if you do not. The meeting is composed of three thousand people. They are become very impatient. A thousand men are already arrived from the neighborhood, and the country is in general motion. Night is approaching; an immediate answer is expected."
This was the voice of the provinceof the continentand the crown-officers knew it. Fear of the angry people and dread of the frowns of the ministry agitated them with conflicting emotions. Hutchinson grew pale; his knees trembled, and Adams afterward said, "I enjoyed the sight." The lieutenant- governor's council had unanimously recommended the removal of the troops; the people demanded it, and after conferring together in a whisper, Hutchinson and Dalrymple agreed to send the troops to Castle William. The committee returned to the meeting with the good news, and the Old South Meeting-house rang with acclamations of joy. The humbled troops were speedily sent out of the town. It was a signal triumph for the people; and the rights of man. These troops had been sent to overawe the people; the people had overawed the troops. The inhabitants kept a strict guard over the prisoners and a vigilant oversight of the troops while they remained, "many of the most respectable citizens appearing as common soldiers" in this duty.
The funeral of the victims of the massacre occurred on the 8th of March. It was made an occasion of a great popular demonstration. Four hearses that bore the bodies of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who were murdered on the 5th, met at the spot, in King street, where the tragedy was enacted. Thence they moved to the Middle Burial-ground, followed by an immense concourse of people of all classes and conditions, on foot; and then by a long line of carriage "of the gentry of the town," who occupied them. The bodies were placed in one vault. The newspapers of the country were shrouded in broad black lines. The Boston Gazette, printed on Monday, the 12th of March, was heavily striped with black lines, and contained pictures of four coffins, bearing the initials of the slain and the skull and cross-bones. Long afterward John Adams wrote: "Not the battle of Lexington or Bunker Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis, were more important events in American history than the battle of King street, on the 5th of March, 1770. The death of four or five persons, the most obscure and inconsiderable that could have been found upon the continent, has never yet been forgiven in any part of America."
Late in the autumn of the same year, when public excitement had subsided, Captain Preston and his soldiers were tried for murder before a court in Boston. Josiah Quincy, Jr., and John Adams were counsel for the prisoners. They were known as ardent patriots, yet their acceptance of the task of defending these prisoners offended many of their compatriots, and severely tried the strength of their popularity. They entered upon their duties as counsellors with humane motives, and they discharged them with fidelity to their clients, the law, and the testimony. Robert Treat Paine, afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the counsel for the crown. Preston and six of the soldiers were declared not guilty by a Boston jury. The other twothe soldier who killed Attucks, and another who shot Maverickwere convicted of manslaughter only, and for that offence they were each branded in the hand with a hot iron, in open court, and discharged.
This trial was another triumph for the Americans. The advocates in Parliament for the revival of the long-slumbering statute of Henry the Eighth, providing for the trial in England of persons accused of crimes in the colonies, gave as a reason for such revival, that American juries could not be trusted in the case of a crown-officer being on trial. This verdict of a Boston jury, under the circumstances, set that slander at rest forever, and amazed the judges of the English courts. The jury had simply triumphed over prejudice and strong emotion, and given a verdict in accordance with the dictates of conscience and perceptions of truth.
On the evening when the Boston massacre occurred, Lord North asked leave of the British House of Commons to bring in a bill for repealing the duties on certain articles mentioned in Hillsborough's circular, but retaining a duty of three per cent on tea. This was a small taxa very small burdena mere "pepper-corn rent," avowedly to save the national honor. The proposition found very little favor from either party. The friends of the Americans demanded a repeal of the whole revenue act; the friends of the crown regarded a partial repeal as utterly useless, for they began to comprehend the deep-seated principle on which the Americans had planted themselves. Lord North, in his heart, wished to have a full repeal, and thereby insure a full reconciliation; but the stubborn king would not relinquish an iota of his prerogative on compulsion, and the duty on tea was retained by the votes of a small majority in Parliament. The bill received the royal assent on the 12th of April. The monarch had already received intelligence of the massacre. When it was revealed to Parliament, it created a very great sensation. Had that body received the news sooner, the duty on tea would not have been retained.
When intelligence of this act reached America, the colonists saw that the contest was not quite over. In the three per cent duty on tea lay the kernel of future oppressionsmaterials for chains of slavery. But the people, late in 1770, began to relax their loyalty to the non-importation leagues. The merchants of New York proposed to import everything but tea. "Send us your Liberty-Pole, as you can have no further use for it," wrote the Philadelphians. The letter of the New York merchants was burnt by the students at Princeton, with james Madison at their head. In Boston it was torn in pieces, and in other colonies it was read with indignation. But Philadelphia and Boston merchants soon acquiesced; and before the close of 1770, the colonists were importing everything from Great Britain excepting tea. The associations had exerted salutary influence on society in America. Many extravagant customs had been abolished; personal expenses had been curtailed, and some manufactures had been encouraged. Home-made articles were fashionable. The graduating class at Cambridge took their degrees in home-spun clothes in 1770.
The spinning-wheel, which had been introduced into the colonies by the Scotch- Irish early in the last century, played an important part in the politics of the time. It had been introduced into England from India in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and it was such an improvement upon the ancient distaff in the process of spinning, that, according to a legend that prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland, it was a special gift from heaven. This gift the patriotic women of America used most effectually in helping their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons in successful resistance to oppression. How much the hearts, heads and busy fingers of the women of the Revolution contributed to the achievement of the great result may never be known. The service was very great.
SETTLEMENTS BEYOND THE MOUNTAINSLAWLESSNESS IN NORTH CAROLINAGOVERNOR TRYON AND THE REGULATORSA BATTLE ON THE ALLAMANCECRUELTY OF THE GOVERNORCROWN- OFFICERS IN AMERICAN MADE INDEPENDENT OF THE ASSEMBLIESOBNOXIOUS LETTERS OF CROWN-OFFICERSTHEIR HISTORYSPIRIT OF LIBERTY EVERYWHEREVIRGINIA FIRM AND NEW YORK WAVERINGAFFAIR OF THE GASPEEAST INDIA COMPANY AND THE MINISTRY TEA-SHIPS SENT TO AMERICAPROCEEDINGS AGAINST THEM IN SEAPORT TOWNS.
DURING the next two years after the Boston massacre, the colonists were not disturbed by any obnoxious legislation by Parliament. At that period a spirit of adventure caused many persons to climb over the mountains west of the British- American colonies to explore the valleys of the Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, and to penetrate the dark forests in the more southern portions of the Mississippi Valley. Washington then made himself thoroughly acquainted with the region of West Virginia on the borders of the Ohio River. Daniel Boone and companions from the Clinch and Holston rivers were traversing the wilds of Kentucky, and preparing the way for settlements there; and James Robertson and others were exploring the borders of the sinuous Cumberland, and planting a permanent settlement on the bluffs at Nashville. So these pioneers were revolutionizing that vast and rich country into which an industrious population soon flowed, pitched their tents, and made permanent habitations.
Robertson had come from the discontented regions of North Carolina, where the Regulators were resisting oppression with all their might. For more than two years anarchy prevailed there. Sheriffs dared not exercise their official functions. Judges were driven from the bench, and general lawlessness was observed. Governor Tryon met this state of things as a passionate and unwise ruler would. Instead of being just, and protecting the flock over which he had been set from rapacious wolves, he coalesced with the wolves and used the strong arm of military power to crush rising and righteous rebellion. Bad men had attached themselves to the Regulators and brought discredit upon their course, but a wise ruler would have discriminated between the good and bad of his opposers.
A rumor reached the governor that a band of armed Regulators were at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville) ready to march upon New Berne to release Herman Husbands, who had been temporarily imprisoned. Tryon fortified his palace and called out the militia of the several adjoining counties. Husbands was released and his partisans retired. But the governor went ahead, and made a virtual declaration of war against the Regulators. His council authorized him to march into the rebellious district with sufficient troops to restore law and order. With three hundred militia and a small train of artillery, he left New Berne late in April (1771), and early in May encamped on the Eno, where he was joined by reinforcements. General Hugh Waddell had been directed to collect the forces from the western countries; and at Salisbury, where he rendezvoused his troops, he waited for powder then on its way from Charleston. Its convoy was intercepted in Cabarras county by some Regulators with blackened faces, and routed, and the powder fell into the hands of the assailants. Waddell crossed the Yadkin to join Tryon, where he received a message from the Regulators telling him to halt or retreat. He found many of his troops wavering; and so he turned about, and re- crossed the Yadkin, hotly pursued by a band of insurgents. They captured many of his men, but the general escaped to Salisbury.
When Tryon heard of these disasters, he pressed forward toward the Allamance Creek, to confront the Regulators, whom, he heard, were gathering in force on the Salisbury road. When he approached, they sent to him a proposition for an accommodation, with a demand for an answer within four hours. He promised a reply by noon the next day. That night he treacherously moved forward, crossed the Allamance at dawn, and moving stealthily along the Salisbury road, formed a line of battle within half a mile of the camp of the Regulators, before he was discovered. The insurgents seized their arms, and the belligerents confronted each other with deadly weapons. A parley ensued. An ambassador of the Regulators, named Thompson, who was sent to Tryon, was detained as a prisoner. He resented the perfidy, and in bold words told Tryon some unpleasant truths. The governor, in hot anger, snatched a gun from the hands of a militiaman and shot Thompson dead. He instantly perceived his folly, and sent out a flag of truce. The Regulators saw Thompson fall, and they fired on the flag. At that moment the Rev. Dr. Caldwell, a staunch patriot, fearing bloodshed, rode along the lines and begged the Regulators to disperse. Tryon, on the contrary, full of wrath, gave the fatal word "Fire!" The militia hesitated. The governor, crazed with rage, rose in his stirrups and shouted "Fire! fire on them or on me!" A volley of musketry and discharge of cannon followed this order. The fire was returned. For a few minutes there was a hot fight. Some young Regulators rushed forward and seized the governor's cannon, but did not know how to use them. There was no acknowledged leader of the insurgents excepting Herman Husbands, who, when the firing began, declared that his peace-principles as a Quaker would not allow him to fight, and he rode away. He was not seen again in that region until the close of the war of the Revolution. In that conflict nine of the militia and more than twenty of the Regulators were killed, and many were wounded on both sides. It was the first battle in the war for independence. It was a sort of civil war, for it was fought on the soil of North Carolina between citizens of North Carolina. The Regulators were defeated, and the people in all that regionconscientious peoplewere compelled to take an oath of allegiance, which restrained their patriotic action when the war of the Revolution was earnestly begun.
The victor exercised savage cruelty toward his prisoners, showing a petty spite which was disgraceful to a soldier and a man. He condemned a young carpenter named Few, who had suffered much from the bad conduct of Fanning (even the loss of a maiden to whom he was affianced), to be hung on the night after the battle, and caused the property of his mother, at Hillsborough, to be destroyed. Other prisoners were marched through the country, as in a triumphal procession, and the conqueror marked his path by conflagrations and destruction of growing crops. At Hillsborough six more of the prisoners were hanged, as a terror to the inhabitants. Among them was Captain Messer, who had been sentenced to be hung with Few. His wife hurried to Tryon, with their little son ten years of age, and pleaded for her husband's life. The governor spurned her rudely, and Messer was led out to be executed. The boy broke away from his mother, who lay weeping on the ground, and going to the governor said: "Sir, hang me, and let my father live." "Who told you to say that?" asked Tryon. "Nobody," replied the lad. "Why do you ask that?" said the governor. "Because if you hang my father," said the boy, "my mother will die and the little children will perish." Tryon's heart was touched. Messer was offered his liberty if he would bring Husbands back. He consented, and his wife and children were kept as hostages. Messer returned in the course of a few days, and reported that he overtook Husbands in Virginia, but could not bring him back. The exasperated governor hung Messer at Hillsborough, with the other prisoners.
The movements of the Regulators was a powerful beginning of that system of resistance which marked the people of North Carolina in the impending struggle. It lacked the lofty moral aspect of the movements in New England. The North Carolinians were resisting actual oppression, in the form of heavy taxation and extortion; the New Englanders were moved by an abstract principle of justice and right. The three per cent. at pound duty on tea had no effect on the material prosperity of Massachusetts; but it represented oppression and injustice, and they resisted its collection.
In 1772, Parliament, by a special act for strengthening the powers of the royal governors in America, excited the indignation of the colonists. It provided for the payment of the salaries of the governors and judges independent of the colonial assemblies. Hutchins, who had been appointed governor of Massachusetts in 1771, was delighted, and in a triumphant tone he assured the Assembly that henceforth not they, but the crown, would pay his salary. They knew the significance of the act, and denounced it as a violation of their charter. Other assemblies took umbrage likewise, for it was regarded as a bribe for the faithfulness of the royal governors to the crown in a warfare upon colonial rights. The subject was taken into consideration at a town-meeting in Boston. A large committee was appointed to draw up and publish a statement of all the rights and grievances of the colonies. This was done in an address prepared by Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, in which the scheme for establishing Episcopacy in America was also condemned. It was the boldest and most complete exposition of the rights and grievances of the colonies yet put forth, and it was followed by the organization of committees of correspondence in every town. Dr. Franklin, who had been appointed agent for Massachusetts in England, in 1771,, published it there, with a preface written by himself. It produced a deep impression on both sides of the Atlantic.
When the massachusetts legislature assembled at the beginning of 1773, Hutchinson denounced the address as "seditious and treasonable." This stirred the indignation of the people, and very soon afterward an event occurred which produced great exasperation in Massachusetts. Letters of Hutchinson, Lieutenant- Governor Oliver and others, written to Mr. Whateley, one of the under- secretaries of the government, then dead, had been put into the hands of Dr. Franklin by Dr. Hugh Williamson of Philadelphia, who had procured them by stratagem from the office of Mr. Whateley's brother. In these letters, the popular leaders of Massachusetts were vilified; the liberal clauses of the Massachusetts charter were condemned; the punishment of the Bostonians by restraints upon their commercial privileges was recommended, and an "abridgment of what are called English liberties" in America, by coercive measures, was strongly urged. Dr. Franklin saw in these letters evidences of a conspiracy against his country by vipers in her bosom, and he sent them, with an official letter, to Thomas Cushing, the Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, in which he said: "As to the writers, when I find them bartering away the liberties of their native country for posts; negotiating for salaries and pensions extorted from the people, conscious of the odium there might be attended with calling for troops to protect and secure them; when I see them exciting jealousies in the crown, and provoking it to wrath against so great a part of its most faithful subjects; creating enmities between the different countries of what the empire consists; occasioning great expense to the old country for suppressing or preventing imaginary rebellion in the new, and to the new country for the payment of needless gratifications to useless officers and enemies, I cannot but doubt their sincerity even in the political principles they profess, and deem them mere time-servers, seeking their own private emoluments through any quantity of public mischief; betrayers of the interest not of their native country alone, but of the government they pretend to serve, and of the whole English empire."
These letters were circulated privately for awhile, when they were laid before the Massachusetts Assembly and published to the world. The tempest of indignation that followed these revelations was fearful to Hutchinson and his friends. A committee was appointed to wait upon the governor and demand from him an explicit denial or acknowledgment of their authenticity. "They are mine," he said, "but they were quite confidential." That qualification was not considered extenuating, and the Assembly adopted a petition to the king for the removal of Hutchinson and his lieutenant as public slanderers and enemies of the colony, and, as such, not to be tolerated. The petition was sent to Franklin, with instructions to present it in person, if possible. He could not do it, for the king disliked him. So he sent it to Lord Dartmouth, who had succeeded Hillsborough as secretary for the colonies. His lordship sent it to the king, who laid it before the Privy Council.
Meanwhile the exposure had produced much excitement in England. Mr. Whateley accused Lord Temple, Pitt's brother-in-law (who had once obtained permission to examine Secretary Whateley's papers), of abstracting them and putting them into Franklin's hands. A duel, in which Temple was wounded, was the consequence. When Franklin heard of this, he publicly avowed his share in the matter, and exonerated Mr. Temple. "I am told by some," Franklin wrote to Mr. Cushing, "that it was imprudent in me to avow the obtaining and sending those letters, for that administration will resent it. I have not much apprehension of this; but, if it happens, I must take the consequences."
While Massachusetts was in a ferment because of Hutchinson's acts, the spirit of liberty was conspicuously manifest in other colonies. On the receipt of the Massachusetts Address, setting forth the rights and grievances of the colonies, the Virginia Assembly expressed their concurrence and sympathy, and appointed a committee of correspondence as representatives of their body when not in session, and of the people. They were about to adopt other resolutions equally unsubmissive, in their spirit, to royal authority, when Lord Dunmore, the successor of the dead Lord Botetourt, as governor of Virginia, dissolved them. The committee of correspondence met the next day, and dispatched a Circular Letter, containing their resolutions, to the other colonial assemblies. That of Massachusetts responded by the appointment of a similar committee, of fifteen, and instructing them to urge the colonies to take similar action. Several of them did so, and the first sound link of a political confederacy was thus formed.
In New York, meanwhile, the loyalist party had gradually obtained the ascendency in the Assembly. Their influence was felt among the people. As we have observed, non-importation agreements were disregarded. A general committee of one hundred, and a vigilance committee of fifty, had been appointed, and disaffection had appeared in these. The true Sons of Liberty in Hampden Hall found it difficult, for some time, to keep alive the demonstrative zeal of the patriots. They were assisted, however, by Governor Tryon, who came from North Carolina to rule New York. His petty tyranny soon aroused the slumbering patriotism of the people, and when occasion demanded they were as fiery and firm as the New Englanders in defending their rights.
In the summer of 1772, an occurrence in Narraganset Bay made a great stir in the colonies and in Great Britain. The commissioners of customs, at Boston, sent an armed British schooner into the Bay, to enforce the revenue laws and prevent illicit traffic. It was the Gaspe, commanded by Lieutenant Dudingston. He loved to play the petty tyrant, and obstructed legitimate commerce by vexatious arrests of vessels on their course, without showing his commission. The chief- justice of Rhode Island (Hopkins) decided that no man coming into the colony had a right to exercise authority by force of arms, without first showing his commission; whereupon Governor Wanton sent the high-sheriff on board the Gaspe with a message to her commander asking him to produce his commission without delay. Dudingston did not comply. The demand was repeated in a second letter, with the same result. The lieutenant forwarded Wanton's letters to Admiral Montagu, at Boston, of whom John Adams wrote in his diary: "His brutal, hoggish manners are a disgrace to the royal navy and to the king's service." He wrote a coarse, blustering letter to the governor, saying: "I shall report your two insolent letters to his majesty's secretaries of state, and have them to determine what right you have to demand sight of all orders I shall give to all officers of my squadron; and I would advise you not to send the sheriff on board the king's ship again on such ridiculous errands. The lieutenant, sir, has done his duty. I shall give the king's officers directions, that they send every man taken in molesting them, to me. As sure as the people of Newport attempt to rescue any vessel, and any of them are taken, I will hang them as pirates." To this insulting letter Governor Wanton replied with spirit. He expressed his gratification that his letters had been sent to the secretaries, and his surprise at the admiral's impolite words. He informed him that he should send that officer's letter to the same gentlemen, and leave it for the king and his minister to determine on which side the charge of insolence properly belonged. "As to your advice," he said, "not to send a sheriff on board any of your squadron, please to know, that I will send the sheriff of this colony at any time and to every place within the body of it, as I shall think fit." Before ministers had time to settle the question, the affair had assumed a more hostile aspect.
Dudingston became more insolent and annoying. He ordered even well-known packet- ships to lower their colors in token of respect when passing the Gaspe, and often fired upon those which failed to do so. At about noon on the 9th of June (1772), the packet Hannah was passing up the Bay before a stiff breeze, and did not bow to the haughty marine Gesler. The Gaspe gave chase. The tide was ebbing, but the bar of Namquit Point was covered. The Hannah misled her pursuer, by a more westerly way, when the schooner ran upon the sands and was hopelessly grounded. This fact was told by the captain of the Hannah to John Brown, a leading merchant of Providence, who thought it a good opportunity to rid themselves of the nuisance. He organized an expedition to destroy the schooner that night. Eight of the largest boats in the harbor,with four oarsmen each, their row-locks muffled, were collected early in the evening, and the whole expedition was placed in charge of Captain Whipple, one of Brown's most trusted shipmasters.
Sixty-four well-armed men left Providence in the boats, between ten and eleven o'clock in the evening, and reached the Gaspe. They were hailed by a sentinel, but did not answer. Dudingston appeared on deck, waved his hand for the boats to keep away, and fired a pistol among them. The shot was returned from a musket. The lieutenant was wounded and carried below. Then the vessel was boarded without much opposition. Dudingston's wound was dressed by an American medical student, and he was taken ashore. The crew were ordered to gather up their private property, and go ashore also. This done, the vessel was set on fire, and at early dawn she was blown up by her ignited magazine.
This high-handed act was condemned by the local authorities in public. Governor Wanton offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the discovery of the perpetrators. The British government offered five thousand dollars for the leader, and twenty-five hundred dollars to the man who should discover and reveal the names of the others. A royal commission of investigation was appointed, and the admiral gave all the assistance in his power, but not one of the party turned state's-evidence, though tempted by large rewards to do so. Nor did any of the citizens of Providence, who knew many of the actors well, reveal the secret (and the names of none of them were spoken of as actors) until after the war with Great Britain was actually begun. Then it was revealed that Whipple was the leader. The fact caused a very laconic correspondence. Sir James Wallace was blockading Narraganset Bay with a single war-vessel in 1775, and Whipple was in command of a little provincial naval force to drive him away. Wallace wrote to that commander:
"You, Abraham Whipple, on the 10th of June, 1772, burned his majesty's vessel, the Gaspe, and I will hang you at the yard-arm.
" JAMES WALLACE"
He was answered:
"Sir,-Always catch a man before you hang him.
"ABRAHAM WHIPPLE."
At the beginning of 1773, the East India Company found itself greatly embarrassed by the American non-importation agreements concerning tea. That Company had seventeen million pounds of tea in store unsold. They could not pay dividends nor debts. Bankruptcies were the consequence, and these produced so great a shock to credit that a panic prevailed. The Company implored the ministry to take off the duty on tea. The ministry refused, for the royal prerogative forbade it. Leave was granted to the Company to send tea to America on their own account, without paying an export duty, and so enable the colonists to buy it cheaper from England than from any other market. The king and Lord North, losing sight of the principle involved, foolishly thought this measure would quiet the Americans, "for," North said, "men will always go to the cheapest markets." So another opportunity for reconciliation was lost. In May, Parliament passed an act in accordance with the king's desires, for so favoring the East India Companya vast monopoly sitting heavily on the commercial enterprise of Englandwhile respectful petitions and remonstrances from his loyal subjects in America, touching the highest interests of the nation, were treated with scorn. The king, in answer to such papers, announced that he considered his "authority to make laws in Parliament of sufficient force and validity to bind his subjects in America in all cases whatsoever, as essential to the dignity of the crown, and a right appertaining to the state, which it was his duty to preserve entire and inviolate;" and he expressed his displeasure because, in their petitions and remonstrances, that right was brought into question.
The East India Company, hoping, yet doubting, accepted the proposed arrangement. In August they received a proper license, and filled ships with cargoes of tea for American ports. Agents were appointed at all the sea-ports to receive the tea, and relief for the embarrassed company seemed to be nigh. They were warned by Franklin and other Americans that they would suffer loss by the operation, for their countrymen would not accept the new arrangement. But Lord North quieted the fears of the Company by saying: "It is no purpose making objections, for the king will have it so. He means to try the question with the Americans."
The colonists accepted the issue. They met the commercial question with one of deeper significance than that of the dearness or cheapness of a commodity. Is there a duty for revenue, imposed on tea? was the true question. It was answered in the affirmative, and it was resolved that tea, whatever its price, should not be landed in America until that duty was taken off. The committees of correspondence soon produced unity of sentiment on that point throughout the colonies. Public meetings were held. Mutual support was pledged; the agents or consignees were requested to resign, and when the tea-ships arrived, they were not allowed in some places to discharge their cargoes. The spirit of the stamp- act days was aroused.
The earliest public meeting to consider the reception that should be given to the tea-ships on their arrival, was held in the city of New York, on the 15th of October, 1773. Intimations had reached the city on the 11th, that a tea-ship had been ordered to that port; and at the meeting held at the coffee-house, in Wall street, grateful thanks were voted to the patriotic American merchants and ship- masters in London who had refused to receive tea as freight from the East India Company. On the following day (October 16) a large meeting was held in the State-house yard, in Philadelphia, for the same purpose. When word reached the city that a tea-ship had been ordered to that port, the newspapers denounced the whole scheme as a ministerial trick to ensnare and enslave the Americans. The people were much excited, and the meeting in the State-house yard was a "monster" gathering for that day. Eight spirited resolutions were adopted, the most vital of which was one that declared "That the resolution lately entered into by the East India Company, to send out their tea to America subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America." They also resolved that it was the duty of every American to oppose the attempt to force the tea and taxes upon them. The consignees of the proscribed herb, in Philadelphia, were, by another resolution, requested, "from a regard to their character and the good order of the city and province, immediately to resign." Already a self-constituted "committee for tarring and feathering" had issued a manifest to the pilots on the Delaware, telling them to do their duty in case they should meet the teaship Polly, Captain Ayres. They were to warn him not to go to Philadelphia, and to promise him, in case he persisted in doing so, that he would have "a halter around his neck, ten gallons of liquid tar scattered over his pate, with the feathers of a dozen wild geese laid over that to enliven his appearance." The same committee threatened the consignees; and when, on Christmas day, the news reached Philadelphia that the long-expected Polly was "below," several gentlemen proceeded to meet her. She was intercepted a few miles below the city. When her captain was told about public sentiment in Philadelphia, he left his ship and accompanied the gentlemen to the city. The next day an immense public meeting was held at the State-house, to "consider what was best to be done in that alarming crisis." It was resolved that the tea should not be landed, nor the tea-ship be allowed to enter the port, or be registered at the Custom-house. It was also resolved that the tea should be sent back, and that the vessel should make her way out of the river and bay as soon as possible.
News that a similar spirit had been manifested in Charleston, New York and Boston, drew hearty thanks from the meeting in Philadelphia. The Captain (Ayres) of the Polly pledged himself to conform to the wishes of the people, and so the latter triumphed. A contemporary writer said: "The foundations of American liberty are more deeply laid than ever."
When the tea-ship Nancy, Captain Lockyier, arrived at Sandy Hook, below New York, her master wisely heeded the advice of the pilot, and went to the city without his vessel. Already a notice had appeared in Holt's fournal of that city, for the "Mohawks" to be in readiness when a tea-ship should arrive; and the captain found public sentiment so strong against receiving the tea, that he resolved to return to England with his cargo. While he was in the city, a circumstance occurred which justified him in making his decision. A merchant vessel arrived with eighteen chests of tea hidden away in her cargo. The wide- awake Sons of Liberty, suspecting smuggling, searched the vessel, and on finding the tea, cast the whole of it into the waters of the harbor. The captain was advised to leave New York as quickly as possible. As he and Lockyier put off in a boat for their respective vessels, at Whitehall (foot of Broad street), a multitude who had gathered there shouted a farewell; and while cannon-peals from the Fields shook the city, the people hoisted a British flag on the Liberty-Pole in token of triumph.
At Boston, yet the focus of resistance to British oppression, the greatest demonstrations concerning the tea-ships occurred. When the people heard of the sailing of these ships, they resolved to resist the landing of their cargoes at all hazards. The subject was discussed at the clubs and coffee-houses, with great warmth. The consignees were two of Governor Hutchinson's sons and his nephew, Richard Clarke, the father-in-law of John Singleton Copley, the artist. Their near relationship to the detested governor made them more obnoxious in the eyes of the Sons of Liberty. They were invited to appear before a meeting of citizens to be held under Liberty-Tree, on the 3d of November, where about five hundred citizens assembled, some of them leaders of popular opinion. A flag floated over the consecrated tree. The consignees did not appear, and a committee was appointed to wait upon them. They repelled the committee with discourtesy, and refused to agree, as was demanded of them, to return the tea to London in the same ships in which it should arrive. When the committee reported to the meeting, there was a cry"Out with our enemies! Out with them!" The excited people were persuaded to disperse, and two days afterward a regular town-meeting was held. The next day another committee called upon the consignees with a request that they should resign. Their answer was: "It is out of our power to comply with the request of the town." On receiving this reply, the meeting broke up without the utterance of a single word; and that night a crowd gathered in front of Clarke's house, when a pistol-ball was fired among them from a window of the dwelling. Nobody was hurt, and the affair ended in the smashing of Clarke's windows.
The silence of the town-meeting, on its dissolution, was ominous. The consignees felt it to be so. It plainly indicated that talking was over, and henceforth there would be action. They saw that they were now to be dealt with by the able committee of correspondence and the populace, and they were alarmed. The governor called a meeting of his council to consult about measures for preserving the public peace. The consignees, thoroughly frightened, petitioned leave to resign their appointments into the hands of the governor and council, but their prayer was refused. Believing themselves to be in personal peril, they fled from the city and took refuge in Castle William.
THE "BOSTON TEA-PARTY"ITS EFFECTS AT HOME AND ABROADWRATH OF THE ROYALISTS THE BOSTON PORT BILLOPPOSITION OF BURKE AND OTHERSCHARLES JAMES FOX IGNORANCE CONCERNING AMERICANSOTHER MEASURES FOR PUNISHING THE BOSTONIANS ADOPTEDAPPREHENSIONS OF THE MINISTRYTHE PETITION FOR THE REMOVAL OF HUTCHINSONFRANKLIN BEFORE THE PRIVY COUNCILBAD MANNERS OF THE LORDS FRANKLIN IS DISMISSED FROM OFFICE.
ON Monday morning, the 29th of November, 1773, a handbill was posted all over Boston, containing the following words: "Friends! Brethren! Countrymen!That worst of plagues, the detested tea, shipped for this port by the East India Company, is now arrived in the harbor; the hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself and to posterity, is now called upon to meet at Faneuil Hall, at nine o'clock THIS DAY (at which time the bells will ring), to make united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration."
The ship Dartmouth, from London, with a cargo of tea, had anchored off the castle the day before. By invitation of the Boston Committee of Correspondence those of Roxbury, Cambridge, Dorchester and Brookline assembled in the room of the selectmen, while crowds of citizens were pouring into Faneuil Hall, and resolved, by unanimous vote, to use their joint influence to prevent the landing of the tea. It was also resolved to invite all the town-committees in the province to co-operate with them. The crowd soon became so great that the Hall could not contain them, and the meeting was adjourned to the Old South Meeting- house. There the people resolved that the tea should not be landed; that no duty should be paid; and that it should be sent back in the same bottom. They also voted that Francis Rotch, the owner of the vessel, should be directed not to enter the tea, at his peril, and that the captain of the Dartmouth should also be warned not to suffer the tea to be landed. Orders were given for the ship to be moored at Griffin's Wharf, and twenty citizens were appointed a guard to watch her.
A letter came to the meeting from the consignees, offering to store the tea until they could write to England and receive instructions. "Not a pound of it shall be landed," said the meeting. They also resolved that two other tea-ships, then hourly expected, should, on their arrival, be moored alongside the Dartmouth, in charge of the same volunteer guard. The meeting quietly adjourned, and the movements of the people were governed by the Committee of Correspondence. They appointed a number of post-riders to carry news to the other towns, in case there should be an attempt to land the tea by force.
On the 14th of December, another meeting was held in the Old South, when it was resolved to order Mr. Rotch to immediately apply for a clearance for his ship and send her to sea, for his cargo had all been landed excepting the chests of tea. In the meantime, the governor had taken measures to prevent her sailing out of the harbor before the tea should be landed; and he wrote to the ministry, advising the prosecution of some of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty in Boston, for high crimes and misdemeanors. He ordered Admiral Montagu to place two armed ships at the entrance to Boston harbor, to prevent the egress of vessels; and he directed Colonel Leslie, who was in command of the Castle, not to allow any vessel to pass out from the range of his great guns, without a permit signed by himself.
The excitement of the people was now at fever heat. The issues of every future hour were looked for with great anxiety. The air was full of rumorssome true, some falseand on the 16th of December (1773), the day to which the meeting was adjourned, the largest assembly then ever seen in Boston were gathered in the Old South Meeting-house, and its vicinity. Samuel P. Savage, of Weston, presided. Full two thousand men from the neighboring towns were there. Seven thousand men soon filled the great fane and overflowed into the street. It was reported that the Custom-house officers had refused to give Mr. Rotch a clearance for his vessel before the teathe whole cargoshould be landed. "No vessel can pass the Castle without my permission, and I will not give it," thought the governor, as he rode out to his country-seat at Milton; and he believed he had secured a victory. Not so thought the people. When the great assembly heard of the refusal of the Custom-house officers to grant a clearance, they said to Mr. Rotch: "Go to the governor; protest against their action, and ask him for a permit for your vessel to sail." He hastened to the governor in the country, and the meeting adjourned until three o'clock. When they reassembled the merchant had not returned, and the question was put to the meeting: "In case the governor shall refuse his permission, will you abide by your former resolutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed?" Earnest men spoke to the question. Among the most earnest was young Josiah Quincy, a rising lawyer, with a feeble frame that was wasting with consumption, a firm will, patriotism of purest mold, and a burning zeal. He harangued the crowd with prophetic words eloquently spoken. Like a seer he perceived that a great crisis was at hand, where actions, and not words, would be required. "It is not," he said, "the spirit that reposes within these walls that must stand us in stead. The exertions of this day will call forth events which will make a very different spirit necessary for our salvation. Whoever supposes that shouts and hosannas will terminate the trials of this day, entertains a childish fancy. He must be grossly ignorant of the importance and value of the prize for which we contend; we must be equally ignorant of the power of those who have combined against us; we must be blind to that malice, inveterancy and insatiable revenge which actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosoms, to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest conflictsto flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look to the end. Let us weigh and consider, before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw."
When Mr. Quincy ceased speaking, it was sunset and the church was lighted by candles. The question was put, and the thousands answered in the affirmative. There was a call for Mr. Rotch, but he had not returned. He came soon afterward, and reported that the governor peremptorily refused him permission to send his vessel to sea before the tea should be landed. A murmur ran through the vast assemblage, but the rising excitement was hushed into silence when Samuel Adams arose, and in a clear voice said: "This meeting can do no more to save the country." At that moment a person with painted face and dressed like an Indian gave a war-whoop in the gallery, which was responded to in kind from the door of the meeting-house. Another voice in the gallery shouted: "Boston harbor a teapot to-night! Hurrah for Griffin's Wharf!" The meeting instantly adjourned and the people rushed for the street, and pushed toward Griffin's Wharf, following a number of men disguised as Indians. The populace cheered. Guards were posted to keep order. Among them was John Hancock. The disguised men and others then went on board the tea-ships moored at Griffin's Wharf, and in the course of three hours they emptied three hundred and forty-two chests of tea into the water of the harbor. The operation was performed in the presence of a multitude who were silent spectators of the scene. It was done at an early hour in the eveninga bright, cold, moonlit eveningand of the sixty men who went on board the tea- ships, only a part of them were disguised as "Mohawks." It was not a mob that destroyed the tea, but sober citizens. It was not a mob that were spectators of the scene, but a well-behaved audience looking upon a serious and most significant pantomime. It was the work of patriotic men, encouraged by patriotic citizens, who were determined not to be trifled with any longer. When the work was donewhen Boston harbor had been made a vast "teapot"the streets of the town became as quiet as a Sabbath evening. "All things," wrote John Adams to James Warren, "were conducted with great order, decency, and perfect submission to government." Early the next morning the Committee of Correspondence appointed Samuel Adams chairman of a sub-committee to draw up a statement of what had been done with the tea, and then they sent Paul Revere as express to carry the document to the Sons of Liberty in New York and Philadelphia. Of the immediate actors on board the tea-ships on that eventful night, the names of fifty-nine are known. The last survivor of the band was David Kinnison, who died in Chicago in 1851, at the age of one hundred and fifteen years.
The audacity and firmness of the Bostonians were applauded throughout the colonies. Even in Canada and the British West Indies there were but feeble voices of censure. But among the crown-officers in America and the ministerial party in Great Britain there was fierce wrath. Hutchinson threatened, but so softly, because of his fears, that it barely sufficed to shield him from the frowns of the ministers. The friends of the Americans in Parliament were silent for a moment, because they could not justify the destruction of private property; but the assurance sent to the East India Company, that the town of Boston would pay for every pound of tea destroyed on that occasion, loosened their tongues, and they made good use of the freedom for the benefit of the Americans. The whole dispute still rested upon the original foundationthe denial of the right of Great Britain to tax the colonies without their consent. It was this fact, more than the destruction of the property, that excited the ire of the king and his ministers, and made the House of Lords like a "seething caldron of impotent rage." The honesty of the Americans was overlooked, and the ministry saw nothing in the proceedings at Boston but open rebellion.
The news of the "Boston Tea-party" reached England in January (1774), but it was not officially announced until early in March. The king had waited for overwhelming evidence of the wickedness of the Americans which he found in letters from Governor Hutchinson and Admiral Montagu, the consignees of the tea, the letters of other royal governors in whose respective colonies there had been serious threatenings, and a large number of inflammatory handbills. All of these were sent by the king to Parliament with a message, in which he asked that body to devise means for the immediate suppression of tumultuous proceedings in the colonies. The House of Commons proposed an address of thanks to the king, and assurance that he should be sustained in efforts to maintain order in America. This address excited angry debates. The House became "as hot as Faneuil Hall or the Old South Meeting-house in Boston," said Burke. "There is open rebellion in America, and it must be punished," cried the Ministerial party. "Repeal your unjust laws and deal righteously with the Americans, and there will be peace and loyalty there," retorted the Opposition. After a long and stormy debate, the address was adopted by an overwhelming majority.
This vote strengthened Lord North, and stimulated the passions of the monarch. Urged by his sovereign, North submitted a bill, at the middle of March, for the severe punishment of Boston. It provided for the removal of the Custom-house, courts of justice and government offices of all kinds from Boston to Salem, and forbade every kind of shipping business in the harbor of Boston. It also provided that when the rebellious town should fully and humbly submit to royal authority, the king should have the power to open the port and restore the government business. North justified the harsh measure by asserting that Boston was "the ringleader in every riot, and set always the example which others followed." He believed severe punishment of this rebellious town would strike terror throughout the colonies, and so bring the Americans into subjection to the crown. Many of his supporters in the House used very violent language, calling the Bostonians "mobocrats," and "vile incendiaries;" men who were "never actuated by reason, but chose tarring and feathering as an argument." One member denounced them as utterly unworthy of civilized forbearance. "They ought to have their town knocked about their ears," he said; "and ought to be destroyed." He concluded his unstinted abuse by quoting the factious cry of the old Roman orators against their African enemies"Delenda est Carthago"Carthage must be destroyed. Others more just, like Rose Fuller, proposed only a fine, which Barre and other staunch friends of the Americans thought just, as it would affect a single town, and voted for it. For this apparent defection, the portraits of Barre and Conway were removed from Faneuil Hall for a short time.
Edmund Burke took a broader, loftier view of the subject, in a speech of remarkable power. It was the first of that series of splendid orations in Parliament, which made his name immortal. He denounced the whole scheme as unjust, because there was no discrimination. "You wish to condemn the accused without a hearing," he said; "to punish indiscriminately the innocent with the guilty! You will thus irrevocably alienate the hearts of the colonists from the mother country. Before the adoption of so violent a measure, the principal merchants of the kingdom should at least be consulted. The bill is unjust since it bears upon the city of Boston, while it is notorious that all America is in flames; that the cities of Philadelphia, of New York, and all the maritime towns of the continent, have exhibited the same disobedience. You are contending for a matter which the Bostonians will not give up quietly. They cannot, by such means, be made to how to the authority of ministers; on the contrary, you will find their obstinacy confirmed and their fury exasperated. The acts of resistance in their city have not been confined to the populace alone, but men of the first rank and opulent fortune in the place have openly countenanced them. One city in proscription and the rest in rebellion can never be a remedial measure for general disturbances. Have you considered whether you have troops and ships sufficient to reduce the people of the whole American continent to your devotion? It was the duty of your governor, and not of men without arms, to suppress the tumults. If this officer has not demanded the proper assistance from the military commanders, why punish the innocent for the fault and the negligence of the officers of the crown? The resistance is general in all parts of America; you must, therefore, let it govern itself by its own internal policy, or make it subservient to all your laws by an exertion of all the forces of the kingdom. These partial counsels are well suited to irritate, not subjugate." Other members followed Burke in agreement with his views, but none were so clear and logical in ideas and expression as he. Charles James Fox, who had been dismissed from the Treasury to please the king, made his first speech in Parliament on that occasion, and it was a strange beginning of his brilliant career in the House of Commons. He objected to the power which the bill vestea in the crown to reopen the port of Boston when it should be closed!
The persuasions and warnings of the Opposition fell upon prejudiced and dull ears, and the famous Boston Port Bill was passed by an almost unanimous vote. The exultant king signed it on the 31st of March, 1774, and it became a law. It was the fatal knife of vivisection that severed the American people from their unnatural mother. The wound was made not healable from the searing given it by the unrighteous acts which followed.
The ignorance of the British people concerning the Americans, at that time, was most notable, and it was largely displayed in the House of Commons. Great numbers of the common people believed that the Americans were nearly all negroes; and there were members of the House of Commons who stoutly maintained that they were chiefly Indians. Did not the painters and caricaturists represent "America" as an Indian girl? Were not the print-shop windows of the town then rich with the famous caricature of Lord Mansfield, the compiler of some of the obnoxious acts, holding down Americaan Indian maidenwhile Lord North was pouring tea down her throat? The political ideas of the Americans were so strangely at variance with the accepted theories in England, that a large proportion of the members of both Houses of Parliament could not comprehend them, in their simplicity. In British society, principles were so much overlaid by theories derived from the false premises of Church and State and conventional customs, that they were not easily recognized in their naked beauty as presented in American ethics and jurisprudence.
The vote on the Port Bill stimulated Lord North to work the engine of oppression with greater vigor, and it was followed by other punitory acts of Parliament prepared by the skillful hand of Mansfield, the lord-chancellor.
The Port Bill was followed by another "for better regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay." It provided for the appointment of the governor's council and the judges of the supreme court by the crown; for the selection of jurors by the sheriffs instead of the selectmen; the nomination of all other executive, military, and judicial officers by the governor without consulting his council, and for prohibiting town-meetings except for elections. It was really a bill for the subversion of the charter of Massachusettsan act for the inauguration of a radical revolutiona declaration of war upon the rights of the people of that province. "What can Americans believe," said Burke, who lifted up his voice most earnestly against the injustice, "but that England wishes to despoil America of all liberty, of all franchise, and by the reduction of the charters to reduce them to a state of the most abject slavery." Others warned ministers to pause; and Pownall prophesied in the ears of the House of Commons that these harsh measures would drive the Americans to the calling of a General Congress, and perhaps a resort to arms. In the House of Lords, Sheffield denounced the measure with vehemence, and eleven peers signed a protest; but logic and warnings were in vain; the bill passed both houses by very large majorities.
North now gave a third turn to his engine of oppression conceived by the king, and introduced a bill intended to screen crown-officers from punishment. It provided for trial in England of all persons charged in the colonies with murders committed in support of government. It was intended as a guaranty of comparative safety to those who might shoot or bayonet rebels in the name of the king. "This," said Colonel Barre, in debate, "is, indeed, the most extraordinary resolution ever heard in the Parliament of England. It offers new encouragement to military insolence already so insupportable. By this law Americans are deprived of a right which belongs to every human creaturethat of demanding justice before a tribunal of impartial judges. Even Captain Preston, who, in their own city of Boston, had shed the blood of citizens, found among them a fair trial and equitable judges. Another member (Alderman Saw-bridge), declared that it was ridiculous and cruelmeant to enslave the Americans; and expressed a hope that they would not allow one of the bills to be executed; that they would reject them all. "If they do not," he said, "they are the most abject slaves upon earth, and nothing the ministers can do is base enough for them." This bill also passed both Houses by large majorities, and became a law by receiving the signature of the king on the 20th of May.
Satisfied that these measures would have to be enforced by the military arm, the king caused a fourth bill to be introduced providing for the quartering of troops in America. Rose Fuller, who was a moderate supporter of the ministry, tried to break the severity of the new laws by a proposition to repeal the act imposing the duty on tea. His resolution was negatived by a large majority. When the result was announced, he arose and uttered with solemnity these remarkable words: "I will now take my leave of the whole plan; you will commence your ruin from this day! I am sorry to say that not only the House has fallen into this error, but the people approve of the measure. The people, I am sorry to say, have been misled. But a short time will prove the evil tendency of this bill. If ever there was a nation rushing headlong to ruin, it is this." The bill took the course of the others and became a law.
These measures gave the ministers just apprehensions of open rebellion in America. The loyalty of the French in Canada, who were nearly all Roman Catholics, was not assured. It was a matter of vital importance to the government that their loyalty should be secured. So the King and Parliament, for state purposes, performed an inconsistent act. A bill was passed by the latter and confirmed by the former, which sanctioned the "free exercise of the religion of the Church of Rome, and confirmed to the clergy of that church their accustomed dues and rights." That King and Parliament, who would not acknowledge the legal existence of a Roman Catholic in Ireland, now, by the Quebec Act, so called, acknowledged the legal existence of a whole Roman Catholic state within the realm of England. Why? Because from the River St. Lawrence the government might more easily send instruments to enslave the English-American colonies than from any other point.
We have observed that the petition from Massachusetts to the king, praying for the removal of the governor and lieutenant-governor of that province, was laid before the Privy Council by the monarch; also that Franklin had taken the whole responsibility of the act of sending to Boston the offensive letters of Hutchinson, Oliver, and others. His candid public avowal" I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question," without explanation, raised a storm of indignation against him from almost every quarter, and led the government into acts of petty malice unworthy of a great nation. Franklin was then, and had been for some time, postmaster-general of the American coloniesan office of distinction and profit to the holder. This office and his reputation were now imperiled by his manly act.
On Saturday, the 8th of January, 1774, Franklin received a notice from the Secretary of the Privy Council, that "the Lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs," would meet at the Cockpit, on Tuesday following, to take into consideration the petition from Massachusetts, and requested his attendance. Franklin immediately consulted Mr. Bollan, a lawyer of some distinction, who, in America, had married a daughter of Governor Shirley, and had been agent in England for the province of Massachusetts. In 1769, Mr. Bollan procured from a member of Parliament a large number of letters written by Governor Bernard and others calumniating the people of Boston, and, as in duty bound, he sent them to the Massachusetts Assembly. This proper act had been denounced by Lord North, in Parliament, and Mr. Bollan felt a sympathy for Franklin, and agreed to accompany him to the meeting. Less than twenty-four hours before that meeting, Franklin received a notice that Mr. Mauduit, agent for the crown-officers in Boston, had obtained leave to be heard by counsel in their behalf at that meeting. Mr. Bollan was then induced to appear as Franklin's counsel; but when he arose to speak in favor of the petition, some of the Lords objected to him as legally disqualified to act, and he was set aside. Then Franklin presented the resolutions of the Massachusetts Assembly, which had been sent with the petition. These were read; but when the letters which had caused the petition and resolution were brought up, Wedderburne, the solicitor-general, appeared as counsel for the governor, and interposed many objections to their reception. Franklin, being without counsel, asked and obtained leave for a postponement of the case, that he might procure for the Assembly the services of a competent lawyer.
On the 29th of January, Franklin was again before the Privy Council. He was accompanied by Mr. Dunning, a former solicitor-general, as counsellor. Intimations had been given that Wedderburne would, on this occasion, chastise Franklin most severely for the part he took in exposing the letters which had induced the petition, and "an immense crowd," Franklin wrote, were present to enjoy the scene. No less than thirty-five peers were there. When Dunning had finished his plea in favor of the petition, Wedderburne arose. After giving an outline sketch of the political history of the colonies, which was marked by ignorance or misrepresentation, the solicitor-general fell upon Franklin with severe, unjust, and often coarse invective. He accused him of obtaining the letters clandestinely; and even after the solicitor admitted that they were genuine, he made insinuations that they might be forgeries, asserting that they were sent to widen the breach between the colonists and the government. "Amidst tranquil events," said the solicitor, "here is a man who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare him only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's 'Revenge'
'Know, then, 'twas I, I forged the letterI disposed the picture I hatedI dispersed, and I destroy.'
I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed to the bloody African is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?" "The favorite part of his discourse," Franklin wrote to Cushing, "was levelled at your agent, who stood there, the butt of his invective ribaldry for near an hour, not a single lord adverting to the impropriety and indecency of treating a public messenger in so ignominious a manner, who was present only as the person delivering your petition, with the consideration of which no part of his conduct had any concern. If he had done a wrong in obtaining and transmitting the letters, that was not the tribunal where he was to be accused and tried. The cause was already before the chancellor. Not one of their lordships checked and recalled the orator to the business before them, but, on the contrary, a very few excepted, they seemed to enjoy highly the entertainment, and frequently burst into loud laughter. This part of his speech was thought so good that they have since printed it in order to defame me everywhere, and particularly to destroy my reputation on your side of the water; but the grosser parts of the abuse are omitted, appearing, I suppose, in their eyes, too foul to be seen on paper; so that the speech, compared to what it was, is now perfectly decent." At the end of this tirade of abuse, the petition was dismissed as "groundless, scandalous, and vexatious."
Franklin endured the coarse abuse of Wedderburne, and ill-manners of the lords, with the calmness of a philosopher. Not an emotion was manifested in his face. He was sustained by a consciousness of his own integrity and the justice of the cause to which he was a martyr. He felt that in this abuse of himself, as public envoy presenting a respectful petition, the British government were offering a gross insult to a great and loyal colony; and not to that colony alone, but to British American colonies from the St. Lawrence to the St. Mary's. He felt a conviction in that hour of trial that not only his own honor, but the wisdom and patriotism of the people he represented would be fully vindicated by the calm judgment of mankind. "I have never been so sensible of the power of a good conscience," he said to Dr. Priestley, who breakfasted with him the next morning; "for if I had not considered the thing for which I have been so much insulted as one of the best actions of my life, and what I certainly would do again in the same circumstances, I could not have suspected it." The course of the patriot and his accuser were widely different in the future. Franklin went forward in assisting and achieving the freedom and independence of his country, and will be forever venerated, as Washington wrote, "for benevolence, to be admired for his talents, to be esteemed for patriotism, to beloved for philanthropy." Wedderburne went through life neither respected nor beloved, a grasping place-seeker and corrupt courtier, "unhonored and unsung" at last; and when, thirty years after the scene here described, this man, having held various high offices in the government and received honors, died Earl of Roslyn, the king upon whom he had fawned said, "He has not left a greater knave behind him in my dominions."
Franklin, though apparently unmoved before the Privy Council, felt deeply the indignity cast upon him; and, it is said, when he returned to his lodgings, No. 7 Craven street, that night, he took off the suit of clothes he had worn on the occasion, and declared that he would never wear it again until he should sign the degradation of England by a dismemberment of the empire, and the independence of America. He kept his word; and almost ten years afterward, when, as American commissioner, he signed a definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain on the basis of absolute independence for his country, he wore the same suit of clothes for the first time after his vow was uttered.
The government, pre-determined to fill the post-offices in America with friends of the crown, so as to watch and obstruct the communications between the political leaders in the several colonies, hastened to make the hue-and-cry that Wedderburne had raised against Franklin, at the instigation of the king, an excuse for dismissing him from the office of deputy postmaster-general. He received a written notice of his dismissal on the day after his last appearance before the Privy Council. "How safe the correspondence of your Assembly committees along the continent will be through the hands of such officers," he wrote to Mr. Cushing, "may now be worth consideration, especially as the post- office act of parliament allows a postmaster to open letters, if warranted to do so by the order of a secretary of state, and every provincial secretary may be deemed a secretary of state in his own province."
GENERAL GAGE APPOINTED GOVERNORHUTCHINSON AND HIS FRIENDSTHE SONS OF LIBERTY ACTIVEGAGE IN BOSTONDOINGS OF A TOWNMEETINGACTION OF THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLYA GENERAL CONGRESS ADVOCATEDGOVERNOR GAGE AND THE ASSEMBLYPORT OF BOSTON CLOSEDSUFFERING AND PATRIOTISMBOLD PROCEEDINGS OF THE PEOPLE PREPARATIONS FOR A GENERAL CONGRESSDOINGS IN NEW YORK MINUTEMENGAGE AND THE PEOPLEDREADFUL RUMORS FROM BOSTONBOLD MEASURES OF A CONVENTION.
THE Boston Port Bill reached Massachusetts early in May, 1774. It was preceded a few days by a commission sent to New York, for General Gage as governor of Massachusetts to succeed Hutchinson, who was recalled. The latter was mortified and alarmed. His recall seemed to be a pointed rebuke at that juncture, and he justly feared the resentment of the people whom he had misrepresented and misruled. He left Boston before Gage arrived, and remained in seclusion at his country-house at Milton until an opportunity offered for him to take refuge in Castle William. Hutchinson had many political as well as personal friends in Massachusetts. It must be remembered that the patriotic zeal which animated the Sons of Liberty was not universally felt, even in Boston. Those leaders were radicals, and were compelled to meet cold-hearted and hard-hearted conservatism at every turn.
Hutchinson had many political sympathizers; and when he was about to depart for England, whither he fled from the frowns of his countrymen, more than a hundred merchants in Boston, and a number of lawyers, magistrates and men of property there and in the neighborhood, signed an address to him, in which they expressed their entire approbation of his public acts, and affectionate wishes for his personal happiness. These "addressors" became objects of intense dislike. Many of them, yielding to popular clamor, retracted. Those who would not retract, felt compelled to leave the colony, and became the first of the host of "Loyal Refugees" who peopled British provinces after the war that ensued.
It was the 10th of May when the Port Bill reached Boston. It was already in the hands of the Sons of Liberty in New York, carried thither by another ship from London. These patriots had waged a steady warfare with the conservative and aristocratic elements in society there, bearing the obloquy of many in the easy walks of life, but sustained and honored by those in the paths of toil; "the bone and sinew of a state," Scott, Sears, Lamb and McDougall-these were the trusted leaders. They perceived not only the infamy of the Boston Port Bill, but the danger to their own liberties foreshadowed by it. They called a meeting of their associates at Hampden Hall, and there resolved that the only safeguard for the freedom of the American colonies was in a General Congress of deputies- a hint, as we have seen, thrown out by Pownall in debate, to insure unity of action. They resolved to stand by Boston in its hour of distress; and by a letter dated the 14th of May, they entreated the patriots there to stand firm in support of their opposition measures. Their resolutions and the letter were sent by express to Boston by John Ludlow, who rode swiftly with them, on a black horse, toward the New England capital. He told their import as he coursed through Connecticut and Rhode Island. Near Providence on the edge of a wood that was just receiving its summer foliage, by a cool spring, he met Paul Revere riding express on a large gray horse, bearing to New York and Philadelphia assurances of the faith and firmness of the Bostonians, and to invoke sympathy and co-operation. Revere also carried a large number of printed copies of the act, made sombre by heavy black lines, and garnished with the picture of a crown, a skull and cross-bones, undoubtedly engraved by Revere himself. These he scattered through the villages on his way, where they were carried about the streets with the cry of "Barbarous, cruel, bloody, and inhuman murder!" Revere and Ludlow took a hasty lunch together at the spring, and then pressed forward on their holy mission. New York had first suggested a General Congress. The suggestion was echoed back with approval from every colony. So originated the famous First Continental Congress in 1774.
Ludlow found Boston quiet but firm. Gage had arrived from New York by sea, attended only by his staff, though he had taken the precaution to order additional regiments to Massachusetts. He had remained a few days at the Castle, in conference with Hutchinson; and he had landed at the Long Wharf on the 17th of May, without any military display. There he was courteously received as their governor by a large crowd of citizens, and was escorted to the State-House by a militia company under John Hancock, where a loyal address was presented to him, and where he read his commission. After that he was entertained at a public dinner in Faneuil Hall. He believed that an era of reconciliation through submission was at hand. That night an effigy of Hutchinson was burned in front of Hancock's house, and the new governor was somewhat disturbed by grave doubts.
Meanwhile a town-meeting had been called for the next day after the arrival of the act, and the advent at the Castle of the crown-officer who was to enforce it. The Boston Committee of Correspondence had invited the committees of nine towns in the vicinity to a conference "on the critical state of public affairs." They had come with alacrity, and with hundreds of the yeomanry had joined the citizens of Boston in that town-meeting over which Samuel Adams had presided. That meeting, largely composed of those who would be most injured by the closing of the port, had resolved to stand firmly by their rights, whatever might befall them. They had addressed a Circular Letter to all the colonies, proposing a more stringent non-importation league than any before; confessing that "singly they must find their trial too severe," and imploring the sympathy and support of the other provinces, each of whose being, as a free people, depended upon the issue. "We think the archives of Constantinople [synonymous with despotic rule] might be searched in vain for a parallel," they said. "To reason upon such an act would be idleness. You will doubtless judge every British-American colony deeply concerned in it, and contemplate and determine upon it accordingly." This was the Circular Letter which Paul Revere was bearing to New York and Philadelphia, whose Sons of Liberty forwarded it to the more southern colonies.
The responses to the appeal from Boston and a letter from New York proposing a General Congress were marvellous for unanimity of sentiment. The action of the Virginia House of Burgesses was a fair type of the general indication of public sentiment. When the circulars and the Port Bill reached that body, all other business was at once suspended, that the documents might be discussed. They adopted strong resolutions of condolence with the citizens of Boston, and appointed the first day of June, when the Port Bill was to go into operation, as a fast. The royal governor (Lord Dunmore) was officially offended, and the next day he dissolved the Assembly. The delegates, eighty-nine in number, ressembled in the Apollo-room at the Raleigh tavern in Williamsburgh, organized themselves into a voluntary convention and prepared an address to their constituents, in which they declared that an attack upon one colony was an attack upon all. They also recommended a General Congress as suggested by New York, and adopted other measures of resistance to oppression. They recommended a meeting of the burgesses in convention at Williamsburgh on the first of August, and then adjourned. Twenty-five of the delegates remained to participate in the services of the fast-day.
There was a very full attendance of the burgesses at the Apollo-room on the day appointed. They adopted a stringent agreement concerning non-exportation as well as non-importation, and recommended the cultivating of crops for manufacturing purposes, and improvements in the breed of sheep. On the 5th, they appointed seven delegates to represent Virginia in the General Congress to meet at Philadelphia early in September, as had been proposed by massachusetts. They then adjourned, each pledging himself to do all in his power to effect results contemplated in their proceedings. The Apollo-room, in the Raleigh tavern, was ever afterward regarded as the Virginia "cradle of liberty."
In the meantime the other colonies were all aglow with enthusiasm, and full of sympathy for suffering Boston. From the forum, the pulpit, and legislatures, as well as through the newspapers all over the land, the Port Bill was denounced, and a General Congress was advocated. At the head of some of the newspapers reappeared the device used during the stamp-act excitement-a disjointed snake, with the words JOIN or DIE. The cause of Boston was the cause of all the colonies.
At near the close of May, the Massachusetts legislature chose the councillors for the governor for the ensuing year, as usual. Governor Gage used his prerogative, and rejected thirteen of them. The remainder were not much more satisfactory; for they, too, were stirred by the spirit of liberty around them. The Assembly asked the governor to appoint a day for fasting; but he refused, because, he wrote to Dartmouth, "the request was only to give an opportunity for sedition to flow from the pulpit." Perceiving that the inhabitants of Massachusetts had lost one tyrant only to be supplied with another, Samuel Adams was about to offer a proposition for a General Congress, when the governor prorogued the Assembly, to meet after ten days at Salem. In anticipation of this act, the Assembly appointed Samuel Adams and James Warren a committee to act for them during the interim, as the exigencies of the case might require. When the Assembly met at Salem, these active patriots were ready with a plan for a General Congress; for non-importation; for providing munitions of war and funds, and for arousing the other colonies to immediate action.
The port of Boston was closed at meridian on the Ist of June. At that hour, muffled church-bells in Philadelphia and other places tolled a funeral knell. The day had been appointed as a fast in many regions, and the churches were crowded with worshippers, who devoutly implored Heaven's mercies for the inhabitants of Boston, and strength and liberty for themselves. The law was rigorously enforced. Not a vessel of any kind was allowed to be used in the harbor. Not a pound of hay, nor a sheep or calf, could be brought in a boat from the islands, nor a stick of lumber, or package of merchandise, could be taken by water from wharf to wharf. Not a parcel of goods could be ferried across to Charlestown; and business of every kind was immediately paralyzed. A cordon of vessels-of-war inclosed the town, and several regiments that soon arrived made Boston an immense garrison. Orders came to Gage from England, to order his soldiers to shoot any citizens who should not be docile, and he was assured, for his comfort, that, by the provisions of a recent law, all trials of officers and troops for homicide in America would be removed to Great Britain. Gage had orders to arrest, when he should deem it prudent to do so, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren, and send them to England to be tried for treason. Adams knew this; and with the halter almost about his neck, he said of his beloved and stricken Boston: "She suffers with dignity; and rather than submit to the humiliating terms of an edict, barbarous beyond precedent under the most absolute monarchy, she will put the malice of tyranny to the severest test. An empire is rising in America; and Britain, by her multiplied oppressions, is accelerating that independency which she dreads. We have a post to maintain, to desert which would entail upon us the curses of posterity."
The utter prostration of all business in Boston soon produced widespread suffering. All classes felt the scourge of the unnatural oppressor. With faith that deliverance would come, they bore the severe chastisement with wonderful equanimity. Soldiers to enslave them appeared at every turn; and cannon to overawe them soon menaced their lives and property from every eminence on the peninsula; yet no rash act incited by anger or suffering, marred the dignity of their fortitude. The sympathy of the people everywhere was warmly excited. The Press and the Pulpit suggested the sending of relief to the smitten inhabitants, and very soon money, grain, flour and live-stock were on their way toward Boston, accompanied by letters of condolence. This food for the suffering poor seemed like relief sent to a beleagured garrison, on whose existence a great cause depended. "Hold on; and hold out to the last; as you are placed in the front rank, if you fail all will be over," said a letter accompanying a substantial gift. "Don't pay for an ounce of the damned tea," wrote Christopher Gadsden of Charleston, when, at the middle of June, he shipped the first contribution of rice from the Carolina planters. Georgians sent sixty barrels of rice; and from the more northerly colonies went grain and sheep and beeves, with money. The city of London, in its corporate capacity, sent three-quarters of a million dollars for the relief of the poor of Boston. The people of Marblehead and Salem offered the free use of their wharves and stores to the Boston merchants, for they scorned to profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors.
When the Massachusetts Assembly met at Salem on the 7th of June, there was a very full attendance. Samuel Adams cautiously sounded the opinions of the members, and ascertained that a large majority were republicans. Then he presented the plan for future action, which he and James Warren had perfected. The few loyalists in that body were amazed at the audacity of the propositions, and one of them, feigning sickness, got leave of absence. He hastened to the governor (then living near Salem) and acquainted him with the seditious proceedings of the legislature. Gage immediately sent a proclamation by his secretary, Thomas Flucker, commanding the Assembly to dissolve. The governor was outgeneraled. When the secretary came, the door of the Assembly was locked, and the key was in Samuel Adams's pocket. Flucker was not permitted to enter the room, so he read the proclamation on the stairs, near the door, but to dull ears within, for the patriots would not listen to it. They proceeded to adopt a "Solemn League and Covenant" concerning non-importations; and agreeing with New York in the proposition for a General Congress, they appointed James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Thomas Cushing and Robert Treat Paine to represent massachusetts in the proposed General Congress. Pursuant to a request of the New York Committee of Correspondence, the Assembly fixed the time and place for the meeting of the Congress. They named Philadelphia as the place, and the beginning of September next ensuing as the time; and in a circular which they sent to the other colonies, the time and place were mentioned. After carrying out the other measures proposed in the plan of Adams and Warren, the Assembly adjourned indefinitely. So ended the last session of the Assembly of Massachusetts under a royal governor.
On the same day an immense town-meeting, presided over by John Adams, was held in Faneuil Hall. The inhabitants by vote refused to make any provision for paying the East India Company for its tea destroyed, because they were surrounded by bayonets and ships-of-war. They ratified the acts of the Assembly, and assumed an absolutely defiant attitude.
The proceedings of the Assembly, and of the people, greatly irritated Gage. He had troops at his back, but had resolved not to use them excepting in an extremity. He issued flaming proclamations from time to time, which excited the ridicule of the patriots. One of these was burlesqued in the Massachusetts Spy, a newspaper published in the midst of British bayonets, which was commenced as follows:
"Tom Gage's Proclamation, Or blustering Denunciation, (Replete with Defamation,) Threatening Devastation And speedy Jugulation Of the New English Nation, Who shall his pious ways sheen." It closes with
"Thus graciously the war I wage, As witnesseth my hand
TOM GAGE.
By command of Mother Carey, Thomas Flucker, Secretary."
The proposition for a General Congress to be held in September, in Philadelphia, contained in the Massachusetts Circular, received universal assent, and before the close of the summer of 1774, twelve of the thirteen British American colonies had chosen delegates to attend it. Rhode Island has the honor of first speaking out publicly on the subject after New York suggested it. A General Congress was proposed at a town-meeting held in Providence on the 17th of May. Four days afterward (21st) a committee of a town-meeting held in Philadelphia recommended such a measure; and on the 23d, a town-meeting in the city of New York did the same. We have seen that the meeting of the burgesses of Virginia at the Raleigh tavern warmly recommended the measure, on the 27th of May; and on the 31st, a Baltimore county-meeting at Norwich, Connecticut, approved of a General Congress; and on the 11th, a county-meeting at Newark, New Jersey, did the same. The action of the Massachusetts Assembly at Salem and the town-meeting at Faneuil Hall, which urged the measure, did so on the 17th of June. On the 29th, a county-meeting at New Castle, Delaware, approved the measure; and on the 6th of July, the Committee of Correspondence at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, expressed their approbation. A general province-meeting was held on the 6th, 7th and 8th of July, at Charleston, and they urged the necessity of such a Congress; and a district-meeting at Wilmington, North Carolina, held on the 21st of July, heartily responded affirmatively to the Massachusetts Circular. Only Georgia remained silent.
The state of political society in New York, at this juncture, was peculiar. The professed republicans were divided by political distractions and social differences, and were designated by the respective titles of Patricians and Tribunes. The former were composed of the merchants and gentry, and the latter were mostly the mechanics. The former, who were conservative, joined with the loyalists in attempts to check the influence of the radical democrats of Hampden Hall. With these conservatives were found most of the leading merchants, who, as a class, were (as usual) averse to popular commotions which disturbed trade. They were not ready to enter into non-importation agreements again hastily; and the letter which the Hampden Hall patriots sent by Ludlow, to Boston, alarmed them and the conservative republicans. A meeting was called at a public-house, "to consult on the measures to be pursued in consequence of the late extraordinary advices received from England." At that meeting a Committee of Fifty were nominated as "representatives of public sentiment in New York." A few of the radicals were placed upon the committee; and at another meeting held on the 19th of May, the nomination was ratified and one more added to the committee, making the number Fifty-one. Concerning this movement, Governeur Morris wrote to a friend:
"The heads of the nobility grow dangerous to the gentry, and how to keep them down is the question. While they correspond with the other colonies, call and dismiss popular assemblies, make resolves to bind the consciences of the rest of mankind, bully poor printers, and exert with full force all their tribunitial powers, it is impossible to curb them. But art sometimes goes further than force, and, therefore, to trick them handsomely, a Committee of Patricians was to be nominated, and into their hands was to be committed the majority of the people, and the highest trust was to be reposed in them by a mandate that they should take care quod republica, non capiat injuriam. The Tribunes, through the want of good legerdemain in the senatorial order, perceived the finesse, and yesterday I was present at a grand division of the city, and there I beheld my fellow-citizens very accurately counting their chickens, not only before they were hatched, but before one-half of the eggs were laid. In short, they fairly contended about the future form of our governmentwhether it should be founded on aristocratic or democratic principles."
The grand Committee of Fifty-one publicly repudiated the strong letter sent to Boston by the radicals on the 14th of May. They received Paul Revere courteously, but did not agree with the proposal of the Bostonians to revive non-importation or non-intercourse agreements. They sent a letter to Boston (supposed to have been written by John Jay) expressing their dissent, but heartily approving of a General Congress; and in another letter on the 7th of June, they requested the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence to name a time and place for the holding of a General Congress. The people of the other colonies approved non-intercourse, and New York, as represented by the Grand Committee, stood alone in opposition to a stringent non-importation league. The loyalists rejoiced, and a writer in Rivington's Royal Gazette exultingly exclaimed:
"And so, my good masters, I find it no joke, For York has stepped forward and thrown off the yoke Of Congress, Committees, and even King Sears, Who shows you good nature by showing his ears."
But the "Committee of Vigilance," appointed by the Hampden Hall patriots, were not awed by the acts of the Grand Committee. They called a mass-meeting of citizens in The Fields on the 19th of June, when, by resolutions, the lukewarmness of the Committee of Fifty-one was denounced; sympathy with, and a determination to support the Bostonians were expressed, and the appointment of delegates to the General Congress, instructed to advocate non-intercourse with Great Britain, was urged. Nothing further was done to excite public attention until many days afterward, when the Committee of Fifty-one met on the evening of the 4th of July, and on motion of Alexander McDougall, five deputies to the General Congress were nominated. These were Philip Livingston, John Alsop, Isaac Low, James Duane, and John Jay. McDougall proposed to submit the nominations (which were approved) to the Tribunes, or "Committee of Mechanics," for their concurrence. The proposition was rejected. McDougall was offended, and the next day a handbill, doubtless prepared by him, appeared throughout the city, inviting the people to a meeting in The Fields at six o'clock in the evening of the 6th. An immense gathering was there, for they were called "to hear matters of the utmost importance to their reputation and security as freemen." It was ever afterwards known as The Great Meeting in The Fields. McDougall was called to the chair, and a series of strong resolutions, among others one in favor of a stringent non-intercourse league, were adopted.
On that occasion, a notable event occurred. In the crowd was a delicate boy, girl-like in personal grace and stature, about seventeen years of age, who was a student in King's (now Columbia) College, and known as the "Young West Indian." This boy had been often seen walking alone under the shadows of great trees on Dey Street, sometimes musing, and some-times talking, in low tones, to himself. Some of the residents in that neighborhood had, occasionally, engaged him in conversation, and had been impressed with his wisdom and sagacity. When they saw him in the crowd they urged him to address the meeting, but he modestly refused. After listening to several speakers, and finding that important considerations had been overlooked by them, he summoned courage to present himself before the people. It was then almost sunset. The great multitude were hushed into silence at the appearance of the slender boy. "Overawed by that multitude, he hesitated and faltered," says a recent writer; "but as he proceeded, almost unconsciously, to utter his accustomed reflections, his mind warmed with the themehis energies were recovered. After a discussion, clear, cogent and novel, of the great principles involved in the controversy, he depicted in the glowing colors of adult youth the long-continued and long-endured oppressions of the mother- country. Insisting upon the duty of resistance, he pointed to the means and certainty of success, and described the waves of rebellion sparkling with fire, and washing back on the shores of England the wrecks of her power, of her wealth, and her glory. The breathless silence ceased when he closed, and a whispered murmur `It is a collegian! it is a collegian!' was lost in loud expressions of wonder and applause at the extraordinary eloquence of the young stranger."
The orator was Alexander Hamilton, a native of the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies, who then first entered upon that extraordinary, useful and brilliant career in public life, for thirty years afterward, which placed him in the front rank among the statesmen of our country.
The Committee of Fifty-one were alarmed by the great demonstration in The Fields. They submitted the nominations of deputies to the Tribunes, but neutralized the effect of their concession by declaring that the resolutions passed by the great meeting were seditious. This offended several of the staunch republicans of the committee, and eleven of them instantly withdrew. It was not long before that aristocratic body disappeared as an organization, and the Hampden Hall Sons of Liberty became the tribunes of the people. The city of New York elected the nominees. Neighboring counties chose four others, and the delegation from the province of New York were nine in number.
While the leading patriots were preparing for the Grand Council of deputies, the people, everywhere, were preparing for impending war. They armed themselves, and practised military tactics almost every day. Men of all stations in life might be found in the ranks for discipline. Deacons of churches were often captains, having more than half of the young men of the congregations with whom they worshipped, as their followers. There was seldom any military organization besides a company, but they were ready to fall into regiments and brigades when called for. Boys imitated their elders, and "trained" with sticks. Blacksmiths were kept busy all of the summer and autumn of 1774, forging swords, guns and bayonets, and other men were compounding gunpowder, and making bullets of lead. When the Congress at Philadelphia had closed late in the autumn, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts voted to enrol twelve thousand of these patriots under the general title of Minute-menvolunteers who would be ready at a minute's warning to take the field with arms in their hands. Rhode Island and Connecticut were invited to do likewise. They did so; and when the time came for armed resistance nearly all New England was disciplined, in a degree, for the struggle. The example was contagious. Other colonies followed, and in Virginia the Minute-men were of special service to the patriot cause at a critical juncture. As the summer of 1774 wore away, Gage found himself greatly perplexed by his peculiar situation. Early in August he received official copies of the several acts of Parliament, which completely subverted the Charter of Massachusetts. Gage was made a ruler irresponsible to the people. He proceeded to form a council of thirty-six members, by a mandamusa positive command to serveand most of those so appointed accepted the honor. They soon felt the peltings of the pitiless storm of popular indignation so keenly, that twenty of them resigned, and the remainder sought protection under the troops in Boston. These "Mandamus Councillors," as they were called, were treated with scorn everywhere, and sometimes with personal indignities, mild in form but severe in effect, as in the case of a respected citizen of Plymouth. On the Sunday after he accepted the appointment, as soon as he took his seat in the house of worship, his neighbors and friends all put on their hats and walked out of the house. As they passed his pew, he hid his face by leaning his head over his cane. This public disapproval by those whom he loved, he could not bear, and immediately resigned.
Gage was puzzled more by the forbearance of the people, than by their defiance. Nobody committed any overt acts of treason or sedition that might justify him in using power for administering punishment, and yet the air was full of the spirit of insurrection. He was helpless in a vortex of irritating words and acts that were ominous of evil. There were inflammatory handbills, newspapers, and tongues all around him exciting the people to rebel, but nobody stepped over the confines of law. Several times he was on the point of executing his discretionary orders to arrest Hancock and other leaders, but unoffended law bade him be cautious. Squibs, epigrams, sonnets, parables and dialogues of remarkable pith filled the whig journals, not only in Boston, but elsewhere, in which logic and argument were contained in a nut-shell, as in the following example from a New York newspaper:
"THE QUARREL WITH AMERICA FAIRLY STATED.
"Rudely forced to drink tea, Massachusetts in anger Spills the tea on John BullJohn falls on to bang her; Massachusetts, enraged, calls her neighbors to aid And give Master John a severe bastinade. Now, good men of the law, pray who is in fault, The one who begins or resists the assault?"
Gage saw ominous menaces on every side; and late in the summer he re-established the seat of government in Boston, and prepared to cast up fortifications across the "Neck." His orders for this purpose exasperated the patriots. They saw, in these warlike measures, prophecies of their absolute enslavement. The Boston carpenters, though suffering through compulsory idleness, would not work on the fortifications at any price, and the popular voice applauded their patriotism. At about the same time, Gage, taking counsel of his fears, sent out some troops to seize gunpowder belonging to the province, at Charlestown and Cambridge. The indignation of the people rose to fever-heat because of this act, and a large number of them gathered at Cambridge with the intention of attacking the British troops in Boston, but were persuaded to remain quiet. This was followed, a few days afterward, by a rumor that went over the land, even to the Connecticut River and beyond, that war had begun in Boston; that the British ships there were bombarding the town, and that British troops were murdering the patriotic inhabitants. The tale of horror created a fearful excitement and a cry for vengeance. The Minute-men everywhere, though not organized, seized their arms, and marched in squads for Boston. Within thirty-six hours the whole country, for almost two hundred miles from the New England capital, had heard the dreadful tidings. Young men and old men seized their firelocks, and matrons and maidens buckled on their well-filled knapsacks and sent them away with the blessings of patriotic hearts. The roads were soon swarming with armed men, most of them on foot; but many men on horsebacka strange cavalcadequeer-looking men and queer-looking horses of all colors, ages and conditionsome of the latter saddled and bridled, and some without either bit or stirrup. The host were intent upon the salvation of their brethren, and the destruction of the enemy; and they halted not until satisfied that the story was untrue, when the angry tide slowly ebbed. It is believed that the rumor was started by some of the leading patriots, to produce an uprising of the people that should overawe General Gage and his troops. Full thirty thousand men, it was estimated, had started for Boston. It was a lesson for Gage, but he did not heed it.
On the 6th of September (1774), a convention of delegates representing the towns in the county to which Boston belonged, resolved that the late acts of Parliament were not entitled to obedience; recommended that collectors of taxes and other officers holding public money, should retain the funds in their hands until the privileges of the charter should be restored; declaring that those who had accepted seats in the council should resign or be considered public enemies; recommended the people to seize and keep as hostages any crown-officers who might fall in their way after any patriot should be arrested for a political offence; and adopted an address to General Gage, in which they complained of the fortifications begun by the soldiers in Boston Neck as an act of hostility. They had resolved that they would not commence war, but act on the defensive only so long as just reason required; and they told Gage frankly that they would not submit to any of the late acts of Parliament concerning the Americans.
These were bold words uttered by brave men. Gage denounced the convention as treasonable, and he declared that he should adopt such measures as he pleased to protect his troops, and that the cannon which he had placed in battery on the Neck should be used for that purpose. He had already broken up the eight military companies in the town composed of citizens, and dismissed John Hancock from the command of a corps known as "The Governor's Independent Cadets." That body, indignant because of this treatment of their beloved commander, had sent a committee to the governor at Salem, to surrender their flag into his hands, and acquaint him that they had disbanded themselves. Gage, who never had a conciliatory word for irritated citizens, gave vent to his angry feelings and berated the committee roundly, whereupon the bold Massachusetts Spy published the following as " a sample of gubernatorial eloquence, as lately exhibited to the company of cadets:"
"Your Colonel, Hnk, by neglect Has been deficient in respect; As he my sovereign toe ne'er kissed, 'Twas proper he should be dismissed; I never was and never will, By mortal man be treated ill; I never was nor ever can, Be treated ill by mortal man. O had I but have known before That temper of your factious corps, It should have been my greatest pleasure To have prevented that bold measure. To meet with such severe disgrace My standard flung into my face Disband yourselves! so cussed stout! O had I, had I, turned you out!"
MEETING OF THE GENERAL CONGRESSTHE OPENING SCENESTHE CONGRESS OPENED WITH RELIGIOUS SERVICESPERSONAL SKETCHES OF THE MEMBERSHOSPITALITIES OF PHILADELPHIANSDIFFERENCES OF OPINION IN THE CONGRESSA TRAITOR THEREIN BELLIGERENT FEELINGS REPRESSEDAPPEAL FROM BOSTONTHE MOST IMPORTANT RESOLUTIONSSTATE-PAPERS FRAMED AND ADOPTED"AMERICAN ASSOCIATIONS" FORMED SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINIANSOTHER STATE-PAPERS AGREED TOA SECOND CONGRESS RECOMMENDEDPUBLIC SENTIMENTDOINGS OF THE CONGRESSA FOOLISH ORDER FROM THE KING.
THE great crisis in the history of the colonies was now at hand, which thoughtful and patriotic men in American had long expected; which the French and other enemies of Great Britain on the continent of Europe had ardently wished for, and which the stubborn king of England, his ministers, and their aristocratic supporters in Church and State had hastened on by their perverseness and folly. That crisis was the planting of the seed of an independent nation in America. It was solemnly performed, when, on the 5th of September, 1774, delegates from twelve British-American provinces met in the hall of the Carpenters' Association, in Philadelphia, and were organized into what they termed themselves, a Continental Congress, having for their object the consideration of the political state of the colonies; also the devising of measures for obtaining relief from oppression, and to unite in efforts to secure forever for themselves and their posterity, the free enjoyment of natural and chartered rights and liberties, in a perfect union with Great Britain. Very few of them had aspirations yet for political independence.
On Monday, the 5th of September, there were present in the Carpenter's Hall (yet standing) forty-four delegates. These were John Sullivan and Nathaniel Folsom, from New Hampshire; Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams and Robert Treat Paine, from Massachusetts; Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward, from Rhode Island; Eliphalet Dyer, Roger Sherman and Silas Deane, from Connecticut; James Duane, John Jay, Philip Livingston, Isaac Low and William Floyd, from New York; James Kinsey, William Livingston, John Hart, Stephen Crane and Richard Smith, from New Jersey; Joseph Galloway, Samuel Rhodes, Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphreys, John Morton and Edward Biddle, from Pennsylvania; Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean and George Read, from Delaware; Robert Goldsborough, William Paca and Samuel Chase, from Maryland; Peyton Randolph, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison and Edmund Pendleton, from Virginia, and Henry Middleton, John Rutledge, Christopher Gadsden, Thomas Lynch and Edward Rutledge, from South Carolina. Others came soon afterwardJohn Alsop and Henry Wisner, from New York; George Ross and John Dickinson, from Pennsylvania; Thomas Johnson and Matthew Tighlman, from Maryland; Richard Henry Lee, from Virginia; William Hooper, Joseph Hewes and Richard Caswell, from North Carolinamaking the whole number fifty-four. They chose Peyton Randolph to be their President. He was an eminent lawyer, who had been educated at William and Mary College; was the king's Attorney-General for Virginia sixteen years before; had taken a decided stand against the ministry at the beginning of resistance; had recently been Speaker of the Virginia Assembly, and was a popular citizen. He was then fifty- one years of age. They chose for their Secretary, Charles Thomson, a native of Ireland, who, in early life, had emigrated to Delaware, but was then a citizen of Philadelphia, of character and fortune. Dr. Franklin was his friend, and he was a good classical scholar. He had lived a bachelor until that week, when he was about forty-five years of age. Just as he was alighting from his chaise, with his bridean heiress of much propertya messenger came to him from the Congress, saying: "They want you at Carpenters' Hall to keep the minutes of their proceedings, as you are very expert at that business." Thomson complied with their request, and very soon took his seat as Secretary of the Continental Congress; and he remained sole Secretary of that body during its entire existence of almost fifteen years. John Adams wrote in his diary, that Charles Thomson was "the Samuel Adams of Philadelphia; the life of the cause of liberty."
Each colony had appointed representatives without any rule as to numbers. The grave question immediately presented itself, How shall we vote? It was suggested that the larger provinces like Virginia should have more votes than the smaller ones like Rhode Island, and that representation should be regulated by population and wealth. It was also suggested that a small province, as well as a large one, had its all involved in the issue, and it was proposed to vote by colonies. The question was one of so much importance, that it was left over for discussion the following day, when the Congress adjourned.
When the members assembled the next morning, and the Secretary had called the roll and read the minutes, there was a pause. Members from various and distant provinces were personal strangers. Some had been instructed what to do, and others had been left free to act according to their own judgments, and the circumstances. No one seemed willing to take the first step in business. No one seemed to have determined what measure first to propose. The silence was becoming painful, when a grave-looking man, apparently about forty years of age, with unpowdered hair, a thin face, not very powerful in person, and dressed in a plain dark suit of "minister's gray," arose. "Then," said Mr. (afterward Bishop) White, who was present, "I felt a regret that a seeming country parson should so far have mistaken his talents and the theatre for their display." His voice was musical, and as he continued to speak, he became more animated, and his words more eloquent. With alternate vigor and pathos he drew a picture of the wrongs which the colonies had suffered by acts of the Parliament. He said that all the governments in America were dissolved; that the colonies were in a state of nature. He believed that the Congress then in session was the beginning of a long series of congresses; and speaking to the undecided question about voting, he declared his great concern, for their decision would form a precedent. He favored representation according to population; and in reference to the objection that such representation would confer an undue weight of influence upon some of the larger provinces, he said, with words that prophesied of a nation: "British oppression has effaced the boundaries of the several colonies; the distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." His speech drew the earnest attention of the whole House; and when he sat down the question went from lip to lip, "Who is he?" A few who knew the speaker replied, "It is Patrick Henry of Virginia."
There was now no hesitation. The bold-spirited man, who electrified the continent with his burning words in stamp-act times, was now there to lead in a revolt. He had uttered the sentiment of union and nationality that warmed the hearts of all present, when he exclaimed: "I am not a Virginian, but an American." It was the text of every patriotic discourse thereafter; and from that hour the Congress went forward with courage and vigor in the work assigned them. They determined that the voting should be done by colonies, each colony having one vote, because they had no means for ascertaining the importance of each in population, wealth, and trade. It is estimated that the aggregate population at that time, including five hundred thousand blacks and excluding Indians, was about two million six hundred thousand.
The Congress adopted various rules; and it was proposed that the sessions should be opened every morning with prayer. Objection was made by Jay and Rutledge, the younger members, because there was such a diversity of theological opinions in that body. "I am no bigot," said Samuel Adams. "I can hear a prayer from a man of piety and virtue, who, at the same time, is a friend to his country." Then he moved that the Rev. Jacob Duche, an eloquent Episcopal minister, be "desired to open the Congress with prayer to-morrow morning." This nomination by a straight Puritan of the Congregational schoola man past middle liferemoved all objections. The motion was agreed to. The next morning Mr. Duche, after reading the Psalm for the day (the 35th), made an extemporaneous prayer, so "pertinent, affectionate, sublime, and devout," wrote John Adams, that it "filled every bosom present." That Psalm seemed peculiarly appropriate; for an express had just arrived from Israel Putnam of Connecticut with the dreadful rumor of a bombardment of Boston, and the murder of the inhabitants by the soldiery. The bells of Philadelphia were muffled and tolled in token of sorrow; but another messenger soon came with a contradiction of the report.
There were many friends of the crown in Philadelphia, and it was resolved to hold the sessions of the Congress with closed doors. The members gave their word of honor to keep the proceedings secret; but there was a royalist spy in the midst playing the hypocriteJoseph Galloway, a Pennsylvania delegatewho gave the pledge and broke it that very night. He and Duche afterward became active loyaliststhe only persons of all that assemblage on the morning of the seventh of September, who swerved from the cause. The people had sent the best men to the Great Council, and were not disappointed. "There is in the Congress," John Adams wrote to his wife, "a collection of the greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes;" and Charles Thomson gave it as his opinion that no subsequent Congress during the war could compare with the first in point of talent and purity. Mr. Adams, in his diary, has left interesting personal notices of a few of the members. He writes that William Livingston, of New Jersey, was "a plain man, tall, black, wears his hair; nothing elegant or genteel about him. They say he is no public speaker, but sensible, learned, and a ready writer." He wrote of John Rutledge: "His appearance is not very promising; no keenness in his eyes, no depth in his countenance." "Edward Rutledge" (the youngest man in the assemblage), he wrote, "is young, sprightly, but not deep. He has the most in distinct, inarticulate way of speaking; speaks through his nose; a wretched speaker in conversation. He seems good-natured though conceited." "Randolph," he wrote, "is a large, well- looking man. Lee is a tall, spare man; Bland is a learned, bookish man." "Caesar Rodney," he wrote, "is the oddest-looking man in the world; he is tall, thin, and slender as a reedpole; his face is not bigger than a big apple; yet there is sense and fire, sprit, wit, and humor in his countenance." He wrote of Johnson of Maryland, as one with "a clear, cool head, an extensive knowledge of trade as well as of law. not a shining orator. Galloway, Duane, and Johnson," he remarks, "are sensible and learned, but cold speakers. Lee, Henry, and Hooper are the orators. Paca is a deliberator too; Chase speaks warmly; Mifflin is a sprightly and spirited speaker. Dyer and Sherman speak often and long, but very heavily and clumsily." Jay (son-in-law of William Livingston) was young and slender, and enthusiastic in his nature. Stephen Hopkins, the oldest member, was sixty-seven years of age; his hair was white, his form was somewhat bent, and his limbs shook with palsy. Duane is described as " a sly-looking man, a little squint- eyed," and Hooper had a "broad face and open countenance." Washington, then forty-two years of age, modest and retiring, was the most conspicuous figure among them; tall, strongly-built, with a ruddy face, the picture of high health and manly strength.
Every possible facility was given to the members of the Congress for the prosecution of their labors. The Carpenters' Association, themselves warm patriots, gave the free use of their hall and their library above; and the directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia requested their librarian to furnish the members with any books which they might wish to use during their sitting. They were also the recipients of unbounded hospitality from the leading citizens of Philadelphia, among whom they were continually entertained at tables sumptuously provided. John Adams related in his diary, that he dined with Mr. Miers, a young Quaker lawyer, and remarks: "This plain Friend, and his plain though pretty wife, with her Thees and Thous, had provided us the most costly entertainmentducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts, creams, custards, jellies, fools, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter, punch, wine, etc. Again, after dining at Mr. Powell's: "A most sinful feast again! Everything which could delight the eye, or allure the tastecurds and creams, jellies, sweatmeats of various sorts, twenty sorts of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped syllabubs, etc., etc. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer, etc."
There were great differences of opinion among the members of the Congress as to the real state of the case, and the proper duties to be performed. This was foreshadowed by remarks of Henry and Jay, at the beginning. The former declared that an entirely new government must be founded. Jay said all government had not come to an end, and that they had not assembled to frame an American constitution, but to correct the faults of the old one. But in one important matter there was, from the first, much unity of feeling, namely, that the whole continent ought to support the people of Massachusetts in resistance to the unconstitutional change in their charter. At the opening of their business, they appointed a committee to state the rights of the colonists in general, the several instances in which those rights had been violated or infringed, and the means most proper to be pursued for obtaining a restoration of them. They also appointed a committee to examine and report the several statutes which affected the trade and manufactures of the colonies. The reports of these committees furnished the materials for work, and at about the middle of September, the Congress was a theatre of warm but always friendly discussion. The debates took a wide range, and were very interesting and instructive. The foundations of their rights were discussedthe law of nature, the British constitution, and the force of prescribed allegiance. Then their work took a practical turn; and on the 22d of September, the Congress, by unanimous vote, requested "the merchants and others in the several colonies not to send to Great Britain any order for goods, and to direct the execution of all orders already sent to be delayed or suspended, until the sense of the Congress on the means to be taken for the preservation of the liberties of American was made public."
How to avoid the appearance of revolution in their acts, was a perplexing question. There was a great diversity of opinion. Some were very radical, many were conservative, and some, true patriots at heart, were very timid. Some proposed to recognize the full force of the navigation acts; also the authority of Parliament to regulate the trade of the colonies, grounding that power not on the consent of the Americans, but upon "compact, acquiescence, necessity, and protection." Others were disposed to deny the authority of Parliament altogether. A compromise was offered that pleased nobody; and Joseph Galloway, then in secret communication with royal governors, proposed, in plausible terms, a scheme suggested many years before, for a Continental Union, with a president- general appointed by the king, and a grand council chosen every three years by the several assemblies, the British Parliament having power to revise their acts, and they in turn having the privilege of opposing a veto on British statutes relating to the colonies. The mover made an ostentatious display of patriotism, boasting of his readiness to spend blood and fortune in defence of the liberties of his country. At first some timid ones were disposed to fall in with his insidious scheme for defeating the great ends for which the Congress were assembled. He was defeated; but while all were determined to maintain their liberty, not one gave a decided voice in favor of independence.
Meanwhile news came from Boston from time to time of the petty tyranny of Gage and his troops, endured by the patriotic citizens, and the marvellous fortitude of the afflicted, who declared they would abandon their homes, fortune, everything, before they or their children would submit to be slaves. These tales of sorrow wrought hot anger in the bosoms of some of the members; and Christopher Gadsden, who had preached resistance and independence for ten years, and who, when reminded that war with Great Britain would destroy the seaport towns, exclaimed: "Our towns are built of wood and brick; if they are burned down, we can rebuild them; but liberty once lost is gone forever." Gadsden proposed, in his righteous wrath, to make immediate war upon the oppressor. Nay, nay, said the Congress; we must exhaust every means for obtaining redress peacefully, before we appeal to the arbitrament of the sword.
There was much irritation of feeling that demanded self-restraint. Washington, who had said in the Virginia Convention, "I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march with them at their head for the relief of Boston," expressed his indignation freely, yet he was willing to wait a little longerto try peaceful measures for a short season more. He was resolved to fight, when war or submission should be the alternative offered. His mind was freely expressed in a letter to Captain Mackenzie of the British army, which he wrote from his lodgings in Philadelphia in October, in reply to one from that officer, who had been Washington's companion in arms. "Permit me," he said, "with the freedom of a friend (for you know I always esteemed you), to express my sorrow, that fortune should place you in a service that must fix curses to the latest posterity upon the contrivers, and, if success (which, by the way, is impossible) accompanies it, execrations upon all those who have been instrumental in the execution." After further expressing his views of the situation, and the determination of the colonies to defend their just rights, Washington remarked: "Give me leave to add as my opinion, that more blood will be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity, than history has ever furnished instances of in the annals of North America."
On the 8th of Octoberthe day before Washington's letter was writtenthe Great Council at Philadelphia, after a very short but spicy debate, resolved:
"That this Congress approve the opposition of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament; and if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition."
This was the whole business performed by the Congress on that remarkable day, according to the minutes of Secretary Thomson. It was enough. It was the most momentous act of that body during the whole session. From that hour the crystallization of the British-American colonies into an independent nation, went rapidly on. That resolution was like the luminous writing on the wall, warning Belshazzar of impending danger. Wise seers interpreted it as a prophecy of the dismemberment of the British empire. But the British monarch, too blind to perceive the ominous light, and too deaf to hear the prophecy, in his anger because of that resolve, proclaimed his subjects in America to be rebels.
That resolution was elicited by a letter from the Boston Committee of Correspondence, written on the 29th of September, in which was a recital of the wrongs endured by the citizens of that town, and asking the advice of the Congress whether they should abandon their homes and leave Boston, or suffer a little longer, for it was believed that when the place should be inclosed with the fortifications then a-building, the inhabitants would be held as hostages for the whole country. The resolution was the quick and glorious answer. It startled the timid in the Congress. Galloway the spy and Duane the arch- conservative, asked leave to enter upon the minutes their protest against the measure. Their request was denied, when they exchanged certificates privately, that they had opposed it as treasonable. Two days afterward the resolution was strengthened by another, which declared that any person who should accept or act under any commission or authority derived from the act of Parliament for changing the form of the government and violating the charter of Massachusetts "ought to be held in detestation and abhorrence by all good men, and considered as the wicked tool of that despotism which is preparing to destroy those rights which God, nature, and compact have given to America." On the same day, the Congress sent a letter to General Gage, telling him of the just complaints of the citizens of Boston made to them, and their suspicions that a plan was formed for the overthrow of the liberties of America; warning him that the oppression to which they were subjected might involve the colonies in the horrors of a civil war, and asking him, in order to quiet the public mind, to discontinue the erection of fortifications in and around Boston. On the 14th of October (1774), the Congress adopted a Declaration of Colonial Rights, reported by a committee composed of two deputies from each colony, in which the several obnoxious acts of Parliament, including the Quebec Act, were declared to be infringements and violations of their rights, and that the repeal of them was necessary in order to restore harmony between America and Great Britain. This was followed on the 20th by the adoption of The American Associationa "non-importation, non- consumption, and non-exportation agreement" applied to Great Britain. Ireland, the West Indies, and Madeira, by which the inhabitants of all the colonies were bound to act in concert and good faith, or incur the displeasure of the faithful ones. The agreement, which was embodied in fourteen articles, and was to go into effect on the first of December next ensuing, covered broad ground. In the second article the Congress, in the name of their constituents, struck a blow at the slave-trade, saying: "We will neither import, nor purchase any slave imported, after the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it." By the fourth article, it was agreed that after the first of September the next year, in case their grievances were not redressed, not to export any "merchandise or commodity" to the countries above-named. Committees were to be appointed in every county, city, and town to enforce compliance with the terms of the Association; and it was resolved that they would have no "trade, commerce, dealings or intercourse, whatsoever, with any colony or province, in North America, which shall not accede thereto," or which should thereafter violate the Association, but would hold "them as unworthy of the rights of freemen, and as inimical to the liberties of their country."
The several articles of the Association were adopted unanimously, excepting the one concerning exportations. Three of the five delegates from South Carolina refused to vote for that resolution or sign the Association, because, they said, the agreement to stop exports to Great Britain was an unequal arrangement. New England, they said, exported a large portion of their staple, fish, to Portugal and Spain, and would be very little affected; while South Carolina sent rice to Great Britain to the amount of a million and a half dollars annually, and would be ruined. When that resolution was carried, the three South Carolinians seceded from the Congress. Gadsden and another, in the spirit of Henry, declared by their act that they were not South Carolinians but Americans, and did not count the cost of patriotism. They stood by the other colonies, voted for the general good, and trusted to the virtue and generosity of their constituents. This secession caused a delay of several days in the business of the Congress. It was important to have the vote on the Association unanimous. The seceders were finally brought back, and induced to sign the Association, by allowing the unconditional export of rice, so that no burden of sacrifice might fall upon their province.
An eloquent Address to the People of Great Britain, written by John Jay, and a memorial to The Inhabitants of the several British-American colonies, from the pen of William Livingston, were adopted on the 21st of October; and on the 26th- -the last day of the sessiona Petition to the King, drawn by John Dickinson, in which the final decision of the colonies was given in conciliatory terms, and an elaborate Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, also written by Mr. Dickinson, were agreed to. A few days before, the Congress had recommended the holding of another at Philadelphia on the 10th of May following, if the grievances were not redressed in the meantime; and all the American colonies were invited to participate, by delegation, in its deliberations. Letters addressed to other colonies not represented in the Congress were approved, and on the afternoon of the 26th of October, 1774, the First Continental Congress ended. All of the members and a few other gentlemen spent that evening together socially at the City Tavern, in Philadelphia. The next day they began to disperse to their homes. Almost every man was impressed with a belief that war was inevitable. Most of them were bold, but few of them were so lion-hearted as Samuel Adams, who publicly said: "I would advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from Heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine men were to perish, and only one of a thousand 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 hath so nobly preserved."
The first Continental Congress was in actual session only thirty-one days of the eight weeks of the term. The remainder of the time was occupied in preparatory business. There was much talking (as in all deliberative bodies), for there were diversities of opinion, and every one was free to express his own. Of what they said we know very little, for the sessions were held in secret, and there were no professional newspaper reporters in those days. What they did we all know. The records of their acts were soon published to the world, and produced a profound impression upon the minds of thoughtful men. The state-papers put forth by them were models of their kind, and commanded the admiration of the leading statesmen of Europe. The British monarch and counsellors were highly offended, and early in January, 1775, Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the colonies, issued the following Circular to all the royal governors in Americaa "bull without horns," which did not frighten the patriots. Here is the letter:
"Certain persons, styling 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 months 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 delegates 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 cannot but be highly displeasing to the King."
No doubt the amiable Dartmouth signed that foolish letter with reluctance and regret, for he well knew that its only effect would be to produce fresh irritations in the colonies, and make reconciliation and peace less possible.
DESTRUCTION OF TEA AT ANNAPOLISPROVINCIAL CONGRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS FORMED PREPARATIONS FOR CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND WARTHE COUNTRY AND EVENTS WEST OF THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINSCRESAP AND LOGANVENGEANCE OF LOGANHIS PROPHETIC SPEECH- -WAR WITH THE INDIANSBATTLE AT POINT PLEASANTTREATY WITH THE INDIANS PATRIOTISM OF THE SOLDIERSGAGE'S LETTER TO THE MINISTRYSTUBBORNNESS OF THE KINGAMERICA'S ULTIMATUMDR. FRANKLIN AND HIS "HINTS"HIS PRIVATE DIPLOMACY WITH LORD HOWE AND MRS. HOWE.
WHILE the Continental Congress were laying the broad foundations for a republic in the West, their constituents were gathering the materials for the building of the superstructure. They manifested their determination to resist oppression on all occasions. They would not yield a jot. Their maxims and their motives were not generated by sudden provocations, and liable to sudden dissolution. They were the offspring of eternal principles, and were everlasting in their vitality. This fact was manifested at Annapolis, in Maryland, long after the excitement occasioned by the destruction of tea in Boston harbor had subsided. No tea-ship had ever entered the port of Annapolis; but the people there, in the spring of 1774, had expressed their warm sympathy with the views and acts of the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Quiet had prevailed in that ancient town for some time, when, at the middle of October, 1774, at the very time when the Continental Congress was considering The American Associations that would make non-importation universal in the colonies, a violation of the old agreement excited a tempest of indignation. On Saturday morning, the 15th of October, the ship Peggy Stewart, from London, owned by Anthony Stewart of Annapolis, sailed into that port, having among her cargo seventeen packages of tea. This fact soon became known, and the citizens were summoned to a mass-meeting. It was ascertained that the consignee had imported the tea, and that Mr. Stewart, the owner of the vessel, had paid the duty. The people, at that meeting, resolved that the tea should not be landed. They adjourned to the following Wednesday, and invited the inhabitants of the surrounding country to meet with them. Meanwhile Stewart had issued a handbill explaining the transaction, disclaiming all intention of violating the non-importation agreement, and expressing his regret that any tea had been put on board his ship. The people would not listen to his excuses, for they believed them to be only the whining of a detected culprit. They were more disposed to punish than to forgive, and resolved that the ship and its cargo should be burned on Wednesday. Sober citizens were alarmed, for they feared the meeting, with such work on hand, might be changed into an unrestrainable mob. Charles Carroll of Carrollton advised Mr. Stewart, for the security of his own personal safety, and that of the town, to burn his vessel with his own hands before the next gathering of the people. Stewart consented to do so; and going on board his ship, with a few friends, he caused her to be run aground near Windmill Point and set on fire, in the presence of a multitude of people. He went ashore in a skiff, when he was cheered by the satisfied populace, who instantly dispersed. This was the last attempt to import tea during the colonial rule.
I have said that there was a general impression after the close of the Continental Congress, that war was inevitable. Before they met, many patriots thought so. Samuel Adams proclaimed it as his belief, all through the summer of 1774. Major Joseph Hawley, one of the boldest of the patriots of Massachusetts, was one of those who "snuffed the battle from afar." He submitted to the delegation in Congress from Massachusetts, a paper entitled "Broken Hints," which was full of wise thoughts. It began with these remarkable words: "We must fight, if we cannot otherwise rid ourselves of British taxation, all revenues, on the constitution or form of government enacted for us by the British Parliament." He continued: "There is not heart enough yet for battle. Constant, and a sort of negative resistance of government, will increase the heat and blow the fire. There is not military skill enough. That is improving, and must be encouraged and improved, but will daily increase. Fight we must, finally, unless Britain retreats." When John Adams read these words to Patrick Henry, that patriot said, with emphasis, "I am of that man's mind."
Britain did not intend to retreat. Her pride had been wounded by the successful defiance of her daughter, and she would neither forget nor forgive. Gage was instructed to do his duty fearlessly and with vigor. He did so, but not judiciously. He had not the rare art of conciliating enemies. His suavity was all for his friends.
Gage had summoned the Assembly of Massachusetts to meet at Salem on the 5th of October to legislate under the new act of Parliament. The attitude of the Continental Congress made the patriots bolder than ever, and their town-meetings were so seditious in aspect, that the governor countermanded his order for the session of the Assembly. But most of the members, denying his right to countermand, met there on the appointed day, ninety in number, waited two days for the governor, who did not appear, and then organized themselves into a Provincial Congress, with John Hancock as President, and Benjamin Lincoln, Secretary. They adjourned to Concord, where, on the 11th, two hundred and sixty members took their seats. Then they adjourned to Cambridge, whence they sent a message to the governor, telling him that for want of a legal Assembly they had organized a Convention. They complained of the recent acts of Parliament which suspended the functions of their charter, expressed their loyalty to the king, and protested against the fortifying of the Neck. Gage replied, as he had done before, that it was only for defence; and he pointed to the sounds of the fife and drum, the military drills, the manufacture of arms, and warlike preparations all over the province, for his justification. He concluded by denouncing the Convention as an illegal body, and warning them to desist from further action.
Gage's denunciations increased the zeal of the patriots. The Convention appointed a Committee of Safety, to whom they delegated large powers, among others to call out the militia of the province. Another committee was appointed to procure ammunition and military stores, and for that purpose they appropriated sixty thousand dollars. Henry Gardner was appointed Receiver- General, into whose hands the constables and tax collectors were directed to pay all public moneys that might be gathered by them. Provision was also made for arming the people of the province; and Jeremiah Preble, Artemas Ward, and Seth Pomeroy, all veterans of wars with the French and Indians, were chosen general officers of the militia. Only Ward and Pomeroy consented to serve, and they entered immediately upon the duty of organizing the militia. Mills were erected for manufacturing gunpowder; establishments were set up for the making of arms, and encouragement was given to the production of saltpetre. Ammunition and military stores were collected at Woburn, Concord, near Salem, and at other places; and late in November, as we have observed, the Provincial Congress authorized the enrollment of twelve thousand Minute-men. That Provincial Congress assumed legislative and executive powers, and received the allegiance of the people generally. Gage found himself at the close of 1774 unsupported excepting by his troops, a few government officials in Boston, and passive loyalists who were under the protection of his regiments. All outside of Boston wore the aspect of rebellion. Made afraid of his own weaponsfearing the people might turn the muzzles of the cannon which he had planted upon Fort Hill upon himself and his troops, he ordered a party of sailors to be sent in the night from a man-of-war in the harbor to spike all the guns in battery there. That was a confession of weakness that made the patriots strong.
While the colonists were preparing to measure strength in arms with Great Britain, there had been a speck of war with the Indians on the frontiers of Virginia. By the provisions of the Quebec Act, all of the country north and west of the Ohio River, was included in that province. The limits of Virginia were bounded by the great mountain ranges, and west of these there was no government to restrain the actions of Christians or Pagans. Restless men wandered over the mountains into the valleys beyond, planted cabins there, and were as free as the air they breathed. The Indians were just as free to exercise their savage thirst for blood, and they frequently indulged in the pastime of murdering white people. Among those who suffered there, in 1773, were Daniel Boone and others who accompanied him.
The rapacious Lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia, who was gathering riches by fees for granting land to settlers, and in acquiring large tracts for himself, had set his affections on the rich country north of the Ohio, which had been granted to Quebec. He disregarded the Quebec Act and his instructions under it, and continued to grant lands to settlers, in the Scioto Valley. He did more. Pittsburgh and the surrounding country, forming a part of the county of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, was rapidly filling up with settlers from Virginia and Maryland. Dunmore coveted the gains to be derived from the fees on land- warrants there, and he suddenly asserted the jurisdiction of Virginia over all the western country. Dr. Connelly, a Pennsylvanian, who was acquainted with all that region, and was well known, was made his deputy, with his headquarters at Pittsburgh. Serious disputes with Pennsylvania followed, but Dunmore persisted. Connolly proclaimed his authority as "Magistrate of West Augusta," and ordered a muster of the militia. The Virginia and Maryland settlers there, sided with the governor, and the authority of Connolly was acknowledged.
Early in 1774, the Indians committed many murders and depredations along the Ohio borders, and it was ascertained that the tribes were exchanging belts in seeming preparation for war. At that time Michael Cresap, a settler from Maryland, was near the present Wheeling, engaged in planting a colony. He had had some encounters with the Indians, but was disposed to treat them kindly. Late in April he received a message from Dr. Connolly that an Indian war was inevitable, when Cresap called a council of the settlers. Regarding Connolly's message as a warrant for making war on private account, they declared it against the Indians on the 26th of April. On the following day two canoes, filled with the painted savages, appeared, when they were attacked and pursued far down the river. When the pursuers returned, they proposed an assault upon the settlement of Logan, a Mingo chief, who had been reared near the banks of the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, spoke English well, and was a friend of the white people. Cresap prevented the expedition; but other traders, not so discreet, soon raised a furious tempest of resentment against their white brethren. Opposite Logan's settlement (thirty miles above Wheeling) was the cabin of a trader who sold rum to the savages. On one occasion some unarmed Indians, with their women, passed over the river, and all became drunk at the trader's house, when they were all murdered in cold blood by some white people who had been concealed near. Among the slain were the mother, brother, and sister of Logan, the latter the wife of John Gibson, a trader. The spirit of revenge was aroused in great intensity in the bosom of the Mingo chief; and nearly all the ensuing summer he was out upon the war-path gathering a fearful harvest of scalps from the heads of white people as trophies of his valor and vengeance. As Cresap was a leader of the white people on the Ohio, Logan held him responsible for the massacre, though, at that time, the trader was with his family in Maryland. To him Logan sent a note, late in summer, written by William Robinson with ink made of gunpowder, as follows:
"Captain Cresap,What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for?
The white people killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago, and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since. But the Indians are not angryonly myself."
After the war that ensued was over, Logan, then at old Chillicothe, on Pickaway Plains, refused to attend a council to which Lord Dunmore invited him. That invitation was sent by Colonel John Gibson. Logan took the messenger into the woods, where, seated upon a moss-covered root of an immense sycamore, he recited the story of his wrongs. He would not hold council personally with a white man; but he sent the following remarkable speech in the mouth of Colonel Gibson, which the latter wrote down and delivered to Dunmore:
"I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him no meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said: `Logan is the friend of the white man.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!"
The blood shed along the frontiers of Virginia, during that summer, caused Dunmore to fit out an expedition against the Indians beyond the mountains. He summoned the militia of the southwest to the field, and then he hastened to Pittsburgh. At about the same time, he renewed a treaty of peace with the Six Nations. The settlers flew to arms with alacrity, and, led by Colonel Andrew Lewis, they hastened over the rugged and pathless mountains toward a place of appointed rendezvous on the Ohio, with a promise of being reinforced by another division under the governor himself, who was to descend the river from Pittsburgh. Lewis, with about eleven hundred men, encamped on Point Pleasant, near the junction of the Great Kanawha and Ohio rivers, on the 6th of October, where, in expectation of the governor's speedy arrival, he did not cast up any intrenchments. But neither Dunmore nor a messenger from him appeared. He had gone down the Ohio before Lewis's arrival, with about twelve hundred followers, without waiting for the latter at the appointed place of rendezvous, and pushed on to the Shawnoese towns, which he found deserted. At the mouth of the Hockhocking he built a block-house, which he named Fort Gower.
Meanwhile the Shawnoesethe fiercest of the Western tribeshad deserted their settlements (as Dunmore found) and were moving stealthily, with some Mingoes and Delawares, through the forests, to attack the camp of Lewis. So secretly had they approached, that the march was not suspected until they were discovered at early dawn on the morning of the 10th of October (1774), within a short distance of the camp of the Virginians, and preparing for battle. Within an hour, they and the white people were engaged in a fierce struggle for the mastery Cornstalk, their leader, encouraging them by his bravery and fortitude, and frequently uttering the words: "Be strong!" The great struggle lasted from sunrise till noon; and from that hour, a desultory fire was kept up until sunset. Neither party could claim a victory. Lewis, however, held the field, and the savages fled across the Ohio under cover of the darkness that night. The Virginians lost full half of their commissioned officers, and almost one hundred and thirty men, killed and wounded. The Indians lost about two hundred and thirty warriors. Among the officers under Lewis were several who afterward appeared conspicuous in our history, and whom we shall meet againShelby, Campbell, Robertson, etc.
On the day after the battle, Colonel Lewis received an order from Dunmore to hasten to join him at a point in the Scioto Valley, eighty miles distant. The governor did not then know how Lewis had been smitten by the savages. The latter did not hesitate to obey the order. Leaving a small garrison at Point Pleasant, the Virginians pushed across the Ohio, traversed the pathless wilderness in the midst of perils and hardships, and on the 24th of October encamped on Pickaway Plains not far from old Chillicothe, now the borough of Westfall. Dunmore was encamped on the banks of Sippo Creek, about seven miles southwest from the present Circleville, and there he held a council with the Indian chiefs, who, acknowledging their weakness, sued for peace. At that conference, Cornstalk was the principal speaker for the savages; Logan, as we have seen, refusing to attend. A satisfactory treaty of peace was concluded, and then the Virginians returned to their homes, from which they had been absent about three months, having won great advantages for their colony and for civilization.
When these Virginians left home, all the delegates to the Continental Congress had been chosen. No tidings from the East had reached the little army during their absence, and they were ignorant of the state of public affairs on the sea- board. They were patriots, and were jealous of their honor as such. That honor might be impeached by military service under a royal governor of Dunmore's stamp. So, at Fort Gower, on the 5th of November, they, as a body, expressed their sentiments freely. They spoke of the grievances of the colonies; their zeal for the honor as well as the liberties of Americans; and their loyalty to the king and the government to whom they owed allegiance so long as they ruled justly. They said: "As attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defence of American liberty, when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen." Their proceedings offended Dunmore, and the governor and the citizen-soldiery both returned home dissatisfied.
The elections for members of Parliament in the autumn of 1774, satisfied the ministry that they were strong in the affections of the people. The king was jubilant because of the result, and the government was not in a frame of mind to receive with complacency the state-papers put forth by the Continental Congress, especially the petition to the king. In September Gage had written to Dartmouth a truthful statement of the condition of affairs in the colonies, and especially in Massachusetts. It was a letter that gave that minister great concern. Gage declared that the act of Parliament for regulating the government of Massachusetts could not be carried into effect until the New England colonies were subdued by military conquest; that Massachusetts had warm friends and abettors in all the other colonies; that the people of the Carolinas were as crazy as those in Boston; that all over New England the rural population were actually preparing for war by military exercises and by the gathering of arms and ammunition, and that the civil officers of the crown could find no protection in Boston. The governor suggested that it might be well to discard the coloniescut them loose from the empire, and leave them to suffer anarchy, and so bring about repentance; having grown rich by their connection with Great Britain, they would speedily become poor in their helplessness. Thoroughly wearied, Gage also suggested, in a private letter to Dartmouth, that it might be well to suspend the operations of the obnoxious acts for a season. When these statements and propositions were laid before the king, he said, with emphasis and bitter scorn, "The New England governments are now in a state of rebellion. Blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country, or to be independent." This was King George's ultimatum, to which he obstinately adhered; and Lord North, to whom the words of the monarch were addressed, acted accordingly in the Parliament which assembled at about that time. Joseph Warren, in a letter addressed to Josiah Quincy, Jr. (who had gone to England to seek restoration of health by a sea voyage and to watch the drift of public opinion there concerning American affairs), gave the ultimatum of the Americans in these words:
"It is the united voice of America to preserve their freedom, or lose their lives in defence of it. Their resolutions are not the effects of inconsiderate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. The true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused through all ranks and order of people in any country on the face of the earth, as it now is through all North America. If the late acts of Parliament are not to be repealed, the wisest step for both countries is to separate, and not to spend their blood and treasure in destroying each other. It is barely possible that Great Britain may depopulate North America; she never can conquer the inhabitants."
Such was the attitude of the king and his American subjects when the new Parliament assembled on the 30th of November, 1774, the old one having been dissolved in September. At that time Dr. Franklin, who had been disgraced early in the year, so far as the ribald tongue of a dishonest solicitor-general, and an ill-mannered Privy Council could disgrace him, had become an object of deep concern by men of all parties. The king hated him for his sturdy republicanism and inflexible political honesty. Hutchinson, then in England, hated him for Franklin's exposure of his perfidy, and he pursued him relentlessly; and, at one time, there were intimations that if the agent remained in England, it would be at the peril of his life. On the other hand, the friends of the government regarded him as a bulwark of political wisdom, and a match in the field of diplomacy for the whole British ministry. It was believed by all that he was the depositary of the secret intentions of the colonists, toward Great Britain, in the measures they had adopted. He was solicited to promulgate the extent of the demands of the Americans; and so urgent were the calls for this knowledge, that without waiting for the reception of a record of the proceedings of the Continental Congress, he prepared a paper entitled "Hints for Conversation upon the subject of Terms that may probably produce a Durable Union between Britain and the Colonies," in seventeen propositions. The upshot of the whole was that the colonies should be reinstated in the position which they held in relation to the imperial government before the obnoxious acts then complained of became laws, by a repealby a destruction of the whole brood of offensive enactments in reference to America, hatched since the accession of George the Third. In a word, he proposed that English subjects in America should enjoy all the essential rights and privileges claimed as the birthright of English subjects in England. This paper found its way to the ministry, and possibly to the king; and had the prime minister been allowed to follow the bent of his inclination and of his clear judgment, it might have been the basis of a compromise that would have preserved the unity of the British realm. Franklin had expressed, in these "Hints," the sentiments of his countrymen.
The sage was a sphynx to the ministry. They were anxious to fathom the secrets which they believed were hidden in him, concerning the extent to which the Americans would consent to modify the "Hints," but his consummate diplomatic skill foiled their curiosity. Beneath a perfect freedom and frankness of manner of expression, there was always, to English minds, a riddle they could not solve. It was thought that in the amenities of social intercourse he might inadvertently drop a clue, or make confessions under the melting influence of adroitly applied compliments; and the charms of an accomplished woman, a sister- in-law of Earl Howe (the commander of the British fleet on the American coast in less than two years afterward), were employed to open the heart and mind of the impenetrable stateman. She was a lover of science; brilliant in conversation; winning in deportment, and a skillful player of chess, a game which Dr. Franklin was fond of. The story runs thus, as told by the stateman himself:
At the Royal Society, one evening, a gentleman told Franklin that Mrs. Howe, a lady who possessed many admirable qualities, wished to play chess with him, as she fancied she could beat him. He accepted the challenge, and on the day after Parliament met he was introduced to her, was charmed by her mind and manners, played a few games, and accepted an invitation to repeat the visit and the amusement. At the second visit, after playing a long time, they fell into conversation, partly about a mathematical problem, and partly about the new Parliament, when she said: "And what is to be done with this dispute between Great Britain and the colonies? I hope we are not to have a civil war." "They should kiss and be friends," said Franklin; "what can they do better? Quarreling can be of service to neither, but is ruin to both." She replied"I have often said that I wished government would employ you to settle the dispute for them; I am sure nobody could do it so well. Do not you think the thing is practicable?" Franklin answered"Undoubtedly, madame, if the parties are disposed to reconciliation; for the two countries have really no clashing interests to differ about. It is rather a matter of punctilio, which two or three reasonable people might settle in half an hour. I thank you for the good opinion you are pleased to express of me; but the ministers will never think of employing me in that good work; they choose rather to abuse me." "Aye," said Mrs. Howe, "they have behaved shamefully to you. Indeed some of them are now ashamed of it themselves."
"I looked upon this as accidental conversation," Dr. Franklin wrote; "thought no more of it, and went in the evening to the appointed meeting at Dr. Fothergill's, where I found Mr. Barclay with him"an eminent member of the Society of Friends. They at once entered into conversation on the topic which Mrs. Howe had introduced, and evidently by preconcert with her. They commented upon the mischief likely to ensue from the quarrel, and expatiated upon the great merit of being instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation. They complimented Franklin about his ability and influencetold him that nobody understood the whole subject so well, or had a "better head for business," and that it was his duty to do all in his power to heal the dissensions between Great Britain and the colonies. They urged him to commit to writing his thoughts on the subject. Out of these interviews grew the "Hints" already spoken of, the name of the author of which was to be kept a profound secret.
Mrs. Howe's invitations to chess-playing continued, and were accepted. On the evening of Christmas, Franklin was at that lady's house, when she said, almost immediately after he had entered, that her brother, Lord Howe, was very anxious to make the acquaintance of Franklin; that he lived very near, and that if the statesman would give her leave she would send for his lordship. "Send for him by all means," said Franklin, and Earl Howe very soon appeared. He was profuse in his personal compliments, blamed the ministry for abusing Franklin; said they were ashamed of it, and that ample satisfaction would undoubtedly be given; begged him to open his mind freely as to the best means for bringing about a reconciliation; observed that Franklin might not wish to have a direct communication with the ministry on the subject, or have it known that he had any indirect communication with them till he could be well assured of their good disposition; and that he (Lord Howe) being on good terms with the ministry, thought it not impossible that he might, as a bearer of communications between the two parties, be the means of effecting the desired end. At that moment Mrs. Howe offered to withdraw.
The sagacious Franklin now saw clearly, what he had already suspected; namely, that the chess-playing was only a pleasant mask for a little artful diplomacy. His usual caution had not allowed him to divulge to the charming "petticoated- politician," a single secret which he wished to keep. Her titled brother-in-law was no more successful than she. When Mrs. Howe proposed to withdraw and leave Franklin alone with his lordship, the former begged her to stay, saying: "I have no secret to divulge, in a business of this nature, that I could not freely confide to your prudence." He assured Lord Howe that his lordship's manners had gained his (Franklin's) confidence, and made him perfectly easy and free in communicating himself to him, in whatever he had to divulge. After a long conversation Franklin withdrew, with a promise to meet the earl at an appointed time. Mrs. Howe was present at the next interview. The subject of American affairs was fully discussed, when the earl drew from his pocket a copy of the "Hints," in Mr. Barclay's hand-writing, and asked Franklin if he knew anything about the paper. The sage saw that the secret of the authorship had been divulged, and he frankly avowed himself as the proposer. Earl Howe expressed his sorrow that Franklin claimed such large concessions from the ministry, as there was no likelihood that they would be admitted by the king and his advisers. Howe desired Franklin to draw up a plan for reconciliation less distasteful to the government; spoke of the infinite service he might be to the nation, and intimated that if he (Franklin) should be instrumental in accomplishing the wishes of the government in that regard, he might expect any reward in the power of that government to bestow.
The last proposition aroused Franklin's indignation. "It was to me," he said, "what the French vulgarly call spitting in the soup." But he showed no signs of a ruffled temper, and promised to draw up for Lord Howe a new series of propositions, which he did in terms similar to those of the "Hints."
All these private diplomatic operations ended in leaving Mrs. Howe and her brother no wiser than before the first game of chess was played with Dr. Franklin. He had checkmated his competitors in the art of diplomacy.
British satirists and caricaturists handled the ministers and the king with considerable severity in 1774. In a caricature published with the Westminster Magazine in April, entitled "The White-Hall Pump," poor Britannia is thrown down upon her child America, while Lord North, who was remarkable for his short- sightedness, viewing her through his glass, is pumping upon her, and seems to enjoy her distress. A parcel of Acts and Bills, Magna Charta, Coronation Oaths, are scattered upon the ground. Lord Mansfield, with an act of Parliament, is seen (in the full caricatureonly a part of it is here given) standing by the side of North to give him legal support, while other ministers are near.
AMERICA'S AFFAIRS IN PARLIAMENTTHE KING AND LORD NORTHPROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, IN ENGLANDFRANKLIN A MISSIONARYLORD CHATHAM AND FRANKLINNORTH AND THE CABINETPOLICY TOWARD THE AMERICANSFRANKLIN ADMITTED TO THE HOUSE OF LORDSLORD CHATHAM'S GREAT SPEECH ON AMERICAN AFFAIRSANGER OF THE KING CHATHAM'S PROPOSITIONS REJECTEDHIS INVECTIVEHE COMPLIMENTS FRANKLIN OPPRESSIVE MEASURESGIBBONDISAFFECTION IN NEW YORKFRANKLIN AND THE MINISTERS.
WHEN the British Prliament assembled at the close of November, 1774, the king told them that the Americans were on the verge of rebellion. He assured them that he had given orders for the prompt execution of the laws passed by the late Parliament, and for the restoration of order and good government in the colonies. The Commoners, as usual, prepared an address to the King, when the Opposition proposed an amendment asking his majesty to lay before Parliament all letters, orders, and instructions relating to American affairs, as well as all the intelligence received from the colonies. North opposed the amendment, because it would force the government to take the first step toward reconciliation, and therefore would be inconsistent with the dignity of the crown! The address promised his majesty full support by the Commons in its dealings with the colonies. A debate, in which much bitterness was shown, ensued, when the amendment was rejected by a large majority. In the House of Lords, an address, similar in sentiment, was carried by a large majority. Nine of the peers signed a protest which concluded with these words: "Whatever may be the mischievous designs or inconsiderate temerity which lead others to this desperate course, we wish to be known as persons who have ever disapproved of measures so pernicious in their past effects and future tendencies; and who are not in haste, without inquiry and information, to commit ourselves in declarations which may precipitate our country into all the calamities of a civil war."
Lord North, no doubt sincerely wishing reconciliation, did not regard this triumph as a real victory; on the contrary, he saw interminable trouble ahead. But he had committed himself to the control of the king, and was compelled to do his majesty's bidding or resign; yet he tried to induce the monarch to take some step in the direction of reconciliation. He suggested the propriety of sending a commission of inquiry to America, but the king overruled the proposition, and North acquiesced. The utter subserviency of this minister to the king, in opposition to his own conscience and sense of justice, is well illustrated by North's heartless remark afterward, in which he echoed his master's sentiments: "A rebellion is not to be deprecated on the part of Great Britain; the confiscations it would produce would provide for many friends of government." The ministry consoled themselves with the idea that so many colonies, with such clashing interests, could not long remain united. "It will be easy," said one of them to the French minister in London, "to sow divisions among the delegates to their Congress; they will do nothing but bring ridicule upon themselves by exposing their weakness." This delusion was dispelled before the adjournment of Parliament for the Christmas holidays, by the arrival in England of a record of the proceedings of that Congress. The firmness, moderation, and unanimity of the action of the members greatly surprised the ministry, made the more sensible of them anxious, but only increased the anger of the king, who, in hurried words, as usual, "breathed threatenings and slaughter." The caricaturists had already ridiculed the blusterings of the government, by representing North, whom they nicknamed "Boreas," as viewing the distant colonies through his eye-glass, showing his ignorance of the true state of affairs in America, when he uttered his foolish boast after the Congress had assembled, "I promise to subdue the Americans in three months."
When the proceedings of the Continental Congress reached England, the colonial agents there, and particularly Dr. Franklin, became active in their public promulgations. The president of the Congress had sent them to the agents as a body, with a letter requesting them to lay the petition to the king "into the hands of his majesty," and also to publish it. They were also requested to furnish printed copies of that and the "Address of the people of Great Britain" by the Congress, to "the trading cities and manufacturing towns of the United Kingdom." The Congress had passed a vote of thanks to the friends of the Americans in Parliament, and the agents were requested to convey the resolution to those gentlemen.
Franklin took the task of this seed-sowing chiefly upon himself, for he was now regarded as the representative of the whole continent. The documents were printed and scattered over the kingdom; and Franklin and others traversed the manufacturing towns in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northumberland, and Durham, and by word of mouth imparted much information and enlightenment on the great questions at issue. The people of those districts were mostly Dissenters, who looked upon the Church of England as a portion of the state, in wielding weapons of oppression. The truths respecting human rights, uttered by Franklin, appealed to their warmest sympathies, and there was much excitement in the north of England. Petitions framed by Franklin, and numerously signed, praying for a repeal of the obnoxious acts, were sent into Parliament and immediately consigned to an inactive committee"a committee of oblivion," as Burke called them. Ministerial agents were sent in the wake of Franklin and his friends to counteract their influence, and these sent in counter-petitions, also numerously signed, which were promptly acted upon. Petitions from the American colonies, even one from Jamaica, were treated with disdain.
The agents were not permitted to lay the petition of Congress to the king "into his majesty's hands." Franklin presented it to Lord Dartmouth. His lordship laid it before the king, who promised it should be submitted to Parliament, and so the matter rested for awhile. Franklin, meanwhile, had borne a copy of the petition to Hayes, where he was courteously received by Lord Chatham. Among other pointed remarks made by Franklin to Pitt, on that occasion, none seemed to strike his lordship more forcibly than these words: "The army cannot possibly answer any good purpose in Boston, but may do infinite mischief; and no accommodation can properly be proposed and entered into by the Americans, while the bayonet is at their breasts. To have an agreement binding, all force should be withdrawn." Chatham was deeply impressed with the justice of the remark, and he promised Franklin that if his malady would allow, he would be in his place in the House of Lords at the reopening of Parliament, and move the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the troops from Boston. In this measure he thought were involved the hopes of liberty for England.
The scruples of Lord North annoyed the king, and the monarch often rebuked his minister. These scruples had created much opposition to him in the Cabinet, and a clique had determined to procure his dismissal, if he should propose any more lenient measures toward the Americans. North was advised of this conspiracy. The Parliament was to reassemble on the 20th of January; and at a meeting of the Cabinet on the 12th, he saw unmistakable evidence that he must yield his conscience to the king, or throw up the seals of office. A majority of the Cabinet were firm supporters of the royal prerogative, and champions for the supremacy of Parliament. North loved place and its emoluments; so, quieting his conscience, by considering the sacredness of his pledge to the king, he reinstated himself with his fellow-ministers by unbounded good nature on that occasion, and a promise to take the tremendous responsibility of a leader in measures which his judgement assured him would create a civil war. At that meeting it was decided to interdict all commerce with America; and to declare all persons in the colonies, not actively loyal to the crown, to be rebels. By so drawing the line of separation sharply, they hoped to create a permanent antagonism among the people here; but union rather than discord was effected.
Parliament reassembled on the 20th January, 1775. The rumor had gone abroad that Chatham would appear in his place. It was vehemently asserted by the court party that he would not be there; that he had washed his hands of American affairs, and would never more appear as their advocate. This assertion disturbed Lady Chatham, who was in London. She had informed her husband of the day appointed for the assembling of Parliament, but she feared there might be some trick by which Lord Chatham would be prevented from being present at the opening, as he desired to be. In a letter to him she expressed some doubts about the propriety of her appearing at court, while the rumors of his remaining at Hayes were so rife. He wrote to her, most earnestly, saying: "For God's sake, sweet life, don't disquiet yourself about the impertinent and ridiculous lie of the hour. The plot does not lie very deep. It is only a pitiful device of fear, court fear, and faction fear. If gout does not put in a veto, which I trust in Heaven it will not, I will be in the House of Lords on Friday, then and there to make a motion relative to America. Be of good cheer, noble love.
"Yes, I am proudI must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me."
To Lord Stanhope he wrote: "I greatly wish Dr. Franklin may be in the House."
His lordship communicated this wish to Franklin, and offered to lend him assistance in gaining admission. On the morning of the 20th, Lord Stanhope sent another message to Franklin, letting him know that if he should be in the lobby of the House at two o'clock that day, Chatham would be there and introduce him himself. Franklin was there. On mentioning to the great orator what Stanhope had said, Chatham replied: "Certainly, and I shall do it with the more pleasure, as I am sure your presence at this day's debate will be of more service to America than mine." He then took Franklin by the arm and was leading him along the passage to the door that entered near the throne, when one of the doorkeepers followed and acquainted Pitt, that, by the order, none were to be carried in at that door but the eldest sons and brothers of peers. Pitt limped back with Franklin to the door near the bar, where were standing a number of gentlemen waiting for the peers who were to introduce them, and some peers waiting for friends they expected to introduce. There Chatham delivered Franklin to the doorkeepers, saying aloud: "This is Dr. Franklin, whom I would have admitted into the House;" which was accordingly done. "As it had not been publicly known that there was any communication between his lordship and myself," Franklin wrote, "this, I found, occasioned some speculation. His appearance in the House, I observed, caused a kind of bustle among the officers, who were busied in sending messengers for membersI suppose those in connection with the ministry, something of importance being expected when the great man appears, it being but seldom that his infirmities permit his attendance."
Chatham was in his place at the appointed hour. For what purpose? That question was soon answered, when, rising to his feet with a little help, he leaned upon a crutch, and , with a clear voice, proposed an address to the king, asking him to immediately dispatch to General Gage an order to remove his forces from Boston as soon as the rigors of the season would permit. "I wish, my lords," said Chatham, in the presence of a crowd of anxious listeners, "not to lose a day in this urgent, pressing crisis. An hour now lost may produce years of calamity. For my part, I will not desert, for a single moment, the conduct of this weighty business. Unless nailed to my bed by extremity of sickness, I will give it my unremitted attention. I will knock at the door of the sleeping and confounded ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of their impending danger. When I state the importance of the colonies to this country, and the magnitude of danger from the present plan of misadministration practised against them, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity of indulgence between England and America. I contend not for indulgence, but justice to America; and I shall ever contend that the Americans owe obedience to us in a limited degree." Then stating the foundations upon which the supremacy of Great Britain over her colonies rested, he continued: "Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally incompetent to convince or to enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the legislature or the bodies who compose it, is equally intolerable to British subjects." He then pictured in a pathetic manner, Gage's troops in Boston suffering in winter, insulted by the inhabitants, wasting with sickness, and pining for action; and then he wittily compared Gage to the great General Conde, who, upon being asked on one occasion why he did not take Marshal Turenne prisoner, being so very near him, replied: "Upon my word, I am afraid Turenne will take me." "This spirit of independence," continued Chatham, "animating the nation of America is not new among them; it is, and has ever been, their confirmed persuasion. When the repeal of the stamp- act was in agitation, a person of undoubted respect and authenticity on that subject assured me that these were the prevalent and steady principles of Americathat you might destroy their towns, and cut them off from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences of life, but that they were prepared to despise your power, and would not lament their loss while they havewhat, my lords?their woods and their liberty. Oppress not these millions for the fault of forty or fifty individuals. Such severity of injustice must irritate your colonies to unappeasable rancor. What though you march from town to town, and from province to province? How shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you, in your progress to grasp eighteen hundred miles of continent?. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America, is the same which formerly opposed wars, benevolence, and ship-money in England; the same which, by the bill of rights, vindicated the English constitution; the same which established the essential maxim of your liberties, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent."
Chatham then alluded to the late Congress; the wisdom of its course, and the support which its measures received from the whole people. "When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America," he said,"when you consider the decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow, that in all my readingand I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master-states of the worldfor solidity of reasons, force of reasons, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation, or body of men, can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it; and all attempts to impose servitude upon such a mighty continental nation, must be vainmust be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retreat; let us retreat while we can, not when we must. These violent acts must be repealed; you will repeal them; I pledge myself for it. I stake my reputation on it. You will in the end repeal them. Avoid, then, this humiliating necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, peace, and happiness, for that is your true dignity. Concession comes with better grace from superior power, and establishes solid confidence in the foundations of affection and gratitude. Be the first to spare: throw down the weapons in your hands. To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say that they can alienate the affection of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone."
This great speechthis noble plea for justicemade the king very angry. He regarded Chatham's independence as ingratitude, and he openly expressed a desire for the arrival of the day "when decrepitude or old age should put an end to him as a trumpet of sedition." The lords immediately censured Chatham's speech by a vote of sixty-eight to eighteen, against his proposition. Not discouraged, he immediately presented a bill which provided for the renunciation of the power of taxation, demanding an acknowledgment from the Americans of the supreme authority of Great Britain, and inviting them to contribute voluntarily a specified sum annually to be employed as interest on the national debt. It also provided for an immediate repeal of all the objectionable acts of Parliament (ten in number), passed during the administration of the reigning monarch.
Now occurred a remarkable scene. The petulant Earl of Sandwich said the proposition deserved only contempt, and ought to be immediately rejected. He could not believe it was the work of a British peer, but of some American. Turning his face toward Franklin, who stood, leaning on the bar, he said: " I fancy I have in my eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever known." The eyes of the whole House were now fixed on Franklin, when Chatham arose and said, with emphasis, "The plan is entirely my own; but if I were the first minister, and had the care of settling this momentous business, I should not be ashamed of publicly calling to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted with the whole American affairs one whom all Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an honor, not to the English nation only, but to human nature." Sandwich moved that the bill be "rejected now and forever," and it was done. This drew from Chatham a terrible storm of invective. He perceived the fixed intention of the ministry to enslave the Americans at all hazards. "I am not surprised," he said, " that men who hate liberty should detest those who prize it, or that those who want virtue themselves should persecute those who possess it. The whole of your political conduct has been one continual series of weakness and temerity, despotism, and the most notorious servility, incapacity, and corruption. I allow you one merit, a strict attention to your interests; in that view, who can wonder that you should put a negative on any measure which must deprive you of your places, and reduce you to that insignificance for which God and nature designed you." The bill was rejected, because it was considered a greater concession to the colonies, and quite as injurious to the national honor as the proposition of Dean Tucker, a famous pamphleteer, that Parliament should by solemn enactment sever the colonies from the parent government, and disallow any application for restoration to the rights and privileges of British subjects, until, by humble petition, they should ask for pardon and reinstatement. This would not have been a severe punishment for the Americans.
So firmly supported in the House of Lords, the ministers proceeded to put the engine of coercion into full play against the Americans. On the 2d of February, North proposed the first of a series of measures for compelling the Americans to submit. He moved in the House of Commons for an address to the king, affirming that the province of Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion; that Great Britain would not relinquish an iota of her sovereign rule in the colonies; and urging his majesty to take immediate and effectual measures for enforcing obedience to the laws. They contemplated a material increase of the military force in America, and to restrain the entire commerce of New England with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies. Charles James Fox moved an amendment censuring the ministry, and praying for their removal. A warm debate ensued, when Fox's amendment was negatived by a vote of three hundred and four against one hundred and five. North's motion, which ended with the usual pledge of "lives and fortunes," prevailed by a majority of two hundred and ninety-six in the Commons, and in the Lords by eighty-seven to twenty-seven; nine peers protesting. Gibbon the historian, who then had a seat in the Commons, and had veered from the Opposition to the Ministerial side, wrote: "We voted an address of 'lives and fortunes,' declaring Massachusetts Bay in a state of rebellion; more troops, but, I fear, not enough to go to America, to make an army of ten thousand men at Boston; three generals, Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne! In a few days we stop the ports of New England. I cannot write volumes, but I am more and more convinced that, with firmness, all will go well; yet I sometimes doubt." Gibbon had written in favor of the Americans. Fox, in an epigram of twelve lines, alludes to his venality in these words:
"King George in a fright, lest Gibbon should write The story of Britain's disgrace, Thought no means more sure, his pen to secure, Than to give the historian a place."
North presented another billa Restraining Actwhich provided for the destruction of the fisheries and other commerce of the New England colonies, exempting from its force those only who should produce evidence that they were supporters of the supremacy of Parliament. Protests from merchants and manufacturers, and also from the Friends or Quakers, in behalf of those people on Nantucket, engaged in the fishing, were presented, but without effect. The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority, and twenty thousand inhabitants of New England, employing four hundred ships and two thousand fishing-shallops, were seriously injured by it. At this juncture news came from America of the general adhesion of the several colonies to the Continental Congress, when North presented another bill (March 8, 1775), which included all the colonies in the operation of the Restraining Act, excepting New York and North Carolina, where loyalty prevailed. In New York, conservatism was now rife, especially among the "Patricians," or what is termed the "upper classes" in society. Loyalty to the crown, and lukewarmness in the cause for which Boston was suffering, prevailed in the New York Assembly at the beginning of 1775, then in the seventh year of its existence. To stimulate and diffuse that conservatism and loyaltyto detach New York from the rest of the colonies, in political feeling, was now a prime object of the ministry and their American supporters. Severance from Great Britain was not to be thought of, said these loyalists. Even John Jay, one of the most active men in the Continental Congress, declared that he "held nothing in greater abhorrence, than the malignant charge of aspiring after independence." The New York Committee of Correspondence expressed their anxiety for the maintenance of union with Great Britain. And in the New York Assembly conservatism was strongly manifested, when a motion of Colonel Tenbroeck, to take into consideration the proceedings of the Continental Congress, was negatived. Again, when Philip Schuyler made a motion in that body that certain letters, which, the previous summer, had passed between the New York Committee of Correspondence and that of Connecticut on the subject of a General Congress; also that a letter of a committee of the New York Assembly to Edmund Burke (the agent for the province in England) a little later, should be entered upon the Journals of the House, the clerk to furnish copies for the newspapers, his motion was negatived. A proposition of Colonel (afterward General) Woodhull to vote thanks to the New York delegates in the Continental Congress for their faithfulness; another to thank those merchants who adhered to the non- importation agreements, and still another to appoint delegates to the next Continental Congress, were negatived by the same vote. At about the same time the majority of the Assembly, on motion of Mr. DeLancey, decided by a resolution that the king and Parliament had a right to regulate the trade of the colonies, and to levy taxes by impost duties. A most obsequious petition to the king, in which he was styled "an indulgent father," was then offered. This excited the indignation of Schuyler and other republicans of the Assembly. The former attacked expressions in the paper with great vigor, and offered amendments substituting manly words for degrading ones. But the petition unamended, and a humble petition to the House of Lords, were adopted, and were sent to England, with a record of the proceedings of the Assembly. These papers caused the exemption of the province of New York from the force of the Restraining Act. They did not represent the feelings of the great mass of the people of that province, but only of the ruling classes. But the votes gave great joy to the Tories and the crown-officers everywhere, and made the ministry hope that New York would be permanently disaffected, and so cut off New England from the other provinces until the war that ensued had made considerable progress. The Tories confidently looked for failure in the rebellion through dissension. John Adams predicted twenty years before, that the grand scheme of the British government would be the promotion of dissensions among the colonies.
There was now much fluttering among the ministers. Lord North, to the astonishment of everybody, submitted a sort of conciliatory plan that pleased nobody, yet he adroitly carried it through. Other plans, more favorable to the Americans, were offered and rejected. Franklin's "Hints" had been considered by the ministry, and propositions had been made to him which were so much short of justice that he replied, "While Parliament claims the right of altering American constitutions at pleasure, there can be no agreement, for we are rendered unsafe in English privilege." When it was suggested that an agreement was necessary for America, as it would be "so easy for Britain to burn all their seaport towns," the philosopher answered bravely: "My little property consists of houses in those towns; you may make bonfires of them whenever you please: the fear of losing them will never alter my resolution to resist, to the last, the claim of Parliament."
The British government, by its acts, had now virtually declared war against the English-American colonists as rebels. Abandoning all hope of reconciliation, Franklin returned to America in the spring of 1775, and entered vigorously upon the prosecution of the war that soon afterward broke out.
THE KING AND HIS MINISTERS THE REAL REVOLUTIONISTSTHE SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE ITS DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICAFRANKLIN'S FABLE OF THE EAGLE AND THE CATTHE AMERICANS NOT REVOLUTIONISTSTREATMENT OF BATTLESENGLAND AND HER COLONIES, IN 1775THE CHILDREN OF BOSTONTHE APPOINTED SUCCESSOR OF GAGEHIS GENERALS FRANKLIN'S VIEWS OF THE SITUATIONGAGE AND THE PEOPLEHANCOCK AND ADAMS MILITARY EXPEDITION TO CONCONDSKIRMISH AT LEXINGTON.
IN the early part of 1775, the British government had proclaimed Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion, and provided means for suppressing that rebellion by force of arms. The fulmination of wrathful threats against that province was intended for the ears of her sister colonies, as well as for her own. They had interests in common. They were making resistance to oppression in common; and they were resolved to stand united for the common defence. To call Massachusetts a "rebel," was to call all the other colonies "rebels." So they all felt. Joseph Hawley had said in Massachusetts, when viewing the impending crisis: "We must fight!" Patrick Henry, in Virginia, had answered "Amen!" with vehemence; and these words from the head and heart of resistance to oppression, were echoed back from all the provinces in the early part of 1775. For ten years the people of those provinces had pleaded, remonstrated, and worked in vain endeavors to obtain justice for themselves and their posterity. They had asserted the inalienable rights of every free-born Englishman, and had been haughtily spurned as slaves. They had bravely, meekly, patiently and persistently opposed the revolution which the king and Parliament seemed determined to effect (and did effect) by overturning the colonial charters and denying to British subjects in America the freedom and privileges of British subjects in England. At length the united colonies came to the solemn conclusion"We must fight," and prepared for the dire necessity. The war for independence that ensued was not a war of revolution on the part of the Americans. It was a war by the Americans against the arch-revolutionist King George and his ministers-a war by the Americans for the defence of their liberties and free institutions which the government of Great Britain sough to destroy.
Let us look a little behind the stirring events of the spring of 1775. You who have followed the narrative given in preceding pages in this work, cannot fail to have discovered the existence of a controlling spirit of independence-a spirit yearning for free thought and action-a spirit of resistance to unlawful restraint, everywhere manifested by the early settlers and colonists-emigrants from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; from France, Switzerland, Holland, and Sweden. The sentiment uttered by Patrick Henry in old St. John's Church in Richmond in 1775"Give me liberty or give me death!" had been the sponsor of that faith and courage which impelled men and women to leave home and kindred, brave the storms of the Atlantic and the perils of the wilderness, and seek abiding places in the forests of America. That spirit was not born in these forests, as some suppose. It was older than the gnarled oak and lofty pines-as old as civilization-aye, as old as the race-a child of remote ages. It had been seen emerging from the mists of pre-historic times. It walked arm-in-arm with young Christianity when it went forth from the gates of Jerusalem to conquer the earth with its sublime ethics, for the Founder had said: "The Truth shall make you free." It asserted its power at Runnymede; and it spoke out boldly in the theological and ecclesiastical reformation of the sixteenth century. It found a rare coadjutor in the new-born printing-press; and from the advent of that mighty teacher, it was rapidly diffused. It was the prevailing spirit of the century, when the greater portion of the English colonies in America were planted-a century most remarkable for its energy and development.
The immigrants hither came chiefly from among the middle-classes of society in Europe, who, with strong bones and tough muscles, brought to this virgin land an indomitable love for personal freedom. They brought the spirit of independence with them. They cherished it as a priceless jewel. From the beginning, they yearned for independent local legislation; and that aspiration deepened, and widened, and grew more sturdy as time passed on, until, at about the middle of the last century, as we have seen, the colonists, many in numbers and firm in faith, defied the government of England. It was high time for them to do so; for that government, wielded by an unwise and headstrong king with corrupt and obsequious advisers, meditated bold revolutionary schemes by which the ancient constitutions of the colonies were to be destroyed, and the people deprived of rights which they had ever held most sacred. We have seen how the attempt at subversion was made openly, and in secret, and with what patient dignity the oppressed colonists pleaded for redress and justice in loyal words. We have seen how they were spurned-spit upon, as it were, by the haughty king and his ministers, until Dr. Franklin, their chief representative in England, losing all hope, folded his papers, sailed away from that country and came home to help his countrymen in the impending struggle with the brute force of Great Britain. Not long before Franklin's departure, he gave to the world that remarkable fable of the eagle and the cat, which, in the light of subsequent events, seemed prophetic. He was at Lord Spencer's one evening, with a number of English noblemen, when the conversation turned upon the subject of fables. Some one of the company observed that he thought the subject was exhausted; he did not believe that any beast, bird, or fish could be worked into a new fable with any success. The whole company appeared to agree with the gentleman excepting Franklin, who was silent. The company insisted upon his expressing his opinion. "I believe, my lords," said the sage, in substance, "that the subject is inexhaustible, and that many new and instructive fables might be made out of such materials." He was asked if he would think of one at present. "If your lordship," he said, turning to Earl Spencer, "will provide me with a pen, ink, and paper, I believe I can furnish your lordship with one in a few minutes." The paper was brought, and Franklin wrote as follows:
"Once upon a time, an eagle soaring around a farmer's barn and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him in the air. He soon found that he had a creature of more courage and strength than a hare, for which, notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat. The snarling and scrambling of the prey was very inconvenient, and, what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body with her fore limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat with her teeth. `Pray,' said the eagle, `let go your hold and I will release you.' `Very fine,' said the cat, `I have no fancy to fall from this height, and be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop and let me down.' The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly."
John Adams, who received the story from Franklin's lips, wrote: "The moral was so applicable to England and America [England the Eagle, and America the Cat] that the fable was allowed to be original, and was highly applauded."
The colonists now said: "We must fight." They repeated it from Maine to Georgia. They buckled on their armor and stood on the defensive determined not to give the first blow. We shall now see how their oppressors became the aggressors, and spilled the first blood that flowed in the war of that momentous revolution which King George the Third began. That revolution, as we have observed, was not the work of the people. They did not seek to overturn anything; they sought only to preserve the precious things that existed. They had never known hereditary titles, nor prerogatives, nor any of the forms of feudalism, in America, other than as temporary exotics. They had grown to greatness in plain, unostentatious ways, chiefly as tillers of the soil and moving on a social plane of almost absolute equality. They had all been born free. They were not called upon to fight for freedom, for they already possessed it; they were compelled to fight for its maintenance. Therefore, the American people in 1775 were not revolutionists. They, only, were revolutionists, who, by arbitrary methods, attempted to deprive the Americans of their rights. This aspect of the case I wish to impress upon the minds of my countrymen. I shall not dwell long upon the sanguinary features of that war. An eminent author, in a deprecatory spirit, wrote : "They Muse of History has been so much in love with Mars, that she has seldom conversed with Minerva." Acting upon that hint, I shall, in telling the story of that war, touch as lightly upon the terrible details of battles as faithfulness to the task before me will allow. With that governing thought, I have traced the course of the colonies through the several phases of their growth from feeble, scattered settlements to powerful commonwealths, endued with a pervading love of freedom, and possessing large liberties. I have endeavored to unfold the causes which gradually made them gravitate toward a common center of nationality, in the form of a colonial Union. We will now consider their tremendous struggle during seven years for the maintenance of their liberties, and the establishment of a new and independent nation on the earth.
In February, 1775, Great Britain, as we have seen, had virtually declared war against the colonies. "The time for reconciliation, moderation, and reasoning is over," General Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth. Even the boys of Boston asserted their rights in the presence of the military governor. They had built some snow- hills on the Common, down which they slid on to a pond. The soldiers, to annoy them, frequently demolished these hills. They complained to the captain, but could not obtain redress. At length a large deputation of older boys called upon General Gage. He received them courteously, and said: "Why have so many children waited upon me?" "We have come, sir," said the tallest boy, "to demand satisfaction." "What!" said the general with surprise, "have your fathers been teaching you rebellion, and sent you here to exhibit it?" "Nobody sent us here, sir," replied the boy, while his eyes flashed, and his cheeks reddened with indignation at the imputation of being a rebel. "We have never injured nor insulted your troops," he continued, "but they have trodden down our snow-hills, and have broken the ice on our skating-ground. We complained, and they called us young rebels, and told us to help ourselves if we could. We told the captain of this, and he laughed at us. Yesterday our works were destroyed for the third time, and we will bear it no longer." The good-natured general felt touched with admiration for the spirit of these boys, and turning to an officer near him, he said: "The very children here draw in a love of liberty with the air they breathe." To the boys he said: "Be assured that if my troops trouble you again, they shall be punished."
In reply to a letter from Dartmouth, ordering him to assert, by force, the absolute authority of the king, Gage wrote that civil government was nearly at an end in Massachusetts. He advised the sending of twenty thousand troops, with whom he would undertake to enforce the new form of government, to disarm the colonists, and to arrest and send to England for trial the chief traitors in Massachusetts. Meanwhile the British government were preparing to reinforce the troops in Boston. It was determined to make the number there ten thousand. They also resolved to send another general to take the place of Gage, whom ministers considered too inefficient for the exigency. General William Howe was chosen to succeed him. His major-generals were Sir Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne. The former was a son of a provincial governor of New York; the latter was ambitious to win renown that he might wipe out the stain of his ignoble birth. He boastfully said: "I am confident there is not an officer or soldier in the king's service who does not think the Parliamentary right of Great Britain a cause to fight for; to bleed and die for." There were many and noble soldiers who did not agree with him. For that reason Amherst declined the chief command which was offered to him, and partly for the same reason General Howe took the appointment with reluctance. "Is it a proposition or an order from the king?" Howe asked. "It is an order." "Then it is my duty to obey," he said with real reluctance, for he remembered with gratitude the vote of Massachusetts to erect a monument in memory of his brother, Lord Howe, who was killed near Ticonderoga. His reluctance was somewhat diminished when he was told that he and his brother Richard, Earl Howe (who had been appointed naval commander in America), would go as peace commissioners also, bearing the sword in one hand and the olive-branch in the other.
Franklin, not long before his departure from England, had written to friends in Massachusetts, saying, in substance, "Do not begin war without the advice of the Continental Congress, unless on a sudden emergency." He said: "New England alone can hold out for ages against this country, and, if they are firm and united, in seven years will win the day." The prophecy was fulfilled in time and facts. "The eyes of all Christendom," he wrote, "are now upon us, and our honor as a people is become a matter of the utmost consequence. If we tamely give up our rights in this contest, a century to come will not restore us, in the opinion of the world; we shall be stamped with the character of dastards, poltroons, and fools; and be despised and trampled upon, not by this haughty, insolent nation only, but by all mankind. Present inconveniences are, therefore, to be borne with fortitude, and better times expected." The French minister in London wrote to his government: "Every negotiation which shall proceed from the present administration will be without success in the colonies. Will the king of England lose America rather than change his ministry? Time must solve the problem; if I am well informed, the submission of the Americans is not to be expected." The conduct of the Americans gratified the wishes of Franklin and the hopes of the French ambassador.
When news of the contemptuous reception of the petition of Congress to the King, and copies of the Address of Parliament to his majesty, reached the Americans, there was an outburst of patriotism from the hearts of all the colonies. The spirit of the times gave fire to the tongue of Joseph Warren, when, on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, he thrilled the souls of a vast concourse of citizens in the Old South Meeting-house, and drew from some of the forty British officers who were present, insulting hisses. His words went deep into the hearts of the people, and Gage well knew their significance.
Before this the air was full of rebellious utterances; now it seemed as if the lightning of the popular wrath was about to kindle a mighty conflagration. On both sides watchful eyes never slept, and watchful ears were always open. All through March and far into April, Boston was like a seething cauldron of intense feeling. Gage was irresolute and timid. He had about four thousand well-drilled soldiers, eager to fall upon the "rebels," yet he hesitated. At length he resolved to nip rebellion in the bud. He prepared to seize John Hancock and Samuel Adams as arch-traitors, and send them to England for trial on a charge of treason. He also determined to send out troops to seize all the munitions of war which he knew the people had gathered at Concord and other places; and he fixed upon the night of the 18th of April as the time for the execution of his scheme. The plan was to be kept a profound secret until the latest moment.
In the meantime Hancock and Adams, who were in attendance at the Provincial Congress held at Concord, had received warning of their personal danger, for an intercepted letter from London had revealed it; and when that Congress adjourned on the 15th April, they tarried at Lexington, where they lodged at the house of Rev. Jonas Clarke, yet standing. At the same time the Minute-men were on the alert everywhere, and the fifteen thousand troops which the Provincial Congress had called for were in readiness to confront the oppressors of the people. Couriers were ready to ride over the country, and arouse the inhabitants, if the British should march that way; and wagons were prepared to remove the hidden stores to places of greater safety.
The capital part of the scheme was to arrest Hancock and Adams at Lexington, ten miles from Boston. For this purpose, the soldiers who were to do the work, were to leave Boston secretly in the evening, at an hour that would enable them to reach Lexington at past midnight, when the doomed patriots would be sleeping soundly. Their arrest accomplished, the troops were to move rapidly forward to Concord, six miles further, and seize or destroy the cannon and military stores which the patriots had gathered. Preparations for the expedition were made as early as the fifteenth. On that day about eight hundred grenadiers and infantry were detached from the main body and marched to a different part of the town, under the pretense of teaching them some new military movements. At night, boats from the transports which had been hauled up for repairs, were launched and moored under the sterns of the men-of-war. Dr. Warren, one of the most watchful of the patriots, sent notice to Hancock of these suspicious movements, and enabled the Committee of Safety, of which the latter was chairman, to cause some of the stores at Concord to be removed to places of safety, in time to save them from the invaders. To prevent a knowledge of his expedition spreading into the country, Gage sent out a number of his officers to post themselves on the several roads leading from Boston; and to prevent suspicions, they went out of the city at different times. But they were discovered, and the design suspected, by a Son of Liberty of Lexington, who informed Colonel Monroe, then sergeant of a militia company. That officer, suspecting a design to capture Hancock and Adams, collected a guard of eight well-armed men, who watched Mr. Clarke's house that night.
In the afternoon of the 18th (April, 1775), Gage's secret leaked out, and the patriots in Boston watched every movement of the troops with keen vision. Dr. Warren, Paul Revere and others made arrangements for a sudden emergency, to warn Hancock and Adams of danger, and to arouse the country. Their precautions were timely, for at ten o'clock that evening, eight hundred British troops marched silently to the foot of the Common, where they embarked in boats and passed over to Cambridge. They were commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, assisted by Major Pitcairn. Gage supposed his secret was inviolate, but was soon undeceived. Lord Percy, who was one of his confidants, when crossing the Common, heard one of a group of citizens says, "The British will miss their mark. "What mark?" inquired Percy. "The cannon at Concord," was the reply. Percy hastened to inform Gage, who immediately issued orders to his guards not to allow any person to leave the city that night. It was too late. William Dawes had gone over the Neck to Roxbury on horseback, with a message from Warren to Hancock and Adams, and Warren and Revere were at Charlestown awaiting the development of events. Revere had engaged his friend Newman, sexton of the North Church, to give him a timely signal.
He said to his friend: "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light One, if by land, and two, if by sea: And I on the opposite shore will be Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and arm."
The moon was just rising when the British troops landed on the Cambridge side of the water. Newman had hung out two lanterns, and the watching Revere, springing into a saddle on the back of a fleet horse owned by Deacon Larkin, hurried across Charlestown Neck. At the end of the isthmus he was confronted by two British soldiers, who attempted to arrest him. Turning back toward Charlestown, he soon reached the Medford road, and escaped; and at a little past midnight he rode up to Clarke's house in Lexington, which was well guarded by Sergeant Monroe and his men. He asked, in hurried words, for Mr. Hancock. "The family have just retired," said the sergeant, "and I am directed not to allow them to be disturbed by any noise." "Noise!" exclaimed Revere; " you'll have noise enough before long; the Regulars are coming out!" He was then allowed to knock at the door, when Mr. Clarke opened a window, and inquired" Who is there?" Revere answered hurriedly," I want to see Mr. Hancock." "I do not like to admit strangers into my house so late at night," Clarke replied. Hancock, abed but not asleep, recognizing the voice of the messenger, called out: "Come in, Revere; we are not afraid of you." The story of impending peril was soon told, and the whole household were astir. Dawes, who went by Roxbury, Soon afterward arrived. After refreshing themselves, he and Revere rode swiftly toward Concord, arousing the inhabitants by the was, as the latter had done between Medford and Lexington. They were overtaken by Dr. Samuel Prescott, who had been wooing a young woman in Lexington, and he joined them in their patriotic errand, when Revere, who was riding ahead, was suddenly surrounded by some British officers, and with Dawes was made a prisoner. Prescott dashed over a stone-wall with his active horse, and escaped. He rode over to Concord, and at about two o'clock in the morning of the 19th gave the alarm. Revere and his felloprisoner were closely questioned concerning Hancock and Adams, but gave evasive answers. They were threatened with pistol-balls, when Revere told his captors that men were out arousing the country in all directions. Just then a church-bell was heard; then another, when one of the Lexington prisoners said: "The bells are ringing the town is alarmedyou are dead men." The frightened officers left their prisoners, and fled toward Boston.
The alarm rapidly spread, and the Minute-men seized their arms. At two o'clock in the morning, Captain John Parker called the roll of his company on Lexington Green in front of the meeting-house, and ordered them to charge their guns with powder and ball. The air was chilly, and, as the invaders did not seem to be near, the men were directed to take shelter in the houses. Meanwhile the British troops were making their way in the soft light of a waning moon. Colonel Smith was convinced that their. Colonel Smith was convinced that their secret was known and there was a general uprising of the people, for church-bells were heard in various directions. He sent back to Boston for reinforcements, and ordered Major Pitcairn to push rapidly on through Lexington and seize the bridges at Concord. As the latter advanced, he secured every man seen on the way. One of these escaped, and mounting a fleet-footed horse, hurried to Lexington and gave the alarm, but not until the invaders were within less than two miles of the village green. The bells rang out an alarm. The Minute-men came; and just at the earliest dawn of day Captain Parker found himself at the head of almost seventy men. After much persuasion, and the cogent argument that their lives were of the greatest importance to the colony at that time, Hancock and Adams left Mr. Clarke's house and went, finally, to a more secure retreat. Dorothy Quincy, to whom Hancock was affianced (and whom he married in September following), was visiting the family of Mr. Clarke, and she accompanied her lover and his friend in their slow flight from immediate danger.
In the gray of the early morning, Major Pitcairn and his scarlet-clad soldiers appeared, and halting not far from the line of Minute-men on Lexington Common, loaded their muskets. The patricts stood firm. They had been ordered not to fire a shot until they were assailed by the invaders. A pause ensued, when Pitcairn and other officers galloped forward, waving their swords over their heads, and followed by the shouting troops in double-quick time. "Disperse, you villains! Lay down your arms! Why don't you disperse, you rebels? Disperse!" cried the major. In rushing forward the troops had become confused. As the Minutemen did not immediately obey the command to lay down their arms, Pitcairn wheeled his horse, and waving his sword, shouted: "Press forward, men! surround the rascals!" At the same moment some random shots were fired over the heads of the Americans by the British soldiers, but without effect. The Minute-men had scruples about firing, until their own blood had been spilled. Pitcairn was irritated by their obstinacy, and drawing his pistol, discharged it, at the same moment shouting fire! A volley from the front rank followed the order, with fatal effect. Some Americans fell dead or mortally wounded, and others were badly hurt. There was no longer hesitation on the part of the Minutemen. The conditions of their restraint were fulfilled. The blood of their comrades had been shed; and as the shrill fife of young Jonathan Harrington set the drum a- beating, the patriots returned the fire with spirit, but not with fatal effect. The blood of American citizens stained the green grass on Lexington Common, but no British soldier lost his life in that memorable conflict. Captain Parker, perceiving his little band in danger of being surrounded by overwhelming numbers and massacred, ordered his men to disperse. They did so; but as the British continued to fire, the Americans returned the shots with spirit, and then sought safety behind stone-walls and buildings. Four of the Minute-men were slain by the first fire, and four afterwards, and ten were wounded. Only three of the British were wounded, with Pitcairn's horse.
So ended the opening act in the great drama of the Old War for Independence. The bells that were rung on that warm April morningthe mercury marking 85 deg in the shade at noontolled the knell of British domination in the old thirteen colonies. When the firing began, Samuel Adams was lingering in his tardy flight on a wooded hill near Clarke's house, and when the air was rent by the first volley on Lexington Common, he uttered these remarkable words: "What a glorious morning for America is this!" With the vision of an inspired seer at that moment, the sturdy patriot perceived in the future the realization of his cherished dreams of independence for his beloved country. Those words are inscribed on the Lexington Centennial Medal.
When the Minute-men at Lexington were dispersed at sunrise, the British drew up in line on the Common, fired a fcu de joic, gave three cheers in token of the victory, and in high spirits marched rapidly toward Concord. They had just been joined by Colonel Smith and his party, and felt sure of the success of the expedition. But the sunset told a sad tale for the invaders.
Meanwhile the news of the skirmish was spreading with great rapidity over the province. Before noon that day, the tidings reached Worcester, thirty miles from Lexington. "An express came to the town," says Lincoln, the local historian, "shouting as he passed through the streets at full speed, `To arms! to arms! the war has begun!' His white horse, bloody with spurring, and dripping with sweat, fell, exhausted, by the church. Another was instantly produced, and the tidings went on. The bell rang out the alarm; the cannon were fired, and messengers were sent to every part of the town to collect the soldiery. As the news spread, the implements of husbandry were thrown by in the fields, and the citizens left their homes with no longer delay than to seize their arms. In a short time the Minutemen were paraded on the Green, under Captain Timothy Bigelow; after fervent prayer by Rev. Mr. McCarty, they took up their line of march. They were soon followed by as many of the train-bands as could be gathered under Captain Benjamin Flagg."
The scene at Worcester on that occasion, was a type of a hundred others enacted within twenty-four hours after the skirmish at Lexington. It affords a vivid picture of the spirit of the people.
The serious question arose, Who fired first at Lexington, the British or the Provincials? Upon the true solution of that question depended, in a degree, the justification or condemnation of the belligerent parties, for the American had resolved not to be the aggressors. So late as May the next year, a London journal said: "It is whispered that the ministry are endeavoring to fix a certainty which party fired first at Lexington, before hostilities commenced, as the Congress declare, if it can be proved that American blood was first shed, it will go a great way toward effecting a reconciliation on the most honorable terms." The testimony of contemporaries seems to prove, beyond a doubt, that the British fired first. Stiles, in his MS. Diary, cited by Mr. Frothingham in his History of the Siege of Boston, under date of August 19, 1775, wrote:
"Major Pitcairn, who was a good man in a bad cause, insisted upon it to the day of his death, that the colonists fired first; and that he commanded not to fire, and endeavored to stop the firing after it began; but then he told this with such circumstances as convince me that he was deceived, though on the spot. He does not say that he saw the colonists fire first. Had he said it, I would have believed him, being a man of integrity and honor. He expressly says he did not see who fired first; and yet he believed the peasants began. His account is this: That riding up to them, he ordered them to disperse, which they not doing instantly, he turned about to order his troops to draw out so as to surround and disarm them. As he turned, he saw a gun in a peasant's hand, from behind a wall, flash in the pan, without going off; and instantly, or very soon, two or three guns went off, by which he found his horse wounded, and also a man near him wounded. These guns he did not see; but believing they could not come from his own people, doubted not, and so asserted, that they came from our people, and that thus they began the attack. The impetuosity of the king's troops was such that a promiscuous, uncommanded but general fire took place, which Pitcairn could not prevent; though he struck his staff or sword downward with all earnestness, as a signal to forbear or cease firing."
In a counter manifesto to a proclamation of General Gage, prepared a few weeks after the event, it is asserted that the British, "in a most barbarous and infamous manner, fired upon a small number of the inhabitants, and cruelly murdered eight men. The fire was returned by some of the survivors, but their number was too inconsiderable to annoy the regular troops, who proceeded on their errand to Concord. One of the many depositions taken at the time, to settle the question, Who fired first? is the following: "About five o'clock in the morning we attended the beat of our drum, and were formed on the parade. We were faced toward the regulars, then marching up to us, and some of our company were coming to the parade with their backs toward the troops; and others on the parade began to disperse, when the regulars fired on the company before a gun was fired by any of our company on them." Clarke says, "So far from firing first upon the king's troops, upon the most careful inquiry it appears that but very few of our people fired at all, and even they did not fire until, after being fired upon by the troops, they were wounded themselves."
On the Green, at Lexington, stands a monument, which was erected to the memory of the patriots who fell on or near that spot, which bears the following inscription:
"Sacred to the Liberty and the Rights of Mankind!!! The Freedom and Independence of Americasealed and defended with the blood of her sonsThis Monument is erected by the inhabitants of Lexington, under the patronage and at the expense of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to the memory of their Fellow-citizens, Ensign Robert Monroe, Messrs. Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, of Lexington, and Asahel Porter, of Woburn, who fell on this Field, the first victims of the Sword of British Tyranny and Oppression, on the morning of the ever-memorable Nineteenth of April, An. Domini 1775. The Die was cast!!! The blood of these martyrs in the Cause of God and their Country was the cement of the Union of these States, then colonies, and gave the Spring to the Spirit, Firmness, and Resolution of their Fellow-citizens. They rose as one man to revenge their Brethren's blood, and at the point of the sword to assert and defend their native Rights. They nobly dared to be Free!!!. The contest was long, bloody, and affecting. Righteous Heaven approved the Solemn Appeal; Victory crowned their Arms, and the Peace, Liberty, and Independence of the United States of America was their glorious rewards. Built in the year 1799."
The precedence as to the time and place where blood was first shed in the Revolution is claimed for Westminster, Vermont, where, more than a month before the affair at Lexington, officers of the crown in endeavoring to subdue a mob, caused the death of one of the rioters. The event is recorded in an epitaph inscribed upon a slab of slate in the old burial-ground at Westminster, in the following words:
"In Memory of WILLIAM FRENCH, son to Mr. Nathaniel French, who was Shot at Westminister, March ye 13th, 1775, by the hands of Cruel Ministerial tools of George ye 3d, in the Court-house at a 11 O'clock at Night, in the 22d year of his Age.
Here William French his Body lies, For Murder his Blood for Vengeance Cries. King George the third his Tory crew tha with a bawl his head Shot threw. For Liberty and his Country's Good he Lost his Life, his Dearest Blood.
OPERATIONS AT CONCORDRETREAT OF THE BRITISHREINFORCEMENTSA DREADFUL MARCH FOR BOSTONFIGHT AT WEST CAMBRIDGEPANIC AT CHARLESTOWNACCOUNT OF THE AFFAIR PUBLISHED IN ENGLANDNEW ENGLAND IN ARMSUPRISING OF THE COLONIESVIRGINIA CONVENTIONPATRICK HENRY'S APPEALWRATH OF DUNMOREROYAL RULE ABOLISHED MECKLENBERG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCECALL FOR TROOPS IN MASSACHUSETTSAN ARMY AT CAMBRIDGE.
CONCORD had been aroused. Dr. Prescott had reached the town twenty minutes after he left Revere and Dawes in the hands of their captors. He told Amos Melvin, the sentinel at the Court-house, that the regulars were coming. It was then about two o'clock in the morning of the 19th of April, 1775. That scion of a heroic family, who had battled with the French and Indians in recent wars, seized the bell-rope and rung out such a vehement alarm that the villagers were all aroused from their slumbers, and soon filled the streets. The first man who appeared with a gun was William Emerson, the beloved pastor there. He was very soon surrounded by Minute-men on the Green; and when the guns at Lexington were heard before sunrise, the Committee of Safety and the principal people of the town had assembled for consultation. They soon made arrangements for the reception of the invaders. Couriers had been sent to the neighboring towns to stir up the people; and the men, women and children of Concord engaged vigorously in the removal of the cannon and stores to a place of safety. "I was then a lad fourteen years old," said the venerable Major James Barrett to me in 1848, when he was eighty- seven years of age. "I could not carry a musket, but I could drive oxen. Stout men and women would load carts with stores, and then boys and girls of my age would go, one on each side of the oxen, with long goads, and whip them into a trot, and so we carried away the stores, and hid them under pine boughs before the British regulars appeared."
Men from Lincoln, Acton and other places hurried toward Concord, and in the gray of early morning these, with the local Minute-men, were drawn up in battle array on the Common, under the general command of Colonel James Barrett, a soldier of the French and Indian war. Guards were placed at the bridges which spanned Concord River, a sinuous, sluggish stream, and at the centre of the village; and some militia were sent toward Lexington to gain information about the invading regulars, of whom they had uncertain stories. At about seven o'clock the militia men came hurrying back with the startling news that the regulars were near, and in number three times that of the Americans then assembled. The whole force of defenders now fell back to a hill about eighty rods from the centre of the village, where Colonel Barrett formed them in two battalions. This was scarcely done when the flashing of bayonets and of scarlet uniforms in the early morning sun, not more than a quarter of a mile distant, showed the immediate presence of the enemy. A short consultation of officers was held. Some were for giving fight on the spot where they stood, while others, more wise, perceiving that it would be simple murder of the men to cause them to fight against such odds, proposed to fall back a little distance and wait until they were made stronger by the militia from the surrounding towns, who were then flocking in. They did so, and took post upon rising ground beyond the North Bridge, about a mile from Concord Common.
The British entered Concord in two divisions; one by the main road and the other over the hill from which the Americans had retired. Smith and Pitcairn remained in the town, and sent six companies to secure the bridges, prevent the militia from crossing them, and to discover and destroy the secreted stores, the hiding- places of which had been revealed by Tories. A party went to the house of Colonel Barrett to destroy stores supposed to be there, but were disappointed. The inhabitants had worked so industriously for the salvation of the treasure, that very little was left for the marauders. A few gun-carriages were there, and those they burned. They demanded refreshments at the hands of Mrs. Barrett and offered to pay for it. She refused the money, saying, "We are commanded to feed our enemy, if he hunger." In the village they broke open sixty barrels of flour, one-half of which was afterwards saved. They broke off the trunnions of their iron twenty-four pound cannon, burned sixteen cannon carriage-wheels, a few barrels of wooden trenchers and spoons, cut down and burned the Liberty-Pole, set the Court-house on fire, and cast about five hundred pounds of balls into a mill-pond. Mrs. Moulton put out the fire at the Court-house. The articles named were all the spoils gained by the expedition which produced a seven-years-war and the dismemberment of the British empire.
Rumors of the events at Lexington, vague and uncertain, had reached the Minute- men at Concord. All Middlesex was awakened. The militia were flocking in from Carlisle, Chelmsford, Weston, Littleton, and Acton; and before ten o'clock the force amounted to full four hundred menabout one-half that of the regulars. They were drawn up in line by Joseph Hosmer of Concord, acting adjutant, and Major Buttrick of the same village took the immediate command. When they saw the smoke ascend from the town, the question pressed itself upon the heart and judgement of every man; "What shall we do?" There was no Continental Congress; they had no orders from the Provincial Congress; they were a little army of Middlesex farmers gathered for the defence of their homes and their rights: by what authority might they attack British troops acting under lawful orders? Would it not be treason? But the troops were trampling upon their rights, and the smoke of their burning property was rising before their eyes. They took counsel of duty, and acted promptly. In the burying-ground on a hill near by, was the following epitaph on a stone over the grave of a slave:
"God wills us free; man wills us slaves: I will as God wills; God's will be done."
Acting in the spirit of these lines, Isaac Davis of Acton drew his sword, and, turning to the company of which he was captain, said: "I haven't a man that's afraid to go." Then Colonel Barrett gave the word march, and the Acton company, followed by others, all under the command of Major Buttrick, pressed forward, in double file with trailed arms, to drive the British from the North Bridge. The latter began to destroy it, when Buttrick urged his men forward to save it. As they approached the river, they were fired upon by the regulars. Captain Davis and one of his company were killed, when Buttrick Shouted: "Fire, fellow- soldiers; for God's sake fire!" Immediately a full volley was given by the Minute-men, which killed three of the British and wounded several. Some other shots were fired, when the invaders retreated and the Minute-men took possession of the bridge.
The war begun at Lexington that morning was seconded at Concord at the middle of the forenoon, and at meridian the same day, British power in America began to wane, when British regulars made a hasty retreat before an inferior number of provincial militia. Colonel Smith, hearing the firing at the bridge, sent out reinforcements. These met the retreating detachment. Seeing the increasing strength of the Minute-men, they turned about, and at noon the whole invading force retreated toward Lexington, the main column covered by strong flanking parties. It was soon perceived that the whole country was in arms. Minute-men appeared with muskets everywhere. They swarmed from the woods and fields, from farm-houses and hamlets. It appeared as if the old fable of the sowing of dragons' teeth, that resulted in a crop of full-armed men, had become history. "The Americans," wrote a British officer, "seemed to drop from the clouds." The blood shed at Lexington and Concord loosed the bands of conscience, and wiped out all the scruples of those who had been governed by a nice sense of the duties of a subject, and of honor and discretion. War had begun. In open highways the exasperated yeomanry attacked the retreating invaders; behind stone-walls, fences, buildings and in wooded ravines they ambushed, and assailed their foes with the single shots or deadly volleys; and man after man fell dead in the British ranks or was badly wounded, until great wagons were filled with the slain and the maimed. The heat was intense, and the dust in the roads was intolerable. Exhausted by want of sleep, fatigue of marching, famine and thirst, the eight hundred menthe flower of the British army in Bostonmust have surrendered to the armed yeomanry of Middlesex, soon after reaching Lexington had not relief arrived. It came in the form of reinforcements under Lord Percy, and met the fugitives within half a mile of Lexington Common.
The request sent to Gage early in the morning for reinforcements had been promptly answered by ordering Lord Percy to lead about a thousand men to the support of Smith and Pitcairn. They left Boston at nine o'clock in the morning and marched over the Neck and through Roxbury, to the tune of Yankee Doodle, played in derision, it being used as a sort of "Rogue's March" when offenders were drummed out of the ranks. A lad in Roxbury, by many pranks attracted the attention of Percy, who asked him why he seemed so joyful. "To think," said the boy, how you will dance to "Chevy Chase" by-and-bye. The earl was inclined to be superstitious and the remark of the boy worried him all day. He was a son of the Duke of Cumberland, a lineal descendant of Earl Percy, one of the heroes of the battle of Chevy Chase, who was there slain.
Rumors of the skirmish at Lexington had reached the people along the line of Percy's march, and the gathering militia hung like an angry, threatening cloud upon his flanks and rear. Between two and three o'clock he met the retreating army, when he opened fire from his cannon upon the pursuing Americans, formed a hollow square, and received in it the exhausted fugitives. Many of the soldiers fell upon the ground completely overcome with fatigue, some of them "with their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase." Percy dared not tarry long, for the woods were swarming with Minute-men. After brief rest and partaking of some refreshments, the united force resumed their march toward Boston, satisfied that if they did not get back before sunset, they would not get there at all, for the militia were gathering from the neighboring counties. It was a fearful march for the troops, and for the people of the country through which they passed. The Americans relentlessly pursued, while flanking parties of the British committed many hideous excesses, plundering houses, burning building, and ill-treating the defenceless inhabitants. All the way to West Cambridge the retreating army was dreadfully harassed by their concealed foes. There General William Heath, whom the Provincial Congress had appointed to the command of the militia, accompanied by Dr. Warren, concentrated a considerable body of Minute-men, and skirmished sharply with the British. A bullet carried away a curl-pin from a lock of hair on Warren's temple, as he was moving here and there infusing his own heroic spirit into the militia, as he did on the Breed's Hill a few weeks later. The contest was brief. The British kept the militia at bay, and pressed on toward Boston, narrowly escaping seven hundred Essex militia under Colonel Timothy Pickering, who attempted to bar the way to Charlestown, whither the fugitives were compelled to go. The regulars finally reached that village and the shelter of the guns of their frigates when Heath ordered the pursuit to be stayed.
Charlestown had been in state of panic all day. Dr. Warren rode through its streets early in the forenoon, and told the people of the bloodshed at Lexington. Then came the news from Concord, at which many of the men had seized their muskets and hastened to the country. The schools were dismissed; places of business were closed; and when it was known that the retreating British would pass through the town, many of the inhabitants gathered up their valuable effects and prepared to leave. The firing at Cambridge caused most of them to rush toward the Neck to seek safety in the country, when they were driven back in despair by the approaching fugitives. Rumors reached them that the British were slaughtering women and children in their streets, and many of the terror- stricken people passed the night in the clay-pits back of Breed's Hill. Not a single person was harmed in Charlestown. Percy ordered the women and children to stay in their houses. Reinforcements were sent over from Boston; guards were stationed; the wounded were taken to the hospital, and quiet was restored. General Pigot assumed command at Charlestown the next morning, and before noon the shattered army were in their quarters in Boston. During the memorable day, the British lost in killed, wounded, and missing, two hundred and seventy-three men; the Provincials lost one hundred and three.
Three days after the fight at Lexington and Concord, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts assembled at Watertown, seven miles west of Boston, and chose Dr. Joseph Warren to be their President. A committee was appointed to draw up a "narrative of the massacre." They took many depositions, by which it was proven conclusively that the British fired the first shots. This narrative, with a firm and respectful Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, was sent to Arthur Lee, the colonial agent in England, and were published in the London Chronicle on the 30th of May, nine days before General Gage's despatches reached his government. The ministry were confounded, and affected to disbelieve the statements, but their truth was soon established. When on the 10th of June, the despatches of Gage were published, London was almost as much excited as Boston had been. Placards, lampoons, caricatures, and doggerel verses were hawked about the streets in profusion. The retreat of the British from Concord and Lexington was properly regarded as a defeat and a flight, and ministers were reviled because "the great British army at Boston had been beaten by a flock of Yankees."
The temporizing Dartmouth now saw the mischievous results of the policy of the ministry, and said: "The effects of General Gage's attempt at Concord are fatal. By that unfortunate event, the happy moment of advantage is lost." Poor Gage was held responsible for the blunders of the ministry, and was censured without stint.
The news of the events on the 19th of April spread rapidly over the land and stirred society in the colonies as it had never been stirred before. There was a spontaneous resolution to environ Boston with an army of provincials that should confine the British to the peninsula. For this purpose, New Hampshire voted two thousand men, with Folsom and Stark as chief commanders. Connecticut voted six thousand, with Spencer as chief and Putnam as second. Rhode Island voted fifteen hundred, with Greene as their leaderNathaniel Greene, who became one of the most efficient of the military officers in the war for independence. He was a Friend, or Quaker, in religious sentiment. He was naturally very intelligent, and had learned much from books; a skilled mechanic and expert farmer. His people admired him, and made him their representative in the Rhode Island legislature. In English jurisprudence and the theory of the art of war he had learned much; and his peace principles, in accordance with the discipline of his society, did not restrain him from making resistance to injustice by force, if necessary; and at times, while the storm of the Revolution was gathering, he rode far to see grand military parades to gain some practical instruction in the art of war, for his prescience observed its approach. "In 1774, in a coat and hat of the Quaker fashion, he was seen watching the exercises and manoeuvres of the British troops at Boston, where he used to buy of Henry Knox, a bookseller, treatises on the art of war."
Meanwhile most important events had occurred in Virginia. On the 20th of March a convention of representatives of that province met in St. John's Church (yet standing) in Richmond. They approved the acts of the Continental Congress, and thanked their representatives who sat in that body. They resolved to be firm in defence of their liberties, but expressed a hope of speedy reconciliation. Patrick Henry promptly rebuked their expression of that hope. He, like Samuel Adams, Hawley, and Greene, saw clearly that the colonies must fight. He knew the danger that threatened the liberties of his people. The House of Burgesses could no longer be relied upon as an auxiliary of the people in their struggle, because of the continual interference of the royal governor. The colony was unprepared for the impending conflict. Only a little powder and a few muskets in the old magazine at Williamsburg comprised their munitions of war. In view of this weakness in the presence of danger which he foresaw, Henry proposed the appointment of a committee to prepare a plan for the embodying, arming, and disciplining a sufficient number of men to place the colony in a posture of defence. True patriots in the convention opposed the measure as mischievous at that time. They would not believe that armed resistance would be necessary. "It will be time enough to resort to measures of despair," they said, "when every well-founded hope has vanished." They suggested that the colonies were too weak to think of resisting the arms of Britain, and deprecated any action that should provoke war. They relied upon the innate justice of Englishmen for redress and reconciliation.
Henry's feelings kindled into a flame at these timid suggestions. "What," he exclaimed, "has there been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify hope? Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win us back to our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, gentlemen, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of armies and navies? No, sir; she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us the chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying argument for the last ten years; have we anything new to offer? Shall we resort to entreaty and supplication? We have petitioned; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free; if we wish to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir; we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us.
"They tell us, sir, that we are weakunable to cope with so formidable an enemy. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week or next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any power which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a great God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. And, again, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable! and let it come! I repeat it, sir; let it come! It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace, peace; but there is no peace! The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me," he cried, with both arms extended aloft, his brow knit, every feature marked with the resolute purpose of his soul, and with his voice swelled to its loudest note, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!"
Henry's resolution was adopted by an almost unanimous vote, and himself, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others were appointed a committee to execute their designs. In a few days they submitted a plan for the defence of the colony, which was accepted, when the convention reappointed the delegates to the first Congress to seats in the second, to convene in May, adding Thomas Jefferson "in case of the non-attendance of Peyton Randolph." Henry's prophecy was speedily fulfilled. Almost "the next gale" that swept from the North brought to their "ears the clash of resounding arms" at Lexington and Concord.
These bold proceedings caused the name of Henry to be presented to the British government in a bill of attainder, with those of Randolph, Jefferson, the two Adams's and Hancock. They excited the official wrath of Governor Dunmore, who stormed in proclamations; and to frighten the Virginians, he caused a rumor to be circulated that he intended to excite an insurrection of the slaves. He extinguished the last spark of respect for himself, when, late in April, he caused marines to come secretly at night from a vessel-of-war in the York River, and carry to her the powder in the magazine at Williamsburg. The movement was discovered. At dawn, the Minute-men assembled, and were, with difficulty, restrained from seizing the governor. The people also assembled, and sent a respectful remonstrance to Dunmore, complaining of the act as specially wrong at that time, when a servile insurrection was apprehended. He replied evasively. The people demanded the immediate return of the powder. Patrick Henry was at his house in Hanover, when he heard of the act. He assembled a corps of volunteers and marched toward the capital, when the frightened governor sent a deputation with the receiver-general to meet him. Sixteen miles from Williamsburg, they had a conference with the patriot. The matter was compromised by the payment by the receiver-general of the full value of the powder. Henry sent the money to the public treasury, and returned home.
In the midst of this excitement, the governor called the House of Burgesses together, to consider a conciliatory proposition from Lord North. They rejected it; and the governor now fulminated proclamations against Henry and the committees of Vigilance which were formed in every county in Virginia. He declared that if one of his officers should be molested, he would raise the royal standard, proclaim freedom to the salves, and arm them against their masters. He surrounded his househis "place" as he called itwith cannon, and secretly placed powder under the floor of the magazine, with the evident intention of blowing it up, should occasion seem to call for the deed. The discovery of this "gunpowder plot" greatly excited the people. Then came a rumor, on the 7th of June (1775), that armed marines were on their way from the York River to assist Dunmore to enforce the laws. The people flew to arms. The governor, alarmed for his personal safety, withdrew, with his family, that night to Yorktown, and the next morning took refuge on board the British man-of-war Fowey. He was the first royal governor who abdicated government at the beginning of the Revolution.
From the Fowey, Dunmore sent messages, addresses, and letters to the Burgesses in session at Williamsburg, and received communications from them in return. When all necessary bills had been passed, the House invited Dunmore to his capital, to sign them, promising him a safeguard. He declined, and demanded that they should present the papers at his present residence, the ship-of-war. They did not go; but delegating their powers to a permanent committee, they adjourned. So ended royal rule in Virginia. Other royal governors were also compelled to abdicate; and before the close of the summer of 1775, British dominion in the English-American provinces had ceased forever, and the people were preparing for war.
News of the events of the 19th of April reached the city of New York on Sunday, the 23d. Regarding patriotism as a holy thing, the Sons of Liberty there did not refrain from doing its work on the Sabbath. They immediately proceeded to lay an embargo on vessels bound to Boston with supplies for the British troops there. In defiance of the king's collector at that port, they landed the cargo of a vessel which he had refused to admit, demanded and received the keys of the Custom-house, dismissed those employed in it, and closed it. This was done by Sears and Lamb, the chief leaders of the Sons of Liberty: and they boldly avowed this overt act of treason in letters to their political friends in other cities. It was soon imitated elsewhere.
As the horrid story of Lexington and Concord spread over the provinces southward, royal authority rapidly disappeared. Provincial Congresses were organized in all the colonies where they did not already exist, and so the political union of the provinces was perfected. Provision was everywhere made for war; and in May, a convention of the representatives of the towns in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, met at Charlotte, and by their proceedings, virtually declared the inhabitants of that county independent of the British crown. Taking into consideration the fact that the crown had proclaimed the people of the colonies to be rebels, the Convention declared that all government in their county had ceased, and proceeded by a series of resolutions, passed on the 31st of May to organize independent local government for themselves. This famous "Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence" has been the subject of much discussion, disputations, and acute historical inquiry.
In the meantime an army of patriots were gathering around Boston with a determination to confine the British troops to the peninsula, or drive them to their ships and out to sea. On the morning of the day after the massacre at Lexington and Concord, and the fight on the retreat, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety sent a circular to all the towns of the province, saying: "We conjure you, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred; we beg and entreat you, as you will answer it to your country, to your consciences, and, above all, to God himself, that you will hasten and arrange, by all possible means, the enlistment of men to form the army; and send them forward to headquarters at Cambridge with that expedition which the vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demands."
The call was answered by many of the people before it reached their ears. It arose spontaneously out of the depths of their own patriotic hearts. Men started from the desk, the workshop, and the field the moment when the dreadful tale was told. Many of them did not stay to change their clothing; they carried neither money nor food, intent only upon having their firelocks in order, their powder- horns well supplied, and their bullet-pouches well filled. The women on their way opened wide their doors and hearts for the refreshment and encouragement of the patriotic volunteers; and very soon all New England was represented at Cambridge. Veterans of wars with the Indians and the French appeared as leaders; and before the close of April a fluctuating army of several thousand men were forming camps and piling fortifications around Boston, from Roxbury to the Mystic River, along a line of about twenty miles. So early as the afternoon of the 20th, General Artemas Ward, the senior military officer appointed by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, was on the ground, and assumed the chief command. That Congress, like the Committee of Safety, worked day and night in patriotic duty. They appointed military officers; organized a bureau of supplies, and issued bills of credit for the payment of the troops to the amount of three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, for the redemption of which the province was pledged. They declared that no obedience was thenceforward to be rendered to General Gage, and that he ought to be "considered and guarded against as an unnatural and inveterate enemy to the country." They took legislative and executive power into their own hands, and so abolished royal government in Massachusetts; and they forwarded deputations to the Second Continental Congress that assembled early in May, suggesting the necessity for making provision for organizing an army competent to oppose the troops expected from Great Britain.
It was at about that time, when society in the colonies was in a ferment, that Dr. Franklin arrived from England, when a poet of the day gave him a welcome in the following words:
Welcome! once more To these fair western plainsthy native shore; Here live belov'd and leave the tools at home To run their length and finish out their doom; Here lend them aid to quench their brutal fires, Or fan the flame which Liberty inspires; Or fix the grand Conductor, that shall guide The tempest back, and 'lectrify their pride. Rewarding Heaven will bless thy cares at last, And future glories glorify the past. Why staid apostate Wedderburn behind, The scum the scorn, the scoundrel of mankind? Whose heart at large to ev'ry vice is known, And every devil claims him for his own; Why came he not to take the large amount Of all we owe him, due on thine account?
PERFIDY OF GAGECAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA AND CROWN POINTTHE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESSDECLARATIONS OF THEIR VIEWS AND INTENTIONSPETITIONS AND ADDRESS PREPARATIONS FOR WARNATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF CONGRESSCONNECTICUT TROOPS AT HARLEMFORTIFICATIONS IN NEW YORK ORDEREDTHE FORCES AT CAMBRIDGE MADE A CONTINENTAL ARMYBRITISH IN BOSTONWASHINGTON APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF CONTINENTAL PAPER CURRENCYTHE ARMY AT CAMBRIDGEGAGE'S PROCLAMATIONBATTLE OF BUNKER'S HILL.
GAGE now saw the real peril of his situation, surrounded as he was by an army of exasperated men outside of Boston, and deadly foes within it. Instead of relaxing his rigor, he increased it for a moment in order to secure an unfair advantage. He forbade all intercourse with the country, and no one was allowed to leave the town. Their supplies of food and fuel thus cut off, famine stared the people in the face. The worst horrors of civil war were impending; and at that moment of their agony of dread, Gage offered to give safe conduct out of Boston to all who wished to go, provided they would surrender their arms, and promise not to join in an attack on his troops or works. In their extremity they accepted his proposition, and delivered their arms at Faneuil Hall. The exodus immediately began, when the Tories interfered. They begged Gage to keep the patriotic citizens as hostages. He violated his solemn pledge, and kept many of the disarmed inhabitants there, some of them separated from portions of their families, and exposed to bitter insults.
The patriots now determined on aggressive movements to weaken the British power on the continent. It was believed that the ministry entertained a scheme for separating New England from the rest of the colonies by a military occupation of the Hudson Valley and Lake Champlain, the latter the Indian "door of the country" opening between the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. On Lake Champlain were the two powerful fortresses of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which might be made most efficient in executing the proposed scheme, for they would secure free intercourse with Canada. Are the Canadians friendly to us? was then a question of great importance for the patriots. In March, Samuel Adams and Dr. Warren, members of the Committee of Correspondence, sent John Brown of western Massachusetts, as a secret agent of that province, to seek an intelligent answer. He sent word that the Canadians were lukewarm, at the best, and advised the seizure of Ticonderoga and Crown Point the moment the impending conflict should be commenced; and he assured them that the Green Mountain Boys, as the men of Vermont (then the New Hampshire Grants) were called, whose leader was sturdy, patriotic, honest Ethan Allen, were ready to undertake the enterprise.
When the blow was struck on the 19th of April, it was resolved to secure the lake fortresses at once. Samuel Adams and John Hancock conferred personally on the subject with the governor of Connecticut, at Hartford, when funds were appropriated from the public treasury for the expedition, and powers delegated to two citizens as a committee to superintend the expedition. An express was sent to Allen, asking him to hold his "Boys" in readiness. The whole movement was done in secret, yet hints of it reached the ears of Benedict Arnold, who was about to leave for Cambridge with a Connecticut company of which he was captain.
The committee gathered sixteen men at Salisbury, and marched to Pittsfield, where they were joined by Brown and Colonel Easton, with a small force of Berkshire volunteers. Pushing on to Bennington, they were joined by Allen and his men; and on Sunday, the 7th of May, 1775, they rendezvoused at Castleton. There they were joined by Arnold. On his arrival at Cambridge he had proposed to the Provincial Congress an expedition against the forts, and received from them a commission of colonel, and authority to raise and lead not more than four hundred men against the lake fortresses. By virtue of this commission, he claimed the leadership, though he came with only one man. The militiamen chose Allen as their leader, and Arnold accompanied the expedition as a volunteer.
On the evening of the 9th of May, the expedition was at Shoreham, opposite Ticonderoga. Only a few boats could be found there. In these, eighty-three men, with Allen at their head and accompanied by Arnold, passed over. The boats were sent back for more men under Colonel Seth Warner; but as a surprise of the garrison was necessary, and the day was dawning, the intrepid leader resolved not to wait. "It is a desperate attempt," said Allen to his men, in a low voice: "I don't urge it contrary to will; you that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelocks." Every musket was poised. The men followed Allen up the bank to the sally-port, led by a lad familiar with the fort. The sentry snapped his fuzee, and ran into the fortress through a covered way, closely followed by Allen and his men. As they rushed into the parade they gave a tremendous shout, and ranged themselves in two lines against opposite walls. The aroused garrison leaped from their beds, seized their arms, and hastened to the parade, only to be made prisoners by the New Englanders.
Captain Delaplace, the commandant of the garrison, awakened by the shout, sprang from his couch, followed by his alarmed young wife, and without dressing hastened to the door of his quarters in the upper story. Allen had already ascended the outside steps leading to that door, and giving three loud raps with the hilt of his sword, shouted, "Come out instantly, or I will sacrifice the whole garrison!" As the captain opened the door, the pretty face of his frightened wife peering over his shoulders, Allen said, in a loud voice: "I order you instantly to surrender!" Delaplace and Allen were old friends. The astonished captain exclaimed: "By what authority do you demand a surrender?" Allen raised his sword and thundered out: "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" The captain began to speak, when Allen pointed to his men, and ordered him to be silent and surrender immediately. Delaplace obeyed; and the strong fortress, which had cost the British government millions pounds sterling and many lives, passed into the possession of a few undisciplined men without the loss of a drop of blood. The Continental Congress, as an organized body, were not in existence until some hours after the surrender; but Allen knew they were to assemble on that day, the 10th of May, 1775. With the fort were surrendered about fifty men, more than a hundred cannon, mortars, howitzers and swivels, many small arms, and a considerable quantity of ammunition and stores. Some of the great guns were afterward used by the patriots in the siege of Boston. Colonel Warner had crossed the lake with the remainder of the volunteers, and reached the fort at the moment of the surrender. On the 12th he led a detachment, in boats, against Crown Point, and captured that strong fortress without bloodshed.
In a large room of the State-house in Philadelphia, now known as Independence Hall, the Second Continental Congress met on Wednesday, the 10th of May, and chose Peyton Randolph of Virginia for the President, and Charles Thomson, Secretary. Again Mr. Duche was invited to become the chaplain of Congress. Representatives of all the colonies were present on that day, except from Georgia, but late in July there were delegates present from that province. They met under a dense cloud of difficulties, through which, for awhile, few rays of sunlight could pierce. They had met as the representatives of separate colonies that were in a state of virtual rebellion against a powerful government which had declared its intention to bring them into submission by force of arms. Armies and navies were already on their coasts for the purpose, and more men were on the way. War had actually begun in two of the colonies, and overt acts of treason had been committed in nearly all. As an executive body, they were legally powerless. They had no authority from any one to employ a soldier or levy or collect a tax. They had no executive head, no legislative functions, no treasury. They were assembled, as was the First Congress, simply as a great advisory committee composed of smaller committees from the several colonies. They were representatives of colonies groaning under serious grievances and petty tyrannies, and ready to fight for their rights, and yet loyal and loving subjects of the king of Great Britain. Even so radical a Son of Liberty as Dr. Warren, wrote from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress after the 19th of April, expressing a hope that the government would see the folly of its course and act justly, and saying: "This I most heartily wish, as I feel a warm affection still for the parent state." The delegates were more varied in their nationalities, their theological views, and their local interests than the prismatic colors; how were they to combine and become white, powerful, life- giving sunlight? was the vital question of the hour. The unexpected kindling of war compelled them to consider measures for defence, and yet there was indecision, for many members believed reconciliation possible, and wished to keep the door open.
The Congress having resolved themselves into a committee of the whole to take into consideration the state of the colonies, reported on the 26th of May, that war had been commenced by Great Britain; that they had no intention to cast off their allegiance to the crown; and that they anxiously desired peace. At the same time they declared that the colonies ought to be put in a posture of defence against any attempt to coerce them into submission to parliamentary taxation. They resolved that no provisions ought to be furnished the British army or navy; that no bills of exchange drawn by British officers ought to be negotiated, and that no colonial ships ought to be employed in the transportation of British troops. They considered it useless to memorialize the Parliament; but after strenuous opposition from the Massachusetts delegation, among whom the idea of independence was fast blossoming, it was resolved that another petition to the king should be drawn up and sent to his majesty. It was done. An Address to the Inhabitants of Canada; a Declaratio setting forth the causes and the necessity for the colonies to take up arms; an Address to the Assembly of Jamaica, to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, and to the People of Ireland, were also adopted. To the king they expressed their continued devotion to his person, and their deep regret that circumstance had in the least weakened their attachment to the crown. To the people of Great Britain, they truthfull declared that their acts were wholly defensive; that the charge that they were seeking absolute independence was a malicious slander, and that they had never applied to a foreign power for countenance or aid in prosecuting a rebellion, as had been falsely alleged. They set forth, in very nervous sentences, that ill- treatment by the British government in the rejection of petitions, and oppressive acts of Parliament, was the cause that placed them in the attitude of resistance which they then assumed, contending that it was necessary and justifiable, and worthy of the free character of the subjects of Great Britain. They boldly said, when commenting upon the wanton exercise of arbitrary power; "Shall the descendants of Britons tamely submit to this? No, sirs! We never will, while we revere the memory of our gallant and virtuous ancestors, we never can surrender those glorious privileges for which they fought, bled, and conquered. Admit that your fleets could destroy our towns, and ravage our sea- coasts; these are inconsiderable objects, things of no moment to men whose bosoms glow with the ardor of liberty. We can retire beyond the reach of your navy, and without any sensible diminution of the necessaries of life, enjoy a luxury which, from that period, you will want-the luxury of being free."
From this time the Continental Congress were less timid. From the beginning they had evinced a determination to sustain Massachusetts in her defence of her charter. Now they assumed comprehensive authority with out any fixed limits of action. They did not wait for the result of their petition to the king, but went forward in preparations for a struggle for life. They exercised supreme executive, legislative, and sometimes judicial functions; and in the ready obedience to their mandates observed by the several colonies, they derived their authority. The supporters of the Congress throughout the land were so strong in character and intelligence, that, from the summer of 1775 until the end of the war, that body never lacked moral strength for the exercise of the functions of a nations government. All subjects of a genera character were submitted to the consideration of the Congress. For example: When a rumor prevailed that a British regiment had been ordered from Ireland to New York, the Committee of One Hundred, of that city, which had been appointed to supersede that of Fifty-one, asked the Congress how they should act; and when a Provincial Congress had been organized in that colony in May, 1775, that body submitted grave questions of public policy to the Continental Congress as a national and supreme tribunal, and suggested to them the propriety of issuing bills of credit in the name of the United Colonies, to furnish funds for defraying the expenses of defending the whole people. This was the first suggestion for the Congress to exercise national functions.
New York was advised to permit the troops to land, and live in barracks, but not to fortify the city. They also suggested the inviting of General Wooster to come to their borders with his Connecticut regiment to assist in defending the city against any hostile movement of the expected troops. It was done, and Wooster was encamped at Harlem, whence he sent detach ments to Long Island to guard against British cruisers and foragers, and to intercept supplies of provisions sent to the troops in Boston.
At first the Continental Congress hesitated to approve the capture of the forts on Lake Champlain, but when timidity gave place to courage, they were anxious to maintain possession of them as a means for keeping the control of the Hudson Valley. For the like purpose, they directed the Provincial Congress of New York to fortify posts at the upper end of New York Island, and on both sides of the Hudson in the Highlands. At about the same time, when President Randolph was called to the chair as Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, they chose John Hancock to succeed him. Mr. Harrison of Virginia, as he conducted Hancock to the chair, said: "We will show Britain how much we value her proscriptions."
The Congress were now called upon to exercise still higher national functions. It was soon perceived that the aged, good, and virtuous General Ward was not possessed of sufficient military ability to be chief commander of the motley forces which had been suddenly gathered at Cambridge. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts apprehended the fading away of that army unless a more efficient commander might be found, and they gladly perceived a way for making a change without offence by asking the General Congress to assume the regulation and direction of that army. The war was, evidently, to become a continental one, and it was proper that a continental army should be organized. The request was made, and in a private letter written by Joseph Warren to Samuel Adams, it was intimated that the request was to be interpreted as a desire for the appointment of a generalissimo or commander-in-chief of all troops that might be raised. The request was immediately followed by the news that reinforcements for the army in Boston were arriving, and that Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne were already there. The Congress felt compelled to act promptly, for there were indication that war would be commenced at some points remote from Massachusetts, in order to distract the colonies. They did not then know that Gage had advised his government to send fifteen thousand troops to Boston, ten thousand to New York, and seven thousand Candians and Indians to operate in the region of Lake Champlain, falsely accusing the Americans of employing savages against British troops.
Feeling that the union of the colonies was complete, notwithstanding Georgia was not yet represented in the congress, that body, on the 7th of June, in a resolution for a general fast, had spoken, for the first time, of "the twelve United Colonies." To make the bond stronger, they now, on motion of John Adams, adopted the forces at Cambridge as a Continental Army, and proceeded to choose a commander-in-chief. At the suggestion of the New England delegation, Thomas Johnson of Maryland nominated George Washington, of Virginia, then a member of the Congress,for that important office, and he was elected by a unanimous vote. That was on the 15th of June. When, on the following morning, President Hancock officially announced to Washington his appointement, that gentleman arose in his place, and formally accepted the office. In his modes speech on that occasion, after expressing doubts of his ability to perform the duties satisfactorily, he said: "As to pay, sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept the arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. Those, I doubt not, they will discharge, and that is all I desire." Washington was then forty-three years of age. Four major-generals and eight brigadier-generals were appointed in the course of a few days. The former were Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam; the latter were Seth Pomeroy, Richard Montgomery, David Wooster, William Heath, Joseph Spencer, John Thomas, John Sullivan, and Nathaniel Greene.
On the 22d of June, the Congress resolved to issue a sum not exceeding two million dollars, on bills of credit, "for the defence of America,"prescribed the form of the bills, and appointed a committee of five to attend to the printing of them. The plates were rudely engraved by Paul Revere, of Boston, and printed on such thick paper, that the British called the currency "the paste-board money of the rebels." Each denomination had a separate and significant device and motto, which bore the stamp of the mind of Dr. Franklin, who was one of the committee. Twenty-eight gentlemen were appointed to sign them. New issues were made at various times until the close of 1779, when the aggregate amount was $242,000,000. Then the bills had so much depreciated that one hundred dollars in specie would buy twenty-six hundred in paper currency. They very soon became worthless. In January, 1781, Captain Allan McLane paid $600 for a pair of boots, and $10 for a skein of thread.
At the beginning of June (1775) the army at Cambridge numbered about sixteen thousand men, all New Englanders. General Ward was the chief, and John Thomas was his lieutenant. Richard Gridley, who was the engineer-in-chief at the reduction of Louisburg thirty years before, was commissioned to command an artillery corps and to be chief engineer, and was assisted by Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller, who had commanded an artillery company in that town. The British force in Boston was increasing by fresh arrivals. It numbered then about ten thousand men. Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne had arrived late in May, and heartily joined Gage in forming and executing plans for dispersing the "rebels." Feeling strong with these veteran officers and soldiers around him,and the presence of several ships-of-war under Admiral Graves, the governor issued a most insulting proclamation, declaring martial law, branding those citizens in arms, and their abettors, as "rebels" and "parricides of the Constitution," and offering pardon to all who should forthwith return to their allegiance, excepting Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were reserved for condign punishment as traitors. This proclamation produced intense indignation throughout the province. "All the records of time," wrote Mrs. John Adams to her husband, "cannot produce a blacker page. Satan, when driven from the regions of bliss, exhibited not more malice. Surely the father of lies is superseded. Yet we think it the best proclamation he could have issued."
At about the middle of June, the British officers in Boston waked to the consciousness that "rebel" batteries at Dorchester Heights on the south, or on Charlestown Heights-Bunker's or Breed's Hills-on the north, might make the situation of the troops in the town not only disagreeable but perilous. They resolved to sally out and fortify these heights themselves, Dorchester on the 18th of June, and Bunker's Hill a few days later. Rumors of this intention reached the Committee of Safety, to whom the Provincial Congress had delegated all discretionary powers to regulate the movements of troops, and they proposed the immediate fortification of Bunker's Hill before their enemy should come out.
On the 16th of June, an order was issued for the regiments of Colonels Frye, Bridges and Prescott, Samuel Gridley's company of artillery,and a fatigue party of Connecticut troops, under Captain Thomas Knowlton, of Putnam's regiment, to parade in the camp at Cambridge at six o'clock in the evening, with intrenching tools. The whole were placed under the command of Colonel William Prescott of Pepperell, who received written order from General Ward to proceed to and fortify Bunker's Hill on the Charlestown peninsula. At nine o'clock in the evening, after a prayer by Dr. Langdon, President of Harvard College, a larger portion of these regiments, accompanied by General Putnam, marched over Charlestown Neck and along the road to Bunker's Hill. The whole force numbered about thirteen hundred men. They proceeded silently in the darkness. A council was held in the gloom, when it was decided that Breed's Hill, nearer Boston, would be the most effective point for a fortification. They accordingly proceeded to that eminence overlooking Charlestown on the edge of the water, and there, in the star-light, a thousand men began the work with pick and spade. The waning moon rose at midnight, and in its pale light they worked in such silence until dawn, that they were not discovered by the sentinels on the ships-of-war that lay in sight below them, and whose voices, crying out hourly "All's well!" they could distinctly hear. There lay the Lively, Glasgow, Somerset, and Cerberus, with floating batteries, in fancied security, while the toilers piled the earth so vigorously, that a redoubt rose six feet above the earth at daybreak on Saturday, the 17th of June. Then they were discovered by the sentinel on the Lively. The captain beheld the strange apparition with wonder and alarm, and without waiting for orders from the admiral, he put springs on his cable and opened a sharp fire on the unfinished work. Other vessels opened broadsides upon that seeming creation of magic, while the Americans within the redoubt, unhurt by the shots, worked steadily on.
That cannonade at dawn on a beautiful summer morning, broke the slumber of the troops and citizens in Boston, and filled both with astonishment. Very soon roofs, balconies, and steeples were alive with gazers upon the strange scene. Gage summoned his principal officers to a council, when it was decided that the Americans must be dislodged, at all hazards. The newly-arrived generals proposed to land troops on Charlestown Neck, and taking the "rebels" in reverse, cut off their retreat and prevent their reinforce ment. Gage decided to attack them in front; and about twenty-five hundred troops, composed of infantry, grenadiers, and artillery, with twelve pieces of cannon, crossed the Charles River in boats, at a little past noon, under cover of a tremendous cannonade from the shipping and Copp's Hill, and landed toward the eastern extremity of the Charlestown peninsula, at the head of the present Chelsea Bridge. There Howe reconnoitred the American position, ordered his men to dine, and sent back to Boston for reinforcements. The men at the redoubt had toiled all the forenoon, completed their work, and at meridian exchanged the pick and spade for the accountrements of war. Almost twelve hours had they labored, with little rest and food. They had cast up a redoubt about eight rods square, and an embankment on its left extending about a hundred yards toward the Mystic River; also a similar line on the right. The troops, wearied with work and want of food and sleep, asked for relief, but their leader said "No;" you have cast up the redoubt, and you shall have the honor of defending it." They asked for reinforcements, which he at first declined calling for, supposing the British would not attack him. At length there were indications in the city that they were coming out, and Prescott sent to General Ward for reinforcements. That officer tardily complied with the request, and sent the New Hampshire regiments of Stark and Reed; also some small field pieces.Some other detachments joined Prescott, and Dr. Joseph Warren, who had just received a commission as major-general, arrived with the cheering news that other reinforcements were coming. Putnam was there, flying from point to point to make dispositions for securing a victory, and urging Ward, who was afraid of an attack upon Cambridge, to send on reinforcements.
When Howe was about to move at three o'clock in the afternoon, the Americans were prepared for the contest. Prescott, with Warren, and the constructors of the redoubt, were within that work, excepting the Connecticut troops, who, with the New Hampshire forces, were at a rail fence and breastworks on the west of the redoubt. The artillery companies were between the breastwork and a rail fence on the eastern side, and three companies were stationed in Charlestown at the foot of Breed's Hill.
Just as the fight was about to begin, reinforcements came for Howe and landed at the present entrance to the Navy Yard. They consisted of a regiment, some companies of light infantry and grenadiers, and a marine battalion led by Major Pitcairn of Lexington fame. The entire British force now confronting the Americans on the peninsula numbered more than three thousand.
At half-past three o'clock, Howe's great guns moved toward the redoubt, and opened fire upon the works. They were followed by the troops in two columns, commanded respectively by Generals Howe and Pigot, the infantry and grenadiers assailing the outworks. At the same time the guns on the ships and the battery on Copp's Hill hurled random shot in abundance upon the little earthwork. In the midst of the roaring thunder, the Americans were silent in the redoubt, and mostly so along the lines of intrenchments and fences, for their leader had ordered them not to fire until they could see the whites of the eyes of the approaching foe. The silence was a riddle to the English. It was soon solved. When they were within the prescribed distance, up rose the concealed host, fifteen hundred strong, at the word Fire! and poured such a tremendous and destructive storm of bullets upon the climbers of the green slope, that whole platoons and even companies were prostrated as a scythe would have mown down the long grass through which they were wading. Flags fell to the ground like the tall lilies in a mown meadow, and the shattered army was horror-struck for a moment. The bugles sounded, and they fell back to the shore, when a shout of triumph went up from the crest of Breed's Hill. Howe soon rallied his men, and repeated the attack with a similar result.
The British were greatly annoyed by shots from houses in Charlestown, and, at the request of Howe, shells were thrown into it from Copp's Hill, and set the village on fire. Very soon almost two hundred wooden buildingsdwellings and churcheswere in flames, and Breed's Hill was shrouded in black smoke for awhile, until a gentle breeze that suddenly sprang up blew it away. At the same time General Clinton, who, from Copp's Hill, had seen the second recoil of the British troops, hastened across the river, and at the head of some broken battalions shared in the perils and success of a third attack, for Howe had again rallied his troops, and was pressing toward the Americans. The British had been ordered to march at quick step, and use only their bayonets. These and the artillery soon drove the defenders of the breastworks into the redoubt. Again from that flaming centre went out dreadful volleys that shattered the head of the British column. The powder of the Americans was now almost exhausted. Their fire became more feeble. The British pushed up to and over the ramparts; and after a hand-to-hand struggle in the redoubt with bayonets and clubbed muskets, the Americans were driven out. They fled toward Charlestown Neck, where reinforcements had been arrested by a severe enfilading fire from the British vessels. The retreat of the main body was covered by the prolonged fighting of Stark, Reed, and Knowlton at the outworks, with some reinforcements. Warren was the last to leave the redoubt, and was hurrying toward Bunker's Hill, where Putnam was trying to rally the fugitives, and was shot dead by a bullet that pierced his brain. The British loss in this battlekilled, wounded, and prisonerswas ten hundred and fifty-four. Among the officers slain was Major Pitcairn. His pistols are now in the possession of descendants of General Putnam. The Americans lost in killed, wounded, and missing, four hundred and fifty.
This conflict, known as the Battle of Bunker's Hill, though fought on Breed's Hill, lasted almost two hours. It was gazed upon by anxious thousands who were on the neighboring hills and the roofs, and steeples in Boston, deeply interested spectators of a terrible scene in which dear kindred were engaged. When the redoubt was carried and the Americans retreated, the whole body of troops on the peninsula were compelled to run the gauntlet of cannon-balls from the British vessels, as they fled across Charlestown Neck. Many were slain there. The survivors encamped that night on Prospect Hill, and the British reposed on their arms on the field of battle until the next morning, when they passed over the water to Boston never again to appear on the main land of Massachusetts.
WASHINGTON TAKES COMMAND OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMYPREPARATIONS FOR THE SIEGE OF BOSTONDISPOSITION OF THE OPPOSING ARMIESDEALINGS WITH THE CANADIANSCANADA TO BE INVADEDEXPLOITS ON LAKE CHAMPLAININSTRUCTIONS TO GENERAL SCHUYLERTHE INDIANS AND THE JOHNSON FAMILYBENEDICT ARNOLDTHE CANADIANSCHARACTER OF THE TROOPS AT TICONDEROGAMONTGOMERY SUMMONED TO COMMAND THEMST. JOHNS BESIEGED AND CAPTUREDALLEN MADE PRISONERARNOLD'S EXPEDITIONPREPARATIONS TO BESIEGE QUEBEC.
WASHINGTON did not go to his home at Mount Vernon after his appointment to the chieftainship of the Continental Army but six days after that appointment (June 21), he left Philadelphia for the east. He was accompanied by Generals Lee and Schuyler. They were escorted to New York by Philadelphia light-horsemen. At Trenton they met a courier riding in haste to give the Congress news of the battle of Bunker's Hill. He relieved the mind of Washington of a great burden of anxiety by assuring the general that the militia behaved nobly in the battle, for of such materials the Continental Army was composed.
Washington arrived in New York on Sunday afternoon, the 25th of June, where he was received by the Provincial Congress, and addressed by their President, Philip Livingston, in a highly conservative speech; for the royal governor, Tryon, had just arrived also, and public sentiment in New York was almost equally divided in favor of the two distinguished men. After returning the salutation in a few words, Washington retired to his lodgings, where he spent the whole evening with Schuyler in consultation about operations in the Northern Department, over which the latter was placed. It was then the most important field, for it had a broad frontier on unfriendly Canada, a wily and treacherous foe in the Indians within its bosom, and a demoralizing element of loyalty to the crown pervading its more influential society.
On Monday morning Washington and Lee, accompanied by Schuyler, rode to New Rochelle, where they conferred with the veteran soldier, General Wooster. There Schuyler left them, when they journeyed on toward the New England capital, receiving the warmest greetings of the people who flocked to the highways to catch a glimpse of the eminent Virginian. These officers reached Watertown, seven miles from Boston, on the morning of the 2d of July, where they received congratulatory addresses from James Warren, President of the Provincial Congress in session there. They arrived at Cambridge early in the afternoon, when Washington established his headquarters in the fine house provided for him, now the residence of Professor Longfellow the poet. At nine o'clock the next morning (July 3), he appeared, with his suite, under a large elm tree yet standing at the northerly end of Cambridge Common. The Continental forces were drawn up in line, when Washington, with uncovered head, stepped a few paces forward, drew his sword, and took formal command of the Army. In that important office he served without intermission almost eight years, when he resigned his commission into the custody of the Congress, from which body he received it.
On the 4th of July, Washington issued his first general order, in which he recommended sobriety, harmony, order, and the constant exercise of patriotism and morality, and a humble reliance upon God. On the 9th, he held his first council of war; and ten days afterward Adjutant-General Gates reported present, fit for duty, 13,743 men, and an enrollment of 16,770, all from the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Some riflemen from Maryland, Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania, led by Daniel Morgan, a man of sturdy frame and unflinching courage, who had seen service in the French and Indian War, joined the army soon afterward.
Washington immediately began the siege of Boston by so disposing his forces as to confine the British to the peninsula and the adjacent islands and shores. He arranged his army in three grand divisions, each division containing two brigades. The right wing was placed under General Artemas Ward, with brigadiers Thomas and Spencer. They were stationed at Roxbury. The left wing was commanded by General Lee, and consisted of the brigades of Sullivan and Greene. These occupied Winter and Prospect Hills. The centre was commanded by General Putnam. One of his brigades was commanded by Health, and the other by a senior officer of less rank than a brigadier, for Pomeroy had declined the office conferred upon him by the Congress. The Americans cast up strong lines of intrenchments between the extremities of the army. The British were strongly intrenched on Bunker's Hill, about half a mile from the battle-ground on Breed's Hill. Their sentries occupied Charlestown Neck; floating batteries were moored in Mystic River, near Bunker's Hill, and a twenty-gun ship was anchored at the ferry between Boston and Charlestown. On Copp's Hill, in the city, the British had a strong battery. The bulk of the army under General Howe (who had succeeded Gage in the chief command) lay upon Bunker's Hill, and some cavalry and a small corps of Tories remained in the city. Such was the relative position of the belligerent forces during the summer and early autumn of 1775.
Meanwhile the civil powers of the General Congress and of the province were strengthened by consolidation. In Massachusetts a House of Representatives was organized under the original charter, which vested executive powers in a council chosen by the people, in the absence of the governor and his lieutenant. That body, therefore, assumed such powers, as a single executive committee, vested with all the functions of Committees of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety. Under such a government the people of Massachusetts lived, until they formed a State Constitution in 1780.
We have observed that the General Congress sent an address to the inhabitants of Canada. It was affectionate in its terms. It invited them to join the other colonies in efforts to obtain a redress of grievances. But the duplicity of the Congress of 1774 had made the Canadians lukewarm, as John Brown reported them, if not actually hostile. That Congress had also addressed them in affectionate terms; but in their address to the people of Great Britain, who delighted in shouting "No Popery!" they had, unfortunately, in alluding to the Quebec Act, said: "We think the Legislature is not authorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary tenets, in any part of the globe; nor can we suppress our astonishment, that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country [Canada] a religion that has deluged your island in blood and dispensed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the world." This address, like the one to the Canadians, was translated into the French language, and scattered among the priests and the people by the press. It created much indignation for awhile, but the resentment soon cooled, for the national hatred of the English by the French population made the latter soon feel kindly toward the "Bostonians," as the patriots were called.
Carleton proclaimed martial-law in Canada, and denounced the borderers who seized the lake posts, as rebels and traitors. He sought alliances with the Indian tribes, and proposed to invade New York for the purpose of recovering those posts. When, in June (1775), the Continental Congress heard of these things, the conquest of Canada seemed to them and to the people as a simple act of self-defence, and it was resolved to undertake that task. It ought to have been attempted sooner. Allen urged it with vehemence soon after the posts were taken. Hoping his advice to invade Canada at once would be followed, he began to prepare for the important work. A party of his Green Mountain Boys captured Skenesborough, at the head of Lake Champlain (now Whitehall), with a son of Skene, the proprietor, and many of his people. They also took away from them a schooner and several bateaux. Colonel Arnold armed the schooner with guns from Ticonderoga, fully manned it, and with some bateaux sailed down the lake to attack the fort at St. Johns, on the Sorel, its outlet, followed by Allen, with one hundred and fifty men, in boats and bateaux. Arnold left the schooner at the foot of the lake, and with thirty-five men, who went in boasts, he captured the little garrison at St. Johns, destroyed some vessels there, and sailed for Ticonderoga with his prisoners. He met Allen on the way. After a brief conference, the latter pressed forward to garrison the captured fort; but on the approach of a superior force of Canadians from Montreal and Chambly, he retreated. Then it was that Allen, by an earnest letter, entreated the Congress to invade Canada. The exploits of the Green Mountain Boys and of Arnold, showed how easily the conquest might be achieved. But the Congress then regarded the letter of the bold leader as the utterances of the wild fancy of an ambitious adventurer drunk with sudden success. But events soon changed their minds. After the information of Carleton's movements had been received, and the battle of Bunker's Hill had startled the continent, the Congress and the people saw the folly of the delay. The operations of the patriots on Lake Champlain had aroused the British authorities in Canada to a sense of their danger; the delay had enabled them to take measures for arresting that danger.
General Schuyler was ordered to repair to the lake fortresses, where Colonel Hinman was in command with a few Connecticut troops. He had been appointed to that station with the sanction of the Continental Congress. Schuyler was authorized, if he should "find it practicable and not disagreeable to the Canadians, immediately to take possession of St. Johns and Montreal, and pursue such other measures in Canada as might have a tendency to promote the peace and security of the province." These mild and cautious words were properly interpreted as an explicit order to invade Canada. Agents were sent among the Indians in the Mohawk country at the same time, to secure their neutrality, but not to force military alliances with the savages. The Congress also appointed a Board of Commissioners of Indian Affairs, of which General Schuyler was appointed chairman. His family had always maintained a great influence over the chiefs of the Six Nations; and the general was popular among them. The value of his services in keeping these nations neutral or passive during the struggle cannot be estimated.
Schuyler did not reach Ticonderoga until the 18th of July, having been detained at Albany and vicinity in consequence of alarming news from the Indian country. It was asserted that Guy Johnson, the Indian agent, who had espoused the ministerial cause, was endeavoring to make the Six Nations the allies of the British in the impending struggle; and that Sir John Johnson, the son and heir of Sir William, was organizing a military force for the same purpose, among his retainers who were chiefly Scotch Highlanders and the Tories of Tryon county. These rumors were largely true, and demanded instant attention.
When Schuyler arrived at Ticonderoga, he found great confusion prevailing. Colonel Arnold, who claimed precedence to all others because of his earlier commission from the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, refused to acknowledge the authority of Colonel Hinman; and most of the Green Mountain Boys, disgusted by Arnold's offensive bearing toward Allen and other officers, had returned home. Complaint of his conduct was made to the body who commissioned him. It was a difficult case to deal with. Nobody doubted Arnold's bravery and skill, and his usefulness as a leader. But he was ambitious, unscrupulous, and so quarrelsome that few could endure him in his mood at that time. A committee was sent to investigate the matter. They were empowered to order his return to Massachusetts, or to submit to Hinman's authority. When their errand was revealed to Arnold, he was enraged. He stamped, swore, cursed all Congresses and kings, fate, committee-men in general and his present inquisitors in particular, and, with horrid oaths, he declared that he would be second to no man. Then he threw up his commission, disbanded his men, and rode to Cambridge to lay his grievances before Washington.
Schuyler's first object was to ascertain the state of the province he was about to invade. He employed Major Brown, an American resident on the Sorel, employed by Adams and Hancock for the same purpose, to obtain desired information. The major soon reported that there were only seven hundred regulars in Canada; that the militia would not serve under French officers lately appointed; that the peasantry were generally friendly toward the "Bostonians," and that it was a most auspicious time to invade the province. Meanwhile Schuyler had attempted to organize the crude army which had been slowly gathering at Ticonderoga, composed chiefly of Connecticut troops under Wooster. The general was, in his daily habits of life, a strict disciplinarian, and the insubordination which he encountered at the outset, annoyed him exceedingly. The Connecticut troops were extremely democratic in their notions. Each man felt himself equal to his officers in command, and could not brook the restraint of necessary discipline. Schuyler chafed under this state of things, and the friction then visible prevailed during the whole campaign.
Schuyler had a divided duty as leader of the army and head of the Indian Commission. The duties of the latter then imperatively demanded his attendance, and he summoned Montgomery, his favorite brigadier, to the actual leadership of the expedition. This handsome Irish gentleman, then forty years of age, had achieved distinction in the British army, and had lately married a sister of Robert R. Livingston, who was afterward the eminent chancellor of the State of New York. His devoted young wife accompanied him as far as the country seat of General Schuyler, at Saratoga, where he bade her adieu, kissed the tears from her cheeks, and with cheerfulness said at parting: "You will never have cause to blush for your Montgomery." Arriving at Ticonderoga on the 17th of August, he was placed in active command of the expedition, and Schuyler returned to Albany, where he soon afterward received a letter from General Washington, urging him to hasten the invasion of Canada.
Meanwhile Montgomery, with a little more than a thousand men, had gone to Isle La Motte to prevent British vessels a-building on the Sorel, passing into Lake Champlain. There he was joined by Schuyler on the 4th of September. They pushed on to Isle aux Noix, and with a considerable force appeared before the fort at St. Johns, the first military post within the Canadian border. Deceived concerning the strength of the garrison and the disposition of the Canadians, they fell back and waited for reinforcements. There Schuyler was prostrated with sickness, and at the middle of the month he was compelled to return to Ticonderoga. Fever, gout, and rheumatism tortured him for a long time, and he did not rejoin the army, but did better service in sending forward reinforcements and supplies.
Montgomery was now in full command of the army. He immediately invested St. Johns with about a thousand men. New York troops had already joined him. Lamb's company of artillery came late in September. Some troops from New Hampshire under Colonel Bedel, and Green Mountain Boys led by Colonel Seth Warner, also joined him. The garrison was commanded by Major Preston, and was well supplied with provisions and ammunition. This circumstance, the injudicious movements of Colonel Ethan Allen and Major Brown, who were recruiting south of the St. Lawrence, and the insubordination and mutinous spirit displayed by the Connecticut and New York troops, prolonged the siege. It lasted fifty-five days. On the evening of the 2d of November, when Preston heard of the defeat of a considerable force under Carleton, on their way to relieve him, he surrendered the fort, garrison, and munitions of war to Montgomery. The spoils of arms, ammunition, provisions and clothing, were considerable. Five hundred regular soldiers, and one hundred Canadian volunteers, were made prisoners of war.
Some victories and disasters had occurred at other points during the siege. Colonel Allen, with about one hundred recruits, mostly Canadians, crossed the St. Lawrence to attack Montreal. He was misled by the advice of Major Brown, who agreed to cross at another place and join in the attack. General Robert Prescott was in command of the city. He sallied out with a considerable force of regulars, Canadians and Indians, and after a sharp skirmish made Allen and his men prisoners. For reasons never explained, Brown did not cross the river, and the attacking party were overwhelmed. When Prescott learned that Allen was the man who seized Ticonderoga in May, he was greatly enraged. He ordered his chief prisoner to be bound hand and foot with irons, and sent to England to be tried for treason. Prescott caused his shackles to be fastened to a bar of iron eight feet in length. With this, Allen was thrust into the hold of a war-vessel, where he was kept five weeks without a seat, or a bed to lie upon, when she sailed for England, and more humane treatment was given him. Allen was kept in close confinement in England, Halifax, and New York until the spring of 1778, when he was exchanged.
At the close of October (1775), detachments under Colonel Bedel and Majors Brown and Livingston, captured the strong fort (but feebly garrisoned) at Chambly, a few miles from St. Johns, with a large amount of provisions and munitions of war. When Carleton heard of this disaster, he left Montreal with a mixed force to reinforce Major Preston. He crossed the St. Lawrence in flat-boats and bateaux, and was about to land at Longueuil, when Green Mountain Boys and New Yorkers under Colonel Seth Warner, rising suddenly from a hiding-place, opened a terrible fire from their muskets and a storm of grape-shot from a four-pound cannon, which drove them across the river in great confusion. These two events caused Preston to surrender, as we have observed.
After the capture of St. Johns, Montgomery pushed on toward Montreal. Carleton, conscious of his weakness, prepared to fly, with the garrison, to Quebec. Montgomery sent a detachment to the mouth of the Sorel, where the flotilla bearing General Prescott and the garrison was intercepted and captured, with a considerable quantity of munitions. Carleton, passing by in the night, in a boat with muffled oars, escaped to Quebec. On the 13th of November, Montgomery entered Montreal in triumph. He treated the inhabitants so generously, that he gained their confidence and respect. There he found a large supply of woollen goods with which he clothed such of his men who agreed to remain beyond the term of their enlistment, and he prepared for further aggressive movements. Although the strongholds in Canada, excepting the capital, were then in his possession, he wrote to the Congress: "Till Quebec is taken, Canada is unconquered."
Meanwhile the co-operating expedition mentioned by Washington in his letter to Schuyler, had done its marvellous work. Late in August, the commander-in-chief had perfected his plan. Arnold was then at Cambridge making loud complaints of ill-usage upon Lake Champlain. The proposed expedition, promising wild adventure and the exercise of rare courage and skill, seemed to be suited to his nature, and Washington, to silence his complaints and to secure his services, commissioned him a colonel in the Continental Army, and gave him the command of the troops to be used, comprising eleven hundred hardy men selected from the forces at Cambridge. These were composed of New England musketeers and riflemen from Virginia and Pennsylvania under Captain Daniel Morgan. At the middle of September they sailed from Newburyport, in transports, for their general rendezvous at Fort Western on the Kennebec River, opposite the present city of Augusta. They were then on the verge of an uninhabited wilderness, excepting by a few Indian hunters. There they were furnished with bateaux wherewith to navigate shallow streams and little lakes; and at Norridgewock Falls, where Father Rale had his Indian mission, already mentioned, their first labors began. Their bateaux were drawn by oxen, and their provisions were carried on their backs around the fallsa wearisome task often repeated afterward. But they pressed on with cheerfulness toward the headwaters of the Kennebec, often wading and pushing their bateaux against swift currents. At length they left that stream, and over craggy knolls, tangled ravines, deep morasses and gentle brooks they made their way to Dead Rivera portage of fifteen miles broken by three ponds. Upon the placid bosom of that sluggish stream, on the great watershed between the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic, they moved quietly, in fine weather, and were suddenly confronted by a lofty mountain capped with snow. At the foot of this hill Arnold encamped. Major Bigelow ascended to its summit, hoping to see the spires of Quebec; and it has been called Mount Bigelow to this day.
Sickness and desertion now began to reduce the number of effective men. It was late in October. Keen winds came from the north. They were thirty miles from Lake Megantic, the source of the Chaudiere, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, down which Arnold intended to voyage in the bateaux. When the expedition moved, a heavy rain had set in. Torrents came roaring from the hills and filled the Dead River to its brim. Its banks were soon overflowed and its channel was filled with drift-wood, among which several of the boats were overturned and much provision was lost. Food for only twelve days remained. A council of war determined to send the sick and wounded to Norridgewock, where Colonel Enos was yet with the rear division. He was ordered to come on with provisions for fifteen days. Instead of obeying, he returned to Cambridge with his whole division, where he was looked upon as a traitor or coward. Though acquitted by a court-martial, he was never restored to public favor.
Arnold's situation was now becoming critical. The rain changed to snow, and ice formed upon the still waters. The men were often compelled to wade in the freezing floods, waist deep, and push the bateaux before them. In that dreadful journey two women, wives of two soldiers, participated, wading with their husbands. At length Lake Megantic was reached, and they encamped on its borders; and the next day, Arnold, with fifty-five men, started to voyage down the Chaudiere to the nearest French settlement, there to procure provisions and send them back to the main army. It proved to be a most perilous undertaking. They had no guide. As soon as they entered the river, they found the current running swiftly over a rocky bed. They lashed their baggage and provisions to the bateaux, and committed themselves to the seething flood. They were soon among foaming rapids, when three of their vessels were dashed to pieces and their contents engulfed. No life perished. The men were saved by those in the other boats which were moored in shallow estuaries. This seeming calamity was a mercy in disguise, for, had they not been checked, the whole party, in a few minutes, would have been plunged over a fearful cataract, the sullen roar of which they could distinctly hear.
For seventy miles further, falls and rapids succeeded each other, when Sertigan was reached, and Indians were sent back to the main body with provisions, and to guide them to the settlements. This relief-party found the soldiers in a starving condition. Their boats and provisions had been destroyed, and they had slaughtered their last ox several days before. They had subsisted upon a scanty supply of roots, and tried to obtain mucilage by boiling their moose-skin moccasins, but in vain. A dog was killed and furnished soup for a few, and they were suffering the despair of hopelessly starving men when the Indians found them. A few days afterward, the whole army, united, were marching toward the St. Lawrence; and on the 9th of November they suddenly appeared on the heights of Point Levi, opposite Quebec, veiled in falling snow. To the eyes of the wondering people of that city, they seemed like a spectre army just fallen from the clouds. Morgan's riflemen, in their linen frocks, had been seen by the messenger, who carried the news of their arrival to Quebec. "They are vetuen toile" (clothed in linen cloth), said the messenger. The last word was mistaken for tole (iron plate), and this created a panic. The city was soon in a tumult. The drums beat to arms, and the garrison was strengthened.
Arnold relied upon the friendship for the Americans of a large portion of the inhabitants of Quebec, and believed they would compel the garrison to surrender, if he should appear with a force before the city. He was anxious to cross over at once, but was detained by a storm of sleet until the 13th. That night he crossed the river with five hundred and fifty men in birch canoes. They landed at Wolfe's Cove, ascended the ravine, and at dawn stood in battle array on the Plains of Abraham, where Wolfe had stood sixteen years before. Believing that a shout from his little army would bring out a friendly response from the city, he marched his men toward the two gates opening upon the Plains, and ordered them to give three cheers. He expected to bring out the regulars to attack him, when he hoped, by the assistance of the citizens, to be able to rush in and take possession of the town. But the commanders were wise enough to not open the gates, and the citizens were restrained by fear of the garrison. After making a ridiculous display of arrogance and folly a few days, by issuing proclamations and demanding the surrender of the city, all of which were treated with contempt by the commanders of the garrison, Arnold was startled by the news that Carleton was coming down the St. Lawrence with a force of Canadians and Indians, and information from his friends in the city, that the garrison were on the point of sallying out to attack him with field-pieces. He had no cannon, and his numbers were few, though the remainder had come over from Point Levi, and joined him; and he prudently fled up the river to Point aux Trembles (Aspen Trees Point), and there awaited instructions from Montgomery.
Impressed with the importance of taking Quebec to insure the conquest of Canada, Montgomery placed small garrisons in the forts at St. Johns and Chambly, and left Montreal in charge of General Wooster, preparatory to marching on the Canadian capital. He had heard that the British authorities there were much alarmed by the presence of Arnold. "They expect to be besieged," he wrote to Schuyler, "which, by the blessing of God, they shall be, if the severe season holds off and I can prevail on the troops to accompany me." Montgomery's greatest difficulty was involved in the last consideration. A large portion of his men were indisposed to go further, or remain longer than their enlistment papers compelled them tothe first of December. Day by day his army was melting away. The frequent appeals of General Schuyler and himself to Congress for reinforcements had not been responded to, and he took the responsibility of making an un-authorized engagement with troops who were willing to go. With the comparatively few men who agreed to follow him, he left Montreal on the 26th of September, and joined Arnold at Point aux Trembles, on the 3d of December, and took command of the combined troops. With woollen clothing which he took with him, Montgomery made Arnold's thinly-clad troops comfortable.
QUEBEC ASSAILEDDEATH OF MONTGOMERYARNOLD AND LAMB WOUNDEDAMERICANS REPULSEDMONTGOMERY'S REMAINSCONDITION OF THE REPUBLICAN ARMIESFRANKLIN'S PLAN FOR A CIVIL GOVERNMENTGENERAL POST-OFFICE ESTABLISHEDA GENERAL HOSPITALTHE ARMY BEFORE BOSTONCOMMITTEE OF CONGRESSINSUBORDINATIONEVENTS NEAR BOSTONA CONTINENTAL NAVYA CHANGING ARMYOFFICER'S WIVES IN CAMPUNION FLAGBRITISH TROOPS IN BOSTONARTILLERY PROCUREDDORCHESTER HEIGHTS FORTIFIEDBOSTON CLOSELY BESIEGED.
THE little army of republicans under Montgomery, less than a thousand in number, with two hundred Canadian volunteers led by Colonel James Livingston, pressed on toward Quebec from Point aux Trembles, and arrived before the town on the evening of the 5th of December. The general made his quarters at Holland House, two or three miles from the city, and on the following morning he sent a flag with a message to Governor Carleton, demanding an instant surrender of the post. The flag was fired upon. Montgomery, indignant at such treatmentsuch violation of the rules of war among civilized nationssent a threatening letter to Carleton, and another to the inhabitants. These were taken into the city by a woman, and a copy of the latter was shot over the walls, into the town, on an arrow from an Indian bow. Carleton refused to have any intercourse with the "rebel general," and the latter prepared to assail the walled town with his handful of men, ill-clad, ill-fed, and exposed to storms and intense cold on the open Plains of Abraham.
The ground was too hard frozen to be penetrated with pick or spade, and the snow covered it in huge drifts; so Montgomery filled gabions (a sort of wicker-work baskets) with snow, poured water over the mass, which instantly congealed, and soon raised a huge ice-mound. Upon this glittering embankment Lamb placed in battery six 12-pound cannon and two howitzers. In the Lower Town he placed four or five mortars, from which he sent bomb-shells into the city and set a few buildings on fire. Montgomery made further unsuccessful efforts to communicate with the governor; and continued to throw shells into the city. At length some heavy round shot from the citadel shivered Lamb's crystal battery into fragments, and compelled him to withdraw. The cannon of the Americans made no impression on the heavy walls, and Montgomery was compelled to resort to other measures for taking the city. It was now determined to wait for expected reinforcements, but for a fortnight they waited in vain. The Congress were tardy in their actions; and for want of hard money Schuyler was almost powerless to procure men or supplies. He used his own personal credit largely, but he could not send on men. A friend in Montreal had helped Montgomery to the extent of his ability, and the general was left to his own resources. The terms of the enlistment of many of his men had almost expired, and the deadly small-pox had appeared among them. A web of fearful difficulty was thus gathering around the general; but worse than all was a quarrel between Arnold and some of his officers, which caused the latter and their men to threaten to leave the service unless they were placed under another commander. Montgomery, by the exercise of wisdom and justice, healed the dissensions; and at Christmas time a plan was arranged by a council of officers to assail the town at two points simultaneously; one division of the troops to be under the immediate command of the general, and another under Arnold. The latter was to make a night attack upon the Lower Town, setting fire to houses in the suburb St. Roque so as to consume the British stockade in that quarter, while the main body should attempt to take Cape Diamond Bastion, a strong part of the city walls on the highest point of the rocky promontory. It was determined to make the assault on the first stormy night.
At length the serene, cold days and nights were ended, and on the evening of the 30th of December (1775) a snow-storm set in. Montgomery's force was now reduced by sickness and desertion to seven hundred and fifty men, but the brave soldier was determined to assail the town with this handful. He gave orders for his troops to be ready to move at two o'clock in the morning of the 31st. Colonel Livingston was directed to make a feigned attack on St. Louis Gate and set it on fire, while Major Brown should menace Cape Diamond Bastion. Arnold was directed to lead three hundred and fifty men, with Lamb's artillery and Morgan's riflemen, to assail and fire the works in St. Roque, while Montgomery should lead the remainder below Cape Diamond along the narrow space between the declivity and the St. Lawrence, carry the defences at the foot of the rocks, and endeavor to press forward and join Arnold. Being thus in possession of the whole Lower Town, the combined forces were to destroy Prescott Gate, at the foot of Mountain street, and rush into the city. No doubt full success would have rewarded their efforts had not a Canadian deserter revealed the plot to Carleton, who caused his troops to sleep on their arms and to be ready for action at all points.
In order to recognize each other, the republican soldiers were ordered to fasten a piece of white paper to the front of their caps. On some of them they wrote the words of Henry, "Liberty or Death." The narrow path along which Montgomery led his men at the foot of the acclivity, was blocked with ice and snow, and a strong wind blew blinding sleet and cutting hail in the faces of the patriots. They pressed on, and passing a deserted barrier, they approached a block-house, at the foot of Cape Diamond, pierced for musketry and cannon. All was silent there. Believing the garrison not to be on the alert, Montgomery, burning with impatience to win success, shouted to his immediate followersthe companies of Captains Cheeseman and Mott"Men of New York, you will not fear to follow where your general leads; push on, my brave boys, and Quebec is ours!" and rushed forward to surprise the garrison and take the battery. There were vigilant eyes and ears in the block-house. In the dim light of a winter's dawn, through the thick snow-vail, forty men watched the coming republicans; and when Montgomery shouted to his followers, and was within fifty yards of the works, they opened a deadly fire of grape-shot from their cannon. Montgomery, his aid McPherson, Captain Cheeseman and ten others were instantly killed. The remainder retreated to Wolfe's Cove, where the senior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, rallied them, but did not renew the effort to reach Prescott Gate.
While these sad events were occurring on the St. Lawrence side of the town, Arnold was making his way near the St. Charles, along a narrow way filled with snow-drifts. The town was in an uproar. The bells were ringing; the drums were beating a general alarm; and cannon were beginning to thunder. The storm was raging violently, and Arnold was compelled to march in single file. Lamb had to leave his cannon behind in the drifts, and join the fighters with small arms. At a narrow pass Arnold was wounded in the leg, and was carried to the General Hospital, when the command devolved on Morgan. The troops pressed forward under their new leader, captured a battery, and fought fiercely for three hours to capture another, and succeeded. Then Lamb was severely wounded. Morgan was about to push on to attack Prescott Gate, when the sad news came that troops under Dearborn, stationed near Palace Gate, had been captured by a party who had sallied out of the city, and had then cut off the retreat of Arnold's division in front. At ten o'clock, after he had lost full one hundred men, Morgan was compelled to surrender with more than four hundred followers. A reserve force of Arnold's division had retreated, and were soon joined to those under Lieutenant- Colonel Campbell. So ended the siege of Quebec.
When the contest was over, and it was known in the city that General Montgomery was slain, Governor Carleton, who had been his companion in arms under Wolfe, sent out a detachment to search for his body. It was found, with those of Cheeseman and McPherson, shrouded in snow-drifts. They were carried into the city and buried within the walls. There Montgomery's remains rested forty years, when they were taken to New York and deposited beneath a beautiful mural monument erected by order of Congress on the exterior of the wall of St. Paul's Church that fronts on Broadway.
The Continental Congress, in the meantime, had been working industriously in perfecting a national organization and in supporting the armies in the field, at the same time taking pains not to give mortal offence to the British government until an answer to their petition should come from the king. They had tremendous difficulties before them, and heavy responsibilities to bear. The first reports from Washington and Schuyler, concerning the troops, were very discouraging, and they continued to be so for several monthsthe spirit of democracy everywhere producing insubordination and consequent weakness. The inefficiency of the executive powers of the Congress was keenly felt. These were delegated to a single committee of that body. The sagacious Franklin saw the futility of attempting to carry on the inevitable war with such a feeble instrument, and late in July he submitted the basis of a form of confederation, similar in some respects to the one he proposed in the Convention at Albany twenty-one years before, but generally more like our present national constitution. The plan was a virtual declaration of independence; the government it proposed was to be perpetual unless the British rulers should accede to the claims of the colonies. It was not then acted upon.
The colonial post-office system had been broken up by the public disorders, and on the 26th of July (1775) the Congress made provision for a new one, and appointed Dr. Franklin postmaster-general. From that office he had been dismissed by the British government the year before, as we have observed. Very little else was done during the year toward organizing civil government, for military affairs occupied almost the whole attention of the Congress. They established a general hospital, and appointed the unworthy Dr. Benjamin Church as chief director. Soon after his appointment, he was detected in holding secret correspondence with General Gage. He was immediately expelled from every position of trust which he held, and by order of the Continental Congress was lodged in the Norwich (Connecticut) jail. His health failing, he was allowed to leave the country for the West Indies. The vessel in which he sailed was never heard of afterward. So perished the first traitor to the American cause. Dr. John Morgan took his place at the head of the hospital.
The army before Boston received the special attention of the Congress. The term of enlistment of all the troops would expire with the year, and Washington foresaw the dissolution of his forces then. He asked the Congress to assist him in providing plans for preventing such a fatal disaster. They sent a committee composed of Dr. Franklin, Thomas Lynch, and Benjamin Harrison to the camp at Cambridge for the purpose, and at the headquarters of Washington they opened their conference with the commander-in-chief on the 18th of October. There they were joined by delegates from the several New England colonies, and in the course of a few days they matured a plan that was satisfactory to Washington, and was effectual.
For a long time the army was not only weak in numbers, but feeble in moral strength and material supplies. In August it was discovered that the supply of gunpowder was not sufficient for nine rounds to each man, and other munitions were lacking in the same proportion. For months the American army was compelled to play the part of jailer to the British troops in Boston. It was even difficult to sustain that part; and had the royal forces known the real impotence of their jailers, they might have burst their prison doors with impunity, and scattered the republican army to the winds. In the individuality the self-assertion of each soldierto which allusion has been made, was found moral weakness as regarded the strength of discipline. Each man had left his home to fight for freedom, and was disposed to first assert it in his own behalf. The consequence was general insubordination, which had to be humored until the common sense and experience of the soldier taught him the value and necessity of discipline. Washington managed this matter with great tact, and accomplished, by argument and persuasion, that which he could not have gained by force.
Comparative inaction marked the siege of Boston for several months. There was some cannonading in August when General Sullivan, in imitation of Prescott, cast up a redoubt in a single night upon an eminence within cannon-shot of Bunker's Hill. Three hundred shells were thrown upon this redoubt from Bunker's Hill and British shipping with very little effect. There were occasional skirmishes between republican detachments and royal foragers on the islands in Boston harbor and the shores of the main, but there was no serious engagement. Washington tried to bring on one by various challenges. He did not feel strong enough to attack his foe, but he was ready to meet any sortie or sallying-out the British troops might make. But Gage was too prudent to attempt another excursion into the country. He contented himself with threats; in the sending out of alarming stories about Russian and German troops coming to help the British, and in treating the few whigs who remained in Boston in a barbarous manner. Gage was called to England, in October, to answer for his inefficiency, when General Howe assumed the chief command of the British army in America. Howe strengthened his defences, and increased the number of British cruisers sent out to harass the coast towns of New England, hoping thereby to cause Washington to weaken his besieging army by sending detachments for the relief of the distressed regions. Falmouth (now Portland, Maine,) was burned in October, and other towns were sorely smitten by the marauders. These acts failed to draw a regiment away from Cambridge, but caused a swarm of American privateers to appear upon the waters. Captain Manly, in a vessel sent out by Washington to intercept supply-vessels bound for Boston, maintained a position off the harbor of the New England capital for some time, and made three important captures. One of his prizes contained heavy guns, mortars, and intrenching tools; the very things most needed by the Americans at that time.
Howe imitated Gage in treating the open whigs and suspected persons in Boston with harshness. His excuse was that they were active, though secret, enemies, keeping up a communication with the "rebels" either by personal intercourse, or by signals from church steeples and other high places. He forbade all persons leaving the city without permission, under pain of military execution; and he ordered all of the inhabitants to associate themselves into military companies.
At about this time the Congress was putting forth its energies for the establishment of a Continental Navy. The separate colonies were doing the same thing. A Marine Committee was appointed, and in December (1775) the Congress ordered the construction of thirteen armed vessels. Meanwhile Washington, under instructions, had caused floating batteries to be built in the Charles River, from one of which shells were thrown into Boston late in October, producing much alarm and some injury.
Six months had passed away since the battle of Bunker's Hill, and yet the relative position of the belligerent troops had changed very little. The people murmured; Congress fretted, and Washington was impatient to begin a vigorous siege. But he was almost powerless. At the beginning of December his old army began to dissolve, and not more than five thousand new recruits were enrolled. There seemed to be a fatal flagging of spirits. The cold was increasing; many of the soldiers lacked comfortable clothing; it was difficult to procure wood for fuel, and whole regiments were compelled to eat their provisions raw for the want of it to cook them. Fences and fruit trees around the camp were seized for use, and groups of shivering soldiers were often seen hovering around smouldering embers. The Connecticut troops demanded a bounty, and when it was refused, because Congress had not authorized it, they resolved to leave camp in a body on the 6th of December. Many did go and never came back. These untoward circumstances filled the mind of Washington with the keenest anxiety; when suddenly a salutary change was visible. Within the space of a fortnight new hopes and renewed patriotism seemed to fill the bosoms of the people, and at the close of the year the regiments were nearly all full, and ten thousand Minute- men, chiefly in Massachusetts, were ready to swell the ranks when called upon. The camp was well supplied with provisions; order was generally preserved; the commander-in-chief was more hopeful than at any time since his arrival, and general cheerfulness prevailed. The wives of several of the officers had arrived in camp. Mrs. Washington, with her son John Parke Custis and his young spouse, came on the 11th of December, and the Christmas holidays were spent at Cambridge quite agreeably.
The new Continental army was organized on the first of January, 1776, when it consisted of almost ten thousand men, of whom more than a thousand were absent on furlough which it had been necessary to grant as a condition of re- enlistment. The event was signalled by the raising of a new flag composed of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, emblematic of the union of the thirteen colonies (for Georgia had lately sent delegates to the Congress), and in the dexter corner, the British Unionthe combined crosses of St. George and St. Andrew on a blue ground as indicative of the loyalty of the colonies to the British crown. As it fluttered in the keen winter wind on that clear morning, shouts from a thousand voices greeted it, and in token of their feelings many of the soldiers threw their hats high in air. This incident produced erroneous impressions upon the British officers in Boston. On that day printed copies of the king's speech on the opening of Parliament late in October were received by General Howe, and he sent a package of them to General Washington. The king, after declaring his intention to enforce obedience in the colonies, proposed the appointment of Commissioners to offer the olive branch of peace and pardon to all individual offenders in America, as well as whole communities or provinces that might sue for forgiveness. The hoisting of the Union flagthe flag with the British Unionwas regarded with joy in Boston as a token of the deep impression the "gracious speech" had made upon the Americans, and as a signal of submission! The Union flag had been raised before the speech was received, and the latter was burned with contempt by a party of Massachusetts soldiers.
The British troops in Boston, at this time, numbered about eight thousand, exclusive of marines on the ships-of-war in the harbor. They were well supplied with provisions from Barbadoes and Great Britain, and having been promised ample reinforcements the coming season, they were prepared to sit quietly in Boston and wait for them. They had converted the Old South Meeting-house into a riding- school, and Faneuil Hall into a theatre, and were whiling away the winter quite pleasantly, while Washington was chafing with impatience to "break up the nest." He had received a temporary reinforcement of five thousand militia, and he waited for the ice in the rivers to become strong enough to bear his troops to make an assault upon the town. But the winter was exceedingly mild and no opportunity of that kind offered until February, when a council of his officers deemed the undertaking too hazardous. The temporary militia had retired, and Washington was compelled to call upon the New England colonies to furnish thirteen regiments more.
Just at that time news came from the north of the death of Montgomery and the repulse at Quebec, with an urgent request from General Schuyler for the commander-in-chief to send three thousand soldiers immediately to reinforce the little army in Canada to retrieve its losses, and to maintain the republican cause in that province. The necessity for strength at Boston was as great as at Quebec, yet Washington, ever ready to act for the general good, asked Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut to furnish a regiment each, enlisted for a year, and send them to Canada. To relieve these colonies of an increased burden, he allowed three regiments to be taken from his last requisition, reserving ten for the main army. They were raised and sent to Canada during the winter.
In small arms and ammunition the army at Cambridge was yet sadly deficient. Powder was very scarce, and it was difficult to get a supply. General Putnam was specially charged with the procuring of it. Colonel Moylan wrote from the camp in January: "The bay is openeverything thaws here except Old Put. He is still as hard as ever, crying out for powderpowderye gods, give us powder!" Colonel Knox, who had been sent to the Champlain forts, had, with great enterprise and perseverance, brought, upon forty sledges drawn by oxen, more than fifty cannon, mortars, and howitzers. The strange procession of cattle and sledges, and rough teamsters carrying their guns slung over their knapsacks on their backs, had made their way over frozen lakes and rivers, wild morasses and rugged hills covered with almost impassable snows; and a supply of bomb-shells came from New York. Late in February powder began to arrive. The ten militia regiments came in to strengthen the lines. Heavy pieces of ordnance were placed in position before Boston, and Washington, who had been urged by the Congress to attack the city as soon as possible, before expected reinforcements should arrive, now prepared to do so. General Howe, meanwhile, felt perfectly secure. He wrote to Dartmouth that he had not the least apprehension of an attack from the rebels, and wished they would "attempt so rash a step, and quit their strong intrenchments," to which they might attribute their safety.
From this dream of security Howe was suddenly awakened, and his wish was gratified. His young officers had got up a farce entitled "Boston Blockaded," in which Washington was burlesqued as an uncouth figure with a large wig and wearing a rusty sword, accompanied with a country servant with a rusty gun. They were now called to perform in the serio-comic drama of Boston Bombarded, with appropriate costume and scenery, and Washington and Howe as the principal characters. The American commander determined to occupy and fortify Dorchester Heights which overlooked Boston, and which Howe had strangely neglected to secure. The design was kept a profound secret. To divert the attention of the British, a severe cannonade and bombardment was opened upon the town from Lechmere's Point, Roxbury, Cobble Hill, Ploughed Hill and Lamb's Dam, on Saturday night, the 2d of March. This was repeated on Sunday and Monday nights, the latter the eve of the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. At seven o'clock that evening, General Thomas, with two thousand men provided with intrenching tools, proceeded to take possession of Dorchester Heights. A train of three hundred carts and wagons, laden with fascines and screwed hay, followed. They all moved in perfect silence; and within an hour they were on the Heights, undiscovered by the British sentinels in the city, where every ear was filled with the incessant noise of cannon on the American batteries, and which was kept up all nightfrom seven o'clock till daylight. The working force were divided, one-half of them taking post on an eminence nearest Boston; the other on a hill opposite the castle. The bundles of hay were placed on the Boston side of Dorchester Neck as a covering for the teams and troops passing over it, from a raking fire that might be opened from the town. The weather was moderately cold. The ground was frozen to the depth of eighteen inches. The full moon was shining in splendor; and through that long winter nightseveral hours longer than the summer night when the redoubt on Breed's Hill was erectedworked on under the direction of the veteran Gridley, the same engineer, and the eye of Washington, who perceived with joy that his movement was unsuspected by his enemy. At about three o'clock in the morning, a relief party appeared; and at dawn on the 5th of March, 1776, the astonished Britons saw two redoubts on Dorchester Heights skillfully planned, strong enough to protect their inmates from grape-shot and musketry, armed with cannon that seriously menaced all Boston, and manned with resolute patriots. On the summits of the steep hills were barrels filled with stones to be rolled down upon ascending assailants, and strong abatis formed of the trees of adjacent orchards, protected the foot of the Heights. "Perhaps there never was so much work done in so short a space of time," wrote General Health. Howe was overwhelmed with astonishment, and exclaimed: "I know not what I shall do! The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army would have done in a month." A Loyalist of the time wrote:
"Like Titans of old the Rebels had piled Huge stone-heaps on Dorchester Hill, And with murderous plan like savages wild, So prepar'd our poor soldiers to kill, Who might be compelled to scale the rough Height To drive the bold Yankees away in affright."
PERILS OF THE BRITISH IN BOSTONBRITISH AND TORIES LEAVE THE CITY FOR NOVA SCOTIAHONORS TO WASHINGTONSTIRRING EVENTS IN NEW YORKAFFAIRS IN THE MIDDLE PROVINCES IN 1775EXCITING SCENES IN VIRGINIABATTLE AT GREAT BRIDGE DESTRUCTION OF NORFOLKEVENTS IN NORTH CAROLINA IN 1775BATTLE AT MOORE'S CREEK BRIDGEDOINGS IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA IN 1775CONDITION OF THE AMERICANSMERCENARY TROOPS SOUGHT FOR BY THE BRITISH.
GENERAL HOWE fully comprehended the perils of his situation. American officers whom he had affected to despise had outgeneraled him. He over-estimated the numbers of the republican army, and supposed that the work on Dorchester Heights had been done by twelve thousand men. To the minds of his cultivated officers it seemed like the realization of a tale of the Arabian Nights. But it was the work of less than three thousand New England farmers, meanly clad, poorly fed, and inadequately armed and disciplined. To dislodge them was the prime necessity of the British. "If they retain possession of the Heights," said Admiral Shuldham, "I cannot keep a ship in the harbor." It was therefore determined to assault the Americans, and attempt to drive them from their redoubts. Washington was prepared for such an emergency. He had boats and floating batteries that would carry four thousand men into Boston.
Twenty-four hundred picked soldiersthe flower of the British army in the New England capitalwere placed under the command of Lord Percy, and ordered to drive the Americans from the intrenched hills. Howe freely declared the expedition to be a perilous one. Percy remembered Lexington and Bunker's Hill, and had no wish to go. His men shared in the consternation which the order had produced among the officers. But British honor, and the safety of the British troops in Boston, demanded the effort. When Percy and his soldiers entered boats to pass over, the Americans were delighted; and Washington reminded them that it was the anniversary of the Boston Massacrean act yet unavenged. This thought added strength to their resolution, and they were further nerved to the performance of valorous deeds, because the neighboring heights, on that mild, sunny spring morning, were crowded with anxious spectators who looked for a repetition of the dreadful scenes on Breed's Hill. But Percy did not intend to scale the heights before night; and with his men he passed over to the Castle. That afternoon a violent storm of wind and rain came up from the south, and increased to a furious gale before midnight. Some of the British vessels were driven ashore by the storm, and on the morning of the 6th the rain fell so thickly and furiously, that nothing could be done.
Howe, in dismay, now called a council of war. It was evident that the fleet and army were in great peril. The terrified Loyalists demanded of the general the sure protection which he had promised them. It was known that Washington was preparing to bombard Boston; also that the divisions of Generals Greene and Sullivan were ready at Cambridge to be led by General Putnam, in boats covered by floating batteries in the Charles River (which was now clear of ice), to assail the town at two prominent points, at a signal to be given by Thomas guns. The council, therefore, determined to evacuate Boston as soon as possible. This resolution spread dismay among the Tories, for they had reason to fear the retaliation of the Whigs whom they had sorely oppressed for almost two years. They saw the power on which they had confidently learned becoming like a broken reed. The perils of a dangerous sea-voyage and privations in a strange land seemed less fearful to them than the righteous indignation of their abused countrymen, and they prepared to go with the fleet and army.
Howe now began to make ready for leaving Boston. He wished to do so quietly, if Washington would allow it, and threatened to destroy the town in case his troops should be molested at his departure. His war-vessels and transports, one hundred and fifty in number, were drawn nearer the town to be in readiness to convey his troops peaceably away or to spread destruction, as circumstances might seem to require. His determination was communicated to the American commander by the selectmen of Boston, and a tacit assent to the peaceful arrangement was given. But Washington did not relax his vigilance. He planted a new battery, and was ready at any moment to attack the foe on perceiving the least sign of bad faith.
The evacuation was delayed until Sunday, the 17th of March, Howe lingering, no doubt, with a hope of receiving reinforcements. Washington determined to wait no longer for a peaceable departure of his enemy. On Saturday, the 16th, he seized and fortified Nooks' Hill, by which he held the British completely at his mercy. Howe knew this, and at four o'clock the next morning he began the embarkation of his troops and the Loyalists. During the few preceding days Boston had been the theatre of great confusion and alarm. The war-ships and transports were too few to carry much of the effects of the Tories. What they could not take with them they destroyed. The soldiers broke open and pillaged many stores. Crean Brush, a sycophantic New York Loyalist, was authorized by Howe to seize all the clothing and dry goods belonging to Whig merchants, and place them in the vessels. Furniture was wantonly defaced by the soldiers, and valuable goods were cast into the waters. These outrages produced widespread distress. But the fearful drama was ended on the beautiful Sabbath day in March. Before sunset, the great fleet had left Boston, bearing away to Nova Scotia artillery, ammunition, stores, and Loyaliststhe latter to the number of about eleven hundred. Then the American troops marched in and took possession of Boston, where General Putnam was placed in chief command. The event gave great joy to the American people, and the Continental Congress caused a gold medal to be struck and presented to Washington with the thanks of the United Colonies.
While these events were occurring in Northern New York and New England, important movements in most of the other colonies were made during the year 1775. There were stirring events in the city of New York. The Provincial Congress, early in its session, was strongly imbued with Toryism and timidity. Schemes for conciliation rather than for defence occupied their attention. We have seen how timidly they paid honors to Washington when he passed through the city. The same escort of honor which that Congress ordered for Washington, they ordered for Governor Tryon, who arrived at the same time, in the Asia man-of- war. The Committee of One Hundred, governed by the will of the people, soon taught the latter to be circumspect. Under their sanction the Sons of Liberty acted with extreme boldness. Captain Lamb, assisted by some of the military, and citizens led by "King" Sears, removed the cannon from the royal battery, at the foot of Broadway, to a place of safety for the use of the people. There was an encounter at that time with armed men who came from the Asia. It drew from that vessel several broadsides, which, taking no life, spread dreadful alarm. The story went abroad that the city was to be sacked and burned, and hundreds of men, women and children were seen flying in terror at midnight toward the Harlem River. The indignation of the people was so demonstrative, that Tryon, alarmed for his personal safety, fled on board a British sloop-of-war (October, 1775), from which he attempted, but in vain, to exercise royal authority, in imitation of Governor Dunmore, of Virginia. He was greatly assisted by Rivington, the publisher of a Tory newspaper in New York, in stirring up disaffection among the people. Rivington, in total disregard of truth and common fairness, abused the republicans without stint, especially Captain Sears, a native of Connecticut, but then a retired New York merchant. That patriot being in Connecticut in consultation with ardent Whigs, soon after the flight of Tryon, exasperated by some of Rivington's abuse, went to New York at the head of one hundred horsemen, and at noon-day (November, 1775) placed a guard around the printing-office of the offending Tory, demolished his presses, and putting his type into bags, left the city to the tune of Yankee Doodle in the order in which he entered it. He took with him the metal letters, which were made into bullets. Before this the Provincial Congress, yielding to public opinion, had authorized the raising of four regiments; the construction of military works at Kingsbridge, and the erection of fortifications in the Hudson Highlands. Royal government was virtually at an end in New York at the close of 1775.
The Provincial Congress of New Jersey, disregarding the authority of the royal governor (a son of Dr. Franklin), assumed all the functions of regular government with the sanction of the people. They proceeded to regulate the militia. They authorized the raising of two battalions for the Continental service to be commanded respectively by William Maxwell and William. Alexander (Lord Stirling), and the issuing of bills of credit to defray the public expenses. In Pennsylvania, through the influence of timid or wavering leaders, there was much hesitation during 1775, while Delaware, under the same executive head, took a decided stand in favor of the republican cause. Maryland, laying aside local disputes, did likewise. A Provincial Council of Safety superseded the royal government, and took vigorcus measures for sustaining the war that was begun. Comparative tranquillity prevailed during 1775 in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, while in New York, Virginia, and all New England, the people were excited by political discord or actual hostilities within their borders.
After Governor Dunmore of Virginia fled to the Fowey, the people of that colony assembled at Richmond in a representative convention, and exercised the functions of government by providing for the common defence and for the security of the province from invasion from without, and a servile insurrection within, which the fugitive governor threatened to excite. They regulated the militia, provided for the raising of troops, and for issuing treasury notes. They also authorized the raising of independent companies for the defence of the frontiers.
Early in the autumn Dunmore proceeded to execute his threat concerning the slaves. He unfurled the royal standard over the Fowey at Norfolk, and proclaimed freedom to all slaves who should rally under it. He also proclaimed martial-law over all Virginia. He sent a party ashore to destroy the printing-office of John Holt, an ardent Whig journalist; and at the head of a motley band of Tories and negroes, he committed depredations in southeastern Virginia. With the aid of some British vessels he attacked Hampton, near Old Point Comfort, late in October, when he was repulsed by the militia. Exasperated by his defeat, he openly declared war against the people. The militia of Lower Virginia flew to arms; and under Colonel Woodford, who had been sent there with a body of Minute- men, they prepared to drive the traitor governor from their soil. He became alarmed, and after fortifying Norfolk, he caused some works to be thrown up at the Great Bridge over the Elizabeth River, near the Dismal Swamp, by which he expected the approach of Woodford. There a short but severe battle was fought on the morning of the 9th of December, 1775, between the Virginia militia and a band of Tories and negroes under Captains Leslie and Fordyce. The latter were routed and fled back to Norfolk in confusion, where Dunmore, covered as he was, had remained in safety. In his rage he threatened to hang the boy who had brought him the first news of the disaster.
Woodford pushed on toward Norfolk, drove Dunmore to the small vessels-of-war, and entered the city in triumph, where he was joined by Colonel (afterward General) Robert Howe, with a North Carolina regiment, who took the chief command. That spirited officer annoyed Dunmore exceedingly by desultory cannon- shots, attacks upon British foraging parties, and the discharge of musketry from the houses in Norfolk. At length the British frigate Liverpool came up the river from Hampton Roads, when the governor sent a message to Howe demanding the instant cessation of the firing, and also a supply of food, and threatening to cannonade the town in case of a refusal. A prompt refusal was sent back, when the governor executed his threat, and more. On the morning of the first of January, 1776, his vessels-of-war opened a cannonade upon Norfolk, and he sent a party of marines and sailors to set the city on fire. The conflagration raged for fifty hours, during which time the cannonade was kept up. The distress occasioned by this wicked act at that inclement season was terrible; and the remembrance of it nerved the arms of the Virginia soldiers and the hearts of the Virginia people all through the struggle for independence.
After prowling along the Virginia sea-coasts and up its rivers with his ships and motley horde of followers for several months, Dunmore established a fortified camp on Gwyn's Island in Chesapeake Bay, from which he was dislodged by Virginia militia under General Andrew Lewis. Then he went up the Potomac with the evident intention of seizing Mrs. Washington to hold her as a hostage, and to lay waste the Mount Vernon estate; but heavy storms and the Prince William militia at Occoquan frustrated his designs. He finally sailed to the West Indies, taking with him about a thousand negroes whom he had collected by promises of freedom or by violence during his marauding expeditions, and sold them for slaves to the planters there. Thence he returned to England.
In North Carolina resistance to oppression began early, as we have seen. The Mecklenberg Declaration of Independence in May, 1775, was but a culmination in action of the patriotic sentiments of the province. Governor Martin, who succeeded Tryon, alarmed by the threatening aspect of the popular will, first fortified his "palace" at New Berne, and then took refuge in Fort Johnson, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. From that stronghold he was driven by the patriots in arms in July, to the Pallas sloop-of-war in the Cape Fear. The fort was destroyed, and the governor fulminated menacing proclamations from his floating quarters. His political friends were numerous; but under the wise leadership of Cornelius Harnett, John Ashe and a few others, the Whigs were so well organized that they silenced the Tories, and kept the most obnoxious ones prisoners on their own plantations. The Continental Congress voted to furnish supplies for a thousand men in that province to counteract the influence of Governor Martin and his friends; and a popular convention that assembled at Hills-borough in August, and assumed the control of the colony, authorized the raising of two regiments, with Robert Howe and James Moore to command them. The governor, from the Pallas, sent a proclamation in which he denounced the Convention as treasonable, and the Convention denounced his manifesto as "a scandalous, malicious and scurrilous libel, tending to disunite the good people of the province," and ordered it to be burned by the common hangman.
Many Scotch Highlanders who were involved in the rebellion in 1745 in favor of the "Young Pretender" had settled in North Carolina, and were firm Loyalists. Among them was Flora MacDonald, who, in her beautiful young maidenhood, had saved the life of the "Pretender" after the battle of Colloden. She had settled at Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), with her husband and children, and had great influence among her countrymen. They were all true to King George; and when late in 1775, Governor Martin was acting in concert with Dunmore in southwestern Virginia, and was expecting a British force on the coast of North Carolina, he resolved to strike an effectual blow against the republicans of the province. He commissioned Donald MacDonald, an influential Scotchman at Cross Creek, a brigadier-general, and Flora's husband took a captaincy under him. He was authorized to embody the Highlanders and other Loyalists into a military corps, and raise the royal standard at Cross Creek. It was formally unfurled, at a large gathering of the clan, by Flora herself, who was then a handsome matron between forty and fifty years of age. Very soon fifteen hundred armed Tories gathered around it, while Colonel Howe was absent with his regiment, assisting the Virginians against Dunmore.
When Colonel Moore heard of this gathering of the Tories he marched with his regulars and some Hanover militiaeleven hundred strongto disperse them. At the same time the Minute-men were gathering in large numbers. MacDonald was alarmed and fled toward the Cape Fear, hotly pursued by Moore. At a bridge over Moore's Creek (an affluent of the South River, a principal tributary of the Cape Fear), he was met by armed patriots of the Neuse region, under Colonels Caswell and Lillington, on the evening of the 26th of February, 1776. The following morning a sharp fight occurred there, in which the Loyalists were defeated and dispersed; many of them were killed, and more were made prisoners. Among the latter were the general, and the husband of Flora MacDonald. This victory greatly inspirited the Whigs and discouraged the Tories; and soon afterward the MacDonalds returned to Scotland in a sloop-of-war, encountering a French cruiser on the way. During an engagement between the two vessels, the brave Flora remained on deck, and was wounded in the hand.
In South Carolina armed resistance was active in 1775. The Provincial Congress, over whom Henry Laurens presided, issued $600,000 in paper money and voted to raise two regiments, of which Christopher Gadsden and William Moultrie were chosen colonels. Lieutenant-Governor Bull tried in vain to suppress the republican spirit; and when, in July, Lord William Campbell arrived at Charleston with the commission of governor, and called an assembly, that body declined to do any business under him. Executive powers were intrusted to a Council of Safety, who proceeded to organize civil government on a republican basis, and to put the province in a state of defence. The Tories in the back country, who were very numerous, were disarmed by a force under William Henry Drayton, a nephew of the lieutenant-governor. An armed vessel was sent to seize an English powder-ship lying in the harbor of St. Augustine, and returned to Charleston with fifteen hundred pounds of that much needed article. Early in September, Colonel Moultrie was ordered to take possession of the little fort on Sullivan's Island near the entrance to Charleston harbor. In so doing he found no resistance; for the garrison, expecting the hostile visit, had fled to the British sloops-of-war Tamar and Cherokee, lying near, where they were soon joined by Governor Campbell, who took refuge there from a storm of popular indignation which had been created by a knowledge that he had tried to incite the Indians on the frontier to attack the Carolinians, and had tampered with the Tories in the interior. So ended royal rule in South Carolina, and republicanism reigned supreme.
Early in 1776, Moultrie was ordered to build a fort on Sullivan's Island large enough to accommodate a garrison of a thousand men, because information had been received by the Council of Safety that a British land and naval force were preparing to attack Charleston. The fort was built of palmetto logs and earth, and was named Fort Sullivan. Over it was unfurled the flag of South Carolina, which Moultrie had designed. As there was then no national flag, and the provincial troops who garrisoned the fort were dressed in blue, and wore a silver crescent on the front of their caps, he had a large blue silk flag prepared with a white crescent in the dexter corner. This was the first American flag displayed in South Carolina.
Georgia, tardy in joining the Continental movement, felt the flame of patriotism warming the hearts and minds of her sons early in 1775. In February, the inhabitants of the parish of St. Johns, in that province, chose Lyman Hall to represent them in the second Congress, and he took his seat as such at the middle of May. In July the Provincial Convention that had been formed adopted the American Association, and chose delegates to represent the whole province in the Congress; and then the bright galaxy of the "Old Thirteen" was perfected. The royal governor, Sir James Wright, had tried in vain to suppress the rising tide of republicanism in Georgia. So early as May, 1775, when it was suspected that he was about to imitate General Gage, by seizing the ammunition of the province, several members of the Council of Safety and others broke open the magazine, sent a greater portion of the powder to Beaufort, South Carolina, and hid the remainder in their own garrets. When the governor and the Tories were preparing to celebrate the king's birthday, on the 4th of June, by firing the cannon on the battery in Savannah, some of the leading Whigs spiked the guns there, and hurled them to the bottom of the bluff. Not long afterward, a letter written by the governor to General Gage, asking him to send troops to Georgia to suppress the rising rebellion there, was intercepted at Charleston. The republicans were greatly exasperated; and a day or two afterward they seized a British ship at the mouth of the Savannah River, with thirteen thousand pounds of gunpowder on board. The spirit of resistance waxed stronger and stronger, until, in January, 1776, the Whigs resolved to endure the adverse influence of the governor and the Tories no longer. Joseph Habersham, a member of the popular legislature, with some armed volunteers, seized Governor Wright and made him a prisoner on parole at his own house. A sentinel was placed before it, with orders not to allow any intercourse between the governor and the Loyalists. During a stormy night in February, Sir James escaped through a back window of his house, walked five miles down the borders of the river with a friend, and then entering an open boat, fled in the pelting rain, under the cover of darkness, for shelter to the British vessel-of-war Scarborough, lying in Tybee Sound. Stuart, the Indian agent for the Southern Department, had fled for safety to St. Augustine. He had incurred the bitter resentment of the patriots by trying to execute an atrocious order from Gage, as commander-in-chief of the forces, in these words:
"The people of Carolina in turning rebels to their king have lost all faith; improve a correspondence with Indians to the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity offers make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in their power; for no time is now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing upon our advanced sentries; in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious; supply the Indians with what they want, be the expense what it will, as every exertion must now be made on the side of government." Gage had borne the same false testimony concerning the employment of the savages by the Americans, to the British ministry, as an excuse for his barbarous recommendations to make allies of them with the British army. At the same time the British emissaries were among the savage tribes of the north trying to form alliances with them, and to incite them to war against the Patriots.
So was ended royal rule in Georgia. At the same time royal authority had really ceased in all the colonies. Each had formed a provisional government for itself, and each looked to the Continental Congress as the central director of the civil and military movements of the United Colonies in the great struggle before them. They were waging a defensive war against a powerful nation, whose maritime superiority was universally acknowledged; and the contest would have been hopeless on their part but for the geo-graphical, topographical, and social conditions which were substitutes, in a large degree, for numerous and well- disciplined and well-furnished armies, which they lacked. The American settlements were sparsely sprinkled along a comparatively narrow selvedge of the continent on the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean, for a thousand miles. Their country was broken by rugged hills, considerable rivers and vast morasses, and heavily wooded almost everywhere. The population were occupied chiefly in farming, and presented very few salient points of attack by military or naval forces, such as cities and large villages. The only towns of considerable size were Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, and Charleston. Of these, three of the larger ones did not contain twenty thousand inhabitants each, while neither of the others had half that number. It was next to impossible to subdue a country so extended and so populated, if the people were tolerably united. This fact dawned upon the minds of the headstrong king and his supple ministry, after the events at Lexington and Concord, as a new and ominous light. They had declared before the world their intention to crush the rebellion in America, and to enforce obedience; but they saw with alarm that their military establishment was not strong enough to spare sufficient troops and ships from the necessary police force of the kingdom to do it; so they began to look for foreign mercenaries in America and Europethe savages of our forests and the soldiers of the old world despotismsto aid them in enslaving between two and three million of their best subjects.
The king first applied to the Empress of Russia, whom he was disposed to regard as a half-barbarian sovereign of a barbarous nation, for the loan of her soldiers. Her ministers expected a ready compliance, for could not British gold purchase anything? Gibbon, the historian, wrote to a friend in October, 1775: "When the Russians arrive, will you go and see their camp? We have great hopes of getting a body of these barbarians; the ministers daily and hourly expect to hear that the business is concluded; the worst of it is, the Baltic will soon be frozen up, and it must be late next year before they can get to America." But Catharine sent a flat refusal to enter into such nefarious business, half- barbarian as the British king thought her to be. She said, in a letter written by her minister, "I am just beginning to enjoy peace, and your majesty knows that my empire needs repose. It is also known what must be the condition of an army, though victorious, when it comes out of a long war in a murderous climate. There is an impropriety in employing so considerable a body in another hemisphere, under a power almost unknown to it, and almost deprived of all correspondence with its sovereign. My own confidence in my peace, which has cost me so great efforts to acquire, demands absolutely that I do not deprive myself so soon of so considerable a part of my forces. Affairs on the side of Sweden are but put to sleep, and those of Poland are not yet definitely terminated. Moreover, I should not be able to prevent myself from reflecting on the consequences which would result for our own dignity, for that of the two monarchies and the two nations, from this junction of our forces, simply to calm a rebellion which is not supported by any foreign power."
This letter, which conveyed reproof in sarcastic words, stung and irritated the king. He was also surprised and offended by what he deemed her want of politeness, in not answering his gracious autograph letter with her own hands, and with soft words becoming a woman. He sputtered out his indignation in his rapid way, and said: "She has not had the civility to answer me in her own hands, and with soft words becoming a woman. He sputtered out his indignation in his rapid way, and said: "She has not had the civility to answer me in her own hand; and has thrown out expressions that may be civil to a Russian ear, but certainly not to more civilized ones." The king was compelled to pocket his wrath, which he did with dignity and composure after the first ebullition of feeling, and turning to the needy German princesthe rulers of a people out of whom had come his own dynastyhe was rewarded with success.
FOREIGN TROOPS HIRED BY THE BRITISHCONDITION AND WANTS OF THE REPUBLICAN ARMY IN CANADATEMPER OF THE CANADIANSCOMMISSIONERS OF CONGRESS IN CANADARETREAT OF THE AMERICANS FROM QUEBECAFFAIR AT THE CEDARSDEATH OF GENERAL THOMAS DISASTER AT THREE RIVERSRETREAT OF THE AMERICANS FROM CANADATERRIBLE SUFFERINGSSIR JOHN JOHNSON AND HIS CONDUCT SCHUYLER DEFEATS HIS PLANSTHE ROYAL GREENSLADY JOHNSONWASHINGTON'S ARMYLEE IN NEW YORKCLINTON IN NORTH CAROLINABATTLE IN CHARLESTON HARBOR.
FAILING to procure "barbarians" from Russia, the British monarch asked Holland for the loan of a brigade of troops. Deputies said: "A commercial State should avoid quarrels if possible;" and Van der Capellan, the greatest statesman of the Netherlands at that time, remarked: "A republic should never assist in making war on a free people." Unwilling to offend England, the brigade was offered on the condition that it should not serve out of Europe. This was a polite and adroit denial of the request, and the troops were not accepted.
While these negotiations were going on, bargains were made by the British government with some of the less scrupulous German rulers for the hire of the required number of soldiers. The bargains were perfected at the close of 1775, and early in 1776. The contracting parties were the reigning governors of Hesse- Cassel, Hesse-Hanau, Brunswick, Anhalt, Anspach, and Waldeck, and the King of Great Britain. They were governed in the negotiations by the common law of trade expressed by supply and demand. England needed troops; the German rulers needed money. The former had the money and the latter the troops, which, in time of peace, were a heavy burden upon the resources of the princes. The bargain was a natural one on business principles; the morality of the transaction was quite another affair.
About seventeen thousand German troops, most of them well-disciplined, were hired. Their masters were to receive for each soldier a bounty of twenty-two dollars and a half, besides an annual subsidy, the whole amounting to a large sum. The British government also agreed to make restitution for all soldiers who might perish from contagious diseases; while being transported in ships; in engagements, and during sieges; and they were all to take an oath of allegiance to the British monarch, without its interfering with their oaths of allegiance to their respective rulers. They were, according to the agreement, to constitute a corps made up of four battalions of grenadiers, each four companies; fifteen battalions of infantry of five companies each, and two companies of Yagers (riflemen), all to be well equipped with the implements of war. The chief commanders of these troops, best known to Americans, were General Baron de Riedesel, General Baron Knyphausen, and General De Heister. The name of Hessians was given to them all, and because they were mercenaries (men fighting only for pay), they were particularly detested by the Americans. The employment of them was a disgrace to the British government, and the method used in forcing many of them was a crime against humanity. Laborers were seized in the fields, mechanics in the workshops and worshippers in the churches, and hurried to the barracks without being allowed a parting embrace with their families. The king of Great Britain, to avoid complicity in the horrid work, refused to give commissions to German recruiting officers (who, it was known to the British ministry, intended to impress men), saying: "It, in plain English, amounts to making me a kidnapper, which I cannot think a very honorable occupation." All Europe cried "Shame!" and Frederick the Great of Prussia took every occasion to express his contempt for "the scandalous man-traffic" of his neighbors. Whenever any of these troops were compelled to pass through any part of his dominions, he claimed the usual toll for so many head of cattle, since, as he said, they had been sold as such. Of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, he remarked in a letter to Voltaire: "The sordid passion for gain is the only motive of his vile proceeding."
Without these troops the war would have been short; with them the British were not successful. A part of them under Riedesel went to Canada in the spring of 1776, to assist in driving the republicans out of that province. Another part under Knyphausen and De Heister joined the British army under General Howe before New York, in the summer, and had their first encounter with the patriots on Long Island.
We left the little army of republicans in Canada, bereaved of their brave leader, shattered in strength and shivering with cold outside the walls of Quebec. The time of the enlistment of many of the soldiers expired with the year, and they went home; and the besieging army was reduced to about four hundred Americans, and as many uncertain Canadian volunteers. Arnold, on whom the command devolved, though disabled by his wound, retired with them to Sillery, above Quebec, where he formed a camp and passed a rigorous winter. He was full of pluck. From that suffering camp he wrote: "I have no thought of leaving this proud town until I enter it in triumph." But he needed ten thousand well-provided troops to do that and effect the conquest of Canada. The army needed not only men, but hard money and everything necessary for a siege and conquest. General Wooster, on whom the chief command of the army in Canada devolved, on the death of Montgomery, wrote to Schuyler from Montreal, that with hard money supplies might be procured in that province. "Money we must have," he wrote, "or give up everything. If we are not immediately supplied with hard cash we must starve, quit the country, or lay it under contribution." He wrote in every direction for aid, but it did not appear. Schuyler, when he heard of the disaster, was anxious to fly to the relief of the imperiled army. Like all true patriots he was grieved at the loss of Montgomery. He could not take his place, for he was then tortured with gout and confined to his house. He was also watching the suspicious movements of Sir John Johnson and the Tories and Indians of the Mohawk region. He sent urgent appeals to the Continental Congress and that of New York for men, money, and munitions. How could they be furnished? With difficulty the army of Washington on the sea-coast, in the midst of a populous region, could be supplied with these; how then could they be furnished for service on the St. Lawrence, more than three hundred miles from the sea, with a desolate wilderness between, and the broad forests and few open fields and lakes covered with snow and ice? It was impossible. The Canadians were restrained from enlisting by the priests, whom Wooster had offended by his injudicious exhibition of his hatred of "popery." His prejudices were so strong, that he could hardly be civil to the Roman Catholics by whom he was surrounded, and whose friendship it was important to cultivate. The petty tyranny of Arnold offended and disgusted the nobility, who were taught by circumstances to regard his troops as intruders and a scourge, rather than deliverers, as they were considered when Montgomery was in command. The priests and nobles led all the rest, and the people held back. Had Montgomery lived, no doubt Canada would have been standing side by side with the other British-American colonies in the strife for freedom.
That Wooster, on account of his age and temperament, was unfit to command the army in Canada, all contemporary writers agree. He took personal charge of the troops at Quebec, on the first of April. They lay scattered around the town, in groups, some distance from each other, about two thousand in number, only one- half of whom were fit for duty, for the small-pox and other diseases had filled the hospitals with sick men. To dislodge the British garrison required several thousand men and a good train of artillery. These were wanting. Reinforcements from the colonies went forward tardily. The Canadians had changed from lukewarm friends into active enemies, and were gathering around the standard of Carleton. It seemed as if the little army of republicans must be captured or destroyed very speedily, when Washington, who was then at New York with a little more than eight thousand troops, sent three thousand of his best men, under General Sullivan, for service in Canada. Thomas of Massachusetts had already been commissioned a major-general and sent to take command of the troops near Quebec; for the health of Schuyler, and his important duties in relation to the Tories and Indians in the Mohawk region, would not permit him to go to the head of the troops in Canada.
Meanwhile Congress had appointed Dr. Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll a board of commissioners invested with full authority to proceed to Canada and direct military affairs there; to promise a guaranty of the estates to the clergy; to establish a free press; to offer the Canadians free trade with all nations; to invite them to form a free and independent government for themselves, and to join the confederated colonies. The commissioners arrived at Montreal, where Arnold was in command, at the close of April. They were too late. A general impression prevailed there that the American army would soon be driven out of the province, for reinforcements for Carleton were on their way. Without an army, without hard money, and without credit, the commissioners could not ask the Canadians to join them. They perceived that the main objects of their mission could not be obtained, and it was determined to withdraw the troops to St. Johns, and there to fortify and reinforce them, so that they might be an impassable barrier to an army that might attempt to penetrate the country below.
General Thomas arrived at Quebec on the first of May. He found there nineteen hundred troops, one-half of whom were sick with the small-pox and other diseases. They had, in the magazine, only one hundred and fifty pounds of powder. Some of the troops were clamorous for a discharge, for their term of enlistment had expired. This inauspicious state of affairs caused Thomas to prepare for a retreat toward Montreal. While he was making ready for the movement, British ships arrived at Quebec with troops, when a thousand men of the garrison, with six cannon, sallied out and attacked the Americans, who fled in their weakness far up the St. Lawrence, to the mouth of the Sorel. A fortnight after this retreat, Captain Foster, with some British regulars and Canadians, and about five hundred Indians under Brant, the celebrated Mohawk chief, came down the river from Oswegatchie (now Ogdensburg) and captured a small garrison at the Cedars Rapids, not far above Montreal. They were a part of Colonel Bedel's New Hampshire regiment. The colonel was sick at Lachine, and his major (Butterfield), terrified by a threat made by Forster, surrendered without fighting. Arnold went out to attack the captors, but to prevent the prisoners being murdered by the Indians, he consented to a compromise for an exchange.
While the enemy was thus pressing upon Montreal from up the river, word came from below that General Thomas was sick with the small-pox. He died on the 2d of June, when the command devolved on General Sullivan, who felt sure that in the course of a few days he would "reduce the army to order," and "put a new face on affairs" there. To Washington he wrote: "I am determined to hold the most important posts as long as one stone is left upon another." But Sullivan did not know that British and German troops, under Generals Burgoyne and Riedesel, were then landing at Quebec, and so putting the republican army in Canada in a position of great, peril. By the arrival of these reinforcements, Governor Carleton found himself in command of about thirteen thousand soldiers, most of them thoroughly equipped for war. Some of the vessels, with troops, were sent directly up the river, and assisted in repelling an attack upon a British post at Three Rivers by a force under General Thompson, composed of Pennsylvania troops commanded respectively by Colonels St. Clair, Wayne, and Irvine. Thompson was badly beaten, and he and Irvine, with one hundred and fifty private soldiers, were made prisoners.
This disaster was discouraging to Sullivan. It was immediately followed by the startling news of an overwhelming military force coming up the river by land and water. Sullivan was compelled to retreat up the Sorel, carrying most of his boats and his cannon around the rapids at Chambly. He pressed on to St. Johns. Arnold, who seeing approaching danger had abandoned Montreal without waiting for orders, had joined him near Chambly, and on the 17th of June the remainder of the invading army were all at that post which Montgomery had captured when he entered Canada about seven months before. The fugitive troops were in a most pitiable condition. Nearly one-half of them were sick, and all of them were half-clad, and scantily fed with salt meat and hard bread. "At the sight of so much privation and distress," wrote Dr. Stringer, the medical director, "I wept till I had no more power to weep." The force was too weak to make a successful stand at St. Johns against the great army of Burgoyne that were slowly pursuing, and they continued their flight to Crown Point, in open boats without awnings (for they could get none), exposing the sick to the fiery sun and the drenching rain.
Terrible were the scenes at Crown Point after the fragments of the army were gathered there. More than thirty victims of disease were buried daily, for awhile. Every spot and every thing seemed to be infected with pestilence. For a short time the troops were poorly housed, half-naked, and inadequately fed; their daily rations being raw salt pork, hard bread, and unbaked flour. Five thousand men were there. During two months the Northern Army had lost by desertion and sickness full five thousand soldiers. So ended in disaster the remarkable invasionone of the boldest ever undertaken, all things considered.
Meanwhile the Congress had, by resolutions, given ample support to the army in Canada. They had told General Thomas to "display his military qualities and win laurels." They resolved that, "General Schuyler be desired to take care that the army in Canada be regularly and effectually supplied with necessaries;" that hard money could not be sent into Canada, but provisions should be forwarded from the neighboring colonies, and that "six thousand militia be employed to reinforce the army in Canada." As these resolutions were not followed by corresponding performances, and as the army could not fight and subsist upon resolutions, there was disastrous failurea failure caused chiefly by neglect.
The exertions of General Schuyler to reinforce and supply the army in Canada were untiring, and the amount of labor to accomplish that end, which he performed while tortured with bodily suffering, was prodigious. At the same time he was defeating, by vigilance, wisdom and energy, the efforts of Sir John Johnson to bring upon the rear of the Northern Army the Tories west of Albany, and the Six Nations of Indians. Early in January (1776) he was told that Sir John had fortified his manor-house at Johnstown, and that his retainers, mostly Scotch Highlanders, seven hundred in number, were in arms. The general called for volunteers to enable him to disarm this formidable conspiracy. The response was marvellous. They came in such numbers, that, when he was within a few miles of Johnson Hall, he was at the head of almost three thousand men, including nine hundred of the Tryon County militia. He had met Sir John on the way, and made friends of the Mohawks; and he compelled the baronet and his followers to surrender all the arms and military stores which they had collected. He also took Johnson's parole of honor that he would not take up arms against the republicans, nor tamper with the Indians. Sir John deceived Schuyler with false promises. He violated his parole; and when Schuyler sent an armed force to arrest him in May, he fled, with his followers, through the great wilderness between Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains to the St. Lawrence, and joined the British army in Canada. He was commissioned a colonel in that army, and raised two battalionsa total of a thousand men, composed of his retainers and other Tories. These were the formidable corps known in the border warfare of that period as The Royal Greens, because of their green uniform. Lady Johnson, who was a daughter of John Watts, one of the king's counsellors of the province, was sent to Albany on horseback in that pleasant spring-time, attended by a military escort, where she was kept in durance several months, as a hostage for the restraint of her husband.
The army under Washington, which had driven the British out of Boston, soon afterward appeared in other fields of duty, a part of them, as we have seen, in Canada, but more at New York and in its vicinity. At the beginning of the year Washington ascertained that Sir Henry Clinton was about to sail from Boston, with troops, on a secret expedition. It was suspected that New York was his destination, where Governor Tryon was ready to head a formal demonstration in favor of the crown. The Tories there were active and numerous. Disaffection prevailed extensively; and it was fostered by Tryon, whose "palace" was the armed-ship Duchess of Gordon, lying in the harbor. Fearing that province might be lost to the republicans, Washington ordered General Charles Lee, then recruiting in Connecticut, to embody the volunteers and march to New York. Governor Trumbull lent his official aid to Lee, and within a fortnight after the latter received his orders, he was in full march for the Harlem River with twelve hundred men, and the bold Son of Liberty, Isaac Sears, as his adjutant- general. His approach caused many Tories to flee, with their families, to Long Island and New Jersey; and the Committee of Safety, timorous and undecided, protested against his entering the city, because the commander of the Asia had threatened to cannonade and burn the town if "rebel" troops should be allowed to enter it. Lee did not heed the threats nor the protests. He encamped his troops in the Fields (now the City Hall Park), made his headquarters at the house of Captain Kennedy, No. 1 Broadway (yet standing), and issued a proclamation, saying: "I come to prevent the occupation of Long Island or the city, by the enemies of Liberty. If the ships-of-war are quiet, I shall be quiet; if they make my presence a pretext for firing on the town, the first house set in flames by their guns shall be the funeral pile of some of their best friends." Before these brave words the Tories cowered. The proclamation sent a thrill of patriotism among the weak-kneed in the Provincial Congress, and that body adopted measures for fortifying the city and the approaches to it, and garrisoning it with two thousand men.
Sir Henry Clinton's vessels appeared off Sandy Hook on the day when Lee arrived in New York. He was bound for the coast of North Carolina to execute a plan of the ministry for the subjugation of that province, suggested by Governor Martin the previous autumn. It was believed by the king and his advisers that the people of the southern provinces would join the royal troops when they should appear; but Dartmouth, evidently having some doubts, instructed Clinton, in case the people were not loyal, to distress them by burning any of their towns that might refuse to submit.
A fleet commanded by Sir Peter Parker, and designed to act under Clinton's orders, did not leave Ireland until February. Then the vessels were delayed by storms. Clinton, meanwhile, had been awaiting their arrival with impatience. It was May before he entered the Cape Fear River with some of them. From the Pallas he issued a proclamation (May 5, 1776) which declared North Carolina to be in a state of rebellion, ordered all Congresses to be dissolved, and offered pardon to all penitents excepting the arch-rebels Cornelius Harnett and Robert Howe. The latter was then a brigadier-general in the Continental army. The people laughed at the manifesto, and the irritated baronet vented his wrath upon the property of Whigs. Earl Cornwallis had come with troops in the transports convoyed by Parker's fleet, and he was sent, with nine hundred men, to ravage the plantation of General Howe at Brunswick. Governor Martin sent a party to burn the house of William Hooper, who was then a delegate in the Continental Congress; and some mills in the neighborhood were destroyed. Satisfied that the North Carolinians could not be coaxed nor frightened into submission, the British forces proceeded to attempt the reduction of Charleston, South Carolina, as a prelude to the fall of Savannah. General Lee, who had been ordered by Washington to watch the movements of Clinton, had made his way southward by land, and arrived at Charleston on the 4th of June.
Lee's arrival was at an auspicious moment. Four days before, John Rutledge, President of the Provincial Congress of South Carolina, had been informed that a British fleet of armed vessels and transports filled with troops lay anchored off Dewee's Island, twenty miles north of Charleston bar. Rutledge had been industriously preparing for a defence of Charleston. Almost one hundred cannon were mounted at various points around Charleston harbor, and a strong battery had been erected at Georgetown. Brigadier-General Armstrong of Pennsylvania was in command of troops there; yet the story of the formidable British force being near, spread a panic among the inhabitants. The arrival of Lee, whose experience and skill were known, inspired the patriots with confidence, and the alarm subsided. The people worked cheerfully to perfect the defences; and the garrison of Fort Sullivan labored day and night to complete that work and arm it. When, on the day of the arrival of General Lee, the British forces appeared off Charleston bar, about thirty pieces of heavy cannon were mounted on it.
The militia from the surrounding country now flocked into Charleston at the call of President Rutledge. These, with Carolina regulars and the troops from the North brought by Armstrong and Lee, made an available force of almost six thousand men. Colonel Gadsden commanded the garrison in Fort Johnson, on James Island, three miles from the city. Colonel Moultrie was at the head of the troops in Fort Sullivan, on Sullivan's Island, and Colonel Thompson commanded riflemen from Orangeburg, stationed on the eastern end of that island. A considerable force were at Haddrell's Point on the northerly side of the harbor, under the immediate command of Lee, assisted by General Robert Howe. Rutledge proclaimed martial-law in the city. Some valuable store-houses on the edge of the water were pulled down, and a line of defences were erected there. The streets near the water were barricaded; lead window-sashes were melted into bullets, and seven hundred negro slaves belonging to Loyalists, with tools, were pressed into the service.
After long delay Clinton completed his arrangements for a combined attack of ships and troops upon Fort Sullivan, which was chosen to receive the first blow. It was garrisoned by about four hundred men, mostly South Carolina regulars, with a few volunteer militia; and its only aid was a sloop, with powder, anchored off Haddrell's Point. Lee had pronounced the fort absolutely untenable, and called it "a slaughter pen;" and he advised Rutledge to withdraw the garrison and abandon Sullivan's Island without striking a blow. Rutledge refused. Lee, with sharp words and angry tone, persisted in his views, and if he dared he would have withdrawn the troops in spite of the wiser President. He annoyed Moultrie by his orders looking to a flight from the fort, directing him to build bridges for retreat to the main; but Moultrie did not believe that he could be driven from his little fortress of soft palmetto logs for he knew, better than Lee, their resisting power. Lee tried to weaken his force by ordering detachments to be sent from the fort; and up to the last moment he wished to have Moultrie removed from the command. Had he been acting in favor of the enemy he could not have given better advice; and in view of his subsequent treason, which will be noticed hereafter, the historian cannot be sure that he was not, at that time, acting the part of a traitor. The vehemence of his language impressed others. The brave Captain Lempriere, while viewing the British vessels that had come over the bar, said to Moultrie: "Well, Colonel, what do you think of it now?" "We shall beat them," Moultrie said. "The men-of- war," answered the captain, "will knock your fort down in half an hour." "Then we will lie behind the ruins and prevent their men from landing," replied the imperturbable colonel.
Clinton had landed soldiers on Long Island, a strip of sandy land separated from Sullivan's Island by a shallow creek. There he erected batteries to confront those of Thompson on Sullivan's Island, and awaited the pleasure of Admiral Parker. On the morning of the 28th of June, Sir Peter, from his flag-ship the Bristol, gave a signal for attack. The Thunder-bomb opened a bombardment on the fort; and between ten and eleven o'clock the flag-ship and Experiment, each carrying fifty guns, and the Active and Solebay, of twenty-eight guns each, moved forward and anchored within cannon-shot distance of the fort, with springs on their cables. Lord Campbell, the fugitive royal governor, was on board the Bristol, expecting to be reinstated in power the next day, for no officer of the fleet doubted the entire success of the British forces in demolishing the fort and seizing Charleston. It was supposed that two broadsides would end the fort and secure the garrison; but when these were delivered, Moultrie, who had not a tenth as many guns as were brought to bear upon him, returned the fire with spirit and effect. The broadsides of the British ships only jarred the fort. The spongy palmetto logs received the round-shot and were not fractured. The missiles were imbedded in the soft wood, and so gave increased strength to the fort; while Moultrie's guns, fired slowly and with precision, sent balls that shivered hulls and spars, and spread death over the decks. The roar of three hundred guns shook the city, where a multitude of anxious spectators beheld the terrible scene from windows, balconies, roofs, and steeples, and along the edges of the water. At length, perceiving the unfinished state of the fort on its western side, Parker ordered the Sphynx, Active, and Siren, each carrying twenty-eight guns, to take a position in the channel on that side, so as to enfilade the garrisonto fire on their flank. Had they done so, destruction or surrender would have been the fate of Moultrie and his men. But all three struck on a shoal called The Middle Ground, and could not be got off until they were severely battered by balls from the fort. One of them could not be moved. The people at Charleston, seeing this, sent up a shout of joy; but they were soon saddened. A few moments afterward the flag that waved over the fort suddenly disappeared. Had Moultrie surrendered? No! A cannon-shot from a British vessel had cut the flag-staff, and the blue banner of South Carolina, with its silver crescent, had fallen outside of the fort. Seeing this, Sergeant Jasper exclaimed: "Colonel, we mustn't fight without a flag!" and going quickly through an embrasure he picked up the precious piece of silk while cannon-balls were flying thickly around him re-entered the fort, fastened the banner to a sponge- handle, climbed to the parapet, fixed its new staff firmly there, and flung it to the breeze.
At this time, Clinton with his two thousand land troops and six hundred seamen, attempted to co-operate with the fleet by landing on Sullivan's Island and attacking the fort on its unfinished side. He opened his batteries on Long Island, upon Thompson, who had only two guns, but his Carolina riflemen were expert and dangerous sharp-shooters. Clinton embarked some of his troops in boats covered by floating batteries in the creek; but the soldiers could not land in the face of the terrible volleys from Thompson's men, and were speedily disembarked. The baronet accomplished almost nothing during the furious conflict of ten hours on that bright and hot June day. Thompson held him at bay until the battle ceased at evening.
Moultrie's powder was scarce at the beginning, and he used it sparingly. At length it was nearly exhausted, and he sent to Lee for more, notwithstanding that officer had written to him: "If you should, unfortunately, expend your ammunition without beating off the enemy or driving them aground, spike your guns and retreat." A little later, braver words were uttered and better deeds were done by President Rutledge. He wrote: "I send you five hundred pounds of powder. You know our collection is not very great. Honor and victory to you, and our worthy countrymen with you! Do not make too free use with your cannon. Be cool and do mischief." The powder was forwarded by Lee. Moultrie resumed his fire, and did such "mischief" that the British were glad to end the fight. The firing from their vessels slackened at sunset, and at half-past nine ceased altogether.
The Bristol and Experiment were nearly wrecks, so fatally accurate had been the firing from the fort. Had the sea been at all rough, the flag-ship must have gone to the bottom. The fleet withdrew out of reach of Moultrie's guns; and the next morning the crew of the Actaon, which was hopelessly aground, set her on fire, and fled in boats, leaving her colors flying. These and some of her munitions of war the Americans secured half an hour before she blew up.
In that battleone of the most severe of the warthe British lost in killed and wounded two hundred and twenty-five men. Of the four hundred and thirty-five in the beleaguered fort, only ten were killed and twenty-two wounded, though thousands of shot and many shells were hurled against them. Charleston was saved, and South Carolina was defended from invasion by the valor of her own sons; and in honor of the brave colonel who commanded the garrison, the palmetto log-fortress was named Fort Moultrie. After remaining a few days at Long Island to repair damages, the British fleet, with Clinton's army, sailed for New York, where they joined the forces under General and Admiral Howe.
The loss on board the British ships, in this action, was frightful. Every man stationed on the quarter-decks of the vessels at the beginning of the battle was either killed or wounded. On board the flag-ship forty men were killed, and seventy-one were wounded. Governor Lord William Campbell, who was serving as a volunteer, was severely wounded at the beginning of the action. The commodore suffered a slight contusion. The Bristol had not less than seventy balls put through her. When the spring of her cable was cut, she swung round with her stern toward the fort, and instantly every gun that could be brought to bear upon her hurled deadly shot into the exposed vessel, for Moultrie, at the beginning, had said, "Mind the commodore and the fifty-gun ship."
Although the Thunder-bomb cast more than fifty shells into the fort, not one of them did any serious damage, for in the centre of the works there was a large moat, filled with water, which received nearly all of the shells, and extinguished the fuses before the fire reached the powder. Others were buried in the sand and did no harm. After the battle, the Americans picked up in and around the fort, twelve hundred shot of different calibre that were fired at them, and a great number of thirteen-inch shells.
BRITISH VESSELS DRIVEN FROM BOSTON HARBORBRITISH TROOPS SAIL FOR NEW YORK WASHINGTON IN NEW YORKACTION OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESSSCHUYLER AND THE INDIANSA HORRIBLE PLOT DEFEATEDMOVEMENTS IN FAVOR OF INDEPENDENCEPAINE AND HIS "COMMON SENSE"INDEPENDENCE IN CONGRESS AND ELSEWHERESILAS DEANE SENT TO FRANCEPOSITIVE ACTION OF THE COLONIES IN FAVOR OF INDEPENDENCETHE FORMATION OF STATE GOVERNMENTS RECOMMENDEDDECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
IMMEDIATELY after the evacuation of Boston, Washington hastened to New York with a greater part of his army, for he suspected Howe of an intention to attack that city. British war vessels lingered in Boston harbor even so late as June, and there was a prevailing fear in New England that Howe intended to return to their shattered capital. It was therefore determined by the Massachusetts Assembly to drive the ships to the sea. This was done at the middle of June, by General Lincoln, at the head of militia and a few regulars, who so annoyed the ships with cannon planted on the shores, that they departed never to return. Howe went to Halifax to prepare for attacking the Americans at what he supposed to be a more vulnerable point.
In June, 1776, General Howe sailed with his recruited army from Halifax for New York, and arrived at Sandy Hook at near the close of that month. There he was soon afterward joined by a large fleet commanded by his brother Richard, Earl Howe. The latter had been made joint commissioner with the general, and authorized by the king to offer pardon to all rebels, in his name, and to negotiate for peace or to prosecute the war as circumstances might demand. The admiral was the pleasant gentleman whom Dr. Franklin met at the chess-playing with Mrs. Howe, in London, and had some diplomatic correspondence with him. He addressed a courteous letter to Franklin, on his arrival, with copies of a proclamation of pardon, which the Congress permitted the shrewd American diplomat to answer. It was done in terms that made Howe shrink from the task of replying to it.
When Washington arrived in New York, he pushed forward the defences of the city, and in the Hudson Highlands, for already intimations had reached the Americans that a grand scheme of the ministers for dividing the colonies, was to effect a junction between troops going up the Hudson Valley, and others coming down from the St. Lawrence, the latter being already at the foot of Lake Champlain. Fort Washington was built on the highest part of Manhattan Island (now Washington Heights); and strong batteries were constructed near it as well as in the more immediate vicinity of the little town whose northern verge was on The Fields, now City Hall Park.
The commander-in-chief went to Philadelphia to confer with the Continental Congress on the topic of the general defence of the colonies, for the theatre of war was evidently about to expand along the entire sea-board. It was then known that the mercenaries of the British monarch were on their way to America; and it was believed that the city of New York was destined to receive the first stunning blow from the combined British and German armies. Danger appeared imminent, and Congress authorized the enlistment of thirteen thousand troops from New England, New York, and New Jersey; also the establishment of a Flying Camp under General Hugh Mercer, composed of men from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. These were to rendezvous at Amboy, in New Jersey, opposite Staten Island. The Congress also authorized the forming of a body of Indians, two thousand in number, for service in Canada, to oppose the savages employed by Carleton. General Schuyler, who was wiser concerning the Indians than the senators at Philadelphia, asked the significant question: "Where are the Indians to be found?" He knew it would be impossible to gather so large a number for such a purpose. "I think," he said, "that if the Indians can be kept from joining the enemy, it will be as much as we have a right to expect." Knowing their cruel disposition, he was averse to employing them in war; he knew, also, that their maxim in alliances with the white people was to adhere to the strongest, most liberal in giving rewards, and with whom there was the least danger. Schuyler labored successfully in effecting that neutrality; he held the Six Nations in restraint from 1775 until 1783.
Washington returned to New York early in June, and made his summer headquarters at Richmond Hill (now the intersection of Charlton and Varick streets), afterward the country seat of Aaron Burr. Soon after his return a foul conspiracy, hatched by the unscrupulous Governor Tryon on board the Duchess of Gordon, was discovered. The brothers Howe were hourly expected to enter the harbor of New York with a powerful fleet and army, and a plan was formed for causing the uprising of the Tories in New York and in the lower valley of the Hudson at that moment; to cut off all communication with the mainland; to fire the magazine; to murder Washington, his staff and other leading officers of the American army in the city; or to seize them and send them to England for trial on a charge of treason; and, making prisoners of the great body of the troops, carry out the separating design of the ministry just mentioned. The mayor of New York (Matthews) was Tryon's chief vehicle of communication with the Tories. A large number of persons were concerned in the plot. Their influence was felt even above the Hudson Highlands, by the offer of large rewards for those who should join the king's troops when they should land. The up-river recruits were to spike the great guns on the fortifications in the Highlands, and then hasten to join the Loyalists below. Washington's Life Guards were tampered with, and two of them were seduced from their fidelity. To one of them, an Irishman named Hickey, was entrusted the task of destroying Washington. He resolved to poison his commander, and tried to make the general's housekeeper, a faithful maiden, an accomplice in the deed. She pretended to favor his plans. It was arranged for her to put poison, that he should prepare, into green peas, a dish of which Washington was very fond. At the appointed time he saw the poison mixed with the peas and watched the girl, at an open door, as she carried the fatal mess to the general's table and placed it before him. The maiden had revealed the plot to Washington, and he made an excuse for sending the peas away. He ordered the arrest of Hickey, who was tried by a court-martial, and was condemned. He was hanged on a tree in Colonel Rutger's field a little east of the Bowery, on the 28th of June, 1776, in the presence of twenty thousand people. Already Mayor Matthews and more than twenty others had been arrested by order of the Provincial Congress, but only Hickey suffered death. It was the first military execution in the Continental Army; and it is a notable fact that the delinquent was from a body of men who were specially chosen for their trustworthiness. The horrible plot was traced directly to Governor Tryon, as its author. Ten days after the execution of the Life-Guardsman, General Howe landed nine thousand troops on Staten Island, and there awaited the arrival of his brother Lord Howe with a large fleet.
At the moment when British armies and navies were hovering on the American coasts charged with the unrighteous business of suppressing by force of arms the uprising of a free people in defence of their liberties, that people, by their representatives in Congress assembled, were laying broadly the foundations of an independent nation. In all their debates, petitions and remonstrances, the colonists had steadily disclaimed a desire for political independence of Great Britain. As a body, they were sincere; and it was only when dependence was made a synonym for slavery, that any great number of Americans sincerely entertained a wish for independence. That desire had been cherished in the hearts of a few like Samuel Adams and Christopher Gadsden, from the time when Writs of Assistance and the Stamp Act foreshadowed the oppressive measures toward the Americans which the new king would be willing to sanction; but not until late in 1775, when the respectful petition of the Congress had been treated by the sovereign and the legislature with scorn, and it was known that there were negotiations on foot for the hire of foreign troops to enslave the Americans, did any considerable number of thinking men, in the colonies, openly express opinions favorable to independence. When Great Britain sent 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 forced 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."
At the beginning of 1776, when the king had proclaimed the colonists to be rebels, rejected their petitions with disdain, and was preparing to send a crushing force hither, men in every station in life began to speak out boldly in favor of independence. Washington did not hesitate; and General Greene wrote to a delegate in Congress from his colony: "The king breathes revenge, and threatens us with destruction; America must raise an empire of permanent duration, supported upon the grand pillars of truth, freedom, and religion." And later Washington declared that when he took command of the army he "abhorred the idea of independence;" but "I am now fully convinced," he wrote, "that nothing else will save us." The flame of desire for absolute independence glowed in almost every bosom. It was fanned by the brave words of Thomas Paine, the son of an English Friend who had lately come to America as a literary adventurer and missionary of freedom. He was full of aspirations for liberty, and the opportunity to do good for mankind. At the beginning of 1776, he put forth a powerful plea for independence, suggested by Dr. Rush of Philadelphia. In terse, sharp, incisive and vigorous sentences, glowing with zeal and sincerity, he embodied the sentiments of reflecting men and women throughout the colonies in telling words of common sense, like these:
"The nearer any government approaches to a republic, the less business there is for a king; in England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places. Volumes have been written on the struggle between England and America. Arms must decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge. The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continentof at least one-eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in it even to the end of time. 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. Independence is now the only bond that will keep us together. We shall then see one object, and our ears will be legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well as cruel, enemy. We 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. Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual; our prayers have been rejected with disdain; reconciliation is now a fallacious dream. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature; can you hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? Ye that tell us of harmony, can ye restore to us the time that is past? The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, `Tis time to part.' The last chord is now broken; the people of England are presenting addresses against us. A government of our own is our natural right. Ye that love mankind, that dare oppose not only 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: O! receive the fugitive, and prepare an asylum for mankind."
So pleaded this earnest man, and he called his appeal by the significant name of Common Sense. The effect of the pamphlet was marvellous. It carried dismay into the camp of the enemy, and illustrated the truth of the assertion, that "the Pen is mightier than the Sword." Its trumpet tones wakened the continent, and made every patriot's heart thrill with joy. It was read with avidity everywhere; and the public appetite for its solid food was not appeased until a hundred thousand copies had fallen from the press. Satisfied of its worth and salutary influence, the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted the author two thousand five hundred dollars. Washington wrote to Joseph Reed from Cambridge: "A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswering reasoning contained in the pamphlet Common Sense, will not leave members at a loss to decide upon the propriety of a separation." It probably did more to fix the idea of independence firmly in the public mind than any other instrumentality.
Legislative bodies soon began to move in the matter. The Continental Congress was firm at heart but timorous in action, for awhile. In January (1776), Franklin called up his plan for a confederation, and endeavored to have a day set for its consideration, but was defeated by Dickinson, Hooper, Jay and others, who were not ready for separation. But in February, a proposition from Wilson, for Congress to send forth an address to their constituents in which they should disclaim the idea of renouncing their allegiance, disgusted that body and the people. The constituency everywhere were ahead of their representatives in aspirations for independence. The proposition of Wilson brought out Harrison of Virginia, who said: "We have hobbled on under a fatal attachment to Great Britain. I felt that attachment as much as any man, but I feel a stronger one to my country."
The honest and able George Wythe, from the same province, was also fired with righteous indignation at the proposition, and exclaimed, after asserting the natural and prescriptive rights of the Americans: "We may invite foreign powers to make treaties of commerce with us; but before the measure is adopted, it is to be considered in what character we shall treat! As subjects of Great Britain? As rebels! No; we must declare ourselves a free people." These were the first brave words on the floor of Congress in favor of independence. They were followed by a resolution offered by Mr. Wythe, "That the colonies have a right to contract alliances." "That means independence," said timid ones; but the question whether the resolution should be considered was carried by the vote of seven colonies against five. In less than a month afterward, Silas Deane was appointed by the Committee of Secret Correspondence, a political and commercial agent to operate in France and also elsewhere, and to procure necessary supplies of every kind for an army of twenty-five thousand men. He was instructed to say to the French government, in substance, "We first apply to you, because if we should, as there is an appearance we shall, come to a total separation with Great Britain, France would be the power whose friendship it would be fittest for us to obtain and cultivate." Already an emissary from France had been sent to America, with the consent of young King Louis, who had doubtless given some of the members of the Congress to understand that aid would be offered by France, if it could be done secretly, for that country was not then in a condition to engage in war with Great Britain.
The subject of independence came up in other forms in Congress. In their instructions to the commissioners to go into Canada, reported by John Adams, these words were used: "You are to declare, that it is our inclination that the people of Canada may set up such a form of government as will be most likely, in their judgment, to produce their happiness." To this Jay and others objected, because it meant "independence." But the sentence was adopted. Then, after long debate, the Congress resolved, in April, to throw open the ports of the colonies to the commerce of the world, "not subject to the king of Great Britain," and that "no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen United Colonies." This resolution abolished British custom-houses, and swept away the colonial system here. It was a most important step in the direction of absolute independence.
North Carolina was the first colony that took positive action on the subject of independence. On the 22d of April, 1776, a provincial Convention in that colony authorized its representatives in the Continental Congress "to concur with those in the other colonies in declaring independence." The people of Massachusetts did the same on the next day. Those of Rhode Island and Virginia instructed their representatives to propose independence. Those of Connecticut told their delegates to assent to independence. the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire issued similar instructions; and the delegates from New Jersey, just elected, were left to act in the matter as their judgement might dictate. Several months before, the subject had been hinted at in the Pennsylvania Assembly, when the startled Conservatives procured the adoption of instructions adverse to that idea. These restrictions were removed, but the delegates received no official instructions on the subject. At the close of May the Maryland Convention positively forbade their delegates voting for independence, but at the close of June they were in accord with Virginia. Georgia, South Carolina and Delaware, took no official action in the matter, and their delegates were left free to vote as they pleased. William Franklin (son of Dr. Franklin), the royal governor of New Jersey and the last of the crown-officers who held his seat, had been arrested by order of the General Congress, and sent, a prisoner of State, to Connecticut. So the sovereignty of that body was asseted in this treatment of the direct representative of the king. It was the act of an independent nation.
Meanwhile the desire for independence had become a living principle in the Continental Congress, and that principle soon found courageous utterance. On the 10th of May, that body, on motion of John Adams, resolved, "That it be recommended to the several assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs hath hitherto been established, to adopt such a government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constitutents in particular, and America in general." This was a bold but cautious step. It was not sufficiently comprehensive to form a basis of energetic action in favor of independence. There was need for some one courageous enough to offer an instrument which should sever the cord that bound the colonies to Great britain. That man would be marked as an arch-traitor, and incur the undying resentment of the royal government. He appeared in the person of Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, whose constituents had instructed him to "propose" independence; and on the 7th of June, 1776, he arose in his place in the hall of Congressa spacious room in the State-house at Philadelphia, and ever since known as Independence Halland with his clear, musical voice read aloud this resolution:
"That these United Colonics 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 instantly seconded the resolution. To shield him, and Mr. Lee, from the ministerial wrath, the Congress, whose sessions were always held with closed doors, directed their secretary to omit the names of the mover and seconder of the resolution, in the Journal; and the entry simply declares that "certain resolutions respecting independence being moved and seconded," it was resolved that the further consideration of them should be postponed until the next day. The postponement was afterward extended to the first of July; and in order to avoid a loss of time, in case the resolution should be adopted, a committee was "appointed to prepare a declaration to that effect." The committee was composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Mr. Lee was not appointed on the committee, because he had been compelled to leave Philadelphia for his home, in consequence of the serious illness of his wife.
The Declaration was fully discussed in committee, and when its topics were settled, the task of putting the whole in proper form was committed to Mr. Jefferson, because he was a colleague of Mr. Lee, and his acknowledged superior in the art of literary composition. At the end of two days he submitted a draft which was adopted unanimously by the committee, after some slight verbal alterations by Adams and Franklin. Debates upon it in Congress were long and animated, for there was not unanimity therein, on the subject. Several amendments were made. Among these was the striking out of a long paragraph, in which the King of Great Britain, in the general indictment, was held responsible for the African slave-trade carried on by the colonies, and the perpetuation of slavery here. The charge was not strictly correct, and a sacred regard for truth caused the clause to be omitted in the indictment.
It was evident from the beginning that a majority of the colonies would vote for independence, but their unanimous consent was most desirable. To secure that result, the friends of the measure bent every effort. The Assemblies of Maryland and Pennsylvania, as we have seen, had refused to sanction it, and Georgia, South Carolina, and New York remained silent. The delegates from Maryland were all in favor of it; those from Pennsylvania were divided. At length, on the 24th of June, the people of Pennsylvania, in a convention held at Philadelphia, consented to "concur in a vote of Congress, declaring the United Colonies free and independent States;" and by the unwearied exertions of Chase, Carroll and other delegates from Maryland, the Convention of that province, on the 28th of June, recalled their former instructions and empowered their representatives to concur with the other colonies in a Declaration of Independence. So the most important obstacles in the way of unanimity were removed; and when a vote was taken in the committee of the whole House on Mr. Lee's resolution, on the 2d of July, all the colonies voted for it excepting Pennsylvania and Delaware, four of the seven delegates from the former voting against it, and the two delegates from Delaware, who were present, being dividedThomas McKean favouring it, and George Read opposing it.
The all-important resolution being adopted, it remained for final action in the Declaration of Independence. It was warmly debated on the 2d and ed of July. Meanwhile news of the arrival of General Howe, with a large British army, at Sandy Hook, had been received by the Congress, and made a profound impression on that body. McKean, burning with a desire to have Delaware speak in favor of Independence, sent an express after Caesar Rodney, the other delegate from that colony, who, he knew, was in favor of the measure. Rodney was eighty miles from Philadelphia. He tarried only long enough to change his linen. Ten minutes after receiving McKean's letter, he was in the saddle, and riding day and night, he reached Philadelphia on the 4th of July, a short time before the final vote on the Declaration was taken. So Delaware was secured-Read had changed his mind and voted for the Declaration. Robert Morris and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania were absent. The former was in favor, the latter was opposed to the measure. Of the other five Pennsylvania delegates who were present, Dr. 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. When the question was taken on that bright, cool day, the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the unanimous vote of the thirteen colonies, and Charles Thompson, the Secretary of Congress, made the following modest record of the great event, in their journal:
"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."
In that Declaration, after reciting their reasons for making it, in a series of definite charges against the British monarch, the Congress said:
"We, therefore, the representatives of the United States, 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 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."
Having, by this act, given birth to a nation, it was necessary to have, for use, a token of national authority, and on the afternoon of the same day, the Congress resolved: "That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson be a committee to prepare a proper device for a Seal for the United States of America."
The Declaration of Independence was signed on the same day by every member present, who voted for it. As the voting in the Congress was by colonies, a majority of the members of that body could not bind a single colony; it was therefore necessary for the members to sign it, to show that a majority of the delegates of the several colonies represented were in favor of it. Their signature, only, could be received as a proper authentication of the instrument. These signatures were attached to a copy on paper, and the instrument was ordered to be engrossed on parchment. This was done, and the copy on parchment was signed by fifty-four delegates on the 2d of August. Two others afterward signed, one in September and the other later in the autumn.
Immediately after the adoption of the Declaration it was printed, and was sent out in every direction, with the names of only John Hancock, the President of Congress, and Charles Thompson, Secretary, appended to it. The erroneous impression has prevailed that only these two officers signed it on the Fourth of July.
In January, 1777, it was printed on a broadside, with the names of all the signers, and sent to the several assemblies, conventions and committees, or Councils of Safety, and to the several commanding officers of the Continental troops.
RECEPTION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCESTATE GOVERNMENTS FORMEDARRIVAL OF BRITISH FORCES BEFORE NEW YORKPEACE COMMISSIONERS FOILEDLORD HOWE, AND WASHINGTON AND FRANKLINTHE BELLIGERENT ARMIESPREPARATIONS FOR A CONFLICT THE BATTLE ON LONG ISLANDTHE RETREAT OF THE AMERICANS FROM BROOKLYNPEACE COMMISSIONERS AGAIN FOILEDINTERNAL PERILS OF THE ARMYEVACUATION OF NEW YORK BY THE AMERICANSITS POSSESSION BY THE BRITISH.
THE far-reaching results of the Declaration of Independence were not appreciated, at the time, by the great body of the people. There was general joy, because there was a vague idea in the public mind that something beneficial might immediately ensue. A Whig newspaper in the city of New York announced the great act of the Congress "on Thursday last," without a word of comment, and in only six lines. But there were seers and sages in every community whose discernment penetrated the veil of the future, and beheld glorious visions beyond of a great and free nation on the soil of America.
These were the men who led in public demonstrations of joy all over the country on that occasion. When the Declaration was read in public from Rittenhouse's Observatory on the Walnut-street front of the State-house in Philadelphia, on the 8th of July, it was greeted with loud huzzas by the people. These thoughtful men testified their belief that the great act had ended royal rule in the United States, by taking down the king's arms that were over the seat of justice in the State-house, and burning them in the street, with other symbols of royalty. The same kind of men, with similar prescience, after the Declaration had been read to the republican army in New York, toward the evening of the 9th of July, led the excited populace, composed of citizens and soldiers, at early twilight, to the Bowling Green at the foot of Broadway, where stood aloft an equestrian statue of the reigning monarch, which had been set up by grateful Americans after the repeal of the Stamp Act, ten years before. They put ropes around the necks of the man and horse, pulled them from the pedestal, and broke them in pieces. The statue was made of lead, and gilded. The pieces were carried away, and the metal was cast into forty thousand bullets by patriotic women wherewith to fight the royal troops. "So," said a contemporary writer, "they had melted majesty hurled at them." Everywhere in America multitudes of men and women perceived the full significance of the act, and these led in chanting the great song of deliverance that filled the hearts of republicans and found expression from their lips. In Europe the act gave hope to tens of thousands of aspirants for freedom, and thrones began to tremble.
Meanwhile the resolution of Congress adopted in May, recommending the colonies to form State governments, had been acted upon by several of them. New Hampshire had prepared for a State government, in January, 1776. The royal charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were considered sufficiently democratic; and that of the latter remained the fundamental law of the State until 1842. New Jersey adopted a State constitution on the 2d of July; Virginia adopted one on the 5th, and Pennsylvania on the 15th. On the 14th of August, Maryland followed their example; Delaware on the 20th of September, and North Carolina on the 18th of December. Georgia adopted a State constitution on the 5th of February, 1777, and New York on the 20th of April following; but South Carolina did not follow the example until the 19th of March, 1778. Massachusetts, the most eager champion for local self-government, deferred the important measure that secured it, until the 2d of March, 1780. Within a year after the Declaration of Independence was made, most of the States had organized settled governments, but no national government was established until the armed struggle had been going on for six years, as we shall observe hereafter.
We left Washington and his main army in and around the city of New York, in the summer of 1776. General Howe arrived at Sandy Hook from Halifax at the close of June, and on the 8th of July-four days after independence was declared-he landed nine thousand men on Staten Island, that lies between New York harbor and the sea. There he awaited the arrival of his brother, Admiral Howe, with his fleet bearing British regulars and German hirelings. These, and the broken forces of Clinton and Parker from the Carolinas, soon joined General Howe; and by the middle of August, the British, land and naval, numbering almost thirty thousand men, prepared to fall upon the American forces. With this great force the British commanders, who counted largely upon the moral strength of the Tories in favor of the crown, felt confident that they would soon bring the rebellion to an end, either by negotiations or by crushing it under the heel of military power. Lord Howe had said, at Halifax, "Peace will be made within ten days after my arrival." Like the ministry who sent them, the commissioners were profoundly ignorant of the spirit of the people they were to deal with. The powers with which they were vested were very limited. They could grant pardons to individuals on their return to allegiance, and grant amnesty to insurgent communities which should lay down their arms and dissolve their governments. They might converse with individuals in America on the public grievances and report their opinions, but they might not be judges of their complaints nor promise redress; and they were not allowed to treat with any Congress, either provincial or continental, nor with any civil or military officer commissioned by such bodies.
The brothers entered upon their narrow diplomatic mission immediately after the arrival of the admiral. They sought first to open communication with Washington. For this purpose they sent a note to him by a flag, in-closing a copy of a declaration of the royal clemency, and the willingness of the king to grant a free pardon to all penitents. The superscription of the letter did not bear the official title of the commander-in-chief-only "George Washington, Esq."-and he refused to receive it. Another was sent by the hand of Major Paterson, General Howe's adjutant, less marked by omissions, but it was not received. Wishing to make some arrangement about an exchange of prisoners, Washington permitted the major to visit the American camp. When the adjutant was about to depart, the latter expressed the hope that his visit would be accepted as the first advance of the commissioners toward reconciliation. He assured the general that they had large powers. "From what appears," said Washington, "they have power only to grant pardons;-having committed no fault, we need no pardon; we are only defending what we deem to be our indisputable rights." The admiral addressed a friendly letter to Dr. Franklin in a similar manner, and received from the statesman a reply, courteous in tone, but in no wise soothing to his feelings as a soldier or a Briton. Franklin concluded his letter by saying: "This war against us is both unjust and unwise; posterity will condemn to infamy those who advised it; and even success will not save from some degree of dishonor those who voluntarily engage to conduct it." The brothers suspected Franklin uttered the sentiments of the Congress with whom they were not permitted to treat; and that the words of Washington were in accordance with the views of the same body. The generous and noble-hearted admiral was grievously disappointed by these rebuffs. He saw that he was powerless as a minister of peace; that he had been deceived, and that he was placed by a sense of duty to his king in a position most distasteful to him, and repugnant to his convictions of right. War, and not peace, now occupied the attention of the brothers for awhile.
August had now arrived. A large army and navy were threatening the city of New York and its vicinity. Already ships-of-war had run up the Hudson River past American batteries, and were menacing the country in the rear of Manhattan Island, with the intention of keeping open a free communication with Carleton then on Lake Champlain, and furnishing arms to the Tories in Westchester county. In the city of New York, a majority of the influential inhabitants were active or passive Tories. The provincial authorities were yet acting timidly. It was even proposed by Jay to lay Long Island waste, burn the city of New York, and retire to the rugged fastnesses of the Highlands. Washington's whole effective force, for manning batteries, securing passes, and occupying posts, some of them fifteen miles apart, did not then exceed eleven thousand men; the most of them were militia coming and going and poorly armed, and a regiment of artillery without skilled gunners and furnished with old iron field-pieces. Sectional jealousies were dividing the troops. Gates was already showing his jealousy of Washington, and an itching to take his place; and faction in his favor was breeding in the Congress, from which came frequent resolutions that interfered with the well-laid plans of the commander-in-chief and the efficient General Schuyler in Northern New York. Yet Washington was hopeful. An appeal to the country was nobly responded to at that hour of imminent danger. From the farms of Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, where ripening harvests needed them, came patriotic yeomanry, and swelled the American army to seventeen thousand effective men. The whole number, sick and well, was almost equal to that of the British.
Both parties made preparations for an inevitable conflict. Hulks of vessels were sunken in the channel of the Hudson River opposite the heights on which Fort Washington was built. Fort Lee was erected on the Palisades beyond. Batteries were constructed at various points on Manhattan Island, and a considerable body of troops were sent over to take post and cast up fortifications on Long Island, back of Brooklyn, under the command of General Greene. That officer was soon prostrated by bilious fever and resigned the leadership to General Sullivan, who had lately come from Lake Champlain. A small detachment was placed on Governor's Island near the city; another was sent over to Paulus's Hook, where Jersey City now stands, and a body of New York militia, under General James Clinton, took post in Westchester county to oppose the landing of the British from vessels on Long Island Sound. Parsons' brigade took post on the East River, at Kipp's Bay (now foot of Thirty-fourth street), to watch British vessels if they should enter those waters. Sullivan placed guards at several passes through a range of hills on Long Island, which extend from the Narrows to Jamaica; and late in August he had a line of defences extending from the vicinity of Greenwood Cemetery to the Navy Yard, a distance of a mile and a half. These were armed with twenty cannon, and there was a redoubt of seven guns on Brooklyn Heights.
The British army moved on the morning of the 22d of August. About fifteen thousand troops were landed on the west end of Long Island on that day. Washington sent reinforcements to Sullivan; and the idea that the American troops were about to evacuate the city, and leave it exposed to the shells of the British shipping in the Bay, greatly terrified the inhabitants. Many Whig families fled to the country and did not return until the close of the war.
General Putnam now took the chief command on Long Island, with particular instructions from Washington to guard the passes through the wooded hills. Regiments of Germans under General De Heister followed the British troops, and on the 26th, the combined forces of the enemy composed a most perfect army in experience and discipline. Its chief leaders were Generals Clinton and Cornwallis, accompanied by General Howe, and it was supported by over four hundred ships and transports. Among the former were ten ships-of-the-line, twenty frigates, and some bomb-ketches. On the evening of the 26th, the number of effective American troops on Long Island did not exceed eight thousand men. Between this weak force of republicans and the strong army of the king now stretched the densely-wooded hills, with their steep sides and narrow passes, from the flat lands to the Brooklyn ferry. One of these was south of the present Greenwood Cemetery; another in Prospect Park (now marked by an inscription); a third near the village of Bedford, and a fourth toward Jamaica. About twenty- five hundred Americans were set to guard these passes, not so much to prevent the British pressing through them (for this Washington did not expect to do), but to harass and confuse them in their march. When Washington left the camp at Brooklyn on the evening of the 26th, it was obvious that the British intended to gain the rear of the Americans by the Bedford and Jamaica passes, and he gave strict orders for them to be closely watched and strongly guarded.
At three o'clock on the morning of the 27th of August (1776), General Putnam was told that his pickets at the lower pass (south of Greenwood) had been driven in. He ordered Brigadier-General Lord Stirling, with some Delaware and Maryland troops, to march and "repulse the enemy." Stirling instantly obeyed, and was followed by General Parsons with some Connecticut troops. They all crossed the marsh-bordered Gowanus Creek over a causeway and bridge at some tide-mills on the creek, when Stirling soon found himself confronted by an overwhelming division of the British army under General Grant, with Howe's ships-of-war in the Bay, on his right flank, for they had come up in a menacing attitude toward the city, and lay not far from Governor's Island. Stirling placed his only two cannon on the side of a wooded height (now known as Battle Hill, in Greenwood), so as to command the road. This formed the left of his line. His right was nearly on the Bay, and the troops of Colonels At Lee and Kiechlein, which had been guarding the pass, formed his centre.
The Germans under De Heister and Knyphausen were moving at the same time to force their way through the pass at Prospect Mount (now Prospect Park), while Howe, with the main body of the British army led by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis, was moving toward the Bedford and Jamaica passes, to gain the rear of the Americans. Putnam had utterly neglected to place a competent guard at the latter pass, as Washington had ordered him to do; and when he was told of the movement of the British in that direction, instead of informing the commander- in-chief of the imminent danger, or directing Stirling to retreat from almost certain destruction, he allowed Sullivan to go out with a few troops, and take command of New Jersey and other forces on Mount Prospect. When, at eight o'clock in the morning, the British had reached the Bedford and Jamaica passes, not more than four thousand Americans were out of the lines at Brooklyn-a handful to oppose five times that number, then stretched along a line more than five miles in extent. The Americans on the left did not perceive their danger until the British had gained their flank and began the attack. The incapacity of Putnam for such important service had allowed a surprise.
The British attack was severe and persistent. The troops composing the American extreme left fled in confusion, and with fearful loss to the lines at Brooklyn; and some Connecticut fugitives, unmindful of the safety of those behind them, burned the bridge over the Gowanus Creek, thereby cutting off the retreat of their fellow-soldiers by that way. Meanwhile the Germans had attacked Sullivan, on the site of Prospect Park, and a desperate fight ensued. While it was going on, Clinton unexpectedly appeared, endeavoring to gain Sullivan's rear. As soon as the latter saw his peril, he ordered a retreat to the Brooklyn lines. It was too late. Clinton drove him back upon the German bayonets. After a sharp hand- to-hand conflict, and seeing no chance for success, Sullivan ordered his men to shift for themselves. Some fought their way through the cordon of soldiers, some hid in the woods, and Sullivan, concealed in a field of corn, was made prisoner by some German grenadiers.
Stirling and his party were now the only Americans in the field with unbroken ranks. They fought the enemy with great spirit four hours, when, hopeless of receiving reinforcements, and seeing the main body of the British army rapidly approaching his flank and rear, Stirling ordered a retreat. The bridge was in flames, and the tide was rising. There was no alternative but to wade the morass and the creek, and that passage was about to be cut off by Cornwallis, who was rapidly descending the Port Road with grenadiers and Highlanders. What was to be done? Could any be saved? Stirling's valor quickly answered the questions. He ordered the Delaware troops and one-half of the Marylanders to cross the mud and water with some German prisoners which they had taken, while he and the rest of the Marylanders should keep Cornwallis in check. The order was obeyed. The five Maryland companies that remained fought with desperate valor while the whole of their companions-in-arms crossed the water in safety, excepting seven who were drowned. This movement was seen by Washington from the redoubt on Brooklyn Heights. He was sorely grieved by the disasters of the day. And now the final one occurred. Stirling, having saved a majority of his troops, could no longer resist the pressure of overwhelming numbers on his front, flank and rear, and he surrendered. He would not yield up his sword to a British commander, but sought De Heister, to whom he delivered it. The Germans were the principal victors on that day. They received the surrender of Sullivan, Stirling, and more than half the prisoners. The loss of the Americans did not, probably, exceed one thousand, of whom one-half were prisoners; more than half the loss fell upon Stirling's command. Many of the prisoners were afterward sufferers in the loathsome British prisons in the city of New York and the prison-ships near by.
The victors encamped before the American lines on the night succeeding the battle, and prepared to besiege the works of their foe. Washington was anxiously watching every movement, for there was no one on whose judgment and vigilance he might implicitly rely. For forty-eight hours he did not sleep. Fortunately for the republicans, Howe was very indolent and sluggish in thought and movement. A devotee of sensual pleasures and impatient when business interfered with them, he allowed opportunities for achieving grand results to slip. Had Clinton been in command at that time, he would, doubtless, have captured the whole American army and its munitions of war, on the morning of the 28th. Howe dallied in the lap of enjoyment, and allowed them to escape. During two days after the battle the rain fell almost incessantly. Mifflin had come down from the north end of Manhattan Island with a thousand troops, but with these reinforcements the republican army was too weak to cope with the strong enemy. Washington clearly perceived this, and resolved to retreat. Early on the 29th, he sent an order to General Health to forward from Kingsbridge "every flat-bottomed boat and other craft," at his post, "fit for transporting troops;" and a similar order was sent to the assistant quartermaster-general at New York. Late in the afternoon he revealed his plans to a council of war at the house of Philip Livingston, on Brooklyn Heights, and they were approved.
The embarkation in boats, managed by Glover's regiment of Essex county fishermen, took place at the Brooklyn ferry after midnight, when the storm had ceased. The full moon was obscured by clouds. Silently the troops moved from the works to the river; and before dawn a heavy fog covered them from view. Before six o'clock in the morning of the 30th of August, nine thousand American soldiers, with their baggage and munitions of war excepting some heavy artillery, had safely passed over the East River to New York. The whole movement was unsuspected by the British leaders on land and water until it was too late to pursue. A negro servant had been sent by a Tory woman near the ferry to give notice of the flight, but he fell into the hands of a German sentinel, who could not understand a word that was uttered. When the astonished Howe found that his expected prey had escaped, he "swore a big oath," and then took possession of the abandoned American works. Leaving garrisons in them, he encamped the main body of his army eastward of Brooklyn as far as Flushing, and then prepared for the capture of the city of New York, with the American troops in it. The admiral moved his vessels up within cannon-shot of the city, for the same purpose. Because of this victory, General Howe (who was uncle to the king) was created a baronetSir William Howe.
Admiral Howe thought the discomfiture of the Americans on Long Island a propitious time for the exercise of his functions as a peace commissioner. Generals Sullivan and Stirling were prisoners on board his flagship, and he paroled the former, and sent him with a verbal message to the Congress asking that body to designate some person with whom he might hold an informal conference. They appointed Dr. Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge, a Committee to meet his lordship; and the house of a loyalist, Colonel Billop, on the western side of Staten Island, was chosen to be the place for the conference. In that house they met on the 11th of September. The utmost courtesy was observed. Lord Howe told the Committee that he could not recognize them as members of Congress, but as private gentlemen, and that the independence of the colonies lately declared could not be considered for a moment. "You may call us what you please," said the Committee; we are, nevertheless, the representatives of a free and independent people, and will entertain no proposition which does not recognize our independence." The gulf between them was evidently impassable, and the conference was soon terminated. Howe accompanied the Committee back to Amboy in his barge in which they had been brought over to Staten Island; and with the expression of hopes that reconciliation might speedily heal all dissensions, he bade them a courteous adieu.
Washington's army had escaped the perils of war from without, but greater perils existed within its own bosom. At no time during the long years of conflict that ensued was the usually serene and hopeful mind of the commander-in-chief more seriously clouded with doubts than in the month of September, 1776. That army seemed to contain all of the elements of dissolutionlack of permanency, unity of feeling and unalloyed patriotism, with sectional jealousies, insubordination, disrespect for superiors, and a lack of that moral stamina so essential to success in every undertaking. Contemporary writers give a sad picture of the army at that time. Among some of the subordinate officers, greed overshadowed patriotism. Officers were elected, not because of their merits, but by a compliance with the condition that they should throw their pay and rations into a joint stock for the benefit of a company; surgeons sold recommendations for furloughs for able-bodied men, at sixpence each, and a captain was cashiered for stealing blankets from his soldiers. Men went out in squads to plunder from friend and foe; drunkenness was a common vice, and licentiousness poisoned the regiments. With such an army subjected to the temptations of a city, before such an enemy as confronted it, how dark must have appeared the future to the commander-in-chief? That enemy was evidently preparing to strike a crushing blow. His navy occupied the Bay and the rivers on each side of Manhattan Island, and swarms of loyalists were ready to receive him with open arms in Westchester county, where he might cut off the supplies and the retreat of the Americans, and compel them to surrender.
At that gloomy moment Washington called a council of war (September 13), when it was resolved to send the military stores to Dobb's Ferry, twenty-two miles up the Hudson, to evacuate the city and to retreat to and fortify the Heights of Harlem toward the northern end of the island, and so keep open a communication with the country beyond. It was a timely decision, for the next day, the sixteenth anniversary of Wolfe's victory at Quebec, in which Howe bore a conspicuous part, had been chosen by that commander as the time for making a descent in force on New York. On that morning the sick were taken from the city into New Jersey, and under the direction of Colonel Glover the removal of the stores by water was begun. The main body of the army, accompanied by a host of Whigs, moved toward Mount Washington, leaving a rear-guard of four thousand troops under Putnam to hold the city as long as it might seem safe. The army marched slowly, watching with keen vision the movements of the British; and on the 16th, they were on Harlem Heights, and Washington had made his headquarters at the house of his companion-in-arms on the field of the Monongahela, Colonel Roger Morris, which is yet standing. He had spent most of the 14th at the house of Robert Murray, on the Incleberg (now Murray Hill), sending out his scouts toward various points on the East River. There he gave instructions to Captain Nathan Hale, who entered the British camp as a spy, and whose sad fate we will consider presently.
Howe, with his usual sluggishness, did not move at the time appointed, though he had given out the significant parole of Quebec, and the countersign of Wolfe. The admiral sent more ships-of-war up the East River; and on the morning of the 15th, others went up the Hudson as far as Bloomingdale, and put a stop to the removal of the American stores. On the same day, toward noon, those in the East River anchored a little below Blackwell's Island and began a heavy cannonade, to cover a force, chiefly Germans, who, in eighty-four boats, crossed the river and landed at Kip's Bay. The rest of the British army was stretched along the shore to Hell Gate, and over Ward's and Randall's Islands. Washington suspected the British would land near Harlem. He was on Harlem Plains when he heard the cannonading. Springing into the saddle, he rode swiftly, with his staff, in the direction of the din of battle. He soon met fugitive Continentals flying in terror. The guard at Kip's Bay had fled at the first cannon-shot hurled against them, and the brigades of Parsons and Fellows, that were to support them, panic- stricken, were scattering in all directions, without firing a musket. Their officers tried, in vain, to check their flight. Washington was alarmed and exasperatedalarmed because Putnam must be captured of the British could not be kept back for a few hours; exasperated because of the cowardice of his soldiers at that moment of supreme necessity for sturdy valor. He used every means in his power to rally them. He set a sublime example of bold courage by pressing forward within eighty yards of the battle-line, when, finding himself without followers, he wheeled his horse and gave judicious orders for the salvation of Putnam and the security of his army on the Heights of Harlem. He succeeded in rallying the troops sufficiently to make an orderly retreat to Bloomingdale, while the invaders moved forward, took possession of a redoubt, and halted on the Incleberg, an eminence between Fifth and Sixth avenues and Thirty-fourth and Thirty-eighth streets.
Meanwhile Putnam had been apprised of his danger. He struck the flag on Fort George at the foot of Broadway, and retreated by the roads nearest the Hudson River. The fugitive Lord Dunmore, who was with the fleet, went ashore and unfurled the red-cross of St. George over the fort, while Putnam was marching speedily and stealthily along ways sheltered by the woods, to the Bloomingdale road, which he reached at Sixtieth street. At the same time, Howe, with Clinton, Governor Tryon and other officers were enjoying refreshments at the house of Mr. Murray, on the Incleberg. Mrs. Murray was a charming Quaker lady, and a warm Whig. She adroitly concealed her politics, and offered her guests her choicest wines and cakes. With sprightly conversation she captivated the warriors, and detained them and their troops long enough to allow every follower of Putnam to pass safely by within a mile of her house. The British leader was soon apprised of the startling fact, and ordered General Robertson to take possession of the deserted city with a strong force. For seven years, two months, and ten days thereafter, the British held possession of the city of New York. General Howe made the spacious Beekman mansion, at Turtle Bay (demolished in 1874), his headquarters. Washington had left the Apthorp mansion (yet standing), at Bloomingdale, only a few minutes before British light infantry took possession of it. That night (September 15, 1776), the American army were encamped in a line from the East River to the Hudson. Harlem Plains lay between the two armies.
FIRE-SHIPSBATTLE ON HARLEM PLAINSCAPTAIN HALE, THE SPYGREAT FIRE IN NEW YORKTHE UNITED STATES AND FRANCEBEAUMARCHAIS IN ENGLANDCOMMITTEE OF SECRET CORRESPONDENCEAMERICAN COMMISSIONERS IN PARISWASHINGTON PLEADS FOR A PERMANENT ARMY, AND IS DISAPPOINTEDFORTS WASHINGTON AND LEEGENERAL LEE, JOHN ADAMS AND WASHINGTONBRITISH AND AMERICAN ARMIES IN WESTCHESTERBATTLE AT WHITE PLAINSRETREAT INTO NEW JERSEYINCIDENTS OF THE CAPTURE OF FORT WASHINGTONPRISON-SHIPS AND THEIR VICTIMS.
THE patriots who marched from the city to Harlem Heights were drenched by a shower, and slept in the open air that night. The stars were hidden by clouds until morning. Before the dawn of the 16th, a ruddy light suddenly glared along the Palisades and illumined the Hudson many miles. It was the flame of Captain Silas Talbot's fire-brig, with which he attempted to burn the British shipping in the Hudson. He failed, but the vessels were scared away, leaving a free communication between the strong work on Mount Washington and Fort Lee, on the crown of the Palisades opposite.
A few hours later some Virginians under Major Leitch, and Connecticut Rangers commanded by Colonel Knowlton, were engaged in a severe fight, on Harlem Plains, with British infantry and Highlanders, using several pieces of artillery, and commanded by General Leslie, who was in charge of the British advance-guard. They fought desperately with varying fortunes, till Washington reinforced the Americans with some Marylanders and New Englanders, with whom Generals Putnam, Greene and others took part to encourage the men. The British were pushed back, and climbed to the high, rocky ground at the northern end of the Central Park east of the Eighth Avenue. There they were reinforced by Germans and Britons. Washington now fearing an ambush, and unwilling to bring on a general engagement, ordered a retreat. This affair greatly inspirited the Americans, though Major Leitch and Colonel Knowlton were killed, and about sixty others were slain or wounded. Howe was displeased with Leslie's movement, and rebuked him for imprudence. The British chief did not make any aggressive movement for about three weeks afterward.
During that period Washington strengthened his defences, and gained much information respecting the British army. He greatly lamented the death of Knowlton, whose Rangers, called "Congress' Own," had acted as a sort of body- guard for the commander-in-chief before the Life-Guard were organized. Captain Nathan Hale, before mentioned, was one of Knowlton's most trusted officers, and was chosen by his colonel from among other volunteers for the perilous service of a spy. He entered the British camp as a plain young farmer, and made sketches and notes unsuspected. At length a Tory kinsman betrayed him, and he was taken before General Howe at the Beekman mansion. Hale frankly avowed his name, rank, and his character of a spy, which his papers revealed, and Howe ordered him to be hanged the next morning (September 22, 1776), without even the form of a trial. All night he was tortured by the taunts of a brutal jailer in Beekman's green-house, in which he was confined; and in the morning he was delivered to the savage Provost-marshal Cunningham for execution. Hale was denied the services of a clergy man and the use of a Bible; but the more humane officer who superintended the execution, furnished him with materials to write letters to his mother, betrothed, and sisters. These Cunningham destroyed in the presence of the victim of his brutality, while tears and sobs marked the sympathy of the multitude of spectators of the scene. Hale met death with firmness. With unfaltering voice he said: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." These were the last words uttered by the young patriot, then only a little more than twenty-one years of age.
At that moment the smoke of the smoldering embers of a great conflagration was hovering over the city of New York. At one o'clock in the morning of the 21st, a fire burst out in a low "groggery" near Whitehall. It swept up and across Broadway, laying Trinity Church and more than four hundred tenements in ruins. While it was raging the exasperated soldiers, who had expected winter shelter in the buildings, charged the disaster to the Whigs. Some of them, who came out in the gloom to save their property, were murdered by bayonets, or were cast into the flames and perished. General Howe, in his report, without a shadow of truth, declared the accident to have been the work of conspirators.
Let us leave the belligerent armies for a moment, and see what was doing in the halls of legislation. We have seen how eagerly France watched for rebellion in America from the days of the Stamp Act excitement, as a means for avenging the injuries she had received from Great Britain. We have seen how, from time to time, emissaries were sent to America by the French government, during the quarrel between Great Britain and her colonies, to ascertain the true state of public feeling here, with the hope of finding in the dissatisfied Americans powerful allies in her intended struggle to recover what "perfidious Albion" had taken from her. She was always saying pleasant things to the Americans, and trying to attract them to herself by professions of friendship and sympathy. This coquetry was taken seriously by the colonies, and when the "time that tried men's souls" arrivedwhen Great Britain had hired German soldiers to butcher or enslave her subjects in America, the colonies naturally turned first to the French to ask for aid in their struggle for freedom. Silas Deane, as we have observed, was sent to France by Congress in the spring of 1776, as a commercial agent to obtain supplies for an army.
At that time, Beaumarchais, an irrepressible Frenchman, conspicuous in the literary and political world of Paris, was a secret agent of the French government in watching the course of the British ministry toward the colonies, and feeling the pulse of public opinion in England. He was in London in 1775, where he mingled freely with the politicians who hovered around Wilkes; and he became satisfied that civil war in England and success on the part of the Americans, then in open insurrection, were events not far in the future. He was convinced that the first reverse to British arms in America would be the signal for a revolution in London, and in this he saw the golden opportunity for France. Lord Rochford, North's minister for Foreign Affairs, had said to Beaumarchais: "I am much afraid, sir, that the winter will not pass without some heads being brought down, either among the king's party or the opposition." And John Wilkes (the leader of the British democracy) had boldly said to him, at the end of a public dinner: "The king of England has long done me the honor of hating me. For my part, I have always done him the justice of despising him. The time has come for deciding which of us has formed the best opinion of the other, and on which side the wind will cause heads to fall." These, and a hundred other seditious and revolutionary sayings, the ardent Frenchman repeated to Vergennes, the most energetic of the ministers of King Louis, and said in a formal letter: "The Americans will triumph, but they must be assisted in their struggle; for if they succumb, they would join the English, turn round against us, and put our colonies in jeopardy. We are not yet in a fit state to make war. We must prepare ourselves, keep up the struggle, and with that view send secret assistance in a prudent manner to the Americans." This was the key-note to the boasted "friendship" of his "Most Christian Majesty" - the prime motive for the "assistance" rendered by the king of France to the Americans during the war of the Revolution, as we shall observe hereafter.
Arthur Lee (brother of Richard Henry Lee), an aspiring young barrister then in England, and whom Franklin had left in charge of the agency for Massachusetts when he returned to America, became acquainted with Beaumarchais's expressed desire to aid the Americans. Of this he gave information to the Congress, through his brother, who was a member of that body. They listened to Lee's reports secretly communicated, and became impressed with the idea that aid might be obtained from France and other European countries. In November, 1775, they appointed the famous "Committee of Secret Correspondence," with a deceptive announcement of their functions, having Dr. Franklin as their chairman. They were soon cautioned that Arthur Lee could not be trusted with important negotiations, and persuaded the Congress to send Silas Deane abroad for the purpose.
Lee was greedy for honors, and wished to win immortal renown by obtaining material aid for his countrymen from France, as speedily as possible. For that purpose he misrepresented Congress to Beaumarchais, and Beaumarchais and France to Congress. When Deane arrived, Lee regarded him as a rival; and when he found that agent and Beaumarchais making successful plans for obtaining supplies from France, he uttered such slanders concerning both, that the Congress withdrew their confidence from both. At that juncture, early in the autumn of 1776, the Congress sent Dr. Franklin as a Commissioner of the United States to the French Court, with Deane and Lee as his assistants. The Congress had elaborated a plan for a treaty with France, by which it was hoped the States would secure their independence. They wished France to immediately declare war against England, during which diversion they hoped to win their independence, when they would make valuable commercial and territorial concessions to the French monarch. The Congress was also to stipulate that the United States would never agree to be subject to the British crown, and that in case of war neither party should make a definitive treaty of peace without six months notice to the other. Improving the hint given to Vergennes by Beaumarchais, the Congress instructed the Commissioners in this wise: "It will be proper for you to press for the immediate and explicit declaration of France in our favor, upon a suggestion that a reunion with Great Britain may be the consequences of a delay." On the 4th of January, 1777, Dr. Franklin wrote to the Committee of Secret Correspondence from Paris: "I arrived here about two weeks since, where I found Mr. Deane. Mr. Lee has since joined us from London. We have had an audience of the minister, Count de Vergennes, and were respectfully received. We left for his consideration a sketch of the proposed treaty. We are to wait upon him to- morrow with a strong memorial, requesting the aids mentioned in our instructions. By his advice, we have had an interview with the Spanish ambassador, Count D'Aranda, who seems well disposed toward us, and will forward copies of our memorials to his court, which will act, he says, in perfect concert with this." So first began the Foreign Diplomacy of the United States.
Washington had, early in his chieftaincy, urged upon the Congress the necessity of the establishment of a permanent army, and with prophetic words had predicted the very evils arising from short enlistments and loose methods of creating officers, which now prevailed. While there was a brief lull in active military operations after the battle on Harlem Plains, he again set forth, in graphic pictures, the sad condition of his army, and the importance of a thorough reform and reorganization of the forces, for he foresaw the natural dissolution of his army, by the expiration of enlistments, only a few weeks later. The Congress had just resolved (September 10th) to form the army anew into eighty-eight battalions, to be "enlisted as soon as possible, and to serve during the war;" but they were so afraid of the "military despotism" implied by a standing army, that much of the efficacy of this longer term of enlistment was neutralized by retaining the old method of levying troops by requisitions upon the several States, and the appointment of officers by local authorities without due regard to their qualifications. Washington was compelled to relinquish all present hope of obtaining an efficient army for the great work before him. Yet he never despaired nor uttered a petulant word of complaint, nor threatened to resign. His duty as a patriot and soldier was plain, and he pursued it.
For almost a month Washington rested with the main body of his army on Harlem Heights, watching the movements of Howe. He had constructed strong lines of fortifications across the narrow island, between the Harlem and Hudson Rivers, and redoubts were planted at proper places to defend approaches from the waters and the main land. The crest of Mount Washington was crowned with a five-sided earthwork, named Fort Washington. It was two hundred and thirty feet above tide- water, a mile northward of headquarters, with strong ravelins and outworks, and mounting thirty-four great guns. This was the principal fortification within the American lines, and was commanded by General Putnam. General Greene, the best leader in the army excepting Washington, was in command of Fort Lee on the Palisades on the New Jersey shore.
At this time General Charles Lee was making his way toward the camp. He had been called from the Carolinas, by the Congress, to take the chief command of the army in the event of Washington being disabled. His fame was very great, not because of anything of importance which he had done, but from what it was supposed he was capable of doing. But he was a charlatan, and afterward became a traitor to a cause which he really despised, and supported only from base motives. He was a hot-headed and wrong-headed man, and extremely vain. He was proud of being an English-man, and looked with contempt upon his American associates. Incapable of planning a campaign or executing a complicated military movement, he had, by dash, audacity, boasting, fault-finding, and the force of an imperious will and temper deceived the Americans into a belief that he was a great soldier. On his way north he had, at Philadelphia, wrung from the Congress a grant of thirty thousand dollars, as an indemnity for any losses of property which he might sustain in England in consequence of his playing "rebel;" and he came to Washington's army in the field with the sanction of Congress as the delegated commander-in-chief on a certain contingency. Forever afterward he intrigued, as did Gates, for the chief command by superseding Washington, until he was driven from the army in disgrace.
John Adams, then the chairman of the Board of War, gave to Lee the confidence which he always withheld from Washington. When a letter from the commander-in- chief, warning the Congress of the great dangers to which his army was exposed, was read in that body, Adams treated it as the utterance of a timid man. "The British force is so divided," he said, "they will do no great matter this fall;" and at that critical moment, when his energy was most needed in his responsible position, he obtained leave of absence. He had been deceived by the perfidious Lee, who wished to discredit Washington's sagacity, and who, at the very moment when Howe was moving to gain the rear of Washington's army, wrote from Amboy, that the British would "infallibly proceed against Philadelphia," and leave the American army alone.
On the 12th of October, Howe embarked a large portion of his army in ninety flat-boats, and landed them on Throgg's Neck, a low peninsula jutting out from the main of Westchester county. He left a sufficient force under Lord Percy to hold the city and guard the British lines toward Harlem. Washington sent Heath to oppose Howe's landing, and to occupy lower Westchester. After encountering many difficulties from the opposition, Howe finally took post on the heights of New Rochelle, across the road leading to White Plains, where he was joined by General Knyphausen with a freshly arrived corps of German troops. Meanwhile Washington had sent McDougall, with his brigade, four miles beyond Kingsbridge, and a detachment to White Plains. He wished to evacuate Manhattan Island entirely, but an order had come from Congress to hold Fort Washington to the last extremity. At a council of war held on the 16th of October, he produced such proofs of the intention of the British to surround his army, that it was determined to move them all into Westchester excepting a garrison for Fort Washington. That was commanded by Colonel Magaw of the Pennsylvania line, with troops who came chiefly from that State. The army marched in four divisions, commanded respectively by Generals Lee (who had just arrived), Health, Sullivan and Lincoln, and moving up the valley of the Bronx River, formed intrenched camps from the heights of Fordham to White Plains. On the 21st, Washington made his headquarters near the village of White Plains. General Greene commanded a small force that garrisoned Fort Lee.
After almost daily skirmishing, the two armies, each about thirteen thousand strong, met in battle array at the village of White Plains, on the 28th of October. The Americans were encamped behind hastily thrown up intrenchments just north of the village, with hills in the rear to retreat to, if necessary. About sixteen hundred men from Delaware and Maryland, and militia under Colonel Haslett, had taken post on Chatterton's Hill, a high eminence on the west side of the Bronx, to which point McDougall was sent with reinforcements on the morning of the 28th, with two pieces of artillery under the charge of Captain Alexander Hamilton. Howe's army approached in two divisions, the right commanded by Sir Henry Clinton, and the left by Generals De Heister and Erskine. Howe was with the latter. He had moved with very great caution since his landing, and now, as he looked upon the Americans behind their apparently formidable breast- works, he hesitated, and held a council of war on horseback. Then he inclined his army to the left, and on the slopes southeast of the present railway station, he planted almost twenty field-pieces. Under cover of these his troops constructed a rude bridge across the Bronx, over which British and German battalions passed, and attempted to ascend the steep, wooded Chatterton's Hill to drive the Americans from it. Hamilton's cannon, which he had placed in battery, annoyed them exceedingly. They recoiled, when they were joined by reinforcements under Leslie, foot and horse, and pushing up more gentle declivities, in the face of a furious tempest of bullets, they drove the Americans from their position. McDougall led his troops to Washington's camp, leaving the British in possession of Chatterton's Hill.
Howe dared not attack Washington's breastworks (composed chiefly of cornstalks covered lightly with earth), but waited for reinforcements. They came, just as a severe storm of wind and rain set in. When it ceased at twilight on the 31st, Washington, perceiving Howe's advantage, withdrew under the cover of darkness behind intrenchments on the hills of North Castle, toward the Croton River. Howe did not follow, but falling back, encamped on the heights of Fordham.
Washington called a council of war, when it was determined to retreat into New Jersey with a large portion of the army, leaving all the New England troops on the east side of the Hudson to defend the passes in the Highlands. These troops were placed under the command of General Heath. Five thousand soldiers crossed the Hudson, some at Tarrytown and some at King's Ferry, now Stony Point. Washington, accompanied by Heath, Stirling (who had lately been exchanged), Mifflin, and Generals George and James Clinton, rode to Peekskill, whence they voyaged in a barge on a tour of inspection of the fortified points in the Highlands, as far as Fort Constitution. It was then decided to fortify West Point opposite that fort. Returning to King's Ferry, the chief hastened southward, gathered his little army near Hackensack in the rear of Fort Lee, and made his headquarters there, on the 14th of November.
On the day of the battle at White Plains, Knyphausen, with six German battalions, crossed the Harlem River at Dyckman's Bridge (present head of navigation), and encamped on the plain between Fort Washington and Kingsbridge. The Americans in the redoubts near by stood firm till the fort was closely invested by the foe. Washington had left it and Fort Lee in charge of Greene. When he heard of the peril that menaced it, he advised that officer to withdraw the garrison and stores, but left the matter to Greene's discretion. When, on the 15th, he reached Fort Lee, he was disappointed in not finding his wishes gratified. Greene desired to hold the fort as a protection to the river; Congress had ordered it to be held till the last extremity, and Magaw, its commander, said he could hold out against the whole British army until December. Washington was not satisfied of its safety, but yielded his judgment and returned to Hackensack. There, at sunset, he received a copy of a reply which Magaw had made to a summons of Howe to surrender, accompanied by a threat to put the garrison to the sword in case of a refusal. To this summons Colonel Magaw replied, protesting against the savage menace, and declaring that he would defend the post to the last extremity. Washington immediately rode to Fort Lee. Greene had crossed over to the island. The chief started in a row-boat in the same direction, and met Greene on the river in the star-light returning with Putnam. They told the chief that the garrison were in fine spirits, and confident that they could successfully defend themselves. It was then too late to withdraw them, and Washington returned to Fort Lee, but was not satisfied.
Howe had planted heavy guns on the lofty banks of the Harlem River just above the present High Bridge, and from there he opened a severe cannonade early in the morning of the 16th, upon the northern outworks of Fort Washington, to cover the landing of attacking troops from a flotilla of flat-boats which had passed up the Hudson in the night, and been concealed in Spuyten Duyvel Creek. These outworks were defended on the north-east by Colonel Rawlings, with Maryland riflemen and militia from Mercer's Flying Camp under Colonel Baxter. The lines toward New York were defended by Pennsylvania commanded by Colonel Lambert Cadwallader. Magaw commanded in the fort. Rawlings and Baxter occupied redoubts on rugged and heavily-wooded hills.
The attack was made by four columns. Knyphausen, with Hessians and Waldeckers, moved from the plain along the rough hills nearest the Hudson River on the north at the same time Lord Percy led a division of English and Hessian troops to attack the lines on the south. General Matthews, supported by Lord Cornwallis, crossed the stream near Kingsbridge, with guards, light-infantry, and grenadiers, under cover of the guns near the High Bridge, while Colonel Sterling, with the 42d regiment of Highlanders, crossed at a point a little above the High Bridge. Knyphausen divided his forces. One division under Colonel Rall (killed at Trenton a few weeks afterward) drove the Americans from Cock Hill Fort, a small redoubt near Spuyten Duyvel Creek, while Knyphausen, with the remainder, penetrated the woods near Tubby Hook, and after clambering over rocks and felled trees, attacked Rawlings in a redoubt afterward called Fort Tryon. Meanwhile Percy had driven in the American pickets at Harlem Cove (Manhattanville), and attacked Cadwallader at the advanced line of intrenchments. A gallant fight ensued, when Percy yielded and took shelter behind some woods.
While Rawlings and Cadwallader were keeping the assailants at bay, Matthews and Sterling were making important movements. The former pushed up the wooded heights from his landing-place on the Harlem River, drove Baxter from his redoubt (afterward named Fort George), and stood a victor upon the hills overlooking the open fields around Fort Washington. Sterling, with his Highlanders, after making a feigned landing, dropped down to a point within the American lines, and rushing up a sinuous pathway, captured a redoubt on the summit, with two hundred men. Perceiving this, Cadwallader, who was likely to be placed between two fires, retreated along the road nearest the Hudson, battling all the way with Percy, who closely pursued him. When near the upper border of Trinity Cemetery (One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street), he was attacked on the flank by Sterling, who was pursuing across the island to intercept him. He passed on and reached the fort with a loss of a few killed, and about thirty made prisoners. Meanwhile the German and British assailants on the north, who were as four to one of the Americans in number, pressed the latter back to the fort, when Rall sent a summons to Magaw to surrender. This was soon followed by a like summons from Howe. The fight outside had been desperate. The ground was strewn with the mingled bodies of Americans, Germans, and Britons. Resistance to pike, ball, and bayonet, wielded by five thousand veteran soldiers, was now vain, and at noon Magaw yielded. At half-past one o'clock the British flag waved over the fort in triumph, where the American flag had been unfurled in the morning with defiance. The Americans had lost in killed and wounded not more than one hundred men; the British had lost almost a thousand. The garrison that surrendered numbered, with militia, about twenty-five hundred, of whom over two thousand were disciplined regulars. Knyphausen received Magaw's sword, and to the Germans and Highlanders were justly awarded the honors of the victory. Washington, standing on the brow of the Palisades at Fort Lee, with the author of "Common Sense" by his side, witnessed the disaster with anguish, but could afford no relief. The fort was lost to the Americans forever, and was named Knyphausen. Its unfortunate garrison filled the prisons of New York and crowded the British prison-ships wherein they were dreadful suffers.
The Jersey was the most noted of the floating British prisons. She was the hulk of a 64-gun ship lately dismantled, and placed in Wallabout Bay near the present Brooklyn Navy Yard. Sometimes more than a thousand prisoners were confined in her at one time, where they suffered indescribable horrors from unwholesome food, foul air, filth, and vermin, and from smallpox, dysentery and prison fever, that slew them by scores. Their treatment was often brutal in the extreme, and despair reigned there almost continually. Every night, the living, the dying, and the dead were huddled together. At sunset each day was heard the savage order, accompanied by horrid imprecations-"Down, rebels, down!" and in the morning the significant cry- "Rebels, turn out your dead!" The dead were then selected from the living, sewed up in blankets, taken upon deck, carried on shore and buried in shallow graves. Full eleven thousand victims were taken from the Jersey, and so buried, during the war. Their bones were gathered and placed in a vault by the Tammany Society of New York in 1808, with imposing ceremonies. That vault is at the southwestern corner of the Navy Yard, where their remains still rest. Several years ago a magnificent monument dedicated to the martyrs of the British prisons and prison-ships was erected in Trinity Churchyard, near Broadway, at a point over which speculators were trying to extend Albany street through the property of that corporation. The street was not opened. So patriotism triumphed over greed.
Philip Freneau, a contemporary, and sometimes called "the Poet of the Revolution," wrote a long poem, in three cantos, in 1780, entitled The British Prison-ships, in which he assumed the character of one of the victims. He bitterly complained of the American Loyalists or Tories, who bore a conspicuous part in the horrid scenes. Of these he wrote:
"That Britain's rage should dye our plains with gore, And desolation spread through every shore, None e'er could doubt, that her ambition knew- This was to rage and disappointment due; But that those monsters whom our soil maintain'd, Who first drew breath in this devoted land, Like famished wolves should on their country prey, Assist its foes, and wrest our lives away, This shocks belief-and bids our soil disown Such friends, subservient to a bankrupt crown."
He gives the following picture of suffering:
"No masts or sails these crowded ships adorn, Dismal to view, neglected and forlorn! Here nightly ills oppress the imprison'd throng- Dull were our slumbers, and our nights too long- From morn to eve along the decks we lay, Scorch'd into fevers by the solar ray; No friendly awning cast a welcome shade; Once was it promis'd, and was never made. No favors could these sons of death bestow, 'Twas endless cursing, and continual woe; Immortal hatred doth their breasts engage, And this lost empire swells their soul with rage."
The poet referred to the British commissary of prisons in New York, in the following lines:
"Here, generous Britain, generous, as you say, To my parch'd tongue one cooling drop convey; Hell has no mischief like a thirsty throat, Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat."
GATES IN THE NORTHERN DEPARTMENTWAR-VESSELS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN UNDER ARNOLD BRITISH FLEET IN THE SORELNAVAL ENGAGEMENTS ON THE LAKETHE BRITISH RETREAT WAR WITH THE INDIANSFORT LEE EVACUATEDMARCH OF WASHINGTON AND CORN-WALLIS ACROSS NEW JERSEYBAD CONDUCT OF GENERAL LEEHIS CAPTUREWASHINGTON BEYOND THE DELAWAREHIS HOPE AND ENERGY EFFECTUALFLIGHT OF THE CONGRESSTHE BRITISH ARMY IN NEW JERSEYCAPTURE OF HESSIANS AT TRENTONEFFECTS OF THE VICTORY WASHINGTON A SORT OF DICTATORMORRIS SUPPLIES MONEYTHE TWO ARMIES AT TRENTON- -BATTLE AT PRINCETON.
WHILE important events were occurring near the city of New York, others were in progress near the northern frontiers of the Union, where we left the shattered army that came out of Canada with Sullivan, in June, as recorded in Chapter XX of this Book. That army, sick and dispirited, halted, as we have seen, at Crown Point, whither General Gates was sent to take the command of them, General Sullivan retiring. Gates at once aspired to be chief of the Northern Department, then under the command of General Schuyler, and his pretensions were supported by a small faction in the Congress. He began to exercise authority which belonged exclusively to Schuyler. The latter resented the affront and referred the subject to the Congress, when a majority of that body lowered the pretensions of Gates by a resolution which instructed him that he was a subordinate in the Northern Department. He was greatly chagrined and irritated; and from that hour he continually intrigued for the place of Schuyler, until he aspired to the more exalted position of commander-in-chief, and conspired with others to obtain it, as we shall observe hereafter.
Satisfied that Carleton would attempt the recapture of the Lake fortresses, so as to control the waters of Lake Champlain, the little army, by order of General Schuyler, withdrew from Crown Point and took post at Ticonderoga, where they began the construction of a flotilla of small war-vessels. By the middle of August, a little squadron was in readiness for service at Crown Point, and General Arnold was appointed its chief commander. It consisted of one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas, carrying an aggregate of fifty-five guns which Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point had furnished. The schooner Royal Savage was Arnold's flag-ship, and he had brave commanders of other vessels under him. With this little squadron he sailed down the lake toward the close of August, almost to the present Rouse's Point, and anchored. Seeing British and Indian warriors prowling along the shores of the narrow lake, he fell back to Isle la Motte, where his flotilla was joined by other vessels, increasing it to almost forty sail. With these he roamed the lake defiantly.
When Carleton heard of the ship-building on the lake, he sent about seven hundred skilled workmen from Quebec to St. John, to prepare a fleet to cope with the Americans. In the course of a few weeks a considerable naval force was floating on the Sorel, and a strong land force under Burgoyne were on Isle aux Noix. Ignorant of the real strength of the British armament, Arnold withdrew to Valcour Island, not far south of Plattsburgh, and anchored his vessels across the channel between that land and the western shore of Lake Champlain, leaving the main channel free for the passage of the vessels of the enemy. This disastrous blunder was approved by Gates, who was as ignorant of naval affairs as Arnold.
Early on the morning of the 11th of October, the British fleet appeared off Cumberland Head. It was commanded by Captain Pringle. It bore twice as many vessels and skilled seamen against untutored landsmen, as the American force presented. The flag-shipthe Inflexiblewas a three-masted ship, carrying eighteen 12-pounders and ten smaller guns. This formidable fleet swept by Valcour Island without opposition, and gaining the rear of Arnold's squadron, attacked it at noon. The Carleton, Captain Dacres, assisted by gun-boats, fell upon the Royal Savage and soon crippled her. As she was returning to the lines, she grounded and was burned. Arnold and his men escaped to the Congress galley, and in her fought desperately. Arnold was compelled to act as gunner, and pointed every cannon that was fired from the Congress. She was soon dreadfully bruised in every parther mainmast was splintered, and her yards shivered. She was hulled twelve times, and seven times she was hit between wind and water. The Carleton, also, was badly hurt, as were most of the vessels on both sides. The British landed some Indians on Valcour Island, whence they poured volleys of bullets, but without much effect, upon the Americans. Night closed the fight, after a contest of almost five hours, without victory for either party. More than sixty of the Americans and forty of the British had been killed or wounded.
Arnold consulted Waterbury of the Trumbull and Wigglesworth of the Washington, and it was decided to attempt flight to Crown Point. To guard against such a movement, which the British expected, they had anchored a line of vessels across the avenue for escape, from a small island a little south of Valcour, to the main land. The Americans did not attempt the impossible feat of breaking through that compact British line, but took another course. The night was dark and became tempestuous. Under its cover, the shattered fleet crept around the north end of Valcour Island, and taking advantage of a stiffening north wind, had left the enemy far behind, when, at dawn, the escape was discovered. Pursuit was immediately ordered. The Trumbull had led the way, and the Congress had brought up the rear. At Schuyler's Island the flotilla had stopped to make repairs, and toward evening the wind shifted to the southward. The better equipped British vessels overtook the Americans early the next morning (Oct. 13, 1776), and soon compelled the Washington to surrender. Arnold, in the Congress, kept up a running fight for five hours. Finally his vessel, with four gondolas, was chased into a creek on the Vermont shore of the lake, where they were set on fire by their crews. Arnold remained on his vessel until driven away by the flames, and was the last to reach the shore. He formed his men in good order in sight of his pursuers, and marching through the woods to Chimney Point, reached Crown Point in safety. He had lost between eighty and ninety men, and gained nothing but renown for his personal bravery. All that remained of his proud little fleet were two schooners, two galleys, one sloop, and one gondola.
Governor Carleton, who was with his fleet, took possession of Crown Point on the 14th of October. Although he was within two hours' sail of Ticonderoga, then garrisoned by only three thousand effective men, with twenty-five hundred on Mount Independence opposite, he was too cautious to attempt its capture. At the beginning of November, he fled back to Canada, with his troops, where he found himself about to be superseded in military command by General Burgoyne. He was soothed by the present of an order of knighthood by his king. Thenceforward he was Sir Guy Carleton. At about the same time General Howe was created Sir William Howe.
At this time the British king was trying to "bring on the inhabitants of the frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." Lieutenant Governor Hamilton, at Detroit, wrote to the ministry early in September (1776) that he had employed "chiefs and warriors from the Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyandots and Potawatomies," with the Senecas, to "fall on the scattered settlers" in the Ohio region, and this news seemed to be pleasant to Lord George Germain, the successor of the more humane Dartmouth. In the southwest there was a dreadful conflict between the white people and the savages, who had been incited to hostilities by British emissaries. The authorities in Canada had sent down messengers from the Six Nations, and tribes westward of them, to stir up the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws to war, but only the first-named nation felt inclined to listen favorably. In an evil hour for their people, the Cherokee chiefs, influenced by Stuart and Cameron, Scotch emissaries of the crown among them, took up the hatchet and the war-club, and fell with fury upon the settlers on the frontiers of the Carolinas and southwestern Virginia. Innocent men, women, and children were slain, and the mountain ranges were illumined by the flames of burning dwellings. Their cruelties aroused the settlers, who organized into military bands, and so gallantly fought and fearfully chastised the savages, that late in the autumn they begged for mercy. Germain had looked eagerly for news from his faithful agents, of the success of the savages; and at the moment when the dusky warriors were on their knees, as it were, before the exasperated settlers, that minister wrote to Stuart, saying: "The Cherokees must be supported, for they have declared for us; I expect, with some impatience, to hear from you of the success of your negotiation with the Creeks and Choctaws, and that you have prevailed on them to join the Cherokees. I cannot doubt of your being able, under such advantageous circumstances, to engage them in a general confederacy against the rebels in defence of those liberties of which they are so exceedingly jealous, and in the full enjoyment of which they have always been protected by the king." It was too late. The chastisement had been inflicted, and the Cherokees had been taught discretion by adversity.
We left Washington with his little army near Fort Lee on the Jersey shore. He was soon disturbed by Lord Cornwallis, who, early on the morning of the 20th of November, crossed the Hudson from Dobb's Ferry to Closter's Landing, five miles above Fort Lee, and with artillery climbed a steep, rocky road to the top of the Palisades, unobserved by Greene. That officer was told of his danger by a farmer, who awoke him from slumber. Greene gave warning to Washington, who ordered Lee to cross the Hudson immediately and join him. Greene fled in haste from Fort Lee, with two thousand men, leaving behind cannon, tents, stores and camp equipage, and barely escaping capture. Washington covered the retreat of the garrison so effectually, that less than one hundred stragglers were made prisoners.
It was now suspected that the British would move on Philadelphia. Washington, with his army led by himself and reduced to less than four thousand men, marched toward the Delaware to impede the progress of the invader as much as possible. His force decreased at almost every step. The patriotism of New Jersey seemed to be paralyzed by the presence of a British army on the soil. Hundreds of republicanseven men who had been active in the patriot causesigned a pledge of fidelity to the British crown. During the twelve days that Washington was making his way to the Delaware, so closely pursued by Cornwallis that the rear- guard of the Americans often heard the music of the van-guard of the royal troops, he was chilled by the seeming indifference of the people. He halted at points as long as possible, for Lee to join him and so give him strength to make a stand against his pursuers; but that officer, assuming that his was an independent command, paid no attention to the order of his superior. He was then evidently playing a desperate game of treason. Daily messages to him, urging him to push forward with his troops, did not affect him. He lingered long on the Hudson, until many of his soldiers had left him and gone home; and he tried to induce Heath to weaken his force in the Highlands by assigning for duty under Lee, two thousand of his men. Failing in this, he moved slowly as far in the rear of Washington as possible; and finally (eleven days after the chief had reached the Delaware), he took lodgings at Baskingridge in East Jersey, three miles from his camp, and nearer the enemy. There, on the morning of the 13th of December, he suffered himself to be captured by a small British scout.
Lee had habitually treated Washington with superciliousness; and in letters to Gates and others, who would applaud his utterances, he would speak with contempt of the commander-in-chief as "not a heaven-born genius," and words of like import. He had just finished a letter to Gates when the scout appeared, in which he wrote most falsely: "A certain great man is most damnably deficient He has thrown me into a situation where I have my choice of difficulties; if I stay in this province, I risk myself and army; and if I do not stay, the province is lost forever," and so on. This letter was not folded when the scout came and summoned Lee to surrender. He went out unarmed, bareheaded, in slippers, without a coat, in a blanket cloak, his shirt-collar open and his linen much soiled, and gave himself up. In this plight he was hurried on horseback to the camp of Cornwallis, and was afterward sent to New York. Sullivan, who was next in command, took charge of the troops and pushed on to the Delaware. Had Lee obeyed the orders of Washington, Cornwallis could not have penetrated New Jersey further than Newark, for the disobedient officer had four thousand troops under his command when he crossed the Hudson, and might have joined Washington with them in less than three days.
On the evening of the 1st of December, Washington fled from New Brunswick after destroying a part of the bridge over the Raritan there, and engaging in a contest with cannon with his pursuers. It was understood that Howe, who was about to send a part of his army to take possession of Rhode Island, had instructed Cornwallis not to pursue further than the Raritan. So Washington left Lord Stirling at Princeton with twelve hundred men, and with the remainder of his little army (the New Jersey and Maryland brigades had just left him), pushed on to the Delaware, at Trenton. Having sent his baggage, stores, and sick across the river into Pennsylvania, he turned back to oppose the further progress of Cornwallis, when, on the morning of the 6th, he met Stirling flying before a greatly superior force. Howe had sent troops under General Clinton to Rhode Island, borne by the ships of Sir Peter Parker, and with a considerable force had now joined Cornwallis; making an army four thousand strong. With these they were pressing on toward the Delaware. Washington was compelled to turn back and seek safety, with his little army, beyond the river. He crossed that stream on the 8th, and before the arrival of the British on its banks, he had seized or destroyed every boat on its waters and those of its tributaries, along a line of seventy miles.
Philadelphia was now trembling for its own safety. The Congress, in whom there was a growing distrust in the public mind, were uneasy. Leading republicans hesitated to go further. Only Washington, who, at the middle of December, when frost was rapidly creating a bridge across the Delaware over which his pursuers might pass, had not more than a thousand soldiers on whom he could rely, seemed hopeful. When asked what he would do if Philadelphia should be taken, he replied: "We will retreat beyond the Susquehanna River, and thence, if necessary, to the Alleghany mountains." He had already conceived the masterly stroke which sent a thrill of joy and hope through the desponding heart of America, and toward that end he worked. He sent Putnam to cast up defences around Philadelphia, and stimulated the Congress to vigorous action. They sent forth a strong appeal to the people. A thorough reorganization of the army was begun according to the plan adopted by the Congress. There was to be one grand army, composed of eighty battalions of seven hundred and fifty men each, to be raised in the several States. Liberal bounties were offered to soldiers who should re-enlist, and a loan of ten million dollars from France was authorized. Placing almost unlimited control of Philadelphia in the hands of Putnam, Congress, on the 12th (December, 1776), resolved to leave that city and retire to Baltimore, at the same time delegating their powers to a committee composed of Robert Morris, George Clymer, and George Walton to act in their behalf during their absence. On their departure the loyalists became bold, and there was much danger of a counter revolution in favor of the crown.
Informed that nearly all the Pennsylvanians were loyalists, and looking with contempt upon the scattered forces of Washington in that State, Cornwallis had cantoned his troops in a careless manner in the vicinity of the Delaware, left them in charge of General Grant, and returned to New York. So confident were the British leaders of their ability to capture Philadelphia at any time, and end the rebellion by that single blow, that Cornwallis was preparing to go to England, when events called him back to New Jersey.
Lee's division under Sullivan, and some regiments from Ticonderoga under Gates, joined Washington on the 21st of December. Inducements offered for re- enlistments had retained nearly one-half of the veterans. The Pennsylvania militia cheerfully responded to the call for help, and on the day before Christmas, Washington found himself at the head of an army between five and six thousand in number. He now felt strong enough to execute a plan which he had conceived, for surprising and capturing a force of the enemy stationed at Trenton, fifteen hundred in number, composed chiefly of Hessian troops under Colonel Rall. Washington expected the Germans, as was their custom, would have a carousal on Christmas day, and he fixed upon the succeeding night as a favorable time for crossing the Delaware, and falling upon them during their heavy slumbers before the dawn. Rall, in his pride, had said: "What need of intrenchments? Let the rebels come; we will at them with the bayonet;" and he made the fatal mistake of not placing a single cannon in battery.
At twilight on the appointed evening, Washington had two thousand men at McConkey's Ferry (now Taylorsville), a few miles above Trenton, with boats of every kind to transport them across the river, then filled with masses of thickening ice, for the weather was very cold. With him were Generals Sterling, Sullivan, Greene, Mercer, Stephen, and Knox, the latter (commissioned brigadier- general two days afterward) in command of artillerists, and about twenty pieces of cannon. Arrangements had been made for simultaneous movements against other British cantonments, especially one from Bristol, with about ten thousand men, which Gates was directed to lead. With wilful disobedience, in imitation of Lee, Gates refused the duty, turned his back on Washington on Christmas eve, and rode on toward Baltimore to intrigue in Congress for Schuyler's place in the Northern Department.
The perilous voyage across the Delaware amid the floating ice was begun early in the evening, and it was four o'clock in the morning before the troops stood in marching order, with all their cannon, on the New Jersey shore. The current was swift, the ice was thickly strewn in it, and the night was dark, for toward midnight a storm of snow and sleet set in. The army moved in two columnsone led by Sullivan along the road nearest the river, and the other commanded by Washington, accompanied by Generals Stirling, Greene, Mercer, and Stephen. It was broad daylight when they approached Trenton, but they were undiscovered until they reached the picket lines on the outskirts of the village. The firing that followed awakened Rall and his troops, who were hardly recovered from their night's debauch. The colonel was soon at the head of his men in battle order, but reeled like a man half asleep. A sharp conflict ensued, lasting only thirty- five minutes, when the Hessians were defeated and dispersed, and Colonel Rall was mortally wounded. The main body of his troops attempted to escape by the Princeton road, when they were intercepted by Colonel Hand. The affrighted Germans threw down their arms and begged for mercy. Some British light-horse and infantry at Trenton escaped to Bordentown.
The victory for the Americans was complete. It would have been more decisive had the co-operating parties been able to perform their duties. They could not; and Washington won all the glory of the victory which greatly inspirited the patriots. In the engagements the Americans did not lose a single man, and had only twoWilliam Washington (afterward distinguished in the South) and James Monroe (afterward President of the United States)who were slightly wounded. The spoils of victory were almost a thousand prisoners, twelve hundred small arms, six brass field-pieces, and all the German standards. The triumphant army re-crossed the Delaware at McConkey's Ferry, and before midnight of the day of victory were back to their encampment.
This bold stroke of the American general puzzled and amazed the British leaders, alarmed the Tories, and dissipated the terror which had been felt in the presence of the Hessians, as invincible troops. The faltering militia soon flocked to the standard of Washington, and many of the soldiers, who were about to leave the American camp, re-enlisted. Cornwallis was sent back to New Brunswick, where General Grant was in command of the main British army in New Jersey, and the other cantonments in that province were broken up and the troops concentrated toward Trenton. Grant moved forward to Princeton, and Washington, who had resolved to attempt to drive the British out of New Jersey, boldly recrossed the river to the eastern side, and took post with his army at Trenton, on the 30th of December, 1776. The Congress, sitting at Baltimore, had invested him with powers almost equal to those of a Roman Dictator, for six months, authorizing him to reorganize his army; appoint all officers below brigadier- general; to make requisitions for subsistence and enforce them with arms, and to arrest the disaffected. Intending to remain on the eastern side of the Delaware, he announced to the Congress, while his army was crossing that stream, his intention "to pursue the enemy and try to beat up their quarters;" and he directed McDougall and Maxwell to collect troops at Morristown, as a place of refuge in case he should need one.
The low condition of the military chest would not allow Washington to pay the bounties agreed to be given, at the appointed time, and the commander-in-chief wrote to Robert Morris, the great financier of the Revolutionary period, for an immediate supply of hard money. The Congress had just resolved to issue bills to the amount of five million dollars immediately, but the credit of that body was then very low, even John Dickenson refusing to take the Continental money. The credit of Robert Morris was high, and confidence in him was unbounded. The sum asked for was large, and the financier was perplexed with doubts of his ability to obtain it. In a despondent mood he left his counting-room at a late hour, musing, as he walked in the street, on the subject of the requisition, when he met a wealthy member of the Society of Friends, who, at that time, were generally of the Tory faith in politics. To this Friend, Morris made known his wants. "Robert, what security canst thou give?" asked the Quaker. "My note and my honor," Morris replied. "Thou shalt have it," the Friend answered, and the next day Morris wrote to Washington: "I was up early this morning to dispatch a supply of fifty thousand dollars to your Excellency." Washington, in acknowledging its receipt, wrote that he had engaged a number of the eastern troops to stay six weeks beyond their term of enlistment, upon giving a bounty of ten dollars. "This, I know," wrote Washington, "is a most extravagant price when compared with the time of service;" but he thought it "no time to stand upon trifles."
The main army of Americans, about five thousand strong, were encamped on the south side of the Assanpink Creek at Trenton, when, toward evening on the 2d of January (1777), Cornwallis approached from Princeton with a superior force of British regulars. They had engaged in a series of skirmishes on the way, and followed the Americans, who had attacked them, to the margin of the Assanpink. After trying to pass the guarded fords of that stream, they halted and lighted fires; and Cornwallis rested that night with the full assurance that he would make an easy conquest of the republican army the next day. "I will catch the fox in the morning," said the Earl to Sir William Erskine, who urged him to make an attack that night.
Washington's army were now in a very critical situation. A council of war was held, when it was decided to withdraw stealthily, at midnight, take a circuitous route to Princeton, gain the rear of the British and beat up their quarters there, and then fall upon their stores at New Brunswick. But the ground, on account of a thaw, was too soft to allow an easy transit for their forty pieces of cannon. This gave Washington much anxiety. While the council was in session, the wind turned to the northwest, the temperature suddenly fell, and by midnight the ground was frozen as hard as a pavement. Along the front of the American camp, fires had been lighted, and the British supposed the republicans were slumbering. Great was their surprise, multiplication and alarm, when, at dawn, they discovered that the American camp-fires were still burning but the army had departed, none knew whither. All was silent and dreary on the south side of the Assanpink, when suddenly there came upon the keen wintry air, from the direction of Princeton, the low booming of cannon. Although it was a cold winter's morning, Cornwallis thought the sound was the rumbling of distant thunder. The quicker all of Erskine decided that it was the noise of artillery, and exclaimed: "To arms, general! Washington has outgeneralled us. Let us fly to the rescue at Princeton!"
The American army, after sending their baggage to Burlington, had marched from Trenton at one o'clock in the morning of the 3d, leaving patrols to make their accustomed rounds and men to keep the camp-fires blazing until near the dawn, when they hurried after the retreating army. By a circuitous march the troops reached the neighborhood of Princeton below sunrise. Crossing Stony Brook, the main army wheeled to the right to have a back road to Princeton, while General Mercer, with about three hundred and fifty men, was sent to break down another bridge that spanned the stream. Two regiments of Colonel Mawhood's brigade had just started to join Cornwallis at Trenton, and the one in advance, led by the colonel in person, accompanied by three companies of dragoons, first discovered Mercer. The two parties, whose numbers were about equal, tried to gain a vantage ground upon an eminence near. Each had two field-pieces; and a sharp engagement was begun by Mawhood by attacking Mercer with his cannon. The firing was returned with spirit by Captain Neal with his two pieces, while Mercer's riflemen sent deadly volleys from behind a hedge fence. They were soon furiously attacked with British bayonets, and fled in disorder, the enemy pursuing, until, on the brow of a hill, they discovered the American regulars and Pennsylvania militia, under Washington, marching to the support of Mercer. In trying to rally the troops, Colonel Haslet of Delaware, and Captains Neal and Fleming, were killed, and General Mercer, whose horse had been disabled under him, was knocked down by a British clubbed musket, mortally wounded and left for dead.
Just at that moment Washington appeared, checked the flight of the fugitives, and intercepted the march of the other British regiment. He was assisted by the fire of Moulder's artillery placed in battery. When Mawhood saw Washington riding from column to column and bringing order out of confusion, he halted, and, drawing up his artillery, charged and attempted in vain to seize Moulder's guns. The Pennsylvania militia, who were first in line, began to waver at this onset, when Washington, to encourage them and set an example for all his troops, rode to the forefront of danger. For a moment he was hidden by the smoke of the musketry on both sides, and a shiver of dread lest he was slain, ran through the army; when he appeared, unhurt, a shout of joy rent the air. At that moment Colonel Hitchcock came up with a fresh force, and Hand's riflemen were turning the British left, when Mawhood ordered a retreat. His troops (the Seventieth regiment) field across the snow-covered fields and over the fences, up Stony Brook, leaving two brass field-pieces behind them. The Fifty-fifth regiment, which had attempted to reinforce them, were pressed back by the New England troops under Stark, Poor, Patterson, Reed and others, and were joined in their flight toward New Brunswick by the Fortieth, who had not taken much part in the action. A portion of a British regiment remained in the strong, stone-built Nassau Hall of the College at Princeton, which had been used for barracks. Washington brought cannon to bear upon the building, and the troops within soon surrendered. One of the cannon-balls entered a window and passed through the head of a portrait of George the Second in a frame that hung on the wall of the Prayer-room. A full-length portrait of Washington by Peale, now occupies that frame.
In this short but sharp battle, the British loss in killed, wounded and prisoners, was about four hundred and thirty. That of the Americans was light, excepting in officers. Colonels Haslet and Potter, Major Morris and Captains Shippen, Fleming and Neal, were slain. General Mercer was taken to a house near by, where he was tenderly nursed by a Quaker maiden and a colored woman at the house of Thomas Clarke. There he died nine days afterward in the arms of Major George Lewis, a nephew of Washington.
WASHINGTON'S ARMY AT MORRISTOWN IN WINTER-QUARTERSHIS ACHIEVEMENTSTHE BRITISH IN NEW JERSEYCHANGE IN PUBLIC SENTIMENTTHE CONGRESS RETURNS TO PHILADELPHIASTATE SUPREMACY ASSERTEDTHE CONGRESS AND THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT- -SPIRIT OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLEBRANT AND INDIAN ALLIESTHE MINISTERIAL PLANAGGRESSIVE MOVEMENTSSTATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS SCHUYLER AND GATESWILL OF THE KINGMILITARY OPERATIONS IN NEW JERSEYBOTH ARMIES MOVE TOWARD PHILADELPHIALAFAYETTE AND OTHER FOREIGN OFFICERS.
WHEN Cornwallis was assured of Washington's escape and heard his cannon at Princeton, he was alarmed for the safety of his stores at New Brunswick, and immediately began a rapid pursuit. Had the republican troops been fresh, no doubt the British stores on the Raritan would have been a part of Washington's spoils of victory; but they were worn down with the fatigues of two days' hard service; lack of sleep and food; a night march of ten miles in bitter cold, many of the men barefooted and thinly clad, and the excitement of a battle. They could do very little more without rest and refreshment; and when Washington found his enemy close upon him, he pursued the fugitive British regiments only as far as the Millstone River at Kingston (about three miles), where he crossed that stream, broke down the bridge behind him, and rested at Somerset Court- House that night.
Cornwallis had pursued so swiftly, that he reached Princeton just as Washington left it. There he was confronted by a thirty-two pound cannon, whose vigorous discharges by the skillful American artillerists, made the British leader believe the republicans were about to make a stand and give battle. He halted, and wasted so much time in reconnoitering that Washington was allowed to escape. Believing his foe was pressing on toward New Brunswick, Cornwallis continued the pursuit, crossing the Millstone at Kingston after reconstructing the bridge. There Washington had turned toward the hill country around Morristown, by way of a narrow road by Rocky Hill; but Cornwallis, suspecting he was on the march toward New Brunswick, hastened forward over the rough highway, and arrived there at sunset, where he found his stores all safe, and not a republican soldier near. Washington marched to Morristown, where he put his army into winter- quarters.
The American commander had now achieved a mighty victory. Viewed in all its varied aspects, Frederick the Great of Prussia declared the exploits of the Patriot and his handful of followers, between Christmas and Twelfth Day, the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military achievements. At the very moment when his army appeared to be on the verge of dissolution, Washington struck a blow so powerful that it paralyzed the enemy. It broke up the British and Hessian cantonments upon the Delaware, and made Cornwallis anxious to secure quarters nearer New York, under the protection of General Howe. It caused Howe to recall a brigade from Rhode Island to strengthen his force at New York; and it was not long before the British were driven to near the sea-shores of New Jersey, and held posts only at New Brunswick, Amboy, and Paulus Hook (now Jersey City), for Washington, with his army encamped in huts at Morristown, was not idle. He had established cantonments from Princeton on the right, under the command of General Putnam, to the Hudson Highlands on the left, under General Health. He was in the midst of hills, a fertile country teeming with abundance, and generally patriotic inhabitants. His little expeditions sent out to harass the enemy were conducted with so much spirit, that the British were kept in continual dread. The people were thereby encouraged; their martial spirit seemed to revive, and early in the spring of 1777, the thinned battalions of the army began to fill up.
The Continental Congress, which had fled to Baltimore, satisfied that immediate danger was past, returned to Philadelphia early in March, and resumed their sessions there. And the people of New Jersey, of whom not more than a hundred had joined Washington in his retreat from the Hudson to the Delaware, and who, to the number of almost three thousand, had subscribed to a declaration of fidelity to the king, seeing the changed aspect of affairs, and having suffered dreadfully from the unbridled passions of the British and Hessian soldiers exercised on friend and foe alike, now became active partisans of the republican cause. A feeling of revenge gave strength to their purpose and arms. Their action was doubtless accelerated by a proclamation of Washington issued late in January, who, in the exercise of the discretion given him by Congress, demanded, in the name of the associated States, that all who had taken British protection, and professed fidelity to the crown, should take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America, or withdraw within the British lines.
The Legislature of New Jersey, regarding the proclamation as a violation of State supremacy,a doctrine that was the bane of our national life down to the Civil Warcensured the commander-in-chief. A few members of Congress, possessing less sagacity and political wisdom than Washington, joined in the censure, and seemed ready to deprive him of all power. When a proposition was made to give him authority to name his generals, John Adams said: "In private life, I am willing to respect and look up to him; in this House, I feel myself to be the superior of General Washington." By a bare majority, the Congress, after failing to furnish reinforcements for Washington's army, expressed their earnest desire that he could "not only curb and confine the enemy within their present quarters, but, by divine blessing, totally subdue them before they could be reinforced." This seemed like insulting irony, when we consider that Washington then had less than three thousand effective men at his command in New Jersey.
The apathy and folly of the British monarch and ministers, at this time, were astonishing to men who perceived the gravity of public affairs through the medium of events in America. They were in strong contrast with the energy and wisdom of the managers of American affairs at home and abroad. A British army had been driven from Boston; a British fleet had been expelled from Charleston harbor; the colonies had declared their independence, and full thirty thousand British and German troops had been defied and combated; and yet the Parliament did not meet until the close of October (1776) to consider these things. Then the king, in his speech, congratulated the legislature upon the success of the royal troops in America, and assured them, without the shadow of a good reason, that most of the Continental powers entertained friendly feelings toward Great Britain. After rejecting every conciliatory proposition, and voting men and supplies for the united service in America, Parliament adjourned to keep the Christmas holidays with an apparent feeling that their votes had crushed the trans-Atlantic rebellion. At that moment Washington was planning his brilliant achievements in person.
Meanwhile the American Congress had held a perpetual session. They knew that the European powers had no real friendship for haughty Britain. They knew that France, Spain, the States-General of Holland, the Prince of Orange, Catharine of Russia and Pope Clement, all feared and hated England, and were anxious for a pretence to strike her fiercely and humble her pride, because of her potency in arms, commerce, and diplomacy, and her strong Protestantism. Therefore, as we have seen, the Congress sent Silas Deane to France as a commercial agent in the spring of 1776, to procure army supplies, and in the autumn appointed Dr. Franklin and Arthur Lee joint commissioners with Deane for the same purpose. The latter had already procured arms from the French arsenals, and abundant promises of men and money from the French minister, Vergennes. The British ambassador to the French court (Lord Stormont) treated the Commissioners with contempt. When they asked him to make an arrangement for the exchange of captive seamen, he was silent. When the request was repeated, he answered: "The King's ambassador receives no applications from rebels unless they come to implore his Majesty's mercy." This was then the spirit of the British government; the spirit of the American people at the same time was displayed by the answer of Nathan Coffin, an American seaman, when he was threatened, to induce him to enlist in the royal navy: "Hang me, if you will, to the yard-arm of your ship, but do not ask me to become a traitor to my country."
At the beginning of 1797, the British government prepared for crushing the rebellion early in the ensuing campaign. Reinforcements to the number of more than thirty-five hundred were procured from the German princes, and these, with a considerable British force, was sent to strengthen Howe below the Highlands, and Burgoyne in Canada. Governor Tryon was employed in embodying the American Tories into military battalions under Brigadier-Generals Oliver, De Lancey of New York, and Cortlandt Skinner of New Jersey. Many French Canadians joined the British forces on the Canadian frontier; and under the special instructions of Germain, the Colonial Secretary, which he had received from the king, bands of Indian savages were engaged to fight the republicans, the most of them under the general command of Joseph Brant, a Mohawk chief, a brother-in-law of Sir William Johnson, and who had been educated by the white people. He had lately returned from England, where he had conferred with the king and Germain, and been well received by the aristocracy. At court he appeared in the splendid costume of his nation (in which Romney painted him), and wearing a highly-polished and ornamented tomahawk in his belt. There he decided to espouse the cause of the crown. He did so, and served the king faithfully and vigorously. The best of the British leaders in America were opposed to employing the savages in their armies; but it was a pet project of Tryon, the king and his pliant ministers, who seem to have listened complacently to La Corne St. Luc, a bitter partisan, who said: "We must let loose the savages upon the frontiers of these scoundrels, to inspire terror, and to make them submit." Tryon, who was noted for his brutal inhumanity, strongly commended La Corne to the Secretary as a leader of the savages, and wrote to Germain, in the spring of 1777: "We [La Corne and himself] agree perfectly in sentiments respecting the propriety and importance of employing the Indians." He said La Corne had pledged his honor and his life that he would raise a corps of Canadians and savages, and "be in the environs of Albany in sixty days after he landed in Quebec." "Every means that Providence has placed in our hands ought to be employed against the rebels," said the king and his ministers.
It had been determined in the British cabinet to attempt to divide the colonies by seizing the region of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River during the approaching campaign. The Indians were to spread terror over Northern New York by their atrocities, and so open an easy way to the Hudson River and to Albany for British troops from Canada. An expedition composed of regulars, Canadians and Indians, under the command of Colonel St. Leger, was ordered to cross Lake Ontario, land at Oswego, penetrate and devastate the Mohawk Valley, and join the victorious troops that might sweep down from the north into the valley of the Upper Hudson. At the same time a British army was to ascend the Hudson, seize the fortifications in the Highlands, waste the country above in case of resistance, and so accomplish the great design of the campaign of 1777. For that purpose a large army was gathered at near the foot of Lake Champlain, under General Sir John Burgoyne, early in the summer of 1777.
It was late in May before the armies of Washington and Howe were put in motion for the summer campaign. The latter was delayed because of a lack of reinforcements. He had asked for an addition of fifteen thousand men. Germain, believing the rebellion might be stamped out with a much less number of troops than Howe required, wrote to him that not half that number could be sent. Howe was discouraged, and early in April he wrote to the Secretary that his army was too weak for rapid offensive operations. "Restricted as I am by a want of forces," he wrote, "my hopes of terminating the war this year are vanished." He also informed the Secretary and Governor Carleton that he could give very little assistance to the army that was to advance from Canada: and he proposed to evacuate New Jersey and invade Pennsylvania by way of the sea. But Germain, erroneously calculating that Howe had thirty-five thousand men, and counting largely upon the help of the savages and Tories, deceived himself and the British people with a belief that the end of the impending campaign would be coeval with that of the rebellion.
While the two armies were preparing to move, detachments from each were striking offensive blows here and there. The British sent a strong force up the Hudson River late in April to destroy American stores at Peekskill, at the lower entrance to the Highlands. General McDougall was in command there, but his force was too weak to defend the property. So he burned it, and retreated to the hills in the rear. At near the middle of April, Cornwallis marched up the Raritan with a considerable force from New Brunswick, to surprise the Americans at Bound Brook, under General Lincoln. The latter escaped with difficulty, and with a loss of about sixty men and a part of his baggage.
Toward the close of April, Governor Tryon, with almost two thousand British and Tories, sailed up the East River and Long Island Sound, from New York, landed on the Connecticut shore at Compo, between Fairfield and Norwalk, and proceeded toward Danbury, where the Americans had gathered a large quantity of stores. He was accompanied by Generals Agnew and Erskine. They reached the town on the 25th of April (1777), destroyed the stores, burned the village, and cruelly treated some of the inhabitants. The militia of the neighborhood flew to arms in large numbers, under the leadership of Generals Wooster, Arnold, and Silliman. Perceiving this, and fearing his retreat might be cut off, Tryon retreated to Ridgefield. Near that village a sharp skirmish ensued, in which Wooster was killed and Arnold narrowly escaped capture. His horse was shot dead under him. Arnold could not extricate his foot from the stirrup, and fell with the animal. Seeing this, a Tory ran forward, with his bayonet at a charge, exclaiming, "Surrender! you are my prisoner!" "Not yet!" shouted Arnold, as his foot became free at that moment, and he sprang to his feet. Drawing his pistol, he shot the Tory dead, and flying swiftly on foot to a dense swamp near by, followed by many British bullets, he escaped unhurt. For his gallantry on that occasion, the Continental Congress ordered a horse, richly caparisoned, to be presented to Arnold. Tryon spent the night in the neighborhood, and the next morning hastened to his ships, annoyed all the way by the gathering militia. At the place of re- embarkation, his troops were fearfully galled by cannon-shot from a battery of Lamb's artillery managed by Lieutenant-Colonel Oswald. They had already skirmished severely at a bridge; and they escaped a final capture, only by the good offices of Erskine at the head of the marines who were landed from the vessels, and who beat back the wearied Americans. About sunset the fleet departed. The Americans had lost during the invasion about one hundred men, and the enemy about three hundred. Tryon's atrocities on that occasion were never forgotten nor forgiven by the sufferers.
It is related that when the British approached Danbury, an old citizen resolved to save a piece of cloth which was at a clothier's at the south end of the village. He had just mounted his horse with it, when the British advanced-guard approached. Three light-horsemen started in pursuit. The old man's animal was not so fleet as theirs. Drawing near to him, one of the troopers cried out, "Stop, old Daddy, stop! We'll have you!" "Not yet!" cried the citizen. At that moment his roll of cloth unfolded, and fluttering like a streamer behind him, so frightened the pursuing horses that he got several rods ahead, and escaped.
The Americans, also, spurred by resentment, took similar aggressive action. Late in May, Colonel Meigs crossed Long Island Sound from Guilford, Connecticut, with one hundred and seventy men in whale-boats, and at two o'clock in the morning of the 23d, attacked a British provision-post at Sagg Harbor, at the eastern end of Long Island. They burned a dozen vessels; also stores and their contents; made ninety men prisoners, and with these reached Guilford the next day at a little past noon, without losing a man. For this exploit, the Congress voted thanks to Colonel Meigs and his men, and a sword to the commander.
A little later a bolder exploit was performed in Rhode Island. General Prescott, the officer who so cruelly treated Ethan Allen at Montreal, was in command of the British troops there. He was a petty tyrant, and was detested by the people. His headquarters were at a farm-house a few miles from Newport, that belonged to a Friend. It was near the shore of Narraganset Bay. Many of the inhabitants had earnestly desired his removal, and Lieutenant-Colonel Barton of Providence resolved to attempt the perilous task of carrying him away. With a few picked men, he crossed the Bay from Warwick Point, in four whale-boats, passed unobserved through the British guard-boats with muffled oars on a warm night (the 10th of July), and landed near the general's quarters without discovery. The colonel and a part of his men walked silently up to the house, seized the musket of a sentinel at the gate and threatened him with death if he should make any noise, and entered the dwelling. The owner sat reading. It was late, and all others of the household had retired. To Barton's inquiry for Prescott's room, the Friend pointed upward. Barton went up the stairs silently, followed by a powerful negro. The general's bedroom door was locked. The negro, making a battering-ram of his head, burst it open at the first effort. Prescott sprang from his bed to find himself a prisoner. Without allowing him to dress, his captors took him to a boat, his perfect silence being his guarantee of personal safety. At midnight they landed on the Warwick shore. The general was taken in a close carriage to Providence, and was sent to the headquarters of Washington, in New Jersey, where he was afterward exchanged for General Charles Lee. For this exploit, Congress voted an elegant sword for Barton, and commissioned him a colonel in the Continental Army.
During the winter and spring of 1777, Washington's mind was filled with anxiety concerning the future. The Congress was weak, for the jealousy of the States paralyzed their executive power. Faction was disturbing their councils. There was discontent in the army because inefficient foreign officers were, it was supposed, about to be put in high military positions; also because few a like Gates could not bear to serve in subordinate stations. That intriguing officer, like Lee, exerted a baneful influence continually. Aided by the New England delegation, with Samuel Adams at the head of the faction, he had supplanted General Schuyler, the most trusted and best beloved by Washington of all his generals. But his triumph was short. The baseness of his insinuations against the character of Schuyler were exposed by a committee of the Congress and, superseded in April, the latter was reinstated in May with larger discretionary powers. Gates, angry and insubordinate, refused to serve under Schuyler; and, without leave, he left the army and hastened to Philadelphia to demand redress. By falsehood he obtained admission to the floor of Congress, and the privilege of making a verbal communication. There he made an exhibition of impertinence, malice, folly and unmanliness, that disgusted all but his New England friends, who supported him in further intrigues, as we shall observe presently. Samuel Adams and some others had resolved to make Gates the commander-in-chief of the Northern Department, and worked assiduously for that purpose; and while they were swaying Congress in favor of this weak man, who was doing nothing but boasting, they were unjustly demanding of Washington vigorous aggressive movements against the enemy, with so few troops that failure would have been a certain result. They reproached him with slowness; and intimations were thrown out that Gates was "the life and soul of the army." Washington bore this injustice with patience and obedience, for he was an unselfish patriot.
When the king heard of the disasters to the British arms in New Jersey, his wrath took the form of vindictiveness; and Germain, inspired by his majesty, wrote to General Howe that he must wage a more distressing warfare, so that "through a lively experience of losses and sufferings the rebels might be brought to a sense of their duty." It was intimated that Boston and other sea- port towns in flames would be pleasing to the king; but the brothers Howe, more humane than their masters, would not engage in that kind of warfare. They sent word back that it was "not consistent with other operations." Meanwhile the sluggish British commander wasted the months of May and June in idleness at New York, when, with his large army, he might have marched to Philadelphia with very slight opposition; but he had resolved to go to that city by sea, and partly by sea he finally went.
In the meantime, Washington, with an army of about seven thousand five hundred men, composed of forty-three regiments in five divisions of two brigades each, moved from Morristown to the heights of Middlebrook on the borders of the Raritan, and nine miles from New Brunswick. At the latter place Howe assembled about seventeen thousand men, British and Germans, at near the middle of June, with boats and pontoons for crossing the Delaware. At the same time Washington's army had been rapidly increasing. Sullivan was at Princeton with fifteen hundred men. Arnold was posted on the Delaware with a division, and the troops on the Hudson were so concentrated that they might reinforce the main army quickly if required.
Howe's plan (if he had any) seemed to be to bring on a general engagement with the weaker American army. He dared not attack Washington in his stronghold, but tried to draw him out of it. He sent a detachment to attack Sullivan, but so tardy was their movement that the veteran was allowed to escape to the Delaware, pursued only three miles. This and other movements made Washington so vigilant that he was in the saddle almost continually, and his men lay upon their arms at night. On the 19th (June), Howe suddenly retreated to Amboy, and sent some of his troops over to Staten Island, so giving an impression that he was evacuating New Jersey. Washington was fairly deceived, and descending from the heights he gave chase with his whole army. Howe suddenly changed front and attempted to gain the rear of the Americans, but Washington was too quick for him. After a series of sharp skirmishes between New Brunswick and Amboy, without any serious effect on the fortunes of the campaign, the American army resumed their position at Middlebrook. On the 30th of June, the British had entirely evacuated New Jersey, and were encamped on Staten Island, where they afforded protection to a host of Tories, who fled with them from the main.
During these movements, the Congress at Philadelphia and the inhabitants there, were kept in anxious suspense by the expectation that Howe would attempt to capture that city. When they heard of the retreat of the enemy and the rapid increase of Washington's army to almost fourteen thousand men, their spirits revived, and the Congress celebrated the Fourth of Julythe first anniversary of the Declaration of Independencemuch as we celebrate it now, after the lapse of a century. They had a banquet, made speeches, drank to patriotic toasts, rang the bells, fired cannon, had a military procession, a naval display on the Delaware; and in the evening, fireworks, bonfires, and illuminations were displayed. To the vigilance and caution, skill and bravery of Washington, the Congress and the citizens were indebted for their safety; and yet they indulged in ungenerous reproaches of the commander-in-chief because he had not done more. Samuel Adams publicly complained of the "Fabian policy" of Washington; and Gates, who had charmed the New England delegation by his boasting and malicious criticisms, like Lee, scattered firebrands of distrust in the army. But Washington went steadily forward. Referring to these reproaches, he said he had one great object in view, which he should pursue according to the dictates of his own judgment; and that he was willing to be loaded with all the obloquy they could bestow if he committed a willful error.
Washington now watched the movements of the enemy with more anxiety than ever, for new had reached him of the invasion of Northern New York by Burgoyne. For several days these movements puzzled him. The British troops were embarked in the fleet of Lord Howe. At one time they seemed to be preparing to go up the Hudson River, and Washington made arrangements to oppose them. Finally, on the 24th of July, the fleet and troops left New York Bay and went to sea. Washington believed they were bound for Philadelphia by way of the Delaware, and moved a larger portion of his army toward that river; but he prudently kept back a reserve to act in case of Howe's return. Until he was assured that Howe had really abandoned Burgoyne, he could not, he wrote, help casting his eyes continually behind him. His suspense was soon ended. On the 31st of July, he received an express from Congress, telling him that two hundred and twenty-eight British vessels had appeared off the Capes of Delaware the day before. Howe had left New York with eighteen thousand troops for Philadelphia; but for the purpose of increasing his force by the addition of Tories in Maryland and Pennsylvania, where, General Lee had informed him, they abounded, he concluded to go up Chesapeake Bay, and march upon the Continental capital from the south. Washington instantly put a greater portion of his army in motion for that city, where they arrived early in August and encamped at Germantown.
At Philadelphia, Washington was joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, an enthusiastic Frenchman, then less than twenty years of age. He had married, three years before, the daughter of the Duke de Noailles, a beautiful, accomplished, and rich maiden. The story of the wrongs of America, and their struggle for their rights, inflamed his young heart with ardent sympathy and a passionate desire to help them. He openly espoused their cause, and resolved to hasten to their support. Offering his services to the American Commissioners in Paris, he said: "Hitherto I have only cherished your cause; now I am going to support it." The women of Paris applauded his noble zeal. The young queen, Marie Antoinette, cheered him with her good wishes. The king expressed his disapprobation, for he hated republicans. Lafayette's young wife bade him go, for the sympathies of her heart were in unison with his. He went to England, stayed three weeks there, and was presented to the king. He danced at the house of Lord George Germain, and held pleasant social intercourse with civilians and soldiers who were serving against the Americans. On all occasions he frankly expressed his sentiments in favor of the latter, but did not avow his purpose to go to America. Returning to France, he sailed for this country in a ship fitted out at his own expense, accompanied by eleven French and Polish officers who sought employment in the American army. Among them was the Baron de Kalb. Count Pulaski, a gallant Pole, soon followed. The confrere of the latter in the struggle for liberty in Poland, Kosciuszko, had come over the year before, and was then a highly esteemed engineer in the Continental Army.
Lafayette and his friends arrived at Georgetown, in South Carolina, whence they journeyed overland to Philadelphia. He offered his services to the Congress as a volunteer in any capacity and without pay. These terms were so different from those of the other foreign officers that the Congress accepted them, and on the last day of July commissioned him a major-general in the Continental Army. As such he was introduced to Washington at a dinner-party in Philadelphia, when the latter invited the young general to become a member of his military family. The invitation was accepted.
A little before this, a rumor reached the American camp, that Du Coudray, a French officer sent over by the Commissioners, had been appointed by the Congress a major-general in the Continental Army, and was to be placed at the head of the artillery service. Generals Knox, Greene, and Sullivan wrote to the Congress, declaring that such an appointment would compel them to resign their commissions. That body resented this as "an attempt to influence their decisions, an invasion of the liberties of the people, and as indicating a want of confidence in the justice of Congress;" and Washington was instructed to tell the complaining generals that if they were "unwilling to serve their country under the authority of Congress, they were at liberty to resign their commissions, and retire." The rumor was not true; no such appointment had been made. The rebuff which these officers received, prevented a repetition of such an offence.
The Congress did employ some of the French officers as engineers. Du Portail was commissioned a colonel of engineers; Laumoy and Radiere, lieutenant-colonels, and Gouvion a major. These proved to be valuable officers, and of essential importance during the war.
A BRITISH INVASION FROM CANADA WITH SAVAGE ALLIESTICONDEROGA EVACUATED BY THE AMERICANSBATTLE AT HUBBARDTONSCHUYLER BLAMEDWEAKNESS OF HIS ARMYHE IMPEDES BURGOYNE'S MARCHTHE STORY OF JANE M'CREADISASTROUS EXPEDITION TOWARD BENNINGTONSIEGE OF FORT SCHUYLERBATTLE AT ORISKANYST. LEGER'S FLIGHT FROM BEFORE FORT SCHUYLERGATES SUPERSEDES SCHUYLERTHE AMERICAN ARMYBURGOYNE PREPARES TO ADVANCE.
EARLY in May (1777), Burgoyne, who went to England the previous autumn, returned to Quebec, bearing the commission of lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of the British forces in Canada. In June, he had gathered about seven thousand men at St. Johns, on the Sorel, for an invasion of the province of New York, with ample supplies, and boats for transportation. His force was composed of British and German regulars, Canadians and Indians. The Germans were commanded by Major-General Baron de Riedesel, and Burgoyne's chief lieutenants were Major- General Phillips and Brigadier-General Fraser.
At dawn, on the morning of the 20th of June, the drums in the camp at St. Johns beat the generale instead of the reveille, and very soon afterward the army were on the vessels, Burgoyne making an ostentatious display as he entered the schooner Lady Mary. The wives of many of the officers accompanied their husbands, for they expected a pleasant journey to New York, Burgoyne having sent word to Howe that he should speedily meet him on the navigable waters of the Hudson. The departure of the fleet was signalized by the Indians, who having spilled the first blood in the campaign, brought in ten scalps as trophies of their savage warfare. So was begun the execution of the ministerial measure for spreading terror over the land by means of savage atrocities.
Before a fair wind the great armament moved up the lake, with music and banners. At near the mouth of the Raquet River, Burgoyne went on shore and there feasted about four hundred savages, to whom he made a speech, praising them for their fidelity to the king; exhorting them to "strike at the common enemy of their sovereign and America," whom he called "parricides of the State," and forbidding them to kill excepting in battle, or to take scalps excepting from the dead. This speech he caused to be published. His own commentary on it may be found in a threatening proclamation issued at Crown Point a few days afterward, in which he said: "Let not people consider their distance from my camp. I have but to give stretch to the Indian forces under my directionand they amount to thousandsto overtake the hardened enemies of Great Britain. If the frenzy of hostility should remain, I trust I shall stand acquitted in the eyes of God and man in executing the vengeance of the State against the willful outcasts."
The whole invading army (a part of it on land) reached Crown Point on the 26th of June, and menaced Ticonderoga, where General St. Clair was in command. The invading force then numbered something less than nine thousand men, with a powerful train of artillery manned by veterans. The garrisons at Ticonderoga and Mount Independence opposite, had an aggregate force of not more than thirty-five hundred men, only one in ten of them possessing a bayonet. Schuyler had too few troops (mostly militia) below to spare a reinforcement for St. Clair, without uncovering points which, left unprotected, might allow the invaders to gain the rear of the lake fortresses. Besides, he was compelled to make provision for meeting St. Leger's invasion of the Mohawk Valley. There were strong outposts around Ticonderoga, but there were not troops enough to man them; and there were eminences that commanded the fort that were left unguarded for the same reason. Between Ticonderoga and Mount Independence was a floating-bridge and boom which the Americans thought might effectually obstruct the passage of the British vessels, but these utterly failed in the hour of need. St. Clair perceived the web of peril that was weaving around him, but he kept up courage, declaring that he would totally defeat the enemy.
At Crown Point, Burgoyne issued a pompous proclamation to the inhabitants of the Upper Hudson Valley, which contained the threat above alluded to. He acted promptly as well as boasted. At the beginning of July he moved from Crown Point upon the upper lake fortresses with his whole army and navy. Riedesel led the Germans on the eastern side to attack the works on Mount Independence, while Phillips and Fraser pressed on to the outworks of Ticonderoga. They seized an eminence that commanded the road to Lake George; also mills in the rear of the fort. This was speedily followed by taking possession of and planting a battery of heavy cannon upon Mount Defiance, where plunging shot might be hurled into Fort Ticonderoga from a point several hundred feet above it. St. Clair, perceiving that the fort was no longer tenable, called a council of war, when it was resolved to evacuate it. On the evening of the 5th of July, the invalids and convalescents under Colonel Long, with stores and baggage, were sent off in bateaux for Skenesborough (now Whitehall); and two o'clock on the morning of the 6th, the garrison, having spiked the guns which they could not take with them, silently crossed the floating-bridge to Mount Independence under cover of a brisk cannonade from that eminence. With the garrison there, the began, just before the dawn, a flight through the forests southward to the rugged hills of Vermont. The light of the waning moon was too feeble to reveal their movements, and the Americans hoped to leave their enemies far in their rear before their flight should be discovered. Unfortunately a building on Mount Independence was set on fire, and the light thereof betrayed the flying troops. Pursuit was immediately ordered. Fraser pressed forward with grenadiers and took possession of Ticonderoga, while Riedesel seized and occupied Mount Independence. The former crossed the floating-bridge before sunrise, and with the Germans began a hot pursuit of the fugitive army.
Meanwhile Burgoyne, on board the schooner Royal George, ordered his gunboats to pursue the bateaux. The bridge barrier was soon removed, and the British vessels gave chase. They overtook the bateaux at near the landing-place at Skenesborough, and destroyed them and their contents. Colonel Long and his men escaped; and after setting on fire everything combustible at Skenesborough, they fled to Fort Ann, a few miles in the interior, pursued by a British regiment. Near Fort Ann, he turned upon and routed his pursuers, when the latter was reinforced and Long was driven back. He burned Fort Ann, and fled to Fort Edward on the Hudson.
When the army of St. Clair reached Hubbardton, in Vermont, the main body marched through the woods toward Castleton, leaving the rear-guard, under Colonel Seth Warner, one of the brave "Green Mountain Boys," to gather up the stragglers. While awaiting their arrival, Warner was overtaken by the van of the pursuers, on the morning of the 7th, when a sharp engagement took place. Colonel Francis of New Hampshire, who commanded the rear-guard in the flight, was killed. The Americans were dispersed and fled, but about two hundred of them were made prisoners. The pursuers lost almost as many killed and wounded, and gave up the chase. St. Clair, with about two thousand troops, made his way in safety to Fort Edward.
A very large amount of provisions and military stores, and almost two hundred pieces of artillery, were lost by the Americans when they evacuated Ticonderoga. The news of the disaster went over the country, with wildest exaggerations. Generals Schuyler and St. Clair were condemned without stint and without reason. They had done all that it was possible for men to do under the circumstances. The States as individual communities and by their representatives in Congress had utterly failed to supply the Northern Department with sufficient men to defend it. The Congress had been practically deaf to the repeated calls of Schuyler for reinforcements. He had pointed out the dangers of an impending invasion while his force was too small to stay, or even impede it much. Washington, more wise than the Congress, saw the importance to his own army and the safety of the country in checking the progress of the invaders; and though he was sorely in want of reinforcements coming from New England, he directed that a part of them, when they should reach the Hudson River, should be sent up that stream to assist Schuyler against a powerful foe. The enemies of the commander of the Northern Department, in and out of Congress, took an ungenerous advantage of the public ignorance of the truth, and condemned him as an incompetent. Some went so far as to call him a traitor. After tedious endeavors he procured a trial by a court-martial, who, by their verdict, heartily approved by the Congress, fully vindicated his character in every respect.
Schuyler was at Saratoga when he heard of the disaster. He hastened to Fort Edward to gather there the scattered troops and oppose the further advance of Burgoyne, who, victorious, was boastful and arrogant. In a proclamation he peremptorily demanded the instant submission of the people. Schuyler immediately issued a counter-proclamation, with excellent effect; but with the remnant of St. Clair's army added to his own force at the middle of July, he had not more than four thousand effective mena number totally inadequate to combat with the enemy. He employed it simply but effectually, in destroying bridges and felling trees in the pathway of the invader. So impeded, Burgoyne did not reach Fort Edward until the close of July. He was compelled to move cautiously, for Carleton had refused to garrison the lake-forts, and the lieutenant-general was compelled to "drain the life-blood" of his army to defend them. His Indians, too, were beginning to be restless, and some were leaving him.
At Fort Edward occurred the death of Jane McCrea, the story of which, as set afloat at the time, is familiar to all, and was exploded years ago. Truth tells the story as follows: Miss McCrea was a handsome young girl, visiting friends at Fort Edward at the time of Burgoyne's invasion. She was betrothed to a young man living near there, who was then in Burgoyne's army. When that army approached Fort Edward, some prowling Indians seized Miss McCrea, and attempted to carry her to the British camp at Sandy Hill, on horseback. A detachment of Americans were sent to rescue her. One of a volley of bullets fired at her captors, pierced the maiden and she fell dead from the horse, when the Indians scalped her and carried her glossy locks as a trophy into the camp. Her lover, shocked by the event, left the army, went to Canada at the close of the war, and there lived a moody bachelor until he was an old man. He had purchased the scalp of his beloved, of the Indians, and cherished it as a precious treasure, upon which, at times, he would gaze with tearful eyes as he held the ever-shining locks in his hand. The body of Miss McCrea was recovered by her friends, and was buried at Fort Edward. A tale of romance and horror, concerning the manner of her death, went abroad. In September, a letter from Gates to Burgoyne, holding him responsible for her death, gave great currency to the story; and hundreds, perhaps thousands of young men, burning with indignation and a spirit of vengeance because of the outrage, flocked to the American camp.
Schuyler, with his little army, continued to impede the progress of Burgoyne, at the same time falling back, until, in August, he resolved to make a stand at Stillwater, and establish there a fortified camp, for recruits for his force were then coming in freely. The panic caused by the evacuation of Ticonderoga and the invasion was beginning to subside, and a patriotic spirit took its place. Burgoyne was evidently growing weaker by his compulsory delay. His base of supplies was so distant, and precarious, that he was soon placed in a half- starving condition, surrounded on three sides by foes who were preparing to make raids on the fourth. He was absolutely unable to retreat or move forward with vigor. In this dilemma, and feeling the necessity of making a bold stroke for relief, he sent a detachment of his army, composed of Germans, Canadians, Tories and Indians, toward Bennington, in the now State of Vermont, which had been organized and declared independent by a convention at Windsor in the previous January. The object was to strengthen and organize the Tories; procure horses to mount the German dragoons, and to seize cattle, wagons, and stores which it was said had been gathered in large numbers and quantities at Bennington. The detachment was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Baum of the German dragoons. They reached the neighborhood of Bennington on the evening of the 13th of August [1777]. Perceiving some reconnoitering Americans the next morning, Baum sent back for reinforcements, when Burgoyne dispatched two German battalions with two cannon under Lieutenant-Colonel Breyman, who marched through steady rain almost continually for thirty hours. Baum, in the meantime, had taken position on a hill four or five miles westward of Bennington, that sloped down to the Walloomscoick Creek, and there cast up some intrenchments.
The New Hampshire militia had just been organized, and placed under the command of Colonel William Whipple (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) and John Stark, a veteran of the French and Indian War. They were embodied to assist in defending the western frontiers of Vermont from the invading British army. When Baum arrived on the Wallooms-coick, Stark was at Bennington with part of a brigade. He immediately sent for the shattered remains of Colonel Seth Warner's regiment at Manchester. They marched all night in rain, and joined Stark on the 14th at near dawn, thoroughly drenched. All that day and the next, the drenching rain continued. Parties of Americans continually annoyed the intruders by attacks here and there upon their flanks or rear, but no battle occurred. On the evening of the 15th, some reinforcements came from Berkshire, Massachusetts, bringing with them the Rev. Mr. Allen, a belligerent chaplain. He told Stark that the people of his district had been frequently called out to fight, without being allowed to, and if they were not gratified this time, they would not turn out again. "Do you wish to march now, in the darkness and rain?" inquired Stark. "No, not just this moment," answered the fighting parson. "Then," Stark said, "if the Lord shall once more give us sunshine, and I do not give you fighting enough, I'll never ask you to come out again." Sunshine came with the morrow, and the parson and his men had "fighting enough" before the evening twilight.
On the bright, hot morning of the 16th (August, 1777), Stark formed a plan of attack on the foe lying upon the Walloomscoick Heights. He divided his force, and at three o'clock in the afternoon, the detachments, led by Colonels Nicholls and Herrick, Hubbard and Stickney, and a considerable force by Stark in person, attacked the enemy on every side. The frightened Indians dashed through a gap in the encircling American lines and fled to the shelter of the woods, leaving their chief dead on the field. After a severe contest for two hours, the ammunition of the Germans failed, when they attempted to break through the line of besiegers with bayonets and sabres. In the attempt Baum was killed and his veterans were made prisoners. At that moment Breyman appeared with his wearied battalion, and Warner joined Stark with some fresh troops. The battle was instantly resumed. The cannon which had been taken from the Germans was turned upon their friends. A desperate fight ensued and continued until sunset, when Breyman retreated, leaving his artillery and nearly all of his wounded behind. The Germans had lost about one hundred and fifty killed and wounded, and seven hundred made prisoners. The loss of the Americans was less than a hundred.
The victory was complete and brilliant. It inspirited the Americans, and carried dismay to the hearts of the Tories and the British commander. To the latter the expedition was very disastrous. It disheartened his Tory friends. Many of the Canadians and Indians deserted, and the spirits of his whole army were depressed. It crippled his movements at a moment when it was all-important that he should go forward with celerity. St. Leger, whom he had sent by way of Oswego to invade the Mohawk Valley, was there, besieging Fort Schuyler on the site of Rome, and they were to meet as victors at Albany. His plans were frustrated; his hopes were destroyed. His troops had to be fed with provisions brought from England by way of Canada, over Lakes Champlain and George and a perilous land carriage, for gathering patriots were hovering about his rear. It was perilous for him to remain where he was, and more perilous for him to advance or retreat.
While these important events were occurring eastward of Schuyler's camp at Stillwater, equally important ones were happening westward of him. Brant had come from Canada in the spring of 1777, and in June was at the head of a band of Indian marauders on the head-waters of the Susquehanna. Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer was at the head of the Tryon county militia, and was instructed by Schuyler to watch and check any hostile movements of the Mohawk Chief, whose presence had put an end to the neutrality of his nation and of others of the Iroquois Confederacy. To assist the Whigs of Tryon country, a garrison commanded by Colonel Peter Gansevoort was placed in Fort Schuyler, which was reinforced by the regiment of Colonel Marinus Willett. Bateaux had just brought provisions up the Mohawk for the garrison, when, at the beginning of August, St. Leger, with a motley host of Tories and Canadians, under Colonels Johnson, Claus and Butler, and Indians led by Brant, arrived from Oswego and began a close siege of the fort. Hearing of this, Herkimer, with the Tryon county militia, proceeded to help the garrison. He sent them word that he was coming. On the receipt of the news a part of two regiments (Gansevoort's and Wesson's), led by Colonel Willett, made a sortie from the fort, and fell upon the camp of Johnson's "Royal Greens" so suddenly and effectively, that they were dispersed in great confusion, Sir John not having time to put on his coat before he was compelled to fly. His papers and baggage and those of other officers, and the clothing, blankets, stores and camp equipage, sufficient to fill twenty wagons, were the spoils of victory, with five British standards as trophies. A part of Sir John's "Greens," and some Indians, had gone to meet approaching Herkimer.
At Oriskany, a few miles west of Utica, Herkimer and his little army were marching in fancied security on the morning of the 6th of August, when Tories and Indians from St. Leger's army, suddenly rose from an ambush and fell upon the patriots at all points with pikes, hatchets, and rifle-balls. Herkimer's rear-guard broke and fled; the remainder sustained a fierce conflict for more than an hour with great braviery. General Herkimer had a horse shot dead under him, and by the bullet that killed the animal, his own leg was shattered just below the knee. Sitting on his saddle and leaning against a beech tree, the brave old general (then sixty-five years of age) directed the battle with great coolness, while the bullets flew thickly around him. A heavy thunder-shower caused a lull in the fight. When it had passed, the battle was renewed with great violence, Major Watts, a brother-in-law of Sir John Johnson leading a portion of the "Greens." At length the Indians, hearing the firing in the direction of the fort, where Willett made his sortie, became panic-stricken and fled to the deep woods. They were soon followed by the equally alarmed Tories and Canadians. The Patriots were left masters of the field, but they did not relieve Fort Stanwix. Their commander was carried to his home, below the Little Falls, where he died from the effects of excessive bleeding from his wound.
St. Leger continued the siege. The garrison bravely held out; and Colonel Willett went from the fort stealthily down the Mohawk Valley with a message from Gansevoort to Schuyler, asking for relief. The sagacious general perceived the importance of beating back St. Leger, as a part of the means for securing the expected victory over Burgoyne. He called a council of officers, and proposed to send a detachment up the valley. They opposed the measure because the army was then too weak to check the march of Burgoyne. The general persisted in his opinion of the necessity and humanity of sending a force to the relief of Fort Schuyler. He was walking the floor with great anxiety of mind, when he heard one of the officers say in a low tone of voice, "He means to weaken the army." That was an epitome of all the slanders which had been uttered since the evacuation of Ticonderoga. He heard the charge of implied treason with the hottest indignation. Turning quickly toward the slanderer, and unconsciously biting into several pieces a clay pipe which he was smoking, he exclaimed in a voice that awed the whole company into silence: "Gentlemen, I shall take the responsibility upon myself; where is the brigadier who will take command of the relief? I shall beat up for volunteers to-morrow." General Arnold, ever ready for deeds of daring, at once stepped forward and offered his services. Before noon the next day (August 13), eight hundred stalwart men were enrolled for the expedition. They were chiefly from the Massachusetts brigade of General Larned. They followed their brave leader with perfect confidence, and won success. By prowess, audacity and stratagem, Arnold compelled the invader to raise the siege of Fort Schuyler within ten days after he left the camp at Stillwater. At Fort Dayton (German Flats) he found a half-idiotic Tory, a prisoner, who had been tried for crimes and condemned to death. His mother begged for his pardon. It was promised by Arnold under the condition that he should go, with a friendly Oneida Indian, among the savages in St. Leger's camp, and by representing the Americans on the march against them as extremely numerous, frighten them away. The prisoner agreed. He had several shots fired through his coat, and with these evidences of "a terrible engagement with the enemy," he ran, almost out of breath, among the Indians, declaring that he had just escaped from the approaching Americans. Pointing toward the trees and the sky, he said, "They are as many as the leaves and the stars at night." Very soon his companion, the Oneida, came running from another direction, with the same story. The Indians, thoroughly alarmed, held a pow-wowa consultation with the Great Spiritand resolved to fly. No persuasion could hold them. Away they went as fast as their feet could carry them, toward Oswego and the more western wilds, followed by their pale-faced confreres, pell-mell, in a race for the safe bosom of Lake Ontario. So the siege of Fort Schuyler was raised; and so ended the formidable invasion from the west.
The expulsion of St. Leger and his followers was a severe blow to the hopes of Burgoyne. This disaster following so closely upon that near Bennington, staggered him. His visions of conquest, and orders, and perhaps a peerage for himself, vanished. His doom was pronounced. His army was already conquered in factit needed very little to make it so, in form. The wise policy and untiring exertions of General Schuyler had accomplished the ruin of the invading army.
The harvests were now nearly over; the spirits of the patriots were greatly revived by recent events; public confidence in General Schuyler, so rudely shaken by misfortune and slander, was rapidly returning, and as a consequence recruits for the Northern Army were flocking into camp, with daily-increasing volume. Schuyler was preparing to march to an easy victory over his hopelessly crippled foe, and so win the laurels which he fairly deserved, when, on the 19th of August, General Gates arrived in camp, and took command of the army, in accordance with the following resolution passed by Congress:
"Resolved, That Major-General Schuyler be directed to repair to headquarters.
"That General Washington be directed to order such general officer as he shall think proper to repair immediately to the Northern Department, to relieve Major- General Schuyler in his command there."
This was evidently the work of intrigue, faction, and conspiracy. Washington, who was then in his camp at Germantown, near Philadelphia, was fully aware of the schemes of Gates and his friends, and would not consent to be a scapegoat for them; so he declined to nominate a successor to Schuyler, and the Congress proceeded to appoint Gates to that office. They clothed him with powers which they had never conferred on his predecessor, and voted him all the aid Schuyler had ever asked, and which had been withheld. The patriotic general felt the indignity keenly, yet he did not allow his personal grievances to interfere with his duty to his country. He received Gates cordially, furnished him with every kind of useful information respecting the army, and offered him all the aid in his power to give. This generosity was requited by jealousy and coldness. Yet this despicable treatment did not abate Schuyler's efforts to secure the defeat of Burgoyne, although he knew the laurels that would thereby be won would be placed on the brow of his undeserving successor.
Had Gates acted promptly, he might have ended the campaign in the Northern Department, within a fortnight after his arrival. But he lingered twenty days in needless inactivity near the mouth of the Mohawk River, nine miles above Albany, to which place Schuyler, pursuant to a decision of a council of officers, had removed the army from Stillwater. At the end of the twenty days, Gates moved up the valley of the Hudson with an effective force of nine thousand men; and upon Bemis's Heights, an elevated rolling plain a short distance above Stillwater, he established a fortified camp, having Kosciuszko, the brave Polish patriot, as chief engineer. In the meantime, one hundred and eighty boats had been brought over the country by teams and soldiers, from Lakes Champlain and George, with a month's provisions for the use of Burgoyne's army, then reduced to less than six thousand men.
Seeing the advance of Gates, Burgoyne called in his outposts, and with his shattered forces and his splendid train of artillery, he crossed the Hudson River over a bridge of boats on the 13th of September, and encamped on the heights at Saratoga, where Schuylerville now stands. There he made immediate preparations to attempt to force his way to Albany. He then knew that Howe had sailed southward and would not co-operate with him; and he perceived the necessity of acting promptly, for General Lincoln was gathering a force of New Englanders on his flank, and detachments of Republican troops were menacing his communications with his base of supplies. The American army, every day increasing in strength, were well posted on Bemis's Heights. Their right rested upon the Hudson River below the Heights; their left was upon gentle hills that could not be commanded by hostile cannon from any point; and a well-constructed line of intrenchment stretched along their front. Here an army more numerous than that of Burgoyne lay directly across his path to Albany, and must be dislodged before he could go forward.
COLONEL BROWN'S RAID IN THE REAR OF BURGOYNE'S ARMYFORWARD MOVEMENT OF BURGOYNEBATTLE ON BEMIS'S HEIGHTSBAD CONDUCT OF GATES, AND BRAVERY OF ARNOLD AND MORGANGATES'S JEALOUSYDESPERATE CONDITION OF BURGOYNE'S ARMYHIS FOOLISH BOASTDECISION OF A COUNCIL-SECOND BATTLE ON BEMIS'S HEIGHTSGATES AND ARNOLD AGAINBRAVERY OF THE LATTERVICTORYSURRENDER OF BURGOYNE AND HIS ARMY.
BURGOYNE felt compelled, by imperious circumstances, to move forward. Orders had been sent to General Lincoln, stationed at Manchester, to make a movement in the rear of the invades, and he sent Colonel John Brown (the officer who failed to co-operate with Ethan Allen at Montreal), with five hundred light troops and some artillery, to cut off Burgoyne's sources of supplies. At dawn on the 18th of September (1777), Brown surprised an outpost at the foot of Lake George; captured a British provision vessel; seized the post at the falls of the outlet of the lake; took possession of Mount Hope and Mount Defiance, with the French lines, and demanded the surrender of Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. He destroyed two hundred vessels in that outlet, including seventeen gun-boats and an armed-sloop; released a hundred American prisoners, and captured about three hundred of the enemy. He also assailed a British post on Diamond Island, in Lake George; but this, and the two forts, were too strong for his little force to capture, and he returned to Manchester with his trophies; among them were five field-pieces.
In the meantime Burgoyne had advanced to a point very near the American lines; and on the morning of the 19th, he moved his army in three columns to offer battle. The left wing, with the immense train of artillery, under the command of Generals Phillips and Riedesel, kept upon the plain near the river. The centre, composed largely of Germans, extended to a range of hills that were touched by the American left, and was led by Burgoyne in person. Upon these hills Fraser and Breyman, with grenadiers and infantry, were posted, with the intention of outflanking the republicans. The front and flank of the invading army were covered by the Canadians, Indians, and Tories who remained in camp. Burgoyne's men had slept on their arms for several nights, expecting an attack in force from the Americans, for the active Arnold, with about fifteen hundred men, had annoyed the British continually, by sudden assaults at night.
Gates, who lacked personal courage and the skill of a good commander, had resolved to act on the defensive within his lines. Arnold and others had been observing, through vistas in the woods, evident preparations for battle all the morning, and had urged Gates to send out a detachment to smite the enemy. But he would give no order and evinced no disposition to fight. Even when, at eleven o'clock, the boom of cannon awoke the echoes of the hills, and which was Burgoyne's signal for a general advance of his army, Gates seemed almost indifferent. His officers became very impatient as the peril to the camp drew nearer. Arnold was as restive as a hound in a leash; he was finally permitted to order out Morgan with his riflemen and Dearborn with infantry, to attack the Canadians and Indians who were swarming upon the hills in advance of Burgoyne's right. This detachment fell vigorously upon the foe and drove them back. Morgan's men pursued them so eagerly, that his riflemen became scattered and weakened, and a reinforcement of Tories drove them back. For a moment Morgan thought his corps was ruined. He sounded his shrill whistle, when they rallied around him, and with Massachusetts and New Hampshire troops, the former under Dearborn and the latter under Scammell and Cilley, they repeated the charge. After a short, sharp fight, the parties withdrew to their respective lines, with the loss of twenty men made prisoners, on the part of the Americans. Morgan had his horse shot under him.
Burgoyne, in the meantime, had made a rapid movement for the purpose of falling heavily upon the American left and centre. At the same time, Fraser, on the extreme right, made a quick movement to turn the American left. The vigilant Arnold, with equal celerity of movement, attempted to turn the British right at the same time. He might have succeeded had not Gates denied him reinforcements and done everything in his power to restrain him. Masked by the thick woods, neither party could know much about the doings of the other, and they suddenly and unexpectedly met in a ravine, west of Freeman's Farm at which Burgoyne had halted. There they fought desperately for awhile. Arnold was forced back, when Fraser, by a quick movement, called up some German troops from Burgoyne's centre, to his aid. Arnold rallied his men, and with the assistance of New England troops under Brooks, Dearborn, Scammell, Cilley, and Hull, he smote the enemey so lustily that their line began to waver and fall into confusion. General Phillips, from his position below the Heights, heard the din of battle resounding through the woods, and hurried over the hills with fresh troops and some artillery, followed by a portion of the Germans under Riedesel, and appeared upon the ground when the victory seemed about to rest with the Americans. Still the battle raged. The ranks of the British were fearfully thinning, when Riedesel made a furious attack on the flank of the Americans with cannon and musketry, which compelled them to give way. So the Germans saved the British army from ruin.
There was now a lull in the tempest of battle. It was at the middle of the afternoon of a bright September day. That lull was succeeded by a more violent outburst of fury. Burgoyne opened a heavy cannonade upon the Americans, who made no response. Then he ordered a bayonet charge. Column after column of British troops were soon moving over the gently rolling ground, toward the American lines. As they rushed forward to charge upon the republicans, their silent enemy sprang forward like tigers from a covert, and assailed the British so furiously, with ball and bayonet, that they recoiled, and were pushed far back. At that time Arnold was at headquarters, seated upon his large, black charger, and begging in vain of Gates for reinforcements. When he heard that the battle was raging, but with no decisive results, he could no longer brook delay. Turning his horse's head toward the storm, and exclaiming, "I'll soon put an end to it," he went off at full gallop, followed by an officer whom Gates sent after him to order him back. The subaltern could not overtake the gallant general, who, by his words and example, animated the republican troops. For three hours the battle raged, the combatants surging backward and forward across the fields like the ebb and flow of a tide, each winning and losing victory alternately. All too late, Gates sent out the New York regiments of Van Cortlandt and Livingston, and the whole brigade of Learned. The Americans had lately almost turned the British flank, when Colonel Breyman, with his Germans fighting bravely, prevented the blow that might have been fatal to the British army.
But for Arnold, no doubt Burgoyne would have reached Albany within a day, a victor. Had Gates complied with Arnold's wishes for reinforcements early, the surrender of Burgoyne's army might not have been deferred a month. To Arnold and his division was chiefly due the credit of successfully resisting the invaders at Bemis's Heights. The jealous Gates, angry because the army praised Arnold, did not mention his name, nor that of the gallant Morgan, in his official report of the battle, in which the Americans lost less than three hundred men.
On the morning of the 20th (September, 1777), Burgoyne perceived the desperate condition of his army, encamped so near the American lines that they could not make a movement unperceived by their foe. He had lost about six hundred men. His broken army were utterly dispirited. Arnold wished to attack him at dawn, but Gates would not consent. Burgoyne withdrew to a point two miles from the American lines, where he cast up intrenchments, hoping hourly for good news from Sir Henry Clinton at New York. He harangued his troops to revive their courage, and declared his determination to force his way to Albany or to leave his body on the field. His own spirits were revived the next morning by a message from Sir Henry, who promised to make a diversion in his favor by an expedition up the Hudson River. The same messenger brought a despatch from Howe announcing his victory over Washington on the Brandywine. These glad tidings were communicated to his army, and Burgoyne wrote to Clinton that he could maintain his position until the 12th of October. But his condition rapidly grew worse. The American army on his front increased, while his own decreased. The American militia were swarming on his flanks and rear, and his foraging parties were so harassed by them, that they could gather very little food for the starving horses. In his hospitals were at least eight hundred sick and wounded men, and his effective troops had to be fed with diminished rations. The Indians deserted him, while through the exertions of Schuyler, Oneida warriors joined the army of Gates. General Lincoln arrived with two thousand militia on the 22d, and took command of the right wing of the army.
With all his advantages over the enemy, Gates remained inactive. His officers were chagrined. Arnold, chafed by Gates's apathy, could not restrain his impatience, and he wrote a note to his commander, saying: "I think it my duty (which nothing shall deter me from doing) to acquaint you the army is becoming clamorous for action. The militia (who compose a quarter part of the army) are already threatening to go home. One fortnight's inaction will, I make no doubt, lessen your army, by sickness and desertion, at least four thousand men, in which time the enemy may be reinforced, and make good their retreat. I have reason to think that had we improved the 20th of September, it might have ruined the enemy. That is past; let me entreat you to improve the present time." This proper impertinence on the part of a subordinate, Gates treated with silent contempt.
Burgoyne waited many days for tidings from Clinton, but none came; and on the evening of the 4th of October he called Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser to a council. Burgoyne proposed to attempt to turn the American left by a swift circuitous march. Riedesel favored a rapid retreat to Fort Edward; but Fraser was willing to fight. The latter course was agreed upon; and on the morning of the 7th of October, after liquors and rations for four days had been given to the whole army, Burgoyne moved toward the left of the American lines with fifteen hundred picked men, eight brass cannon, and two howitzers. When within three-fourths of a mile of their works, he formed a battle-line behind a forest screen. He had left the main army on the Heights in command of Brigadiers Hamilton and Specht, and the redoubts near the river with Brigadier-General Gall. Phillips, Riedesel, and Fraser were with the commanding-general. There were never better troops or better commanders on a field of battle. Burgoyne sent out a party, composed of Canadian rangers, loyalists and Indians, to make a circuit through the woods and hang on the American rear, and so keep them in check, while he should attack their front.
Burgoyne's movement was discovered before he was ready for battle, and the drums of the advanced-guard of the Americans beat to arms. The alarm rang along the lines. Gates had then over ten thousand troops in his campenough, if properly managed, to have crushed the weakened invaders at a single blow. He ordered his officers to their alarm-posts, and sent his favorite aide (Wilkinson) to inquire the cause of the disturbance. When informed that the enemy were about to attack his left, he listened to the advice of Colonel Morgan, and ordered that officer to go out with his riflemen and "begin the game." Morgan was soon moving with celerity with his corps and some infantry, to secure a position on the Heights on the flank and rear of the British right. At the same time General Poor, with his own New Hampshire brigade and followed by New York militia under Ten Broeck, advanced against the British left. Meanwhile the rangers and their companions had successfully turned the flank of the Americans, and partly gaining their rear, had attacked their pickets. These were soon joined by British grenadiers, who drove the Americans back to their lines, where a hot engagement for half an hour ensued. In that fight Morgan was engaged, and his brave riflemen charged the assailants so vigorously, that they retreated in confusion to the British line which now appeared in battle order on an open field. The grenadiers, under Major Ackland, with the artillery under Major Williams, formed the left upon rising ground; the centre was composed of Brunswickers under Riedesel and British under Phillips: and the extreme left was composed of light infantry under Earl Balcarras. General Fraser was at the head of five hundred picked men a short distance in advance of the British right, ready to fall upon the left flank of the Americans when the action in front should begin.
It was now half-past three o'clock. Just as Burgoyne was about to advance, he was astounded by the thunder of cannon on his left, and the crack and rattle of rifle and muskets on his right. Poor had advanced stealthily up the slope on which the troops of Ackland and Williams were posted, and in perfect silence had pressed on through the thick wood toward the batteries of the latter. When they were discovered, the enemy opened a heavy storm of musket-balls and grape-shot upon the republicans. These made terrible havoc among the leaves and branches over their heads, but scarcely a shot struck one of the Americans. This was the signal for the latter to break silence. They sprang forward with a shout, delivered fire in rapid volleys, and then opened right and left, to seek the shelter of the trees on the margin of the ridge on which the British artillery was planted. A fierce conflict now ensued. The Americans rushed up to the very mouths of the cannon, and struggled hand-to-hand with the enemy for victory, among the carriages of the field-pieces. Five times one of the cannon was taken and retaken. When, at last, the British fell back, and the cannon remained with the Americans, Colonel Cilley, who had fought gallantly at the head of his regiment, leaped upon the captured gun, waved his sword high in air, and dedicated the weapon "to the American cause." Then he wheeled its muzzle toward the enemy, and with their own ammunition opened its destructive energies upon them. This act gave fresh courage to the republicans, who yet had much to do. The contest was long and obstinate, until Major Ackland was severely wounded and Major Williams was made a prisoner. Then the grenadiers and artillerymen, panic- struck, fled in confusion. Sir Francis Clarke, Burgoyne's chief aide, who was sent to secure the cannon, was mortally wounded, made a prisoner, and was carried to Gates's tent. The whole eight pieces of artillery and the possession of the field remained with the Americans.
Meanwhile Morgan had assailed Fraser's flanking corps in advance of the British right with such a tempest of rifle-balls, that they were driven hastily back to their lines. Then, with the speed of a gale, Morgan wheeled, and fell upon the British right with such appalling force and impetuosity that their ranks were quickly thrown into confusion. This attack was so unexpected by the enemy, that a panic immediately pervaded their columns. It was instantly followed by an onslaught in front by Major Dearborn, with fresh troops, when the British broke and fled in terror. They were soon rallied by Earl Balcarras, who placed them in battle attitude again. This shock on the right convulsed the British centre, composed chiefly of Germans, but it maintained its position.
Soon after the battle of the 19th, Gates, jealous of Arnold and offended by his impertinence, had deprived that officer of all command. He was stripped of authority to give an order or even to fight. The impetuous, quarrelsome, insubordinate brigadier, thirsting for the glory which he might win on that field, and inspired by patriotism, stood chafing with impatience and irritation, a chained spectator of the battle. At length, when he could no longer restrain himself, he sprang upon the back of his big black charger, as before, and started on a full gallop for the field of action. Gates sent Major Armstrong to order him back. Arnold saw the subaltern in chase and divined his errand. He put spurs to his horse, and left Armstrong far behind; and placing himself at the head of three regiments of Learned's brigade, who received their old commander with three hearty cheers, he led them against the British centre. With the desperation of a madman he rushed into the thickest of the fight, or rode along the lines with rapid and erratic movements, brandishing his sword over his head, and delivering his orders everywhere, in person. Armstrong followed him half an hour, but Arnold's course was so varied and perilous that he gave up the chase.
The Germans received the assault of the troops led by Arnold with brave resistance; but when he dashed in among them at the head of his men, they broke and fled in dismay. At this time, the battle became general all along the lines. Burgoyne, perceiving that the fate of his army hung upon the result of the conflict that day, exposed himself fearlessly at the head of his troops, and bade them defend their positions while a man was left alive. Arnold and Morgan were the ruling spirits among the Americans. The gallant Fraser was the soul that directed the most potent energies of the British. Like Arnold, his voice and example were electric in their power, when directing attacks and in bringing order out of confusion. He was dressed in full uniform and rode a splendid gray gelding, both making conspicuous objects on the field. Morgan perceived that the fate of the battle depended upon that officer. Suppressing his better feelings, he called a file of his most expert sharp-shooters, and pointing toward the scarlet-clad leader, said: "That gallant officer is General Fraser. I admire and honor him, but it is necessary he should die; victory for the enemy depends upon him. Take your stations in that clump of bushes, and do your duty." Within five minutes after this order was given, General Fraser fell, mortally wounded, and was carried sorrowfully to the British camp, for he was truly loved by all. A bullet from the rifle of Timothy Murphy, mounted in a sapling, had passed through his body.
When the gallant Fraser fell, a panic ran along the British line. It might have been temporary, had not General Ten Broeck appeared at that critical moment with three thousand fresh New York militia. At sight of them, the wavering line gave way, and the troops retreated to their intrenchments covered by Phillips and Riedesel. They left their artillery behind, for all the horses, and nearly all the men who had defended the pieces were slain or wounded. Up to these intrenchments, in the face of a terrible storm of grape-shot and bullets, the Americans, with Arnold at their head, eagerly pressed, and assailed the works with small arms. Balcarras bravely defended them, until he could resist no longer. Above the din of battle the voice of Arnold was heard, and his form was seen in the midst of the sulphurous smoke, dashing from point to point and encouraging his men. With a part of the brigades of Paterson and Glover, he drove the troops of the Earl from an abatisan obstruction of fallen treesat the point of the bayonet, and attempted to force his way into the British camp. Failing in this, he placed himself at the head of Learned's brigade, and made a vigorous assault upon the enemy's right, which was defended by Canadians and Loyalists, who were flanked by a stockade redoubt on each side. For awhile the result appeared doubtful. At length the English gave way, leaving the Germans under General Specht entirely exposed.
Arnold now ordered up from the left the New York regiments of Wesson and Livingston, and Morgan's riflemen, to make a general assault, while Colonel Brooks, with his Massachusetts regiment, accompanied by Arnold, attacked the German troops commanded by Breyman. Arnold rushed into the sally-port on his powerful horse, and spread terror among the Hessians there. They had seen him in the thickest of the fight, for two hours, unhurt, and regarding him with superstitious awe, as one possessed of a charmed life, they fled. They gave a parting volley in their retreat, which killed Arnold's horse and severely wounded the same leg that was badly hurt at Quebec. Then, at the moment of victory, and at the head of his troops, wounded and disabled, he was overtaken by Major Armstrong, who had resumed the chase, and received from him the order from Gates to return to camp, for the commander-in-chief feared Arnold might "do some rash thing." He had done a "rash thing" in achieving a decisive victorya triumph which proved to be a turning-point in the war in favor of the Americans- -without the orders or even the permission of his commander.
The glamour of false light which often surrounds the commander of a victorious army frequently conceals the truth, and deprives the most meritorious of the actors of their just reward. The dazzled public lauded Gates as a great general, because he was the commander of the victorious army on this occasion, when the truth assures us that he was a hindrance instead of an aid, in the achievement of the triumph. While Arnold was reaping golden sheaves of glory for Gates's garner, by wielding the fierce sickle of war, the latter and General Lincoln, his second in command, did not appear upon the field of battle. Gates, it is said, did not leave his tent at all that day, for he had not recovered from a debauch in which he had indulged the night before. His favorite aide (Wilkinson) said afterward, that when he went to headquarters for orders in the afternoon, he found Gates more intent upon discussing the merits of the Revolution with Burgoyne's dying aide than upon winning the battle then raging. He followed Wilkinson as he went out, and asked him "Did you ever hear so impudent a son of a ," referring to the wounded officer, who had ventured to differ with him. Poor Sir Francis Clarke died that night upon the bed of his coarse and vulgar antagonist.
It was twilight when the wounded Arnold was carried from the field. The rout of the Germans was complete. They threw down their arms and ran, and could not be rallied. Colonel Breyman was mortally wounded. The conflict ceased when the curtain of night fell upon the scene. At about midnight, the division of Lincoln marched out to the relief of those upon the field; and before the dawn, Burgoyne, who had resolved to retreat, removed his whole force a mile or two north of his intrenchments, which the Americans immediately took possession of.
General Fraser died on the morning after the battle, and his body was buried, at the evening twilight of the same day, within a redoubt upon a gentle eminence, which the hero had chosen for his place of sepulture. A very touching account of his death and his funeral is given in the published letters and memoirs of the Baroness de Riedesel, wife of the Brunswick general, who, with her children, accompanied her husband while he was in America. The body of Fraser was followed to the grave by Burgoyne and a large number of officers led by Mr. Brudenell, the faithful chaplain of the artillerists. As the funeral procession moved up the slope in the dim light, it appeared to Americans like a hostile movement, and they opened a cannonade upon it from the eastern side of the Hudson; but as soon as its solemn character was made known, the cannonade for destruction was changed to the firing of minute-guns in honor of the memory of the brave soldier.
The wife of Major Ackland (a daughter of the Earl of Ilchester), who accompanied her husband, and was with Madame Riedesel during the battle of the 7th of October, when she heard that her husband was wounded and a prisoner, resolved to go to the American camp in search of him. On a dark and stormy night she descended the Hudson in an open boat, accompanied by Chaplain Brudenell, and bearing a letter of introduction from Burgoyne to Gates. She found her husband at the headquarters of Arnold, now (1876) the residence of Mr. Neilson, on Bemis's Heights, where she was permitted to nurse him until he was able to travel to New York and sail for England.
On the night of the 8th, Burgoyne, with his shattered and dispirited army, retreated to the Heights of Saratoga, reaching there, after a wretched march in a heavy rainstorm, on the morning of the 10th. At the passage of the Fish Creek at Saratoga, they destroyed the mansion, mills, outbuildings, and other property belonging to General Schuyler, and valued at fifty thousand dollars. The main army of the Americans also moved northward. The brigade of General Fellows were posted on the hills eastward of the Hudson, within cannon-range of the British camp, which their batteries commanded. Burgoyne now despaired; and at a council of general officers, it was determined to open negotiations with Gates for a surrender on honorable terms. These were finally agreed upon, and at eleven o'clock on the morning of the 17th of October, 1777, the vanquished troops laid down their arms upon the plain near the Hudson River, in front of the present village of Schuylerville. Then Burgoyne rode toward the headquarters of Gates, with his staff. They met that officer on the road not far from the ruined mansion of General Schuyler, when Burgoyne, in the presence of that patriot and many other American officers, and his own, surrendered his sword to the commander of the victorious republican army. Then they all returned to Gates's headquarters, and dined together.
The whole number of troops surrendered was five thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, of whom two thousand four hundred and twelve were Brunswickers and Hessians. Besides these, there were eighteen hundred prisoners of war, including the sick and wounded abandoned to the Americans. The entire loss of the British army after they entered the province of New York, including those under St. Leger disabled or captured at Fort Schuyler and Oriskany, was almost ten thousand men. On Burgoyne's staff were six members of Parliament. Among the spoils of war that fell to the Americans were forty-two pieces of the best brass cannon then known; four thousand six hundred muskets, and a large quantity of munitions of war.
THE TERMS OF BURGOYNE'S SURRENDERTHE DISPOSITION OF HIS TROOPSSIR HENRY CLINTON'S STRATAGEMCAPTURE OF FORTS IN THE HUDSON HIGHLANDSMARAUDING EXPEDITION UP THE HUDSONWASHINGTON CONFRONTING HOWE IN DELAWARE AND PENNSYLVANIABATTLE ON THE BRANDYWINEMOVEMENTS OF THE BELLIGERENTS AFTERWARDSWAYNE ATTACKED NEAR THE PAOLITHE BRITISH IN POSSESSION OF PHILADELPHIAOPERATIONS ON THE DELAWAREBATTLE AT GERMANTOWN.
GENERAL GATES granted very generous terms to Burgoyne and his army. His troops were not held as prisoners of war, but allowed a free passage to Europe for those who wished to go there, and free permission for the Canadians to return to their homes, on the condition that none of the troops surrendered should serve against the Americans during the war. Arrangements were made for the march of the European captives, by the nearest route to the vicinity of Boston, there to be embarked as speedily as possible.
The vanquished army began their march for the seaboard on the day after their surrender. "It was solemn, sullen and silent," wrote a contemporary, but they were treated with such humanity and delicate respect for their feelings, that they were overwhelmed with astonishment and gratitude. The appearance of the German prisoners was extremely pitiful and ludicrous, according to eye- witnesses. Mrs. Dr. Winthrop of Cambridge, writing about the advent of these hirelings into Cambridge, remarked: "I never had the least idea that the creation produced such a sordid set of creatures in human figurepoor, dirty, emaciated men; great numbers of women, who seemed to be the beasts of burden, having bushel baskets on their heads, by which they were bent double. The contents seemed to be pots and kettles, various sorts of furniture, children peeping through gridirons and other utensils; some very young infants who were born on the road; the women, barefooted, clothed in rags. Such effluvia filled the air while they were passing that, had they not been smoking all the time, I should have been apprehensive of being contaminated."
The Congress ratified the generous terms made by Gates; but circumstances soon convinced them and Washington, that Burgoyne and his troops intended to violate the agreement at the first opportunity. It was therefore resolved not to allow the "convention troops," as they were called, to leave the country until the British government should ratify the terms of the capitulation. Here was a dilemma. That government would not recognize the authority of Congress: so the troops remained idle in America four or five years.
The surrender of Burgoyne was, as we have observed, a turning-point in the war in favor of the Americans. Its salutary effects were immediately apparent. The credit of Congress was revived, and the work of the Commissioners abroad was made easier. New life was infused into every part of the public service, for the hopes of the people were buoyant. The militia of the country obeyed the summons to camp with alacrity, after the first check of Burgoyne on Bemis's Heights; and when the surrender took place, Gates had under his immediate command more than thirteen thousand troops, with almost twelve thousand more subject to his call. The tide of public opinion in Europe set strongly in favor of the Americans; and less than four months after Burgoyne gave up his sword to Gates, France had formed a treaty of alliance with the United States and acknowledged their independence, while other European powers were thinking kindly of the Americans.
The joy of the moment invested Gates with the character of a saviour of the republican cause. In the pride of his heart, that officer disdained to make a report of the affair in writing to anybody, but sent Wilkinson, his favorite aide-de-camp, with a verbal message directly to Congress, instead of to Washington, his superior officer. The Congress were so unmindful of their own dignity, that they admitted Wilkinson to their hall and upon its floor to announce in studied phrases the news tardily sent, of the great victory, with his own lips. They voted the thanks of the nation to Gates and his army, and gave a gold medal to the general. In a written report afterward made, that leader barely mentioned the names of Arnold and Morgan, with others. He seemed to fear that giving just praise to others, might diminish his own renown. In this he anticipated the correct verdict of posterity.
While Burgoyne was struggling with his foes on the Upper Hudson, Sir Henry Clinton, whom Howe had left in command at New York, was trying to make a diversion in his favor on the lower and middle waters of that stream. Among the Hudson Highlands were three forts with feeble garrisons. Fort Constitution was upon a rocky island opposite West Point. Forts Clinton and Montgomery were upon the west bank of the river, one on each side of a small stream with high rocky shores. From the latter the Americans had stretched a chain and boom across the Hudson to Anthony's Nose, to prevent the passage of vessels up the stream. These forts were under the supervision of General Israel Putnam, whose headquarters were at Peekskill, a little below the Highlands; and Forts Clinton and Montgomery were under the immediate command of Governor George Clinton and his brother General James Clinton. Putnam had injudiciously granted so many furloughs or permits to be absent, that his whole force at Peekskill and the Highland forts, did not exceed two thousand men, at the time we are considering. Tories had informed Sir Henry of the weakness of the Highland forts, and as soon as reinforcements from Europe, which had been floating on the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean for almost three months, arrived, he prepared vessels suitable for transporting troops and munitions of war up the river. Vigilant Whigs below had informed Putnam of these preparations before the close of September, and the general had sent the news to George Clinton, governor of the lately organized State of New York, who was attending a session of the legislature at Kingston. With what forces of militia he could gather, the governor hurried to Fort Clinton, his brother being in command of Fort Montgomery.
On the 4th of October, Sir Henry Clinton went up the Hudson with between three and four thousand troops, in many armed and unarmed vessels commanded by Commodore Hotham, and the next morning landed them on Verplanck's Point, a few miles below Peekskill, feigning an attack upon the latter post. This feint deceived Putnam, and he sent to Forts Clinton and Montgomery for reinforcements. This was precisely what Sir Henry wished. But the more sagacious Governor Clinton was not deceived, and held all the forces within his reach, at the Highland forts, which he rightly believed to be the baronet's objectives.
Under cover of a dense fog, Sir Henry embarked a little more than two thousand troops, and at dawn on the morning of the 6th, landed them on Stony Point, opposite Verplanck's to make a circuitous march around the lofty Donderberg and fall upon the Highland forts. At the same time orders were given for the war- vessels to anchor within point-blank cannon-shot distance of the forts, to beat off any American vessels that might appear above the chain and boom. Sir Henry divided his forces. One party led by General Vaughan, and accompanied by the baronet, about twelve hundred in number, went through a defile west of the Donderberg, to fall upon Fort Clinton, while another party, nine hundred strong, made a longer march around Bear Mountain, to assail Fort Montgomery. On the borders of Lake Sinnipink, at a narrow pass near Fort Clinton, Vaughan had a severe engagement with some troops sent out by the governor; at the same time, the latter sent to Putnam for aid. The messenger turned traitor and deserted to the British.
Campbell and his men arrived near Fort Montgomery in the afternoon, and at five o'clock a peremptory demand was made for the surrender of both forts. It was treated with scorn, when a simultaneous attack upon the forts by both divisions of the British, and the vessels in the river, began. The garrisons were mostly militia, and behaved well, making a vigorous defence until dark, when they were overpowered and sought safety in a scattered retreat to the adjacent mountains. Many got away, but a considerable number were slain or made prisoners. The governor fled across the river, and at midnight he was in the camp of Putnam planning future operations. His brother, badly wounded, made his way over the mountains to his home at New Windsor, where he was joined by the governor the next day. American vessels lying above the chain and boom slipped their cables and attempted to escape, but there was not wind enough to fill their sails; so their crews set them on fire to prevent their falling into the hands of the British. By the light of their burning vessels, the fugitive garrisons were enabled to make their way over the mountains to settlements beyond. Among the vessels burned was the frigate Montgomery, a sloop of ten guns, and a row- galley. The conflagration was a magnificent spectacle. A British officer wrote: "The flames suddenly broke forth, and, as every sail was set, the vessels soon became magnificent pyramids of fire. The reflection on the steep face of the opposite mountain and the long train of ruddy light which shone upon the waters for a prodigious distance, had a wonderful effect; while the ear was awfully filled with the continued echoes from the rocky shores, as the flames gradually reached the loaded cannon. The whole was sublimely terminated by the explosions, which left all again in darkness."
Early the next morning, the chain and boom were broken by the British, and a flying squadron of light vessels under Sir James Wallace, bearing the whole of Sir Henry's land force, went up the Hudson to devastate its shores, and draw from Gates some of the troops that stood in the pathway of Burgoyne, for the protection of the country below. Sir Henry wrote a despatch to Burgoyne, on a piece of tissue paper, saying: "Here we are, and nothing between us and Gates." He inclosed it in a hollow silver bullet, gave it to a careful messenger, and returned to New York. That messenger was arrested in the American camp, in Orange county, as a spy. He swallowed the bullet. It was brought from his stomach by an emetic, and its contents being discovered, the bearer was hanged.
The marauders spread terror over the middle region of the Hudson, by their doings. They landed near Kingston, where the New York legislature were in session, and burned the village. Their advent was very sudden, for they moved with great celerity. Near their landing-place, some Dutchmen were at work. They fled in terror (not stopping to look back) across a meadow, in which the hay- makers had left a rake lying the previous summer. On this one of the flying Dutchmen trod, when the handle flew up and struck him on the back of the head. Not doubting it was a blow from a pursuing Briton, the fugitive threw up his arms and exclaimed, "Mein Got! I gives up! Hurrah for King Shorge!"
Leaving Kingston in ashes, the marauders went over to Rhinebeck, and destroyed much property there, and then went up to Livingston's Manor and applied the torch. There they were arrested by the alarming news of Burgoyne's defeat, and made a hasty retreat to New York. So ended the efforts to carry out the plan of the British ministry for taking possession of the valleys of the Hudson and Lake Champlain.
While the stirring events just delineated were occurring in the north, the republican army under Washington were struggling with royal troops and German hirelings under Sir William Howe in the vicinity of the Delaware River. We have observed that Washington, when he was certain that Howe would not ascend the Hudson, moved with his army to Philadelphia, expecting to meet his antagonist south of that city. His expectations were justified by events. Late in August he learned that Lord Howe's fleet, with his brother's army, was ascending Chesapeake Bay; and on the 24th of the month, Washington marched his army from Philadelphia, and arrived at Wilmington, in Delaware, the next day, at about the time when the British troops landed at near the head of the Elk River, fifty- four miles from the American capital. Howe immediately prepared to march across the gently rolling country inhabited chiefly by Tories, with the expectation of making an easy conquest of Philadelphia. His army numbered more than eighteen thousand men well supplied with munitions of war; Washington's effective force did not number over eleven thousand, including eighteen hundred Pennsylvania militia. The Congress had lavished all their favors upon Gates, the favorite of the New England delegation, who had just been sent to supersede Schuyler; and they treated Washington with positive neglect. "They did not scruple to slight his advice and to neglect his wants." With unbecoming and unpatriotic querulousness, some of the friends of Gates in Congress wrote and spoke disparagingly of Washington as a commander. Some of them were encouraging in the mind of Gates a hope that he would be the Virginian's successor in chief command. John Adams, with judgment warped by his partiality for Gates, wrote at this time: "We shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe's business; the Continental Army under Washington is more numerous by several thousands than Howe's whole force; the enemy give out that they are eighteen thousand strong, but we know better, and that they have not ten thousand. Washington is very prudent; I should put more to risk, were I in his shoes; but perhaps he is right. Gansevoort has proved that it is possible to hold a post, and Stark that it is practicable even to attack lines and posts with militia. I wish the Continental Army would prove that anything can be done. I am weary with so much insipidity. I am sick of Fabian systems. My toast is, a short and violent war." Adams was soon afterward satisfied that he was blinded by a sad delusion.
Washington advanced his forces beyond Wilmington, and early in September took post behind Red Clay Creek. He sent General Maxwell, with light troops, to form an ambuscade in the direction of the enemy, while with the main army he waited the approach of the foe, who moved in two clumns on the 3d of September, one division commanded by Cornwallis, and the other by Knyphausen. The advanced guard soon encountered Maxwell, when a sharp skirmish ensued and a temporary check was given to the march of the foe. On the 8th they again moved forward by way of Newark, and feigned an attack on Washington's right, while the main army halted with the expectation of turning that flank of the republican army the next morning with ease. But Washington outgeneraled Howe as he did Cornwallis at Trenton. By a swift and secret movement that night, he fell back to the Brandywine Creek, which he crossed at Chad's Ford, and took post in a strong position on the hills that skirt the eastern borders of that stream. The British were astonished at dawn on the morning of the 9th by the absence of Washington, and gave chase the same evening. The Americans stood directly in the path of the British in the proposed march upon Philadelphia.
On the 10th, the two divisions of Howe's army met at Kennet Square, and at five o'clock on the morning of the 11th a large portion of them, led by Cornwallis, marched up the Lancaster road toward the forks of the Brandywine. They left all their baggage, even to their knapsacks, with the other division, which, led by Knyphausen, marched a few hours later in a dense fog for Chad's Ford. Washington's left wing, composed of the brigades of Muhlenberg and Weedon of Greene's division, and Wayne's division with Proctor's artillery, were on the hills east of Chad's Ford. The brigades of Sullivan, Stirling and Stephen, composing the right wing, extended along the Brandywine to a point above the forks; and a thousand Pennsylvania militia, under General Armstrong, were at Pyle's Ford, two miles below Chad's Ford. General Maxwell, with a thousand light troops, was posted on the west side of the stream, to dispute the passage of Knyphausen. The latter pushed forward, and sent a strong party to dislodge Maxwell, who, after a severe fight, was driven to the edge of the Brandy-wine, where he was reinforced, and turning upon his pursuers, smote their ranks into confusion and pressed them back to their main line. Seeing a movement in force to gain his rear, Maxwell fled across the stream, leaving the western side in full possession of the enemy.
Knyphausen now brought his great guns to the high bank west of Chad's Ford, and opened them upon the Americans. He did not attempt to cross, for he was instructed to amuse the patriots with a feigned attempt to pass over, while Cornwallis should cross at the forks and gain the flank and rear of Washington's army. This accomplished, Knyphausen was to push over the stream, and both parties make a simultaneous attack.
Washington resolved to strike a blow at once. He sent word to Sullivan to cross at a ford above, and attack Cornwallis, while he should pass over and assail Knyphausen. Through misinformation, Sullivan did not perform his part of the work. He sent a message to Washington, which kept him in suspense a long time. Greene, who had crossed at Chad's Ford with his advance-guard, was recalled, and Cornwallis, in the meantime, had made a wide circuit, crossed the Brandywine far up that stream, and was upon a hill near the Birmingham meeting-house, not far from Sullivan's right, before that officer was aware of his approach. The surprised general sent word to Washington of his perils, and immediately moved against the enemy. Before he could form his troops in battle order, the rested Britons attacked him. A severe battle ensued. For awhile the result was doubtful. Finally the right wing of the republicans under General De Borre gave way; then the left under Sullivan. The centre, commanded by Stirling, remained firm for awhile, when it, too, gave way, and fled in confusion. Lafayette, who was with this corps, fighting on foot as a volunteer, was badly wounded in his leg. All efforts to rally the troops were vain, excepting a few who made a momentary stand near Dilworth, when they, too, fled, and with the other regiments ran over the hills in fragments toward the main army at Chad's Ford, closely pursued by the victors. Cornwallis's cannon had made dreadful havoc in the American ranks.
When the cannonade at the Birmingham meeting-house was heard by Washington, he went with Greene and two brigades which lay nearest the nearest the scene of action, to the support of the right wing. They made a swift march, met the fugitives, and by a skillful movement opened their ranks and received them and checked the pursuers by a constant fire of artillery. At a narrow defile the regiments of Stephen and Stewart held the British back until dark, when the latter encamped for the night. Meanwhile Knyphausen had crossed the Brandywine at Chad's Ford, where Wayne, in command of the left wing, defended the works gallantly for awhile; but when he saw the more numerous enemy getting in his rear, he abandoned his cannon and munitions of war and made a disorderly retreat behind the division of General Greene. At twilight there was askirmish near Dilworth, between Maxwell and his light troops lying in ambush to cover the retreat of the American army, and some British grenadiers. The conflict was short, for darkness soon put an end to it.
The battle was now over. The Americans, defeated, marched leisurely to Chester. The British held the field, but did not pursue. On the following morning (September 12th, 1777), Washington gathered his army, marched toward Philadelphia, and encamped near Germantown. He had lost in killed, wounded and prisoners, almost a thousand men; the British loss was a little more than half that number. Brave men from abroad had fought and bled, on that day, some for the King and some for Liberty. In that battle, young Lafayette, the noblest and best friend of the Americans (not of their blood), in their struggle for independence, struck his first blow for the oppressed and for freedom. There, too, Pulaski, the generous Polander, first drew his sword in defence of the rights of man, in the western hemisphere, as commander of a troop of horse, and won from the Congress the commission of brigadier of cavalry. There, too, De Borre, Duplessis, De Fleury, and other Frenchmen showed the true metal of brave men.
The Congress was not dispirited by the defeat. Expecting to be again compelled to fly from Philadelphia, they reinvested Washington with a portion of the power with which they had clothed him nine months before.
They authorized him to direct General Putnam to send him fifteen hundred troops from the Hudson Highlands, and to summon continentals and militia from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Nor was Washington dispirited. Allowing his troops to rest only one day, he recrossed the Schuylkill and sought Howe to offer him battle. They met on the Lancaster road, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, and were about to engage in battle, when a storm of lightining, wind, and rain fell suddenly upon them, spoiled their ammunition, and prevented a severe fight. The rain continued all night, and before the dawn Howe withdrew and pushed on toward Philadelphia. Perceiving this, Washington crossed the Schuylkill at Parker's Ford, hoping to confront Howe at the crossing of the river below. The British eluded the Americans by a deceptive movement, and crossing the Schuylkill between Norristown and Valley Forge pushed on to Philadelphia and took possession of the city. Howe stationed the main division of his army at Germantown, and Washington encamped near Skippack Creek, about twenty miles from Philadelphia.
During the march of the Americans after the dispersion of the belligerents by the storm, General Wayne, at the head of a large body of republicans with two pieces of cannon, was engaged in striking British detachments and in endeavors to destroy Howe's baggage and supplies. While encamped on the night of the 20th, near the Paoli Tavern, he was attacked by General Grey with a strong British detachment, and in the desperate fight in the darkness that ensued, he lost nearly three hundred men, his cannon, and many small arms. As usual, the friends of Gates in the Congress blamed Washington for these losses, and for his later movements. Again John Adams, whose fault-finding pen was seldom idle, wrote concerning his crossing to the eastern side of the Schuylkill: "It is a very injudicious manoeuvre. If he had sent one brigade of his regular troops to have headed the militia, he might have cut to pieces Howe's army in attempting to cross any of the fords. Howe will not attempt it. He will wait for his fleet in the Delaware River. O Heaven, grant us one great soul! One leading mind would extricate the best cause from that ruin which seems to await it." While Adams was writing, Howe did "attempt it," and crossing the Schuylkill, took possession of Philadelphia. The frightened Congress had again fled from that city. After being seated at Lancaster a few hours, they crossed the Susquehanna River to York, putting that stream between themselves and the enemy. There they remained until the British evacuated Philadelphia the following summer.
After the battle on the Brandywine, Lord Howe took his ships around to the mouth of the Delaware, to co-operate with his brother in the attempt to capture Philadelphia. He sent some light-armed vessels up the river, which found obstructions in the channel at Byllinge's Point, several miles below Philadelphia, and a strong redoubt there to cover them. Other obstructions in the form of a strong chevaux-de-frise (sunken crates of stone with heavy spears of timber pointed with iron to receive vessels) were observed in the channel above, with forts near to protect themFort Mercer on the New Jersey shore, and Fort Mifflin on Mud Island near the mouth of the Schuylkill. General Howe had taken Philadelphia without the aid of the ships; but an open water communication, by which he might receive supplies, was of vital importance to him. His brother informed him that if the general would assist, with land troops, in the reduction of the post at Byllinge's Point (now Billingsport), he could clear the channel of obstructions. Sir William accordingly sent a strong detachment from his army for the purpose. The garrison at Byllinge's Point spiked their guns on the 2d of October, and the militia on the Jersey shore dispersed in alarm. Even from armed vessels above the chevaux-de-frise there were many desertions. Perceiving this weakening of the main British army at Germantown, and the importance of prompt action to prevent public despondency, Washington resolved to attack that army at once.
Howe's force stretched across the country at right angles with the main street at Germantown. On the front of the right were a battalion of light infantry and Simcoe's Queen's Rangers, a corps of American Loyalists. In advance of the left were other light infantry to support pickets on Mount Airy, and the extreme left was guarded by Hessian Yagers (riflemen). Near the large stone mansion of Chief Justice Chew (yet standing) at the head of the village, was a strong British regiment under Colonel Musgrave.
Washington, as we have observed, was then on Skippack Creek, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. It was arranged for the divisions of Sullivan and Wayne, flanked by Conway's brigade, to advance by way of Chestnut Hill, while Armstrong, with Pennsylvania militia, should make a circuit and gain the left and rear of the enemy. The divisions of Greene and Stephen, flanked by Macdougall's brigade (two-thirds of the whole army), were to make a circuitous march and attack the front of the British right wing, while the Maryland and New Jersey militia, under Smallwood and Forman, should fall upon the rear of that wing. Lord Stirling, with the brigades of Nash and Maxwell, were to form a reserve.
During the night of the 3d of October [1777], the American army made their march of fourteen miles, for Germantown, very stealthily. They tried to reach Chestnut Hill before daylight, but the roughness of the road prevented, and it was near sunrise when they emerged from the woods on that eminence. The whole country was then enveloped in thick fog. Unperceived, until the critical moment, Washington's advance surprised the British pickets, and the troops of Sullivan and Wayne fell, with heavy force, upon the British infantry battalion in front. Before a storm of grape-shot, they were pushed back to their main line in much confusion. The cannonade startled Cornwallis, who was soundly sleeping in Philadelphia unsuspicious of an enemy being so near. Howe, too (near the army), was awakened by the great guns, and arrived near the scene of conflict in time to meet his flying battalions. He turned from the front of the tempest, and hastened to his camp to prepare his troops for action. Musgrave sent a part of his regiment to support the retreating battalions, and with six companies he took refuge in Chew's strong house, barricaded the doors and lower windows, and made it a castle. From upper windows he delivered such fearful volleys of musketry upon Weedon's brigade, who were in pursuit of the fugitives, that the march of the pursuers was checked. The fire of the American small arms upon the building was ineffectual.
A young officer bearing a flag with a message demanding a surrender of the "castle" was shot, when Maxwell's artillerists brought cannon to bear upon the building, but its strong walls resisted the heavy round shot. Then an attempt was made to burn the house, but failed. The check in the pursuit brought back Wayne's division which had advanced far beyond the house, and so left Sullivan's flank uncovered. This event, and the failure of Greene to attack at the time he was ordered to, disconcerted all the plans of the commander-in-chief. Very soon, however, Greene's troops, which had fallen into great confusion in the fog, in their march over the broken country which they passed, fell upon the British right, but their hopes of success were weakened by the failure of other troops to co-operate with them, by turning the British left; so the golden opportunity was lost.
The fog still continued. Parties of Americans frequently attacked each other as foes in the confusing mist. Each army was ignorant of the strength and real position of the other on the field; and it was afterward ascertained that while the attack on Chew's house was going on, the whole British army were on the point of giving up the fight, and crossing the Schuylkill to rendezvous at Chester. At that moment, General Grey discovered that his flanks were secure, and Knyphausen with his whole force marched to the assistance of the beleaguered garrison, under Musgrave, and the contending regiments in the village. For a short time a severe battle was maintained in the heart of Germantown. The patriots were unable to discern the number of their assailants. The cry of a trooper that they were surrounded produced a panic, and the Americans retreated in great confusion. This occurred after a very severe struggle for the mastery for almost three hours, and at a moment when the British general was contemplating a similar movement. The republicans lost in the battle over six hundred men killed, wounded and missing, and the British about eight hundred. The Americans returned to their camp on Skippack Creek, which they had left the evening before, and the British resumed their former position. Washington resolved to drive the British from Philadelphia before the winter should set in, but he was prevented, and his plans were frustrated, by the interference of Gates's friends in Congress.
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN WASHINGTON AND THE ARMYTHE HESSIANS REPULSED AT RED BANK AND MUD ISLANDDISOBEDIENCE OF GATES AND ITS EFFECTSDOINGS OF A FACTION IN CONGRESS IN FAVOR OF GATESTHE DELAWARE CLEARED OF OBSTRUCTIONSTHE AMERICAN ARMY AT WHITEMARSH AND VALLEY FORGETHE BRITISH IN PHILADELPHIA"BATTLE OF THE KEGS""CONWAY'S CABAL" OR GATES'S CONSPIRACYPLAN FOR A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT ADOPTEDITS CHARACTER.
THE retreat of the Americans from the battle-field at Germantown at the moment when victory seemed about to be secured to them, did not cause the Congress nor the people to blame Washington and his general officers. The fog that produced so much uncertainty in movements was the chief cause of the panic and flight; and the Congress, justly considering all things, passed a vote of thanks to the commander-in-chief for his "wise and well-considered attack," and to the "officers and soldiers of the army for their brave exertions on that occasion."
A few days after the battle, Lord Howe's fleet was anchored at the mouth of the Delaware River, and he and the general prepared to sweep that stream of all its obstructionthe chevaux-de-frise, the commanding forts at Red Bank and on Mud Island, the floating batteries, and the armed galleys. They were elated by their recent accidental victory, and did not entertain a doubt of success. The British army were at once concentrated at Philadelphia; but it was the middle of October before even a narrow channel was opened through the lower obstructions of the river. A difficult task lay before the enemy. Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, had a spirited little garrison under Colonel Christopher Greene of Rhode Island; and Fort Mifflin, on Mud Island, was in charge of Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Smith, of Maryland, with an equally spirited body of men.
To strengthen his own army, Howe ordered General Clinton to abandon the forts in the Hudson Highlands and send six thousand troops to Philadelphia. He had scarcely issued this order when the news of the surrender of Burgoyne reached the British commander-in-chief. That event filled the American camp with joy, and that of the enemy with amazement. Howe perceived that what he had to do must be done quickly; so he ordered Count Donop to take Fort Mercer by storm. The Hessian colonel, eager for renown, marched against it on the 22d of October (1777), with about twelve hundred menGerman grenadiers, infantry, riflemen, and artillery. At the edge of a wood within cannon-shot of the fort, they planted a battery of ten heavy guns; and at half-past four o'clock in the afternoon, Donop sent a summons for the instant surrender of the garrison, accompanied by a threat that, in case of resistance, no quarter would be given. Colonel Greene, the commander, with only four hundred men back of him, made an instant and defiant refusal, saying: "We ask no quarter nor will we give any." Then the besiegers opened their heavy guns; and under their fire they carried the abatis or the land side of the fort. There they encountered many pitfalls, and a heavy storm of bullets and grape-shot from a concealed battery. Equally severe was an enfilading fire from two other galleys hidden by the bushes. These fearfully slaughtered the assailants. Donop and many of his officers were killed or mortally wounded; and at twilight the invaders withdrew, after a loss of two hundred men, and were not pursued. The Congress ordered the Board of War to present an elegant sword to Colonel Greene, for his gallant defence of Fort Mercer; and some New Jersey and Pennsylvania volunteers erected a monument of blue-veined marble on the site of the fort, in 1829, to commemorate the deed. Colonel Greene was soon afterward murdered at his quarters in Westchester county, N.Y., by a band of Tories, and the sword was presented to his family.
Some British ships-of-war that came to assist in the reduction of Fort Mercer, attacked Fort Mifflin the next morning. After being severely cannonaded from the fort and the American vessels, they attempted to retreat down the river, when the Augusta, a 64-gun ship, and the frigate Merlin, grounded. The former was set on fire by red-hot shot from the American batteries, and was blown up with a part of her crew. The Merlin was set on fire and abandoned. These events inspirited the Americans; and John Adams took the occasion to help Gates in his ambitious intrigues against Washington, by saying: "Thank God the glory is not immediately due to the commander-in-chief, or idolatry and adulation would have been so excessive as to endanger our liberties."
When full knowledge of the events of Burgoyne's surrender became known, it was perceived that Gates had no use for a large army in the north. The public interest impatiently demanded that he should send a greater part of his Continental troops to assist Washington in reducing Howe to the condition of Burgoyne. But this patriotic course might thwart the ambitious schemes of the commander in the north and his friends, who seemed willing to have the sun of Washington's renown eclipsed by disaster, that Gates's more feeble orb might appear to be the brighter luminary. Washington directed Gates to forward heavy reinforcements as speedily as possible. The latter, with false pretences, held them back. Amazed at this positive disobedience, so nearly resembling the treason of Lee, the commander-in-chief sent his ever trusty aid, colonel Alexander Hamilton, to acquaint Gates, in person, with the urgent necessity of sending forward troops immediately. Gates still hesitated. The acute Hamilton plainly saw the reason, and he used such plain language toward the conspirator, that Gates, startled, sent large reinforcements down the Hudson immediately. Hamilton followed soon afterward, and was amazed to find these troops detained by General Putnam below the Highlands. At Gates's instigation, the veteran, believing he might win personal glory by the expulsion of the British from New York city, had actually advanced with his army as far down as White Plains, on the foolish errand. Acting under the advice of Governor Clinton, Hamilton spoke authoritatively in the name of Washington, and arrested the wild expedition. But these delays had frustrated the well-laid plans of Washington for capturing or expelling the whole British army. At the same time the powerful Gates faction in the Congress had caused legislation in that body which was calculated to dishonor the commander-in-chief and restrain his military operations. They forbade him to detach more than twenty-five hundred men from the Northern Army without first consulting General Gates and Governor Clinton, and so making him subservient to his inferiors in rank. The Adamses and Gerry of Massachusetts, and Marchant of Rhode Island, actually voted for a resolution forbidding Washington to detach any troops from that Department, excepting by consent of Gates and Clinton. The Congress also ordered Gates to "regain the forts and passes on the Hudson," which Washington had already deprived the British of, by pressing Howe so closely that he ordered Sir Henry Clinton, as we have observed, to abandon them and send reinforcements to the Delaware. This afforded Gates an excuse for keeping back the troops which he had sent down the Hudson. So the war was prolonged by a faction.
Howe soon made another effort to gain possession of the Delaware River. He planted five batteries, with an aggregate of thirty pieces of cannon, within five hundred yards of Fort Mifflin. A large floating battery was brought up the river; and on the 10th of November the British opened heavy guns from these, upon the fort. The siege was a fearful one, and continued six days. On the second day, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, the commander of the fort, was wounded and taken over to Fort Mercer, when the leadership devolved first upon Colonel Russell, of Connecticut, and then upon Major Thayer of Rhode Island, who was well supported by Major Fleury, the French engineer. The garrison held out bravely under an incessant cannonade and bombardment. On the 15th, some British vessels with heavy guns, approached near enough for hand-grenades to be thrown from them into the fort. Five ships-of-war took positions to keep off the American flotilla, and to fire a broadside occasionally upon Fort Mifflin. During that day, more than a thousand shot and shell were hurled upon the works on Mud Island, from 12 to 32-pounders; and a storming party were made ready to attack the fort on the morning of the 16th. In the darkness of the preceding evening, Major Thayer sent all of the garrison, excepting forty men, to Fort Mercer, and he, with these, followed at midnight. The fort had become untenable, and was abandoned in time to save the remnant of the garrison, which had lost about two hundred and fifty men, killed or wounded. Washington's army was then encamped at Whitemarsh, in a beautiful valley, about fourteen miles from Philadelphia, where he waited, in much anxiety, for the result of the attack on Fort Mifflin.
Fort Mercer was yet in possession of the Americans. Cornwallis was sent with two thousand men, by way of Byllinge Point, to attack the post. The vigilant Washington immediately sent General Greene, with his division, by way of Burlington, to join some American troops in New Jersey and give battle to the enemy. Greene was accompanied by Lafayette, and expected to be reinforced by troops from the Hudson River. He was disappointed, while Cornwallis was joined by five British battalions from New York. General Greene was compelled to abandon the plan of fighting the invaders, and the commander of Fort Mercer (Colonel Greene), seeing no hope of help, evacuated the works, leaving his artillery as trophies for the enemy. Cornwallis levelled the ramparts of Fort Mercer and returned to Philadelphia, and the American troops in New Jersey crossed the Delaware and joined Washington at Whitemarsh.
A few of the American vessels escaped up the river, in the night, but seventeen of them were abandoned and burned by their crews. The river obstructions and the shore defences were scattered to the waves and winds; and on the 11th of December, Washington broke up his encampment at Whitemarsh and proceeded with his whole force to Valley Forge, about twenty miles northward of Philadelphia. He had been joined by troops from the north; and only a few days before, he had repulsed a British force, fourteen thousand strong, who came out on an intensely cold night (December 4, 1777) to surprise him. There was a sharp fight at Edge Hill; and after threatening the American camp at various points, the British withdrew and returned to Philadelphia. Washington's whole army did not number more than eleven thousand men, of whom only about seven thousand were fit for field duty. He chose Valley Forge as a place for a winter encampment, because it was further from the danger of sudden attacks from the enemy, and where he might more easily protect the Congress at York and his stores at Reading.
Members of Congress and the Pennsylvania Legislature, moved by impulse more than by judgment, had been clamorous for an immediate attack upon the British in Philadelphia, who had strongly fortified every important way of approach to that city. But Washington, sustained by a large majority of his general officers, disregarded all querulous fault-finding. His troops were in great distress, because of a lack of shoes and clothing, when they evacuated Whitemarsh. Many of them made the fatiguing journey to Valley Forge over hard frozen ground and through snow, barefooted, leaving blood spots on the white carpet trodden by their lacerated feet. Upon the slopes of a narrow valley on the borders of the winding Susquehanna, they were encamped with no shelter but rude log-huts, during a very severe winter. There the little army shivered with cold and almost starved with hunger, while the British army were indulging in comforts and luxuries in a large city. Yet the patriotism of that republican army was not cooled, nor their aspirations for liberty starved; nor did the commander-in- chief suffer a doubt of success to cloud his spirits, for he knew the cause to be a righteous one, and believed that God would give final victory to the oppressed. In all the world's history, we have no record of purer devotion, holier sincerity or more pious self-sacrifice, than was exhibited in the camp of Washington during the winter of 1777 and 1778. At the same time the British army were as much weakend by indulgence as were the republican troops by privations. Profligacy begat disease, crime, and insubordination. The evil effects of these led Dr. Franklin to say: "Howe did not take Philadelphia- Philadelphia took Howe."
It was during that winter that the amusing circumstance occurred which drew from the pen of Francis Hopkinson his famous satirical poem entitled "The Battle of the Kegs." In January (1778), while the channel of the Delaware was yet free of ice, some Whigs at Bordentown sent floating down the river a few kegs filled with gunpowder, and so arranged with machinery, that on rubbing against an object, they would explode. It was hoped that some of these torpedoes, touching a British vessel, might explode and sink it. One of them, touching some floating ice in front of the city, blew up, and produced intense alarm. Hopkinson, in his satire, say:
"Now up and down, throughout the town, Most frantic scenes were acted: And some ran here, and others there, Like men almost distracted. Some Fire! cried, which some denied, But said the earth had quaked; And girls and boys, with hideous noise, Ran through the streets half-naked."
For twenty-four hours afterward, not a chip or stick could float down the stream without being fired at by musket or cannon by the British:
"The cannons roar from shore to shore, The small-arms loud did rattle; Since wars began, I'm sure no man E'er saw so strange a battle."
At that time occurred that episode in our history known as "Conway's Cabal"- a conspiracy to ruin the reputation of Washington, and to make Gates the commander-in-chief of the armies, of which intimations have been given in this work from time to time. The conspirators labored in secret, by means of forged and anonymous letters, and slanderous reports, to weaken the public confidence in Washington as a leader. Failing to effect their object by these means (for he was every day rising higher and higher in public esteem), it was determined to abridge his influence and extend that of Gates, by creating a new Board of War, with the latter officer as president. This was effected late in November, 1777. The Board was invested with large powers, and by delegated authority, assumed the control of military affairs, which properly belonged to the province of the commander-in-chief. It was evident that the Congress intended to make Gates the master-spirit of the war, for, by a resolution, that body instructed their president to inform the general of his appointment to an office "upon the right execution of which the success of the American cause does eminently depend," and that it was the "intention of Congress to continue his rank as major-general in the army, and that he officiate at the Board, or in the field, as occasion may require." His partisans in the Congress hastened to assure him that he would soon be the virtual commander-in-chief.
The conspiracy to this end was made more active when, at the middle of October, Washington wrote a letter to Richard Henry Lee, in which he spoke plainly concerning Brigadier-General Conway, a French officer of Irish lineage, who, it was rumored, was about to be appointed by the Congress a major-general in the Continental Army. "It will be as unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted," Washington wrote. "I may add, and I think with truth, that it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the army. Upon so interesting a subject, I must speak plainly. The duty I owe my country, the ardent desire I have to promote its true interests, and justice to individuals, require this of me. General Conway's merit, then, as an officer, and his importance in the army, exists more in his own imagination than in reality; for it is a maxim with him to leave no service of his own untold, nor to want anything which is to be obtained by importunity." Washington's chief reasons for apprehending disaster from the promotion of Conway, was the fact that he was the youngest brigadier in the army, and his exaltation over all the eldest would create dangerous dissatisfaction. "In a word," he wrote, "the service is so difficult, and every necessary so expensive, that almost all of our officers are tired out. Do not, therefore, afford them good pretexts for retiring. No day passes over my head without applications for leave to resign. Within the last six days, I am certain twenty commissions at least have been tendered to me." He added: "I have undergone more than most men are aware of, to harmonize so many discordant parts; but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service, if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way."
Conway was informed of Washington's opposition to his promotion. His malice was aroused, and he became such a conspicuous instrument in promoting the conspiracy of Gates, that the affair became known as "Conway's Cabal." His pen and tongue were exceedingly active. He wrote anonymous leteers to the members of Congress, to the Patrick Henery (then governor of Virginia), and., it is believed, to the presidents of the several State Legislatures, filled with the complaints, insinuations and false statemnets, in which the recent disasters to Washington's army were attributed to the incapacity and ill-timed policy of the commander-in- chief. He did his best to sow the seeds of discontent among the officers of the army, and succeeded in a degree. He caused several officers to write letters to Gates that fed the conspirator's vanity and confirmed his hopes of success in his undertaking. Conway him-self and wrote to Gates, saying in substance: "Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a week general and bad counsellors would have ruined it." Colonel Joseph Reed wrote to him: "This army, notwithstanding the efforts of our amiable chief, has, as yet, gathered no laurels. I perfectly agree with that sentiment which leads to request your assistance." General Sullivan, Washington's second in command, who sell knew the opinion of his chief and other officers concerning Conway-of Greene and others who had pronouced him "worthless"- was induced to write to a members of Congress in favor of the French officer being appointed inspector-general of the army, with the rank of major-general; and the impetuous Wayne expressed his intenttion to "follow the line pointed out by the conduct of Lee, Gates and Mifflin." Mr. lovell, a delegate in Congress from the Massachusetts, wrote a letter to Gates, which, after threatening Washington with "the mighty torrent of public clamor and vengeance," said: "Hopw different your conduct and your fortune! this army will be totally lost unless you come down and collect the virtuous band who wish to fight under your banner.: Again Lovell wrote: "We want you in the different places; we want you most near Germantown [in the Washington's place]. Good God, what is situation we are in! how different from what might have been justly expected!" Dr.Benjamin Rush, in a letter to Patrick Henry, a little to Patrick Henery, a little later(to which he did not at its head, said: "A Gates, a Lee, or a Conway, would in a few weeks render them an irresistible body of the men. Some of the contents of this country." Henery showed his contempt for the anonymous writer, by his silence, and by sending the letter to Washington. Rush's hand-writing betrayed him.
Through the loose tongue of Wilkinson, Gates's favorite aide, Washington that heard of the disparaging words in Conway's letter, and he immediately let that officer know the fact. A personal interview ensured between them, when the Conway justifies his words and made no apology. He afterward boasted to Mifflin of his defiance of the commander-in-chief. Mifflin was then a member of the new board of War, of which the Gates was president. Piqued because of the just complaints of his neglect of the duty as quarter-master-general, by the commander-in-chief, he entered heartily into the conspiracy. When telling Gates of Conway's defiance of Washinton, Mifflin said the letter of the French general was "a collection of just sentiments;" and Gates wrote to Conway: "You acted with all the dignity of virtuous solider;" at the same time he expressed a wish that "so valuable and polite an officer might remian in the service." Conway had offered his resignation; the Gates faction in Congress soon procured his appointment, by that made him independent of the commander-in-chief. The conspirators hoped, by these indignities, to cause Washington to resign. But the beloved patriot bore all with the patience. He wrote to henry Laurens form the snows of the Valley Forge: "My enemies take an ungenerous advantage of me. They know the deliacy of my sitaution, and that motives of policy deprive me of the defence I might otherwise make against their insidious attacks, They know I cannot combat their insinuations, however injurious, without disclosing secrets which it is of the utmost moment to conceal."
After the Conaway's interview with the Wasington, the conpiracy took a more vigorous form. In consultation with that officer, and without the knowledge of the chief, the Boards of War arranged a plan for the winter campaign against Canada. Hoping to detach Lafayette from the Washington, they appointed him commander-in-chief of the expedition. The marquis, who was aware of the intrigues, asked Washington's advice in the matter. The chief said it was an honorable position, and advised him to accept the commission. Lafayette went to the Congress, sitting at York, to obtain it, and there he met Gates, Mifflin and other memebers of the Boards of War, at the table. Wine circulated freely, and toasts were offered. At length the marquis, thinking it the time to show his colors, arose and said: "Gentleman, one toast, I preceive, has been omitted, which I will now propose." They filled their glasses, when he gave: "the commander-in-chief of the American armies." The coldness with which that toast was received, confirmed Lafayette's wrost opinions of the men around him. These were heightened when he foundthat the Conway's was appointed his second in command. He procured the appointment of De Kalb to that position, making Conway the third, which dissatisfied that officer.
The whole expedition was manifestly a trick of Gates to get Lafayettes away from the Washington, and to promote Conway. He had assured the marquis that three thousand troops would await his coming, at Albany, with the ample munitions, and that the Stark by that time would have destroyed the British vessels at St. Jonhs. Not more than a thousand soldiers, inlcuding a regiment which the Gates ordered form the Washington's weak army, were at the Albany when themarquis arrived, and the Stark was waiting for the orders. Clothing and transportation were wanting. Lafayette was disgusted. "I fancy," he wrote, "the actual scheme is to get me out of this part of the count5ry, and the general Conway as chief, under the immediate command of the Gates." The conspirators found they could not use Lafaytte, and the expedition was abonded. Conway's resignation was unexpectdly, by him, accepted by the congress. The leaders in the conspiracy, diconcerted by the events, hastened to declaim all the intention the elevate Gates to ht eplace of Washington in the officel station. But the circumstantial proofs of their intentions to do so are too abudant to admit of a doubt. Mercy Warren, a warm personal friend of Samuel Adams, apologized, in her history of the war, for his being found in the company of the conspirators, saying: "Zealous and ardent in his denfese of his injured country, he was startled at the everything that seemed to retard the operations of the war, or impede the success of the Revolution." Alexander Hamilton, in the letter to the Governor Clinton in the February, 1778, deplored the weakness of the Congress at the beginning of the year. "America,: he wrote, "once had a representations that wouls do thonor to any age or nations . The present falling off is very high alarming and the dangerous. What is the cause? and how is it to be ramedied? are question that the welfare of these States required should be well attended to."
At this time, when the Congress was sitting at York, that body resumed the consideration of a plan for establishing a national government, on the basis of Federal union of the several states. We have observed that the Franklin presented a plan in the summer of 1775, upon which no action was taken. On the 11th of the June, 1776, a committee, with the John Dickenson, at their head, were appointed to devise a plan. They reported a draft a month later, when the subject was laid aside, and was not taken up again until April, 1777. From that the time untill late in the ensuing fall, the subject was debated in the Congress two or three time of a week. In these debates the conflicting interests of the several Stated were made conspicuous. Finally, after making the several amendments, the Congress adopted Articles of Confedration and Perpetual Union, on the 15th of Novemeber, 1777, giving to the Confederacy the title of the The United State of America. The following is the substance of the provision of the league:
That all should engage in a reciporocal treaty of alliance and friendship, for the mutual advantage, each to assits the other, when help should be needed; that no State should have the right to regulate its own internal affairs; that no State should separately send or receive embassies, begin any negotiations, contract engagements or alliances, or the conclude treaties with the any foreign power, with out the constent of the General Congress; that no public from any foreigm power, and that neither Congress nor State governments should possess the power to confer any title of nobility; that none of the States should have the right to form alliances among themselves, without the consent of the Congress; that they should not have the power to levy duties contrary to the enactments of Congress; that no State should keep up a standing army or ships of war, in time of peace, beyond the armament stipulated by the Congress; that when any of the States should raise troop for the common defence, all the officers of the rank of colonel and unders should be appointed by the legislature of the State, and the superior officers by the Congress; that all the expenses of the war should be paid out of the public Treasury; that Congress alone, should have the power to coin money; and that Canada might, at any time, be admitted into the confederacy, when the people there felt disposed to do so. There were some other clauses that were explanatory of the power of certain governmental operations and contained details of the same.
This plan of a national government was submitted to the legislatures of the several States for their ratifications. They were slow to act. Notwithstanding, there was a general feeling that something should be done for the maintenance of the union after the cohesion created by the common danger of a state of war should be relaxed, there was a jealousy on the part of the States, of a central power that might claim supremacy. The people had become accustomed to the ideas of the right, simply, as set the forth in the Declarations of the Independence, and hesitated to accept declared power, as promulgated by the Articles of Confedration. The former was based upon the dogmas of a "superintending Providence and the inalienable right of man; the latter relied upon the sovereignty of the declared power, ascending form the foundation of human government to the laws of nature and of nature's God, written upon the heart of the man; the other resting upon the basis of the human institutions and prescriptive law, and colonial charters."
An objectionable system of representation was proposed, by which each State was entitled to the same voice in the Congress, whatever might be the difference in population. Most objectionable of all were a provision for the limits of the several States, and taking no notice of the important questions, In whom is invested the control and possession of the public land? These, and other gave defects in the plan, caused most of the States to hesitate, at first, to adopt the Articles, and for a long time several of them refused to do so.
Late in June, 1778, the Congress proceeded to consider the objections offered, and on the 27th of that month, a form of ratification was adopted and ordered to be engrossed upon parchment to be signed by such delegated as might be instructed to do so by their respective legisalatures. These were signed on the 9th of July by the delegated of New Hamsphire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. The delegated form other states afterwards signed at the various times; nut the legislature of Maryland refused to ratify, untill the question of the conflicting claims of the Union and of the separate State of the public lands should be fully adjusted. This was finally accomplished, by the cession of the claiming States, to the United States, of all the unsettled and unappropriated public lands for the benefit of the whole Union. In this act orginated our Territorial system.
The governments thus formed was radically defective, and soon failed to accomplish the objects for which it was created, as we shall observe here-after, because the people were not recognized as sovereign; only the several States. It was an attempt to reconcile partial supremacy in the Union of the absolute supremacy of each State. It was a crude embryo act of which a more perfect national government was evolved.
THE ARMY AT VALLEY FORGEPROCEEDINGS IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENTBEAUMARCHIS AND THE AMERICANSA SERIOUS MISUNDERSTANDINGEFFECT OF BURGOYNE'S SURRENDER IN FRANCETREATY BETWEEB FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATESFRANKLIN'S RECEPTION AT COURT, AND HIS POPULARITYVOLTAIRE-ACTS OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENTCONCILIATORY BILLSRUPTURE BETWEEB FRANCE AND ENGLANDAMERICAN DETACHMENTS ATTACKED- COMMITTEE AT VALLEY GEORGECONGRESS AND THE SOLDIERSSTEUBENTHE TREATY RECEIVED AT VALLEY FORGECONCILIATORY BILLS AND THE AMERICANTHE PEACE COMMISSIONERS.
THE joy that thrilled the bosoms of the American patriots when the news of Burgoyne's surrender went over the land, succeeded by the doubts and gloomy forebodings at the opening of the fourth year of the war, 1778., The effects of that surrender upon the public mind in the Europe were not then known in America; and the military events which had succeeded it here were calculated to produce a great depression of spirits. The little army of Washington, then building log-huts at Valley Forge, ahd just passed through a season of great trial, and their own patriotism and that of their leaders had been proven by severest tests. Their ranks Congress, remissness in the duty of the late quartermaster-general, faction in the high places, and the intrigues of ambitious men. Almost three thousand soldiers of that little, sufferings army were unfit for the duty, because they were barefooted and half-naked. Multitudes were compiled to doze around fires all night, because they did not possess a bed or a blanket to lie upon; and many who were favoured with these were made sick by exposure to dampness, because they had no means of raising their beds from the ground. Not clamors in the Congress and the Pennsylyanis legislature for the winter campaign against the British in Philadelphia. The commander-in-chief was followed to Volley Forge by the remonstrance form the Council and Assemble of Pennsylvania against his going inot winter-quarters reproof Washington made a firm but the modest reply, stating the condition of his troops and the causes, and saying: "Gentleman reprobate the going into the winter-quarters as if they thought the soldiers were stocks and stones. I can assure those gentleman that it is much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them; and from my soul I pity their miseries, which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."
Let us here pause in our narrative of military and civil movements in America, and briefly consider events bearing upon the great struggle then occurring in Europe.
The British Parliament assembled on the 18th of November. They had not heard of Howe's success on the borders of the Brandywine, nor of Burgoyne's disasters at Saratoga. They knew that Howe had been compelled to retire from New Jersey, and gloomy forebodings occupied their minds. They knew that American commissioners were kindly received at the French court, and they dreaded a possible alliance of that nation with the insurgent subjects of Great Britain in America. The stubborn king, in his opening speech from the throne, declared his intention to prosecute the war against the "rebels," without regard to the waste of blood and treasure. He alluded to the increased armaments of France and Spain, and, urging his people to make provision of larger means for carrying on the war in America, he expressed a hope that the "deluded and unhappy multitude in the colonies" might speedily cease their resistance and return to their allegiance.
A corresponding address to the king was proposed in Parliament, when the heaviest batteries of the Opposition in both houses were brought to bear upon the ministry. In the House of Lords, the Earl of Chatham (William Pitt), who strongly desired reconciliation with the Americans and was as strongly opposed to their independence, leaning upon a crutch, poured forth a flood of oratory such as distinguished him in the prime of his vigorous manhood. He opposed the further prosecution of the "inhuman war," and pleaded earnestly for conciliatory measures. He charged the ministry with lack of courage to sustain the honor of the nation, because they had allowed to pass unnoticed, what he called an insult to his government by the French court, in receiving, on friendly terms, the ambassadors of the insurgent Americans. "Can our ministers," he asked, "sustain a more humiliating disgrace? Do they dare to resent it? Do they presume even to hint at a vindication of their honor, and the dignity of the State, by requiring the dismissal of the plenipotentiaries of America?" Alluding to the ill-success of the British arms in this country, he said: "You cannotI venture to say it you cannot conquer America. What is your present condition there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell every expense and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your efforts are forever vain and impotentdoubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemiesto overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plumber; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my armsnevernever never!" With equal vehemence Chatham condemned the employment of the American savages "to wage the horrors of this barbarous war." A member justified the employment of Indians, by saying that the British had the right to use the means "which God and nature had given them." Chatham scornfully repeated the passage, and said: "These abominable principles, and this most abominable avowal of them, demands most decisive indignation. I call upon that reverend bench (pointing to the Bishops), these holy ministers of the Gospel and pious pastors of the ChurchI conjure them to join in the holy work, and to vindicate the religion of their God."
In the House of Commons, Burke, Fox, and Barre were equally severe in their denunciations; and when, on the 3d of December, news reached London of the defeat of the British in northern New York, the latter rose in his place, and with a serene and solemn countenance, asked Germain, the Colonial Secretary, what news he had received by his last express from Quebec, and to say, upon his word of honor, what had become of Burgoyne and his brave army. The haughty Secretary was irritated by the cool irony of the question, but he was compelled to admit that information of Burgoyne's surrender had reached him. He added"It lacks confirmation." That confirmation speedily came, and Lord North was overwhelmed with grief. He could neither eat nor sleep. He saw in the event the result of the unwise measures of his sovereign, which he had sanctioned in opposition to the dictates of his own conscience and judgment; and he proposed to end the quarrel by conceding all that the Americans asked, or retire from the cabinet. It was perceived by all but the stupid and obstinate king and a few shallow courtiers that something must be done immediately toward reconciliation, or France would interfere. Leaders in both houses agreed with North. Fox said: "If no better terms can be had, I would treat with them as allies, nor do I fear the consequences of their independence." The king would not yield an iota of his pretensions to absolute sovereignty over the Americans. In turn he chided and coaxed the pliant North, when, finding his minister less yielding than usual, he conceded so much to his feelings as to suggest that in the event of a war with France and Spain (which then seemed probable) the royal troops might be withdrawn from the American provinces and employed in making war upon the French and Spanish islands. North yielded, and preparations for the campaign of 1775, against the Americans, went on vigorously.
Meanwhile events of great importance to the struggling patriots had taken place in France. We have already noticed (page 888) the efforts of Beaumarchais in behalf of the Americans, and the joint mission of Franklin, Deane and Lee, to the French court. We have observed that early in 1777, the commissioners proposed a treaty with France for mutual benefit in peace and war, and so took the initial step in the foreign diplomacy of the United States. Already the French government, in response to the efforts of Beaumarchais and Deane, had furnished essential material aid for the Americans, from the public treasury and arsenals. It was done secretly through Beaumarchais, who, as the agent of the government, opened a large commercial house in Paris, under the firm name of Rodriguez, Hortales Co.; and by the use of money received from both France and Spain for the purpose, he sent three ship-loads of supplies to the Americans, in time to be used for the summer campaign of 1777. This mercantile disguise enabled Vergennes, the French minister, to say, with truth, at the end of the fourth year of the war: "The king has furnished nothing; he simply permitted M. Beaumarchais to be provided with articles from the arsenals upon condition of replacing them."
Out of these transactions grew much embarrassment. At an early stage of Mr. Deane's negotiations with the French, Arthur Lee of Virginia, an ambitious young man then in London, and who fell in with Beaumarchais there, informed the Congress through his brother, Richard Henry Lee, that Vergennes had sent an agent to him with the assurance that, while the French government would not then think of going to war with Great Britain, they were ready to furnish the Americans with arms and ammunition to the value of almost a million dollars. This statement was untrue, and was very mischievous, leading the Congress to believe that the supplies afterward sent by Beaumarchais were gratuities of the French monarch. This belief prevailed until the close of 1778, when, on inquiry being made of Vergennes, by Franklin, the above answer was given by that minister. Thomas Paine, minister for foreign affairs, at Philadelphia, believed it, and said so in a newspaper quarrel with Silas Deane, when the startled Congress, unwilling to compromise the French court, said by resolution, in January, 1779, that they "had never received any species of military stores as a present from the court of France or from any other court or person in Europe," and dismissed Paine from his office. Beaumarchais afterward claimed payment from the Congress for every article he had forwarded. This claim caused a lawsuit which lasted about fifty years. It was settled in 1835 by the payment to the heirs of Beaumarchais by our government, the sum of over two hundred thousand dollars.
When the news of the surrender of Burgoyne reached France, Beaumarchais, who had then sent supplies for the Americans to the amount of almost a million dollars, found himself in financial embarrassment by lack of remittances of funds from the Congress, which he had expected. That body had been deceived by the falsehoods and slanders of Lee, and had not only withheld remittances, but had not acknowledged the receipt of supplies. Beaumarchais sent an agent to America, that autumn, to seek justice, who wrote back that Lee's untruthfulness was the cause of all the trouble. Just then tidings reached Paris that the Americans had captured Burgoyne's whole army. The news filled the French capital with great joy. It was perceived that the Americans could help themselves. France saw this, and also perceived that they might be her very useful allies in the evidently impending war with Great Britain. So the French government resolved to give the patriots more substantial, material, and moral aid than ever before, by acknowledging the independence of the United States and forming a treaty of alliance with them. Beaumarchais's mission was ended. On the 6th of February, 1778, a treaty of amity, commerce, and alliance was concluded with the French government, by the American commissioners. This treaty was effected secretly; and before the fact was known at the British court, Dr. Franklin, then seventy- two years of age, was greeted as the American ambassador at the French court, and M. Gerard was appointed to represent France at the seat of government of the United States. So was begun that alliance which speedily led to a war on sea and land between the French and English.
Franklin and his colleagues were presented to the king and queen at Versailles, on the 20th of March. Willing to comply with the court etiquette on such occasions, the republican ambassador sent for a wig, and contemplated ordering a suit of blue velvet and lace. No wig in Paris would fit his capacious head; so he resolved to appear in his baldness, with his thin gray hair hanging down upon his shoulders. So he did appear in defiance of the chamberlain and fashion. Clad in an elegant suit of black velvet made as plain as one he would have worn at an evening party in Philadelphia, with white cambric ruffles in his bosom and at his wrists, white silk stockings and silver shoe-buckles, he won the admiration of all beholders in that brilliant assembly. The beautiful young queen bestowed her sweetest smiles upon him, and kept him near her person as much as possible during the audience. In one of the saloons of Paris a few evenings afterward, he was the centre of attraction. His defiance of etiquette charmed the Parisians. The ladies pressed around the Philosopher, and more enthusiastic ones saluted him with kisses on his forehead. The king was irritated by these attentions, for he despised republicans, and only consented to be their ally in war for the benefit of France. Voltaire, who, at the age of eighty-four, had just arrived in Paris after a long exile, was not more popular then than Franklin. They soon became personal friends, for Voltaire espoused the cause of the Americans. Franklin venerated him for his wisdom, and bade his grandson, a tall youth, ask the philosopher's blessing. The venerable man placed his hand on the lad's head and gave it in these words: God and Liberty.
The position now assumed by France toward the Americans greatly embarrassed the British ministry, and even the king was disposed to yield a little. Eleven days after the treaty was concluded at Paris, Lord North presented two conciliatory bills to Parliament. One declared the government did not intend to exercise the right of imposing taxes in America, and proposed to make almost every concession which the Americans had demanded two years beforeeven not to insist upon the renunciation of their independence; the other authorized the king to send commissioners to America to treat for reconciliation and peace. Mr. Hartley, a confidant of Lord North, sent copies of these bills to Dr. Franklin. The ambassador, with the knowledge of Vergennes, sent word back that if the king wished to treat with the Americans on terms of perfect equality, the desired result might be obtained by sending commissioners to the representatives of the United States in Paris. The French king fearing a reconciliation might take place, and so thwart his plans for using the Americans for the glory of France, hastened to officially inform the British government, through the French minister in London, of the treaty between that country and the United States. That minister, acting under instructions, in his note to the British government, spoke of the United States as being in "full possession of independence," and declared that his king was determined "to protect effectually the lawful commerce of his subjects, and to maintain the dignity of his flag," and had, "in consequence, taken effectual measures in concert with the Thirteen United and Independent States of America."
These offensive wordsoffensive as they were intended to bewere construed by the British government as a virtual declaration of war on the part of France; and the British minister at the French court was immediately recalled. Meanwhile the Conciliatory Bills had become laws, after much opposition in Parliament, chiefly because they allowed the Americans to assume the position of an independent nation. It would virtually be a dismemberment of the British empire, and this Chatham and his friends vehemently opposed. Afterward, when leaders of the opposition proposed, as a means for detaching the Americans from the French, to declare their independence, a most violent debate arose. That was early in April. Chatham had not appeared in the House of Lords for some time. Now his political friends urged him to be there. He appeared on the 7th of April, smothered in flannel and leaning upon two friends. He was pale and emaciated, and appeared like a dying man. Under his great wig, little more might be seen than his aquiline nose and peering eyes. He arose to speak. Leaning upon crutches, and supported by two friends, he raised one hand, and casting his eyes toward heaven, said: "I thank God that I have been enabled to come here this dayto perform my duty, and to speak upon a subject which has so deeply impressed my mind. I am old and infirm. I have one foot, more than one foot, in the grave; I am risen from my bed to stand up in the cause of my country perhaps never again to speak in this House. My Lords, I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me; that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy." His voice, at first feeble, rose in vehemence as he proceeded, and he made a most effective speech. The Duke of Richmond spoke in opposition to Chatham's arguments, and when he sat down, the great orator, much agitated, attempted to rise to reply, when he swooned and fell in the arms of his friends near by. Every one pressed around him with solicitude, and the debate closed without another word. He was conveyed to his country-seat at Hayes, where he expired on the 11th of May. The scene of his fall in the House of Lords was admirably painted by Copley, the American artist, who was then a resident of London.
The little army at Valley Forge had not only suffered great privations in camp, but were subjected to attacks upon their feeble outposts, and detachments sent out for food and forage, by parties sent from Philadelphia. Among the most active of these was a corps of American Loyalists, called the "Queen's Rangers," led by Major Simcoe, and numbering about five hundred men. In February, these went into New Jersey to capture Wayne, who was there gathering up horses and provisions, but failed. Another party, more than a thousand strong, led by Colonel Mawhood, went to Salem in March, and on the 18th, had a severe skirmish at Quintin's bridge, near that town, with a small force of Americans under Colonel Holmes. The latter were dispersed, but were saved from capture or destruction, by Colonel Hand, who arrived with some troops and two pieces of cannon, and checked the pursuers. Mawhood then sent Simcoe to attack another detachment at Hancock's bridge, not far from Quintin's, on the night of the 20th. But few Americans were there, and most of them were non-combatants, who made no resistance. They were all murdered while begging for quarter. This cruel act was done by unprincipled Tories, who, in arms, were called "The blood-hounds of the Revolution."
At that time a committee of the Congress were at Valley Forge, where they had been for several weeks, conferring with the commander-in-chief on the subject of future military operations, and especially upon reforms of present abuses in the army, the increase in its efficiency, and the revival of the hopes of the country. Washington presented to the committee a very long memorial, in which he had embodied the views of himself and his officers. He specially urged as a necessity, as well as equity, of insuring to the officers of the army, half-pay for life. This memorial formed the basis of the report of the committee to the Congress. Washington also wrote many letters to members of that body, urging the measure of half-pay with great earnestness and good arguments, pleading for this act of justice toward his companions in arms, and disclaiming all selfish motives, for he had often declared that he would not receive pay for his own services. The Congress finally agreed to secure to each officer half-pay for the term of seven years next ensuing after the close of the contest, and a gratuity of eighty dollars to every non-commissioned officer and private who should continue in the service until the close of the war. These equitable provisions doubtless saved the Continental Army from dissolution in the spring of 1778.
Meanwhile the service had been strengthened by the appointment of General Greene quartermaster-general, in place of General Mifflin, and the Baron de Steuben as inspector-general of the Continental Army, in place of General Conway. Steuben was a skillful Prussian officer, who had served on the staff of Frederick the Great. He arrived in America at the beginning of December, 1777, and presenting himself to the Congress at York, offered his services. His certificates of character were so ample, that they were accepted; and at the urgent solicitation of Washington he was appointed inspector-general of the armies, with the rank and pay of major-general. Joining the army at Valley Forge, he so thoroughly disciplined the crude soldiery there, in military manaeuvres, that before the opening of the campaign in June, they had acquired much of the skill of European veterans. Our regular soldiers were never beaten in a fair fight, after their drilling at Valley Forge.
As the spring advanced and warm weather prevailed, the comforts of the soldiers were increased and their daily wants were more bountifully supplied. Their shattered regiments were filled, and a more hopeful feeling prevailed throughout the country, when, on the night of the 3d of May, a despatch reached Washington, from the President of Congress, announcing the alliance between France and the United States. Washington communicated the important news in general orders on the 6th, and great joy was thereby produced. He set apart the following day to be devoted to a grateful acknowledgement of the Divine goodness in raising up a powerful friend in "one of the princes of the earth, to establish liberty and independence upon a solid foundation," and to celebrate the great event by tokens of delight. He directed the several brigades of the army to be assembled at nine o'clock in the morning to hear prayers and appropriate discourses from their respective chaplains. At a given signal the men were to be under arms for inspection and parade, when they were to be led to a specified position to fire a feu de joie with cannon and small guns. At a given signal, there was to be a discharge of thirteen cannon and a running fire of small-arms, when the whole army were to huzza"Long live the king of France!" Then another discharge of thirteen cannon and all the muskets was to be given, followed by a shout of the army"Long live the friendly European powers!" Then a third discharge of cannon and musketry in like manner, and a shout"The American States."
These orders were faithfully obeyed. Washington, with his wife and suite and other general officers with their wives, attended the religious services of the New Jersey brigade. The army made a brilliant appearance in their new suits of clothing and polished arms. After the soldiers had retired, the commander-in- chief dined in public with all his officers, attended by a band of music; and the entertainment ended with a number of patriotic toasts, and loud huzzas for Washington, when he left the table.
The "Conciliatory Bills" had arrived in America a fortnight before the news of the treaty was received by the Congress, and attracted much attention in and out of that body. Governor Tryon, at New York, caused them to be printed and widely circulated, to produce disaffection among the Americans. As they did not propose independence as a basis for negotiations, they were regarded by the patriots with suspicion, and were denominated "deceptionary bills." Washington and the Congress rejected them as inadequate, in scope, to form a foundation for discussion. "Nothing short of independence, it appears to me, will do," Washington wrote. "A peace on other terms would, if I may be allowed the expression, be a peace of war." The Congress resolved that the terms were totally inadequate, and that no advances on the part of the British government would be met, unless, as a preliminary step, they should either withdraw their fleets and armies, or acknowledge, unequivocally, the independence of the United States.
Such was the temper of the Americans, when, on the 4th of June, three commissionersthe Earl of Carlisle, George Johnstone, and William Edensent to negotiate for peace, arrived at Philadelphia. They were accompanied by Adam Ferguson, the eminent professor in the University of Edinburgh. Directions were sent for General Howe to join them, but as he had left the country, and the army was commanded by Sir Henry Clinton, the latter took his place. The commissioners sent their credentials to the Congress by a flat. For reasons above given, the Congress refused to treat with them, and the papers were returned to them, with a letter from the President giving reasons for the act. The commissioners tried by various arts to accomplish their purposes, but were foiled; and in October they returned to England, after issuing an angry manifesto and proclamation to the Congress, the State legislatures, and the whole inhabitants, in which they denounced the "rebels" and warned the people to beware of the righteous wrath of Great Britain.
Johnstone early lost all claims to respectful consideration, by attempting to gain by intrigue, what he could not obtain by fair means. He became acquainted with the accomplished Mrs. Ferguson, wife of a relative of the secretary of the commissioners, and daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme of Pennsylvania. Her husband was in the British service, and she was much with the loyalists, but her conduct was so discreet, and her attachment to her country was so undoubtedly sincere, that she maintained the confidence and respect of leading patriots. Johnstone made her believe he was a warm friend of the Americans, and was exceedingly anxious to stop the effusion of blood. He expressed his belief that if a proper representation could be made to the members of Congress and other leading Whigs, peace might speedily be secured. Mrs. Ferguson sympathized with him. As he could not pass the lines himself, he entreated her to go to General Joseph Reed, and say to him that if he could, conscientiously, exert his influence to bring about a reconciliation, he might command ten thousand guineas and the highest post in the government. "That," said Mrs. Ferguson, "General Reed would consider the offer of a bribe." Johnstone disclaimed any such intention. Believing him sincere, Mrs. Ferguson sought and obtained an interview with Reed, as soon as the British left Philadelphia. When she had repeated the conversation with Johnstone, Reed indignantly replied" I am not worth purchasing, but such as I am, the king of Great Britain is not rich enough to do it!" This attempt at bribery was soon made known, and drew upon the commissioners the scorn of all honest men. Mrs. Ferguson, whose motives seem to have been pure, was violently assailed. Trumbull, in his satire entitled "McFingal," thus alludes to the transaction:
"Behold, at Britain's utmost shifts, Comes Johnstone, loaded with like gifts, To venture through the Whiggish tribe, To cuddle, wheedle, coax and bribe; And call, to aid his desp'rate mission, His petticoated politician; While Venus, joined to act the farce, Strolls forth, embassadress of Mars. In vain he strives; for, while he lingers, Their mastiffs bite his off'ring fingers Nor buys for George and realms infernal, One spaniel but the mongrel, Arnold."
THE MISCHIANZATHE BRITISH EVACUATE PHILADELPHIADISTRESS OF THE TORIESTHE AMERICAN ARMYOATH OF ALLEGIANCELAFAYETTE OUTGENERALS THE BRITISH COMMANDERS- -THE BRITISH EVACUATE PENNSYLVANIATHE AMERICANS PURSUEDISOBEDIENCE OF LEE BATTLE AT MONMOUTHTHE BRITISH ARMY ESCAPES TO NEW YORKWASHINGTON CROSSES THE HUDSONGOES INTO WINTERQUARTERS IN NEW JERSEYWASHINGTON AND LEETREASON OF GENERAL LEEHIS WILLARRIVAL OF A FRENCH FLEET AND MINISTERD'ESTAING SAILS FOR RHODE ISLANDSULLIVAN'S EXPEDITIONFRENCH AND BRITISH FLEETS OFF NEWPORT BATTLE ON RHODE ISLANDBRITISH MARAUDERS.
WE have observed that Sir Henry Clinton succeeded Sir William Howe as commander- in-chief of the British army in America. He entered upon his duties, as such, on the 24th of May, 1778. A week before, Philadelphia was agreeably excited by a grand complimentary entertainment given to the brothers Howe, and called by the Italian name for a medley, Mischianza. It was an appropriate closing of a round of dissipation in which the British army had indulged during their six months residence in Philadelphia. Many of the officers had lived in open defiance of the demands of morality. Their profligacy was so conspicuous, that many of the Tory families who had welcomed the invaders, had prayed for the departure of such undesirable guests.
"The Mischianza," wrote Captain Andre, Clinton's accomplished and afterward unfortunate young adjutant-general, "was the most splendid entertainment ever given by an army to their commander." Andre was the chief inventor and manager of the pageant; and he and Captain Oliver De Lancey, a Tory leader of New York, painted all the scenery and other decorations. The entertainment began with a grand regatta in the presence of thousands of spectators, who thronged the wharves and swarmed upon the river in small boats. Banners waved, cannon thundered, and martial music filled the air. This over, the scene changed to a tilt and a tournament on shore, followed by a grand ball and supper, for which purposes spacious temporary buildings were erected in connection with the fine Wharton mansion in Fifth street.
The company, as they disembarked from the boats, marched between rows of grenadiers, preceded by the music, which consisted of all the bands of the army. After passing two triumphal arches, the procession, with the general and admiral, came to two pavilions with rows of benches rising one above the other, where the ladies were received and the gentlemen arranged on each side of them. On the front seat of each pavilion were seven young women, chosen from families of highest social position in Philadelphia. These were dressed in Turkish costume, and wore in their turbans the "favors" with which they intended to reward the several knights who were to contend in their honor. Suddenly the braying of trumpets was heard in the distance, and soon two bands of knights appeared, with their squiresKnights of The Blended Rose, and Knights of The Burning Mountain. They were dressed in ancient costume of white and red silk, and mounted on gray horses richly caparisoned in trappings of the same colors. They entered the list with their squires dressed in black. Captain Lord Cathcart, superbly mounted, appeared as chief of the Knights of The Blended Rose, his stirrups held by two black slaves in brilliant dresses, their arms and breasts bare. The chief of the Knights of The Burning Mountain was Captain Watson of the Guards, dressed in a magnificent suit of black and orange silk. These leaders and their followers each appeared in honor of one of the fourteen maidens in Turkish costume, and were announced with the name of the young lady in whose honor they were to contend. For example:
"Third knight, Captain Andre, in honor of Miss Chew; Squire, Lieutenant Andre: device, two game-cocks fighting; motto, "No rival."
The two bands of knights fought each other, and each one was rewarded with a favor from his "lady love." When the tournament was over, the knights rode between two rows of troops through the first triumphal arch, where all the flags of the army were displayed. Then the knights, with their squires, took their stations, the bands filling the air with martial music. The company then moved toward the knights, the maidens in oriental costume in front. As these passed, they were saluted by the knights, who then dismounted and joined them, and in this order all were conducted into a garden that fronted a large building; and passing through the second triumphal arch, the company ascended a flight of carpeted steps that led to a magnificent hall, the panels of which were painted to imitate Sienite marble, and decorated with festoons of flowers. From this hall the company were conducted to an elegantly decorated ball-room garnished with eighty-five mirrors decked with ribbons, and thirty-four candelabra with wax-candles, also decorated with ribbons. The ball was opened by the knights and their ladies, and the dancing continued until ten o'clock, when the windows were thrown open to allow the assemblage within to see a magnificent display of fireworks. At midnight a sumptuous banquet was partaken of in a grand saloon more than two hundred feet in length, and beautifully adorned. At the close of the supper a herald entered with a flourish of trumpets, and proclaimed the health of the king, queen, and royal family; the army and navy, and their commanders; the knights and their ladies, and the ladies in general. After supper they all returned to the ball-room, and danced until four o'clock in the morning.
This foolish pageant had just ended, when orders reached Philadelphia for the troops to evacuate that city and the fleet to leave the Delaware River. The rescript of the French monarch, as we have observed, was regarded in England as tantamount to a declaration of war, and the British government saw the danger that threatened their land and naval forces should a French fleet blockade the Delaware, a circumstance which speedily occurred. At the middle of April, Admiral the Count D'Estaing, a major-general in the French service, sailed from Toulon with twelve ships-of-the-line and three frigates, and after a rough voyage of ninety days, anchored in the Delaware. Fortunately for Lord Howe's fleet, it had left those waters a few days before, and was safely anchored in the broad bay off the mouth of the Raritan River. The British army had also escaped to New York, after great perils by the way.
The order for the evacuation of Philadelphia, and its execution, produced wide- spread consternation and distress in that city, lately so gay with scarlet uniforms, martial music and banners, dashing young officers and a brilliant display of the pastimes of half-barbarous nations five hundred years before. The change from bright promises of protection to the despair caused by cruel desertion was awful. It was like the sudden gathering of a fierce tempest in a serene sky. About three thousand of the most tenderly-bred of the inhabitants left their homes, their property and their cherished associations, and fled for refuge from the indignation of their Whig neighbors, whom they had outraged in many ways, to be borne away, they knew not whither, to a fate which they could not foresee.
Meanwhile the condition of Washington's army at Valley Forge, which the British despised, and ridiculed in plays by amateur performances in a theatre in Philadelphia, was greatly improved in every respect. At the middle of May the troops fit for duty numbered about fifteen thousand men. The Congress had just ratified the treaty with France, and so gave great encouragement to the American people. The warmth of approaching summer diffused physical comfort, life, and vigor through the camp; and the fact, when known, that the British had been ordered to leave Philadelphia and the adjacent waters, inspired the soldiers with joy and hope.
The Congress ordered an oath of allegiance to be administered to all the officers of the army at Valley Forge, before the opening of the campaign. This ceremony took place on the 12th of May. The commander-in-chief administered it to the general officers. In so doing, several of them placed their hands on the Bible at the same time, and so took the oath together.
When Washington began to read the form, General Charles Lee, who had been exchanged for General Prescott, captured on Rhode Island, withdrew his hand. This movement he repeated, when Washington demanded a reason for the strange conduct. Lee replied: "As to King George, I am ready enough to absolve myself from all allegiance to him; but I have some scruples about the Prince of Wales." This odd reply, which covered a deeper motive, excited much laughter. In the light of to-day, we may clearly see the real reason. Lee was then playing a desperate game of treason, and probably had some conscientious scruples about taking such an oath which he would probably violate. He did, however, subscribe to it.
We have already mentioned some movements of American detachments during the winter and spring of 1778. At the middle of May news reached Washington that the British were probably preparing to evacuate Philadelphia. It was premature, for the order for that movement had not then arrived. However, the vigilant commander-in-chief acted promptly. He detached Lafayette, with about twenty-one hundred men and five pieces of cannon, to restrain British foragers and marauders who were plundering the country, and had burned several American vessels in the Delaware River. He was instructed to cut off all communications between Philadelphia and the country; to obtain correct information concerning the enemy, and to be ready to follow the fugitives with a considerable force when they should leave the city. Lafayette crossed the Schuylkill and took post on Barren Hill, about half-way between Valley Forge and Philadelphia. The marquis made his quarters at the house of a Tory Quaker, who informed Howe of the fact. The latter immediately ordered General Grant to make a secret night march, with over five thousand men, to gain the rear of Lafayette, and prevent his recrossing the Schuylkill. This was done on the night of the 20th of May. Early the next morning Howe marched with almost six thousand men, commanded by Clinton and Knyphausen, to capture the young Frenchman and send him to England. Grant actually surprised the marquis, and held the ford over which he and his little army had crossed the Schuylkill; but by a deceptive, quick, and skillful movement Lafayette out-generaled his antagonist, and escaped across Matson's Ford-General Poor leading the advance, while Grant was making preparations for battle. Howe was sadly disappointed. He felt sure of closing his military career in America with a brilliant achievement, but was foiled; and he marched back to Philadelphia, where, on the 24th, he embarked for England.
The British army lingered in Philadelphia until the morning of the 18th of June, when, just before the dawn, they began the passage of the Delaware at Gloucester Point, and at the close of the day were encamped around Haddonfield, a few miles southeast from Camden. So secretly and adroitly had this movement been made, that Washington was not certified of the destination of the British army until they had passed the river. Suspecting, however, that Clinton would take a land- route to New York, the commander-in-chief had dispatched General Maxwell, with his brigade, to co-operate with the New Jersey militia, under General Dickenson, in retarding the march of the enemy. Clinton had crossed the Delaware with about seventeen thousand effective men.
General Arnold, whose wound kept him from duty in the field, was left with a detachment to occupy Philadelphia. The remainder of the army crossed the Delaware above Trenton, and pursued. Lee had been restored to his command as the oldest major-general, and exercised a baleful influence as far as he was able. He was plotting for the ruin of that army, and endeavored to thwart every measure that promised success. He persistently opposed all interference with Clinton in his march across New Jersey, finding fault with everything, and creating much mischief. When, at length, he was requested to lead the advance in a meditated attack upon the enemy, he at first declined the honor and duty, saying the plan was defective and would surely fail.
Clinton had intended to march to New Brunswick, and there embark his army on the Raritan; but finding Washington in his path, he turned, at Allentown, toward Monmouth Court-House, with a determination to make his way to Sandy Hook, and thence by water to New York. Washington followed him on a parallel line, prepared to strike him whenever a good opportunity should offer; while Clinton wished to avoid a battle, if possible, for he was heavily encumbered with baggage-wagons and a host of camp-followers, making a line twelve miles in length. He encamped near Mon-mouth Court-House on the 27th of June, where Washington resolved to strike him when he should move, the next morning, for it was important to prevent his gaining the advantageous position of Middletown Heights.
Lee was now in command of the advanced corps. Washington ordered him to consult his general officers, and form a plan of attack. When Lee met themLafayette, Wayne, and Maxwellhe refused to arrange a plan or give any orders; and when at dawn on the 28tha hot and serene Sabbath morningWashington was informed that Clinton was about to move, and ordered Lee to fall upon the enemy's rear unless there should be good reasons for his not doing so, that officer was so tardy in his obedience that he allowed the foe ample time to prepare for battle. When Lee did move, he seemed to have no plan. He gave orders and counter-orders, and so perplexed and alarmed his generals that they sent a request to Washington to appear on the field immediately. While Wayne was attacking with vigor with a prospect of victory, Lee ordered him to make only a feint. The irritated commander, like a true soldier, instantly obeyed, and lost a chance for victory and honor.
Clinton now suddenly changed front, and sent a large force, horse and foot, to attack Wayne. They approached cautiously toward Lee's right, when Lafayette, believing a good opportunity was offered to gain the rear of this division of the enemy, rode quickly up to Lee and asked permission to attempt it. "Sir," said Lee, sternly, "you do not know British soldiers; we cannot stand against them; we shall certainly be driven back at first, and we must be cautious." The marquis replied: "It may be so, general; but British soldiers have been beaten, and they may be again; at any rate, I am disposed to make the trial." Lee, yielding a little, ordered the marquis to wheel his column by the right, and gain and attack the enemy's left; at the same time he weakened Wayne's detachment, by taking from it three regiments to support the right. At that moment, discovering a movement of the British that apparently disconcerted him, he ordered his right to fall back. Generals Scott and Maxwell were then about to attack, when they, too, were ordered to fall back. Lafayette received a similar order, when a general retreat began. The British pursued, and Lee showed no disposition to check either his own troops or those of the enemy. A panic seized the former, and the orderly retreat became a disorderly flight.
Washington was pressing forward to the support of Lee, when he was met by the astounding intelligence that the advance divisions were in full retreat. Of this disastrous movement Lee had not sent him word, and the fugitives were falling back in haste upon the main army. This was an alarming state of things. The indignation of the commander-in-chief was fearfully aroused; and when he met Lee at the head of the second retreating column, he rode up to the culprit, and in a tone of withering reproof, exclaimed: "Sir, I desire to know what is the reason, and whence comes this disorder and confusion?" Lee retorted sharply, and said: "You know the attack was contrary to my advice and opinion." Washington replied, with a voice that told of the depth of his indignation: "You should not have undertaken the command unless you intended to carry it through." It was no time for verbal contention. Wheeling his horse, Washington hastened to Ramsay and Stewart, in the rear, rallied a large portion of their regiments, and ordered Oswald, with his two cannon, to take post on an eminence. These field-pieces, skillfully handled, soon checked the pursuing enemy. The presence of Washington inspired the troops with confidence and courage; and ten minutes after he appeared, the retreat was suspended. The chief rode fearlessly in the face of the storm of conflict, and the whole patriot army, which, half an hour before, seemed on the point of being a fugitive mob, were now in orderly battle array, upon an eminence on which General Lord Stirling placed some batteries of cannon. The line there formed was commanded on the right by General Greene, and on the left by Lord Stirling.
The patriot army were now confronted by the flower of the British troops in America, commanded by Generals Clinton and Cornwallis, about seven thousand strong. They were upon a narrow road bounded by morasses; and when they found themselves strongly opposed on their front, they attempted to turn the American left flank. The British cavalry, in the van, were repulsed, and disappeared. The regiments of foot then came up, when a severe battle ensured with musketry and cannon. The American batteries were skillfully worked under the direction of General Knox. For awhile the result of the contest was doubtful, when General Wayne came up with a body of troops and gave victory to the republicans. His well-directed fire was so effectual, that Lieutenant-Colonel Monckton, in command of the British grenadiers, seeing that the fate of the conflict depended upon driving Wayne away, led his troops to a bayonet charge. Wayne gave them such a hot reception with bullets that almost every British officer was slain. Among them was Monckton, who fell as he was waving his sword and pressing forward with a shout. Then the British retreated through the narrow pass along which they had pursued the Americans, and fell back to the heights occupied by Lee in the morning. It was a strong position, flanked by morasses, and accessible in front only by a narrow road. The conflict ended at dusk, when the wearied American troops lay down upon their arms on the battle-field, with the intention of renewing the struggle in the morning. It had been a day of fearful heat-ninety-six degrees in the shade. More than fifty American soldiers died that day from "sun-stroke;" and hundreds, suffering from thirst, drank from pools of muddy water, whenever an opportunity offered.
At near midnight, Clinton, with his army, stealthily withdrew, and before the dawn they were far on their way toward Sandy Hook. There they embarked for New York, arriving there on the 30th. Washington did not pursue, but marched for the Hudson River by way of New Brunswick. Crossing that stream, he encamped near White Plains, in Westchester county, until late in the autumn. Clinton, in his official despatch to his government, said: "Having reposed the troops until ten at night to avoid the excessive heat of the day, I took advantage of the moonlight to rejoin General Knyphausen, who had advanced to Nut Swamp, near Middletown." The waning moon set at a little past ten that night. Alluding to the circumstance, Trumbull, in his satire of "McFingal," wrote:
"He forms his camp with great parade, While evening spreads the world in shade, Then still, like some endangered spark, Steals off on tip-toe in the dark; Yet writes his king in boasting tone How grand he march'd by light of moon!"
Notwithstanding Washington had reason to suspect Lee of treachery on the battle- field (for he had been warned the night before that he was a secret traitor, and his conduct had justified the suspicion), he was disposed to treat him leniently. But Lee, smarting under the just reproof of the commander-in-chief, wrote a note to him the next day, demanding an apology for the words spoken to him on the field. Washington made a temperate reply, expressing his conviction that the reproof he had uttered was justified by the circumstances, whereupon Lee wrote an insulting letter to the chief. The offender was arrested and tried by a court-marital on charges of disobedience of orders, misbehaviour before the enemy, and disrespect to the commander-in-chief. He was found guilty, and sentenced to suspension from military command for a year. Late in the year the Congress approved the sentence. A little more than twelve months afterward, they dismissed him from the service on account of an impertinent letter which he wrote to them.
That General Lee was treacherous to the cause which he pretended to espouse, there is ample proof. A few years ago a manuscript in the handwriting of Lee, prepared while that officer was a prisoner in New York and addressed to General Howe, containing a plan for the speedy subjugation of the colonies, came into the possession of George H. Moore, LL.D., who published it, with many facts, which clearly show that the writer had been a traitor, undoubtedly, from the fight in Charleston Harbor in June, 1776, until the battle at Monmouth, in June, 1778. All the while that he was in command during that time, he was acting in bad faith toward the Americans. His influence in the army was, at all times, mischievous. Exceedingly selfish and thoroughly unprincipled, bad in morals and courage, he loved neither God nor man. He died in poverty and obscurity in Philadelphia, in October, 1782. By his will written a few days before his death, he bequeathed his soul to the Almighty, and his body to the earth, saying: "I desire, most earnestly, that I may not be buried in any church or church-yard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist meeting-house, for, since I have resided in this country, I have kept so much bad company when living, that I do not choose to continue it when dead." He was buried in the churchyard of Christ Church, Philadelphia, with military honors.
D'Estaing, with a French fleet, arrived in the Delaware on the 8th of July, 1778, accompanied by M. Gerard, the first minister of France accredited to the United States government, and Commissioner Deane. Howe's fleet was anchored off Sandy Hook, to co-operate with the army in New York. D'Estaing proceeded to attack it, but when he arrived there, the British vessels were all in Raritan Bay, safe from the guns of the heavy French ships that drew too much water to allow them to cross the bar above Sandy Hook. General Sullivan, commanding in the east, was preparing to attempt the expulsion of the six thousand British troops then holding Rhode Island; and, at the special request of Washington, D'Estaing sailed for Narragansett Bay, with thirty-five hundred land troops, to assist in the enterprise. He arrived off Newport at the close of July, accompanied by young John Laurens as aide and interpreter, and the admiral and general arranged a plan of operations.
Washington had instructed Sullivan to arrange his troops in two divisions, and sent Greene to command one of them, and Lafayette to command the other. A requisition had been made upon New England for troops, and in twenty days Sullivan's army was swelled to ten thousand effective men. On the appearance of the French fleet off Newport, the British caused several ships-of-war and galleys, carrying more than two hundred guns, to be burned.
On the 8th of August, the French vessels ran past the batteries near the entrance to Narragansett Bay. Arrangements had been made for the landing of the French troops, and the invasion of Sullivan's army on the 10th; but the latter, discovering on the 9th that the British outposts at the northern end of the island had been abandoned, crossed over from Tiverton on that day. At the same time the fleet of Lord Howe, which had been reinforced from England, appeared off Newport; and on the morning of the 10th, D'Estaing sailed out past the English batteries, to fight him. A stiff wind was then rising from the northeast. Both commanders long contended for the weather-guage (to keep to the windward)-so long that before they were ready to begin the wind had increased to a hurricane and scattered both fleets. It blew so furiously that spray from the ocean was carried over Newport and incrusted the windows with salt. The French fleet was much shattered, and went to Boston for repairs, and Howe sailed back to Sandy Hook. The storm, which ended on the 14th, had burst with terrible fury on the American camp, spoiling much of their ammunition, overturning tents, and damaging provisions.
D'Estaing had promised to land his troops after the fight with Howe. He reappeared off Newport, when Greene and Lafayette visited him on board his flag- ship, to urge him to fulfill that promise. He declined to do so. Expecting these reinforcements, Sullivan had pushed his army several miles toward Newport. When they found themselves deserted by the French, the New England volunteers, believing the expedition was a failure, returned home, and so reduced Sullivan's army to six thousand men. He saw the necessity for retreating and began that movement on the night of the 28th, when the British pursued. The Americans made a stand on Butt's Hill, twelve miles from Newport, which they had fortified. The British tried to turn their right wing on the morning of the 29th, when General Greene, commanding it, changed front, assailed the pursuers vigorously, and drove them to their strong defence on Quaker Hill. A general engagement ensued, when the British line was broken and driven back in confusion to Turkey Hill. The day was very sultry, and many perished by the heat. The action ended at near three o'clock in the afternoon, but a sluggish cannonade was kept up until sunset. In this engagement the Americans lost about two hundred men, and the British two hundred and sixty. On the night of the 30th, Sullivan's army withdrew to the main. General Clinton arrived the next day with a reinforcement of four thousand men. He soon returned to New York, after sending General Grey to destroy a large number of ships, with magazines, stores, wharves, warehouses, and other buildings at New Bedford, and mills and houses at Fair Haven. Property to the amount of over three hundred thousand dollars was destroyed. Then the marauders proceeded to Martha's Vineyard, where they demanded of and received from the defenceless inhabitants militia arms, public money, three hundred oxen, and ten thousand sheep.
DESOLATION OF THE WYOMING VALLEYINDIAN AND TORY RAIDS IN THE STATE OF NEW YORKMASSACRE AT CHERRY VALLEYEVENTS IN THE WESTERN WILDERNESSEXPLOITS OF MAJOR CLARKEBRITISH FORAYSTHE BRITISH INVADE GEORGIARELATIVE POSITION OF THE BELLIGERENTSATTITUDE OF EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTSAMERICAN FINANCESLOAN OFFICES AND A LOTTERY SCHEMEEFFORTS TO REDEEM THE BILLS OF CREDITPROTECTION AND AID SOLICITED BY CONGRESSBRITISH HOPES AND DANGERS-A DEFENSIVE POLICY ADOPTEDPLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTHMILITARY OPERATIONS IN GEORGIA.
THE first severely bitter fruit of the alliance of Great Britain with the American savages was tasted in the Wyoming Valley in the summer of 1778. That valley is a beautiful region of Pennsylvania, lying between mountain ranges and watered by the Susquehanna River that flows through it. The first European known to have trodden the soil of the valley was Count Zinzendorf the Moravian, seeking the good of souls. The region was claimed as a part of the domain of Connecticut granted by the charter of that province given by Charles the Second, and was called the county of Westmoreland. The first settlers there, forty in number, went from Connecticut about the middle of the last century. When the old war for independence broke out, the valley was a paradise of beauty and fertility. As that war went on, and an alliance between the British and Indians became manifest, the people of the valley felt insecure. They built small forts for their protection, and called the attention of the Continental Congress, from time to time, to their exposed situation. When St. Leger was besieging Fort Schuyler, on the Mohawk River, in 1977, parties of Indian warriors threatened the valley, but the inhabitants there were spared from much harm until the summer of 1778.
Among the Tory leaders in northern and western New York were John Butler and his son Walter N. They were less merciful toward the Whigs than their savage associates in deeds of violence. John Butler was a colonel in the British service; and in the spring of 1778, he induced the Seneca warriors in western New York to consent to follow him into Pennsylvania. He had been joined by some Tories from the Wyoming Valley, who gave him a correct account of that region; and on the last day of June he appeared at the head of the beautiful plains with more than a thousand men, Tories and Indians. They captured the uppermost fort, and Butler made the fortified house of Wintermoot, a Tory of the valley, his headquarters. The whole military force to oppose the invasion was composed of a small company of regulars and a few militia. When the alarm was given, the whole population flew to arms. Grandfathers and their aged sons, boys, and even women, seized such weapons as were at hand, and joined the soldiery. Colonel Zebulon Butler, an officer of the Continental Army, happened to be at home, and by common consent he was made commander-in-chief. Forty Fort, a short distance above Wilkes-Barre, was the place of general rendezvous, and in it were gathered the women and children of the valley.
On the 3d of July, Colonel Zebulon Butler led the little band of patriot- soldiers and citizens to surprise the invaders, at Wintermoot's. The vigilant leader of the motley host, informed of the movement, was ready to receive the assailants. The Tories formed the left wing of Colonel Butler's force resting on the river, and the Indians, led by Gi-en-gwa-tah, a Seneca chief, composed the right that extended to a swamp at the foot of the mountain. These were first struck by the patriots, and a general battle ensued. It raged vehemently for half an hour, when, just as the left of the invaders was about to give way, a mistaken order caused the republicans to retreat in disorder. The infuriated Indians sprang forward like wounded tigers, and gave no quarter. The patriots were slaughtered by scores. Only a few escaped to the mountains, and were saved. In less than an hour after the battle began, two hundred and twenty-five scalps were in the hands of the savages as tokens of their prowess.
The yells of the Indians had been heard by the feeble ones at Forty Fort, and terror reigned there. Colonel Dennison, who had reached the valley that morning, had escaped to the stronghold, and prepared to defend the women and children to the last extremity. Colonel Butler had reached Wilkes-Barre fort in safety. Darkness put an end to the conflict, but increased the horrors. Prisoners were tortured and murdered. At midnight sixteen of them were arranged around a rock, and strongly held by the savages, when a half-breed woman, called Queen Esther, using a tomahawk and club alternately, murdered the whole band one after the other excepting two, who threw off the men who held them and escaped to the woods. A great fire lighted up the scene and revealed its horrors to the eyes of friends of the victims, who were concealed among the rocks not far away. Early the next morning, Forty Fort was surrendered, on a promise of safety for the persons and property of the people. The terms were respected a few hours by the Indians while John Butler remained in the valley. As soon as he was gone, they broke loose, spread over the plains, and with torch, tomahawk, and scalping- knife made it an absolute desolation. Scarcely a dwelling or an outbuilding was left unconsumed; not a field of corn was left standing; not a life was spared that the weapons of the savages could reach. The inhabitants who had not fled during the previous night were slaughtered or narrowly escaped. Those who departed made their way toward the eastern settlements. Many of them perished in the great swamp on the Pocono Mountains, ever since known as "The Shades of Death." The details of that day of destruction in the beautiful Wyoming Valley, and the horrors of the flight of survivors, formed one of the darkest chapters in human history. Yet Lord George Germain, the British Secretary for the colonies, praised the savages for their prowess and humanity, and resolved to direct a succession of similar raids upon the frontiers, and to devastate the older settlements. A member of the bench of Bishops in the House of Lords revealed the fact, in a speech, that there was "an article in the extra- ordinaries of the army for scalping-knives."
The settlements in the valleys of the Mohawk and Schoharie were great sufferers from Indian and Tory raids, during 1778. The Johnsons were anxious to recover their property and influence in the Mohawk country, and Brant, their natural ally by blood relationship and interest, joined them. Their spies and scouts were out in every direction. At a point on the upper waters of the Susquehanna, Brant organized scalping-parties and sent them out to attack the border settlements. These fell like thunderbolts upon isolated families or little hamlets in the Schoharie country, and the blaze of burning dwellings lighted the firmament almost every night in those regions, and beyond. Springfield, at the head of Otsego Lake, was laid in ashes in May. In June, Cobleskill, in Schoharie country, and the blaze of burning dwellings lighted the firmament almost every night in those regions, and beyond. Springfield, at the head of Otsego Lake, was laid in ashes in May. In June, Cobleskill, in Schoharie county, was attacked by Brant and his warriors, who killed a portion of a garrison of republican troops stationed there, and plundered and burned the houses. In July a severe skirmish occurred on the upper waters of the Cobleskill, between five hundred Indians and some republican regulars and militia. These marauders kept the dwellers in that region in continual alarm all the summer and autumn of 1778, and, finally, at near the middle of November, during a heavy storm of sleet, a band of Indians and Tories, the former led by Brant and the latter by Walter N. Butler, fell upon Cherry Valley and murdered, plundered, and destroyed without stint. Butler was the arch-fiend on the occasion, and would listen to no appeals from Brant for mercy to their victims. Thirty-two of the inhabitants, mostly women and children, were murdered, with sixteen soldiers of the garrison. Nearly forty men, women, and children were led away captives, marching down the valley that night in the cold storm, huddled together half-naked, with no shelter but the leafless trees and no resting-place but the wet ground. Tryon county, which then included all of the State of New York west of Albany county, was a "dark and bloody ground" for full four years.
Meanwhile there had been stirring events in the western wilderness, where the Indians had been stirred up to hostilities against the frontier settlements, by emissaries sent out among them by Colonel Henry Hamilton, the British commandant at Detroit. Major George Rogers Clarke, an active young Virginian, was commissioned to defend the settlements and attack Kaskaskia, one of several British posts in that region. In July, 1778, he seized Kaskaskia and Cahokia, near the Mississippi River, and in August took possession of Vincennes, on the Wabash River, a hundred miles from its mouth. The latter was a most important post, for it was in the heart of the Indian country, whose tribes bore allegiance to the British. The capture of Vincennes inspired the savages with great respect for American skill and courage, and Clarke found it a comparatively easy matter to pacify them and cause them to agree to assume a neutral position. Hearing of this and fearing the consequences, Colonel Hamilton sent an armed force from Detroit to retake Vincennes. This was done in January, 1779.
Clarke was in Kentucky when he heard of the recapture of Vincennes. He immediately started with one hundred and seventy-five men for its recovery. They penetrated the dreadful wilderness in February, 1779. For a whole week they traversed the "drowned lands" of Illinois, suffering very great hardships from cold, wet, and hunger. When they arrived at the Little Wabash, where the forks are three miles apart, they found the intervening space covered with water to the average depth of three feet. The points of dry land were five miles apart; and all that distance, these hardy soldiers waded through the cold snow-water sometimes armpit deep. On the evening of the 18th of February, they arrived before Vincennes; and at dawn the next morning, making themselves hideous by blackening their faces with gunpowder, they crossed the river in boats and pushed toward the town. Had they dropped from the clouds the inhabitants would not have been more astonished, for it seemed impossible for them to have traversed the deluged country. It was like a sudden apparition of fiends in human shape. Clarke demanded the surrender of the town, fort, and garrison. Colonel Hamilton was in command in person, and refused; but after a sharp siege of fourteen hours, the garrison became prisoners of war. Hamilton was sent to Virginia, where, because he had incited the savages to make war on the settlements, he was confined for awhile in irons in the common jail at Williamsburg.
From the close of the campaign in Rhode Island to the end of the year, there were no active military operations of importance in the north. The British made some forays from New York, in the vicinity of that city. Cornwallis penetrated New Jersey with a considerable force, late in September, but without much effect; and General Grey surprised Colonel Baylor's cavalry corps at Old Tappan, back of the Hudson River Palisades, and murdered them with the bayonet while they were begging for quarter. In October, a British party under Captain Patrick Ferguson, desolated the country around Little Egg Harbor in New Jersey, and burned several vessels there. The Count Pulaski was then on his way from Trenton to Little Egg Harbor, with a small force of horse and foot. His picket-guard of infantry, thirty in number, were surprised by the British, and all were butchered, for the assailants did not wish to be encumbered with prisoners.
Toward the close of 1778, the theatre of active military operations was changed. Early in November D'Estaing sailed for the West Indies to attack the British possessions there. To defend these, it was necessary for the British fleet in our waters to hasten to that region. Accordingly, Admiral Hotham sailed from New York for the West Indies, with a squadron, on the 3d of November; and when Admiral Byron succeeded Lord Howe early in December, he, too, departed for those waters with some vessels-of-war. This movement would prevent any co-operation between the British fleet and army, in aggressive movements against the populous and now well-defended North, and it was determined to strike a withering blow at the more sparsely-settled South. Late in November Sir Henry Clinton dispatched Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell with about two thousand troops to invade Georgia, then the weakest member of the Union. These troops were sent by way of the sea, and were landed at Savannah, the capital of Georgia, on the morning of the 29th of December. They were confronted by General Robert Howe, of North Carolina, who had hastened up from Sunbury, at the call of the garrison, with less than a thousand dispirited men. At a place known as Brewton's Hill, three miles below Savannah, a sharp fight ensued; but the Americans were compelled, by overwhelming numbers, to retreat. That retreat became a confused flight, partly across submerged rice-fields and a creek. About one hundred Americans were killed or drowned, and more than four hundred were made prisoners. The remainder went up the right side of the Savannah, crossed it at Zubley's Ferry, and took shelter in the bosom of South Carolina.
Now, at the end of the fourth year of the war, the relative position of the belligerents was almost the same as at the close of 1776. The headquarters of Washington were again in New Jersey, and those of the British were in New York city. The British army had accomplished very little more, in the way of conquest, than it had at the end of the second year, while the Americans had gained strength by experience, and had learned much of the arts of war and of civil government. They had also secured the alliance of a powerful European nation, and the sympathies of other European governments. The British forces really occupied the position of prisoners, for, with the exception of those in Georgia, they were closely hemmed in upon two islands (Manhattan and Rhode Island) almost two hundred miles apart. The Americans were strong, too, in the justice of their cause, while the British were weak, because they were warring against the rights of man.
Although the motives of France in forming an alliance were purely selfish (for the king hated republicans, and Vergennes was a thorough monarchist), and no real support had been given to the Americans by the French down to the close of the fourth year of the war, the fact served to give the patriots the moral strength of expectation, which, happily, was not powerful enough to make them neglect the use of their own resources in a reliance upon others, or to lose sight of real and constant danger. The Netherlands felt an earnest sympathy with the struggling republicans, and, as we have seen, refused to loan troops to Great Britain to fight her resisting subjects in America. Frederick the Great of Prussia had learned to distrust the friendship of England, and was coquetting with France; and early in 1778, he authorized his minister to write to the American commissioners at Paris: "The king desires that your generous efforts may be crowned with complete success. He will not hesitate to recognize your independence, when France, which is more directly interested in the event of the contest, shall have given the example."
Spain was hostile to the republican movement, for her monarch saw in the dissolution of the ties which bound the American colonies to Great Britain, a sure prophecy of the destruction of her own colonial system in America. He was willing to weaken Great Britain; and therefore Spain, for a time, secretly feigned a friendship for the Americans, for she desired to exhaust the resources of the British government. At the same time she strongly opposed the French alliance. When it was accomplished, the Spanish monarch was undecided what to do. He deceived the British minister at his court by the false pretence that he was ignorant of what France had been doing in the matter, and so he postponed a final determination. Franklin, whose sagacity had penetrated the depths of Spanish diplomacy, had, from the beginning, advised his countrymen not to woo Spain, and now he urged that advice more vehemently. He saw that all the friendship she might profess would be false, and lead to embarrassment. At this time, the Congress, wearied by the dissensions of rival commissioners, and perceiving that Vergennes preferred to treat with Franklin alone, determined to abolish the joint commission. They did so in September, 1778, and appointed Franklin sole envoy at the French court.
The Americans entered upon the fifth year of the struggle for independence with clouded prospects. They had no national government. Their representatives had adopted a pattern for one, but, as we have observed, the several States were tardy in confirming their action. The finances of the country were in a wretched condition. Bills of credit or "Continental Money" representing one hundred million dollars were then in circulation, without adequate security, for the Congress, having no power to levy taxes, had very little credit. The coin value of the paper money was then rapidly depreciating. In January, 1779, one hundred dollars in gold or silver would purchase seven hundred and forty-two dollars in bills; and from that time the depreciation was so rapid that, at the close of the year, one hundred dollars in specie would purchase twenty-six hundred in bills. While the amount of the issues was small the credit of the bills was good, and they were taken freely by the people for the space of eighteen months after the first issue in the summer of 1775; but when new and larger emissions took place, without adequate provisions for their redemption, suspicion supplanted confidence in the public mind. It was perceived that depreciation was inevitable. To prevent this disastrous tendency, the Congress, in January, 1777, when the bills had shrunk one-half in value, asked the several States to declare them a lawful tender, and denounced every person who refused to take them at par as enemies, liable to forfeit whatever he or she might offer for sale. The States complied; and they were invited to cancel their respective quotas of Continental bills, and to become creditors of the common treasury for such sums as they might thereafter advance. They were requested to call in their own bills of credit which they had put in circulation, and to issue no more; but they would not consent to these proposed financial arrangements.
In the autumn of 1776, the Congress opened loan-offices in the several States, and authorized a lottery to raise money "for defraying the expenses of the next campaign." The prizes of the lottery were made payable in loan-office certificates. But loans came in slowly, and so few lottery tickets were purchased that the scheme was finally abandoned. The treasury became almost exhausted; and by drafts from the commissioners in Europe, the loan-offices were over-drawn upon. Attempts to borrow adequate sums abroad, utterly failed. The financial embarrassments had been increased by the circulation of an immense amount of counterfeits of the Continental bills, by the British and Tories, after the spring of 1777. They were sent out of the city of New York literally by cart-loads. The business was no secret. An advertisement in a New York paper ran thus: "Persons going into other colonies may be supplied with any number of counterfeited Congress notes for the price of the paper per ream;" and they were assured that the counterfeit was so "neatly and exactly executed" that there was "no risk in getting them off."
For the want of money and credit, the campaign of 1778 was closed at the beginning of autumn, and the Congress felt the necessity of adopting some extraordinary efforts for redeeming the bills of credit. They taxed the several States; and in January, 1779, they called upon them, by a resolution, to "pay in their respective quotas of fifteen millions of dollars," for the current year, and "six millions of dollars annually, for eighteen years, from and after the year 1779, as a fund for sinking the emissions." All efforts were vain. Prices rose as the bills sunk in value, and every kind of trade was embarrassed. The Congress were sorely perplexed. Only about four million dollars had been obtained by loan from Europe, and present negotiations appeared futile. No French army was yet upon our soil; no French coin gladdened the eyes and hearts of the American soldiers, whose pay was much in arrears. A French fleet had, indeed, been upon our coast; but after mocking our hopes with broken promises of support in Rhode Island, had gone to the West Indies to fight battles for France. The Continental bills rapidly depreciated, and early in 1781, became worthless. I have before me an account rendered to Captain Allan McLane, in January, 1781, for merchandise purchased, in which appear the following items, among others: "I pair of boots, $600; 6 yds. chintz, $150 a yard, $900; I skein of thread, $10."
The Congress resumed their sessions in Philadelphia, at the beginning of July, 1778, and in August they began to devote two days each week to a consideration of financial matters. In September they issued fifteen million dollars in bills of credit. Their depreciation became more rapid as the year drew to a close, and the Congress saw no other resource than in loans or subsidies from Europe. They instructed Dr. Franklin to assure the French monarch that they "hoped protection from his power and magnanimity." This humiliating step was not approved by some of the members of Congress, because they were unwilling to have their country placed under the protection of any foreign power which was likely to be the protection of the lamb by the wolf. Eight States voted for the measure. Aid was hoped for from the Netherlands, and Henry Laurens was sent to the Hague to negotiate a loan.
The estimated expenses of the government of the United States for the year 1779 was over sixty million dollars in paper money, for which no adequate provision was made. A knowledge of these financial embarrassments gave the British ministry hopes of a speedy wreck of the cause of the republicans, and Germain prepared to carry on the war with relentless rigor. The Congress abandoned the wild scheme for the conquest of Canada; and they called Washington from his headquarters at Middlebrook to confer with them about the campaign for 1779. His troops were cantoned in a line of posts of observation, extending from the Delaware, by way of the Hudson Highlands, to the Connecticut line. It was resolved by the Congress and the commander-in-chief to act on the defensive only, except in retaliatory expeditions against the Indians and Tories. This policy was pursued in the north, and the chief efforts of the Americans were directed to the confinement of the British army to the seaboard, and chastising the Indian tribes.
The winter campaign opened at Savannah by Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell at the close of December, continued until late in the spring, and resulted in the complete subjugation of Georgia to British rule. The British authorities had planned this campaign with great care. Troops were to take possession of Savannah and subdue Georgia. Five thousand additional troops were to be landed at Charleston. The Indians in Florida and Alabama were to be brought upon the frontier settlements, and these were to be joined by warriors to be sent down from the northwest by the commandant at Detroit. A force sufficient to protect the Loyalists and restore government in North Carolina were to be landed on the banks of the Cape Fear River. Then by judicious operations in Virginia and Maryland, Germain confidently expected to bring all Americans below the Susquehanna River to allegiance to the British crown.
In the autumn of 1778, General Prevost, who was in command of some British regulars, Tories and Indians, in East Florida, sent from St. Augustine two expeditions into Florida. One of these made an extensive raid, carrying off negro slaves, grain, horses, and horned cattle; destroying crops and burning the village of Midway; the other appeared before the fort at Sunbury, and demanded its surrender. Colonel Mackintosh, the commander of the garrison, said, "Come and take it," when the invaders retreated. These incursions caused General Robert Howe to lead an expedition against St. Augustine. On the banks of the St. Mary's River, a malarious disease swept away a quarter of his men. After a little skirmishing, he led the survivors back to Savannah, and these composed the handful of dispirited men who confronted Campbell at Brewton's Hill. The expulsion of Howe from Savannah was soon followed by the arrival of Prevost, who came up from Florida, captured the fort at Sunbury on the way (January 9, 1779), and assumed the chief command of the British troops in the South. The combined forces of Prevost and Campbell numbered about three thousand men.
In the meantime General Benjamin Lincoln of Massachusetts, appointed in September to the chief command of the patriot troops in the Southern States, had arrived in South Carolina, and on the 6th of January (1779), made his headquarters at Purysburg, twenty-five miles above Savannah. There he began the formation of an army to oppose the British invasion. It was composed of the remnants of Howe's troops, some Continental regiments, and some raw recruits.
Campbell, elated by his easy victory, began the work of subjugation with a strong hand. He promised protection to the inhabitants provided all their able- bodied men would "support the royal government with their arms." They had the alternative to fight their own countrymen or fly to the interior uplands or into South Carolina. Howe's captive troops, who refused to take up arms for the king, were thrust into loathsome prison-ships, where many perished with disease. It was evident that the war was to be waged without mercy, and this conviction gave strength to the determined patriots in the field, for they were fighting for their lives and the welfare of those whom they loved most dearly.
Prevost sent Campbell up the Georgia side of the Savannah, to Augusta, with about two thousand men, for the purpose of encouraging the Tories, opening communication with the Creek Indians in the west, and subduing the Whigs into passiveness. At about the same time a band of Tory marauders, led by Colonel Boyd, desolated a portion of the South Carolina border while on their way to join the royal troops. They were pursued across the Savannah River by Colonel Andrew Pickens, with some militia of the District of Ninety-Six, so named from a fort there ninety-six miles from Charleston. In a sharp skirmish with a part of Pickens' men, Boyd lost a hundred of his followers; and on the 14th of February (1779) he was defeated by that officer in a skirmish on Kettle Creek, within two days march of Augusta. Boyd and seventy of his men were killed, and seventy-five were made prisoners. The latter were convicted of high treason, but only five of them were executed by order of the civil authorities of South Carolina.
Campbell was alarmed and Lincoln was encouraged by the defeat of Boyd. The latter then had three thousand men in camp. He sent General Ashe, of North Carolina, with almost two thousand men, consisting of a few Continentals and the remainder of militia, with some pieces of cannon, to drive Campbell from Augusta, and confine the invaders to the low and unhealthful regions near the sea, where, it was hoped, the deadly malaria from the swamps during the heats of summer, would decimate the regiments of the enemy. Ashe crossed the Savannah near Augusta, when Campbell fled sea-ward. Ashe pursued him forty miles to Brier Creek, near its confluence with the Savannah, in Severn county, Georgia, and there encamped in a strong position, his flanks thoroughly covered by swamps. Prevost, marching up with a considerable force to assist Campbell, discovered Ashe. Making a wide circuit, he gained the North Carolinian's rear, surprised him; and after a brief and sharp resistance (March 3, 1779), defeated and dispersed his troops. They fled in every direction, wading the swamp and swimming the river. Many perished, others returned to their homes, and only about four hundred and fifty rejoined Lincoln. By this disaster that general lost one-fourth of his army. It led to the temporary re-establishment of royal government in Georgia, which Prevost proclaimed. Meanwhile the British had suffered a reverse on the coast of South Carolina. Major Gardiner (one of the managers of the Mischianza), who had been sent from Savannah with some troops to take possession of Port Royal Island, about sixty miles south of Charleston, preparatory to a march upon that city, had been defeated by the Charleston militia under General Moultrie, in a skirmish there on the 3d of February. Almost every British officer, excepting the commander, and many private soldiers, were killed or made prisoners. Gardiner and a few men escaped in boats; and Moultrie, crossing to the main, joined Lincoln at Purysburg.
INVASION OF SOUTH CAROLINATHE BRITISH BEFORE CHARLESTONTHEIR RETREAT TO SAVANNAHBATTLE AT STONO FERRYCHARACTER OF THE INVASIONBRITISH MARAUDING EXPEDITIONS IN THE NORTHEXPLOIT OF PUTNAMRAID INTO VIRGINIACAPTURE OF STONY POINTDESOLATION OF COAST TOWNS IN CONNECTICUTRECAPTURE OF STONY POINT- -LEE'S EXPLOIT AT PAULUS'S HOOKINDIAN RAIDSSULLIVAN'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE INDIANS, AND THE RESULTTHE OUTLOOKTHE AMERICAN ARMYD'ESTAING AGAIN ON OUR COASTSIEGE OF SAVANNAH, AND THE RESULT.
HAVING military possession of Georgia, General Prevost prepared to attempt the subjugation of South Carolina. Informed that Lincoln was far up the Savannah River, and assured by timid men who professed loyalty and took protection from Prevost, to save their property, that Charleston might be easily captured, the British leader, with about two thousand regulars and a body of Tories and Indians, crossed the river at Purysburg, and took the nearest road leading to that city. When Lincoln heard of this movement, he resolved to attempt to regain possession of Georgia. He was then at the head of five thousand men. Sending a detachment, under Colonel Harris, to reinforce Moultrie, who was flying before Prevost, he crossed the river near Augusta, and marched down its Georgia side for Savannah, hoping to recapture that place, or to recall Prevost. When he discovered that the latter continued to press on toward Charleston, Lincoln recrossed the Savannah, and gave chase. At the same time Governor Rutledge, who had been gathering recruits near Orangeburg, was hastening toward Charleston with six hundred men; and at the beginning of May was seen the interesting spectacle of four armies marching upon the South Carolina capital.
Prevost had marked his pathway with plundering and fire; and Lincoln was hailed as a deliverer by the people who swelled his ranks. Stopping to exercise cruelty, Prevost was so tardy, that Rutledge, Harris, and Moultrie were allowed to reach Charleston before his arrival, and the inhabitants were given an opportunity to cast up strong intrenchments across the Neck. It was the morning of the 11th of May before he appeared in front of these works and made a demand of the instant surrender of the town, which was met by a prompt refusal. The works on the Neck were well manned. Fort Moultrie, in the harbor, was well garrisoned; and the leaders of the troops felt confident that they could protect the city. The day was spent by both parties in preparations for a serious conflict; and the succeeding night was a fearful one for the citizens of Charleston, for they expected to be greeted at dawn with bomb-shells and red-hot shot. During that day of preparation, Count Pulaski, who was at Haddrell's Point, with his legion, was ferried over the Cooper River, and at noon he led his infantry to attack the British advanced-guard, when he was repulsed with heavy loss.
That evening there was an important executive council held by Governor Rutledge, in Charleston. The Continental Congress had been advised of the exposed condition of both Georgia and South Carolina, and the difficulty of raising recruits there, because the planters, fearing a servile insurrection, would not leave their homes. Washington's army was too weak to allow any reinforcements to be sent to Lincoln. When young John Laurens heard in the camp of the peril of his State, he was anxious to fly to its protection, proposing to place himself at the head of a regiment of faithful slaves. His friend, Colonel Alexander Hamilton, in a letter to the President of Congress, recommended the arming of the negroes; and Laurens said to Washington, that with three thousand of such black men as he could raise, he could drive the British out of Georgia. But Washington shook his head in doubt. The Congress, however, having nothing better to offer, recommended the extreme Southern States to select three thousand of their most trusted slaves, and arm them for battle under white officers.
While the British were marching on Charleston, Laurens arrived from Philadelphia, with the recommendation of the Congress. The South Carolinians were greatly irritated by what seemed the indifference of the Congress to their imminent danger. Many of them regretted having entered upon the struggle for independence, and were favorable to secession from the Union and assuming a neutral position. Governor Rutledge, dreading the taking of Charleston by storm, sent a flag to Prevost to ask his terms for a capitulation, and was answered: "Peace and protection for the loyal; the condition of prisoners of war for the remainder." Some of the military officers who were invited to the council, declared the ability of the troops to successfully defend the city, and leading patriots decided in favor of resistance; but a majority of the council declared in favor of neutrality, and leaving the question as to whether South Carolina should finally belong to Great Britain or the United States, to be decided by a treaty between those powers. Young Laurens was requested to carry a message to that effect to Prevost, but he scornfully refused the duty. A civilian was sent, but Prevost refused to treat with the civil power, and demanded the surrender of the troops as prisoners of war. Moultrie, who was present, said to the governor and his council: "Then we will fight it out," and left their presence. Gadsden, the stern patriot, and another, followed Moultrie out, and said to him: "Act according to your own judgment, and we will support you."
Ignorant of these deliberations, the citizens of Charleston momentarily expected an attack from the invaders. Every able-bodied man was at his post. The night wore away, and at the early dawnthe opening of a beautiful and serene daynot a scarlet coat was to be seen in front of the lines. Had the city awakened from a terrible dream? Beyond the Ashley, a long line of soldiers of flame-color uniform, with glittering fire-arms, were seen crossing the ferry to James' Island. During the night Prevost had been informed that Lincoln was near with four thousand men, and he and his army had withdrawn in haste and abandoned the siege. They retreated leisurely toward Savannah, by way of the sea-islands along the coast. For more than a month a British detachment lingered on John's Island. On the 20th of June they had a fight with some of Lincoln's men at Stono Ferry, where the British had some works garrisoned by eight hundred men under Colonel Maitland. The contest was severe, each party losing almost three hundred men. The Americans, who had attempted to dislodge their enemy, were established a military post at Beaufort and on Lady's Island near, and finally made their way to Savannah. The hot season put an end to military operations in the South, and for awhile that region enjoyed comparative repose.
This invasion of the richest portion of South Carolina seems more like a raid for plunder than an expedition for conquest. Almost every house over a wide extent of country was entered by the soldiery, who stripped the women of their jewelry and fine clothing, the men of their money, valuable horses and other wealth, and the houses of plate, furniture, bedding, and rare ornaments. Tombs were actually rifled by the soldiery in search of treasure. Gardens were devastated, beautiful conservatories were laid waste, and live-stock and fowls were wantonly slaughtered. So complete was the devastation of the country, that many hundred fugitive slaves died of starvation in the woods, many perished by fever in the British camp, and full three thousand were carried into Georgia by the army, many of whom were sent to the West Indies and sold. This was done under the sanction of the king and his ministers. Germain had instructed the British officers to confiscate and sell not only the negroes employed in the American army, but those who voluntarily sought British protection.
While these events were occurring in the South, Sir Henry Clinton was not idle in the North, but sought to distress the Americans by marauding expeditions. In this business Ex-Governor Tryon, who had been named "The Wolf" by the suffering people of North Carolina over whom he had been ruler, was a willing worker. Late in April, 1779, he left camp near Kingsbridge, at the northern end of New York Island, with fifteen hundred regulars and Hessians, to destroy some salt-works at Horse Neck and attack an American detachment under General Putnam at Greenwich, on the borders of Connecticut. Putnam's scouts had discovered them, and on the morning of the 26th, he had his little band drawn up in battle array, with a two-gun battery to meet them. They approached in solid column, horse and foot. Perceiving their overwhelming numbers, Putnam ordered a retreat. That retreat became a rout. The soldiers fled to adjacent swamps, while the general, putting spurs to his horse, sped toward Stamford, pursued by several of the British dragoons. Near a meeting-house was a very steep hill, around the brow of which the road swept in a broad curve. Up the acclivity some stone steps had been constructed, to allow the people beyond a nearer way to the meeting-house. When Putnam reached the turn in the road at the brow of the hill, the dragoons were so near, that he must either dash down the declivity or surrender. Choosing the former alternative, he spurred the horse down the hill at full speed, in a zigzag course, traversing a few of the lower steps, and escaped, for the troopers dared not follow him. They sent a few harmless bullets after him, and he flung curses upon the British behind him, in his flight. Tryon plundered the inhabitants there of everything valuable, destroyed a few salt-works and some vessels, damaged the houses of Whigs, and then went back to Kingsbridge. Putnam rallied a few of his men and some militia and pursued the marauders. He recaptured some of the plunder, which he returned to the inhabitants, and made thirty-eight of the British prisoners, having lost in the affair about twenty of his own men.
A little later, a marauding expedition appeared on the coast of Virginia. On the 9th of May, a squadron commanded by Sir George Collier, entered Hampton Roads, with land troops under General Matthews, who desolated the region on both sides of the Elizabeth River from the Roads to Norfolk and Portsmouth. After destroying a vast amount of property, they withdrew and returned to New York; and on the 30th of May this naval force accompanied Sir Henry Clinton up the Hudson River to dislodge the Americans at Stony Point and Verplanck's Point opposite. In this expedition, the troops were commanded by General Vaughan, the officer who led the marauders who burned Kingston in the autumn of 1777. The British landed on the morning of the 31st, when the little garrison at Stony Point fled to the Highlands. The next morning (June 1, 1779) the guns of the captured fortress were pointed toward Fort Fayette, opposite. The little garrison there, attacked by troops in the rear, surrendered as prisoners of war. The loss of these forts was lamented by Washington, and his first care was to recover them.
These achievements accomplished, Sir Henry sent Collier with his squadron to the shores of Connecticut, with a band of marauders under Governor Tryon, about twenty-five hundred strong, composed of British and Hessians. The latter were sent on these expeditions, because they were more cruel than the Britons, and delighted in plundering, burning buildings, and ill-treating the defenceless inhabitants; a mode of warfare ordered by Lord George Germain to awe the people into submission. The expedition left New York on the night of the 3d of July, and in the course of about a week, laid waste and carried away a vast amount of property. They plundered New Haven on the 5th, laid East Haven in ashes on the 6th, destroyed Fairfield on the 8th, and plundered and burned. Norwalk on the 12th. Not content with this wanton destruction of property, the invaders cruelly abused the defenceless inhabitants. The soldiery were given free license to oppress the people, Tryon encouraging instead of restraining them in their horrid work. The Hessians were his incendiaries. To them he entrusted the operation of the torch and the most brutal acts, which British soldiers would not perform. Whilst Norwalk was in flames, Tryon sat in a rocking-chair upon a hill in the neighborhood, a delighted spectator of the scene. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning; this puny imitator of the emperor made merry over the conflagration of a defenceless town inhabited by people of his own nation. In allusion to this and kindred expeditions, Trumbull, in his McFingal, makes Malcolm say:
"Behold like whelps of British lion, Our warriors, Clinton, Vaughan and Tryon, March forth with patriotic joy To ravish, plunder and destroy. Great gen'rais, foremost in their nation, The journeymen of Desolation! Like Sampson's foxes, each assails, Let loose with firebrands in their tails, And spreads destruction more forlorn Than they among Philistines' corn."
When Tryon (whom the English people abhorred for his wrong doings in America) had completed the destruction of these pleasant New England villages, he boasted of his extreme clemency in leaving a single house standing on the coast of Connecticut.
The Americans, meanwhile, were preparing to strike the British heavy and unexpected blows. The brave and impetuous General Wayne was then in command of infantry in the Hudson Highlands. Washington was at New Windsor just above them. Wayne proposed to surprise the garrison at Stony Point, and take the fort by storm. "Can you do it?" asked Washington. "I'll storm hell, if you'll only plan it, general," replied Wayne. Washington consented to let him try Stony Point first; and on the evening of the 15th of July, Wayne was within half a mile of the bold, rocky promontory with a few hundred men whom he had led secretly through the mountains, from near Fort Montgomery. As stealthily they approached the fort at midnight, arranged in two columns, a greater part of the little force crossed a narrow causeway over a morass, in the rear, and with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets, marched up to the assault. A forlorn hope of picked men led the way to make openings in the abatis at the two points of attack. The alarmed sentinels fired their muskets, and the aroused garrison flew to arms. The stillness of the night was suddenly broken by the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon from the ramparts. In the face of a terrible storm of bullets and grape-shot, the assailants forced their way into the fort at the point of the bayonet. Wayne, who led one of the divisions in person, had been brought to his knees by a stunning blow from a musket-ball that grazed his head. Believing himself to be mortally wounded, he exclaimed: "March on! carry me into the fort, for I will die at the head of my column!" He soon recovered, and at two o'clock in the morning, he wrote to Washington: "The fort and garrison, with General Johnston, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men determined to be free." In this assault, the Americans lost about one hundred men; fifteen killed and the remainder wounded. The British had sixty-three killed; and Johnston, the commander, and five hundred and forty-three officers and men, were made prisoners. The British ships lying in the river near by, slipped their cables and moved down the stream. The Americans attempted to recapture Fort Fayette, on Verplanck's Point opposite, but failed. They removed the heavy ordnance and the stores from Stony Point to West Point, for the republicans were not strong enough to garrison and hold it, and abandoning the post it was repossessed by the British a few days afterward. The Congress awarded a gold medal to Wayne, and a silver medal each to Colonels De Fleury and Stewart, the leaders of the two main divisions; for their gallantry on this occasion.
This brilliant victoryone of the most brilliant of the warwas followed by another bold exploit a month later. The British had a fortified post at Paulus's Hook (now Jersey City) opposite New York. Between three and four o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August (1779), its garrison was surprised by Major Henry Lee, who had come from the rear of Hoboken with three hundred picked men, followed by Lord Stirling with a strong reserve force. The British garrison, unsuspicious of danger near, were careless. Lee entered the loosely-barred gate of the outer works, and gained the interior of the main intrenchments before he was discovered, the sentinels being absent or asleep. He captured one hundred and fifty-nine of the garrison. The redoubt, in which the remainder had taken refuge, was too strong to be affected by small arms, and as he was without cannon, Lee retreated, bearing away his scores of captives. For this exploit the Congress honored him with a vote of thanks and a gold medal. In this expedition, Lee had only two men killed and three wounded.
These events elated the Americans. A sad one in the far east lessened their joy. Massachusetts had fitted out about forty war-vessels and transports to convey almost a thousand men to attempt the capture of a British fort at Castine, at the mouth of the Penobscot River. They arrived on the 25th of July, and landed on the 28th. Too weak to take the fort by storm, they waited more than a fortnight for reinforcements. Meanwhile Sir George Collier sailed into the Penobscot with a British squadron, just as the republicans were about to assail the fort (August 14), and attacked the American flotilla. He captured two war- vessels, when the rest, with the transports, fled up the river, and were burned by their crews. Sir George took many of the soldiers and sailors prisoners, and drove the remainder into the wild forests, where they suffered intensely while making their way back to Boston. The survivors reached that town toward the close of September.
The atrocities of the Indians in the valley of Wyoming and around the headwaters of the Susquehanna in the summer and autumn of 1778, kindled the hottest indignation of the American people, and it was determined by the Congress to chastise the savages who committed the murderous deeds, especially the Senecas. In the summer of 1779, Washington sent General Sullivan, with a little army of Continental troops, into the heart of the country of the Six Nations, all of whom, excepting the Oneidas, had been won over to the royal cause by the Johnsons and other British emissaries. Sullivan gathered his troops in the Wyoming Valley, and with these, three thousand strong, he marched up the Susquehanna on the last day of July. On the 22d of August he was joined, at Tioga Point, by General James Clinton, who had come from the Mohawk Valley with about fifteen hundred men. Meanwhile there had been hostilities in the wilderness. In April several hundred soldiers, led by Colonels Van Schaick and Willett, had penetrated the Onondaga country from Fort Schuyler, destroyed three villages, burned the provisions of the inhabitants, and slaughtered their live- stock. Three hundred Onondaga braves were immediately sent out upon the warpath charged with the vengeance of the nation. They spread terror and desolation far and near, in conjunction with other savages. They pushed down to the waters of the Delaware and the borders of Ulster county. In July, Brant, with Indians and Tories, fell upon and devastated the settlement of Minnisink in the night. Growing crops were destroyed, and cattle and other plunder were carried away. One hundred and fifty militia and volunteers went in pursuit, when, on the 22d of July, the savages turned upon them. A severe conflict ensued; the republicans were beaten, surrounded, and murdered after they were made prisoners. Only thirty of the patriotic pursuers survived to tell the dreadful story. These events gave strength to the courage of Sullivan's men.
The forces of Sullivan and Clinton, at Tioga Point, numbered five thousand men. They moved cautiously, and on the morning of the 29th, dispersed a party of eight hundred Indians and Tories strongly fortified at Chemung, now Elmira. Brant was at the head of the Indians, and Sir John Johnson, with the Butlers and Captain McDonald, led the Tories. The fight was severe. Sullivan's army rested on the battle-ground that night, and the next morning pushed on in pursuit of the fugitives.
That pursuit was quick and sharp. A part of the army penetrated the wilderness to the Genesee Valley, and a part to Cayuga Lake. In the course of three weeks, they destroyed forty-three Indian villages, with a vast amount of food in fields, gardens, and garrisonsone hundred and sixty thousand bushels of corn. Flourishing and fruitful orchards were cut down; hundreds of gardens were desolated; the inhabitants were driven into the forests to starve, and were hunted like wild beasts; their altars were overturned, and their graves were trampled upon by strangers; and a beautiful well-watered country, teeming with a prosperous people, and just rising from a wilderness state by the aid of cultivation, to a level with the productive regions of civilization, was desolated, and cast back almost a century. This scourging awed the Indians for the moment, but did not crush them. The fires of hatred were fiercely kindled, and spread like a conflagration far among the tribes upon the great lakes and in the valley of the Ohio. Washington, who ordered the chastisement, was called "The Town Destroyer." Cornplanter, a chief of the Senecas, standing before President Washington, said, in the course of a long speech: "When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you The Town Destroyer; and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers."
With the chastisement of the Indians, the campaign of 1779 ended in the North, where, at the close of the year, events appeared somewhat encouraging to the Americans. The British had withdrawn from Rhode Island, and had abandoned the forts on the Hudson, giving the freedom of King's Ferry, at Stony Point, to the Americans; and nowhere in New England, west of the Penobscot, did the enemy hold a foot of the soil. At the same time the army and the finances of the Americans were in a wretched condition, and gave a gloomy appearance to the future of the republican cause. The army, cantoned in New Jersey, were enveloped in snow two feet in depth, before the middle of December, and suffered dreadfully, at times, because of a lack of the necessaries of life. Washington's headquarters were again at Morristown, in the midst of a fertile region and patriotic people. Fortunately for the army and the cause, the crops in New Jersey during the year just closed, were abundant, and the people were willing to do all in their power to meet the requisitions upon the several counties from time to time, by the commander-in-chief, for supplies, notwithstanding the Continental bills offered in payment were rapidly depreciating. At the close of 1779 one dollar in gold or silver would purchase thirty dollars of paper money. Terms of enlistment of many of the troops would soon expire, and large bounties offered to those who should engage "for the war" brought very few into the ranks. The Congress could compel nothing; yet their appeals to the peopleto the militiain serious emergencies, seldom failed to receive an encouraging response. The Congress, the army and the people, never lost faith in the cause. That faith, and the generous aid afforded by the inhabitants of New Jersey from time to time, saved the army from disbanding in the winter of 1779-80.
We have observed that D'Estaing sailed to the West Indies late in 1778 to attack the British possessions there. He found the naval strength of the enemy in those waters to be superior to that of the French, and for six months he kept his fleet sheltered in the Bay of Port Royal. After that, he fought Admiral Byron successfully; and on the first of September, in response to the expressed wishes of the Congress and the urgent appeals of the South Carolinians, he appeared so suddenly off the coast of Georgia, with a powerful fleet, that he surprised and captured four British ships-of-war. He announced his willingness to co-operate with the republican army in the reduction of Savannah, provided he should not be detained too long on that dangerous coast, for he could find neither roadsteads, harbor, nor offing for his twenty great ships-of-the-line. His entire fleet consisted of thirty-three sail, bearing a large number of very heavy guns.
On the appearance of the French fleet, Prevost summoned the troops from all his outposts to come to the defence of Savannah. Three hundred negroes from the neighboring plantations and others not engaged were pressed into the service to strengthen the fortifications. Thirteen redoubts and fifteen batteries with connecting lines of intrenchments were speedily completed, upon which seventy- six cannon were mounted, and before them strong abatis were laid. The works on Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah River, were also strengthened. All of these defences were constructed under the supervision of the talented engineer, Major Moncrief.
Meanwhile General Lincoln had marched from Charleston and concentrated his army at Zubley's Ferry, on the 12th of September. On the same day the French troops of D'Estaing's fleet landed below Savannah, and moved up to a point within three miles of the town. Lincoln had sent Count Pulaski, with his legion of horse and foot, and McIntosh's infantry, to attack the British outposts, while he moved cautiously toward Savannah. On the 16th, he was within three miles of the town, with his whole force. On that day D'Estaing summoned Prevost to surrender the fort to the arms of the French king. The latter asked for a truce until the next day, for he hourly expected eight hundred men from Beaufort, under Maitland. It was unwisely granted. Meanwhile the British employed a large force in strengthening their works. Maitland came in time, warm with a fatal fever, and then Prevost sent a defiant answer to D'Estaing. The golden opportunity for the combined armies was lost by the unwise forbearance of the French commander.
It was now perceived that the town must be taken by regular approaches, and not by assault. The heavy French ordnance, and the stores, were brought up from their landing-place, and on the 23d of September the siege began. It was continued, with varying success, until the 8th of October. D'Estaing became impatient to depart, for the season of dangerous gales on that coast had arrived. It was rumored, too, that Admiral Byron was approaching with a British fleet. A council was held. The engineers decided that it would take ten days more to reach the British lines by trenches; whereupon D'Estaing told Lincoln that the siege must be raised immediately or an attempt must be made to take the place by storm. The latter alternative was chosen, and the sanguinary work began the next day, October 9, 1779. The plan of the attack was revealed to Prevost the night before, by a citizen of Charleston, named Cunny, a sergeant-major of Lincoln's army, who had deserted to the enemy. It gave the British a decided advantage.
About forty-five hundred men of the combined armies moved to the attack just before the dawn, completely shrouded in a dense fog, and covered by a heavy fire from the French batteries. They advanced in three columns, the main one commanded by D'Estaing in person, assisted by Lincoln; another led by Count Dillon, and a third by General Isaac Huger, of Charleston. The latter was to make a feigned attack to divert attention from the movements of the other two. The right of the British, where the principal assault was to begin, was commanded by the gallant Maitland, who was then suffering from the fever that finally destroyed him. His chief defence was a strong work on the Augusta road, known as the Spring-Hill redoubt. This D'Estaing was to attack, while Count Dillon was to make his way along the edge of a swamp to the weakest point of the British lines on the east, and assail them there.
Dillon became entangled in the swamp, and failed. At dawn D'Estaing and Lincoln attacked the redoubt. A fierce battle ensued, and lasted almost an hour. D'Estaing was wounded and carried to his camp. Whole ranks of the assailants were mowed down by bullets and grape-shot; yet the gallant allies pressed forward, leaped the ditch, and placed the French and American flags on the parapet of the redoubt. Fresh forces within pressed them back into the ditch, and tore down the ensigns. The American flags were two that were embroidered and presented to the Second South Carolina regiment by Mrs. Susannah Elliot of Charleston, and were planted on the parapet by Lieutenants Hume and Bush. These officers were both killed. Lieutenant Gray seized the standards and kept them erect. He, too, was slain, when Sergeant Jasper, the hero of Fort Sullivan, rushed to the rescue of the flags, and fell into the ditch mortally wounded. "Tell Mrs. Elliot," said the dying hero, "that I lost my life supporting the colors she presented to our regiment." The flags were of silk; a blue field bearing a white crescent.
While this fearful struggle was going on at the redoubt, Huger and Pulaski were trying to force their way into the enemy's works on different sides of the town. The latter, at the head of his legion and with his banner in his hand, was fighting his way not far from the Spring-Hill redoubt, when he was mortally wounded by a grape-shot. His troops were driven back. Already the French had withdrawn from the assault, and the Continentals under Lincoln were falling back. After five hours hard fighting, the allies showed a white flag, and asked for a truce to bury their dead. It was granted. D'Estaing and Lincoln held a consultation about the future. The former had lost many of his men, and wished to abandon the siege; the latter, confident that a victory might be speedily won, wished to continue it. The former refused to remain any longer; and on the evening of the 18th, the allies withdrewthe French to their ships and the Americans to Zubley's Ferry. Lincoln made his way to Charleston with the remains of his army, and at the beginning of November, the French fleet sailed for France. The allied armies had lost over a thousand men in the siege and assault; the British only one hundred and twenty. The South Carolinians were disheartened by the result, and looked to the future with gloomy forebodings.
THE CONTINENTAL NAVYITS ORGANIZATION SUCCESS OF CRUISERSA CRUISE AROUND IRELANDDOING ON THE AMERICAN COASTLOSS OF BRITISH VESSELSNOTABLE CRUISERS- -JOHN PAUL JONES IN BRITISH WATERSROBBERY OF THE EARL OF SELKIRK CAPTURE OF THE DRAKEACTIVITY OF AMERICAN CRUISERSJONES'S GREAT FIGHT OFF THE COAST OF SCOTLANDHIS REWARDSTHE KING AND PARLIAMENTIRELANDPOWNELL'S PROPHECYTHE ARMED NEUTRALITYFOREIGN NEGOTIATIONSLAFAYETTE.
WE have observed on page 828 that late in 1775, the Congress ordered the establishment of a Continental navy. The thirteen vessels then authorized to be built or purchased were furnished early in 1776, and these, with many privateers, did good service on the ocean. The affairs of the little navy were at first managed by a committee of Congress only. This committee was modified from time to time, and finally, in October, 1779, it assumed the form and name of a "Board of Admiralty," with a salaried secretary, and was composed of members of Congress and three paid commissioners who were not members of that body. This organization continued until 1781, when General Alexander McDougal was appointed "Secretary of Marine," whose functions were essentially those of our Secretary of the Navy at the present time. Very soon afterward he was superseded by an "Agent of Marine," and in that office the name of Robert Morris often appeared. That eminent financier of the Revolution had more to do with the management of naval affairs than any other man. He sent out privateers on his own account, a business in which other patriots engaged. Washington was, at one time, part owner of a privateer.
Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, was appointed commander-in-chief of the little Continental navy. The avowed object of the armament was to intercept British vessels bearing supplies for the British armies in America, but the Continental war-ships were frequently more aggressive. Hopkins sailed on his first cruise in February, 1776. He left the Delaware with a small squadron of five vessels, carrying an aggregate of ninety-eight guns. The Alfred, 28, was his flag-ship, and his first-lieutenant was John Paul Jones, who afterward became famous. Jones raised on the Alfred, in the Delaware, in December, 1775, the first American ensign ever shown on an American vessel-of-war. Hopkins's captains were Whipple, Biddle, J. B. Hopkins and Hazard, all of them but Biddle, Rhode Island men. The first cruise was against Lord Dunmore, then distressing the Virginia coast. Hopkins extended his cruise to the Bahama Islands to capture British stores at Nassau, New Providence, and was successful. Among the spoils were one hundred cannon. Retiring, he operated off the New England coasts; but the Congress censured him for departing from the line of his instructions, and dismissed him from the service. His lieutenant, Jones, was placed in command of the Alfred, the following autumn. No naval commander-in-chief was subsequently appointed.
Jones was always successful. While in command of the Providence, in September, 1776, he was chased by two British ships-of-war off the Carolina coasts, but escaped, and sailing eastward as far as Nova Scotia, he captured and carried into Newport fifteen prizes. Meanwhile Whipple and Biddle were equally successful off the eastern coasts; and the New England colony vessels were very active. These, and the Continental cruisers, deprived the British army of about five hundred soldiers during the summer and fall of 1776. No less than three hundred and forty-two British vessels fell into the hands of the Americans that year.
In the fall of 1776, the Continental ship Reprisal, Captain Wickes, carried Dr. Franklin, as American Commissioner, to France, where she cruised in European waters, the first American armed ship that had appeared there. She captured several British prizes in the Bay of Biscay. Among these was the royal English packet on its way from Falmouth to Lisbon. These prizes were sold in French ports, and the proceeds were used by the American commissioners in Paris for purchasing other vessels in French ports. In the summer of 1777, Wickes, with a little squadron of three vessels, sailed entirely around Ireland, sweeping the channel in its whole breadth, and capturing or destroying a great number of British merchant vessels. This cruise produced a powerful impression on the public mind in England, and France was required to renounce its friendship for the rebellious colonists or pronounce a disclaimer. Policy, then, dictated the latter course, and the American vessels were ordered to leave the French coast. When the Reprisal was returning homeward, she was wrecked on the coast of New foundland, and Captain Wickes, and all of his people but the cook, perished.
The duplicity of France, at that time, caused much trouble. Franklin carried with him a number of blank commissions from the Congress, for army and navy officers who might be willing to enter the Continental service. One of them was given to Captain Conyngham, who sailed from Dun-deemed to be a mean robbery, with the greatest delicacy. The frightened Lady Selkirk delivered up the plate with her own hands; and when the marauders returned to the boat, they found Jones walking moodily among the old trees. He had laid his plans for the future. When the prizes of the Ranger were sold in the harbor of Brest, in May, he bought the plate and returned it to Lady Selkirk with a letter, in which he expressed his regret because of the annoyance she had suffered.
Late in April, Jones again appeared off Carrickfergus, when the Drake went out to give the Ranger battle. They fought more than an hour, when the Drake, much shattered, and forty of her men slain, surrendered. With this prize Jones went around Ireland and arrived at Brest on the 8th of May. Meanwhile D'Estaing had sailed for the Delaware, and his arrival made the American cruisers more active and bold. Captain Barry performed some notable exploits in the fall of 1778; and early in 1779, the Alliance, Captain Landais, sailed for France, bearing Lafayette, who went home to urge his king to send troops to America.
During the spring and summer of 1779, the American cruisers were very active. In March, the Hampden, a Massachusetts ship, had a severe fight with an English Indiaman, and was much damaged, but escaped capture. In April, Captain J. B. Hopkins, sailing on a cruise from Boston, captured several British vessels bound for Georgia with supplies for Prevost. In June, Captains Whipple and Rathburne, in command of two ships, captured several British merchant-vessels under convoy of a ship-of-the-line. In a money point of view, this was one of the most successful enterprises of the war. The estimated value of eight of the prizes taken into Boston was over a million dollars.
While these events were occurring in the western hemisphere, the French monarch and the American commissioners joined in sending Paul Jones, with five vessels, from L'Orient to the coast of Scotland, at the middle of August. His flag-ship was the Bon-Homme Richard. Just as he was about to strike some armed British vessels, in the harbor of Leith, a storm arose, which drove his squadron into the North Sea. When the tempest subsided he drew near the land, and cruising along the coast of Scotland, he captured thirteen prizes by the middle of September. Consternation prevailed along the coast, and many people buried their plate to keep the "pirate's" hands from it.
Late in September, while the squadron of Jones lay a few leagues north of the mouth of the Humber, he discovered the Baltic fleet of forty merchantmen, convoyed by the Scrapis, a 44-gun ship, and the Countess of Scarborough, of 22 guns, stretching seaward from behind Flamborough Head. Here was tempting prize for which he had sought. Jones signalled for a general chase, and all but the Alliance, Captain Landais, obeyed. The British vessels immediately prepared to defend the merchantmen; and while they, and the Richard and Pallas were manoeuvring for advantage, night fell upon the scene. The darkness did not restrain the impetuous Jones. At seven o'clock in the evening, the Richard was within musketshot distance of the Serapis, when one of the most desperate naval fights ever recorded began. The wind was slack, and as the vessels were struggling for the weather-guage, they came in contact. Their spars and rigging were entangled, when Jones, at the head of his men, attempted to board the Scrapis. After a sharp and close contest with pike, pistol and cutlass, he was repulsed, when Captain Pearson of the Scrapis, who could not see the ensign of the Richard, called out: "Has your flag been struck?" Jones shouted, "I have not begun to fight yet."
The vessels now separated, and Jones attempted to lay his ship athwart the hawser of his enemy. He failed, and the wind brought the two ships broadside to broadside, the muzzles of the guns touching each other. Jones instantly lashed the ships together, and in that close embrace they poured their terrible volleys into each other with awful effect. From deck to deck of the entangled vessels the combatants madly rushed, fighting like demons. Very soon the Richard was pierced between wind and water with several 18-pound balls, and began to fill. Her ten greater guns were silenced, and only three 9-pounders kept up the cannonade; but the marines in the round top of the Richard sent deadly volleys of bullets down upon the struggling Englishmen. Ignited combustibles were scattered over the Serapis; and at one time she was on fire in a dozen places. Some cartridges were ignited on her lower deck and blew up the whole of the officers and men that were quartered abaft the mainmast. At half-past nine, just as the moon rose in a cloudless sky, the Richard was discovered to be on fire, also, and a scene of appalling grandeur was presented. In the midst of smoke and half-smothered flame, and the incessant roar of great guns, men as furious as wounded tigers were seen struggling hand-to-hand for the mastery. At that moment a cry was raised on the Richard-"The ship is sinking!" A frightened gunner ran aft to pull down the American flag, when he found the halyards cut away. He cried, "Quarter, quarter!" until he was silenced by a blow from a discharged pistol which Jones hurled at his head. It fractured his skull, and sent him headlong down the gangway. "Did you ask for quarter?" shouted Pearson. "Never!" replied Jones. "Then I'll give you none," answered the enraged Englishman; and the desperate fight went on more fiercely than before.
The situation of Jones was becoming, every moment, more critical for his ship could not float much longer. Nothing appeared more hopeless than his prospect for victory. Yet he won it. The flames crept up the rigging of the Serapis, and by their glow and the full light of the moon, Jones saw that his double-headed shot had almost cut Pearson's mainmast in two. He hurled another shot upon it, until the tall mast reeled. Pearson saw his great peril, and striking his flag, surrendered to his really weaker foe. Enveloped in sparks and smoke, Pearson said, in a surly manner, as he hurriedly handed his sabre to Jones: "It is painful to deliver up my sword to a man who has fought with a rope around his neck." Jones courteously replied, as he returned the weapon: "Sir, you have fought like a hero, and I make no doubt you sovereign will reward you in the most ample manner." The king knighted Pearson. When Jones heard of it, he said: "Well, he deserves it; and if I fall in with him again, I'll make a lord of him."
The battle ceased after raging three hours. Fire was consuming both ships, and all hands turned to fighting the flames. They did so successfully. The vessels were soon disengaged, when the mast of the Serapis, which had been kept erect by the entangled spars and rigging, fell with a tremendous crash, carrying with it the mizzen-topmast. The Richard was damaged past recovery, and now settled rapidly. Every living person was transferred to the Serapis, and sixteen hours afterward the gallant Bon Homme Richard went down into the valleys of the North Sea.
The Countess of Scarborough, Captain Cotineau, surrendered to the Pallas after an hour's fight, notwithstanding the treacherous Landais brought the guns of the Alliance to bear upon the later as he had upon the Richard, pretending to mistake them, in the darkness, for the ships of the enemy. This brilliant victory was achieved on the night of the 23d of September. The Baltic fleet had taken shelter behind Flamborough Head. After tossing about on the Northern Sea ten days, Jones ran into the Texel, Holland, with his little squadron and prizes, only a few hours before eleven English ships-of-war that had been sent after him, appeared in the offing. A demand was made upon Holland to deliver up the prizes, and Jones and his men, to the English authorities. By adroit diplomacy, the States-General refused, without involving themselves in trouble with the British government; and Jones, instead of being conveyed to England as a "corsair," was put in command of the Alliance, and did good service for the Americans afterward. His fame spread through the civilized world. The French monarch gave him an elegant gold-mounted sword, bearing on its blade the words: "Louis XVI, Rewarder of the Valiant Asserter of the Freedom of the Sea." He also created him a knight of the Order of Merit. Catharine of Russia conferred on him the ribbon of St. Anne; and from Denmark, he received marks of distinction and a pension. The United States thanked him cordially, and eight years afterward gave him a gold medal.
The exploits of Jones exasperated and alarmed the British. They made even heavy line-of-battle-ships shy of him; and he was regarded as like
"A malignant comet, bearing in its tail, Death, famine, earthquakes, pestilence, and ruin."
The British government put forth its energies to the utmost to carry on the war against the allies with vigor. The powerful East India Company, whose possessions were menaced by the French, presented to the crown three fine 74-gun ships for the purpose, and offered a bounty for raising six thousand soldiers. When the Parliament assembled on the 25th of November, the king, in his speech, called upon that body to exert their greatest efforts in defence of the country against "one of the most dangerous confederacies ever formed against the crown and people of Great Britain," alluding to France and Spain, the latter being then in an attitude of hostility to the British. He did not mention America in his speech; but he called special attention to Ireland, where the discontents of the people appeared like the prelude to a general revolt. The separation of Ireland from Great Britain was a favorite scheme of Vergennes; but, he said, he would not rely upon the Roman Catholics of that country, as they were naturally in favor of a monarchical government; and he had information that a large body of the most influential Irish Romanists, professing to speak "for all their fellow Roman Catholic subjects," had addressed the English secretary in Ireland, expressing their abhorrence of the "unnatural American rebellion," and their attachment "to the best of kings," at the same time offering him "two millions of faithful and affectionate hearts and hands in defence of his person and government in any part of the world." Vergennes said he would rely upon the numerous Presbyterians who inhabited the North of Ireland, whose fanaticism makes them enemies of all civil or religious authority concentrated in a chief. "They aspire to nothing," he said, "but to give themselves a form of government like that of the United Provinces of America." These Presbyterians were the men which the government suspected of contemplating rebellion, and the king recommended measures; conciliate them. Some of the sentiments of the king's speech were warmly criticised by the Opposition. The blunders of the ministry, in their dealings with the Americans were severely condemned; and it was shown that since the beginning of the war against the colonies, more than three hundred million dollars had been added to the national debt. It was shown that Great Britain then had a military establishment by sea and land of not much less than three hundred thousand men, "a force exceeding the ability of any power in Europe to support for a continuance." But the king and his ministers carried their measures triumphantly through Parliament. That body voted one hundred and twenty thousand men for the united service, and appropriated one hundred million dollars to defray the expenses of the campaign of 1780. Yet these formidable preparations to enslave them did not, at that gloomiest period of the war, make the Americans quail or falter. Then relied for success upon the justice of their cause, the generosity of human nature, and the favor of a righteous God. Thomas Pownall, in the British Parliament, uttered some remarkable prophecies concerning the future of America, saying, after speaking of what the colonies had done:
"Commerce will open the door to emigration. By constant intercommunication, America will every day approach more and more to Europe. North America has become a new primary planet, which, while it takes its own course in its own orbit, must shift the common centre of gravity. These sovereigns of Europe, who shall find this new empire crossing all their settled maxims and accustomed measures, will call upon their ministers and raise men 'Come, curse me this people, for they are too mighty for me!' These statesmen will be dumb, but he spirit of truth will answer: 'How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed.'. Those sovereigns of Europe, who shall call upon their ministers to state to them things as they really do exist in nature, shall form the earliest, the most sure and natural connection with North America, as being, what she is an independent state. The new empire of America is like a giant ready to run its course. The fostering care with which the rival powers of Europe will nurse it, insure its establishment beyond all doubt or danger."
These significant words were uttered at the beginning of 1780, when the league of leading nations of Europe, known as the "Armed Neutrality" against the pretensions of Great Britain as "Mistress of the Seas," was about to be consummated. That league had been in a formative state many months. It was conceived in the summer of 1778, when British cruisers seized American vessels engaged in commerce with Russia, in the Baltic Sea. Russia was-then assuming colossal proportions among the European powers. They all courted the friendship of her empress, Catharine, who was talented and powerful; and Great Britain tried to induce her to become its ally against France. Catharine coquetted with that government a long time, while her sympathies were with Sweden, Denmark and Holland, whose neutral ships were continually interfered with by British sea- rovers, and whose acts were justified by their government. The French monarch, by a master-stroke of policy, had gained the good-will of the northern maritime powers, by a proclamation of protection to all neutral vessels going to or from a hostile port with contraband goods, whose value did not exceed three-fourths that of the whole cargo. That was in the summer of 1778. From that time, until the opening of 1780, the insolence of British cruisers, and the tone of the British ministers, offended the northern powers. That tone was generally deprecatory and disparaging. "When the Dutch," said Lord North, "say 'We maritime powers,' it reminds me of the cobbler who lived next door to the Lord Mayor, and used to say 'My neighbor and I.'" Official language was sometimes equally offensive. When the Dutch complained of interference with their commerce and appealed to treaties in support of their claims as neutrals, the British minister at the Hague said: "For the present, treaty or no treaty, England will not suffer materials for ship-building to be taken by the Dutch to any French port." A similar tone was indulged in toward the other northern powers, excepting Russia; but the shrewd Catharine, perceiving the commercial interests of her realm to be involved in the maintenance of the neutral rights of others, after long coquetting with Great Britain, assumed the attitude of defender of those rights before all the world. Early in March, 1780, she issued a declaration, the substance of which was (I) That neutral ships shall enjoy free navigation from port to port, and on the coasts of belligerent powers; (2) That free ships free all goods except contraband; (3) That contraband are arms and ammunition of war, and nothing else; (4) That no port is blockaded unless the enemy's ships, in adequate number, are near enough to make the entry dangerous.
It was declared that those principles should rule decisions on the legality of prizes; and that state paper said: "In manifesting these principles before all Europe, Her Imperial Majesty is firmly resolved to maintain them. She has therefore given an order to fit out a considerable portion of her naval forces, to act as her honor, her interest, and necessity may require."
The empress invited Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, and the Netherlands to join in support of her declaration. These, with Russia, entered into the league in the course of the year. France and Spain acquiesced in the new maritime code; and at one time a general war between Great Britain and the Continental powers seemed inevitable. The Congress approved the position of the empress, and toward the close of 1780, sent Thomas Dana as ambassador to the court of St. Petersburg to concede, on behalf of the United States, the principles of the coalition, and to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce. At that time similar negotiations had been proposed or entered upon by the United States with other European powers. John Jay had been sent to Spain for the purpose, early in the fall of 1779; and John Adams was appointed a diplomatic agent to form a treaty of peace and commerce with Great Britain. Meanwhile Gerard had been succeeded by the Chevalier de Luzerne, as French minister in the United States, and was invested with limited authority from Spain to negotiate with our government concerning territories and boundaries in America. A plan for a commercial treaty with Holland had been perfected, but at the time we are considering (the beginning of 1780) nothing definite had been done. The States-General had pursued a timid policy, fearing to offend Great Britain and were silent on American affairs; but Van Berkel, the bold and enlightened head of the Amsterdam regency, had said in a letter to an American in 1778; "With the new republic, clearly raised up by the help of Providence, we desire a league of amity and commerce, which shall last to the end of time." He doubtless expressed the sentiments of the hearts of all intelligent Netherlanders at that time.
At the close of 1779, Lafayette had completed important services for the Americans, in France, by inducing the king to order a French army to America under the command of the Count de Rochambeau, to assist the republicans in their struggle. He had been received in France, on his return home early in the year, with intense enthusiasm, for his fame as a soldier here was universally known. His personal magnetism was wonderful. Whenever he appeared in the streets, crowds followed him. When his name was mentioned in the theatres, it was greeted with wildest applause. His persuasions at court were irresistible. Old Count Maurepas, who was at the head of the French ministry, said: "It is fortunate for the king that Lafayette did not take it into his head to strip Versailles of its furniture to send to his dear America, as his majesty would have been unable to refuse it."
THE SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF CHARLESTON BY THE BRITISHVIOLATIONS OF SOLEMN ENGAGEMENTSSUFFERINGS OF LEADING CITIZENSBOLDNESS OF GADSDENEFFECTS OF THE FALL OF CHARLESTON BUFORD'S DEFEAT ANDREW JACKSONHARSH MEASURESDE KALBGATES IN COMMANDEXPLOITS OF SUMTER AND MARION, AND OTHER PARTISANS CORNWALLIS IN CHIEF COMMANDLORD RAWDON AT CAMDENCORNWALLIS DEFEATS GATES SUMTER'S MEN DISPERSEDA MISTAKEN POLICYDOINGS IN WESTERN CAROLINASDEFEAT OF THE BRITISH AT KING'S MOUNTAINITS EFFECTSTREATMENT OF TORIESPARTISAN WARFAREMARION'S EXPLOITS AND HIS SWAMP CAMP.
THE British ministry ordered the subjugation of South Carolina, and on the day after Christmas, 1779, Sir Henry Clinton sailed from New York on that errand, with five thousand troops borne by a fleet commanded by Admiral Arbuthnot. He left General Knyphausen in charge of the troops in New York. Encountering heavy storms off Cape Hatteras, the fleet was scattered. Many of the horses perished. A ship loaded with cannon went to the bottom of the sea; another, bearing Hessian troops, was driven across the Atlantic and dashed on the shore of England. It was late in February, 1780, before the scattered British forces (including those of Prevost at Savannah), ten thousand strong, appeared on John's Island in sight of Charleston, a wealthy city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, white and black, and spread over a broad peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, at their entrance into the sea. The city was then defended by less than two thousand effective men, under General Lincoln. The people of the State were disheartened by events in Georgia. Their western frontier was menaced by the savages, and there was much disaffection in the interior. Had Clinton marched directly upon Charleston when he landed on the islands, it would have been an easy prey; but he tarried a month in preparations and waiting for the arrival of more troops which he had ordered from New York. Meanwhile Lincoln had cast up fortifications across Charleston Neck; and Commodore Whipple, who was in command of a flotilla of small vessels near the bar, had fled into the harbor, sunk some of his craft to obstruct the channels, and transferred his guns and seamen to the fortifications. Fort Moultrie (Sullivan) was well garrisoned, but offered no resistance to the British fleet when it entered the harbor on the 9th of April. The troops had appeared before the American works on the 29th of March, and on the 10th of April, Clinton and Arbuthnot demanded the surrender of the city. It was promptly refused by Lincoln, and a siege went on for a month afterward.
Lincoln soon discovered his peril, and on the 13th of April called a council of officers to consider the propriety of evacuating the town. Before a conclusion could be reached, that movement was impossible. Some detachments of cavalry sent out to keep open a communication between the town and country had been dispersed by British troopers, and Cornwallis had arrived from New York (April 19th) with almost three thousand fresh troops. All hopes for the Americans faded. Fort Moultrie was compelled to surrender to the British on the 6th of May; and on the 9th, a third summons was made for the surrender of the army and the city, and refused. The succeeding night was a terrible one for Charleston. Late in the evening a general cannonade began. The thunders of two hundred heavy guns shook the city all night long. Fiery bomb-shells were rained upon it; and at one time the flames of burning buildings shot up at five different points. Nor did the morning bring relief. The cannonade continued all the day. At two o'clock on the morning of the 11th, Lincoln made a proposition to Clinton for a surrender. The British fleet had moved near the town, to join in the work of destruction, and further resistance would have been madness. The terms of surrender were arranged. It was agreed that the Continental soldiers should march out with their colors cased, and to lay down their arms as prisoners of war; the militia to be dismissed on their parole to take no further part in the contest, and to be secure in person and property so long as they remained faithful to that parole. The citizens of suitable age were also paroled; and by this extraordinary measure, Clinton could boast of over five thousand prisoners of war.
The city was given up to pillage by the British and Hessian troops. When the whole amount of plunder was appraised for distribution, it aggregated, in value, a million and a half dollars, Clinton and his major-generals each receiving about twenty thousand dollars. Houses were rifled of plate and other valuables; confiscation of the estates of the Whigs was threatened, and afterward executed; and slaves, even those who had sought British protection, were seized and sent to the West Indies for sale to swell the money-gains of the conquerors. Over two thousand were sent at one embarkation. They were driven on board the ships in gangs of four or five, lashed together by ropesmen and womenwithout regard to the separation of families or the supplications of parting kindred. Only upon the promise of unconditional loyalty was British protection offered to any citizen; and in gross violation of the terms of the capitulation, a large number of the leading men of Charleston were taken from their beds, in August, by armed men, and carried on board prison-ships, under the false accusation that they were concerned in a conspiracy to burn the town and murder the loyal inhabitants. In these ships hundreds suffered terribly. Among the more prominent citizens thus treated were Lieutenant-Governor Gadsden and David Ramsay, the historian, who were sent to St. Augustine, where Governor Tryon, the North Carolina "Wolf," was in command. Tryon offered them their liberty on parole. Gadsden, the sturdy patriot, refused. He would make no further terms with men who had broken solemn pledges. "Had the British commander," he said, "regarded the terms of capitulation at Charleston, I might now, although a prisoner, enjoy the smiles and consolations of my family under my own roof; but even without a shadow of accusation preferred against me, for any act inconsistent with my plighted faith, I am torn from them, and here, in a distant land, invited to enter into new engagements. I will give no parole." "Think better of it," said Tryon; "a second refusal of it will fix your destinya dungeon will be your future habitation." "Prepare it, then," replied the inflexible patriot. "I will give no parole, so help me God!" And the petty tyrant did prepare it. For forty- two weeks that brave man, almost three-score years of age, never saw the light of the blessed sun, but lay incarcerated in the castle at St. Augustine. And when he, and other prisoners, were exchanged the next year, they were not allowed to enter Charleston, but were sent to Philadelphia, whither their families had been exiled.
The fall of Charleston and the loss of the Southern army were severe blows to the republicans. It paralyzed their strength; and, for awhile, South Carolina lay helpless at the feet of the oppressor. With an activity unusual for British officers in America, Clinton took immediate steps to extend and secure his conquests, and to re-establish royal authority in the South. With a mistaken policy he used harshness instead of conciliation toward the smitten and humbled inhabitants. He sent out three strong detachments to overrun the country and awe the people by a display of power. One of these, under Lord Cornwallis, marched up the course of the Santee River, to Camden; another, under Lieutenant-Colonel Cruger, was ordered to penetrate the country to Ninety-Six; and a third, under Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, went up from Savannah to Augusta.
Meanwhile Colonel Abraham Buford, with four hundred Continental infantry, a small number of cavalry and two cannon, who had hastened toward Charleston to help Lincoln, had been dreadfully smitten by Tarleton. Buford had retreated from Camden toward Charlotte, in North Carolina, on the approach of Cornwallis. Tarleton, with seven hundred cavalry and mounted infantry, was sent in pursuit. By a forced march of one hundred and five miles in fifty-five hours, he overtook Buford, on the Waxhaw (May 29th, 1780), and almost surrounded him before the republican leader was aware of his approach. Tarleton demanded his instant surrender upon the terms granted at Charleston. Buford refused compliance. While flags for conference were passing and re-passing, Tarleton, contrary to military rules, made preparations for assault when that conference should end. The instant he received Buford's reply, his cavalry made a furious charge upon the unprepared and astonished Americans. All was confusion. Some resisted; others threw down their arms and begged for quarter. None was given, and men without arms were hewn in pieces by the British cavalry. One hundred and thirteen were slain; one hundred and fifty were so maimed as to be unable to travel; and fifty-three were made prisoners, and graced Tarleton's triumphal march into Camden. The spoils of victory were Buford's artillery, ammunition and baggage. Cornwallis eulogized this savage act of Tarleton; Stedman, one of Cornwallis's officers, and a historian of the war, wrote: "On the occasion, the virtue of humanity was totally forgot." Tarleton received the special favor of Lord George Germain, for the cold-blooded massacre; and "Tarleton's quarter," became the synonym for cruelty. It was the war-cry for vengeance of the patriots in the field afterward. Among the witnesses of that massacre was Andrew Jackson, then a lad thirteen years of age. The event fired his patriotism, and he and his brother Robert entered the military service under Sumter. They were made prisoners, and while in captivity the spirit of the future military hero and headstrong President of the United States was displayed. A British officer ordered Andrew to clean his muddy boots. The boy refused to do this menial service for an enemy of his country, and received from the officer a sword-cut, the scar of which he bore to the grave sixty-five years afterward.
This massacre spread terror throughout the interior of South Carolina. Families fled from their homes in the pathway of the invaders, until there was no place of refuge for them. The exasperated patriots were ready to fight, but there was no military organization. Taking advantage of their helplessness, the conqueror now attempted to crush out all independence in the State by requiring every able-bodied man to join the British army, and take an active part in the re- establishment of royal rule, and threatening all who should refuse compliance with treatment as "rebels to the government of the king." The silence of fear and weakness overspread the State. Mistaking this lull in the storm, and the numerous applications for protection, for permanent tranquillity, Clinton and Arbuthnot, with a large body of troops, returned to New York. On the eve of his departure, Clinton wrote to Germain: "The inhabitants from every quarter declare their allegiance to the king, and offer their services in arms. There are few men in South Carolina who are not either our prisoners or in arms with us."
The lull in the tempest of war was brief. To aid the Southern patriots, Washington had sent the Baron De Kalb, with Maryland and Delaware troops, to help Lincoln at Charleston. He was a brave but slow moving French officer, about sixty years of age, who accompanied Lafayette to this country, and was commissioned a major-general by the Congress, in September, 1777. He was yet in Virginia, whose leading men were making noble sacrifices to strengthen him, when he heard of the surrender of Charleston, and it was late in June when he entered North Carolina. By the capture of Lincoln, De Kalb became commander-in-chief of the army in the South, a position which he was not competent to fill with efficiency. Washington desired to have General Greene succeed Lincoln, but the Congress, yielding to the importunities of the friends of Gates, procured his appointment to that difficult position. That body gave the favorite orders to act independently, and to report directly to them. He was gratified by the trust reposed in him, and joined De Kalb on the 25th of July. The prospect before him was far from flattering. An army without strength; a military chest without money; an inefficient commissary department; a climate unfavorable to health; the spirit of the republicans cast down; loyalists and timid patriots swarming in every direction, and a victorious enemy pressing on to spread his legions over the territory Gates had come to defend, were the grave obstacles to success before him. But the approach of the "conqueror of Burgoyne," who was yet surrounded by the glory of that event, inspirited the republicans of the South. Sumter, Marion, Pickens and Clarke, brave and skillful, true and persistent partisan leaders in Carolina and Georgia, summoned their fellow-patriots to the field. Seeing how lightly the invaders regarded their solemn pledges, the republicans, renouncing their "paroles" and "protections," flocked to the standards of these brave partisans, and prepared the way for Gates. They swept over the country with celerity, in small bands, striking British detachments here or a company of Tories there, such unexpected, sharp, quick and decisive blows that the enemy, alarmed and perplexed, was checked in their invading march into the interior.
General Thomas Sumter now first appeared in power on the borders of the Catawba River. The Whigs, following local leaders, had already assailed the enemy at different points between the Catawba and Broad rivers. Sumter, meanwhile, had gathered a considerable force, and on the 30th of July (1780) he attacked a British post at Rocky Mount, on the right bank of the Catawba, where he was repulsed but not disheartened. He crossed the river and fell upon another British post under Major Carden at Hanging Rock, a few miles eastward, on the 6th of August. A large body of British and Tories were there. They were at first dispersed; but Sumter's men, seeking plunder, and drinking the liquors found in the camp after they had secured it, lost the victory through separation and intoxication. The ranks of the patriots became disordered. The enemy rallied, and a very severe contest ensued. The British were reinforced, and Sumter was compelled to retreat. But he had handled his enemy so severely, that he did not attempt to follow. In the meantime Colonel Francis Marion (soon afterward a brigadier-general), a soldier of the French and Indian war, a hero at Fort Sullivan in 1776, a brave combatant at Savannah in 1779, and an active partisan leader in his native State (South Carolina) afterward, was smiting the enemy with sudden and fierce blows among the swamps in the low country, on the borders of the Pedee. So brave and wily were these partisans, that the British called Sumter "The Carolina Game-Cock," and Marion "The Swamp Fox." The latter was one of the most noted and beloved of the partisan leaders in that struggle, and was more feared by the British and Tories in the South than any other, for they never knew where he was until they felt his blows. He was
"A moment in the British camp A momentand away Back to the pathless forest, Before the break of day."
At the same time Colonel Andrew Pickens was annoying Cruger in the neighborhood of Ninety-Six and the waters of the Saluda, and Colonel Elijah Clarke was calling for the patriots of the country along the Savannah, Ogeechee, and Alatamaha, to drive Brown from Augusta.
On the morning of the 27th of July, General Gates, after sending Marion toward the interior of South Carolina, put his "grand army," as he called his forces, in motion, by the shortest route toward Camden. He was speedily joined by Colonel Porterfield with Virginians, and by North Carolinians under Colonel Caswell in the east, and Rutherford in the west. The British officers were perplexed. Clinton had left Cornwallis in chief command in the south, and the latter had entrusted the leadership of his troops on the Santee to Lord Rawdon, an active and meritorious officer. With these gathering legions in the north and the active Sumter and Marion on their flanks, the British were certainly in a perilous position. Major McArthur, who was on the Cheraw Hills to encourage the Loyalists, called in his detachments, and with his whole force hastened to join Rawdon at Camden. Cornwallis, perceiving the gathering storm on the borders of South Carolina, hastened to Camden to join Rawdon, and reached that village on the same day (August 14) when Gates advanced and took post at Clermont. There the latter was joined by seven hundred Virginia militia under General Stevens; and he felt so sure of victory, that he did not prepare for a retreat by appointing a place of rendezvous. It was a fatal blunder. On the same day Gates weakened his army by sending to Sumter a detachment to assist in intercepting a convoy of supplies on their way from Ninety-Six, to Rawdon; and on the evening of the 15th he marched to attack the latter with a little more than three thousand men. He would listen to no advice from his officers, but began his march, confidently, before a proper disposition of his baggage in the rear had been made. Cornwallis had left Camden to meet Gates, at about the same time. The road was very sandy, and foot-falls could not be easily heard. The vanguards of the belligerents met, between two and three o'clock in the morning, on a gentle slope a little north of Sanders's Creek, that runs through a swamp, nearly eight miles from Camden. It was a mutual surprise, for neither party knew that the other had struck his tents. Both began firing at the same time. Some of Colonel Armand's troops, who led the van, were killed, and the remainder fell back in disorder upon the first Maryland brigade, and broke its line. The whole army were filled with consternation, and would have fled but for the wisdom and skill of Porterfield, who, in rallying them, was mortally wounded. Both armies halted, when it was perceived that the British had the advantage, having crossed the small creek, and being protected by an impenetrable swamp on their flanks and rear.
Both parties anxiously awaited the dawn, and prepared for battle. The right of the British line was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, and the left by Lord Rawdon. De Kalb commanded the American right, and General Stevens the left, and the centre was composed of North Carolinians under Colonel Caswell. A second line was formed by the first Maryland brigade led by General Smallwood.
The battle was opened by American artillery. The war of cannon was followed by an advance to the attack by some volunteers under Colonel Otho H. Williams and Stevens's militia. The latter had been given bayonets only the day before, and were now ordered to rely upon them chiefly. They did not know how to use them. The veteran British troops, led by Webster, fell upon these raw recruits, when the latter threw down their muskets and fled to the woods for shelter. Then Webster attacked the Maryland Continentals, who fought gallantly until they were outflanked, when they, also, gave way. Twice they were rallied, but finally retreated, when the brunt of the battle fell upon the Maryland and Delaware troops, led by DeKalb, assisted by General Gist, Colonel Howard, and Captain Kirkwood. They fought desperately and were almost in possession of victory, when Cornwallis sent against them some fresh dragoons and infantry that turned the tide. De Kalb was so badly wounded that he died three days afterward.
Gates's whole army was utterly routed and dispersed, and he was the most expert of the fugitives in running away. He abandoned his army, and with Caswell fled to Clermont in advance of any of his flying troops. Thence he hastened to Charlotte where he left Caswell, and then hurried on to Hills-borough. In this ignoble flight, he rode about two hundred miles in three days and a half. He had lost about a thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners; the British loss was less than five hundred. In the meantime, Sumter had been successful in capturing the convoy alluded to, with about forty wagons and their contents. He was now at the head of the largest body of republican troops in South Carolina. On hearing of Gates's defeat, he marched up the Wateree to the mouth of the Fishing Creek and encamped; and there at mid-day, on the 18th of August (1780), he was surprised by some of Tarleton's cavalry. About three hundred and fifty of his men were killed or made prisoners, and the British captives and wagons were retaken. Sumter escaped in such haste that he rode into Charlotte without hat or saddle.
The defeat of Sumter's band made the victory of Cornwallis complete. The hopes of the patriots were almost extinguished. Within the space of three months, two republican armies had been almost annihilated by capture or dispersion; and the earl, regarding the full and final subjugation of South Carolina as accomplished, moved toward the North State accompanied by Martin, a former royal governor of North Carolina, who assured him that the people there would rise to welcome him. Had Cornwallis been guided by good judgment and humanity, the conquest of South Carolina, and the restoration of North Carolina to a loyal condition, might have been permanent; for the former State swarmed with Tories, and the republicans were weary of the unequal contest. But following the wicked suggestions of Martin and the sanguinary Tarleton, and animated by the cruel instructions from Germain, he proposed to establish a system of revolting terrorism. He put military despotism in place of civil law, and treated the people as slaves having no rights which he was bound to respect. He ordered all militiamen who had served in Loyalist corps and were afterward found in arms against the king, to be hanged without mercy. He gave full license to Tories to execute these orders. Private rights were everywhere trampled under-foot. Property was wantonly destroyed by fire and violence; the chastity of women was set at naught; plunder was universal; and Whigs, both men and women, cultivated and tenderly reared, were hunted by the ravenous Tory wolves as legitimate prey to their worst passions. These ruthless measures created the most intense hatred. The people revolted and thirsted for vengeance. They only awaited the appearance of good leaders, to fly to arms and rid the country of their oppressors. Only Marion was then in the field, untrammeled by any parole. Governor Rutledge had commissioned him a brigadier, and with his famous brigade of ragged followers, he performed those deeds for the redemption of South Carolina which have made his name immortal.
The first symptoms of that revolt were seen in Western Carolina. Cornwallis had marched his army to Charlotte, in North Carolina, early in September, and from that point he sent out detachments to execute his cruel orders. While Tarleton and his legions were operating eastward of the Catawba, Major Patrick Ferguson was sent to embody the Tories among the mountains west of the Broad River. Many profligate and unworthy men joined his standard, and at the beginning of October he was encamped among the gravelly, wooded hills of King's Mountain, about two miles south of the North Carolina border. Meanwhile the patriots west of the Alleghany ranges had taken up arms to frustrate the plans of Cornwallis. They were embodied in regiments under Colonels Shelby, Sevier, Campbell, Cleveland, McDowell and Williams, and were chiefly Virginians and North Carolinians. On the evening of the 6th of October (1780) they were all assembled at the "Cowpens," in Spartanburg district, and called themselves "The Western Army." There they heard that Ferguson was at King's Mountain, and they determined to proceed that night and strike him by surprise. Nine hundred of their best horsemen (they were all mounted) marched by moon-light, and on the afternoon of the next day, they came near Ferguson's camp of a little over eleven hundred men (mostly Tories), who were resting in fancied security on account of their peculiar position.
The republicans dismounted, and forming themselves into four columns, advanced to within a quarter of a mile of Ferguson's camp, without being discovered. The regiments of Shelby and Campbell, which formed the right and left centres of the force, pushed up the hill and made the first attack. The aroused British flew to arms, and the bayonets of the few regulars over-matched the rifles of the assailants for a moment. For ten minutes the advanced regiments sustained a fierce contest for the crown of the hill, when the right and left wings of the republican army fell upon Ferguson's left and rear and drove him into a hollow, where he was slain on the border of a clear mountain brook. The position of his force was now untenable, and Captain De Peyster (of the "King's American Regiment"), Ferguson's senior surviving officer, hoisted a flag of submission. The firing ceased, and the invaders surrendered, with fifteen hundred stand of arms. The entire loss of the British was eleven hundred and five, of whom four hundred and fifty-six were either killed or wounded. The Americans lost twenty- eight killed and sixty wounded. Among the British prisoners were many of the worst Tories, who had most cruelly executed the severe orders of Cornwallis. Ten of these, after a brief trial the next morning, were hanged together upon an outstretching limb of a tulip tree, which, when I visited the spot in 1849, was huge, and overshadowed a small monument erected on the spot where Ferguson was slain. That stone was set up in commemoration of Major Chronicle and three other Americans who were killed in the battle. Upon it were their names, and on the opposite side were these words: "Colonel Patrick Ferguson, an officer belonging to his Britannic Majesty, was here defeated and killed."
This annihilation of Ferguson's corps crushed the spirits of the loyalists, destroyed the hopes of Cornwallis of aid from those of South Carolina, and weakened, beyond recovery, the royal power in the South. King's Mountain was to Cornwallis what Bennington was to Burgoyne. When the earl heard of the disaster, he retreated from North Carolina and took position at Winnsboro' in Fairfield district, between the Broad and Catawba rivers-a station between Ninety-Six and Camden. The loyalists of North Carolina were repulsed, and the Whigs, everywhere, were strengthened. There was a general revolt against Cornwallis, who had expected to subdue the whole region south of the Susquehanna by easy conquests. In his retreat he was greatly annoyed by the uprising of republicans, who hung on his rear; and his whole army suffered much from exposure in almost incessant rains, and for want of food for man and forage for horses, during the retrograde march of fifteen days.
Nearer the seaboard the patriots were gaining strength. Marion and his men were striking the banding Tories, and annoying British outposts continually; while Colonels Pickens and Clarke were hourly increasing their forces in Georgia and southwestern Carolina. Sumter, too, undismayed by his recent defeat, had rallied the patriots above Camden; and men were in the field here and there between the Yadkin and the Catawba, ready to swell the ranks of any good leader, or strike a British foraging party. Sumter's men were all mounted, and cut off many supplies for Cornwallis's army at Winnsboro'. The earl sent Major Wemyss, with some mounted infantry, after him. These fell upon Sumter's camp at Fish Dam Ford on the Broad River, on the night of the 11th of November, but were repulsed. Wemyss was made prisoner, and on his person were found memoranda that revealed his cruelty toward the inhabitants. Cornwallis, on hearing of his defeat, recalled Tarleton from the pursuit of Marion in the lower country, and sent him after Sumter, who, with reinforcements, was pushing on to the British post of Ninety- Six. Tarleton overtook the partisan at Blackstock's plantation on the banks of the Tyer River, in Union district, and attacked him there on the night of the 20th of November. The assailants were repulsed, with heavy loss, leaving their wounded in the hands of Sumter. The latter was disabled by a severe wound, but his loss in men was inconsiderable.
Meanwhile Marion had won victory after victory in forays against British and Tories in the vicinity of the Pedee and Santee rivers. Cornwallis had sent Tarleton, with his legion, to catch the "Swamp Fox." That officer and his men marked their track with desolation and woe. It might have been traced by burning dwellings, and groups of homeless women and children. On the banks of the Santee he beat the widow of a republican officer because she would not tell him where Marion was encamped. He robbed her of all her clothing excepting what she had on; burned her house and devastated her plantation. While pursuing this wicked career, he was recalled to go in pursuit of Sumter. Now Marion attempted a bolder stroke, by assailing the British post at Georgetown, on Winyaw Bay, to procure needed supplies for his men. He was beaten in a skirmish near the town, and retired to Snow's Island at the confluence of the Pedee and Lynch's Creek, which was a high river swamp, dry, and covered with a heavy forest filled with game. At that skirmish, Marion's nephew was murdered after he had surrendered. From that time the battle cry of Marion's men was "No quarter for Tories!"
On Snow's Island, surrounded by vast swamps, Marion had a secure retreat. To his camp, there, a young British officer was sent to treat concerning prisoners. He was led, blindfolded, to the camp, where he saw in the person of the famous partisan leader, a diminutive man, with large, sunken, lustrous eyes, and very coarsely clad, surrounded by rough-looking men with tattered garments. When the business of his mission was closed, Marion invited him to dine at his table. The invitation was accepted. Some roasted sweet potatoes were brought into the tent on a piece of bark, of which the general partook freely, and invited his guest to do the same. "Surely, general," said the astonished Briton, "this cannot be your ordinary fare." "Indeed it is," Marion replied; "and it is a fortunate circumstance that, on this occasion, entertaining company, we have more than our usual allowance." The young officer threw up his commission on returning to his commander, saying, "Such a people cannot, and ought not to be subdued."
POSITION OF THE BELLIGERENT ARMIESMRS. WASHINGTON AT HEADQUARTERSHAMILTON AND MISS SCHUYLERBRITISH INVASION OF NEW JERSEYMURDER OF MRS. CALDWELL ARRIVAL OF FRENCH FORCES-TREASON OF ARNOLDHIS CHARACTER-PROGRESS OF HIS TREASONINTERVIEW BETWEEN ARNOLD AND ANDRECAPTURE OF ANDREARNOLD'S ESCAPE- DISCOVERY OF THE TREASONEXECUTION OF ANDRETHE FATE OF ARNOLD AND ANDRE CONSIDEREDTHE CAPTORS OF ANDRE REWARDEDTHE BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND HOLLAND THE AMERICAN CAUSE IN PERILA STRONGER GOVERNMENT LONGED FORHAMILTON'S PROJECTREFORMS IN THE ARMY.
WHILE stirring events were taking place in the South, important ones were occurring in the North, where military operations had almost ceased because the theatre of war had been transferred to the Carolinas and Georgia. Washington had his headquarters at Morristown, at a house yet standing there, and his main army were encamped within call.
The winter of 1779-80 was very severe. The salt waters that surround New York city were so bridged with solid ice that the British took heavy cannons across from that town to Staten Island. The Continental Army, as we have observed, were encamped chiefly in New Jersey, and the British occupied the city of New York. The snow lay so deep on the ground that both armies were compelled to remain quiet several weeks. When the spring opened, the troops under the direct command of Washington numbered less than four thousand effective men; and between the Chesapeake and the northern and eastern frontiers of the Union, there were not more than seven thousand Continental soldiers.
The troops at and near Morristown suffered much from hunger and cold, at times. Mrs. Washington passed that winter there, with her husband. Sentinels and Life- Guardsmen were continually on duty to defend headquarters from sudden and secret attack. Sometimes, when alarms were quite frequent, guards were placed in Mrs. Washington's sleeping apartment. When an alarm occurred, they threw open the windows to give full play to their muskets. On one of these occasions, on a bitter cold night, the windows were kept open more than an hour, exposing Mrs. Washington to the intense cold, with no other defence against it than the ordinary bed-clothing and the thick curtains drawn. General Schuyler also passed a greater portion of the winter and spring at Morristown, in consultation with Washington about the future. His quarters were near those of the commander-in- chief, and his family were with him. His daughter Elizabeth was then betrothed to Colonel Alexander Hamilton, of Washington's staff, and the young couple were together almost every evening. On one of these occasions, when Hamilton was returning to his quarters, he had forgotten the countersign. The charms of Miss Schuyler seem to have obliterated the word from his memory. He came to the sentinel, who knew him well, but the faithful soldier would not let him pass without giving the word. The colonel was greatly embarrassed. A son of Mr. Ford, a lad fourteen years of age, at whose father's house Washington had his quarters, was entrusted with the countersign for the day, whenever he wished to go to the village and return in the evening. He had just passed the sentinel, when, hearing the voice of Colonel Hamilton, he stopped and waited for him to come up. Hamilton discovered the boy, by the light of the stars, and called out, "Aye, Master Ford, is that you?" Then stepping aside, he called the boy to hi, and drawing young Ford's ear to his lips, he whispered, "Give me the countersign." He did so, and the colonel presented himself in front of the sentinel and gave the word. The soldier kept his bayonet at a present. "I have given you the word, why do you not shoulder your musket?" Hamilton asked. The sentinel, suspecting the colonel was trying his fidelity, said, "Will that do, colonel?" "It will for this time," Hamilton replied; "let me pass." The soldier reluctantly obeyed the illegal command. Colonel Hamilton and his betrothed were married in December following.
The news of the surrender of Charleston reached New York at near the close of May. This intelligence, and the assurance of Tories from New Jersey that the people there were wearied with the struggle and were disposed to submit, seemed to present a favorable opportunity for making a raid into that State by British troops, and setting up the royal standard there. At the beginning of June, General Maxwell, with his New Jersey brigade, was at Connecticut Farms (now the village of Union), a hamlet a few miles from Elizabethtown; and three hundred New Jersey militia under Colonel Dayton occupied the latter place. Against these, Knyphausen sent General Mathews, with about five thousand troops, on the 6th of June. They passed over from Staten Island to Elizabethtown Point, and the next day took possession of Elizabethtown. The militia there retired before the superior force, when the invaders pressed on the Connecticut Farms, greatly annoyed on their way by the rising militia who hung upon their flanks. At the Farms the British murdered the wife of the Rev. James Caldwell, a very active patriot, who was then in Washington's army. Mrs. Caldwell did not fly, with her neighbors, on the approach of the enemy, but remained, trusting in Providence for protection. When the invaders entered the hamlet, she retired to an inner room with her children, one of them a suckling. A British soldier came through a yard to an open window of the room, and shot her as she sat on the edge of the bed. Two bullets pierced her, and she fell dead to the floor, with her infant in her arms. The babe was unhurt. The nurse snatched it up and ran out of the house, which was on fire. The church and every building of the hamlet became a victim to the flames. There was barely time to drag the body of Mrs. Caldwell out of the burning building into the street, where it lay exposed several hours, until permission was given to her friends to bury the remains.
As the invaders pushed on toward Springfield, they were met by Max-well's troops, and after a brief skirmish, and hearing that forces were coming down from Morristown, they retreated to the coast, where they remained about a fortnight. Meanwhile Clinton had arrived from Charleston. He sent reinforcements to Mathews, and after making a feint upon the Hudson Highlands, he and Knyphausen crossed over and joined the troops at Elizabethtown Point. The feint deceived Washington, who left the command of a considerable force of Continental troops at the Short Hills, between Springfield and Morristown, with General Greene, while he moved with another force in the direction of the Hudson. Early in the morning of the 23d of June (1780), the British advanced toward Springfield, and Greene moved forward to meet them, in battle array. The invaders approached in two columns. Greene was advantageously posted. The British force, about five thousand strong, with cavalry and almost twenty cannon, seemed sufficient to crush any republican army that might oppose them; but after a very severe skirmish, the invaders were defeated. Setting fire to Springfield, they retreated to the shore, and crossed over in haste from Elizabethtown Point to Staten Island, on a bridge of boats. Clinton had lost a rare opportunity for the conquest of New Jersey, and possibly the destruction or dispersion of Washington's army.
Good news for the Americans now came from the east. The strong recommendations from D'Estaing on his return to France, joined with the persuasions of Lafayette, had induced the French government to send an army to America, under the Count de Rochambeau, who was instructed to act under the orders of Washington at all times, after his arrival. The troops were borne over the Atlantic in a fleet commanded by Admiral de Ternay, and arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, on the 10th of July. The General Assembly of the State were then in session, and received the strangers cordially. The news of their arrival was greeted with joy everywhere in the Union; and Washington sent a letter of welcome to Rochambeau, by the hand of Lafayette, who was instructed to concert measures with the French general for the future operations of the allied armies. In compliment to the strangers and as a symbol of the alliance with them, Washington requested his officers to wear on their chapeaus white and black cockades.
When news of the arrival of the French at Newport reached New York, Clinton ordered the British fleet there to bear an army to Rhode Island to attack the newly arrived enemy. He detached about eight thousand men for that service. The militia of New England flew to arms, and the French longed for the British to come; but the expedition did not go out of Long Island Sound, and soon returned to New York. Clinton now attempted, by the aid of treason, to accomplish what he had failed to do by honorable warfare. The man who played the part of a traitor to the American cause on that occasion was General Benedict Arnold, a brave soldier, but a bad man. He was ambitious of personal renown, impulsive, rapacious, unscrupulous, and vindictive; personally very unpopular, and seldom without a quarrel with some of his fellow-officers. The sad story of his treason has been so often told in detail, that we need to give it in general outline only.
Soon after the appointment to the military governorship of Philadelphia, in 1778, he married the beautiful daughter of Edward Shippen, a leading loyalist of that city. He lived in a style which caused expenditure beyond his income, and to meet the demands of importunate creditors, he engaged in fraudulent and dishonorable official acts which caused the public to detest him. Finally serious charges of dishonesty were preferred against him before the Continental Congress; and a court-martial ordered by that body to try him, found him guilty. In their sentence they treated him most leniently. It was a simple reprimand by the commander-in-chief. That duty was performed by Washington in the most delicate manner; but the disgrace awakened vengeful feelings in the bosom of Arnold. These, operating with the pressure of debt, made him listen to the suggestions of a bad nature; and he let Sir Henry Clinton know that he preferred service in the British army to that in which he was engaged. Correspondence upon the subject, which was continued several months, was conducted on the part of Sir Henry, through the accomplished Major John Andre, his adjutant-general, under an assumed name. So, also, did Arnold assume a fictitious name; and on the part of both, the correspondence was carried on in commercial phraseology. Arnold agreed to ask for the command of the strong post of West Point and its dependencies, in the Hudson Highlands, and, if obtained, to betray it into the hands of Clinton. For this service Arnold was to receive the commission of brigadier in the British army, and fifty thousand dollars in gold. It is asserted by Mr. Bancroft, that "in the course of the winter of 1778-1779, he was taken into the pay of Clinton, to whom he gave on every occasion most material intelligence."
The nefarious plot had been made known to the British minister, and he and Clinton believed that its consummation would end the war. In the spring of 1780, Arnold took measures to secure for himself the command of West Point. He enlisted the sympathies and services in his behalf of General Schuyler, Robert R. Livingston and other leading patriots of New York, pretending that his wounds would not permit him to do active service in the field, and that he was very anxious to serve his country. His professions of patriotism were so vehement that he deceived those men, and they united in recommending Washington to give him the important position. The latter had lost faith in Arnold's integrity, but could not believe him capable of treason to the cause. He finally yielded to the request of others more than to the dictates of his better judgment, and in August (1780) he placed Arnold in command of the Highland forts, with his headquarters at the house of Beverly Robinson (yet standing), opposite West Point. Then Arnold bent all his energies for the consummation of his treason, first requiring a personal interview with Andre, to make a definite arrangement about the terms of the bargain.
It was late in September before that personal interview was held. Washington, accompanied by Lafayette and Hamilton, crossed the Hudson at Verplanck's Point (where he was joined by Arnold), on his way to Hartford, to have his first personal conference with Rochambeu there. That was on the 18th. Arnold ascertained the time when they might be expected at West Point, on their return, and he resolved to bring the plot to a point ready for the final act before then. He immediately informed Clinton of the situation, and desired him to send Andre up the river to the Vulture sloop-of-war, then lying just above Teller's (now Croton) Point, to which a boat with a flag would be sent to convey the major to a selected place of meeting, between midnight and dawn. Clinton embarked troops on the Hudson, with a pretext that they were bound for the Chesapeake. These he intended to lead in person against the Highland forts.
On the morning of the 20th Andre departed from Dobb's Ferry for the Vulture; but it was the second night after his arrival, when the flag appeared, borne by Joshua H. Smith, a resident near Haverstraw. Andre had been instructed by Clinton not to change his dress and not to take any papers with him; so, with his regimentals, covered with a long surtout, he went ashore, and met Arnold in bushes at the foot of Torn Mountain, near Haverstraw, by the light of a waning moon. Dawn was approaching before the interview was ended; and the conspirators mounted horses which Arnold had provided, and rode to the house of Smith before the break of day. At sunrise, cannons were heard upon the river, and the Vulture was seen to fall down the stream, out of sight, to avoid the effects of artillery trained upon her at Teller's Point. This gave Andre uneasiness, for he would be compelled to return to New York by land.
The conference at Smith's house lasted several hours. It was agreed that Arnold should so distribute the garrison at West Point as to weaken it. When it should be known that the British troops were ascending the river, Arnold was to apply to Washington at Tappan for reinforcements; and after making a show of resistance, he was to surrender the post in time for Clinton to fall upon the approaching troops which might be led by the commander-in-chief in person. So, at one blow, Washington's army was to be ruined, and the important post to be seized by the enemy.
Andre received from Arnold a written statement of the condition of the Highland forts, and a pass for "John Anderson" (his assumed name) "to the White Plains and beyond." With the latter in his pocket and the former under his feet, in his boots, the young officer, having exchanged his scarlet uniform for a coat that belonged to Mr. Smith, buttoned his surtout up to his chin, crossed the river at the King's Ferry, and on horseback made his way toward New York on the east side of the Hudson. So far the plot had worked well. Knowledge of the conspiracy was yet locked in the bosom of a single American-the traitor himself. But difficulties soon arose. When the major had reached the vicinity of Tarrytown, sixteen miles from the strong British post at King's Bridge, and was riding in fancied security up the gentle hill from Sleepy Hollow, he was suddenly confronted by three young militiamen-John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams-who belonged to a party of seven who were out to prevent cattle being driven from the vicinity to the British lines, and to arrest any suspicious characters on the highway. These young men were playing cards in the shadow of a wood by the road-side, when Andre appeared. Paulding, followed by his companions, stepped into the road, and presenting his bayonet ordered the well- dressed "gentlemanly traveler" to stop. Andre, supposing them to be Loyalists, said: "Gentlemen, I hope you belong to our party." "Which party?" asked Paulding. "The Lower party." Paulding answered misleadingly, "We do," when Andre said, "Gentlemen, I am a British officer, out in the country on particular business, and hope you will not detain me a minute." He then showed them his watch in token of his being an officer, when Paulding ordered him to dismount. Perceiving his mistake, Andre said: "My God! I must do any thing to get along," and then showed them Arnold's pass. "Gentlemen," he said, "you had best let me go, or you will bring yourselves into trouble, for your stopping me will detain the general's business." He told them he was going to Dobbs' Ferry to meet a person there from whom he expected important intelligence for Arnold. Paulding courteously said: "I hope you'll not be offended; we do not intend to take any thing from you; there are many bad people on the road, and you, perhaps, are one of them. Have you any letters?" He answered, "No." Then they took him into the bushes, and searched him. Andre was dressed in a blue surtout, a claret-colored body-coat trimmed with lace; nankeen waistcoat and breeches; flannel underclothes, round hat, and thread stockings, and boots. They stripped him to his shirt, but found no papers on him; and they were about to let him go, when it was suggested that something might be concealed in his boots. He reluctantly obeyed an order to pull them off, when the papers alluded to were found between his stockings and his feet. "This is a spy!" exclaimed Paulding. Andre offered them large bribes to release him. "Not for ten thousand guineas," said Paulding; and the three young men conducted their prisoner to Lieutenant-Colonel Jameson, who was in command of the nearest military post, at North Castle. Jameson, with amazing stupidity, resolved to send the prisoner to Arnold. Major Tallmadge, next in rank, suspecting the general of treachery, warmly remonstrated, when Jameson consented to confine the captive until he should receive orders from Washington or Arnold. He insisted upon writing a letter to Arnold informing him of the arrest of the prisoner. This was a fatal blunder, and led to great mischief.
That night the prisoner wrote a letter to Washington, frankly announcing his name and rank, and giving a truthful account of the whole affair. He gave the letter to Tallmadge to read, who was astonished to find that the captive was Major Andre, adjutant-general of the British army. He was finally taken to the headquarters of the army at Tappan.
While these events were occurring, Washington was on his way from Hartford. On the morning of the 25th (September, 1780), he and his attendants left Fishkill before the dawn, and rode on with speed toward the Robinson house to breakfast with General and Mrs. Arnold. When near there, the chief turned down a lane to view a battery on the brink of the river, and told his young companions to go forward and he would soon join them. While they were at the table with the general, a messenger brought a letter to him from Jameson; but instead of announcing, as he expected it would, that a British armament was ascending the river, it told him of the arrest of Major Andre. His presence of mind did not forsake him. He told his guests that business of importance demanded his presence at West Point immediately. He ascended to his wife's chamber and sent for her. There, in brief and hurried words, he told her that they must instantly part, perhaps forever, for his life depended upon his reaching the British lines as quickly as possible. Horror-stricken, the poor young creature, one year a mother but not two a bridge, swooned and sank senseless upon the floor. Arnold dared not call for help, but kissing with lips blasted by words of guilt and treason, his boy then sweetly sleeping, he rushed from the room, mounted a horse belonging to one of his guests, and hastened to the river along a byway yet known as Arnold's Path. Then he entered his barge, and directed his six oarsmen to push out into the middle of the river and pull for Teller's Point. They were ignorant of his errand, and having their muscles stimulated by a promise of two gallons of rum, they rowed the little vessel swiftly down the stream to the Vulture. Having made himself known to the commander. Arnold rewarded his faithful men with the fate of prisoners instead of the promised beverage. Clinton, despising the traitor's meanness, set them at liberty when the Vulture arrived at New York.
Washington arrived at Robinson's house just after Arnold had left. No one there, excepting Mrs. Arnold in her chamber, knew of the traitor's flight. Supposing he had gone over to West Point, the chief crossed the river, and did not return until near noon. He was met near the landing-place by Hamilton, into whose hand a messenger from Jameson had placed the proof of Arnold's guiltthe papers taken from Andre's boots, and the major's letter to Washington. Efforts were immediately made to overtake the traitor, but he had four hours the start, and escaped, as we have observed. The fugitive's wife was crazed by the shock for several hours, and her condition excited the warmest sympathy of the chief and his attendants. She pressed her infant to her bosom and lamented his fate because of the conduct of his father. "All the sweetness of beauty, all the loveliness of innocence, all the tenderness of a wife, and all the fondness of a mother," wrote Colonel Hamilton, "showed themselves in her appearance and conduct." They believed that she was entirely ignorant of his crime until it was revealed to her at the time of his flight.
Major Andre was tried at Tappan by fourteen general officers, found guilty, and hanged there on the 2d of October, 1780. He begged to be shot that he might die like a soldier and not as a spy. In a letter to Washington he pleaded with touching but manly earnestness for this boon. That letter has been thus paraphrased in verse, by Willis:
"It is not the fear of death that damps my brow, It is not for another breath, I ask thee now; I can die with a lip unstirr'd, and a quiet heart Let but this prayer be heard ere I depart.
I can give up my mother's lookmy sister's kiss; I can think of loveyet brook a death like this! I can give up the young fame I burn'd to win; Allbut the spotless name I glory in.
Thine is the power to give, thine to deny Joy for the hour I live, calmness to die. By all the brave should cherish, by my dying breath, I ask that I may perish by a soldier's death."
The usage of both armies and the implacable demands of the military code toward a spy forbade a compliance with his wishes. The British officers, on all occasions, had been quick to hand American captives. We have seen how brutally they gibbeted young Nathan Hale; and scores of patriots in South Carolina had recently perished by the rope by order of Cornwallis, for no other offence than loving the service of their own country better than that of their oppressors. Every officer in the American army would gladly have exchanged Andre for Arnold, and efforts to accomplish that end were made, but failed. Arnold died in his bed twenty-one years afterward; while Andre, the more innocent victim of the wicked complot of Clinton and Arnold, perished on a gibbet four days after he was convicted. The last words of Andre to the multitude who saw him die were" I pray you bear me witness that I met my fate like a brave man." The American people and their annalists have ever done so. His king knighted his brother, and pensioned his mother and sisters; and the custodians of Westminster Abbey dishonored that sanctuary of the virtuous and noble dead of the kingdom, by allowing a conspicuous monument to his memory to be placed in it. Arnold escaped punishment altogether, for his was too coarse a nature to suffer the mental anguish of remorse. He was shunned and neglected by those who accepted the treason but despised the traitor, excepting the king and a few persons in office; and he died in London, in poverty and obscurity. His children were placed on the pension-list of the realm.
The captors of Andrethe three young militiamenwere rewarded by the Congress with a vote of thanks; and to each was awarded a commemorative medal of silver and two hundred dollars a year for life. At the burial place of each a marble monument has been erected; and another marks the spot where Andre was arrested.
The year 1780 now drew to a close, yet the patriots were far from being subdued. The British government had expended vast sums of money and many precious lives in endeavors to subjugate them, and had involved the nation in a war with France, as a consequence. Yet English pluck would not yield an iota to adverse circumstances. Great Britain seemed to acquire fresh vigor when any new obstacle presented itself. Seemingly unmindful of the fact that large French land and naval forces were on the shores of America, the British ministry, when satisfied that Holland would give national aid to the "rebellious colonies," caused a declaration of war to be made against that power by the king, and procured from Parliament immense appropriations of men and money, ships and stores, to sustain the power of the empire on land and sea. British cruisers had already depredated upon Dutch commerce in times of peace; and the British government treated the Netherlands more as a vassal than as an independent nation. So early as May (1780) the British minister at the Hague had been instructed to inform his government concerning the current voyages of Dutch merchantmen, "that the British cruisers might know where to go for the richest prizes."
To prevent Holland joining the Armed-Neutrality league, the ministry sought a decent pretext for making war on that republic. It was found in October (1780) when Henry Laurens, late president of the Congress, who had been authorized by that body a year before to negotiate a commercial treaty with Holland and for a loan of ten million dollars from that government, was captured on the high seas by a British cruiser. Among his papers (which he threw into the sea, but which were recovered) were found an unofficial copy of a treaty with the Netherlands, and evidence that such negotiations had been going on between Holland and the United States. Here was the coveted pretext. Laurens was confined as a state prisoner in the Tower of London under circumstances of great severity, and on the 20th of December, the king declared war against Holland. Before his declaration had been promulgated, and while efforts were a-making at the Hague to conciliate England and avoid war, British cruisers pounced upon and captured two hundred unsuspecting Dutch merchantmen, laden with cargoes valued at more than five million dollars; and orders had gone forth for the seizure of the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. It was a cruel and unjust war, and deepened the hatred of Continental Europe for Great Britain. That government was regarded as a bully ready to oppress and plunder the weak.
Notwithstanding the Americans were not subdued at the close of 1780, their cause was in great peril from the weakness of its material props. The condition of the currency was an impediment to all vigorous measures. "A wagon-load of money would scarcely buy a wagon-load of provisions." The States were urged to supply quotas of funds for the common use, but their responses were slow and feeble, and there was no central power competent to levy taxes or demand forced loans. A closer union and greater power in the general government were essential to success, and wise patriots in every position appealed to the people in favor of a stronger government. General Greene, who, as quartermaster-general, saw clearly the public needs, wrote in June, 1780: "The Congress have lost their influence. I have for a long time seen the necessity of some new plan of civil constitution. Unless there is some control over the States by the Congress, we shall soon be like a broken band." There was a spirit of patriotism among the people ample to meet the great emergency; but legislators lacked wisdom to grasp the problem. While the people yearned for a closer union and a truly national government, Virginia was contending for State supremacy. The legislators of that State agreed with John Adams, who wrote that the assembly in any State was "every way adequate to the management of all the federal concerns of the people of America, because Congress is not a legislative assembly, nor a representative assembly, but a diplomatic assembly."
At a convention of delegates from three New England States, held in Philadelphia in August, 1780, it was resolved that the national concerns should be "under the superintendency and direction of one supreme head," and recommended the investment of the Congress with such power. These words powerfully impressed the mind of young Hamilton, who was then a member of Washington's military family and his able secretary. He invited Mr. Duane, a representative of New York in the Congress, to propose in that body a convention of all the States in November following, and submitted a general plan for a national government, not in form but in concrete suggestions, full of wisdom and evidences of sound statesmanship. He said, truly, that the plan for a confederation which the Congress had adopted, and was awaiting the ratification of the several States, was "neither fit for war or peace," saying: "The idea of uncontrollable sovereignty in each State will defeat the powers given to Congress, and make our union feeble and precarious." At the same time Washington, who, from the beginning, had urged the necessity of a permanent military force, now pleaded for a system of enlistments "for the war," and other reforms in the army. "We have lived," he wrote, "upon expedients till we can live no longer. The history of this war is a history of temporary devices instead of a system." The Congress took measures for "reforming the army," but that body was powerless, and cast the burden of responsibility upon the several States.
PATRIOTISM OF THE SOLDIERS REMARKABLY DISPLAYEDA MUTINY SUPPRESSEDJOHN LAURENS AND A FRENCH LOANARTICLES OF CONFEDERATIONA BANK ESTABLISHEDGREENE SUCCEEDS GATESCUNNINGHAM'S ATROCITIESBATTLE AT THE COWPENSGREENE CHASED BY CORNWALLISBATTLE AT GUILFORD COURT-HOUSEFOX AND PITT ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS ARNOLD IN VIRGINIADEPREDATIONS BY PHILLIPS AND ARNOLDLAFAYETTE AND STEUBEN IN VIRGINIACORNWALLIS AND LAFAYETTECAPTURING EXPEDITIONS FOILEDCORNWALLIS MARCHES FOR THE SEA-COASTORDERS FROM CLINTONCORNWALLIS SEATED AT YORK-TOWN.
THE seventh year of the old war for independence (1781) opened with an extraordinary display of patriotism on the part of the Continental soldiers. Always lacking means for the prompt performance of their legitimate duties, the Congress were always dilatory in carrying out their promises embodied in resolutions. The consequence was that the army suffered great privations for want of money and clothing. Not comprehending the real weakness of the Congress, loud complaints were uttered that sometimes grew into the manifestations of a mutinous spirit. The tardiness in exchanging prisoners, and the seeming neglect of them by the Congress, had been a source of much dissatisfaction from the time when the sugar-houses and churches in the city of New York were made prisons for the reception of American captives taken on Long Island and at Fort Washington in 1776. Their sufferings in those sugar-houses, three in number, and in the Provost prison under the wicked rule of Marshall Cunningham, were very terrible. The story of the horrors of those prisons and of the prison-ships near New York form some of the darkest chapters in human history.
At the time we are considering there was great dissatisfaction in the army because of the official interpretation of the words "for three years or during the war," in the terms of enlistment of the private soldiers. The latter claimed that it meant for three years if the war continued, or to be discharged sooner if the war should cease. The official interpretation was that it meant for three years or longer if the war continued. This matter, the promises of Congress repeatedly broken, and the real sufferings of the soldiers at that time from lack of necessaries for themselves and their families, partly on account of the worthlessness of the Continental money, caused thirteen hundred men of the Pennsylvania line to march from the camp at Morristown for Princeton, on the first of January, 1781, with the avowed intention of going to Philadelphia and, in person, demanding justice at the hands of Congress. General Wayne, their commander, tried by threats and persuasions to induce them to return to their duty. They rgarded their time of enlistment as fulfilled; and when he placed himself before them and cocked his pistol, they presented bayonets at his breast, declaring that much as they loved and respected him, they would put him to death instantly if he should fire. He appealed to their patriotism. Finding they would not listen to him, he resolved to accompany them. At Princeton they gave him a written list of their demands. They appeared reasonable. He caused them to be laid before Congress, who promptly complied with them as far as possible, and disbanded a larger portion of the Pennsylvania line for the winter, which was filled by new recruits in the spring.
When Sir Henry Clinton heard of this movement, he mistook the spirit of the mutineers and hoped to gain great advantage from the revolt. He passed over to Staten Island with troops to support them, and sent two emissaries among them, with a New Jersey Tory, bearing an offer to pay them the arrearages of their wages in hard cash, clothe them well, give each a free pardon, and take them under the protection of the British government if they should lay down their arms and march to New York. The soldiers treated his offers with scorn. "See, comrades," said one of them, "he takes us for traitors. Let us show him that the American army can furnish but one Arnold, and that American has no truer friends than we." They immediately seized the emissaries, and handed them over to Wayne to be tried as spies. They were found guilty and executed. The reward which had been offered for the apprehension of the emissaries was tendered to the soldiers, when they crowned their act of patriotism by refusing it, saying: "Necessity wrung from us the act of demanding justice from Congress, but we desire no reward for doing our duty to our bleeding country."
At the middle of January, a part of the New Jersey line followed the example of the Pennsylvanians. Washington, perceiving the danger of allowing troops to obtain even their just rights by mutinous ways, promptly put down this second revolt by force of arms, and hanged two of the ring-leaders. These measures of justice and hardshness had a salutary effect. The Congress and the people saw the necessity for more efficient measures for the support of the army, and the former sent young Colonel John Laurens abroad to negotiate loans from France. Laurens bore a letter from Washington to Vergennes, setting for the absolute need of aid at that time, and another from the chief to Franklin, written in a similar strain. Lafayette also sent by the same hand an urgent memorial to Vergennes. When the special ambassador one day stood before that minister, and in cloquent words in the French language pressed his errand, Vergennes said coldly, that the king had "every reason to favor the United States." These words and the manner of the minister kindled the indignation of the young diplomatist, and he replied, with emphasis: "Favor, Sir! The respect which I owe to my country will not admit the term. Say that the obligation was mutual, and I will acknowledge the obligation. But, as the last argument, I shall offer to your excellency this: The sword which I now wear in defense of France as well as of my own country, unless the succor I solicit is immediately accorded, I may be compelled, within a short time, to draw against France, as a British subject." This assertion had the intended effect. Nothing was more dreaded by France at that moment than a reconciliation between Great Britain and her colonies, and a cessation of the war for independence. A subsidy of one million two hundred thousand dollars, and a further sum as a loan, were granted. At the same time the necessity for a closer union was generally felt by the Americans, and the imperfect plan for a national government known as the Articles of Confederation, already described, was ratified by the requisite number of States, on the 1st of March, 1781. In May following an amendment was offered by Mr. Madison, for establishing a stronger central government. The same month Pelatiah Webster published a pamphlet in which he recommended a convention to revise the Articles.
The ratification of the defective constitution was also followed in May (1781) by the submission of a financial plan by Robert Morris for raising money for the support of the army, which seemed ready to be disbanded by their own act. It was perceived that the Congress had no power to enforce taxation. Morris proposed the establishment of a bank at Philadelphia with a capital of four hundred thousand dollars, the promissory notes of which should be a legal-tender currency to be received in payment of all taxes, duties and debts, due the United States. The plan was approved by the Congress, and that financial agent of the government was chartered with the title of The President and Directors of the Bank of North America. With the able guidance of Mr. Morris, who was the Secretary of the Treasury, that corporation furnished adequate means for saving the Continental army from disbanding. He collected the taxes, and he used his private fortune freely for the public welfare.
The chief theatre of war continued to be in the South, where it was prosecuted with energy during a greater portion of 1781. On the 30th of October, 1780, General Nathaniel Greene was appointed to succeed Gates in command of the troops in the Southern States. Congress, perceiving their folly in making the Southern Department independent, gave Greene all the power which they had conferred upon their favorite, but "subject to the control of the commander-in-chief." This unity of the military forces had a most salutary effect. Greene hastened southward; and leaving Steuben in Virginia, to collect and forward troops, he reached Charlotte on the 2d of December, where he received a complaint from Cornwallis concerning the ten Tory prisoners who were hung on the tulip tree at King's Mountain. That complaint Greene quickly silenced, by sending to the earl a list of full fifty patriots who had been hanged by his orders, in South Carolina, because they were patriots; at the same time he avowed his determination to be governed by the principles of humanity, whatever the British commander might do to the contrary. Greene and his subordinates adhered to this principle, while the British leaders ridiculed the idea of extending mercy to the "rebels," whom they held to be traitors to the king and deserving of death. One of the most noted of the executors of the British will, in this regard, was Colonel William Cunningham, who was ordered by Colonel Balfour at Charleston to carry terror into the interior of South Carolina. At the head of a hundred and fifty white men and negroes, he carried out these orders during the winter of 1781. He killed every person suspected of being favorable to the American cause, and burned their houses. Full a hundred persons were murdered by this British agent, with the approval of his masters.
General Greene, with his usual energy, at once prepared to fight or pursue the enemy, as circumstances might require. He arranged his army in two divisions. With the main force he took post at Cheraw, east of the Pedee River, and sent General Daniel Morgan, the heroic leader at Saratoga, with about a thousand men, to occupy the country near the junction of the Broad and Pacolet rivers in Western South Carolina. Cornwallis, who was just preparing to march into North Carolina again, now found himself in a position of danger, for he was between two hostile forces. Unwilling to leave Morgan in his rear, he sent Tarleton to capture or disperse his troops. Before this superior force Morgan retreated over rivers and small streams, and through tangled marshes, to the Thicketty Mountains, in Spartanberg District, not far from the North Carolina line. There, near a place called The Cowpens, where great herds of cattle were salted and marked by their owners, Morgan encamped on a plain covered by an open pine forest; and there he was overtaken by Tarleton, and compelled to fly again or fight. The brave soldier chose the latter, and with deliberation prepared for battle. About four hundred of his best men he arranged in battle order on a little rising ground-Maryland light infantry under Lieutenant-Colonel John Eager Howard composing the centre, and Virginia riflemen forming the wings. Eighty dragoons, led by Lieutenant-Colonel William Washington, were placed out of sight as a reserve, and about four hundred Carolinians and Georgians under Pickens were in the advance to defend the approaches to the camp. North Carolina and Georgia sharp-shooters acted as skirmishers on each flank.
Such was the disposition of Morgan's little army when, at eight o'clock on the morning of the 17th of January, 1781, Tarleton, with eleven hundred troops, horse and foot, with two pieces of cannon, rushed upon the republicans with loud shouts. A furious battle ensued. In a skillful movement in the form of a feigned retreat, Morgan turned so suddenly upon his pursuers, who believed the victory was secured for them, that they wavered. Seeing this, Howard charged the British line with bayonets, broke their ranks, and sent them flying in confusion. At that moment Washington's cavalry suddenly broke from their concealment, and made a successful charge upon Tarleton's horsemen. The enemy was completely routed, and were pursed almost twenty miles in their eager flight. In this Battle of the Cowpens the Americans lost only seventy-two killed and wounded; the British lost over three hundred killed and wounded, and more than five hundred prisoners. The spoils were cannon, horses, wagons, eight hundred muskets, and two standards. The two cannon had been taken from the British at Saratoga, and were retaken by them at Camden. Tarleton's immense baggage, which he had left in the rear, was destroyed by his own men to prevent its being taken by the Americans. The Congress gave Morgan their thanks and a gold medal for his brilliant victory, and to Lieutenant-Colonels Howard and Washington each a silver medal.
At the close of the battle, Morgan pushed forward with his prisoners across the Broad River intending to pass the Catawba River and make his way toward Virginia. When Cornwallis heard of Tarleton's defeat, he started in pursuit of Morgan, with his whole army, as little encumbered with baggage as possible. He hoped to intercept the Americans at the fords of the Catawba, but he was too late. Morgan had crossed two hours before the arrival of the earl. Feeling sure of his prey, Cornwallis deferred crossing the river until morning. A heavy rain during the night swelled the stream to its brim, and he was kept back many hours. Meanwhile Morgan had reached the banks of the Yadkin, where he was joined by Greene. The latter, on hearing of the fight at the Cowpens, had left the camp at Cheraw in command of General Huger, and hastened to confer with Morgan. On the way he heard of the pursuit by Cornwallis, and sent back an order to Huger to break up the camp and join Morgan at Salisbury or Charlotte, in North Carolina. Cornwallis had been joined by troops from Camden under General Leslie; and at Ramsour's Mills (where, in June, 1780, North Carolina militia and a body of Loyalists had a sharp fight), he ordered all superfluous baggage and wagons to be destroyed. It was the 31st of January when Greene reached Morgan's camp on the Yadkin.
Now began one of the most remarkable military movements on record. It was the retreat of the Americans under Greene from the Catawba into Virginia, closely pursued by Cornwallis for about two hundred miles. When the waters of the Catawba had subsided, the earl had renewed the chase after Morgan; and he reached the western shore of the Yadkin (February 3) just as the Americans had formed for marching, on the eastern bank. Swelling floods again arrested the pursuers. Onward the retreating army pressed, but Cornwallis could not cross and give chase until the next day. At Guilford Court-House Greene was joined by his forces from the Pedee, but being still to weak to fight the stronger pursuers, he continued his flight, with the whole army, to the Dan, which he reached on the 13th of February. The wearied troops crossed the rising flood and found repose in the bosom of Halifax county, in Virginia. The earl, unable to cross the ford because of the high water, discomfited a third time by the elements, gave up the chase, turned his face southward, and moving sullenly back through North Carolina, established his headquarters at Hillsborough.
Greene remained in Virginia only long enough to rest and recruit his army, when he recrossed the Dan (February 23) with the intention of frustrating the efforts of Cornwallis to embody the Loyalists of North Carolina into military corps. The gallant Colonel Henry Lee, with his legion, was with Greene. At the head of his cavalry he scoured the country around the headwaters of the Haw and Deep rivers, where, by force and stratagem, he foiled Tarleton, who was recruiting among the Tories there. On the 2d of March he deceived Colonel Pyle, who was at the head of three hundred Loyalists, and near the Allamance Creek attacked, defeated, and dispersed his men. Tarleton, who was near, fled in alarm to Hillsborough, and the disheartened Tories returned to their homes. "I am among timid friends and adjoining inveterate rebels," Cornwallis wrote.
General Greene, in the meantime, had moved cautiously forward, and on the first of March found himself in command of almost five thousand effective troops. Feeling strong enough to cope with the earl, he sought an opportunity to fight him. The earl, too, was anxious to attack Greene, and on the 15th of March they met and contended fiercely near Guilford Court-House, not far from the present Greensborough, in Guilford county, North Carolina. Greene had encamped within eight miles of the earl on the evening of the 14th. The latter had been trying to bring on an engagement with the Americans, and on the morning of the 15th, he moved against Greene. The latter was prepared to receive his enemy. His main camp was upon a large hill surrounded by smaller ones, and all were covered with a forest of magnificent old trees, and thick underwood. Greene had sixteen hundred and fifty of the best veteran Continental troops, and two thousand militia; Cornwallis had nineteen hundred of the finest British veterans.
Greene disposed his army in three positions-the first at the edge of the woods on the greater hill; the second in the forest three hundred yards in the rear, and the third a little more than a fourth of a mile in the rear of the second. The first was composed of North Carolina militia, not quite eleven hundred in number and mostly raw recruits, commanded by Generals Butler and Eaton. They had two 6-pounders, with Washington's cavalry on the right wing and Lee's legion, with Campbell's militia, on the left wing. Their position was a very advantageous one. At a little past noon the British appeared on their front in full force, and under cover of cannon-firing, they delivered a volley of musketry as they approached the Americans, and then, with a shout, rushed forward with their bayonets. The American militia fled after firing one or two volleys, when the victors, without halting, pressed on and attacked the second line composed of Virginia militia under Generals Stevens and Lawson. These were used to forest warfare and made a stout resistance for awhile, when they, too, fell back upon the regulars of the third line. Thus far the fight had been carried on by the British with their right, which was commanded by General Leslie; now Colonel Webster, who commanded the left, pressed forward with his division, in the face of a terrible fire of musketry and grape-shot. Greene commanded the Americans in person; and nearly the whole of the two armies were now in conflict. The battle lasted about two hours, when Greene, ignorant of the heavy losses of his enemy, ordered a retreat, leaving his cannon and the field to the British.
This was one of the sharpest battles of the war, and was disastrous to both armies. The Americans lost about four hundred killed and wounded, and a thousand who deserted to their homes; the loss of the British was about six hundred. Among their mortally wounded was Colonel Webster. "Another such victory," said Charles James Fox in the House of Commons, "will ruin the British army." Fox moved (June 12) to recommend the ministers to conclude a peace, at once, with the Americans. On the same day, William Pitt, son of the great Chatham, and then only twenty-two years of age, spoke of the war against the Americans as a "most accursed" one, "wicked, barbarous, cruel, and unnatural; conceived in injustice, it was brought forth and nurtured in folly," he said; "its footsteps are marked with slaughter and devastation, while it meditates destruction to the miserable people who are the devoted objects of the resentments which produced it." Fox said: "America is lost, irrevocably lost to the country. We can lose nothing by a vote declaring America independent."
The battle at Guilford put an end to British domination in North Carolina. The forces of Cornwallis were too much shattered for him to maintain the advantage he had gained; so after issuing a proclamation, in which he boasted of his victory, called the Tories to rally to his standard and offered pardon to the "rebels," he moved, with his whole army, toward Wilmington, near the sea-board, while Greene retreated to the Reedy Fork. To these commanders might have been appropriately applied the line of a Scotch ballad:
"They baith did fight; they baith did beat; they baith did run awa."
When Greene heard of the earl's retreat, he pursued him as far as the Deep River, whence he turned back and moved toward Camden with a determination to strike a blow for the recovery of South Carolina.
Virginia, with great generosity, had sent her best troops to assist the Carolinians in their attempts to throw off the yoke of the oppressor. To prevent this movement, or to call back the Virginians to the defence of their State and so aid Cornwallis in his subjugation of the Carolinas, Arnold the traitor was sent with a marauding party of British and Tories, about sixteen hundred in number, with some armed vessels, to plunder, distress, and alarm the people of that State. In no other way could Arnold be employed by his master, for respectable British officers refused to serve with him in the army. The traitor appeared in Hampton Roads, with his motley host, at the close of December, and, ascending the James River in armed vessels and transports, he landed, with about a thousand men, at Westover, on the 2d of January, 1781. The Baron de Steuben had been left in Virginia by Greene, as we have observed, to gather up and discipline the levies voted by that State for the Southern army; and on the appearance of this new danger, the militia flocked to his standard. Believing Petersburg to be Arnold's chief object, the Baron kept his small force on the southern side of the James River; but Arnold pushed on toward Richmond from Westover, to plunder the tobacco warehouses there. He offered to spare the town if his vessels might be permitted to carry away his plunder unmolested. The proposition was rejected with scorn by Governor Jefferson, when the invader applied the torch and laid the village and stores, public and private, in ashes. Then he withdrew to Westover, and re-embarked for a marauding raid down the river. He was pursued by Steuben and General Nelson, with Virginia militia; and having been warned by Admiral Arbuthnot, that French vessels from Rhode Island were on their way to the Chesapeake, Arnold fled up the Elizabeth River and made his headquarters at Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk.
Great efforts were made by the Americans to capture and punish Arnold. Jefferson offered five thousand guineas for his arrest, and Washington detached Lafayette, with twelve hundred troops drawn from the New England and the New Jersey levies, to march to Virginia to assist in protecting that State and catching the traitor. For the same purpose some French war-vessels were sent to the Chesapeake from Rhode Island in March, but as they could not go up the Elizabeth River, they soon returned to Newport.
Late in March, General Phillips, who had been sent from New York to Virginia with two thousand picked men, joined Arnold, and took the chief command. They went up the James River to plunder and ravage, and to attempt the subjugation of the State. They carried away or destroyed a vast amount of stores, and they also plundered the plantations of slaves and sent them to the West Indies to be sold. This formidable invasion caused widespread alarm. Lafayette was on his way, and Wayne was preparing to follow with Pennsylvanians. By a forced march of two hundred miles, the marquis reached Richmond at the close of April, twelve hours before Phillips and Arnold appeared on the opposite side of the river. He had just been joined by militia under Steuben, and they held the invaders in check. Two weeks later Phillips died at Petersburg of a malignant fever, when the command developed upon Arnold a few days, until the arrival of Cornwallis, who, abandoning North Carolina, had marched into Virginia, hoping by that movement to draw Greene away from Lord Rawdon, then encamped at Camden. The earl so heartily despised Arnold that he could not endure him in his camp, and he sent him to New York. During the few days that the latter was in command he wrote an official letter to Lafayette, who returned it unopened, for he would have no communication with a traitor. One day Arnold found an intelligent young man among his prisoners, and questioned him respecting the feelings of his countrymen. "If the Americans should catch me, what would they do with me?" he asked. The prisoner promptly replied: "They would bury, with military honors, your leg wounded at Quebec and Saratoga, and hang the rest of you."
Cornwallis determined to make the Virginians feel his power. He seized all the fine horses he could find along the James River, with which he mounted almost six hundred cavalry, whom he sent after Lafayette, then not far distant from Richmond, with three thousand troops, waiting for Wayne and his Pennsylvanians. The vigilant marquis fell slowly back, keeping north of the earl. He crossed the South and North Anna rivers, and at Raccoon's Ford, on the Rapid Anna River, he met Wayne with eight hundred men. Cornwallis had pursued him as far as Hanover court-House, from which place the earl sent Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, with his Queen's Rangers, to capture or destroy stores in charge of Steuben at the Point of Forks, at the junction of the Rivanna and Fluvanna rivers. Steuben, warned of his approach, had taken most of his stores beyond the Fluvanna, which Simcoe's horses could not ford. Tarleton had been detached at the same time with orders to capture Governor Jefferson and the members of the Virginia legislature at Charlottesville, whither they had fled from Richmond. Only seven of the law- makers were captured. Jefferson narrowly escaped by fleeing from his house on horseback, accompanied by a single servant, and hiding himself in the mountains. He had left his dwelling only ten minutes before one of Tarleton's officers entered it.
Cornwallis was now at Jefferson's Elk Hill plantation, near the Point of Forks, where he committed the most wanton destruction of property, cutting the throats of young horses not fit for service, slaughtering the cattle, burning the barns with the crops of the previous year, and destroying the growing ones, laying all the fences on the estate in ashes, and carrying away about thirty slaves. The agile Lafayette had now turned upon the earl. The latter supposing the forces of the marquis to be much greater than they really were, turned his face toward the sea-coast and retreated down the peninsula to Williamsburg, making his pathway a black line of desolation. It is estimated that during this invasion of Virginia, from the advent of Arnold in January, until Cornwallis reached, Williamsburg late in June, property to the value of fifteen million dollars was destroyed, and thirty thousand slaves were carried off. The British had been closely followed by Lafayette, Wayne and Steuben, and were allowed to rest at Williamsburg. They were there reinforced, and were protected by shipping.
A few days after reaching Williamsburg, Cornwallis received an order from Sir Henry Clinton to send three thousand of his troops to New York, then menaced by the combined American and French forces. Clinton also directed the earl to take a defensive position in Virginia at some healthy location, and fortify it. This order greatly irritated the earl, for he regarded it as an intentional frustration of his own plan for an active campaign in Virginia. He aspired to Clinton's place, and was a favorite of Germain. Clinton knew that, and for a long time the two commanders had been excessively jealous of each other.
Cornwallis, satisfied that after he should send away so large a detachment of his army he could not cope with Lafayette, determined to cross the James River and make his way to Portsmouth. This movement was accelerated by the bold attitude of the republican troops, who were pressing close upon him. On the 6th of July, a detachment sent out by Wayne to capture a British field-piece, boldly resisted a large portion of Cornwallis's army, as the former fell back to Lafayette's main force near the Green Spring plantation, the estate of Governor Berkeley, where a sharp skirmish occurred, in which the marquis had a horse shot under him, and each party lost about a hundred men. The blow was so severe that Cornwallis hastened to cross the river, which he did on the 9th of July, and marched without further molestation to Portsmouth. Disliking that situation, he went to Yorktown, on the York River, and there, upon a high and healthful plain, he established a fortified camp. he also threw up strong military work at Gloucester, on the opposite side of the river. Here we will leave the earl, while we take a brief survey of military events in the Carolinas.
BATTLE BETWEEN GREENE AND RAWDON NEAR CAMDENRAWDON ABANDONS CAMDENCAPITAL OF BRITISH POSTSPATRIOTISM OF MRS. MOTTESIEGE AND CAPTURE OF AUGUSTASIEGE OF FORT NINETYSIXGREENE RAISES THE SIEGE AND PURSUES RAWDONTHE BRAVE EXPRESS GEIGERGREENE ON THE HIGH HILLS OF SANTEEMURDER OF ISAAC HAYNEGREENE PURSUES STEWARTBATTLE AT EUTAW SPRINGSGREENE RETURNS TO THE SANTEE HILLTHE BRITISH DRIVEN INTO CHARLESTONJUNCTION OF THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH TROOP ARNOLD'S RAID INTO CONNECTICUTGATHERING OF TROOPS AT WILLIAMSBURGSIEGE OF YORKTOWNSURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS.
GREENE perceived that the possession of the interior of South Carolina depended on the posts at Camden and Ninety-Six, and he resolved to capture them. Lord Rawdon was in command at Camden with a force nine hundred in number, and strongly intrenched When Greene relinquished the pursuit of Cornwallis, he marched directly against Rawdon, and arrived within a mile of his intrenchments on the 19th of April, 1781. The works were too strong for Greene's force to assail, and the latter were not numerous enough to invest them and begin a siege; so he withdrew to Hobkirk's Hill, a well-wooded eminence northward of Camden, and encamped within a mile and a half of Rawdon's intrenchments, where he awaited expected reinforcements under Sumter. There, on the 24th, he heard of the capture of a post at Wright's Bluff, below Camden by Marion and Lee, and was impatient to fall upon Rawdon, for he was informed that almost five hundred troops were marching up the Santee to reinforce the latter. That night a drummer deserted to the enemy, and informed Rawdon of the weakness of Greene and his expectation of reinforcements immediately. Rawdon's provisions were almost exhausted he saw no chance for success in battle excepting in an immediate surprise and attack. So he prepared to fall upon Greene early in the morning of the 25th.
At dawn Greene's cavalry, who had been on duty all night, were dismounted, their horses were unsaddled, and they were taking refreshments preparatory to a few hours repose. Some of the other soldiers were washing their clothes, and Greene and his staff were at a spring on the eastern slope of Hobkirk's Hill, at breakfast. Rawdon had sallied out with his whole garrison, and by marching unperceived along the margin of a swamp, had gained the left flank of the Americans. Greene, partially surprised, quickly formed his little army in battle-line. His cavalry were immediately remounted. The Virginia brigade under General Huger, with lieutenant-Colonels Campbell and Hawes, formed the right; the Maryland brigade (with Delaware troops under Kirkwood), led by Colonel Williams, with Colonel Gunby and Lieutenant-Colonels Ford and Howard, occupied the left, and the artillery under Colonel Harrison were in the center, on the road. Washington's cavalry were directed to make a circuit through the woods and fall upon the rear of the enemy, and North Carolina militia were held as a reserve. In this position Greene prepared to receive the non-coming Rawdon. As the British troops moved slowly up the slope, with a narrow front, the regiments of Campbell and Ford were ordered to turn their flanks, and Gunby's Marylanders to assail their front with bayonets, without firing. The battle now opened with great vigor, the Virginians led by Greene in person. The artillery hurled grape- shot with deadly effect, when the British line wavered, and the Americans felt sure of gaining a victory. At that moment Captain Beatty, commanding a company of Gunby's veterans, was killed, and his followers gave way. Unfortunately an order followed for the whole regiment to retire, when the British broke through the American center, pushed up the brow of the hill, and forced Greene to retreat. Washington, meanwhile, had succeeded in capturing about two hundred of the British soldiers, whose officers he quickly paroled; and in the retreat he carried away fifty of the captives. The Americans were chased a short distance, when Washington, turning upon his pursuers, by a gallant charge checked them. Greene saved all of his artillery and baggage, rallied his men at Rugeley's crossed the Wateree River above Camden, and took a strong position to rest before maching on Ninety-Six. The loss of each was less then two hundred and seventy. This defeat was unexpected to Greene, and disconcerted him at first, but his genius and courage were equal to the occasion.
Rawdon followed Greene a little way beyond the Wateree, but finding the communication between Camden and Charleston broken by American partisans, he resolved to abandon the whole country north of the Congaree. He ordered Colonel Cruger to leave Fort-Ninety-Six, and join a British force at Augusta; and on the 10th of May, after burning his stores and public and private buildings at Camden, Rawdon left that post forever, and marched down to Nelson's Ferry on the Santee, to drive off Marion and Lee, then besieging Fort Motte. But within six days afterward the post at Nelson's Ferry, Fort Granby near the site of the city of Columbia, Fort Motte on the Congaree, and Orangeburg near the waters of the Edisto, fell into the hands of the Americans. Fort Motte was composed of the fine residence of Mrs. Rebecca Motte (a widowed mother with six children), and temporary fortifications constructed around it. Mrs. Motte was an ardent Whig, and had been driven from her house by the British. She had taken refuge at her farm-house on a hill near by, when Marion and Lee approached with a considerable force. They had no artillery, and could make only a slight impression upon the fort. What was to be done had to be done quickly. Lee proposed to dislodge the enemy by hurling some combustible material upon the roof of the building and setting it on fire. Mrs. Motte readily consented to this destruction of her property. She brought out a strong Indian bow and some arrows, and with these a soldier, expert in their use, sent fire to the dry roof. When it burst into a flame, the alarmed garrison, one hundred and sixty-five in number, surrendered. The patriotic owner then regaled both the American and British officers with a good dinner at her own table.
Marion now hastened to attack a British post at Georgetown; and Lee pushed forward toward the Savannah to aid Pickens and Clarke in holding the country between Ninety-Six and Augusta, to prevent the garrison at either place joining the other. In this they were successful. Rawdon's order to Cruger to evacuate Ninety-Six reached him when the pathway between that post and Augusta was closed by the partisan rangers; and Rawdon, alarmed by the rapid and successful movements of these partisans, fled toward the sea-coast, and did not halt until he reached Monks' Corners, well down toward Charleston. Pickens and Clarke had kept watch over the British at Augusta, and when, on the 20th of May, they were joined by Lee, they proceeded to invest the fort there. Fort Galphin, twelve miles below Augusta, was taken on the 21st of May, and then an officer was sent to demand the surrender of the main fort. Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, one of the most cruel of the Tories of that region, who was in command, refused to surrender, when a regular siege began. A general assault was about to be made on the 4th of June, when Brown proposed to surrender, and on the following day this important post passed into the hands of the Americans. In that siege the Americans lost fifty-one killed and wounded, and the British parted with fifty- two in the same way, and over three hundred made prisoners. At the close of the siege, Lee and Pickens hastened to Ninety-Six, then beleagured by the forces of Greene.
Kosciuszko was Greene's chief engineer, and with that skillful officer he began the siege of Ninety-Six on the 22d of May, with about a thousand men. The garrison numbered five hundred and fifty. The post was well fortified, and Cruger was a brave soldier. Some troops having arrived from Ireland early in June, Lord Rawdon, thus reinforced, hastened to the relief of the beleaguered fort, with about two thousand men. His approach was heralded by a horseman in the garb of a planter, who rode along the American lines at twilight one evening, and talked freely with the officers. It was a common occurrence, and attracted no special attention. When he reached the road leading directly to the fort, he put spurs to his horse and dashed toward the gate of the fortress followed by a score of bullets. He reached the portal unharmed, bearing in his upraised hand a large letter. It was a despatch to Cruger from Rawdon, announcing his approach. The former had not heard from the writer since he fled from Camden; and he was so hard pressed by the besiegers, who had cut off his water supply, that he was contemplating a surrender. The news encouraged the garrison to endure a little longer. When, on the 18th of June, Rawdon was drawing nigh, Greene attempted to take the fort by storm. It was a disastrous failure. Only one of every six of the assailants escaped unhurt; one-third of them were killed. On the following day Greene raised the siege and fled beyond the Saluda, pursued some distance by the garrison.
The chief commanders of the contending armies now changed their relative positions. As the post of Ninety-Six could not be held, Rawdon ordered its abandonment. Leaving Cruger and the garrison to assist the loyalists in fleeing to Charleston from the wrath of their incensed neighbors, he pushed on toward Orangeburg, with about a thousand men, pursued by Greene, but avoiding a contest with him. Greene sent a message to Marion and Sumter, then on the Santee, to take a position in front of the enemy and impede his progress. His messenger was Emily Geiger, daughter of a German planter. No man in the army was willing to attempt the hazardous service, for the Tories were on the alert. The brave young girl was not more than eighteen years of age. She volunteered to carry a letter to Sumter. With his usual caution Greene told her its contents, so that, in case she might find occasion to destroy it, she could still bear the message to the partisan. The brave maiden mounted a fleet horse, crossed the Wateree at the Camden Ferry, and while passing through a dry swamp on the second day of her journey, she was arrested by some Tory scouts. As she came from the direction of Greene's army, she was suspected of being a messenger. They took her to a house on the edge of the swamp, and with proper delicacy employed a woman to search her person. No sooner was she left alone than she ate up Greene's letter, piece by piece. The matron who was sent for searched in vain for any scrap of paper. Her captors made many apologies for detaining her, and Emily passed on to Sumter's camp. Very soon he and Marion were co-operating with Greene in sorely pressing the troops of Rawdon. Emily Geiger afterward married a rich planter on the Congaree.
When Greene approached Orangeburg, he found Rawdon reinforced and so strongly intrenched that he did not deem it prudent to attack him; and as the heats of summer were approaching, he crossed the Congaree and in July encamped his army on the High Hills of Santee, famous for the salubrity of the air and the purity of the water. Then Rawdon, leaving the troops at Orangeburg in command of Colonel Stewart, went down to Charleston, and complaining of ill-health soon embarked for England. A short time before he sailed, he was a party to an inhuman transaction. Among those who took protection after the fall of Charleston was Isaac Hayne, a planter in the low country. When the British were driven out of his section, by Greene's troops, they could no longer give him protection and feeling himself relieved from the obligation which it had imposed, he took command of a regiment of South Carolina militia. While in arms he was made prisoner. Colonel Balfour, then in command at Charleston, hesitated in disposing of him; but when Rawdon arrived, that officer, pursuant to the spirit of Cornwallis's orders, directed Hayne to be hung. This was done without even the form of a trial. Not even the prisoner anticipated such harsh treatment, until he was informed that he had not two days to live. The patriot's children, the women of Charleston, the lieutenant-governor of the province, all pleaded for his life in vain. The savage sentence was executed, and Isaac Hayne has been embalmed in history as a martyr. After Balfour's death, Rawdon tried to fix the ignominy of the act on that officer. It aroused the fiercest indignation even among moderate men who were inclined to feel kindly toward British rule; and the patriotic women of Charleston could not, at times, restrain their feelings of contempt for British officers after that. One day when Colonel Balfour was walking in the garden of Charles Elliot, in Charleston, with the wife of that gentleman, he pointed to a chamomile flower, and asked its name. "The rebel flower," said Mrs. Elliot. "And why is it called the rebel flower?" inquired Balfour, "Because," replied the patriotic woman, "it always flourishes most when trampled upon."
Greene did not tarry long on the High Hills of Santee. He was reinforced there by North Carolina troops early in August, and toward the close of that month he crossed the Congaree with a greater part of his force, and marched upon Orangeburg. Stewart had just been joined by Cruger and the garrison of Fort Ninety-Six, but he immediately fled eastward forty miles and pitched his tents at Eutaw Springs, near the Santee. So secretly and skillfully was he pursued by Greene, that he was not fully aware that the republicans were after him until they were close upon his heels; and near the Springs a severe battle was fought on the 8th of September, 1781. Greene had moved before the dawn in two columns so stealthily that it was almost a surprise. The centre of his first line was composed of North Carolina militia-men, with a battalion of South Carolina militia on each flank commanded respectively by Marion and Pickens. The second line consisted of North Carolina regulars led by General Sumner, on the right; an equal number of Virginians under Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell in the centre, and Marylanders commanded by Colonel Williams, on the left. Lee's legion covered the right flank, and troops led by Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson covered the left. Washington's cavalry with Kirkwood's Delawares formed a reserve, and each line had artillery on its front. Skirmishing commenced at eight o'clock in the morning, and very soon the fight became general and very severe. The British were defeated and driven from the field with much loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The victory was complete, when the Americans, like those under Sumter at Hanging Rock, spread over the deserted camp of the enemy, eating, drinking, and plundering. Very suddenly and unexpectedly the British renewed the battle, and after a terrible conflict for about five hours the Americans, who had lost heavily, were compelled to give way. Stewart felt insecure, for the partisan legions were not far away; so, that night, after breaking up a thousand muskets and destroying stores, he retreated toward Charleston. Early the next morning (September 9, 1781) Greene sent parties in pursuit, who chased the fugitives far toward the city by the sea, and then took possession of the battle-field. Although the advantage lay with the Americans, neither party could claim a victory. In killed, wounded and prisoners, the British lost full eight hundred men; the Americans lost about five hundred and fifty. Lieutenant-Colonel Washington was severely wounded in the second battle on that day, and was made a prisoner. For his good conduct on that occasion, Greene was presented by Congress with a vote of thanks, a gold medal, and a British standard taken in the fight. Having a large number of sick soldiers, he left Eutaw Springs a few days after the battle, and again encamped on the High Hills of Santee, where he remained until the middle of November, when he marched his army into the low country, where he might obtain an abundance of food. Meanwhile his partisan corps under Marion, Sumter, Lee and others had been driving the British force from post to post in the low country, and smiting Tory bands in every direction. The British finally evacuated all of their interior stations and retired to Charleston, pursued almost to the verge of the city by partisan troops. Greene's main army occupied a position between that city and Jackson-borough, where the South Carolina legislature had resumed its sessions. That able and skillful leader had not won victories in the field, but had accomplished the objects for which he fought. In the course of nine months he had recovered the three Southern States, and at the close of 1781, he had all the British troops below Virginia hemmed in the cities of Charleston and Savannah, General Wayne and his little army becoming the jailers at the latter place at the opening of 1782.
While these events were occurring south of Virginia, important ones had taken place in that State. We left Cornwallis at Yorktown establishing a fortified camp there. Lafayette had taken a position with his little army eight miles from the British lines "to oppose the projects of the Court of St. James and the fortunes of Lord Cornwallis," he wrote to old Maurepas. He had plainly perceived the mistake of Clinton in ordering Cornwallis to take a defensive position in Virginia; and as early as July, he wrote to Washington from Randolph's, on Malvern Hill, urging him to march into Virginia in force, and saying, "Should a French fleet enter Hampton Roads, the British army would be compelled to surrender." The Count de Grasse was, at that time, in command of the French fleet in the West Indies, and Washington had received assurances that he would co-operate with the allied armies in any undertaking that promised success. Meanwhile Rochambeau had led the French army from New England to the Hudson River, and the junction of the American forces and their allies was effected on the 6th of July, near Dobbs Ferry.
At that time Washington was contemplating an attack on the British in New York. Preparations were made for the movement; but before De Grasse was ready to co- operate with them, Sir Henry Clinton was reinforced by three thousand troops from England. They arrived at New York on the 11th of August. At about the same time Washington was informed that De Grasse could not leave the West Indies just then. Thus foiled, the commander-in-chief turned his thoughts toward Virginia, to which Lafayette had invited him. Thenceforth his plans were made in reference to an autumn campaign in that State. While he was yet uncertain what course it was best to pursue in the absence of a co-operating French fleet, he received from De Barras, the successor of Admiral de Ternay, who had died at Newport, the joyful intelligence that De Grasse was to sail for the Chesapeake Bay at the close of August with a powerful naval armament, and more than three thousand land troops. De Barras wrote: "M. de Grasse is my junior; yet, as soon as he is within reach, I will go to sea to put myself under his orders."
Washington had made ample preparations for marching into Virginia. To prevent any interference from Sir Henry Clinton he wrote deceptive letters to be intercepted, by which the British general was made to believe that his enemy still contemplated an attack upon New York. So satisfied was he that such was Washington's designs, that for nearly ten days after the allied armies had crossed the Hudson (August 23 and 24) and were marching through New Jersey, he believed the movement was only a feint to cover a sudden descent upon the city in overwhelming force. It was not until the 2d of September that he was convinced that the allies were marching against Cornwallis. Then he rejoiced that on the arrival of his reinforcements, he had countermanded his order for Cornwallis to send troops to New York.
On the 5th of September the allied armies encamped at Chester, in Pennsylvania, were Washington received news that De Grasse with his ships and land troops had entered Chesapeake Bay. The heart of the commander-in-chief was filled with joy, for in this event he saw a sure prophecy of success and the security of independence for his country. De Grasse had moored the most of his fleet in Lynn Haven Bay, barred the York River against reinforcements for Cornwallis, and landed three thousand troops, under the Marquis de St. Simon, on the peninsula, near old Jamestown. Meanwhile De Barras had sailed from Newport, with a fleet convoying ten transports laden with ordnance for the siege of Yorktown. Arbuthnot had been succeeded in command of the British fleet at New York by Admiral Graves, a coarse, vulgar, and inefficient man. That officer, on hearing of the approach of the French fleet, sailed for the Chesapeake. De Grasse went out to meet him, and on the 5th of September they had a sharp fight, in which the British fleet was so much damaged that it returned to New York, leaving De Grasse master of the Chesapeake.
When Clinton was assured that Washington was really leading the armies to Virginia, he tried to recall some of the troops by menacing posts at the North. He threatened New Jersey, and caused a rumor to go abroad that he was about to attack the American works in the Hudson Highlands with a strong force. He also sent Arnold on a marauding expedition into New England. The traitor, with a band of regulars and Tories, crossed the Sound from Long Island, and on the 6th of September, landed his troops on each side of the Thames below New London. That town, which could offer very little resistance, was plundered and burned. Fort Griswold, at Groton, opposite New London, was taken by storm after a gallant defence by Colonel Ledyard and his little garrison of one hundred and fifty poorlyarmed militia-men. Only six of the Americans were killed in the fight; but after the surrender, the British officer in command murdered Colonel Ledyard with his sword, and refused to give quarter to the garrison. Seventy-three were massacred. Some were badly wounded, and others were carried away captive. Some of the wounded were placed in a baggage-wagon at the brow of the hill on which the fort yet stands, and it was sent down the rough and steep slope, a hundred rods, with great violence, for the purpose of plunging the helpless victims into the river. The jolting caused some of the wounded to expire, while the cries of agony from the lips of the survivors were heard across the river in the midst of the crackling noise of the burning town. An apple-tree had arrested the course of the wagon, and there the sufferers remained more than an hour, when their captors laid them on the beach and left them to die. Friendly hands conveyed them to a house near by, where they were cared for by tender women. With this atrocious expedition the name of Benedict Arnold disappears from history.
Neither Clinton's threats nor Arnold's atrocities stayed the onward march of the allied troops. It was intended to transport them by water from the head of Elk (now Elkton, in Maryland), but there were not sufficient vessels there for the purpose, and a greater portion of them made their way to Annapolis by land. Afterward the whole of the allies were carried by water to the James River by transports from the squadron of De Barras. From Baltimore, where he arrived on the 8th of September, Washington, accompanied by Rochambeau and the Marquis de Chastellux, journeyed to his home at Mount Vernon, from which he had been absent since July, 1775. There they remained two days, when they departed for Williams- burgh, and arrived there on the 14th. Washington immediately repaired to the Ville de Paris, De Grasse's flag-ship, lying off Cape Henry, to meet the admiral, and to congratulate him on his victory over Graves on the 5th. There satisfactory arrangements were made for a combined attack upon Yorktown by land and water, as soon as the troops should reach Williamsburgh. While waiting for the slowly approaching forces, word came that the British fleet at New York had been reinforced. De Grasse proposed to leave some frigates to blockade the York River, and go out in his great ships in quest of the enemy. There would be great danger in such a movement. The British fleet might enter Chesapeake Bay, and assist Cornwallis in making his escape. Washington perceived the peril, and persuaded De Grasse to remain. The last division of the allied forces reached Williamsburgh on the 25th of September, when preparations for the siege were immediately begun.
Cornwallis had solicited aid from Clinton. On the 17th he wrote: "This place is in no state of defence. If you cannot relieve me very soon, you must be prepared to hear the worst." On the same day a council of Clinton's officers in New York decided that Cornwallis must be relieved "before the end of October" and so he was, but not by their aid.
On the 28th the allied armies marched from Williamsburgh, about twelve thousand in number, to begin the siege of Yorktown, twelve miles distant, driving in the British outposts on the way. Some of the allies took possession of outworks which the British had abandoned, and then sent out covering parties for the diggers of trenches and builders of redoubts. The line of the allies extended in a semicircle about two miles from the British works, each wing resting on the York River, and on the 30th the place was completely invested. On account of the possession of the abandoned outworks, the allies were in an advantageous position to command the British lines and carry on the siege by opening trenches. The enemy at Gloucester were imprisoned by the French dragoons under the Duke De Lauzun, Virginia militia under General Weedon, and eight hundred French marines. Only once did the British attempt offensive operations from that point. Tarleton and his legion once sallied out, but were soon driven back by Lauzun's cavalry, who took Tarleton's horse a prisoner and came near capturing its owner.
In the besieging line the French troops occupied the left, the West India troops of St. Simon on the extreme flank. The Americans were on the right, and the French artillery, with the quarters of the two commanders, occupied the centre. The American artillery under General Knox were on the right. De Grasse remained in Lynn Haven Bay to beat off any British fleet that might attempt to relieve Cornwallis.
On the night of the 6th of October, the heavy ordnance had been brought from the vessels, and trenches were begun at a distance of six hundred yards from the British works. The night was dark and stormy, and at dawn the Americans, working under the command of General Lincoln, had completed the first parallel, their labors being entirely unsuspected by the British sentinels. On the afternoon of the 9th several batteries and redoubts were completed, and a general discharge of heavy guns was begun by the Americans on the right. All night long cannon thundered, and the roar of artillery was increased early in the morning when the French on the left opened several batteries. At evening (October 10) the French hurled red-hot cannon-ball upon British vessels in the river, which fired the Charon, a 44-gun ship, and three heavy transports, and all were consumed. The whole scene that night was one of terrible grandeur.
On the night of the 11th the allies began the second parallel within three hundred yards of the British works. This labor was not discovered by the enemy until daylight, when they brought heavy guns to bear upon the diggers. It took them days to complete this second parallel. Two redoubts that commanded the trenches and greatly annoyed the diggers were breeched by the cannon-balls of the besiegers on the 14th, when it was determined to attempt to take them by storm. One on the right, near the York River, was garrisoned by forty-five men; the one on the left was manned by about one hundred and twenty men. The capture of the former was intrusted to Americans led by Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Hamilton, and that of the latter to French grenadiers led by Count Deuxponts. At a given signal Hamilton advanced in two columnsone led by Major Fish, the other by Lieutenant-Colonel Gimat, Lafayette's aid, while Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens, with eighty men, turned the redoubt to intercept a retreat. The assailants leaped the abatis and the palisades with so much celerity, and attacked the garrison so furiously, that the redoubt was captured in a few minutes with little loss on either side. Laurens was among the first to enter the work and make the commander, Major Campbell, a prisoner. The life of every man who ceased to resist was spared. In the meantime the French, after a severe struggle with ball and bayonet (in which they lost about a hundred men in killed and wounded), captured the other redoubt in a similar manner. As they charged the garrison with the bayonet, Deuxponts, their leader, shouted "Vive le Roi!" and the cry was echoed by his followers. Washington, with Knox and some others, had watched these movements with intense anxiety; and when he saw both redoubts in possession of his troops, he turned to Knox and said, "The work is done, and well done." Then calling to his favorite body-servant, he said: "Billy, hand me my horse." That night both redoubts were included in the second parallel.
The situation of Cornwallis was now becoming desperate. A superior force environed him, and his works were crumbling; and he knew that when the second parallel of the besiegers should be completed, his post would be untenable. He resolved to make an effort to escape by abandoning his baggage and sick, crossing the river with his troops to Gloucester, cutting up or dispersing the allies who were imprisoning the British garrison there, and by rapid marches gaining the forks of the Rappahannock and Potomac, and, forcing his way through Maryland and Pennsylvania, join Clinton at New York. Boats for the passage of the York were prepared, and on the evening of the 16th a part of the troops were carried over to Gloucester, when a furious storm of wind and rain, as sudden as a summer tornado, arose and made any further attempt to pass the river too hazardous to be undertaken. The troops were brought back. The earl lost hope. The bombardment of his lines was very severe and destructive, and on the 17th he proposed to surrender. On the following day Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens and Viscount de Noailles (a relative of Lafayette's wife), as commissioners on the part of the allies, met Lieutenant-Colonel Dundas and Major Ross of the British army, and drafted a capitulation. The terms were similar to those demanded of Lincoln at Charleston. All the troops were to be prisoners of war, and all public property was to be surrendered. All slaves and plunder found in possession of the British might be reclaimed by their owners; otherwise, private property was to be respected. The loyalists were abandoned to the mercies or resentments of their countrymen. Such were the general terms; but by the packet which carried his despatches to Sir Henry Clinton, Cornwallis managed to send away persons who were most obnoxious to the Americans.
Late in the afternoon of the 19th of October, 1781, the surrender of Cornwallis and his army took place. The allied troops were drawn up in two columns. Washington on his white charger was at the head of the Americans; and Rochambeau on a powerful bay horse at the head of the French columns. A vast concourse of people from the surrounding country were spectators of the impressive scene. Cornwallis, feigning sickness, sent General O'Hara with his sword, as his representative. That officer led the vanquished troops out of their intrenchments with their colors cased, and marched them between the victorious columns. When he arrived at their head he approached Washington to hand him the earl's sword, when the commander-in-chief directed him to General Lincoln as his representative. It was a proud moment for Lincoln. Only the year before he had been compelled to make a humiliating surrender to royal troops at Charleston. He led the subdued army to the field where they were to lay down their arms, and then received from O'Hara the sword of Cornwallis, which he politely returned to be given back to the earl. The standards, twenty-eight in number, were then given up, and the royal army laid down their arms.
The whole number of troops surrendered was about seven thousand. To these must be added two thousand sailors, eighteen hundred negroes, and fifteen hundred Tories, making the total number of prisoners over twelve thousand. Besides these, the British lost in killed, wounded and missing during the siege, about five hundred and fifty men; the loss of the Americans was about three hundred. The spoils of victory were nearly eight thousand muskets; seventy-five brass and one hundred and sixty iron cannon, and a large quantity of munitions of war and stores. To accomplish this great victory, the French had provided thirty-seven ships-of-the-line and seven thousand men; and the Americans furnished nine thousand troops, of which number five thousand five hundred were regulars.
EFFECT OF THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS, IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATESTHE NEWS IN PHILADELPHIASCENES IN PARLIAMENTNEGOTIATIONS FOR A TREATY OF PEACE BEGUN- -VARIOUS MILITARY MOVEMENTSWASHINGTON ADOPTS HIS STEPSON'S CHILDRENAFFAIRS IN SOUTH CAROLINAEVACUATION OF SAVANNAH AND CHARLESTONPEACE COMMISSIONERS APPOINTEDPRELIMINARY TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAINTREATY WITH HOLLANDGREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATESA BUDDING CONSPIRACY REBUKED BY WASHINGTONDEPARTURE OF THE FRENCH ARMYSEDITIOUS MOVEMENT AT NEWBURGH FOILED BY WASHINGTONGRADUAL DISBANDING OF THE ARMYTREATY WITH SWEDENDEFINITIVE TREATY OF PEACE WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESSESTHE TWO ARMIESEVACUATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORKTHE LAST COMBAT.
ON the day after the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington, in general orders, expressed his great approbation of both armies. That all his soldiers might participate in the general joy and thanksgiving, he ordered every one under arrest or in confinement to be set at liberty; and as the following day would be the Sabbath, he closed his orders by directing divine service to be performed in the several brigades on the morrow.
The surrender of so large a portion of the British army in America secured the independence of the United States. The blow of final disseverance had fallen; war would no longer serve a useful purpose; humanity and sound policy counselled peace. The king and his ministers were astounded when the news of the surrender reached them. Lord North received the intelligence, said Germain, "as he would have taken a cannon-ball in his breast, for he opened his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and down the apartment a few minutes, `O God, it is all over!' words which he repeated many times under emotions of the deepest consternation and distress." The stubborn king was amazed and greatly disturbed, but he soon recovered his calmness and wrote in view of propositions in the Parliament to give up the contest: "No difficulties can get me to consent to the getting of peace at the expense of a separation from America."
Great was the exultation and joy of the Americans as the news of the surrender went from lip to lip throughout the Union. Lieutenant-Colonel Tighlman, one of Washington's aids, rode express to Philadelphia to carry the despatches of his chief announcing the joyful tidings to the Congress, It was midnight (October 23) when he entered the city. Thomas McKean, then President of the Congress, resided on High Street near Second Street. Tighlman knocked so violently at his door that a watchman was disposed to arrest him as a disturber of the peace. McKean arose, received the messenger with joy, and soon the glad tidings spread over the city. The watchmen proclaiming the hour, and the usual cry "All's well!" added "and Cornwallis is taken!" That announcement, going out upon the frosty night air, called thousands from their beds. The old State-House bell that sounded so clearly when independence was declared more than five years before, now rang out tones of gladness. Lights were seem moving in almost every house; and very soon the streets were thronged with men and women, all eager to know the details. It was a night of great joy in Philadelphia, for the people had anxiously waited for news from Yorktown. The first flush of morning was greeted with the booming of cannon; and at an early hour the Congress assembled and heard Charles Thompson read the despatch from Washington. That grave Senate could hardly repress huzzas while the Secretary read; and at its conclusion it was resolved to go in a body, at two o'clock in the afternoon, to the Dutch Lutheran Church, and "return thanks to Almighty God for crowning the allied armies of the United States and France with success." Six days afterward that body voted thanks and appropriate honors to Washington, Rochambeau, and De Grasse and their officers, and resolved that a marble column should be erected at Yorktown with emblems of the alliance in commemoration of the event. The Congress also appointed a day for a grand thanksgiving and prayer throughout the Union, on account of the signal mark of Divine power. Legislative bodies, executive councils, city corporations, and many private societies presented congratulatory addresses to the commanding generals and their officers; and from almost every pulpit in the land arose the voice of thanksgiving and praise accompanied by the alleluiahs of thousands of worshipers before the altars of the Lord of Hosts.
The Duke de Lauzun bore the glad tidings to France, where he found the king and court rejoicing because of the birth of a dauphin, or heir to the French throne. The news reached England by way of France on the 25th of November, and produced the effect already noticed. The city of London petitioned the king to "put an end to the unnatural and unfortunate war;" and in Parliament, a great and rapid change of opinion on the subject was visible. Late in February General Conway, in the House of Commons, moved to address the king in favor of peace, when warm debates arose, Lord North defending the royal policy with vigor on the ground of its justice and its maintenance of British rights. "Good God! are we yet to be told of the rights for which we went to war?" exclaimed Burke. "O, excellent rights! O, valuable rights! Valuable you should be, for we have paid dear at parting with you. O, valuable rights! that have cost Britain thirteen provinces, four islands, one hundred thousand men, and more than seventy millions [$350,000,000] of money." Conway's proposition was carried at the beginning of March.
The opposition in Parliament now pressed measures for peace more vigorously; and on the 20th of March (1782) Lord North, who, under the inspiration of the king, had misled the nation for twelve years, retired from office, and he and his fellow-ministers were succeeded by the friends of peace. The stubborn king stormed, but was compelled to yield to the inexorable logic of events. The Parliament resolved to end the war at once, and he was obliged to give his sanction; and early in May, Sir Guy Carleton arrived in New York, bearing propositions for reconciliation. Lord Shelburne, who had charge of American affairs in the new cabinet, selected Richard Oswald, a merchant, as a diplomatic agent to repair to Paris and confer with Dr. Franklin on the subject of a treaty for peace.
In the meantime the Americans did not relax their vigilance nor preparations for the continuance of the war. General Greene, as we have observed, left the High Hills of Santee, when he heard of the surrender of Cornwallis, and marched toward the seaboard. The South Carolina legislature at Jacksonborough authorized Governor Rutledge to offer pardon to all penitents, and hundreds of Tories gladly availed themselves of the privilege. General St. Clair, while on his way to reinforce Greene, had driven the British from Wilmington and left the Tories of North Carolina undefended, amazed and confounded. Wayne, as we have observed, was keeping the enemy close within his intrenchments at Savannah, and Washington, who returned to the North soon after the surrender of Cornwallis, closely imprisoned Sir Henry Clinton and his army in New York. When the commander-in-chief had completed his arrangements to leave Yorktown, he hastened to the bedside of Mr. Custis, his aid, and the only son of Mrs. Washington, who was dying of camp fever at Eltham, the seat of Colonel Bassett. He was met at the door by Dr. Craik, who informed Washington that all was over. The chief bowed his head, and with tears gave vent to his great sorrow; then turning to the weeping widow, the mother of four children, he said: "I adopt the two younger children as my own." These were Eleanor Parke and George Washington Parke Custis, the former then three years of age, and the latter six months. Washington remained a short time to console the afflicted widow, and then pressed on toward Philadelphia and the Hudson River.
Marion and his men kept watch and ward over the country between the Ashley and Cooper rivers, to prevent intercourse from the enemy at Charleston, and the latter began to feel straitened in their supplies. When General Leslie, who was in command of the British army in that city, heard of the peace proceedings in Parliament, he proposed to General Greene a cessation of hostilities, and asked the latter to allow him to purchase food for his troops. Greene was unwilling to nurture a viper in his own bosom, and refused. Leslie made several ineffectual attempts to penetrate the country by force of arms to procure supplies; and in August he sallied out in considerable force, and attempted to ascend the Combahee River, when he was confronted by General Gist, who, with about three hundred men of the Maryland line, horse and foot, had been detached to watch the movements of the British. After a severe skirmish near Combahee Ferry, the enemy were driven to their boats. They succeeded in carrying away from the neighboring islands a large amount of plunder, and returning to Charleston enriched by considerable supplies. In that skirmish the accomplished Colonel John Laurens was slain. His blood was almost the last that was spilled in the struggle for independence. It is believed that the very last life sacrificed in the cause was that of Captain Wilmot, who was killed in a skirmish at Stono Ferry in September following.
The British had evacuated Savannah on the 11th of July, when General Wayne, in consideration of the eminent services of Colonel James Jackson, appointed the latter "to receive the keys" of that city "from a committee of British officers." So Georgia was redeemed forever from British rule, and Wayne joined his forces to those of Greene. Charleston was evacuated on the 14th of December following. At daylight on that morning the British left Gadsden's wharf for their ships, and at eleven o'clock an American detachment marched in and took formal possession of the city, when General Greene escorted the governor and other civil officers to the Town Hall. From windows and balconies, and even from the house-tops, the American troops were greeted with cheers, waving of handkerchiefs, and cries of "Welcome! welcome! God bless you, gentlemen!" Before sunset the British fleet of transports, about three hundred sail, had crossed the bar and disappeared below the eastern horizon.
Measures had meanwhile been taken by the Congress and the British government to arrange a treaty of peace. The former appointed (September, 1782) four Commissioners for the purpose, that different States of the Union might be represented. These Commissioners were John Adams of Massachusetts, John Jay of New York, Dr. Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Henry Laurens of South Carolina, who were all in Europe at that time. The British government gave Mr. Oswald full power to treat for peace with these Commissioners. He had discussed the terms with Dr. Franklin, who assured him that independence, satisfactory boundaries, and a participation in the fisheries would be indispensable requisites in a treaty. In July the British Parliament had passed a bill to enable the king to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and all obstacles in the way of negotiation were removed. The American Commissioners first named were joined by Laurens at Paris, where the negotiations were carried on. There, on the 30th of November, a preliminary treaty of peace, on the basis of independence, was signed by the American Commissioners and Mr. Oswald without the knowledge of the French government. This was in violation of the spirit of the terms of alliance, by which it was understood (and the Commissioners had been so instructed) that no treaty should be signed by either party to the alliance without the knowledge of the other. Some of the Commissioners doubted the good faith of Vergennes, believing him to be swayed by Spanish influence; but he acted honorably throughout. Dr. Franklin, who never doubted him, removed the dissatisfaction in the mind of Vergennes, because of this affront, by a few soft words. In the meantime the States-General of Holland had acknowledged the independence of the United States by receiving John Adams as an ambassador from the Congress in April of that year; and on the 8th of October (1782) they concluded a treaty of amity and commerce with them. This was signed at the Hague by Mr. Adams and representatives of the Netherlands. It was not ratified until January, 1783.
Coincident with these preparations for a solid national existence, was the adoption of a device for a great seal-the symbol of sovereignty and authority- for the inchoate republic. A committee for the purpose was appointed on the afternoon of the 4th of July, 1776. That committee and others, from time to time, presented unsatisfactory devices. Finally, in the spring of 1782, Charles Thompson, the Secretary of Congress, gave to that body a device largely suggested to John Adams by Sir John Prestwich of England, which was made the basis of a design adopted on the 20th of June, 1782, and which is still the device of our great seal. It is composed of a spread-eagle, the emblem of strength, bearing on its breast an escutcheon with thirteen stripes alternate red and white. In his right talon he holds an olive-branch, emblem of peace, and in his left, thirteen arrows, emblems of the thirteen States, ready for war if it should be necessary. In his beak is a ribbon bearing the legend: E Pluribus Unum-"many in one" many States making one nation. Over the head of the eagle is a golden light breaking through a cloud surrounding thirteen stars forming a constellation on a blue field. On the reverse is an unfinished pyramid, emblematic of the unfinished republic, the building of which is still going on. In the zenith is an All-seeing Eye surrounded by light, and over the eye the word Annuit Captis"God favors the undertaking." On the base of the pyramid, in Roman numerals, the date 1776, and below the words: "Novus ordo seclorum"a new series of ages." So the Americans showed their faith in the stability of the structure whose foundations they had laid. Only the side on which the eagle and escutcheon appear has ever been used, and that as a recumbent seal the size of the engraving here given.
With the joyful prospect of returning peace came many shadowing forebodings of evil in the near future for the poor soldiers, when the army should be disbanded and they be compelled to seek other employment for a livelihood among the desolations caused by war. Many of them were invalids; and for a long time neither officers nor private soldiers had received any pay, for the treasury was empty, and the prospect of a continuance of the poverty of the government had produced widespread discontent in the army. The officers had been promised half- pay for life; but would that promise be fulfilled? was a question that pressed upon the minds of many. Contemplating the evidently inherent weakness of the government, many were inclined to consider it a normal condition of the republican form and to sigh for a stronger one-like that of Great Britain. This feeling became so manifest in the army, that Colonel Nicola, a foreigner by birth and of weighty character, at the head of a Pennsylvania regiment, addressed a well-written letter to Washington in May, 1782, in which, professing to speak for the army, he urged the necessity of a monarchy to secure for the Americans an efficient government and the rights of the people. He proposed to Washington to accept the headship of such a government with the title of king, and assured him that the army would support him. Possibly a budding conspiracy to that end existed in the army, but it was crushed by the stern rebuke administered by the chief in a letter to Nicola. "If I am not deceived." Washington wrote, "in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable."
Many months later discontents in the army assumed a more dangerous form. The headquarters of the army had been, during the autumn of 1782, at Verplanck's Point, on the Hudson, when the troops numbered about ten thousand men. There they formed a promised junction with the French army on their return from Virginia. From that point the latter marched to New England ports and embarked for France, and the Americans went above the Highlands and spent the ensuing winter in huts in the vicinity of Newburgh. At the latter place Washington made his quarters in a house yet standing in the southern portion of that rural city, on the brow of a slope extending to the river.
In the latter part of the winter of 1783, the discontent in the army appeared more formidable than ever. In December (1782), the officers seeing in the continued weakness and poverty of their government no apparent security for a future adjustment of the claims of the army for backpay or for the promised half-pay for a term of years for themselves, sent a respectful memorial to the Congress by the hands of General McDougall, the head of a committee appointed for the purpose, in which they asked (1) for present pay; (2) a settlement of arrearages of pay and security for what was due; (3) a commutation of the half- pay or an equivalent in gross; and (4) a settlement of the accounts of deficiencies of rations, clothing, and compensation. The Congress adopted a series of resolutions on the subject, late in January, which were not very satisfactory. Feeble in resources, they made no definite promises of present relief or future justice, and the discontents of the army were greater than before. Early in March a well-written address to the army was circulated extensively through the camps. If bore no name of author, but was calculated to stir up the spirit of revolt in the hearts of the soldiers. It advised the army to take matters into their own hands, make demonstrations of power and determination that should arouse the fears of the people and of the Congress, and so obtain justice for themselves. With this address was circulated privately a notification of a meeting of officers at a large building called The Temple, which had been erected for public meetings and a gathering-place for the Freemasons of the army.
These papers were brought to the notice of Washington on the day when they were issued, and he determined to guide and control the movement. In general orders the next morning he referred to them; expressed his disapprobation of the whole proceedings as disorderly, and requested the general and field officers, with one officer from every company in the army, to meet at the "New Building" (The Temple) on the 15th at noon. General Gates, the senior officer, was requested to preside. On the appearance of this order, the writer of the anonymous addresses issued another, more subdued in tone, in which he tried to give the impression that Washington approved the scheme, the time of meeting being changed. There was a full attendance, and deep solemnity pervaded the assembly, when the commander-in-chief stepped upon the platform to read an address which he had prepared for the occasion. As he put on his spectacles, he remarked: "You see, gentlemen, that I have not only grown gray, but blind in your service." This simple remark, under the circumstances, had a powerful effect upon the assemblage. When he had read his address, so compact in form and construction, so clear in expression and meaning, so dignified and patriotic, so mild yet so severe, and withal so vitally important in its relations to the well-being of the unfolding republic, the men before him and the army they represented, as well as the best interests of human freedom, he immediately retired and left the officers to discuss the matter unrestrained by his presence. Their conference was brief; their deliberations, short. They passed resolutions by unanimous vote thanking their chief for the course he had pursued; expressing their unabated attachment to his person and their country; declaring their unshaken confidence in the good faith of Congress, and their determination to bear with patience their grievances until, in due time, they should be redressed. These proceedings were signed by General Gates as president of the meeting; and three days afterward Washington, in general orders, expressed his entire satisfaction. All the papers relating to this affair were forwarded to the Congress and entered at length in their journals; and very soon that body took action that satisfied the army of the wisdom of Washington's proceedings at Newburg. The author of the anonymous addresses was Major John Armstrong, one of General Gates' aids, who afterward held civil offices of distinction in our national government. He was Secretary of War during a portion of the conflict between the United States and Great Britain in 1812-'15. In a letter to Armstrong many years after the events above related, Washington expressed his belief that the motives of the major were patriotic.
Another question now became a serious one. When the ratification of the preliminary treaty of peace was made known, a cessation of hostilities was proclaimed, on the 19th of April 1783, just eight years to a day since they began at Lexington. Then the soldiers who had enlisted "for the war" claimed the right to go home. Congress decided that the time of their enlistment would not expire until a definitive treaty of peace should be concluded. Much dissatisfaction was felt; but Washington soothed the feelings of the soldiers by allowing a very large portion of them to go home on long furloughs, during the summer of 1783. As the definitive treaty was concluded at the beginning of September, these men never returned to the army; and so was gradually and quietly disbanded a greater portion of the Continental Army in the field.
In April, 1783, a treaty was concluded between the United States and the king of Sweden; and in the same month the British government gave to David Hartley full powers to negotiate a definitive treaty with the American commissioners. It was concluded and signed at Paris on the 3d of September, 1783, by David Hartley on the part of Great Britain, and by Dr. Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay on the part of the United States. Then Franklin put on his suit of clothes which he had laid aside after receiving personal abuse before the British Privy Council, with a vow never to wear them again until America was independent and England humbled. Definitive treaties between Great Britain and France and Spain were signed on the same day; one between Great Britain and Holland was signed the day before. That between the United States and Great Britain was unqualifiedly acknowledged by the king of Great Britain; the Mississippi River was made the western boundary, and Canada and Nova Scotia the northern and eastern boundaries of the territory of the new Republic; the navigation of the River St. Lawrence was abandoned to the English; the navigation of the Mississippi was made free to both parties; mutual rights to the Newfoundland fisheries were adjusted; no impediments were allowed in the way of the recovery of debts by bona fide creditors; certain measures of restitution of confiscated property to Loyalists were to be recommended by the Congress to the several States; and there was to be a general cessation of hostilities, withdrawal of troops, and a restoration of public and private property.
While waiting for the arrival of the definitive treaty, Washington made a tour, with Governor George Clinton, to the theatre of military operations in Northern New York. On his return to Newburgh, he found a letter from the President of Congress, asking his attendance upon that body, at Princeton. Leaving the army in charge of General Knox, he complied with their request, and for many weeks he was in conference with committees of that body concerning a peace establishment, etc. Meanwhile the Congress had voted to honor him with an equestrian statue to be placed at the seat of the national government; but that, like similar honors voted to others of the Continental Army, has never been executed.
In October, 1783, the Congress proclaimed the discharge of the soldiers enlisted for the war, and only a few who had been re-enlisted until a peace establishment should be arranged, now formed the remnant of the Continental Army. Soon after this proclamation, Washington put forth a farewell address to the army, which, with one sent to the governors of the several States, from Newburgh, in June, constitute admirable state papers.
The great drama of the war for independence was now drawing to its close. Sir Guy Carleton was ordered to evacuate the city of New York, the only place in our republic then occupied by British troops. He was delayed by waiting for vessels to convey refugee Loyalists to Nova Scotia, who were compelled by a law of their State to leave their country and their confiscated property. Finally, the 25th of November was the day fixed for the evacuation by Carleton. Washington repaired to West Point, where Knox had stationed the remnant of the Continental Armythe remnant of two hundred and thirty thousand regulars and fifty-six thousand militia who bore arms during the war. Of all that glorious band of patriots, not one now remains. The two latest survivors were William Hutchings of Maine and Lemuel Cook of New York, who both died in the month of May, 1866, the former at the age of one hundred and one years and seven months, and the latter, one hundred and two years. The British had sent to subdue the American "rebels" one hundred and thirteen thousand troops for the land service, and more than twenty-two thousand seamen. Of the former, one of them (John Battin), died in the city of New York at the age of a little more than one hundred years.
Accompanied by Governor George Clinton and other civil officers, and escorted by a detachment of troops from West Point under General Knox, Washington, with his staff, appeared near the city of New York (at the site of the Cooper Institute), on the morning appointed for the evacuationthe city from which he and his troops had been compelled to fly more than seven years before. At one o'clock in the afternoon, when the British had withdrawn to the water's edge for embarkation, the Americans marched into the city, the General and Governor at their head, the civil officers and a cavalcade of citizens following, with the regular troops. In compliment to the governor and the civil authority the procession was escorted by West-Chester Light Horsemen, the continental jurisdiction having ceased or was suspended. Before three o'clock General Knox had taken possession of Fort George, at the foot of Broadway, amid the acclamations of thousands of citizens and the roar of artillery; when Clinton formally re-established civil government there, and closed the important transactions of the day by a public dinner.
Before the British left Fort George, they nailed their colors to the top of the flag-staff, knocked off the cleats, and "slushed" the pole from top to bottom to prevent its being climbed. When Knox took possession of the fort, John Van Arsdale, a lively sailor boy sixteen years of age, climbed the flag-staff by nailing on the cleats, tore down the British flag, and in its place unfurled the American banner of Stars and Stripes. The British hoped to leave the harbor with their flag still floating over the spot they had occupied so long, but they did not. The last sail of the British fleet that bore away the army and the Loyalists, did not disappear beyond the Narrows, before the evening twilight.
The late Dr. Alexander Anderson, the pioneer wood-engraver in America, related to me the following amusing incident of that evacuation-day. He was then a boy between eight and nine years of age, having been born three days after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. He was living with his parents in Murray street, near the Hudson River, then sparsely settled. Opposite his father's dwelling was a boarding-house kept by a man named Day, whose wife was a large, stout woman and zealous Whig. On the morning of evacuation-day, she ran up the American flag upon a pole in front of her house. The British claimed possession of the city until twelve o'clock at noon, and this act was offensive to them. Early in the forenoon, when young Anderson was on his father's stoop, he saw a burly red-faced British officer, in full uniform, coming down Murray street in great haste. Mrs. Day was sweeping in front of her door when the officer came up to her in a blustering manner, and in loud and angry tones ordered her to haul down the flag. She refused, when the officer seized the halyards to pull it down himself. Mrs. Day flew at him with her broomstick, and beat him so furiously over his head, that she made the powder fly from his wig. The officer stormed and swore, and tugged in vain at the halyards, which were entangled; and Mrs. Day applied her weapon so vigorously that he was soon compelled to retreat, and leave the flag of the valiant woman floating triumphantly in the keen morning breeze. The British officer was the infamous provost marshal of the army, William Cunningham, who, for seven years, had cruelly treated American prisoners under his charge in New York, and terribly oppressed some of the few Whig families who remained in that city. This inglorious attempt to capture the colors of Day Castle and the result, was the last fight between the British and Americans in the Old War for Independence.
CLOSING OF THE DRAMA ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTICWASHINGTON PARTS WITH HIS OFFICERS AND RESIGNS HIS COMMISSIONHIS JOURNEY FROM NEW YORK TO MOUNT VERNON SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATIWEAKNESS OF THE NEW GOVERNMENTTHE OPINIONS OF BRITISH STATESMENTHE PUBLIC DEBT AND CREDITTHE STATES REFUSE TO VEST SOVEREIGN POWERS IN THE CONGRESSLORD SHEFFIELD'S PAMPHLETJOHN ADAMS AS MINISTER IN ENGLANDINSURRECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATESDESIRE FOR A STRONGER GOVERNMENT MANIFESTEDHAMILTON'S EARLY EFFORTS TO THAT ENDA NATIONAL CONVENTIONFRANKLIN'S MOTION FOR PRAYERSFORMATION AND ADOPTION OF A NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONSIGNING IT AND ITS RATIFICATIONTHE NORTHWESTERN TERRITORYTHE NEW GOVERNMENT PUT INTO OPERATION.
THE struggle of the English-American colonies for political independence ended in victory for the patriots. That independence was finally assured when, on the 5th of December, 1783, the king of England said in a speech from the throne: "I have sacrificed every consideration of my own to the wishes and opinions of my people. I make it my humble and earnest prayer to Almighty God that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of the empire, and that America may be free from those calamities which have formerly proved, in the mother country, how essential monarchy is to the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. Religion, language, interests, affections may, and I hope will, yet prove a bond of permanent union between the two countries; to this end neither attention or disposition shall be wanting on my part."
With that speech the king closed, in Great Britain, the impressive drama which opened at Lexington in 1775, and exhibited its most glorious act in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. With another act, dissimilar but quite as interesting, it had closed in America the day before. The Continental Army had been disbanded and every hostile British soldier had left our shores, when Washington, on the 4th of December (1783), called around him his officers who were near and bade them farewell. That event occurred in the great public-room of the tavern of Samuel Fraunce, at the corner of Broadway and pearl streets, in the city of New York. The scene is described as one of great tenderness. The officers were assembled in the room, when Washington entered and taking a glass of wine in his hand said: "With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." Having tasted the wine, he continued: "I cannot come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged to you if each will come and take me by the hand." General Knox, who stood nearest to the commander-in-chief, turned and grasped his hand, and, while the tears flowed down the cheeks of each, Washington kissed his beloved companion in arms on the forehead. This he did to each of his officers. With these parting tokens of affection Washington left the room, and passing through a corps of light infantry, he walked to White Hall (now the Staten Island Ferry) followed by a vast procession, and at two o'clock in the afternoon entered a barge to be conveyed to Paulus's Hook, now Jersey City, on his departure for Annapolis, where the Continental Congress was then in session. The last survivor of the participants in that parting scene was Major Robert Burnet of Orange County, New York, who lived until 1854. From his lips I received the account. It was an old story related long before by the historian, but it seemed fresh as it came from the lips of an eye-witness.
Washington proceeded to Philadelphia, where he delivered his public accounts into the hands of the proper officer, and with his wife rode to Annapolis, the capital of Maryland. The Continental Congress was then in session in the State- House there. At noon on the 23d of December, the patriot entered the Senate Chamber (the hall in which the Congress sat) according to previous arrangement, and was led to a chair by Charles Thompson, the Secretary. The President of Congress, General Mifflin, then rose and informed the General that "The United States, in Congress assembled, were prepared to receive his communications." Washington arose, and, with great dignity and much feeling, delivered a brief speech, and then handed to Mifflin the commission which he had received from that body in June, 1775. Mifflin received it, and made an eloquent reply. He closed by saying: "We join you in commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, beseeching him to dispose the hearts and minds of its citizens to improve the opportunity afforded them of becoming a happy and respectable nation. And for you, we address to Him our earnest prayers that a life so beloved may be fostered with all His care; that your days may be as happy as they have been illustrious; and that He will finally give you that reward which this world cannot give."
Washington and his wife set out from Annapolis for Mount Vernon, on the day before Christmas, and arrived home that evening, where they were greeted with great joy by the family and flocks of colored servants. They were accompanied a short distance by the governor of Maryland and his suite, on horseback. All the way from New York to Annapolis and thence to Mount Vernon, Washington's journey was a triumphal march. He was escorted from place to place by cavalcades of citizens and volunteer military corps, and was everywhere greeted with the most emphatic demonstrations of love and respect. For more than eight years he had served his country faithfully and efficiently. Now that its independence was secured, he crowned the glory of his patriotic devotion by resigning into the hands of his country's representatives the instrument of his power; and as a plain, untitled citizen, he sat down in peace in the midst of his family, on the banks of the Potomac.
A few months before the disbanding of the army a tie of friendship had been formed among the officers, at the suggestion of General Knox, by the organization at the cantonment of the troops, near Newburgh, New York, of an association known as The Society of the Cincinnati. Its chief objects were to promote a cordial friendship and indissoluble union among themselves, and to extend benevolent aid to such of its members as might need assistance. Washington was made its President-General, and remained so until his death. General Knox was its Secretary-General. To perpetuate the association, it was provided in the constitution of the society, that the eldest masculine descendant of an original member should be entitled to wear the Order and enjoy the privileges of the society. That society is yet in existence. The Order or badge consists of a gold eagle, suspended upon a ribbon, on the breast of which is a medallion with a device, representing Cincinnatus receiving the Roman Senator.
The Americans were now free but not independent. Why not? Because they had not established a nation endowed with the functions of absolute sovereignty. The British statesmen were wise enough to see this, and sagacious enough to take advantage of the situation. They saw that the Americans were without a government sufficiently powerful to command the fulfillment of treaty stipulations, or an untrammeled commerce sufficiently important to attract the cupidity or interested sympathies of other nations. John Adams was received with courtesy as the ambassador of an independent nation at the court of St. James, and King George had said to him: "I was the last man in the kingdom, Sir, to consent to the independence of America; but now it is granted, I will be the last man in the world to sanction a violation of it."
These courtesies and fair words were only the velvet that covered the mailed hand of power. The British ministry, misled by the Loyalists that swarmed in the metropolis, believed that the weak confederacy would soon crumble, and that each part would be suing for restoration to the privileges of subjects to the crown. It was prepared to seize with merciless grasp the inchoate nation and destroy its sovereignty. The trade, commerce, manufactures, arts, literature, science, religion and laws were yet largely subservient to the parent country, without a well-grounded hope for speedy deliverance from the thrall. These facts gave Dr. Franklin good reason for saying to a compatriot who remarked that the war for independence was successfully closed: "Say, rather, the war of the Revolution. The war for Independence is yet to be fought." That struggle occurred, and that independence was won by the Americans in the war of 1812.
We have already observed that wise men deplored the weakness of the government under the Articles of Confederation ratified in 1781. The powers of that government were soon tested by its efforts to employ the functions of sovereignty. A debt of $70,000,000 lay upon the shoulders of a wasted people, besides the promises of the dead "Continental money" to pay more than $200,000,000 more. About $44,000,000 of this live debt was owing by the general government, $10,000,000 in Europe, and the remainder by the individual States. The debt had been contracted in carrying on the war, which, for a long time, was sustained only by money borrowed for the purpose. By this means the public credit had sunk very low. The restoration of that credit or the downfall of the infant republic was the alternative presented to the Americans at the close of the war.
With a determination to restore the public credit, the General Congress put forth all their strength, which was only absolute weakness. They asked the several States to vest that body with power to levy, for the term of twenty-five years, duties on certain imported articles, the revenue therefrom to be appropriated to the sole purpose of paying the interest and principal of the public debt. It was also proposed that the States should establish, for the same time and for the same object, substantial revenues for supplying each its proportion of $1,500,000 annually, exclusive of duties on imports. This financial system, which was approved by the leading men of the country, was not to go into effect without the consent of every State in the league. For three years the proposition was before the people. All the States but two were willing to raise the required amount; but they would not consent to vest the Congress with the asked-for power. "It is money, not power," they said, "that ought to be the object. The former will pay our debts, the latter may destroy our liberties." So ended in failure the first important effort of the general government to assume the functions of sovereignty. It was the beginning of a series of failures, and was mischievous because it excited the jealousy of the respective States. It also exposed the impotency of a so-called national government, whose very vitality, as well as the right to exercise governing functions, depended upon the will of thirteen distinct legislative bodies, each tenacious of its own peculiar rights and interests, and miserly in its delegation of power. It was perceived that the public credit must inevitably be destroyed by a repudiation of the public debt.
The League were equally unfortunate in their attempts to establish commercial relations with other governments, especially with Great Britain. The British ministry in power when the treaty of peace was ratified were disposed to make liberal commercial arrangements with the Americans, and our commerce began to revive. William Pitt, son of the Earl of Chatham, and then, at the age of twenty-four years, Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a plan by which the British West India Islands and other possessions of the crown, should be thrown open to American commerce. Such a measure would have secured a lasting peace between the two countries. But the unwisdom of British statesmen could not discern it. The shipping interest, then potential in Parliament, opposed it, and the wiser ministry did not survive the proposition a month. The new ministry, listening to the suggestions of bitter American Loyalists in England, assumed a haughty tone toward the Americans, treating them as vassals, and inaugurating a restrictive commercial policy which indicated that they regarded the States of the League as only alienated members of the British realm. Lord Sheffield, in a pamphlet that was widely circulated, declared his belief that utter ruin must soon overtake the League because of the anarchy into which their independence had thrown them. He saw the utter weakness of their form of government, and advised his countrymen to consider them of little account as a nation. "If the American States choose to send consuls," he said, "receive them and send a consul to each State. Each State will soon enter into all necessary regulations with the consul, and this is the whole that is necessary." In other words, the United States have no dignity above that of a fifth-rate power; and the States are still, in fact, only dis-membered fragments of the British empire.
Impelled by this unfriendly conduct of Great Britain, the Congress, in the spring of 1784, asked the several States to delegate powers to them for fifteen years, by which they might, by countervailing measures, compel the British to be more liberal. The appeal was in vain. The States growing more and more jealous of their own dignity, refused to vest any such powers in the Congress; nor would they make any permanent or uniform arrangement among themselves. Without public credit; their commerce at the mercy of every adventurer; without respect at home or abroad, the League exhibited the sad spectacle of the elements of a great nation paralyzed in the formative process. Then came a threatened open rupture with Great Britain on account of the inexecution of the Treaty of Peace, when John Adams was sent to England early in 1785, clothed with the full powers of plenipotentiary, to arrange all matters in dispute. But he could accomplish little. He was courteously received, as we have observed, but was coldly treated afterward. The representative of a weak government, he was compelled to bite his lip in silence; and he asked and obtained leave to return home.
Meanwhile matters were becoming infinitely worse in the United States. The League appeared to be on the verge of dissolution. The idea of forming two or three distinct confederacies took possession of the public mind. The people of Western North Carolina revolted and a new State called Frankland, formed by the insurgents, lasted several months. A portion of Southwestern Virginia sympathized in the movement. Insurrections against the authorities of Pennsylvania appeared in the Wyoming Valley. A convention at Portland discussed the propriety of making the Territory of Maine an independent State. An armed mob surrounded the New Hampshire Legislature and demanded a remission of taxes. In Massachusetts, Captain Daniel Shays led a formidable insurrection, which caused the calling out of several thousand militia under General Lincoln to suppress it. There was resistance to taxation everywhere. It was caused by the hard necessities of the people. Debt weighed down all classes; and the burden of the tax gatherer was often the "feather that would break the camel's back."
Wise and patriotic men now saw clearly that the chief cause of all the trouble was the inherent weakness of the general government. Sagacious men like young Hamilton had perceived it long before. So early as 1780, when he was only twenty-three years of age, Hamilton seems to have formed well-defined, profound and comprehensive opinions on the situation and wants of the States. In a long letter to James Duane, in Congress, dated "At the Liberty-Pole," September 3d, he gave an outline sketch of a national constitution, and suggested the calling of a convention to frame such a system of government. During the following year he published in the New York Packet, then printed at Fishkill, in Duchess County, New York, a series of papers under the title of The Constitutionalist, which were devoted chiefly to the discussion of the defects in the Articles of Confederation. They excited much local attention. In the summer of 1782, as we have observed, he succeeded in having the subject brought before the Legislature of New York, then in session at Poughkeepsie. It was favorably received; and on Sunday, the 21st of July, that body, by resolution, drawn by Hamilton and presented by General Schuyler, his father-in-law, recommended the "assembling of a convention of the United States, specially authorized to revise and amend the Confederation, reserving the right to the respective legislatures to ratify their determination." In the spring of 1783, Hamilton, in Congress, expressed an earnest desire for a convention charged with that high duty. In the same year, Thomas Paine and Pelatiah Webster wrote on the subject; and in the spring of 1784, Noah Webster, the author of the Dictionary, published a pamphlet on the great topic, which he took pains to carry in person to General Washington. In that pamphlet he suggested a "new system of government which should act, not on the States but directly on individuals, and vest in Congress full power to carry its laws into effect." In the autumn of 1785, Washington, in a letter to James Warren, deplored the weakness of the government and the "illiberality jealousy, and local policy of the States" that was likely to sink the new nation, "in the eyes of Europe, into contempt."
Grave discussions on the subject were held in the Library at Mount Vernon, where Washington, acting upon the suggestion of Hamilton five years before, proposed a convention of the several States to agree upon a plan for unity in a commercial arrangement over which, by the constitution, the Congress had no control. That suggestion beamed out upon the surrounding darkness like a ray of morning light, and was the herald and harbinger of future important action. Coming from such an exalted source, the suggestion was heeded. A convention of the States was called at Annapolis, in Maryland. Only five States (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia) sent deputies. These met on the 11th of September, 1786. There being only a minority of the States represented, action was postponed, and they adjourned after adopting the form of a recommendation for the several States to send deputies to a convention to meet in Philadelphia in May following. A report of their proceedings was sent to the Congress, and that body, in February, 1787, passed a resolution strongly urging the legislatures of the several States to send deputies to meet in the proposed convention for "the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as should, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the government and the preservation of the Union." Delegates were appointed by all the States excepting Rhode Island. While there was a general feeling that something must be done for the preservation of the Union, great caution was manifested in the delegation of powers to those who were to represent the States in the proposed convention.
In May, 1787, delegates from several States assembled in convention in Independence Hall in the State-House at Philadelphia. George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was chosen to preside over their deliberations, and William Jackson, one of Washington's most intimate personal friends, was appointed secretary. It was the 25th of May before there were delegates enough from the requisite number of States to form a quorum. The business of the convention was opened by Edmund Randolph of Virginia, who, at the request of his colleagues, made a carefully prepared speech, in which he pointed out the serious defects in the Articles of Confederation, illustrated their utter inadequacy to secure the dignity, peace, and safety of the republic, and asserted the absolute necessity of a more energetic government. At the close of his speech he offered to the convention fifteen resolutions, in which were embodied the leading principles whereon to construct a new form of government. The chief business of the convention was suggested by his proposition, "that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary."
Upon this broad foundation all future action of the convention was based. The members had scarcely a precedent in history for their guide. The great political maxim established by the Revolution was, the original residence of all human sovereignty is in the people. It was left for the founders of the republic to parcel out from the several Commonwealths of which the new nation was composed, so much of their restricted power as the people of the several States should be willing to dismiss from their local political institutions, in making a strong and harmonious government that should be, at the same time, harmless toward reserved State rights. This was the difficult problem to be solved. "At that time," says Mr. Curtis in his History of the Constitution, "the world had witnessed no such spectacle as that of the deputies of a nation, chosen by the free action of great communities, and assembled for the purpose of thoroughly reforming its Constitution, by the exercise and with the authority of the national will. All that had been done, both in ancient and modern times, in forming, moulding or modifying constitutions of government, bore little resemblance to the present undertaking of the States of America. Neither among the Greeks nor the Romans was there a precedent, and scarce an analogy."
The Convention had not proceeded far when it was discovered that the Articles of Confederation were too radically defective to afford a basis for a stable government, and therefore, instead of trying to amend them, they went diligently at work to form a new constitution. Slow progress was made, for opinions were very conflicting. At length, when it appeared probable that the result would be a failure to agree upon anything, the venerable Dr. Franklin, then eighty-two years of age, arose in his place and said: "How has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have now forgotten this powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men." At the conclusion of his remarks Franklin moved: "That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in this service." Upon a memorandum of this motion, Franklin wrote: "The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary!"
For many weeks the debates went on, sometimes with courtesy and at others with great acrimony, until the 10th of September (1787), when all plans and amendments adopted by the Convention were placed in the hands of a committee for revision and arrangement. That committee, composed of Messrs. Madison, Hamilton, King, Johnson, and Gouverneur Morris, those the latter to put the document into proper literary form. On the 19th, after the plan reported by the committee had been discussed clause by clause, slightly amended and adopted, and it had been neatly engrossed on parchment, it was spread before the members for their signatures. In the performance of that act there was some hesitation. A large majority of the delegates wished it to go forth to the people, not only as the act of the Convention, but of the individual members. Some who could not agree to it in all its parts, objected to giving their sanction to the whole, by appending their signatures; but the patriotic action of Hamilton, caused several who held back, to sign the instrument. He desired a much stronger national government than the Constitution would establish, but said: "No man's ideas are more remote from the plan than my own; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and confusion on one side, and the chance of good on the other?" His appeals, and those of Franklin, caused every member present to sign, excepting Mason and Randolph of Virginia and Gerry of Massachusetts. Then Franklin, pointing to the chair occupied by Washington, the President of the Convention, at the back of which a Sun was painted, said: "I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that Sun behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising sun."
The Convention ordered their proceedings to be laid before the Congress, and by a carefully-worded resolution recommended that body to submit the new Constitution to the people (not the States), and ask them, the source of all sovereignty, to ratify or reject it. The Congress did so. Conventions of the people were accordingly held in the several States, to consider the instrument. It was violently assailed in these conventions and through the medium of the press, by those who regarded allegiance to a State as paramount to that to the national government; while powerful essays in its favor were written by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, under the title of The Federalist. These had a most salutary effect upon the public mind, and were very influential in producing the happy result obtained. Long and able debates upon the subject were had in the conventions; and at public gatherings and at every fireside it was a topic for discussion and earnest conversation. Slowly the people deliberated; and it was nine months after the Constitution was adopted by the Convention before it was ratified by nine States, that number being necessary to make it the organic law of the land. The following are the names of the delegates who signed the Constitution, and the order of their signatures: George Washington, of Virginia, President; John Langdon and Nicholas Gilman, of New Hampshire; Nathaniel Gorham and Rufus King, of Massachusetts; Wm. Samuel Johnson and Roger Sherman, of Connecticut; Alexander Hamilton, of New York; William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson and Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania; George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett and Jacob Brown, of Delaware; James McHenry, Daniel-of-St.-Thomas Jenifer and Daniel Carroll, of Maryland; John Blair and James Madison, of Virginia; William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson, of North Carolina; John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney and Pierce Butler, of South Carolina; and William Few and Abraham Baldwin, of Georgia.
While the national Convention was in session at Philadelphia, the Continental Congress, feeble and dying, were sitting at New York, with only eight States represented; but they performed a very important work at midsummer. By treaties with the principal Indian tribes between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, the aboriginal titles to seventeen million acres of land in that region had been extinguished. This act, with that of the cession of Virginia to the United States of all its claims to lands in that region, put the general government in actual possession of a vast country out of which several flourishing States have been formed. The Congress, by unanimous vote on the 13th of July, 1787, adopted an "Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio." It provided, among other things, that there should be "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The existence of these conditions in the "Northwestern Territory," as the country was now called, created a mighty stream of emigration to flow down the western slopes of the Alleghany Mountains into the Ohio Valley. The first settlement founded there by Europeans (excepting by Moravian missionaries) was seated by General Rufus Putnam and others, at the mouth of the Muskingum River, which he named Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, then queen of Louis the Sixteenth of France. Other immigrants followed; and it has been estimated that during the years 1788 and 1789, full twenty thousand men, women, and children went down the Ohio in boats to settle near its banks. Since then, how wonderful has been the growth of the empire beyond the Alleghany Mountains.
On the 21st of June, 1788, the New Hampshire convention ratified the new Constitution. This completed the sanction of the number of States necessary to make it the organic law of the country. Delaware ratified it on the 7th of December, 1787; Pennsylvania on the 12th, and New Jersey on the 18th of the same month; Georgia on the 2d, and Connecticut on the 9th of January, 1788; Massachusetts on the 6th of February; Maryland on the 28th of April; South Carolina on the 23d of May, and New Hampshire, as we have observed, on the 21st of June, 1788. On the 26th of the same month, Virginia ratified it; New York on the 26th of July, and North Carolina on the 21st of November. Rhode Island held back until the 29th of May, 1789, after the new government had gone into operation. By these acts of ratification, the inhabitants of our country emphatically declared, in the language of the Preamble to the National Constitution: "We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." In accordance with the provisions of that Constitution, the people of the States wherein it had been ratified chose Presidential electors. These formed the first Electoral College, and on the first Wednesday in February, 1789, they chose George Washington, President, and John Adams, Vice President of the United States. On the 4th of March following, the first Congress under the new order of things began their first session, when the Continental Congressthe representative of the Leagueofficially expired.
The history of the old Continental Congress is a remarkable one. At first it was a spontaneous gathering of patriotic representatives of thirteen colonies that stretched a thousand miles along the western shores of the Atlantic, who met to act for the common good. With unexampled boldness and faith, they snatched the sceptre of rule from their oppressing sovereign, and assuming imperial functions, created armies, issued bills of credit, declared the provinces to be independent States, made treaties with foreign nations, founded an empire, and compelled their king to acknowledge the States which they represented, to be independent of the British crown. The career of that Congress astonished the world with the brilliancy of the events achieved. A mightier and more stable power took the place of this conqueror, and immediately arrested the profound attention of the civilized nations. It was seen that its commerce, diplomacy, and dignity were no longer exposed to neglect by thirteen clashing legislative bodies, but were guarded and controlled by a central power of wonderful energy. Great Britain no longer thought of sending hither consuls, alone, to represent her, but placed a minister plenipotentiary near the republican court. Other European governments sent hither dignified diplomatic agents. We no longer exhibited the weakness of a League of States, but the power of a Nation. The prophecy of Bishop Berkeley was on the eve of fulfillment:
"Westward the course of Empire takes its way."
THE PEOPLE AND THE CONSTITUTIONWASHINGTON INFORMED OF HIS ELECTIONVISITS HIS MOTHERHIS JOURNEY TO NEW YORKRECEPTION AT PHILADELPHIA, TRENTON, AND NEW YORKINAUGURATION OF WASHINGTONOFFICIAL ETIQUETTETHE POLICY OF TITLES DISCUSSEDMRS. WASHINGTONTHE FIRST WORK OF CONGRESSA TEMPORARY REVENUE SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTSEXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS ESTABLISHEDA NATIONAL JUDICIARY- -AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTIONSEAT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CONSIDERED CABINET OFFICERS CHOSEN.
WHEN the national government of the United States was established under the new Constitution, the total population of the republic, exclusive of the Indians, was 3,929,827. Of this number, 757,365 persons were of African descent, 697,879 being born slaves. The number of Indians then on our domain, is unknown.
The dominant Caucasian race in our land, about three millions and a quarter in number, had, through long years of political discussion and actual war, been trained to the endurance of personal hardships, the assertion of individual rights, and the maintenance of the political and social franchises incident to the exercise of local self-government. They had been educated for free citizenship in a school of independent thinkers, and by constant attrition had formed habits of self-reliance, mental and physical. The judgment of this people was brought to bear upon the new Constitution before and after its ratification; and when a majority had declared it to be the supreme law of the land, the minority patriotically acquiesced in the momentous decision, not however without most decided manifestations of disapproval at first, especially by the more excitable part of the population.
When, early in the summer of 1788, the ratification of the Constitution was assured, its friends, in some places, prepared to mingle demonstrations of joy on that account with the usual methods of celebrating the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This was attempted, on the 4th of July, in Providence, R. I., when a thousand men, led by a judge of the supreme court, came in from the country and compelled the citizens to strike from their programme all allusion to the Constitution. In Albany both parties celebrated "Independence day" together, but after dinner the friends of the Constitution formed a procession that was escorted by several military companies. The opposite party interfered with them, and a sharp fight ensued, in which stones and clubs, swords and bayonets, were used, and a few persons were seriously wounded. There were also some riotous demonstrations in New York, after the great "Federal procession," in which, as in Philadelphia, many industries were practically exhibited as the line moved through the streets-mechanics of all kinds with tools at work and banners flying-followed by a great banquet and illuminations. But there were temporary ebullitions of feeling that suddenly assumed the features of a mob spirit.
When, in the spring of 1789, the new government went into operation in the City of New York, after the inauguration of Washington as the first President of the republic, there was a general readiness manifested by thinking men of all creeds in politics and religion to try the "experiment," as the new order of things was deemed to be, fairly and fully. They saw clearly that it was a momentous experiment to attempt, without a precedent, to adjust the machinery of a government, political and social, that was the embodiment of the ideas of local self-rule and of national union, so as to secure perfect harmony, and to avoid all friction. They saw that it required the highest type of statesmanship to accomplish that delicate and difficult task; therefore, in the elections of their executive and legislative representatives, the people put forth their honest efforts to secure the best men for the respective offices. So judicious was their choice, that when Washington stood before their representatives face to face, in the old Federal Hall in New York, to deliver his inaugural address, he was constrained to say that in them he saw the surest pledges that the foundations of "the national policy would be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world." He continued: "I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love of my country can inspire; since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public propriety and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people."
Washington was making the usual tour of his fields on the 14th of April, 1789, when Charles Thompson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress, arrived at Mount Vernon with a letter from John Langdon, the pro-tempore president of the United States Senate, announcing the election of the illustrious farmer to the Presidency of the republic. Washington accepted the office, and made immediate preparations for the journey to the seat of government. Toward evening, accompanied by his favorite body-servant, Billy, he left Mount Vernon and rode rapidly toward Fredericksburg, to visit his mother, then past eighty years of age and suffering from an incurable disease. The interview was a touching one. When he was about to leave, the son promised the mother, that so soon as public business would allow, he would hasten to Virginia to see her. "You will see me no more," said the aged matron; "my great age and the disease which is rapidly approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world." The dutiful son stooped and kissed her, as she sat in her arm-chair, when she took his brawny hands in her attenuated ones and said: "Go, George; fulfill the high destinies which Heaven appears to assign to you; go, my son, and may that Heaven's and your mother's blessing be with you always." They never met again on the earth. When Washington returned to Virginia, his mother's body was in the grave. She died in August, 1789, at the age of eighty-two years.
On the morning of the 6th of April, Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, accompanied by Mr. Thompson and Colonel Humphreys. He was met at his porter's lodge by a cavalcade of his neighbors and friends, who escorted him to Alexandria, where he partook of a public dinner. Everywhere on his journey he was greeted by demonstrations of the most profound respect and reverence. At Georgetown he was received with honors, and at Baltimore he was feasted. At Gray's Ferry on the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, a triumphal arch had been erected and covered with laurel branches. As Washington passed through it, Angelica Peale, a daughter of the artist, Charles Wilson Peale-a child of rare beauty, concealed among the foliage-let down an ornamented civic crown of laurel which rested on the head of the Patriot. This incident drew from the multitude loud huzzas, and shouts of "Long live George Washington! long live the Father of his Country!" filled the air. When he crossed the Delaware at Trenton, the scene of one of his earliest victories in the war for independence, he was led through a triumphal arch erected upon a bridge that spanned a small stream over which he had retreated before Cornwallis more than twenty years before. The arch was supported by thirteen pillars trimmed with evergreens and flowers. It had been erected and adorned by the women of New Jersey, and bore the words: "The Defender of the Mothers, will be the Protector of the Daughters." Many mothers, with their daughters, appeared on each side of the structure, all dressed in white. As the President-elect passed through, thirteen young girls in white dresses, their heads adorned with flowers, and holding baskets of flowers in their hands, scattered some of them in his way, while they sang an ode of welcome.
At Elizabethtown Point, Washington was met by a committee from each house of Congress, and civil and military officers. They had prepared a magnificent barge for his reception, manned by thirteen pilots in white uniforms. In this the President-elect was conveyed to New York. The shipping in New York harbor was decorated with flags, and the waters swarmed with gaily-dressed small boats filled with ladies and gentlemen. There was an exception to the general display of honors. The Spanish ship-of-war Galveston, lying not far from the present Castle Garden, was not decorated, and was silent. This neglect-this seeming churlishness-was so marked, that it called forth severe comments, when suddenly, as the barge came abreast of her, she displayed, as if by magic, the flags of all nations, and fired a salute of thirteen guns. These were answered by guns from the battery on the shore; and in the midst of the roar of artillery and the shouts of a vast multitude of citizens, the Beloved Patriot landed at White-hall and was conducted to a house prepared for his residence on Franklin Square. Such was the reception of the first President-elect, at the seat of the new national government. There was general joy and good feeling, but satire and caricature appeared like ravens among bevies of white doves. Political parties were already beginning to take distinct shape. The friends of the Constitution, represented by Washington, were called Federalists, and those opposed to it were called Anti-Federalists. On the day after Washington's arrival a caricature appeared- silly enough, but charged with bitter feeling-in which the President was seen mounted on an ass, in the arms of Billy, Colonel David Humphreys leading the Jack and chanting hosannahs and birthday odes. The picture was full of disloyal and profane allusions. The Devil appeared prominent, and from his mouth issued the words:
"The glorious time has come to pass, When David shall conduct an ass."
On the 30th of April Washington was inaugurated President of the republic. The ceremony took place in the open gallery of the old City Hall (afterward called Federal Hall), on the site of the present Custom-House, in the presence of a vast multitude. Washington was dressed in a suit of dark brown cloth and white silk stockings, all of American manufacture. His hair was powdered and dressed in the fashion of the day, clubbed and ribboned. The oath of office was administered by Robert R. Livingston, then chancellor of the State of New York. The open Bible (then and now the property of St. John's Lodge of Freemasons of the City of New York), on which the President laid his hand, was held on a rich crimson velvet cushion by Mr. Otis, Secretary of the Senate. Near them were John Adams, who had been chosen Vice-President; George Clinton, Governor of New York; Philip Schuyler, John Jay, General Knox, Ebenezer Hazard, Samuel Osgood and other distinguished men. After taking the oath and kissing the sacred book reverently, Washington closed his eyes and in an attitude of devotion said: "So help me God!" The Chancellor exclaimed, "It is done!" and then turning to the people he shouted, "Long live George Washington, the first President of the United States." That shout was echoed and re-echoed by the multitude, when the President and the members of Congress retired to the Senate Chamber, where Washington pronounced a most impressive inaugural address. At the conclusion, he and the members went in procession to St. Paul's Church (which, with the other churches, had been opened for prayers at nine o'clock that morning), and there they invoked the blessing of Almighty God upon the new government. The first person who grasped Washington's hand in congratulation, after the ceremony, was Richard Henry Lee, his friend from childhood, to whom he had written when they were boys nine years of age-"I am going to get a whip-top soon, and you may see it and whip it." How many human whip-tops had these staunch patriots managed since they wrote their childish epistles!
The new government entered upon its duties under the keen scrutiny of a jealous opposition, and an ever-watchful democracy which regarded with alarm every aspect of aristocracy to be found in the new order of things. Even the saluting of Mrs. Washington with cannon-peals on her arrival in New York a month after her husband's inauguration, and the escorting her to the President's house by military, was commented upon as "opening monarchical ceremonies." These suspicions were manifested, in a large degree, in the Congress, where the propriety of bestowing dignified titles upon the President and Vice-President was discussed. Warm debates were had. "Will not the people say," exclaimed a member from South Carolina, "that they have been deceived by the Convention that framed the Constitution, and that it has been continued with a view to lead them on by degrees to that kind of government which they have thrown off with abhorrence? Does the dignity of a nation consist in the distance between the first magistrate and the citizens! in the exaltation of one man and the humiliation of the rest?" No positive conclusion was arrived at. The House of Representatives had already addressed Washington simply as "President of the United States;" but before long it became common to prefix the words "His Excellency," which has been done ever since. It was known that Washington had no special desire for a title; but the Vice-President was decidedly in favor of marks of distinction, and had adopted in his equipage and manner a style that offended many of the members of Congress.
Washington was anxious to so regulate his intercourse with the public at large, that he might secure dignity for the office and order for his own comfort and the public good. Wishing to give his time to public affairs, he resolved at the outset not to return any visits. To prevent being overrun with mere callers, he appointed the hour between three and four o'clock each Tuesday for the reception of gentlemen. He met ladies at the receptions given by Mrs. Washington, who also had stated times for the ceremony. At receptions by the latter, in which the company consisted only of persons connected with the government and their families, foreign ministers and their families, and persons moving in the best circles of refined society, all were expected to appear in full dress. On these occasions Washington generally stood by the side of his wife, dressed in a plain suit of brown cloth with bright buttons, without hat or dress-sword. At his own levees he wore a suit of black velvet, black silk stockings, silver knee and shoe buckles, and yellow gloves. He held in his hand a cocked-hat with a black cockade. His hat was trimmed with a feather around the edge about one inch deep. He also wore an elegant dress-sword upon his hip in such a manner that only the point of the scabbard might be seen below the skirt of his coat. As visitors came in, they were introduced to him by Colonel Humphreys, who was master of ceremonies, when they were arranged in a circle around the room. At a quarter- past three o'clock the door was closed, when the company for the day was completed. The President then began on the right, and spoke to each visitor, calling him by name, and addressing a few words to him. When he had completed the circuit, he resumed his first position, when the visitors approached him, bowed and retired. By four o'clock this ceremony was over.
This "court-life" was very distasteful to Mrs. Washington. She wrote to a friend: "I live a very dull life here, and know nothing that passes in the town. I never go to any public place-indeed I think I am more like a state-prisoner than anything else. There are certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from; and as I cannot do as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal." She was a careful, bustling, industrious little housewife, more fond of her home than promiscuous society, and a noble exemplar for American women. "Let us repair to the old lady's room," wrote the wife of a revolutionary officer from Mount Vernon, just after Washington retired from the Presidency. "It is nicely fixed for all sorts of work. On one side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting; on the other, a little colored pet learning to sew. An old, decent woman is there, with her table and shears, cutting out the negroes' winter- clothing, while the good old lady directs them all, incessantly knitting herself. She points out to me several pair of nice colored stockings and gloves she had just finished, and presents me with a pair, half done, which she begs me to finish and wear for her sake. It is wonderful, after a life spent as these good people have necessarily spent theirs, to see them in retirement assume those domestic habits that prevail in our country."
Even before the inauguration of the President, Congress began in earnest the great work of putting the machinery of the new government into harmonious and vigorous action. The first and most important duties to which they were called were the devising of a revenue systemfor the public treasury was emptyand establishing a national judiciary as a co-ordinate branch of the national government. Two days after the votes of the Presidential electors were counted, Mr. Madison, to whom the leadership in the House of Representatives was conceded, brought forward a plan for a temporary system of imports, to be based upon one proposed by the Continental Congress. He was decidedly favorable to free trade; but the wants of the public treasury and the impossibility to obtain reciprocal action on the part of other governments, made him consent to and propose a tariff upon spirituous liquors, wines, tea, coffee, sugar, molasses and pepper, as subjects for special duties; also an ad valorem duty upon all other articles imported, and a tonnage duty upon all vessels, with a discrimination in favor of vessels owned wholly in the United States, and an additional discrimination between foreign vessels, favorable to those belonging to countries having commercial treaties with the United States. The debates that arose on these propositions took a scope so wide and general that nearly every principle of tariff regulations, which have occupied the attention of our national legislature since, was fully discussed. It was finally agreed to lay duties upon certain specified articles that were imported into the United States until the the year 1796; also to impose higher duties on foreign than on American bottoms; and goods imported in vessels belonging to citizens of the United States were to pay ten per cent. less duty than the same goods brought in those owned by foreigners. These discriminating duties were intended to counteract the commercial regulations of foreign nations, and especially those of Great Britain, and encourage American shipping.
These discussions and measures startled the powerful and selfish shipping interest of Great Britain, which had persistently opposed fair commercial relations with the Americans during the existence of the old Confederation. British merchants and British statesmen now perceived that American commerce was no longer regulated by thirteen separate legislatures representing clashing interests, nor subject to the control of the king and council, but that its interests were guarded by a central power of great energy. The British government hastened to secure commercial advantages, and it became a supplicant instead of a haughty master. Soon after the passage of the revenue laws, a committee of Parliament proposed to ask the United States to consent to an arrangement precisely like the one proposed by Mr. Adams in 1785, but then rejected with scorn by the British ministry. The proposition was made to our government, and was met by generous courtesy on the part of the United States; but it was not until 1816, when the second war for independencethe war of 1812-'15had been some time closed, that reciprocity treaties fairly regulated the commerce between the two countries.
Soon after the inauguration of Washington, the House having made provisions for raising a revenue, turned their attention to a reorganization of the Executive Departments. Those of the old Congress were still in operation, and were filled by the incumbents appointed by that body. The Department of Foreign Affairs, established in 1781, was incorporated with one for Home Affairs, and was called the Department of State, having charge not only of all foreign negotiations, and all papers connected therewith, but also the custody of all papers and documents of the old Congress, and all engrossed acts and resolutions of the new government which had become laws; also the issuing of all commissions for civil officers. The Treasury Department was continued substantially on the plan established in 1781. It was the duty of its chief officer to digest and propose plans for the improvement and management of the public revenue; to superintend the collection of the same; to execute services connected with the sale of public lands; to grant warrants on the treasury for all appropriations made by law; and to report to either House of Congress as to matters referred to him or appertaining to his office. Under him were subordinate officersa controller, an auditor, a register, and a treasurer. The chief of the Department of State was called Secretary of State, and of the Treasury Department, Secretary of the Treasury.
The Department of War was organized very much upon the plan adopted in 1781, and its head was called Secretary of War. He was also intrusted with the superintendence of naval as well as military affairs, the material of the united service then being very limited. Not a single vessel of the Continental navy remained; and the military establishment consisted of only a single regiment of foot, a battalion of artillery, and the militia which the President might call out for the defence of the frontiers. There was a wholesome dread of a standing army. The Post-office Department was continued on the plan of Dr. Franklin, the first Postmaster-General appointed by the Continental Congress. Franklin had been succeeded by his son-in-law, Richard Bache, and he, in turn, by Ebenezer Hazard, who then held the office. A Secretary of the Navy was not appointed until 1798. The Postmaster-General did not become a cabinet officer until 1829, the first year of President Jackson's administration.
While the House of Representatives were engaged with the subject of revenue and the Executive Departments, the Senate was busy in perfecting a plan for a national judiciary. A bill drawn by Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, chairman of a committee appointed for the purpose, was, after considerable discussion and some alteration, passed, and was concurred in by the other House. By its provisions, the judiciary was to consist of a Supreme Court having one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices, who were to hold two sessions annually at the seat of the national government. Circuit and district courts were also established which had jurisdiction over certain specified cases. Each State in the Union was made a district, as were also the Territories of Kentucky and Maine. With the exception of these two, the districts were grouped into three circuits. An appeal from these lower courts to the Supreme Court was allowed, as to points of law, in all civil cases when the matter in dispute amounted to two thousand dollars. The President was authorized to appoint a marshal for each district, having the general powers of a sheriff, who was to attend all courts and was authorized to serve all processes. Provision was also made for a district attorney in each district to act for the United States in all cases in which the national government might be interested. That organization, with slight modifications, is still in force.
The next important business that engaged the attention of Congress during its first session was the consideration of amendments to the national Constitution. The subject was brought forward by Mr. Madison, in conformity to pledges given to his State (Virginia), which was opposed to the Constitution without certain amendments. The number of amendments proposed by the minorities of the several conventions that ratified the Constitution, exceeded one hundred. These were referred to a committee which consisted of one member from each State. That committee finally reported, and after long debate and various alterations, twelve articles were agreed to and submitted to the people of the several States for ratification or rejection. The first two related to the number and pay of the House of Representatives; the other ten, a member said, were "of no more value than a pinch of snuff, since they went to secure rights never in danger." Only these ten were ratified in the course of the next two years. Two other amendments were afterward made, and these were the only ones adopted until the period of the late Civil War.
The national debt was a subject that demanded the earnest attention of Congress; but that body, having put the machinery of government in motion, deferred the consideration of its operations in detail until their next session. They contented themselves with directing the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and report a plan for the liquidation of that debt, at the next session. The subject of the public lands was also an important one, but Congress did nothing more than to recognize and confirm the ordinance of 1787 for the establishment of the Northwestern Territory. They fixed the salaries of the several officers of the government at a very low rate of compensation as compared with other nations; and toward the close of the session, which ended in September, the question respecting the permanent seat of the national government was called up and produced much excitement in and out of Congress. New York and Philadelphia were the chief aspirants for the honor. Maryland and Virginia resolved to fix the site on the Potomac. After much debate and the passage back and forth of amended bills between the two Houses, the subject was postponed until the next session.
Congress adjourned for three months on the 29th of September. The President, who had been confined to his bed six weeks in the summer with a severe malady which, at one time, put his life in peril, resolved to make a journey into New England during the recess, in search of renewed strength and to become better acquainted with the country and the inhabitants. Before his departure he selected the cabinet ministers who were to be his advisers and made other appointments, all subject to the approval or disapproval of the Senate. He chose Thomas Jefferson for the important post of Secretary of State. Washington knew his worth as a patriot and statesman. He had succeeded Dr. Franklin as minister to the French court, and was about to return home. The President had ample opportunities for knowing the transcendent abilities, practical common sense, and sterling patriotism of Alexander Hamilton, and he chose him to fill the really most important office in the cabinet at that time, that of Secretary of the Treasury. General Henry Knox was then the Secretary of War, and he was continued in the office; for his tried patriotism, steady principles and his public services, had endeared him to Washington, and secured the public confidence. Edmund Randolph of Virginia, who was a distinguished member of the bar, and a leading spirit in the convention that framed the Constitution, was chosen to be attorney-general. Washington regarded the national judiciary as the strong right-arm of the Constitution to enable it to perform its functions with justice, and he selected John Jay of New York for the office of Chief Justice of the United States, as the most fitting man for the place to be found in the country. Consulting alike, in this nomination, the public good and the dignity of the Court, he expressed his own feelings in a letter to Mr. Jay, in this wise: "I have a full confidence that the love you bear to our country and a desire to promote the general happiness, will not suffer you to hesitate a moment to bring into action the talents, knowledge, and integrity which are so necessary to be exercised at the head of that department, which must be considered the keystone of our political fabric."
So it was that with great wisdom, prudence and foresight, the sagacious founders of our republic organized and set in motion the machinery of government. The tests of more than eighty years' experience have elucidated the practical philosophy evinced by these men, individually and collectively, in the performance of their delicate and very difficult task. At the very outset, the new system of government encountered enormous strains, and the tests amounted almost to positive demonstrations of the unconquerable strength of our republic which it derived from the sap of free institutions. The wisdom and sagacity of the first President were also manifested in his choice of his aids in the management of the new government. He chose men of tried patriotism, intelligence and virtue, on whom he could rely for judicious counsel and courageous action two very important qualities at that juncture in our national life.
THANKSGIVING DAY APPOINTEDTHE PRESIDENT'S JOURNEY INTO NEW ENGLANDOFFICIAL ETIQUETTECEREMONIES AT THE OPENING OF CONGRESSHAMILTON'S REPORT ON THE FINANCESFINANCIAL MEASURES ADOPTEDFIRST DEBATES IN CONGRESS ON SLAVERYSEAT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CHOSENPATENTS AND COPYRIGHTSTREATY WITH SOUTHERN INDIANSA NATIONAL CURRENCY, BANK, COINAGE AND MINT ESTABLISHEDVERMONT AND KENTUCKY ENTER THE UNIONFIRST CENSUSWARS WITH THE INDIANS IN THE NORTHWEST, AND THEIR FINAL SUBJUGATION.
A FEW days before Congress adjourned in September, that body, by resolution, requested the President to recommend a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by the people of the whole nation, in acknowledgment of the signal favor of the Almighty in permitting them to establish in peace a free government. Washington issued a proclamation to that effect. It was the first call for a national thanksgiving since the establishment of the new government. On the same day (October 3, 1790) he wrote in his diary: "Sat for Mr. Rammage [an Irish artist] near two hours to-day, who was drawing a miniature picture of me for Mrs. Washington. Walked in the afternoon, and sat at two o'clock for Madame de Brehan [or Brienne, sister of the French minister Moustier], to complete a miniature profile of me which she had begun from memory, and which she had made exceedingly like the original."
The President appointed Thursday, the 26th of November, as the day for the national thanksgiving, and on the 15th of October, he set out on his journey to New England. Rhode Island, not having yet adopted the new Constitution, was not in the Union, and he did not tread upon its soil, but went to Boston by way of Hartford, Springfield and Worcester, arriving there on Saturday, the 24th. There he had an official tilt with John Hancock, who was then governor of Massachusetts. Hancock had invited Washington to lodge at his house in Boston. The invitation was declined. After the arrival of the President, the governor sent him an invitation to dine with him and his family, informally, that day, at the conclusion of the public reception ceremonies. It was accepted by Washington, with a full persuasion that the governor would call upon him before the dinner hour. But Hancock had conceived the proud notion that the governor of a State within his own domain was officially superior to the President of the United States when he came into it. He had laid his plans for asserting this superiority by having Washington visit him first, and to this end he had sent him the invitations to lodge and dine with him. At near the time for dinner, as Washington did not appear, Hancock evidently felt some misgivings, for he sent his secretary to the President with an excuse that he was too ill to call upon his Excellency in person. The latter divined the nature of the "indisposition," and dined at his own lodgings at "the widow Ingersolls," with a single guest. That evening the governor, feeling uneasy, sent his lieutenant and two of his council to express his regret that his illness had not allowed him to call upon the President. "I informed them explicitly," Washington wrote in his diary, "that I should not see the governor except at my lodgings." This took the conceit entirely out of Hancock, who was well enough the next day (Sunday) to call upon Washington and repeat, in person, the insufficient excuse for his own folly.
The President extended his visit eastward as far as Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he sat to a persistent portrait painter named Gulligher, who had followed him from Boston. From that point he took a more northerly route back to Hartford, and arrived at New York on the 13th of November.
There, on the 8th of January, 1790, the second session of the first Congress was begun in the old Federal Hall. The proceedings were opened by a message or speech from Washington, which he delivered in person. At eleven o'clock that day he left his house in his coach drawn by four bay horses, preceded by Colonel Humphreys and Major Jackson in military uniform, riding two of his white horses, and followed by his private secretaries, Messrs. Lear and Nelson, in his chariot. His own coach was followed by carriages bearing Chief-Justice Jay and the Secretaries of the Treasury and War, Secretary Jefferson not having arrived at the seat of government. At the outer door of the Hall the President was met by the door-keepers of the Senate and House of Representatives, and conducted by them to the door of the Senate Chamber, from which the President was led through the assembled members of Congress, the Senate on one side and the House on the other, to the chair, where he was seated. The members all rose as the President entered, and the gentlemen who had accompanied him took their stand behind the Senators. In the course of a few minutes the President rose (and with him the members of both houses) and made his speech, after which he handed copies to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and then retired, bowing to the members (who stood) as he passed out. In the same manner as he came, and with the same attendants, he returned to his house. "On this occasion," Washington wrote in his diary, "I was dressed in a suit of clothes made at the woolen manufactory at Hartford, as the buttons also were." At an appointed hour on the 14th the members of the houses of Congress proceeded in carriages to the mansion of the President (those of the House of Representatives with the mace, preceded by their Speaker), and there presented their respective addresses in response to his speech. These stately ceremonials at the opening of the sessions of Congress were in vogue until Jefferson took his seat as Chief Magistrate, when they were all omitted and the President sent to the assembled Congress his annual and other messages in writing, by his private secretary, as is now done.
The public credit was a topic that demanded and received the earliest and most earnest attention of Congress at the second session. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Hamilton) had been waited for with great solicitude, not only by the public creditors, but by every thoughtful patriot. It was presented in writing to the House of Representatives on the 15th January, 1790, and embodied a financial scheme which was generally adopted and remained the line of policy of the national government, with very slight modifications, for more than twenty years. On the recommendation of the Secretary, the national government assumed not only the foreign and domestic debts incurred for carrying on the late war, as its own, but also the debts contracted by the several States during that period, for the general welfare. The foreign debt, amounting with accrued interest to almost $12,000,000, was due chiefly to France and private lenders in Holland. The domestic debt, including, outstanding continental money and interest, amounted to over $42,000,000, nearly one-third of which was accumulated accrued interest. The State debts assumed amounted to $21,000,000, distributed as follows: New Hampshire, $300,000; Massachusetts, $4,000,000; Rhode Island (which came into the Union by adopting the Constitution in May, 1790), $200,000; Connecticut, $1,600,000; New York, $1,200,000; New Jersey, $800,000; Pennsylvania, $2,200,000; Delaware, $200,000; Maryland, $800,000; Virginia, $3,000,000; North Carolina, $2,400,000; South Carolina, $4,000,000; Georgia, $300,000.
The report called forth long, earnest, and able debates in and out of Congress. Concerning the foreign debt, there was but one opinion, and that was it must be paid in full according to the terms on which it was contracted; and the President was authorized to borrow $12,000,000, if necessary, for its liquidation. With respect to the domestic debt, there was a wide difference of opinion. As the government certificates, continental bills of credit, and other evidences of debt were then held chiefly by speculators who had purchased them at greatly reduced rates, the idea had been put forth by prominent men that it would be proper and expedient to apply a scale of depreciation, as in the case of the paper-money toward the close of the war, in liquidating those claims. Hamilton warmly opposed this proposition as not only dishonest but impolitic, arguing that public credit, which might be blasted by such a proceeding, was essential to the very existence of the new government. He therefore urged that all the debts should be met according to the terms of the contract. He proposed the funding of the public debt in a fair and economical way, by which the public creditors should receive their promised interest of six per cent. until the government should be able to pay the principal, and for the latter purpose he proposed to devote the proceeds of the General Post-office as a sinking fund. The Secretary assumed that, in five years, by an honorable course in its financial operations, the government would be able to effect loans at five and even at four per cent. with which the claims might be met. Hamilton's propositions, in general, were agreed to in March. A new loan was authorized, payable in certificates of the domestic debt, at their par value and in continental bills of credit at the rate of one hundred for one. Congress also authorized an additional loan, payable in certificates of the State debts, to the amount of $21,000,000. A new board of commissioners was appointed, with full power to settle all claims on general principles of equity. A system of revenue from imports and internal excise, proposed by Hamilton, was also adopted.
While the financial question was under debate, another subject, more exciting, was presented to the House, in the form of a petition or memorial from the Yearly Meetings of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and also of New York, on the subject of slavery and the slave-trade. Slavery then existed in all the States but Massachusetts, whose constitution contained a clause that had silently abolished it. In other States benevolent and patriotic persons had made attempts to have the system of slave-labor abolished; and these memorials proposed action of the national Congress on the subject. They were seconded by another from the Pennsylvania Society for the abolition of slavery, signed by Dr. Franklin, its president. This was the last public act of that great and good man, for he died a few weeks afterward.
These were the first debates in the national legislature on the subject of slavery, which, from time to time, afterward shook the foundations of the Union and finally culminated in the Civil War whose fires consumed the institution. They were ended on the occasion here mentioned, in March, 1790, by the adoption of a report which declared substantially (1) that Congress had no constitutional power to interfere with the African Slave-trade before the year 1808; (2) that they had no power to interfere with slavery in the States wherein it existed; (3) that they might restrain citizens of the United States from carrying on the African Slave-trade to supply foreigners with slaves, and (4) that they had power to prohibit foreigners fitting out vessels in our ports for transporting persons from Africa to any foreign port. It was when the debates on the financial scheme and the slavery question were at their height, that Jefferson arrived in New York and took his seat in Washington's cabinet as Secretary of State.
During this session the question of the permanent location of the seat of the national government was discussed, and it was finally decided that it should be at the head of sloop navigation on the Potomac River, within a territory ten miles square lying on each side of the river, ceded by Maryland and Virginia, and named, in honor of the discoverer of America, The District of Columbia. It was to become the seat of government after the lapse of ten years. Acts for the issuing of patents for improvements, and copyrights on books, were also passed; and after a laborious and quite an exciting session, Congress adjourned in August to meet again in December.
The third session was a most important one, for measures were then adopted which laid the foundations of public credit and national prosperity deep and abiding. The relations with the Indians on the frontiers of the republic had received the earnest attention of the new government; and by prudent management Washington had induced McGillivray, a half-breed leader of the Creek Indians, near the Gulf of Mexico, to come to New York with a large delegation of Creek chiefs to negotiate a treaty. They were received by the Tammany Society or Columbian Order, then recently established, whose ideal patrons were Columbus and a legendary Indian chief named Tammany who had once been lord of Manhattan Island, and was adopted by them as the patron saint of America. The members, dressed in Indian costume, escorted the deputation into the City of New York, and entertained them at a public dinner. A treaty was concluded by which all the territory south and west of the Oconee River (in portions of which some Georgians had settled) was secured to the Indians, and all east of that stream was relinquished by them to the white people. There was also a mutual agreement of friendship; and by a secret article it was stipulated that presents to the amount of $1,500 were to be annually distributed among the nation. This was calculated to secure the fidelity of the savages. Arrangements with the Indians in the Northwest were not so easily made, as we shall observe presently.
The subject of a national currency had early engaged the attention of Congress. Hamilton, in his masterly report on the finances, proposed the establishment of a national bank. The whole banking capital in the United States was then only $2,000,000, invested in the Bank of North America, established by Morris, in Philadelphia, in 1781; the Bank of New York, in New York city, and the Bank of Massachusetts, in Boston. A bill for the establishment of such a bank in the City of Philadelphia became a law early in 1791, when a corporation with the title of "President, Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States" was created, to be governed by twenty-five directors, to have a capital of $15,000,000, and to exist for twenty years. This bank went into operation in February, 1794, with a capital of $10,000,000, and branches were established at various commercial centres.
A national coinage had occupied the attention of the public mind for some time. So early as 1782, the subject was presented to the Continental Congress in an able report by Gouverneur Morris, written at the request of Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance. In 1784, Mr. Jefferson, chairman of the committee appointed for the purpose, submitted a report on the subject, agreeing with Morris in regard to a decimal system, but disagreeing with him as to the details. Morris tried to harmonize the moneys of all the States. Starting with an ascertained fraction as an unit, for a divisor, he proposed the following table of moneys: Ten units to be equal to one penny; ten pence to one bill; ten bills one dollar (about seventy-five cents of our currency), and ten dollars one crown. Jefferson proposed to strike four coinsa golden piece of the value of ten dollars; a dollar, in silver; a tenth of a dollar in silver, and a hundredth of a dollar in copper. In 1785, Congress adopted Mr. Jefferson's recommendation, and made legal provision for the coinage. This was the origin of our cent, dime, dollar, and eagle. The establishment of a mint was delayed, however, and no special action was taken in that direction until 1790, when Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, urged the matter upon the attention of Congress. It was not until April, 1792, when laws were proposed for the establishment of a mint. It was not put into regular operation until 1795. During the three preceding years there were experimental operations, and long debates were had in Congress concerning the device for the new coins. The Senate proposed the head of the President at the time of the coinage; the House of Representatives proposed an imaginary head of Liberty, as less imitative of royalty. The latter was adopted. The first mint was established in Philadelphia, then the temporary seat of the national government, and remained the sole coiner until 1835, when branches were authorized in North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana. It was at about the time when the law passed authorizing the establishment of a mint (1792), when a postal system, substantially the same as now exists, was put into operation.
Vermont, originally known as the New Hampshire Grants, had a long controversy with New York about territorial jurisdiction, which was not settled when the war for independence broke out. In 1777, the people of the province, in convention, declared it to be an independent State. In 1781, the Congress offered to admit it into the Confederacy then formed, but with a considerable curtailment of its area. The people refused the terms, and it remained an independent State ten years longer. Then New York agreed to relinquish all claim to the territory and political jurisdiction on the payment by Vermont of the sum of $30,000. This was done; and on the 4th of March, 1791, that State entered our Union as the fourteenth. The same year the first census or enumeration of the inhabitants was completed, with the result mentioned at the beginning of this Book. On the first of June the following year, Kentucky, with the consent of Virginia of which it formed a part, entered the Union as the fifteenth State.
We have seen with what an affluent stream emigration flowed into the Ohio region after the organization of the Northwestern Territory in 1787. General Arthur St. Clair, a worthy officer of the Continental Army, was appointed its governor. He soon found serious trouble brewing there. The British, in violation of the treaty of 1783, still held Detroit and other Western posts, and British traders were jealous of the hardy settlers who were gathering in communities north of the Ohio. British agents, instigated by Sir John Johnson, the former Indian agent in the Mohawk Valley, and Guy Carleton (then Lord Dorchester), again governor of Canada, were inciting the savages to make war on the settlers. These well-established facts gave reasons for a prevalent belief that the British government yet hoped for an opportunity to bring back the young republic to a state of colonial dependence. The fostered discontents of the Indians were developed into open hostilities, in the spring of 1790, and attempts at pacific arrangements were fruitless.
In September, 1790, General Harmer led more than a thousand troops, regulars and volunteers, from Fort Washington (now Cincinnati) into the Indian country around the headwaters of the Maumee River, to chastise the savages as Sullivan had scourged the Senecas in 1779. Instead of humbling them by spreading desolation over their fair land, Harmer, in two battles near the present village of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was defeated with considerable loss, and abandoned the enterprise. In May the following year, General Scott of Kentucky, with eight hundred men, penetrated the Wabash country almost to the site of the present town of Lafayette, Indiana, and destroyed several villages. At the beginning of August, General Wilkinson, with more than five hundred men, pushed into the same region, and pressing on to the Tippecanoe and the prairies, destroyed some Kickapoo villages, and then made his way to the Falls of the Ohio, near Louisville. But the Indians, instead of being humbled by these scourges, were urged thereby, and the false representations of British emissaries, to fight desperately for their country and lives.
Congress now prepared to plant fortifications in the heart of the Indian country; and in September, 1791, two thousand troops were gathered at Fort Washington and marched northward under the immediate command of General Butler, accompanied by General St. Clair as chief. Twenty miles from Fort Washington, they built Fort Hamilton, on the Miami River. Forty-two miles further on they built Fort Jefferson; and when they moved from there, late in October, there were evidences that dusky scouts were hovering on their flanks.
At length the little army of invaders halted and encamped on the borders of a tributary of the Upper Wabash, in Darke County, Ohio, near the Indiana line, a hundred miles from Cincinnati. The wearied soldiers went to rest early, unsuspicious of much danger near. All night long the sentinels fired upon prowling Indians; and before sunrise on the morning of the 4th of November, 1791, while the army were preparing for breakfast, they were surprised by the horrid yells of a body of savages, who fell upon them with great fury. The troops made a gallant defence, but the slaughter among them was dreadful. General Butler was killed, and most of his officers were slain or wounded. The smitten army fled in confusion. It was with great difficulty that St. Clair, who was tortured with gout, after having three horses killed under him, escaped on a pack-horse. That evening Adjutant-General Winthrop Sargent wrote in his diary: "The troops have all been defeated; and though it is impossible, at this time, to ascertain our loss, yet there can be no manner of doubt that more than half the army are either killed or wounded." Among the fugitives were more than a hundred feminine camp-followerswives of the soldiers. One of them was so fleet of foot that she kept ahead of the flying army. Her long, red hair streaming behind her, was the oriflamme that the soldiers followed in their flight back to Fort Washington.
This defeat spread dismay over the frontiers, and hot indignation throughout the land. Washington was powerfully moved by wrath, of his control of his emotions, and for a few minutes he was swayed by a tempest of anger. He paced the room in a rage. "It was awful," wrote Mr. Lear, his private secretary, who was present. "More than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. `O God! O God!' he exclaimed, `he is worse than a murdered! How can be he answer it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon himthe curses of widows and orphansthe curse of Heaven!'" His wrath soon subsided. "This must not go beyond this room," he said; and in a low tone, as if speaking to himself, he continued"St. Clair shall have justice. I will hear him without prejudicehe shall have full justice." And when, awhile afterward, the veteran soldier, bowed with infirmities and the burden of public obloquy, sought the presence of his old commander, Washington extended his hand and gave him a gracious reception. "Poor old St. Clair," said Custis, who was present, "hobbled up to his chief, seized the offered hand in both of his, and gave vent to his feelings in copious sobs and tears."
Fortunately for the frontier settlers, the Indians did not follow up the advantage they had gained, and hostilities ceased for awhile. Commissioners were appointed to treat with hostile tribes, but through the interference of British officials, the negotiations were fruitless. In the meantime General Anthony Wayne, the bold soldier of the war for independence, had been appointed St. Clair's successor in military command. Apprehending that the failure of the negotiations would be immediately followed by hostilities against the frontier settlements, Wayne marched into the Indian country with a competent force in the autumn of 1793. He spent the winter at Greenville, not far from the place of St. Clair's defeat, where he built a stockade and gave it the significant name of Fort Recovery. The following summer he pushed forward to the Maumee River, and at its junction with the Au Glaize, he built Fort Defiance. On the St. Mary's he had erected Fort Adams as an intermediate post; and in August he pushed down the Maumee with about three thousand men, and encamped within a short distance of a British military post at the foot of the Maumee Rapids called Fort Miami.
With ample force to destroy the savage power in spite of their British allies, and to desolate their country, Wayne offered the Indians peace and tranquillity if they would lay down the hatchet and musket. They madly refused, and sought to gain time by craftiness. "Stay where you are ten days," they said, "and we will treat with you; if you advance, we will give you battle." Wayne did advance to the head of the Maumee Rapids; and at a place called The Fallen Timbers, not far above the present Maumee city, he attacked and defeated the savages on the 20th of August, 1794. By the side of almost every dead warrior of the forest, lay a musket and bayonet from British armories. Wayne then laid waste the country, and at the middle of September he moved up the Maumee to the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's that form that stream, and built a strong fortification there which was named Fort Wayne. The little army went into winter-quarters at Grenville. The next summer the sachems and warriors of the Western tribes, about eleven hundred in all (representing twelve cantons), met (August 3, 1795) commissioners of the United States there, formed a treaty of peace and ceded to our government about twenty-five thousand square miles of territory in the present States of Michigan and Indiana, besides sixteen separate tracts, including lands and forts. In consideration of these cessions, the Indians received goods from the United States of the value of $20,000, as presents, and were promised an annual allowance valued at nearly $10,000, to be equally distributed among all the tribes who were parties to the treaty. These were the Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnoese, Miamis and Kickapoos, who then occupied the ceded lands.
At the close of the council, on the 20th, Wayne said to the Indians: "Brothers, I now fervently pray to the Great Spirit that the peace now established may be permanent, and that it will hold us together in the bonds of friendship until time shall be no more. I also pray that the Great Spirit above may enlighten your minds, and open your eyes to your true happiness, that your children may learn to cultivate the earth and enjoy the fruits of peace and industry."
By a special treaty made with Great Britain at about that time (which will be noticed presently), the Western military posts were soon afterward evacuated by the British. The security which this action and the treaty with the Indians at Greenville gave, there was very little more trouble with the savages in the Northwest until just before the breaking out of the war of 1812-15; and an immense impetus was given to emigration into that region. The country northwest of the Ohio was now rapidly filled with a hardy population.
FORMATION OF POLITICAL PARTIESREVOLUTION IN FRANCEJEFFERSON'S SYMPATHIES WITH THE REVOLUTIONISTSHIS SUSPICIONSJEFFERSON AND HAMILTON AT VARIANCE "CITIZEN GENET" AND THE REPUBLICANSPROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITYTHE WHISKY INSURRECTIONJAY'S TREATY WITH GREAT BRITAINTHE AFRICAN CORSAIRSTREATY WITH ALGIERSBRITISH AND FRENCH DEPREDATIONSBEGINNING OF OUR NATIONAL NAVY WASHINGTON RETIRES FROM THE PRESIDENCYHIS FAREWELL ADDRESSSTRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL ASCENDENCYWASHINGTON ABUSED.
THE discussions concerning the national Constitution had, as we have observed, engendered party spirit in the new republic which speedily assumed definite forms and titles, first as Federalist and Anti-Federalist, and then as Federalist and Republican. The Federalist party was composed of those who favored much concentration of power in the national government; the Republican or Democratic party favored State sovereignty and the diffusion of power among the people. Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, was the recognized leader of the Republicans, and Mr. Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, was regarded as the head of the Federalists. The lines between these two parties were distinctly drawn, during the second session of the second Congress, and the spirit of each became rampant among the people.
Events then occurring in France had much to do in intensifying party spirit in this country. The British government had sent George Hammond here as full minister, and he had arrived in August, 1791. In December following, our government sent Thomas Pinckney as American ambassador to England; and so a good understanding between the lately belligerent governments was established. With the French government, their ancient ally, the United States held the most friendly relations.
Meanwhile a revolution, violent in its nature and far-reaching in its consequences, had broken out in France. It was the immediate consequence of the teachings of our own revolution. The people of France had long endured almost irresponsible despotism, and were yearning for freedom when the French officers and soldiers, who had served in America during the latter years of our struggle for independence, returned to their country full of republican ideas and aspirations. They began to question the right of a few to oppress the many. The public heart was soon stirred by new ideas, and in the movement that followed, Lafayette was conspicuous for awhile. The rumblings of the pent volcano of passion in the bosom of society were heard on every hand. Legislators assumed to be responsible to the people; and the Parliament of Paris, which for hundreds of years had been a mere court for registering royal edicts, now (1787) refused to do so, and in consequence the new and grievous taxes which the war had rendered necessary, could not be levied. The puzzled king called the States-General together. It was a body which had not met for nearly two hundred years. Like the Long Parliament of England, it soon took all power into its own hands, and very shortly the king was, in effect, a prisoner in his palace, and the representatives of the people proceeded to make society as level as possible. The Bastile, whose history represented royal despotism, was assailed by the citizens of Paris and pulled down. The privileges of the nobility and clergy were abolished, and the church property was seized. The king's brothers and many of the nobles fled in affright across the frontier, and tried to induce other sovereigns to take up the cause of royalty in France and restore the former order of things. The Emperor of Austria (brother of the French queen), and the King of Prussia, entered into a treaty to that effect, at Pilnitz, in 1791.
When this treaty became known, matters were brought to a crisis in France. War followed. English troops were sent to Flanders to watch the movements on the continent. Robespierre and other self-constituted leaders in Paris, held sway for awhile, and the most frightful massacres of nobles and priests ensued. Eighteen hundred were slain in one night. The weak and unfortunate king, who had in vain accepted constitution after constitution as it was offered to him, was now deposed and a republic was established. Lafayette and other moderate men had disappeared from the arena, which had become an awfully bloody one. The king was tried on a charge of inviting foreigners to invade France, was found guilty and beheaded in Jan., 1793. His beautiful queen soon shared his fate. The English troops sent to Flanders were called to fight the French, for the rulers of France had declared war against Great Britain, Spain, and Holland, in February.
When Mr. Jefferson came into the cabinet of Washington, he had just returned from France, where he had witnessed the uprising of the people against their oppressors. Regarding the movement as kindred to the late uprising of his own countrymen against Great Britain, it enlisted his warmest sympathies, and he expected to find the bosoms of the people of the United States glowing with feelings like his own. He was sadly disappointed. The conservatism of Washington and the tone of society in New York, in which some of the leaven of Toryism yet lingered, chilled him. He became suspicious of all around him, for he regarded the indifference of the people to the struggles of the French, their old allies, as an evil omen. He had scarcely taken his seat in the cabinet before he declared that some of his colleagues held decidedly monarchical views; and the belief became fixed in his mind that there was a party in the United States continually at work, secretly and sometimes openly, for the overthrow of republicanism here. This idea became a sort of monomania, and haunted him until his death more than thirty years afterward.
Jefferson soon rallied under his standard a large party of sympathizers with the French revolutionists. Regarding Hamilton as the head and front of the monarchical party, he professed to believe that the financial plans of that statesman were designed to enslave the people, and that the rights and liberties of the States and of individuals were in danger. Hamilton, on the other hand, regarded the national Constitution as inadequate in strength to perform its required functions, and believed weakness to be its greatest defect. With this idea Jefferson took issue. He charged his political opponents, and especially Hamilton, with corrupt and anti-republican designs, selfish motives, and treacherous intentions; and so was inaugurated that system of personal abuse and vituperation which has ever been a disgrace to the press and political leaders of this country. Bitter partisan quarrels now prevailed, in which Jefferson and Hamilton were the chief actors. The people were greatly excited. The Republicans, who hated the British intensely, called the Federalists the "British party," and the Federalists called their opponents the "French party." The latter hailed with joy the news of the death of the French king, and applauded the declaration of war against England and Holland, forgetting the substantial sympathy which the latter had shown for the Americans during their struggle for independence. Only Washington appeared calm in the midst of the uproar that proceeded from antagonists in his cabinet.
In the midst of this excitement "Citizen Genet," as he was called, an ambassador sent to our government by the French Republic, arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, where he was cordially received, in April, 1793. Washington had anxiously watched the rising tide of popular sentiment in favor of giving material aid to the French in their warfare on monarchies, and on the 22d of April he issued a proclamation of neutrality, in which he warned all citizens of the United States not to engage in the kindling war in Europe. This gave great offence to the Republicans, or Democrats, and Washington was abused without stint.
Genet's zeal outran his prudence. Without waiting to present his credentials, or even to visit the seat of our national government, he proceeded to act upon instructions of his own so-called government. He had been furnished with blank naval and military commissions, and was empowered to constitute every French consul in the United States a court of admiralty, authorized to sell prizes. Then he proceeded to fit out privateers to depredate upon the commerce of England, Holland, and Spain. One of them went prowling up our coast, and reached Philadelphia (to which city the national government had been removed) with a prize before Genet arrived there. He was received with enthusiasm on his arrival; and so anxious were his admirers to do homage to their idol, that they invited him to a public dinner before he had presented his credentials.
Genet was deeply impressed with Washington's dignity, but felt uneasy in his calm presence; so, after the ceremony of his first presentation was over, he hastened to the dinner to which he was invited, where he might easily have imagined himself to be in a Jacobin Church in Parissongs, toasts, decorations, were all to his taste. On the table was a roasted pig, to which they gave the name of the lately murdered king. Its head, severed from its body, was carried around the table to each guest, who, after putting the bonnet rouge on his own head, pronounced the word "tyrant" and proceeded with a knife to mangle that of the animal to be served to so unworthy a company. Strange as it may seem to us, it is nevertheless true, that so infatuated were the partisans of the French, that leading citizens of Philadelphia, with General Mifflin, then governor of Pennsylvania, at their head, participated in the disgraceful orgies at that dinner. A Democratic tavern in Philadelphia had a revolting sign, on which was painted the headless corpse of the murdered queen. "Democratic clubs" were formed in imitation of the Jacobin clubs of Paris; and, encouraged by these and newspapers in their interest, Genet persisted in his defiant course, and tried to excite hostility between our people and their government. His acts finally disgusted Jefferson and all patriotic men. The atrocities of the French revolutionists, when known, produced a revulsion of feeling in the United States, and Washington finally requested and obtained Genet's recall. Fouchet, who succeeded him, was instructed to assure the President that Genet's course was not approved. The latter dared not return to France at that time, for he feared the sanguinary men whom he had represented. He married a daughter of Governor Clinton, settled in this country, and became a useful citizen. Our government had passed through great peril, but the helm of the ship of state was in the hand of a wise and expert pilot. No doubt the firmness and prudence of Washington, at that time, saved the republic from utter ruin.
The government was now subjected to another severe strain. There was a popular outbreak in Western Pennsylvania known in our history as the Whisky Insurrection, which gave the government much uneasiness in 1794. The rye crop west of the Alleghany Mountains around the forks of the Ohio, was largely converted into whisky by Scotch-Irish distillers. Excise laws which imposed duties on domestic distilled liquors were passed by Congress, but these western distillers despised them. When, in the spring of 1794, after the adjournment of Congress, officers were sent to enforce the laws, they were resisted by the people in arms. The insurrection became general throughout all the Pittsburgh region, and many outrages were committed. The old mob-remedy for a human nuisance was resorted totarring and feathering. One officer was stripped of all his clothing, smeared with warm tar, and the contents of a feather bolster was emptied upon him, giving him a most ludicrous appearance. He did not answer the philosopher's definition of a man"a two-legged animal without feathers." Buildings occupied by friends of the government were burned; mails were robbed, and government officers were everywhere insulted and abused. At one time there were between six and seven thousand insurgents under arms. The local militia formed a part of the mob. The insurgent spirit spread into the border counties of Virginia; and the President and his cabinet, perceiving with alarm this imitation of French politics which had been inculcated by the Democrats, took immediate steps to crush the growing monster. The President first issued two proclamations (August 7 and September 25), but without effect. A convention of insurgents, held at Pittsburgh (of which young Albert Gallatin, afterward Secretary of the Treasury, was secretary), had declared the excise law to be "unjust, dangerous to liberty, oppressive to the poor, and particularly oppressive to the Western country, where grain could only be disposed of by distilling it," and had resolved to treat all excisemen with contempt. A committee of correspondence was appointed, and rebellion was fairly organized. The mob violence was, in a manner, personified, under the name of Tom the Tinker, and the perpetrators called these performances "mending the still." They were cheered on by "Democratic societies" which were secret associations.
It was estimated that the insurgent counties could raise sixteen thousand fighting men; and Judge Brackenridge of that region intimated that, should coercion be attempted by the national government, the insurgents might make application to Great Britain for aid, and even march on Philadelphia, then the national capital. Washington was not to be trifled with. He would listen to no temporizing policy proposed by Democratic leaders. After exhausting peaceable means he ordered out a large body of militia of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and sent them under the command of General Henry Lee, toward the insurgent district. The leaders of the "rebels" were alarmed, and hesitated. The argument of force was effectual, and again the wisdom and firmness of Washington averted a great peril to the young nation.
Another cloud of difficulty had gathered, dark and threatening, in the political firmament of our country. For some time a bitter feeling had been growing between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, because of the inexecution of the treaty of 1783. There were mutual accusations of infractions of that treaty. Disputes constantly arising, the bitterness of resentment, daily increased, was largely fostered by the "French party," or Republicans; and in the spring of 1794, war between the two nations seemed probable. The Americans complained that no indemnification had been made for negroes carried away at the close of the Revolution; that the British held military posts on their frontiers, contrary to the treaty; that British emissaries had excited the hostility of the Indian tribes, and that, to retaliate on France, the English had captured our neutral vessels, and impressed our seamen into the British service. The British government and people complained that stipulations concerning the property of loyalists, and also in relation to debts contracted in England before the Revolution, had not been complied with. The property of the Tories who had fled from the country was confiscated, and not much of it was regained. The British government finally paid to these sufferers an aggregate sum of more than fifteen million dollars.
Again the wisdom and prudence of Washington averted the national calamity of war. He proposed to send a special envoy to the British court to negotiate for an amicable settlement of existing disputes. Congress approved the measure, and on the 19th of April, 1994, John Jay was appointed to fulfill that delicate mission. He arrived in London in June, and was very courteously received by the British government. On the 19th of November following, a treaty was concluded which provided for the collection of debts here, by British creditors, contracted before the Revolution, but it did not procure indemnity for those who lost slaves. It secured indemnity for unlawful captures on the high seas, and also the evacuation of military posts on the frontiers yet held by the British. In order to secure some important points, Mr. Jay was compelled to yield others. The treaty was defective in some things, and objectionable in others, but it was the best that could be obtained at that time, and it averted war with Great Britain. It created intense hostility to Washington's administration, and to Jay personally, at home. The proposition to send an envoy to treat with Great Britain had been denounced by the Democratic societies and newspapers as pusillanimous. Now these societies and newspapers which had resolved to oppose it whatever might be its provisions, attacked the treaty, the President and Mr. Jay, with vehemence, on the strength of mere rumor as to its character.
The treaty reached the President in March, 1795, but the Senate was not convened until June to consider it. Meanwhile an unfaithful member of the cabinet (Mr. Randolph of Virginia) revealed enough of its character to warrant attacks upon it. A mad, seditious cry went over the land from the Opposition. In several cities mobs threatened personal violence to the supporters of the treaty. Mr. Hamilton was stoned at a public meeting in New York, while speaking in the open air. "These are hard arguments," he said, when a stone grazed his forehead. The British minister at Philadelphia was insulted; and in Charleston, the British flag was trailed in the dust of the streets. Jay was denounced as a traitor; and in Virginia, disunion was recommended as a cure for existing political evils. "France is our national ally," shouted Democratic societies. "She has a government congenial to our own. Citizens, your security depends on France. Let us unite with France, and stand or fall together," cried factious orators at public meetings held throughout the country; and the Democrats adorned their hats with the French cockade, Jay was burned in effigy in many places, and longings for a guillotine were freely expressed. But the Senate ratified the treaty on the 24th of June, 1795, and removed the seal of secrecy, at the same time forbade the publication of the treaty for prudential reasons, for there were rumors of an important order having been issued by Great Britain. Thomson Mason, a senator from Virginia, in violation of the rules of the Senate, of official decorum, and of personal honor, sent a copy of it to a Democratic newspaper. A rhymer of the day addressed Mr. Mason on the subject, in the following manner:
"Ah, Thomson Mason! long thy fame shall rise, With Democratic incense to the skies! Long shall the world admire thy manly soul, Which scorned the naughty Senate's base control; Come boldly forward with thy mighty name And gave the treaty up for public game!"
The ratification of this treaty was followed in October by the conclusion of one with Spain, by which the boundaries between the Spanish Territories of Louisiana and Florida were defined. This treaty also secured to the United States the free navigation of the Mississippi River, and the use of the port of New Orleans for ten years. Louisiana had been ceded to Spain by the French, in 1762.
As soon as one excitement was allayed in our country, another appeared; and during the whole of Washington's administration of eight years, when the foreign and domestic policy of our government was fashioned and its machinery put in operation, the greatest wisdom, circumspection and conservative action, on the part of government officers, was continually demanded. Difficulties were constantly appearing on the horizon, sometimes like mere specks of clouds in the far distance, and at others near and in alarming shapes. These were chiefly in relation to trade, especially in foreign lands. American commerce had begun to rapidly expand, and had found its way through the open gate at the Pillars of Hercules, into the Mediterranean Sea. There it was met by Moslem corsairs of the Barbary Powers on the northern coast of Africa, who had long and successfully depredated upon commerce in those waters. They seized our merchandise and held our seamen in captivity in order to obtain ransom-money for them. President Washington had called the attention of Congress to these piracies as early as 1790, and at the same time Secretary Jefferson submitted an able report on the subject, in which he gave many interesting details touching the position of American commerce in the Mediterranean Sea. Little, however, could then be done for the protection of our commerce there, for the Americans were without a navy; and for that protection we were dependent, for some time, on the fleets of Portugal, with which nation Algiers, the chief piratical power, was at war. Even this barrier was broken in 1793, secretly, by the British, for the avowed purpose of damaging France. The agent of that government at Algiers concluded a treaty with the Dey, or ruler, in which was a stipulation that the Portuguese government should not for one year afford protection to the commerce of any nation against Algerine cruisers. So these North African pirates were immediately released from all restraint, and roamed the Mediterranean Sea without interruption. The Americans were indignant, but could do nothing. They had already been compelled to endure insults, without the power of resenting them. When Colonel David Humphreys, who was sent by the United States as a commissioner to the Dey of Algiers, that haughty ruler, seated on a divan covered with rich cushions, and his turbaned officers of state standing near, said: "If I were to make peace with everybody, what should I do with my corsairs? what should I do with my soldiers? They would take off my head for the want of other prizes, not being able to live on their miserable allowance." This argument was unanswerable, and Humphreys wrote to his government: "If we mean to have a commerce, we must have a navy to defend it."
These depredations of the pirates and the delicate relations of our rising republic to the monarchies of the Old World caused Washington, in his annual message to Congress in December, 1793, to say: "If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war." Acting upon this hint Congress passed an act in the spring of 1794, authorizing the creation of a small navy, and appropriating about $700,000. There was strong and determined opposition to the measure, and delay was the consequence. Meanwhile the Algerine pirate fleet, released by the British treaty withdrawing Portuguese protection, had left the bounds of the Mediterranean and were out upon the Atlantic. Within a month after that treaty was made, ten American merchant vessels and over a hundred seamen were captured by the Algerine corsairs. Humphreys tried to make terms with the Dey, but the elated ruler refused to listen. The United States paid about a million dollars as a ransom for American captives, and in the autumn of 1795, our government was compelled to agree, by treaty, to pay an annual tribute to the Dey for the relief of captured seamen, according to long usage among European nations. This was humiliating, but nothing better could then be done. Humanity demanded it. Between the years 1785 and 1793, the Algerine pirates captured fifteen American vessels and made one hundred and eighty officers and seamen slaves of the most revolting kind. To redeem the survivors of these captives and others taken more recently, the United States paid the large sum just mentioned.
Congress, by the act of 1794, had authorized the President to cause the construction of six frigates; but it was provided that work on them should cease, in the event of peace with Algiers being secured. They also provided for the erection of harbor fortifications and the purchase of cannon and artillery munitions for them. Provision was also made for the establishment of arsenals and armories. Very small sums were appropriated for these purposes. These were the first beginnings of our army, navy, and system of fortifications. Washington immediately ordered the keels of he six frigates to be laid at as many ports, namely: Portsmouth, N. H., Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk. The work was going on vigorously, when the treaty with the Dey of Algiers put a stop to it, and the mercantile marine of the United States lost all hope of protection in the event of a war with any foreign government.
The folly of not completing the naval vessels was soon made manifest, when British cruisers began the practice of taking seamen from American vessels, without leave, under the pretence that they were British deserters. The French, too, were becoming aggressive on the seas. Their government was offended by Washington's proclamation of neutrality, and especially with Jay's treaty with Great Britain. It wanted the Americans to show an active participation with the French, in their hatred of the English. It was offended with the American because of their treaty with Algiers independently of French intervention; and the success of our negotiations with Spain for the free navigation of the Mississippi River, excited the jealousy of the French rulers. In a word, because the United States, having the strength, assumed to stand alone, the French were offended and threatened the grown-up child with personal chastisement. In 1796, cruisers of the French republic began depredations upon American commerce, under the authority of a secret order issued by the French Directory, as the existing government was called. That government had declared the alliance with the Americans at an end. Under the authority of the secret order numerous American vessels were seized in the West Indies. When, in the next year (1797), war with France seemed inevitable, Congress, on the urgent recommendation of the new President (John Adams), caused the frigates Constitution, Constellation, and United States to be completed, equipped, and sent to sea. This was the real beginning of the American navy which, only a few years afterward, though weak in numbers, performed many gallant exploits. From that time the navy became the cherished arm of the national defence; and chiefly through its instrumentality, the name and power of the United States began to be properly appreciated in Europe, at the beginning of the present century.
The second term of Washington's administration was now drawing to a close. He had been elected for the second time, in the fall of 1792, much against his wishes, for he felt, then, that his health was giving way, and his private affairs needed his attention. He was inaugurated in the presence of the Senate, when he made a short speech; and he served his country four years longer. His career as President was a most trying and important one, and must ever be remembered with gratitude by the American people. During that time the government was put in motion with great sagacity on the part of the President and his cabinet; its financial, domestic, and foreign policy was established, and its strength was so fully tested by immoderate strains, that even Hamilton began to think its powers sufficient to perform its required functions. It was the wish of a majority of the people that Washington should serve a third term, but he positively refused; and in the fall of 1796, that majority gave their votes for electors known to be favorable to John Adams for President of the republic. In September of that year Washington issued his admirable Farewell Address to the people of the United States. It was an earnest appeal to them to preserve the Union as the only sure hope for the continuance of their liberties and of the national life and prosperity.
The Presidential election in 1796 was a vehement struggle by the Federalists and Republicans for political ascendency and the control of the government. The candidates were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the latter having left the cabinet at the close of 1793. Every appeal to the passions that party rancor could invent, was employed. Adet, the French minister, who had succeeded Fouchet, imprudently issued an inflammatory address to the American people, in which he charged the administration of Washington with violations of the friendship that had existed between the United States and France; and other partisans of Jefferson, in their zeal to injure the Federal party, made gross personal attacks upon Washington. A newspaper writer said: "If ever a nation has been debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation has been deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington. Let his conduct, then, be an example to future ages. Let it serve to be a warning that no man may be an idol. Let the history of the Federal government instruct mankind that the mark of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest designs against the liberties of the people. "And on the day when Washington retired from office in March, 1797, and was succeeded by John Adams as President, the same Philadelphia newspaper (The Aurora) contained another gross personal attack upon the beloved patriot. After declaring that he was no longer possessed of "power to multiply evils upon the United States," the writer said: "When a retrospect is taken of the Washingtonian administration for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individual should have cankered the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts, and with them staring us in the face, this day ought to be a jubilee in the United States."
The virulence of partisanship in those days was not only as intense, but its methods were as dishonest as they are now. Among other means employed at about the time of Washington's retirement to private life, to injure his character, was the republication of a series of forged letters, purporting to have been written by him to members of his family, in the summer of 1776, and which appeared in print in 1777. These letters, if genuine, ought to have blasted Washington's reputation for patriotism, integrity, and honor. It was pretended that they were found in a small portmanteau which was in possession of his favorite body-servant, Billy, when the latter, as was falsely alleged, was captured at Fort Lee. Washington, conscious of his integrity and trustful of his countrymen, paid no attention to the publication at the time. There were ample proofs of their forgery, and they had been forgotten, when, before he left the chair of state in the spring of 1797, they were republished. The object then was the same as that twenty years before, namely to destroy public confidence in the great Leader.
Washington now thought it necessary to notice the forgery. He did so in a letter to the then Secretary of War, written on the 3d of March, 1797, in which, after giving an account of the original publication of the letters, and his silence concerning them, hitherto, he said: "As I cannot know how soon a more serious event may succeed to that which will this day take place, I have thought it a duty that I owe to myself, to my country, and to truth, now to detail the circumstances above recited; and to add my solemn declaration that the letters herein described are a base forgery, and that I never saw or heard of them until they appeared in print."
JOHN ADAMS, PRESIDENTPRIDE OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENTRECEPTION OF MONROE IN FRANCEREFUSAL TO RECEIVE AN AMERICAN MINISTERA SAVAGE DECREEDOING OF CONGRESSAFFAIRS IN EUROPETREATMENT OF AMERICAN ENVOYS BY THE FRENCH DIRECTORYGERRY AND TALLEYRANDWAR-SPIRIT IN THE UNITED STATESBONAPARTE IN THE EASTNEW ENVOYS TO FRANCEA CONSPIRACYBONAPARTE MADE FIRST CONSUL SETTLEMENT OF DIFFICULTIESWAR ON THE OCEANOUTRAGE BY A BRITISH NAVAL COMMANDERAMERICAN VICTORIES ON THE SEADOWNFALL OF THE FEDERAL PARTYDEATH OF WASHINGTON.
JOHN ADAMS took the chair as chief magistrate of the republic, in the spring of 1797, with a powerful, energetic, and disappointed political party in opposition. They lacked only two votes in the electoral college of giving the office to Adams's democratic rival, Thomas Jefferson, who became Vice-president. It was well for Jefferson's peace of mind and his public reputation that he was not elected President at that time, for he could not have satisfied the expectations of the ultra French faction which had gathered around him, and been true to his moral and patriotic convictions of duty to his country.
The French Directory, composed of five persons who had been installed executive rulers of France late in 1795, and who were supported by two legislative chambers known respectively as the Council of Ancients (the Senate) and Council of Five Hundred (the popular Assembly), were then feeling strong and proud, and were treating other governments with great insolence. The victories of the French armies, led by the rising young Napoleon Bonaparte, had given them Northern Italy. They were preparing for an invasion of Ireland with a fair prospect of success (for Irishmen were waiting to join the invaders against the English), and their corsairs were depredating with impunity upon American commerce. In the plenitude of their pride, when they heard that the people of the United States, refusing to bow to their dictation, had probably elected the opponent of their friend, Mr. Jefferson, they declared that until our government had redressed some alleged grievances of which they complained, no minister of our republic should be received by them.
James Monroe, a senator from Virginia, who had been sent to France as minister, in 1794, remained as such after the installation of the Directory. He had been received in a most theatrical manner, as he was properly regarded as the representative of the ultra sympathizers with the French revolutionists, in America. At a public reception in the French National Convention, he read an address written in the style of the missives issued by the American Democratic Societies, to which an enthusiastic member of the Convention replied in a grandiloquent manner, and closed his oration with the following words: "To-day, the sovereign people themselves, by the organ of their faithful representatives, receive you; and you see the tenderness, the effusion of soul, that accompanies this simple and touching ceremony; I am impatient to give you the fraternal embrace, which I am ordered to give in the name of the French people. Come and receive it in the name of the American people, and let this spectacle complete the annihilation of an impious coalition of tyrants." Then Monroe, according to precedent, stepped forward and received and returned the fraternal and national embrace and kiss of the representative of the French people.
Having opposed Jay's treaty at the French republican court, Monroe was recalled by his government in 1796, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina was appointed to fill his place. On Pinckney's arrival in France late in the year with the letter of recall and his own credentials as minister, the Directory refused to receive him. Not only so, but after treating him with great discourtesy, the Directory peremptorily ordered him to leave France. He withdrew to Holland in February, 1797, and there awaited further orders from home. When Mr. Adams took the Presidential chair, the United States were without a diplomatic agent in France.
Disappointed by the failure of the "French party" to elect Mr. Jefferson President of our republic, the insolent Directory, after hearing of the result in the electoral colleges, determined to punish a people who dared to thwart their plans. In May, 1797, they issued a decree which was tantamount to a declaration of war against the United States. It not only authorized the capture of American vessels under certain conditions, but declared that any American found on board of a hostile ship, though placed there without his consent, by impressment, should be hanged as a pirate. The poor American seaman was then continually exposed to impressment into the British service, and by this decree, if found there, he would be subjected to a pirate's fate, by the French! Strangely as it seems, Joel Barlow, an American Democrat who had actively sympathized with the French Jacobins, wrote concerning this savage decree to a relative in this country: "The government here is determined to fleece you to a sufficient degree to bring you to your feeling in the only nerve in which your sensibility lies, which is your pecuniary interest." At a Jacobin festival at Hamburgh, in 1793, Barlow had presented a song that was sung with great glee, written by Thelwall, an Englishman, to the air of God Save the King, the first stanza of which reads:
"God save the guillotine! Till England's king and queen Her power shall prove; Till each anointed knob, Affords a clipping job, Let no rude halter rob The guillotine."
Almost simultaneously with the issuing of the French decree, an extraordinary session of Congress, called by President Adams to consider the foreign relations of our government, met at Philadelphia. The conduct of the Directory had produced a great revulsion in public feeling in our country. The reaction strengthened the Executive arm and the administration party, and patriotic Democrats began to talk complacently of war with France, which then seemed inevitable. But a majority of the cabinet favored further attempts at negotiations; and the President, with the concurrence of the Senate, appointed John Marshall, a Federalist and afterward Chief Justice of the United States, and Elbridge Gerry, a Democrat and afterward Vice-President of the republic, envoys extraordinary to join Mr. Pinckney and attempt to settle all matters in dispute between the two governments, by diplomacy. After a session of little more than six weeks, Congress adjourned. They had provided for calling out eighty thousand militia, creating a small naval force, and acts for preventing privateering.
In the meantime success had waited on French arms and French diplomacy almost everywhere. Bonaparte, who was making his victorious marches toward the Danube and the Carpathian Mountains, had compelled Austria to make peace with his government; and England, the most powerful of the enemies of France, seemed to be tottering to its fall, for the suspension of specie payment by the Bank of England had rudely shaken and weakened her financial power. It was at this flood-tide of the military and diplomatic conquests of France in October, 1797, that the American envoys reached that country and sought an audience with the French Directory. Their request was met by a haughty refusal, unless the envoys would agree to the humiliating terms of first paying into the exhausted French treasury a large sum of money in the form of a loan; by the purchase of Dutch bonds wrung from that nation by the French, and a bribe to the amount of $240,000 for the private use of the five members of the French Directory! This proposition came semi-officially from Talleyrand, one of the most expert and unscrupulous political trimmers that ever lived. It was accompanied by a covert threat, that if the proposition was not complied with, the envoys might be ordered to leave France in twenty-four hours, and the coasts of the United States be ravaged by French frigates sent from St. Domingo. The envoys refused compliance, and the occasion gave Pinckney the opportunity to utter in substance the noble words: "Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." Finding their mission to be useless, the envoys asked for their passports. They were given to the two Federal envoys under circumstances which amounted to their virtual expulsion from the country, while Gerry was induced to remain. He, too, was soon treated with so much insolence and contempt by Talleyrand and his associates, that he returned home in disgust to meet the indignation of his countrymen for consenting to remain. Gerry had held interviews with Talleyrand without the knowledge of his associates, and it was believed that his representation of the strength of the "French party" in the United States encouraged that minister to pursue the course he did.
Meanwhile the Directory had issued another decree, which effectually annihilated American commerce in European waters. This act, the indecent treatment of the envoys and the continued depredations of the French cruisers, aroused a vehement war-spirit in the United States. President Adams, in his first annual message to Congress (November 23, 1797), recommended preparations for war. Some of the more radical of the opposition leaders advised the payment of the money demanded, rather than risk a war with Francebetter to purchase peace by paying tribute than to contend for the right and for national independence! But the great body of the nation acted patriotically. In March, 1798, the President, in a special message, asked Congress to provide means for war. The request was promptly complied with. A provisional army of twenty thousand regular soldiers was voted, and provision was made for the employment of volunteers as well as militia; and then were made those provisions for a national navy already alluded to. The office of Secretary of the Navy was created, and Benjamin Stodert of the District of Columbia was the first to enter the cabinet as the head of the Navy Department, which he did at the close of April, 1798. Party-spirit disappeared in the National Legislature to a great degree, and the popular excitement against the opposition leaders in Congress became so intense, that some of the most obnoxious of them from Virginia sought personal safety in flight, under the pretence of needed attention to their private affairs. The younger republicans wore black cockades upon their hats, in imitation of the patriots of the Revolution. The stirring songs Hail Columbia and Adams and Liberty, the former written by Joseph Hopkinson and the latter by Robert Treat Paine, were now first published, and were sung all over the land with unbounded applause.
Washington approved the war-measures of the government, and in July he was appointed by the President commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to be raised, with the commission of lieutenant-general. That commission was borne to Mount Vernon by the Secretary of War (Mr. McHenry) in person. When he arrived, Washington was in the fields not far from the mansion where his people were gathering his grain-harvest. The Secretary, without doffing his thin traveling cloak (for the day was cool), went out to meet him and presented the document to Washington in the open field. The Beloved Patriot, then sixty-six years of age, obeyed the call of his countrymen with alacrity. "You may command me without reserve," he wrote to the President, qualifying his remark with an expressed desire that he should not be called into active service until the public need should demand it, and requesting the appointment of his friend Alexander Hamilton, then forty-one years of age, as acting general-in-chief. For this purpose, Hamilton was commissioned the first major-general. Washington held a conference with all the general officers of the army at Philadelphia, in November (1798), when arrangements were made for a complete organization of the regular forces on a war-footing. But from the beginning he believed that the gathering clouds, portending a fearful tempest, would pass away and leave his country unscathed by the lightning and the hail of war.
Events soon justified Washington's faith. Circumstances speedily allayed the fear of England, to whom the Americans looked as a possible friend in the event of a war with France. The victorious Bonaparte, who had threatened England with invasion, had gone off to Egypt with a fleet and army with the avowed object of conquering that country, invading Palestine, taking possession of Jerusalem, restoring the Jews to their ancient heritage, and rebuilding the Temple. This was only a cover to his ambitious designs for accomplishing his personal advancement. But his fleet was utterly vanquished by Nelson in the battle of the Nile; and another French fleet, that hovered off the coast of Ireland to encourage an insurrection there, was scattered by English ships-of-war under Admiral Warren. These and minor victories by the English humbled the pride of the Directory; and when there appeared omens of other disasters to their cause in Europe, and they heard of the prevailing war-spirit in the United States and the appointment of Washington to the command of a provisional army, the Directory paused in their mad career. The wily Talleyrand, ever ready to change his political coat, caused information to reach the United States government that the Directory were ready to receive advances from the former for entering into negotiations.
Without consulting his cabinet or the national dignity, President Adams nominated William Vance Murray, then the representative of the United States at the Hague, as minister plenipotentiary to France. Congress and the people were amazed, and the Senate determined not to confirm the nomination. No direct communication had been received from the Directory, and this advance after unatoned insults, seemed like cowardly cringing before a half-relenting tyrant. The President stoutly persisted for awhile, when he consented to the appointment of three envoys extraordinary, of which Mr. Murray should be one, to settle all disputes between the two governments. For this purpose Oliver Ellsworth and William R. Davie were appointed to join Mr. Murray, but they were not to proceed to Europe until assurances should be received from France of their courteous reception there. Such assurances came from Talleyrand, and in November, 1799, the two envoys sailed for France.
Fortunately for all parties concerned, a change occurred in the government of France in the month when the envoys departed from our shores. For a long time the quarrels of factions had threatened France with anarchy. The Directory had become unpopular, and the excitable people were ripe for revolution. The brothers of Bonaparte informed him of this state of affairs at home, and he hastened from the East, with a few followers, and suddenly appeared in Paris. His brilliant exploits in the Orient had so fascinated the French, that they hailed him as the good genius of the republic. With his brother Lucien, who was then president of the Council of Five Hundred, and Seyes, one of the Directory and of great influence in the Council of the Ancients, he conspired for the overthrow of the government and the establishment of a new one.
On the morning of the 9th of November (1779), Seyes induced the Council of Ancient to place Bonaparte in command of the military of Paris. Then Seyes and two other members of the Directory resigned, leaving France without an Executive authority, and Bonaparte, with its strong armthe militaryfirmly in his grasp. The Councils immediately perceived how they had been deceived by a trick, and assembled at St. Cloud the next morning. Bonaparte appeared at the bar of the Ancients to justify his conduct. Perceiving their enmity, he threatened them with military violence if they should decide against him. Meanwhile Lucien Bonaparte had read to the Council of Five Hundred the letter of resignation of the three Directors amid shouts from the members of "No Cromwell! no Dictator! the Constitution forever!" Bonaparte now entered that Chamber with four grenadiers and attempted to speak, but was interrupted by cries and execrations. The members appeared to be on the point of proceeding to personal violence against him, when a body of soldiers rushed in and bore him off. He was then a small, spare man, of light weight. A motion was made for his outlawry, which Lucien refused to put, but leaving the chair, he went out and made an inflammatory speech to the soldiers. At its close Murat, at the head of a body of grenadiers, entered the hall and commanded the Assembly to disperse. The members replied with shouts and execrations. The drums were ordered to be beaten, the soldiers levelled their muskets, when all but about fifty of the Council escaped by the windows. These, with the Ancients, passed a decree making Seyes, Bonaparte, and Ducos provisional consuls; and in December, Bonaparte was made First Consul or supreme ruler of France for life.
It was at this crisis in the political affairs of France when the American envoys reached Paris. They were cordially received by Talleyrand, by order of the First Consul, and an amicable settlement of all difficulties was soon made. A convention was signed at Paris on the 30th of September, 1800, by the American envoys and Joseph Bonaparte, C.P.E. Fluvien, and Pierre L. Roederer, in behalf of France, which was satisfactory to both parties. The convention also made the important decision, in the face of the contrary doctrine avowed and practiced by the British government, that free ships should make free goods. This affirmed the doctrine of Frederick the Great, enunciated fifty years before, and denied that of England in her famous "Rule" of 1756, revived in 1793. Peace was established, the envoys returned home, and the provisional army of the United States was disbanded.
While the political events just recorded were in progress, war between the two nations actually began upon the ocean, although neither party had proclaimed hostilities. In July, 1798, the American Congress had declared the treaties between the United States and France at an end, and authorized American vessels- of-war to capture French cruisers. A marine corps was organized, and a total of thirty cruisers were provided for. Under the law for the creation of a navy, several frigates had been put in commission in 1797, but they were not ready for sea in the spring of 1798; but it was not long in the presence of impending war, before the United States, the Constitution (yet afloat), the Constellation and other war-vessels were out upon the ocean under such commanders as Dale, Barry, Decatur the elder, Truxton, Nicholson, and Phillips. Decatur soon captured a French corsair (April, 1798); and the British and French authorities in the West Indies were greatly surprised by the appearance of so many American cruisers in those waters in the summer and autumn of 1798. At the close of the year the American navy consisted of twenty-three vessels, with an aggregate armament of four hundred and forty-six guns.
It was at this time that the first of a series of outrages upon the flag of the republic was committed by a British naval commander, that finally aroused the people of the United States to a vindication of their honor and independence by an appeal to arms. The American cruiser Baltimore, Captain Phillips, in charge of a convoy of merchant vessels from Havana to Charleston, when in sight of Moro Castle fell in with a British squadron. The United States and Great Britain were then at peace, and Phillips did not expect anything from the commander of the squadron but friendship, when, to his surprise, three of the convoy were captured by the British cruisers. Phillips bore up alongside the British flag- ship to ask for an explanation, when he was informed by her commander that every man on board the Baltimore, who could not show a regular American protection paper, should be transferred to the British vessel. Phillips protested against the outrage; and when fifty-five of his crew were taken to the British flag- ship, he, under legal advice, surrendered his vessel with the intention of referring the matter to his government. Only five of the crew were detained by the British commander. These were impressed into the service of the royal navy, and the remainder were sent back. The Baltimore was released, and the British squadron sailed away with the three merchant-vessels as prizes.
This outragethis practical application of the claims of the British government to the right of searching American vessels without leave and taking seamen from them without redresslighted a flame of hot indignation throughout our republic. But, at that time, the American government, like that of England, was strongly influenced, if not controlled, by the mercantile interest which had become very potential. The trade between the United States and Great Britain was rapidly increasing, and was very profitable; and the American merchants, as a body, were willing to submit to almost any insult from the "Mistress of the Seas," rather than to endanger the foundations of their prosperity by provoking hostilities with Great Britain. The American cabinet in their obsequious deference to Great Britain had actually instructed the naval commanders not to molest the cruisers of any nation (the French excepted) on any accountnot even to save a vessel of their own nation. The pusillanimity of this policy was now aggravated by an act of flagrant injustice and cowardice on the part of our government, that made the cheeks of true patriots crimson with shame. Captain Phillips was dismissed from the navy, without trial, because he had surrendered his vessel without making a show of resistance, and no notice was taken of the outrage by the British commander!
During the year 1799, the American navy was much strengthened by the launching and putting into commission of several new vessels. In February, the frigate Constellation, Commodore Truxton commanding, fell in with and captured the famous French frigate L'Insurgente, of 44 guns and 409 men, off the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies. The American and English press teemed with eulogies of Truxton. Many congratulatory addresses were sent to him; and the merchants of London gave him a service of silver-plate worth more than three thousand dollars, on which was engraved a picture of the battle. For a long time a popular song called "Truxton's Victory" was sung everywhere at private and public gatherings.
Very little of importance occurred on the ocean during the remainder of that year; but at the beginning of February, 1800, Truxton, in the Constellation, gained a victory over the French frigate La Vengeance, of 54 guns and 500 men. The battle was fought on the 1st of February, off Guadaloupe. In consequence of the falling of the mainmast of the Constellation, the supporting shrouds of which had been cut away, the Vengeance escaped. For this exploit Congress gave Truxton a gold medal. La Vengeance would have been a rich prize. She had on board a large amount of merchandise and specie, and the governor of Guadaloupe and his family returning to France. The convention at Paris brought peace, and the navy of the United States was soon called into another field of service.
The action of President Adams in the nomination of envoys to France before official intimations from the Directory that negotiations were desirable had been received, caused very serious divisions in the Federal party. Hostile feelings, already existing, were thereby intensified, and the speedy downfall of the Federal party, as a controlling power in the government, was charged to the errors of judgment and temper on the part of Mr. Adams. He had already become unpopular because of his obstinacy and personal strictures. Very vain and egotistical, he was sensitive and jealous. His judgment was often swayed by his vivid imagination. His prejudices were violent and implacable, and his honesty and frankness, which made him almost a stranger to policy and expediency, made him very indiscreet in his expressions of opinions concerning men and measures. These characteristics made him an unfit leader of a great party. Persons who disagreed with him concerning measures of public policy, he regarded as personal enemies, and for this reason his feelings toward Hamilton were as bitter as ever were those of Jefferson. The consequence was that he was at variance with many of the leaders of the Federal party, who, regarding him as a Jonah, laid a plan to defeat his re-election to the Presidencyan event which they knew he earnestly desired should take place. The cunning Democrats fanned the flame of separation in the Federal party. Mr. Adam's political partisans succeeded in the scheme for his defeat; but they did more. They defeated the Federal party. The Democratic candidate for President, Mr. Jefferson, was elected, with Aaron Burr as Vice-President. The controlling power of that party, in the government, was then lost forever, after a most useful existence of about ten years. The odium in which Adam's administration was held was in consequence of the passage of the Alien and Sedition Laws which he favoredlaws which authorized the President to expel aliens from our country under certain conditions, and by which citizens might be punished by fine and imprisonment who might combine in opposing government measures, or who might resist the government in words, in a "false and scandalous manner." Hamilton deprecated the laws and wrote: "Let us not establish a tyranny. Energy is a very different thing from violence." He saw the danger, and wrote prophetically: "If we push things to the extreme, we shall then give to faction body and solidity." A rhymer of the day wrote exultantly:
"The Federalists are down at last! The Monarchists completely cast! The Aristocrats are stripped of power Storms o'er the British faction lower. Soon we Republicans shall see Columbia's sons from bondage free. Lord! how the Federalists will stare At Jefferson in Adams's chair.
In the closing month of the 18th century the inhabitants of the young republic were bereaved by the death of Washington. At his grave the hoarser croakings of the ravens of detraction were silenced, and were never heard afterward. He had led his fellow-citizens safely through the perils of war to political independence, and the equal perils of faction to the dignity of a righteous and prosperous nation.
On the 13th of December, 1799, Washington was exposed to a storm of sleet, and took cold. At three o'clock in the morning of the 14th he awoke, and found himself the victim of a severe attack of membranous croup. At daybreak, himself and Mrs. Washington being alarmed, the family physician, Dr. Craik, was sent for. In the course of the day, two other physicians were called and came. All that medical skill and affectionate devotion could do to relieve the sufferer was done, but without effect. The malady increased in intensity, and before midnight the spirit of the Beloved Patriot took its flight.
Toward evening Washington said to his friend and physician: "Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should not survive it. My breath cannot last long." Relatives of the family were sent for, but did not arrive in time to hear his last words. At six o'clock he said to Mr. Lear, his secretary, as the latter raised him up in bed: "I feel myself going; I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long." At about ten o'clock he attempted to speak to Mr. Lear, but failed several times. At length he audibly murmured: "I am just going. Have me decently buried; and don't let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead." Mr. Lear could not speak, but bowed his assent. Washington whispered: "Do you understand?" Mr. Lear replied, "Yes." "'Tis well," said the dying Patriot; and these were the last words that he spoke"'Tis well!"
"About ten minutes before he expired," Mr. Lear afterward wrote (which was between ten and eleven o'clock)," his breathing became easier. He lay quietly; he withdrew his hand from mine and felt his own pulse. I saw his countenance change. I spoke to Dr. Craik, who sat by the fire. He came to the bedside. The General's hand fell from his wrist. I took it in mine and pressed it to my bosom. Dr. Craik put his hand over his eyes, and he expired without a struggle or a sigh. While we were fixed in silent grief, Mrs. Washington, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, asked with a firm and collected voice, 'Is he gone?' I could not speak, but held up my hand as a signal that he was no more. ''Tis well,' she said, in the same voice; 'all's now over; I shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to pass through.'"
So departed the spirit of this great and good man whose body, thirty hours before, was in robust health, and which gave promise of a vigorous and serene old age. His attendants at that solemn hour were his wife, with whom he had lived forty-one years; his secretary, Mr. Lear; the three physicians, and his faithful colored body-servant Christopher, and equally faithful old colored woman, who was the nurse of the family. The style of the room in which he died (an upper chamber) and the bedstead of uncommon width on which rested his dying couch, are both delineated in the accompanying illustration copied from drawings from the originals by the author.
The news of Washington's death reached President Adams at Philadelphia by a special courier, on the morning of the 11th of December. John Marshall announced it to the assembled Congress that day, when a public funeral was decreed; and as the tidings went over the land, bells tolled funeral knells in solemn monotones. When, forty days afterward, the news reached England, the flags of the great English fleet of sixty vessels lying in Torbay were lowered to half-mast; and Bonaparte, just made First Consul, ordered a funeral oration to be pronounced before himself and the civil and military authorities of France. On an appointed day, Congress went in procession to the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, where an eloquent funeral oration was delivered by General Henry Lee, a son of the "Lowland Beauty," who was the object of 'Washington's first love in his youth. Congress also decreed the erection of a monument to his memory at the site of the new national capital on the banks of the Potomac, and asked the privilege (which was granted) of depositing his remains at the seat of the national government. That monument has not been erected, and the remains are in a vault at Mount Vernon. A cenotaph, constructed upon a plan unworthy of the subject, the nation, and the principles of taste, has been a-building many years; and Congress at its session in 1875-'76, made an appropriation for the purpose of completing it. It is in the form of a huge obelisk of white marble; and the original design called for an unsightly, structure to surround its base. The obelisk has been carried up many feet already. It stands near the shore of the Potomac River within the limits of Washington city, and when completed will be conspicuous at a great distance; but it is simply a following of the barbarian custom of perpetuating the memory of their patriots and heroes by a pile of stonesan artistic improvement of the ancient cairn. How much more appropriate, artistic and useful, would have been the erection of a building at the National Capital, in the simple Doric style of architecture, into which might be gathered for all time the portraits, by painting or sculpture, of the men and women of the nation whom the whole people delight to honor for their great, and generous, and patriotic deeds. Such portraits, when looked upon by our young citizens, would tend to inspire them to imitate the lives of their great exemplars. Sallust says: "I have often heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other reverend persons of the Roman Commonwealth, used to say that, whenever they beheld the images of their ancestors, they felt their minds vehemently excited to virtue. It could not be the wax, nor the marble, that possessed this power; but the recollections of their great actions kindled a generous flame in their breasts, which could not be quelled till they also, by virtue, had acquired equal fame and glory."
SEAT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENTPRESIDENT JEFFERSON, HIS POLICY AND HIS CABINETCONDITION OF THE GOVERNMENTAFFAIRS ABROADDIFFICULTIES WITH THE BARBARY POWERSOUR NAVYWAR WITH THE BARBARY POWERSGROWTH OF THE REPUBLIC PURCHASE OF LOUISIANAEXPEDITION TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN ACROSS THE CONTINENT BURR'S SCHEMESBLENNERHASSETTGENERAL JACKSONBURR'S TRIAL FOR TREASONA POWERFUL OPPOSITIONUNPATRIOTIC MOVEMENTSTROUBLES WITH SPAIN AMICABLY SETTLED.
IN the summer and autumn of the year 1800, the seat of the national government was transferred from Philadelphia to the embryo city of Washington, on the banks of the Potomac and at the verge of a Maryland forest. "Woods," wrote Mrs. Adams (the wife of the President) in November, "are all you see from Baltimore until you reach the city, which is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed among the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing a human being." Only the north wing of the capital was then finished, and the President's house was only completed externally. Mrs. Adams wrote of that as being "upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables." "If they will put me up some bells," she wrote,"for there is not one hung through the whole house, and promises are all you can obtainand let me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to be pleased. I could content myself almost anywhere for three months; but, surrounded with forests, can you believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to cut and cart it! Briesler entered into a contract with a man to supply him with wood; a small parta few cords onlyhas he been able to get. Most of that was expended to dry the walls of the house before we came in, and yesterday the man told him it was impossible to procure it to be cut and carted. He has had recourse to coals, but we cannot get grates made and set. We have, indeed, come into a new country."
The City of Washington was laid out on a magnificent scale, in 1791, with broad avenues bearing the names of the several States of the Union radiating from the hill on which the Capitol was built, with streets intersecting them in such a peculiar way, that they have ever been a puzzle to strangers. The corner-stone of the Capital was laid by Washington, in April, 1793, with masonic ceremonies. Only the two wings were first built, and these were not completed until 1808.
The site for the city was a dreary one. At the time when the government was first seated there, only a path, leading through an alder swamp on the line of the present Pennsylvania Avenue, was the way of communication between the President's house and the Capitol. For awhile the executive and legislative officers of the government were compelled to suffer many privations there. Oliver Wolcott wrote to a friend in the fall of 1800: "There is one good tavern about forty rods from the Capitol, and several houses are built or erecting; but I don't see how the members of Congress can possibly secure lodgings unless they will consent to live like scholars in a college or monks in a monastery, crowded ten or twenty in one house. The only resource for such as wish to live comfortably will be found in Georgetown, three miles distant, over as bad a road in winter as the clay grounds near Hartford. There are, in fact, but few houses in any one place, and most of them small, miserable huts, which present an awful contrast to the public buildings. The people are poor, and, as far as I can judge, they live like fishes, by eating each other. You may look in any direction over an extent of ground nearly as large as the City of New York, without seeing a fence or any object except brick-kilns and temporary huts for laborers. There is no industry, society, or business."
Mr. Jefferson began his administration on the 4th of March, 1801, under favorable auspices. He was then in the fifty-eighth year of his agea tall, bony man, with grizzled sandy hair, and rather sloven in dress. He affected republican simplicity in all things, and sometimes carried this notion to extremes. Senator William Plummer, writing in 1802, said: "The next day after my arrival I visited the President, accompanied by some Democratic members. In a few moments after our arrival a tall, high-boned man came into the room. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an old brown coat, red waistcoat, old corduroy small clothes much soiled, woolen hose, and slippers without heels. I thought him a servant, when General Varnum surprised me by announcing it was the President."
Mr. Jefferson indicated his policy, as follows, in a letter to Nathaniel Macon: "1. Levees are done away with. 2. The first communication to the next Congress will be, like all subsequent ones, by message, to which no answer will be expected. 3. The diplomatic establishment in Europe will be reduced to three ministers. 4. The compensation of collectors depends on you [Congress], and not on me. 5. The army is undergoing a chaste reformation. 6. The navy will be reduced to the legal establishment by the last of this month [May, 1801]. 7. Agencies in every department will be revised. 8. We shall push you to the uttermost in economizing. 9. A very early recommendation has been given to the Postmaster-General to employ no printer, foreigner, or Revolutionary Tory in any of his offices." Mr. Jefferson appointed James Madison Secretary of State; Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War; and Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General. He retained Mr. Adams's Secretaries of the Treasury and Navy, until the following autumn, when Albert Gallatin, a naturalized foreigner, was appointed to the first-named office, and Robert Smith, to the second. The President early resolved to reward his political friends, when he came to "revise" the "agencies in every department." Three days after his inauguration, he wrote to Colonel Monroe: "I have firmly refused to follow the counsels of those who have desired the giving of offices to some of the Federalist leaders in order to reconcile. I have given, and will give, only to Republicans, under existing circumstances." The doctrine, ever since acted upon, that "to the victor belongs the spoils," was then practically promulgated from the fountain-head of government patronage; and with a Cabinet wholly Democratic when Congress met in December, 1800, and with the minor offices filled with his political friends, Mr. Jefferson began his Presidential career of eight years' duration. In his inaugural address, he had said: "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Federalistswe are all Republicans." Vigor and enlightened views marked his course; and even his political opponents were compelled to confess his forecast and sound judgement in regard to the national policy.
The machinery of the government was now adjusted to an easy-working condition. The treasury was never so full nor the revenue so abundant; and Jefferson was enabled to signalize his accession to office by the repeal of the Excise Law and other obnoxious acts. There were omens of peace abroad, and these promised calmness and prosperity at home. Bonaparte had, in the space of about ten years, as First Consul, brought nearly all Europe trembling at his feet. The old thrones shook in his presence, and when he whispered peace, the nations listened eagerly. The geographical lines of dominions, on the map of Europe, had been changed by his conquests. Only England now remained an armed opponent of the Corsican ruler of France, for by treaties and otherwise, he had conciliated the others; and because of her mischievous doctrines, practically enforced, concerning the freedom of neutrals, the Armed Neutrality of 1780 was revived. Bonaparte threatened her island domain with invasion, and the tramp of a conquering army on the soil of her East India possessions; England arose in her might and defied Europe, and her ships continued to be seen
"Riding without a rival on the sea."
The insolence of the North African pirates now became unbearable, and the United States resolved to cease paying tribute to the Barbary Powers. Captain Bainbridge had been sent, in 1800, in the frigate George Washington, to pay the usual tribute to the Dey of Algiers, and had been treated with cruel insolence by that ruler. After performing the errand courteously, and when he was about to leave, the Dey commanded Bainbridge to carry an Algerian ambassador to the Court of the Sultan at Constantinople. Bainbridge politely refused compliance, when the haughty governor said: "You pay me tribute, by which you become my slave, and therefore I have a right to order you as I think proper." Bainbridge could not sail out of the harbor of Algiers without the permission of the vigilant guns of the castle, and was compelled to yield. He bore the swarthy ambassador to the Golden Horn, when the Sultan saw our starry-flag for the first time. He had never heard of the United States of America. His own flag was garnished with a crescent, and he considered it a favorable omen for a flag bearing the stars of heaven to enter the waters of the seat of the Moslem Empire.
Bainbridge was granted a firman to protect him from further insolence from the Barbary rulers, and he used it efficiently. When he returned to Algiers, he was ordered by the Dey to go on another errand to Constantinople, when the captain peremptorily refused. The African, enraged, sprang from his seat, and threatening Bainbridge with personal injury, ordered his attendants to seize him. Bainbridge quietly produced the firman, when the lion became like a lamb. The Dey obsequiously offered the man whom he had just regarded as his slave, his slave, his friendship and service. Bainbridge, assuming the air of a dictator, demanded the instant release of the French consul and fifty or sixty of his own countrymen, whom the Dey had imprisoned, and they were borne away in the Washington in triumph. Then he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy: "I hope I shall never again be sent to Algiers with tribute, unless I am authorized to deliver it from the mouth of our cannon."
When news of these proceeding reached the United States, it excited much indignation. The navy, the strong right-arm of the government, which had enabled commerce, under its protection, to sell to foreign nations during the difficulties with France, the surplus products of our republic to the amount of $200,000,000, and to import sufficient to yield a revenue to the government of more than $23,000,000, was then paralyzed by the exercise of unwise economy on the part of the government, which had authorized the sale of all the naval vessels excepting thirteen frigates. Yet these were decreed sufficient to meet the immediate demands for the protection of American commerce in the Mediterranean Sea.
In the spring of 1801, President Jefferson, in anticipation of trouble with the Barbary powers, ordered Commodore Dale to go with a squadron, composed of the frigates President, Philadelphia, Essex and Enterprise, to cruise off the North African coasts. Dale reached Gibraltar on the first of July, and found that Tripoli had lately declared war against the United States, and its corsairs were out upon the sea. His presence effectually restrained the pirates, and made them quite circumspect. The next year a larger squadron, composed of the frigates Chesapeake, Constitution, New York, John Adams, Adams, and Enterprise, commanded by Commodore Richard V. Morris, were sent to the same waters, one after another, from February to September. The harbor of Tripoli was blockaded in May, and not long afterward the Chesapeake, Lieutenant Chauncey acting-captain, had a severe fight with a flotilla of Tripolitan gun-boats. These, as well as some cavalry on shore, were severely handled by this frigate. Finally, in 1803, the whole squadron appeared off the coasts of the Barbary powers, and effectually protected American commerce from the corsairs, for awhile. But Morris's cruise was not regarded as an efficient one. A court of inquiry decided that he had not "discovered due diligence and activity in annoying the enemy," and the President dismissed him from the service, without trial.
In August, 1803, Commodore Preble, in command of a squadron, sailed for the Mediterranean in the frigate Constitution. After settling some difficulties with the Emperor of Morocco, whose corsairs were on the sea, he appeared with his vessels before the harbor of Tripoli, where a serious disaster occurred. The frigate Philadelphia, commanded by Captain Bainbridge, while reconnoitering the harbor, struck a rock and was captured by the Tripolitans. Her officers were made prisoners-of-war, and her crew were made slaves. When the news reached Preble at Malta, a plan was devised for the destruction of the Philadelphia before her captors could make her ready for sea. Lieutenant Decatur, with seventy-four volunteersardent and gallant young men like himselfsailed from Syracuse in a small vessel called a "ketch," named the Intrepid. She entered the harbor of Tripoli on the evening of the 3rd of February, 1804, in the disguise of a vessel in distress, and was moored alongside the Philadelphia. Decatur and his men were concealed below, when suddenly they burst from the hatches like a destructive flame, leaped on board the Philadelphia, and after a desperate fight, killed or drove into the sea her turbaned occupants. Then they set her on fire and escaped by the light, under cover of a heavy cannonade from the American squadron, and followed by shots from the castle, vessels at anchor in the harbor, and batteries on shore. Yet not one of Decatur's men was harmed. Before a favoring breeze they sailed to Syracuse, where they were greeted with joy by the American squadron there. The scene of the burning vessel was magnificent. As the guns of the Philadelphia were heated, they were discharged, giving a grand feu de joie for the victory.
This bold act alarmed the Bashaw, and subsequent events made him very discreet. In August following, Preble, with his squadron, opened a heavy bombardment upon his town, castle, shore-batteries, and flotilla of gun-boats, no less than four times, between the 3d and the 28th. In one of these engagements Decatur again distinguished himself. In command of a gun-boat, he laid her alongside one of the largest of the Tripolitan vessels, boarded her, and made her a prize. Then he boarded another, when he had a desperate personal encounter with her powerful captain. The struggle was brief but fearful. Decatur killed his antagonist, and the vessel was captured. Finally, on the 28th of August, Preble, with his flag- ship, the Constitution, entered the harbor, when her great guns opened a heavy fire upon the town, the castle, the batteries on shore and the camps of twenty- five thousand land troops, and the flotilla in the harbor. She silenced the Tripolitan guns, sunk a Tunisian vessel-of-war, damaged a Spanish one, severely bruised the enemy's galleys and gun-boats, and then withdrew without a man hurt.
Another attack was made on the 2d of September. On that nighta very dark one the Intrepid, which had been converted into a floating minean immense torpedo- -with one hundred barrels of gunpowder below her deck, and a large quantity of shot, shell, and irregular pieces of iron lying over them, went into the harbor under the general direction of Captain Somers, to scatter destruction among the vessels of the enemy. She was towed in by two boats, with brave crews, in which it was expected all would escape, after firing combustibles on board of her. All hearts in the American squadron followed the Intrepid as she disappeared in the gloom. Suddenly a lurid flame, like that from a volcano, shot up from the bosom of the harbor, and lighted with its horrid glare the town, castle, batteries, ships, camps, and surrounding hills. It was followed by an explosion that shook the earth and sea, and flaming masts and sails and fiery bombs rained upon the waters for a moment, when darkness more profound settled upon the scene. The safety-boats were anxiously watched for until the dawn. They never returned, and no man of that perilous expedition was heard of afterward. Their names are inscribed upon a monument erected to the memory of these brave men, and the event, that stands at the western front of the Capitol at Washington city. Hostilities on the Barbary coast now ceased for the season. Preble was relieved by Commodore Samuel Barron, and early in 1805 he returned home, and received the homage of the nation's gratitude.
While Barron's ships blockaded Tripoli, and important land movement against that province was undertaken, under the general management of William Eaton, American consul at Tunis. The reigning Bashaw of Tripoli was an usurper, who had murdered his father and taken the seat of power from his brother, Hamet Caramalli. The latter had fled to Egypt. A plan was concerted between him and General Eaton for the restoration of his rights. The latter acted under the sanction of his government. Eaton went to Egypt, and at the beginning of March he left Alexandria, accompanied by Hamet and his followers, some Egyptian soldiers, and seventy United States seamen. They made a march of a thousand miles across the borders of the Libyan desert; and at near the close of April, in conjunction with two American vessels, they captured the Tripolitan city of Derne, on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. They had defeated the Tripolitan forces in two battles, and were about to march on the capital when news came that the American consul-general (Tobias Lear) had made a treaty of peace with the terrified Bashaw. So ended the hopes of Hamet, and also the four years' war with Tripoli. But the ruler of Tunis was yet insolent. He was speedily humbled by Commodore Rodgers, Barron's successor, and the power of the United States was respected and feared by the half-barbarians of the north of Africa. Pope Pius the Seventh declared that the Americans had done more for Christendom against the pirates than all the powers of Europe united.
While these events were occurring on the Mediterranean and its borders, our Republic had been growing rapidly in political and moral strength, and by the expansion of its domain. During Mr. Jefferson's first term, one State (Ohio) and two Territories (Indiana and Illinois) had been formed out of the free Northwestern Territory. Ohio was organized as an independent territory in the year 1800, and in the fall of 1802, it was admitted into the Union as a State. At that time there was great excitement in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains, in consequence of a violation of the treaty made with Spain in 1795, by the governor of Louisiana, in closing the port of New Orleans against the commerce of our Republic. There was a proposition before Congress for taking forcible possession of that region, when it was ascertained that by a secret treaty Spain had retroceded Louisiana to France. Negotiations were immediately begun for the purchase of that domain from France, by the United States. Robert R. Livingston, the American minister at the court of the First Consul, found very little difficulty in making a bargain with Bonaparte, for the latter wanted money and desired to injure England by strengthening her rivals. He sold that magnificent domain, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the present State of Minnesota, and from the Mississippi westward toward the Pacific Ocean, for the sum of fifteen million dollars. The bargain was made in the spring of 1803, and in the fall the country, which added nine hundred thousand square miles to our territory, was taken possession of by the United States. When the bargain was closed, Bonaparte said, prophetically: "This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States; and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." Out of that domain have been carved some of our most opulent States and Territories.
The same year when Louisiana was bought, President Jefferson, by a confidential message to Congress, proposed the first of those peaceable conquests which have opened, and are still opening, to civilization and human industry, the vast inland regions of our continent, then unknown. He recommended an appropriation to defray the expenses of an exploring expedition across the continent from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. The appropriation was made, and an expedition was afterward organized under the control of Captains Lewis and Clarke, consisting of a little less than thirty persons. They left the western shore of the Mississippi on the 14th of May, 1804, traversed the continent between the great river and the "South Sea" of the earlier explorers, and in the course of twenty-seven months, completed their labors, by which the first reliable information was obtained respecting the vast country which they had penetrated and passed through.
The Spaniards did not like the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States. The Spanish minister at Washington protested against the bargain. Questions concerning the true boundaries of the territory were raised. The Spaniards were disposed to hold all the country east of the Mississippi, and so retain New Orleans. This disposition aroused the resentment of the people of the West against the occupants of the Lower Mississippi Valley, and our government was disposed to assert its rights by force of arms, if necessary. Regular troops under General Wilkinson, and militia from Tennessee, assembled at Natchez as a sort of army of observation. But a peaceful transfer of the domain was made. The boundaries were defined, and the Spaniards were left in possession of the country along the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, east of a line nearly corresponding with the present boundary between Louisiana and Mississippi, on the Pearl River, and south of the thirty-first degree of latitude. It was known as the Floridas. The country was agitated by stirring events in the region beyond the Alleghanies in 1805, and for a year or two afterward. The fertile valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi were rapidly filling with adventurers and settlers, and materials for new States, sufficient to make an empire, were rapidly gathering. The stream of navigation was flowing full from the east, down the western slopes of the great hills. Michigan was erected into a Territory that year (1805); and all along the Mississippi, settlements were taking deep root and flourishing. These were generally composed of hardy and venture-some men and women ready for any honorable enterprise that promised gain.
At that time there was a prevailing opinion in our country that the Spanish inhabitants in Louisiana would not quietly submit to the rule of our government. Taking advantage of this belief, and the restless spirits of the inhabitants who were forming States in the Great Valley, Aaron Burr, an ardent politician and expert and unscrupulous intriguer, who had been Vice-President of the United States during Jefferson's first term, thought he saw an opportunity to make circumstances subservient to his own ambitious views. In the summer of 1804, he had murdered General Hamilton in a duel, and became an outcast from society. He was tolerated only by his political party, and was not renominated with Mr. Jefferson. Smarting under the stings of neglect and the "good man's contumely," he was ready to attempt the execution of any scheme that promised a retrieval of his fame and fortune. He seems to have contemplated one in which the fortunes of the inhabitants west of the mountains were involved, but what it was exactly will never be made known, for the chief actors are dead and have "left no sign." It was thought that he intended to dissever the Union and set up an independent republic in the West with himself at the head. Others have believed that his scheme was to organize a strong military force in the West, and with it to invade Mexico, wrest that country from Spain, and set up an independent government there with himself at the head, either as president or monarch. It is certain that General Wilkinson, who was in command of United States troops in the West at that time, was associated with Burr for awhile in his schemes, whatever they may have been.
In the spring of 1805, Burr departed for the West, giving deceptive reasons for his journey. He went down the Ohio River in an open boat, and on a pleasant morning in May he appeared at the charming island-home of Herman Blennerhassett, an Irish gentleman possessed of a fine education, scientific tastes, an ample fortune, and a beautiful and accomplished wife. He was seated upon an island in the Ohio River, near the mouth of the Muskingum River, not far from Marietta, where he had a beautiful and happy home, enriched with books, adorned with pictures, enlivened with music from the lips and by the skillful fingers of Mrs. Blennerhassett as she touched the harp and guitar and sang sweet airs, and made attractive to the man of science and taste by conservatories of rare plants and fine pleasure-gounds. It was the resort of persons of the best minds beyond the mountains.
Into that paradise the wily serpent crept, and repeated the story of the fall. Mrs. Blennerhassett, an ambitious woman with an enthusiastic nature was tempted by the apple of Burr's seductive promises of wealth, power, and immortal honors, and she persuaded her husband to eat of the fruit. He placed his fortune and reputation at the disposal of that heartless demagogue, and lost both. He was driven by necessity from his lost paradise, and died in comparative poverty.
Burr, at first, gained the confidence of that stern patriot, Andrew Jackson, whom he visited at his log-dwelling at the "Hermitage," near Nashville. They corresponded for a time after Burr returned to the East in the fall of 1805, and so active were the schemer and his few partisans in the West in 1806, that a military organization was partly effected. He had overcome General Wilkinson with his wiles; and so strong was the confidence of Jackson in the integrity of Burr, that when the latter again visited the Hermitage early in the autumn of 1806, the former procured for him a public ball at Nashville, at which the tall hero, in military dress, led the little adventurer in his suit of black into the room, and introduced him to the ladies and gentlemen present. Circumstances soon afterward caused Jackson to suspect Burr's fidelity to his country, and he communicated his suspicions to Governor Claiborne at New Orleans. The national government received similar warnings, and took measures to crush the viper in its egg. Burr's arrest was ordered, and this was accomplished in February, 1807, near Fort Stoddart, in Alabama, by Lieutenant (afterward Major-General) E. P. Gaines. Burr was taken to Richmond, in Virginia, and there tried for treason. The evidence seemed to show that his probable design was an invasion of the Mexican provinces and not a disseverance of the Union, and he was acquitted.
With the acquisition of Louisiana, there grew up a powerful opposition to the administration, on the North and East. The idea was disseminated that the transaction was a scheme to strengthen the South, and with it the Southern Democracy, into whose hands the control of the government had fallen. In past times the prescription of disunion as a remedy for political evils had been a favorite one with that Democracy. The Opposition now approved it, or rather the very radical men of that party did. In the years 1803 and 1804, desires for a disseverance from the South were freely expressed in the States east and north of the Potomac and Susquehanna. A convention of leading Federalists to consult upon the measure, was called at Boston in 1804, to which Alexander Hamilton was invited; but his emphatic condemnation of such an unpatriotic course, only a short time before his death, disconcerted the leaders and dissipated their schemes. In the New York State Senate, in 1809, DeWitt Clinton, alluding to this act of Hamilton, said: "To his honor be it spoken, it was rejected by him with abhorrence and disdain."
At about the time when Burr conceived his schemes, trouble between Spain and the United States had occurred, and, for awhile, threatened to kindle a flame of war between the two governments. The United States had preferred a claim against Spain for indemnity for spoliations committed against the commerce of our country by Spanish cruisers under their own and the French flags. The liability on the part of those under the Spanish flag was admitted, and by an agreement negotiated in 1802, a commission to adjust the claims was authorized; but the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States, and questions growing out of that act, and claims to a portion of Florida, seemed to indicate a determination on the part of our government to take that portion of the Spanish domain by force of arms, if necessary. Spain, highly offended, refused to carry out the agreement concerning indemnity, and, for awhile, the political firmament appeared very lowering. But, as we have observed, the boundaries were amicably settled by satisfactory definitions, and the clouds passed away.
We must now look to events in Europe as the beginning of serious difficulties between our country and Great Britain, which finally led to war between them.
NAPOLEON EMPERORENGLAND AND FRANCEBRITISH JEALOUSYTHE RULE OF 1756 DEPREDATIONS ON AMERICAN COMMERCENON-IMPORTATIONORDERS IN COUNCIL AND DECREESTHE " CHESAPEAKE" AND "LEOPARD"ACTION OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENTFURTHER ORDERS AND DECREESDESTRUCTION OF COMMERCEEMBARGO ACT TRIBUTE TO GREAT BRITAIN DEMANDEDOPPOSITION TO THE EMBARGOA DUELPRESIDENT MADI-SONTHE AMERICANS DECEIVEDPERFIDY OF NAPOLEON"PRESIDENT" AND "LITTLE BELT"THE TWO NAVYSTROUBLE WITH THE INDIANSBATTLE OF TIPPECANOE.
THE First Consul of France had procured his election to a seat on an imperial throne, in the spring of 1804; and on the 2nd of December following, he appeared before the altar of the Church of Notre Dame, in Paris, where he was consecrated " The High and Mighty Napoleon the First, Emperor of the French. " In 1806 he was monarch of Italy, and his three brothers were made ruling sovereigns. Then he was upon the full tide of successful domination, and a large part of continental Europe was prostrate at his feet. England had joined the continental powers against him in 1803, in order to crush out the Democratic revolution which had occurred in France, and threatened the peace of the United Kingdom; and the British navy had almost destroyed the French power on the sea. At the same time American shipping enjoyed the privilege of free intercourse between the ports of England and France, and pursued a very profitable carrying trade which unforeseen circumstances soon destroyed.
The envious shipping-merchants of Great Britain, and her navy officers and privateersmen who could then obtain very few prizes lawfully, represented to their government that the Americans, under the guise of neutrality, were secretly aiding the French. This hint caused that government to revive in full force the "rule of 1756" concerning neutrals; and orders were secretly issued authorizing British cruisers to seize and British admiralty courts to condemn as prizes American vessels and their cargoes that might be captured by British cruisers.
The depredations by these cruisers upon American commerce were commenced under the most frivolous and absurd pretexts, and the most intense indignation was aroused throughout the United States. Memorials from merchants in all the seaboard towns and cities were presented to Congress, in which the Democrats, with Mr. Jefferson (just re-elected) at their head, had an overwhelming majority. This and other grievances inflicted by the British government were discussed. Among them the alleged right of search which the British put forth, was paramount; and on the recommendation of the President, Congress, in the spring of 1806, passed an act prohibiting the importation into the United States of many of the more important manufactures of Great Britain, after the first of November following. In May William Pinckney was sent to London to join Mr. Monroe, the American minister there, in negotiating a treaty with the British government concerning the rights of neutrals, the impressment of seamen, and the right of search. A treaty was finally signed, but as it did not offer security to American vessels against the aggressions of British cruisers in searching for and carrying off seamen, the President would not lay it before the Senate.
A new difficulty now arose. In their anxiety to injure each other, the British and French government ceased to respect the rights of other nations, and dealt heavy blows at the life of the commerce of the word. In this business Great Britain took the lead. On the 16th of May (1806) that government, by an order in council, declared the whole coast of Europe from the Elbe to Brest to be in a state of blockade. Napoleon retaliated by issuing a decree from Berlin on the 21st of November, in which he declared all the British islands to be in a state of blockade. This was intended as a blow against Britain's martime supremacy, and was the beginning of the Emperor's " Continental System," designed to ruin Great Britain. The latter, by another order in council issued January, 1807, prohibited all coast trade with France. So these desperate powers played with the world's commerce in their mad efforts to injure each other. American vessels were seized by both English and French cruisers, and American commerce dwindled to a merely coast trade. Our republic lacked a competent navy to protect our commerce on the high seas; and the swarm of gun-boats (small sailing-vessels having each a cannon in the bow and stern), which Congress had authorized from time to time, were insufficient for a coast-guard.
Early in 1807, American commerce was almost swept from the sea by the operations of the "orders" and "decrees." The French had withheld the operation of the decrees for full a year, but the British cruisers had been let loose at once. This produced bitter feelings toward the government of Great Britain on the part of the Americans, and this was intensified by the haughty assertion and offensive practice of the British doctrine of the right of search for suspected deserters from the royal navy, and to carry away the suspected without hindrance. This right was claimed on the ground that a British-born subject could never expatriate himself, and that his government might take him, wherever found, and place him in the army or navy, although, by legal process, he may have been made a citizen of another nation. This right of search and seizure had been strenuously denied and its policy strongly condemned, because American seamen might be thus forced into the British service under the false pretext that they were deserters. This had already happened. It had been proven, after thorough investigation, that since the promulgation of the British rule of 1756, a dozen years before, nearly three hundred seamen, a greter portion of them Americans, had been taken from vessels and pressed into the British service.
A crisis now approached. A small British squadron lay in American waters near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, watching some French frigates blockaded at Annapolis, in the spring of 1807. Three of the crew of one of the vessels, and one of another had deserted, and enlisted on board the United States frigate Chesapeake, lying at the Washington Navy Yard. The British minister made a formal demand for their surrender. Our government refused compliance, because it was ascertained that two of the men (one colored) were natives of the United States, and there was strong presumptive evidence that a third was, likewise. No more was said, but the commander of the British squadron took the matter into his own hands. The Chesapeake, on going to sea on the morning of the 22d of June (1807), bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Barron, was intercepted by the British frigate Leopard, whose commander hailed the commodore and informed him that he had a despatch for him. Unsuspicious of unfriendliness, the Chesapeake was laid to, when a British boat bearing a lieutenant came alongside. That officer was politely received by Barron, in his cabin, when the former presented a demand from the commander of the Leopard to allow the bearer to muster the crew of the Chesapeake, that he might select and carry away the alleged deserters. The demand was authorized by instructions received from Vice-Admiral Berkeley, at Halifax. Barron told the lieutenant that his crew should not be mustered, excepting by his own officers, when the latter withdrew and the Chesapeake moved on.
Barron, suspecting mischief, had caused his vessel to be prepared for action as far as possible. The Leopard followed, and her commander called out to the commodore through his trumpet: "Commodore Barron must be aware that the vice- admiral's commands must be obeyed." This was repeated. The Chesapeake kept on her way, when the Leopard sent two shots athwart her bows. These were followed by the remainder of the broadside that poured shot into the hull of the Chesapeake. The latter was unable to return the fire, for her guns had no priming-powder. Not a shot could be returned; and after being severely bruised by repeated broadsides, she was surrendered to the assailant. Her crew was mustered by British officers; the deserters were carried away, and the Chesapeake was left to pursue her voyage or return. The "vice-admiral's command" had been obeyed. One of the deserters, who was a British subject, was hung at Halifax, and the three Americans were spared from the gallows only on the condition that they should re-enter the British service.
The indignation of the American people was hot because of this outrage. The President issued a proclamation at the beginning of July, ordering all British armed vessels to leave the waters of the United States, and forbidding any to enter them until ample satisfaction should be given. A demand for redress was made upon the British government, when an envoy extraordinary was sent to Washington city to settle the difficulty. He was instructed to do nothing until the President's proclamation should be with-drawn. So the matter stood for more than four years, when, in 1811, the British government disavowed the act. Meanwhile Commodore Barron had been tried on a charge of neglect of duty in not being prepared for action, found guilty, and suspended from service for five years without pay or emolument.
During the year 1807, American genius and enterprise achieved a great triumph in science and art, by the successful and permanent establishment of navigation by the power of steam. This was accomplished by Robert Fulton and Chancellor Livingston. At the beginning of September, 1807, the Clermont, the first steamboat built by these gentlemen, made a voyage from New York to Albany, one hundred and sixty miles, in thirty-six hours, against wind and tide; and from that time until now navigation by steam, for travel and commerce, has been steadily increasing in volume and perfection, until such vessels may now be seen on every ocean and in almost every harbor of the globe, even among the ice-pack of polar seas. This was the second of the great and beneficent achievements which have distinguished American inventors during the last eighty years. The cotton-gin, invented by Eli Whitney, was the first; an implement that can do the work of a thousand persons in cleaning cotton-wool of the seeds. That machine has been one of the most important aids in the accumulation of our national wealth.
Another heavy blow was struck at American commerce late in 1807. A British order in council issued on the 11th of November, forbade all neutral nations to trade with France or her allies, except upon the payment of a tribute to Great Britain. Napoleon retaliated by issuing a decree at Milan, in Italy, on the 17th of December, forbidding all trade with England and her colonies; and authorizing the confiscation of any vessel found in his ports which had submitted to English search, or paid the tribute exacted. These edicts almost stopped the commercial operations of the civilized world. American foreign commerce was annihilated. The President had called Congress together at an earlier day (October 25) than usual, to consider the critical state of public affairs; and in a confidential message, he recommended that body to pass an act levying a commercial embargo. Such an act was passed on the 22d of December, 1807, by which all American and foreign vessels in our ports were detained and all American vessels abroad were ordered home immediately, that the seamen might be trained for the impending war in defence of sacred rights.
This act caused widespread distress in commercial communities, and the firmness of the government and the patriotism of the people were severely tried for more than a year, under aggravated insults by the British government which exacted tribute in a form more odious than that of the North African robbers. In the spring of 1808, the British Parliament, with an air of condescension, passed an act permitting Americans to trade with France and her dependencies, on the condition that vessels engaged in such trade should first enter some British port, pay a transit duty, and take out a license. In other words, Great Britain said to the United States, with as much insolence as the Dey of Algiers, "Pay me tribute, and my cruisers (or corsairs) will be instructed not to plunder you."
The embargo was denounced by the opposition with great vehemence as an unwise provocative of war. Josiah Quincy, the leader of the Federalists in Congress, said in debate: "Let us once declare to the world that, before our embargo policy be abandoned, the French decrees and the British orders in council must be revoked, and we league against us whatever spirit of honor and pride exists in both those nations. No nation will be easily brought to acknowledge such a dependence on another as to be made to abandon, by a withholding of intercourse, a settled line of policy." It drew from William Cullen Bryant the poet, then a lad only thirteen years of age, a sharp, satirical poem. It was called a "Terrapin policy."-the policy that would shut up the nation in its own shell-and it was caricatured as such by the pencil of Jarvis and the burin of Dr. Anderson. The wise words of Quincy were justified when he said: "A nation mistakes its relative importance and consequence in thinking that its countenance, or its intercourse, or its existence, is all important to the rest of mankind." The embargo failed to obtain from France or Great Britain the slightest acknowledgement of American rights, and it was repealed on the first day of March, 1809-three days before Mr. Jefferson left the Presidential chair to make room for James Madison, who had been elected to succeed him as chief magistrate of the republic. On the same day Congress passed an act forbidding all commercial intercourse with France and Great Britain until the "orders in council" and the "decrees" should be repealed. In the debates on the embargo, the most violent attacks upon the administration and its supporters were sometimes indulged in, upon the floor of Congress. In this course, Barent Gardinier, of New York, was most conspicuous, making sweeping charges of corruption. His violence and abuse was such that severe personal allusion to Gardinier was elicited from Campbell of Tennessee. Gardinier challenged him to mortal combat. They met at Bladensburg, when Gardinier was severely wounded in the side, and was borne, fainting, from the field. He soon recovered; and when he reappeared in the House, he was as violent as ever.
It was at this troublous period in our history that Mr. Madison of Virginia began his administration of eight years as President of the republic, with George Clinton of New York as Vice-President. The general aspect of national affairs then was fairly drawn (though somewhat highly-colored) in a report of a committee of the Massachusetts legislature in January, 1809, which said: "Our agriculture is discouraged; the fisheries abandoned; navigation forbidden; our commerce at home restrained, if not annihilated; our commerce abroad cut off; our navy sold, dismantled, or degraded to the service of cutters or gun-boats; the revenue extinguished; the course of justice interrupted; and the nation weakened by internal animosities and divisions, at the moment when it is unnecessarily and improvidently exposed to war with Great Britain, France, and Spain." It was believed that the new President would perpetuate the policy of Jefferson; but when, dressed in a suit of plain black cloth, he modestly pronounced his inaugural address before a multitude of eager spectators, on the 4th of March, 1809, the tone and temper of that speech fell like oil upon troubled waters. His most placable political enemies who heard him, and those who read the address, could not refrain from uttering words of approbation; and the whole nation entertained hopes that his measures might change the gloomy aspect of public affairs. He had able constitutional advisers in Robert Smith as Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; William Eustis, Secretary of War; Paul Hamilton, Secretary of the Navy, and Caesar Rodney, Attorney-General. There was a powerful party in the nation hostile to his political creed and opposed to war with Great Britain, which then seemed to be an event in the near future.
At the beginning of his administration, Madison was assured by the British minister at Washington (Mr. Erskine) that such portions of the orders in council as affected the United States would be repealed by the 10th of June; and that a special envoy would be sent by his government to adjust all matters in dispute. Regarding these assurances as official, the event seemed like a ray of sunlight among the tempestuous clouds. The President issued a proclamation on the 19th of April (1809) permitting a renewal of commercial intercourse with Great Britain from that day; but the British government disavowed Erskine's act, and in August the President, by proclamation, renewed the restrictions. This event produced intense excitement throughout our country; and had the President then proclaimed war against Great Britain, it would undoubtedly have been a popular measure.
In the spring of 1810 (March 23) Bonaparte issued a decree at Rambouillet more destructive in its consequences to American commerce than any measure yet employed. It declared forfeit every American vessel which had entered French ports since March I, or that might thereafter enter; and authorized the sale of the same together with their cargoes, and the proceeds to be placed in the French treasury. Under this decree many American vessels were lost, for which even partial remuneration was not obtained until almost thirty years afterward. It was justified by Bonaparte by the plea a that it was made in retaliation for the American decree of non-intercourse. In May following, Congress offered to resume commercial intercourse with either France or England, or both, on condition that they should repeal their obnoxious "orders" and "decrees" before the 3d of March, 1811. Napoleon, a man expediency and not of principle, feigned compliance. He assured our government that the repeal of the decrees should take effect in November following. On this assurance the President proclaimed a resumption of commercial intercourse with France. The monarch intended to break the solemn promise at any moment when policy should so dictate. American vessels were seized by French cruisers and confiscated as freely as ever. In March, 1811, Napoleon declared the decrees of Berlin and Milan to be a part of the fundamental laws of the empire; and a new envoy sent from France gave official notice to our government, that no remuneration would be allowed for property seized and confiscated.
Great Britain not only continued her hostile orders, but sent ships-of-war to cruise off the principal ports of the United States to intercept American merchant-vessels and send them to England as lawful prizes. In this business the Little Belt, Captain Bingham, a British sloop-of-war, was engaged in the spring of 1811 off the coast of Virginia, where she was met on the 16th of April by the American frigate President, Captain Ludlow, bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Rodgers. The latter hailed the commander of the sloop, asking-"What ship is that?" and received a cannonshot in reply. "Equally determined," said Rodgers in his report, "not to be the aggressor, or suffer the flag of my country to be insulted with impunity, I have a general order to fire." After a very brief action. Captain Bingham, having eleven men killed and twenty-one wounded, gave a satisfactory answer. The vessels parted company, the Little Belt sailing for Halifax.
The conduct of both officers, in this affair, was approved by their respective governments. That of the United States and the People regarded the conduct of Captain Bingham as an outrage without palliation; and the Americans were willing to take up arms in defence of what they regarded as right, justice, and honor. They knew the strength of the British navy and the weakness of their won, yet they were willing to accept war as an alternative for submission, and to measure strength on the ocean. At that time the British navy consisted of almost nine hundred vessels, with an aggregate one hundred and forty-four thousand men. The American vessels-of-war, of large size, numbered only twelve, with about three hundred guns. There was a large number of gun-boats, but these, as we have observed, were scarcely sufficient for a coast-guard. For a navy so weak to defy a navy so strong, seemed like madness. We must remember, however, that the royal navy was much scattered, for that government had interests to protect in various parts of the world. It was the boast of Britons that the sun never set on the dominions of their monarch.
The administration was now sustained by a larger majority of the American people than that of Jefferson had ever been, and the Federalists, or the Opposition, were in a hopeless minority. The continued acts of aggression by the British were increasing the Democratic strength every day; and in 1811, circumstances seemed to make war with Great Britain an imperative necessity for the vindication of the honor, rights, and independence of the United States.
Circumstances had made the Indian tribes on the northwestern frontiers of the United States very uneasy, and the machinations of British traders and government emissaries had stimulated the growth of that discontent into a decided hostile feeling toward the nation of Republicans, then pressing upon the dominion of the savages. The suspension of the world's commerce had diminished the amount of their traffic in furs, and the rapid extension of American settlements northward of the Ohio was narrowing their hunting-grounds and producing a rapid diminution of game. The introduction of intoxicating liquors among them by the white people had spread demoralization widely, with consequent disease and death. These savages were made to believe that all these evils had been brought upon them by the encroachments of the Americans; and in the spring of 1811, it became evident that a league was forming among the tribes for the extermination of the frontier settlers. Tecumtha, a Shawnoese chief, crafty, intrepid, unscrupulous and cruel, and who possessed the qualities of a great leader, endeavored to emulate Pontiac, the great Ottawa chief, in the formation of an Indian confederacy in the Northwest, for making war upon the United States. He had a shrewd twin-brother, called The Prophet, whose mysterious incantations and predictions, and pretended visions and spiritual intercourse, had inspired the savage mind with great veneration for him, as wonderful "medicine-man." He and Tecumtha possessed almost unbounded influence over the Delawares, Shawnoese, Wyandots, Miamis, Kickapoos, Winnebagoes, and Chippewas.
So hostile had the Indians appeared in the spring of 1810, under the influence of these leaders, that General W. H. Harrison, then governor of the Territory of Indiana, invited the brothers to a council at Vincennes, in August. Tecumtha appeared with four hundred full-armed followers. The inhabitants were greatly alarmed by this demonstration of savage military power. Harrison was cool and cautious. The bearing of the chief was bold and haughty. He refused to enter the place wherein the council was to be held, saying: "House were built for your to hold councils in; Indians hold theirs in the open air." He then took a position under some trees in front of the house, and, unabashed by the large concourse of white people before him, he opened the business with a speech marked by great dignity and native eloquence. When he had concluded, one of the governor's aids said to him through an interpreter, as he pointed to a chair: "Your father (General Harrison) requests you to take a seat by his side." The chief drew his blanket around him, and, standing erect, said, with scornful tone: "My father! The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother; on her bosom I will recline;" and then seated himself upon the ground.
The chief had declared it to be his intention to form a confederacy for the purpose of preventing any further cession of lands to the white people, and to recover what had been ceded. "Return those lands," he said, "and Tecumtha will be the friend of the Americans. He likes not the English, who are continually setting the Indians on the Americans." The governor, in reply, told him plainly that the lands had been received from other tribes, and that the Shawnoese, his people, had no business to interfere. Tecumtha sprang to his feet, cast off his blanket, and, with violent gestures, pronounced the governor's words false. He accused the United States of cheating and imposing upon the Indians; and then giving a sign to his warriors near him, they sprang to their feet, seized their war-clubs, and brandished their tomahawks. The governor started from his chair and drew his sword, while the citizens seized any weapon or missile they could find. It was a moment of great peril to the white people. A military guard of twelve men, under some trees a short distance off, were ordered up. A friendly Indian cocked his pistol which he had loaded secretly while Tecumtha was speaking, and would have shot the chief dead. The guard were about to fire, when Harrison, perfectly cool, restrained them, and a bloody encounter was prevented. The interpreter, whom the Indians all respected, told Tecumtha that he was a bad man. The council was broken up. Tecumtha expressed his regret because of the violence into which his anger had betrayed him; but Harrison perceived that war with the followers of the chief and his brother was probable, and took precautions accordingly.
In the spring of 1811 the hostile savages began to roam over the Wabash region, in small parties, plundering the white settlers and friendly Indians. Harrison sent word to Tecumtha and The Prophet that these outrages must cease, and that he was fully prepared to defend the settlers against any number of warriors which they might assemble. Tecumtha, alarmed, went to Vincennes, where he saw seven hundred well-armed militia. He made solemn assurances of friendly feelings and intentions; and then went to the tribes of the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Creeks, in the South, and tried to get them to join him in a league against the white people. Meanwhile Governor Harrison, exercising discretion given him by his government, gathered a large force from Kentucky and elsewhere, at Vincennes, and late in September (1811) marched up the Wabash Valley toward the town of The Prophet near the junction of Tippecanoe Creek and the Wabash River. On the way he built a fort near the present town of Terre Haute, which was called Fort Harrison.
At the beginning of November, the governor and his troops encamped upon a dry oak elevation, that rises about ten feet above a surrounding wet prairie, near the junction of the Tippecanoe and Wabash, and there he was visited by The Prophet, who proposed a conference. Harrison suspected treachery, and arranged his camp with care on the afternoon of the 6th of November, to meet any sudden emergency. He ordered that each corps forming the extreme line of the camp should hold its ground, in case of an attack, until relieved. In the event of a night attack, the cavalry were to parade, dismounted, with their pistols in their belts, and act as a reserve corps. Two captains' guards of forty-two men each were detailed to defend the camp. So prepared, the whole camp excepting the sentinels and guards, were soundly sleeping at an early hour. At the same time there had been preparations made by The Prophet for treachery and murder, when the camp of the white people should be filled with sleepers. Surrounded by his dupes, The Prophet brought out his Magic Bowl. In one hand he held a torch, in the other a string of holy beans which his followers were required to touch in token of an oath, and so be made invulnerable in battle. Then he went through a long series of incantations and mystical movements, his solitary eye (for he had lost one) rolling wildly. These ended, he turned to his seven hundred warriors, told them that the time for attacking the white man had come, and holding up the string of beans reminded them of their oath which the touch of them implied. "The white men are in your power," he said. "They sleep now, and will never wake. The Great Spirit will give light to us, and darkness to the white men. Their bullets shall not harm us; your weapons shall be always fatal." Then followed war-songs and dances, until the savages, wrought up to a perfect frenzy, rushed out to attack Harrison's camp.
At four o'clock in the morning of the 7th, Harrison was just pulling on his boots, when a single gun was fired by a sentinel. This was followed by horrid yells. The whole camp was soon aroused, to receive a murderous fire from the savages, who had crept up stealthily to the verge of the camp before they were discovered. A very sharp battle ensued, which lasted until daylight, when the Indians were driven away at the point of the bayonet and pursued into the wet prairie. In that battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison lost, in killed and wounded, one hundred and eighty-eight men.
Tecumtha, who was really a great man, while his brother was a demagogue and a cheat, was absent in the South, at that time. On his return, he found all his plans frustrated by the folly of The Prophet. Vexed and mortified, he was compelled to abandon his schemes for a confederacy, but became a firm and active friend of the British in the war that speedily ensued. His brother, The Prophet, lost caste with his people. Upon a gentle hill toward the Wabash, this demagogue stood on that dark and gloomy November morning, at a safe distance from danger, singing a warsong and performing some protracted religious mummeries. When he was told that his followers were falling before the bullets of the white men, he said, "Fight on; it will soon be as I told you." When at last the warriors of many tribesShawnoese, Wyandots, Kickapoos, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes, Sacs, and a few Miamisfugitives from the battle-field, lost their faith and covered The Prophet with reproaches, he cunningly devised a lying excuse for his failure. He told them that his predictions had failed of fulfillment because, during his incantations, his wife touched the sacred vessels and broke the charm! His followers, though superstitious in the extreme, would not accept this explanation as an excuse, and they deserted him in such large numbers, that he was compelled to take refuge with a small band of Wyandots, his town having been set on fire. The foe scattered in all directions, and hid themselves where the white man could not easily follow. A poet of the time wrote:
"Sound, sound the charge! spur, spur the steed, And swift the fugitives pursue! 'Tis vain; rein inyour utmost speed Could not o'ertake the recreant crew. In lowland marsh, in dell or cave, Each Indian sought his life to save; Whence, peering forth, with fear and ire, He saw his Prophet's town on fire."
These events, so evidently the work of British interference, aroused the spirit of the nation, and out of New England there was a general desire for war with Great Britain. The administration, impressed with the great responsibility of such a measure, and having the entire body of the New England people in opposition, hesitated.
END OF VOLUME II.